(1845-1912)
When we started for our drive the sun was shining brightly on Munich and the air was full of the joyousness of early summer.
Just
as we were about to depart, Herr Delbruck (the maitre d'hotel of the
Quatre Saisons, where I was staying) came down, bareheaded, to the
carriage and, after wishing me a pleasant drive, said to the coachman,
still holding his hand on the handle of the carriage door: "Remember you
are back by nightfall. The sky looks bright but there is a shiver in
the north wind that says there may be a sudden storm. But I am sure you
will not be late." Here he smiled and added, "for you know what night it
is."
Johann
answered with an emphatic, "Ja, mein Herr," and, touching his hat,
drove off quickly. When we had cleared the town, I said, after
signalling him to stop: "Tell me, Johann, what is tonight?"
He
crossed himself as he answered laconically: "Walpurgisnacht." Then he
took out his watch, a great, old-fashioned German silver thing as big as
a turnip, and looked at it, with his eyebrows gathered together and a
little impatient shrug of his shoulders. I realized that this was his
way of respectfully protesting against the unnecessary delay and sank
back in the carriage, merely motioning him to proceed. He started off
rapidly, as if to make up for lost time. Every now and then the horses
seemed to throw up their heads and sniffed the air suspiciously. On such
occasions I often looked round in alarm. The road was pretty bleak, for
we were traversing a sort of high, wind-swept plateau. As we drove, I
saw a road that looked but little used and which seemed to dip through a
little, winding valley. It looked so inviting that, even at the risk of
offending him, I called Johann to stop - and when he had pulled up I
told him I would like to drive down that road. He made all sorts of
excuses and frequently crossed himself as he spoke. This somewhat piqued
my curiosity, so I asked him various questions. He answered fencingly
and repeatedly looked at his watch in protest. Finally I said: "Well,
Johann, I want to go down this road. I shall not ask you to come unless
you like; but tell me why you do not like to go, that is all I ask." For
answer he seemed to throw himself off the box, so quickly did he reach
the ground. Then he stretched out his hands appealingly to me and
implored me not to go. There was just enough of English mixed with the
German for me to understand the drift of his talk. He seemed always just
about to tell me something - the very idea of which evidently
frightened him, but each time he pulled himself up, saying, as he
crossed himself: "Walpurgisnacht!"
I
tried to argue with him, but it was difficult to argue with a man when I
did not know his language. The advantage certainly rested with him, for
although he began to speak in English, a very crude and broken kind, he
always got excited and broke into his native tongue - and every time he
did so he looked at his watch. Then the horses became restless and
sniffed the air. At this he grew very pale and, looking around in a
frightened way, he suddenly jumped forward, took them by the bridles and
led them on some twenty feet. I followed and asked why he had done
this. For answer he crossed himself, pointed to the spot we had left and
drew his carriage in the direction of the other road, indicating a
cross, and said, first in German, then in English: "Buried him - him
what killed themselves."
I
remembered the old custom of burying suicides at cross-roads: "Ah! I
see, a suicide. How interesting!" But for the life of me I could not
make out why the horses were frightened.
Whilst
we were talking we heard a sort of sound between a yelp and a bark. It
was far away, but the horses got very restless and it took Johann all
his time to quiet them. He was pale and said, "It sounds like a wolf -
but yet there are no wolves here now."
"No?" I said, questioning him; "isn't it long since the wolves were so near the city?"
"Long, long," he answered, "in the spring and summer, but with the snow the wolves have been here not so long."
Whilst
he was petting the horses and trying to quiet them, dark clouds drifted
rapidly across the sky. The sunshine passed away and a breath of cold
wind seemed to drift past us. It was only a breath, however, and more in
the nature of a warning than a fact, for the sun came out brightly
again. Johann looked under his lifted hand at the horizon and said: "The
storm of snow, he comes before long time." Then he looked at his watch
again and, straightway, holding his reins firmly - for the horses were
still pawing the ground restlessly and shaking their heads - he climbed
to his box as though the time had come for proceeding on our journey.
I felt a little obstinate and did not at once get into the carriage.
"Tell me," I said, "about this place where the road leads," and I pointed down.
Again he crossed himself and mumbled a prayer before he answered, "It is unholy."
"What is unholy?" I enquired.
"The village."
"Then there is a village?"
"No, no. No one lives there hundreds of years."
My curiosity was piqued, "But you said there was a village."
"There was."
"Where is it now?"
Whereupon
he burst out into a long story in German and English, so mixed up that I
could not quite understand exactly what he said, but roughly I gathered
that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died there and been buried in
their graves; and sounds were heard under the clay and when the graves
were opened, men and women were found rosy with life, and their mouths
red with blood. And so, in haste to save their lives (aye, and their
souls! - here he crossed himself) those who were left fled away to other
places, where the living lived and the dead were dead and not - not
something. He was evidently afraid to speak the last words. As he
proceeded with his narration he grew more and more excited. It seemed as
if his imagination had got hold of him and he ended in a perfect
paroxysm of fear - white-faced, perspiring, trembling and looking round
him as if expecting that some dreadful presence would manifest itself
there in the bright sunshine on the open plain. Finally, in an agony of
desperation, he cried: "Walpurgisnacht!" and pointed to the carriage for
me to get in. All my English blood rose at this and, standing back, I
said: "You are afraid, Johann - you are afraid. Go home, I shall return
alone; the walk will do me good." The carriage door was open. I took
from the seat my oak walking-stick - which I always carry on my holiday
excursions - and closed the door, pointing back to Munich, and said, "Go
home, Johann - Walpurgisnacht doesn't concern Englishmen."
The
horses were now more restive than ever and Johann was trying to hold
them in, while excitedly imploring me not to do anything so foolish. I
pitied the poor fellow, he was deeply in earnest, but all the same I
could not help laughing. His English was quite gone now. In his anxiety
he had forgotten that his only means of making me understand was to talk
in my language, so he jabbered away in his native German. It began to
be a little tedious. After giving the direction, "Home!" I turned to go
down the cross-road into the valley.
With
a despairing gesture, Johann turned his horses towards Munich. I leaned
on my stick and looked after him. He went slowly along the road for a
while: then there came over the crest of the hill a man tall and thin. I
could see so much in the distance. When he drew near the horses, they
began to jump and kick about, then to scream with terror. Johann could
not hold them in; they bolted down the road, running away madly. I
watched hem out of sight, then looked for the stranger, but I found that
he, too, was gone.
With
a light heart I turned down the side road through the deepening valley
to which Johann had objected. There was not the slightest reason, that I
could see, for his objection, and I daresay I tramped for a couple of
hours without thinking of time or distance, and certainly without seeing
a person or a house. So far as the place was concerned it was
desolation itself. But I did not notice this particularly till, on
turning a bend in the road, I came upon a scattered fringe of wood; then
I recognized that I had been impressed unconsciously by the desolation
of the region through which I had passed.
I
sat down to rest myself and began to look around. It struck me that it
was considerably colder than it had been at the commencement of my walk -
a sort of sighing sound seemed to be around me, with, now and then,
high overhead, a sort of muffled roar. Looking upwards I noticed that
great thick clouds were drifting rapidly across the sky from north to
south at a great height. There were signs of coming storm in some lofty
stratum of the air. I was a little chilly and, thinking that it was the
sitting still after the exercise of walking, I resumed my journey.
The
ground I passed over was now much more picturesque. There were no
striking objects that the eye might single out, but in all there was a
charm of beauty. I took little heed of time and it was only when the
deepening twilight forced itself upon me that I began to think of how I
should find my way home. The brightness of the day had gone. The air was
cold and the drifting of clouds high overhead was more marked. They
were accompanied by a sort of far-away rushing sound, through which
seemed to come at intervals that mysterious cry which the driver had
said came from a wolf. For a while I hesitated. I had said I would see
the deserted village, so on I went and presently came on a wide stretch
of open country, shut in by hills all around. Their sides were covered
with trees which spread down to the plain, dotting, in clumps, the
gentler slopes and hollows which showed here and there. I followed with
my eye the winding of the road and saw that it curved close to one of
the densest of these clumps and was lost behind it.
As
I looked there came a cold shiver in the air and the snow began to
fall. I thought of the miles and miles of bleak country I had passed and
then hurried on to seek the shelter of the wood in front. Darker and
darker grew the sky and faster and heavier fell the snow, till the earth
before and around me was a glistening white carpet, the farther edge of
which was lost in misty vagueness. The road was here but crude and when
on the level its boundaries were not so marked, as when it passed
through the cuttings; and in a little while I found that I must have
strayed from it, for I missed underfoot the hard surface and my feet
sank deeper in the grass and moss. Then the wind grew strong and blew
with ever increasing force, till I was fain to run before it. The air
became icy cold and in spite of my exercise I began to suffer. The snow
was now falling so thickly and whirling around me in such rapid eddies
that I could hardly keep my eyes open. Every now and then the heavens
were torn asunder by vivid lightning, and in the flashes I could see
ahead of me a great mass of trees, chiefly yew and cypress, all heavily
coated with snow.
I
was soon amongst the shelter of the trees, and there, in comparative
silence, I could hear the rush of the wind high overhead. Presently the
blackness of the storm had become merged in the darkness of the night.
By and by the storm seemed to be passing away: it now only came in
fierce puffs or blasts. At such moments the weird sound of the wolf
appeared to be echoed by many similar sounds around me.
Now
and again, through the black mass of drifting cloud, came a straggling
ray of moonlight, which lit up the expanse and showed me that I was at
the edge of a dense mass of cypress and yew trees. As the snow had
ceased to fall, I walked out from the shelter and began to investigate
more closely. It appeared to me that, amongst so many old foundations as
I had passed, there might be still standing a house in which, though in
ruins, I could find some sort of shelter for a while. As I skirted the
edge of the copse I found that a low wall encircled it, and following it
I presently found an opening. Here the cypresses formed an alley
leading up to a square mass of some kind of building. Just as I caught
sight of this, however, the drifting clouds obscured the moon and I
passed up the path in darkness. The wind must have grown colder, for I
felt myself shiver as I walked; but there was hope of shelter and I
groped my way blindly on.
I
stopped, for there was a sudden stillness. The storm had passed and,
perhaps in sympathy with nature's silence, my heart seemed to cease to
beat. But this was only momentarily, for suddenly the moonlight broke
through the clouds, showing me that I was in a graveyard and that the
square object before me was a massive tomb of marble, as white as the
snow that lay on and all around it. With the moonlight there came a
fierce sigh of the storm, which appeared to resume its course with a
long, low howl, as of many dogs or wolves. I was awed and shocked and
felt the cold perceptibly grow upon me till it seemed to grip me by the
heart. Then, while the flood of moonlight still fell on the marble tomb,
the storm gave further evidence of renewing, as though it was returning
on its track. Impelled by some sort of fascination I approached the
sepulchre to see what it was and why such a thing stood alone in such a
place. I walked around it and read, over the Doric door, in German:
COUNTESS DOLINGEN OF GRATZ
IN STYRIA
SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH
1801
IN STYRIA
SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH
1801
On
the top of the tomb, seemingly driven through the solid marble - for
the structure was composed of a few vast blocks of stone - was a great
iron spike or stake. On going to the back I saw, graven in great Russian
letters:
THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST.
There
was something so weird and uncanny about the whole thing that it gave
me a turn and made me feel quite faint. I began to wish, for the first
time, that I had taken Johann's advice. Here a thought struck me, which
came under almost mysterious circumstances and with a terrible shock.
This was Walpurgis Night!
Walpurgis
Night, when, according to the belief of millions of people, the devil
was abroad - when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and
walked. When evil things of earth and air and water held revel. This
very place the driver had specially shunned. This was the depopulated
village of centuries ago. This was where the suicide lay; and this was
the place where I was alone - unmanned, shivering with cold in a shroud
of snow with a wild storm gathering again upon me! It took all my
philosophy, all the religion I had been taught, all my courage, not to
collapse in a paroxysm of fright.
And
now a perfect tornado burst upon me. The ground shook as though
thousands of horses thundered across it, and this time the storm bore on
its icy wings, not snow, but great hailstones which drove with such
violence that they might have come from the thongs of Balearic slingers -
hailstones that beat down leaf and branch and made the shelter of the
cypresses of no more avail than though their stems were standing corn.
At the first I had rushed to the nearest tree, but I was soon fain to
leave it and seek the only spot that seemed to afford refuge, the deep
Doric doorway of the marble tomb. There, crouching against the massive
bronze door, I gained a certain amount of protection from the beating of
the hailstones, for now they only drove against me as they ricocheted
from the ground and the side of the marble.
As
I leaned against the door it moved slightly and opened inwards. The
shelter of even a tomb was welcome in that pitiless tempest and I was
about to enter when there came a flash of forked lightning that lit up
the whole expanse of the heavens. In the instant, as I am a living man, I
saw, as my eyes were turned into the darkness of the tomb, a beautiful
woman with rounded cheeks and red lips, seemingly sleeping on a bier. As
the thunder broke overhead I was grasped as by the hand of a giant and
hurled out into the storm. The whole thing was so sudden that, before I
could realize the shock, moral as well as physical, I found the
hailstones beating me down. At the same time I had a strange, dominating
feeling that I was not alone. I looked towards the tomb. Just then
there came another blinding flash, which seemed to strike the iron stake
that surmounted the tomb and to pour through to the earth, blasting and
crumbling the marble, as in a burst of flame. The dead woman rose for a
moment of agony, while she was lapped in the flame, and her bitter
scream of pain was drowned in the thundercrash. The last thing I heard
was this mingling of dreadful sound, as again I was seized in the
giant-grasp and dragged away, while the hailstones beat on me, and the
air around seemed reverberant with the howling of wolves. The last sight
that I remembered was a vague, white, moving mass, as if all the graves
around me had sent out phantoms of their sheeted dead, and that they
were closing in on me through the white cloudiness of the driving hail.
***
Gradually
there came a sort of vague beginning of consciousness, then a sense of
weariness that was dreadful. For a time I remembered nothing, but slowly
my senses returned. My feet seemed positively racked with pain, yet I
could not move them. They seemed to be numbed. There was an icy feeling
at the back of my neck and all down my spine, and my ears, like my feet,
were dead, yet in torment; but there was in my breast a sense of warmth
which was, by comparison, delicious. It was a nightmare - a physical
nightmare, if one may use such an expression - for some heavy weight on
my chest made it difficult for me to breathe.
This
period of semi-lethargy seemed to remain a long time, and as it faded
away I must have slept or swooned. Then came a sort of loathing, like a
first stage of sea-sickness, and a wild desire to be free from something
- I knew not what. A vast stillness enveloped me, as though all the
world were asleep or dead - only broken by the low panting as of some
animal close to me. I felt a warm rasping at my throat, then came a
consciousness of the awful truth, which chilled me to the heart and sent
the blood surging up through my brain. Some great animal was lying on
me and now licking my throat. I feared to stir, for some instinct of
prudence bade me lie still, but the brute seemed to realize that there
was now some change in me, for it raised its head. Through my eyelashes I
saw above me the two great flaming eyes of a gigantic wolf. Its sharp
white teeth gleamed in the gaping red mouth and I could feel its hot
breath fierce and acrid upon me.
For
another spell of time I remembered no more. Then I became conscious of a
low growl, followed by a yelp, renewed again and again. Then, seemingly
very far away, I heard a "Holla! holla!" as of many voices all calling
out in unison. Cautiously I raised my head and looked in the direction
whence the sound came, but the cemetery blocked my view. The wolf still
continued to yelp in a strange way and a red glare began to move round
the grove of cypresses, as though following the sound. As the voices
drew closer, the wolf yelped faster and louder. I feared to make either
sound or motion. Nearer came the red glow, over the white pall which
stretched into the darkness around me. Then all at once from beyond the
trees there came at a trot a troop of horsemen bearing torches. The wolf
rose from my breast and made for the cemetery. I saw one of the
horsemen (soldiers, by their caps and their long military cloaks) raise
his carbine and take aim. A companion knocked up his arm, and I heard
the ball whizz over my head. He had evidently taken my body for that of
the wolf. Another sighted the animal as it slunk away and a shot
followed. Then, at a gallop, the troop rode forward - some towards me,
others following the wolf as it disappeared amongst the snow-clad
cypresses.
As
they drew nearer I tried to move, but was powerless, although I could
see and hear all that went on around me. Two or three of the soldiers
jumped from their horses and knelt beside me. One of them raised my head
and placed his hand over my heart.
"Good news, comrades!" he cried. "His heart still beats!"
Then
some brandy was poured down my throat; it put vigour into me and I was
able to open my eyes fully and look around. Lights and shadows were
moving among the trees and I heard men call to one another. They drew
together, uttering frightened exclamations, and the lights flashed as
the others came pouring out of the cemetery pell-mell, like men
possessed. When the farther ones came close to us, those who were around
me asked them eagerly: "Well, have you found him?"
The reply rang out hurriedly: "No! no! Come away quick - quick! This is no place to stay, and on this of all nights!"
"What
was it?" was the question, asked in all manner of keys. The answer came
variously and all indefinitely as though the men were moved by some
common impulse to speak, yet were restrained by some common fear from
giving their thoughts.
"It - it - indeed!" gibbered one, whose wits had plainly given out for the moment.
"A wolf - and yet not a wolf!" another put in shudderingly.
"No use trying for him without the sacred bullet," a third remarked in a more ordinary manner.
"Serve us right for coming out on this night! Truly we have earned our thousand marks!" were the ejaculations of a fourth.
"There
was blood on the broken marble," another said after a pause - "the
lightning never brought that there. And for him - is he safe? Look at
his throat! See, comrades, the wolf has been lying on him and keeping
his blood warm."
The
officer looked at my throat and replied: "He is all right, the skin is
not pierced. What does it all mean? We should never have found him but
for the yelping of the wolf."
"What
became of it?" asked the man who was holding up my head and who seemed
the least panic stricken of the party, for his hands were steady and
without tremor. On his sleeve was the chevron of a petty officer.
"It
went to its home," answered the man, whose long face was pallid and who
actually shook with terror as he glanced around him fearfully. "There
are graves enough there in which it may lie. Come, comrades -come
quickly! Let us leave this cursed spot."
The
officer raised me to a sitting posture, as he uttered a word of
command, then several men placed me upon a horse. He sprang to the
saddle behind me, took me in his arms, gave the word to advance and,
turning our faces away from the cypresses, we rode away in swift,
military order.
As
yet my tongue refused its office and I was perforce silent. I must have
fallen asleep, for the next thing I remembered was finding myself
standing up, supported by a soldier on each side of me. It was almost
broad daylight and to the north a red streak of sunlight was reflected,
like a path of blood, over the waste of snow. The officer was telling
the men to say nothing of what they had seen, except that they found an
English stranger, guarded by a large dog.
"Dog! that was no dog," cut in the man who had exhibited such fear. "I think I know a wolf when I see one."
The young officer answered calmly: "I said a dog."
"Dog!"
reiterated the other ironically. It was evident that his courage was
rising with the sun and, pointing to me, he said, "Look at his throat.
Is that the work of a dog, master?"
Instinctively
I raised my hand to my throat, and as I touched it I cried out in pain.
The men crowded round to look, some stooping down from their saddles,
and again there came the calm voice of the young officer: "A dog, as I
said. If aught else were said we should only be laughed at."
I
was then mounted behind a trooper and we rode on into the suburbs of
Munich. Here we came across a stray carriage, into which I was lifted,
and it was driven off to the Quatre Saisons - the young officer
accompanying me, whilst a trooper followed with his horse and the others
rode off to their barracks.
When
we arrived, Herr Delbruck rushed so quickly down the steps to meet me
that it was apparent he had been watching within. Taking me by both
hands he solicitously led me in. The officer saluted me and was turning
to withdraw when I recognized his purpose, and insisted that he should
come to my rooms. Over a glass of wine I warmly thanked him and his
brave comrades for saving me. He replied simply that he was more than
glad and that Herr Delbruck had at the fist taken steps to make all the
searching party pleased; at which ambiguous utterance the maitre d'hotel
smiled, while the officer pleaded duty and withdrew.
"But Herr Delbruck," I enquired, "how and why was it that the soldiers searched for me?"
He
shrugged his shoulders, as if in depreciation of his own deed, as he
replied: "I was so fortunate as to obtain leave from the commander of
the regiment in which I served, to ask for volunteers."
"But how did you know I was lost?" I asked.
"The driver came hither with the remains of his carriage, which had been upset when the horses ran away."
"But surely you would not send a search-party of soldiers merely on this account?"
"Oh,
no!" he answered, "but even before the coachman arrived I had this
telegram from the Boyar whose guest you are," and he took from his
pocket a telegram which he handed to me, and I read:
BISTRITZ
Be
careful of my guest - his safety is most precious to me. Should aught
happen to him, or if he be missed, spare nothing to find him and ensure
his safety. He is English and therefore adventurous. There are often
dangers from snow and wolves and night. Lose not a moment if you suspect
harm to him. I answer your zeal with my fortune.
- DRACULA
- DRACULA
As I held the telegram in my hand the room seemed to whirl around me, and if the attentive maitre d'hotel had not caught me I think I should have fallen. There was something so strange in all this, something so weird and impossible to imagine, that there grew on me a sense of my being in some way the sport of opposing forces - the mere vague idea of which seemed in a way to paralyze me. I was certainly under some form of mysterious protection. From a distant country had come, in the very nick of time, a message that took me out of the danger of the snow-sleep and the jaws of the wolf.
