Bram Stoker

What I saw was the Count’s head com­ing out from the win­dow. I did not

I was not alone. The room was the same, un­changed in any way since I came into it; I could see along the floor, in the bril­liant moon­light, my own foot­step

If I write no more Good­bye, Mina! God bless and keep you.

We ride to death of someone. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be. …

I knew that there were at least three graves to find—graves that are in­habit; so I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her Vam­pire sleep, so full of life and vo­lup­tu­ous beauty that I shud­der as though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in old time, when such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fas­cin­a­tion of the wan­ton Un-Dead have hyp­not­ise him; and he re­main on and on, till sun­set come, and the Vam­pire sleep be over. Then the beau­ti­ful eyes of the fair wo­man open and look love, and the vo­lup­tu­ous mouth present to a kiss—and man is weak. And there re­main one more vic­tim in the Vam­pire fold; one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Un-Dead! …

She was so fair to look on, so ra­di­antly beau­ti­ful, so ex­quis­itely vo­lup­tu­ous, that the very in­stinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to love and to pro­tect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emo­tion.

Then began my ter­rible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it had been easy, com­par­at­ive. But three! To be­gin twice more after I had been through a deed of hor­ror; for if it was ter­rible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had sur­vived through cen­tur­ies, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the years; who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives. …

Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work; had I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the liv­ing over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. Had I not seen the re­pose in the first place, and the glad­ness that stole over it just ere the fi­nal dis­sol­u­tion came, as real­isa­tion that the soul had been won, I could not have gone fur­ther with my butchery. I could not have en­dured the hor­rid screech­ing as the stake drove home; the plunging of writh­ing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in ter­ror and left my work un­done. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them pla­cid each in her full sleep of death for a short mo­ment ere fad­ing. For, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, be­fore the whole body began to melt away and crumble in to its nat­ive dust, as though the death that should have come cen­tur­ies agone had at last as­sert him­self and say at once and loud “I am here!”

She was look­ing thin and pale and weak; but her eyes were pure and glowed with fer­vour. I was glad to see her pale­ness and her ill­ness, for my mind was full of the fresh hor­ror of that ruddy vam­pire sleep.

wan­ton­ness

Szgany came out, and see­ing them point­ing to my win­dow, said some­thing, at which they laughed. Hence­forth no ef­fort of