silence? How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the
coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the
crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain ash?
Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck!
For it is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it. It is
odd that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour
and as idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of
help. Is it that there is something in the essence of the thing
itself, or that it is a medium, a tangible help, in conveying
memories of sympathy and comfort? Some time, if it may be, I must
examine this matter and try to make up my mind about it. In the
meantime I must find out all I can about Count Dracula, as it may
help me to understand. Tonight he may talk of himself, if I turn
the conversation that way. I must be very careful, however, not to
awake his suspicion.
Midnight.—I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a
few questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the
subject wonderfully. In his speaking of things and people, and
especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them
all. This he afterwards explained by saying that to a Boyar the
pride of his house and name is his own pride, that their glory is
his glory, that their fate is his fate. Whenever he spoke of his
house he always said "we", and spoke almost in the plural, like a
king speaking. I wish I could put down all he said exactly as he
said it, for to me it was most fascinating. It seemed to have in it
a whole history of the country. He grew excited as he spoke, and
walked about the room pulling his great white moustache and
grasping anything on which he laid his hands as though he would
crush it by main strength. One thing he said which I shall put down
as nearly as I can, for it tells in its way the story of his
race.
"We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows
the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, forthe blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for
lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe
bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin
game them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on
the seaboards of Europe, aye, and of Asia and Africa too, till the
peoples thought that the werewolves themselves had come. Here, too,
when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept
the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in
their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from
Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What
devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in
these veins?" He held up his arms. "Is it a wonder that we were a
conquering race, that we were proud, that when the Magyar, the
Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on
our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad
and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us
here when he reached the frontier, that the Honfoglalas was
completed there?And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the
Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to
us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of
Turkeyland. Aye, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier
guard, for as the Turks say, `water sleeps, and the enemy is
sleepless.' Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations
received the `bloody sword,' or at its warlike call flocked quicker
to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of
my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and
the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent?Who was it but one of my
own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his
own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own
unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk
and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula,and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula,
indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age
again and again brought his forces over the great river into
Turkeyland, who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again,
though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops
were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could
ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah!
What good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without
a brain and heart to conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of
Mohacs, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood
were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we
were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys, and the Dracula as
their heart's blood, their brains, and their swords, can boast a
record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs
can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a
thing in these days of dishonourable peace, and the glories of the
great races are as a tale that is told."
It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed. (Mem.,
this diary seems horribly like the beginning of the "Arabian
Nights," for everything has to break off at cockcrow, or like the
ghost of Hamlet's father.)
12 May.—Let me begin with facts, bare, meager facts, verified by
books and figures, and of which there can be no doubt. I must not
confuse them with experiences which will have to rest on my own
observation, or my memory of them. Last evening when the Count came
from his room he began by asking me questions on legal matters and
on the doing of certain kinds of business. I had spent the day
wearily over books, and, simply to keep my mind occupied, went over
some of the matters I had been examined in at Lincoln's Inn. There
was a certain method in the Count's inquiries, so I shall try to
put them down in sequence. The knowledge may somehow or some time
be useful to me.
First, he asked if a man in England might have two solicitors or