When I went into the dining room, breakfast was prepared,
but I could not find the Count anywhere. So
I breakfasted alone. It is strange that as yet
I have not seen the Count eat or drink. He must
be a very peculiar man! After breakfast I did
a little exploring in the castle. I went out
on the stairs, and found a room looking towards the
South.
The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there
was every opportunity of seeing it. The castle
is on the very edge of a terrific precipice.
A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand
feet without touching anything! As far as the
eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally
a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and
there are silver threads where the rivers wind in
deep gorges through the forests.
But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when
I had seen the view I explored further. Doors,
doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted.
In no place save from the windows in the castle walls
is there an available exit. The castle is a
veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!
Jonathan Harker’s Journal Continued
When I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild
feeling came over me. I rushed up and down the
stairs, trying every door and peering out of every
window I could find, but after a little the conviction
of my helplessness overpowered all other feelings.
When I look back after a few hours I think I must
have been mad for the time, for I behaved much as
a rat does in a trap. When, however, the conviction
had come to me that I was helpless I sat down quietly,
as quietly as I have ever done anything in my life,
and began to think over what was best to be done.
I am thinking still, and as yet have come to no definite
conclusion. Of one thing only am I certain.
That it is no use making my ideas known to the Count.
He knows well that I am imprisoned, and as he has
done it himself, and has doubtless his own motives
for it, he would only deceive me if I trusted him fully
with the facts. So far as I can see, my only
plan will be to keep my knowledge and my fears to
myself, and my eyes open. I am, I know, either
being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or else
I am in desperate straits, and if the latter be so,
I need, and shall need, all my brains to get through.
I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard
the great door below shut, and knew that the Count
had returned. He did not come at once into the
library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found
him making the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed
what I had all along thought, that there are no servants
in the house. When later I saw him through the
chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in
the dining room, I was assured of it. For if
he does himself all these menial offices, surely it
is proof that there is no one else in the castle,
it must have been the Count himself who was the driver
of the coach that brought me here. This is a
terrible thought, for if so, what does it mean that
he could control the wolves, as he did, by only holding
up his hand for 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?
