Dracula - the novel - brought up to date - Episode 4

I read the novel Dracula years ago. I struggled to read it at first because of the language – not that English isn’t my first language, it is, but this book was written so long ago and our language has changed and evolved so much that it’s getting difficult to understand easily. Because of that, I decided to take Dracula and edit it to fit in better with modern-day language.

Here’s the project I set myself then. I hope you enjoy it… it’s taken quite a while.

Pictures from Google Images - licenced for re-use

Licence

DRACULA

Bram Stoker

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Publishers

TO MY DEAR FRIEND HOMMY-BEG

Continued...

The driver heard the words. He looked up with a gleaming smile. The passenger turned his face away, and crossed himself.

"Give me the Herr's luggage," said the driver; and my bags were handed out with great enthusiasm, and put in the carriage.

I descended from the side of the coach. As the carriage was close alongside, the driver helped me with a hand which caught my arm in a grip of steel. The strength of the man must have been extraordinary.

Without a word, he shook his reins, the horses turned, and we swept into the darkness of the Pass. As I looked back, I saw the steam from the horses of the coach by the light of the lamps, and projected against it, the figures of my late companions crossing themselves.

Once the passengers had taken their seats once more, the driver cracked his whip and called to his horses, and off they went to Bukovina.

As they sank into the darkness, I felt a strange chill, and a lonely feeling came over me; but a cloak was thrown over my shoulders, and a rug across my knees. The driver said in excellent German, "The night is chill, mein Herr, and my master the Count bade me take all care of you. There is a flask of slivovitz (the plum brandy of the country) underneath the seat, if you should require it."

I did not take any, but it was a comfort to know it was there. I felt a little strange, and not a little frightened. I think had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead of that unknown night journey.

The carriage went at a hard pace straight along, then we made a complete turn and went along another straight road. It seemed to me that we were simply going over and over the same ground. I took note of some salient point, and found that my fears were founded.

I would have liked to have asked the driver what this all meant, but I feared to do so. I thought that, placed as I was, any protest would have had no effect. However, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch. It was within a few minutes of midnight. This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent experiences. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense.

Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road—a long, agonised wailing, as if from fear. The sound was taken up by another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind, a wild howling began. It seemed to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night.

At the first howl, the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright.

Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder and a sharper howling - that of wolves. That howling affected both the horses and myself in the same way. I was tempted to jump from the carriage and run. I had a chance, whilst they reared again and plunged madly, as the driver used all his great strength to keep them from bolting.

The horses became quiet and the driver was able to descend and to stand before them. He petted and soothed them, and whispered something in their ears, as I have heard of horse-tamers doing. The effect was extraordinary. Under his caresses they became quite manageable again, though they still trembled.

The driver again took his seat, and shaking his reins, started off at a great pace. This time, after going to the far side of the Pass, he suddenly turned down a narrow roadway which ran sharply to the right.

Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway like a tunnel; and again, walls of rock guarded us on either side. Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along.

It grew colder, and fine, powdery snow began to fall. Soon we, and all around us were covered with a white blanket. The keen wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though it grew fainter as we went on our way.

The baying of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer, as though they were closing round on us from every side. I was afraid, and the horses shared my fear. The driver, however, was not in the least disturbed; he kept turning his head to left and right, but I could not see anything through the darkness.

Suddenly, away on our left, I saw a faint, flickering blue flame. The driver saw it at the same moment. He pulled up the horses, and jumped to the ground, disappearing into the darkness. I didn’t know what to do. The howling of the wolves grew closer, but while I wondered, the driver suddenly appeared again. Without a word, he took his seat, and we resumed our journey.

I think I must have fallen asleep and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated times many. Looking back, it’s like an awful nightmare. Once the flame appeared so near the road, that even in the darkness around us I could watch the driver's motions.

He went to where the blue flame arose - it must have been very faint, for it didn’t seem to illuminate the place around it at all - and gathering a few stones, he formed them into some device. Once there appeared a strange optical effect. When he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it. I could see its ghostly flicker all the same. It startled me, but as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the darkness.

Then for a time there were no blue flames, and we sped onwards through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us, as though they were following in a moving circle.

There came a time when the driver went further than he had before, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse than ever. The sounds of their snorts and screams of fright puzzled me. I couldn’t see any cause for it, the howling of the wolves had stopped altogether.

Just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a pine-clad rock. By its light, I saw around us, a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than when they howled.

I felt a paralysis of fear. It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true importance.

All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see. The living ring of terror encompassed them on every side; and they had to remain within it. I called to the coachman to come, I believed our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to help him back to the carriage. I shouted and beat the side of the carriage, hoping to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him a chance of reaching safety.

How he finally got back, I don’t know, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, I saw him stand in the roadway. As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some obstacle, the wolves fell back. Just then, a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness.

When I could see again, the driver was climbing into the carriage, and the wolves had disappeared. It was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came over me. I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed endless as we swept on our way, in almost complete darkness. The rolling clouds obscured the moon entirely.

We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascending.

Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall, black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky.

Pictures from Google Images