FICTION
FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN—By Bram Stoker
Text
Courtesy of www.world-english.org
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."
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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."
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AUTHOR:
Bram Stoker
(1847-1915) was an Irish Drama Critic and author of novels and short
stories. He is most famous for penning
“Dracula” in 1897.
_________________
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 to
him to stop:
"Tell
me, Johann, what is tonight?"
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Abraham Stoker |
He crossed
himself, as he answered laconically: "Walpurgis nacht." 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 sniff 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 windswept 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,
"Walpurgis nacht!"
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, of 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 20 feet. I followed and asked why he had done
this. For an 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.
While 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."
While 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 over us. It was only a breath, however,
and more 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 asked.
"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," Johann said.
"Where
is it now?"
Johann burst out into a long story in German and
English, so mixed up that I could not quite understand exactly what he said.
Roughly I gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died there and
been buried in their graves; but 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! - and 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, "Walpurgis nacht!" 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 - Walpurgis nacht
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 so deeply in earnest; but all the same I could not help laughing. His
English was quite gone now. In his anxiety he had forgot ten that his only
means of making me understand was to talk 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 them 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 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 drafting
rapidly across the sky from north to south at a great height. There were signs
of a 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 it self
upon me that I began to think of how I should find my way home. 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
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 further 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 stronger 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 indeed 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, among 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 this 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 great
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 I 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 were 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. 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 was 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
all 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 up on 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 hail stones, for now they
only drove against me as they ricochetted 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 it 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 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 the
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 as 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 the first stage of
seasickness, and a wild desire to be free of 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 be came conscious of a low growl,
followed by a yelp, renewed again and again. Then seemingly very far away, I
heard a "Hol loa! holloa!" as of many voices calling 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 a round 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 whiz 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 vigor 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
further 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 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 nothing
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, while 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
first taken steps to make all the searching party pleased; at which ambiguous
utterance the maitre d'hotel smiled, while the officer plead duty and withdrew.
"But
Herr Delbruck," I asked, "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 serve, to ask for volunteers."
"But
how did you know I was lost?" I asked.
"The
driver came back to town 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, Germany
Be careful of my guest - his safety is most precious to me. Nothing should 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.
Be careful of my guest - his safety is most precious to me. Nothing should 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.
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 opposite
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.
The End.
Editor’s note--This
Blog’s review of public domain fiction will return next Sunday with another classic
short story.
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