| The driver, however, was not in the least... 62 |
[Jan. 30th, 2010|02:30 am] |
The driver, however, was not in the least disturbedHe 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 flameThe driver saw it at the same momentHe at once checked the horses, and, jumping to the ground, disappeared into the darknessI did not know what to do, the less as the howling of the wolves grew closerBut while I wondered, the driver suddenly appeared again, and without a word took his seat, and we resumed our journeyI think I must have fallen asleep and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated endlessly, and now looking back, it is like a sort of awful nightmareOnce the flame appeared so near the road, that even in the darkness around us I could watch the driver's motionsHe went rapidly to where the blue flame arose, it must have been very faint, for it did not seem to illumine the place around it at all, and gathering a few stones, formed them into some device
Once there appeared a strange optical effectWhen he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly flicker all the sameThis startled me, but as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the darknessThen 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
At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse than ever and to snort and scream with frightI could not see any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogetherBut just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hairThey were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howledFor myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fearIt is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import
All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on themThe horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to seeBut the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side, and they had perforce to remain within itI called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid his approach, I shouted and beat the side of the caleche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from the side, so as to give him a chance of reaching the trapHow he came there, I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadwayAs he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further stillJust 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 caleche, and the wolves disappearedThis was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or moveThe time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon
We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascendingSuddenly, 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 sky
CHAPTER 2
Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued
5 May-I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable placeIn the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really isI have not yet been able to see it by daylight
When the caleche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to alightAgain I could not but notice his prodigious strengthHis hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosenThen he took my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive |
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