Dracula

by Bram Stoker

I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called ‘paprika hendl,’ and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians.

Every time I read this, I get a craving for Paprikás csirke - which is what the text is most likely referring to. The paprika is what sells me on the dish.

I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina,5 in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.

Sets up expectations for the reader. Stoker emphasizes the "foreigness" of the setting, so far removed from regular English life", to indicate that basically anything is possible once you cross into the Carpathians.

I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting.

Fantastic piece that adds perfectly to the point above.

I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was ‘mamaliga,’ and eggplant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call ‘impletata.’

Mămăligă is an actual variety of porridge popular among peasantry of Romania. Impletata, however, seems to be invented by the author. It does sound yummy, though it appears to have a Turkish, rather than Romanian/Hungarian, origin.

‘It is the eve of St George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?’

Whether it is the old lady’s fear, or the many ghostly traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual.

I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were ‘Ordog’ – Satan, ‘pokol’ – hell, ‘stregoica’ – witch, ‘vrolok’ and ‘vlkoslak’ – both of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian12 for something that is either werewolf or vampire.

ran down the hillside like tongues of flame.

Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water.

As the evening fell it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there against the background of late-lying snow. Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys.

Then the mountains seemed to come nearer to us on each side and to frown down upon us;

There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder.

As he spoke he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hard-looking mouth, with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory.

with exceeding alacrity

As they sank into the darkness I felt a strange chill, and a lonely feeling came over me;

I felt a little strangely, and not a little frightened. I think had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead of prosecuting that unknown night journey.

the wind which now sighed softly through the Pass,

but just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock,

Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness.

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.

Of bell or knocker there was no sign; through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate.

Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back.

his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice – more like the hand of a dead than a living man.

I fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some cheese and a salad and a bottle of old Tokay,2 of which I had two glasses, was my supper.