Dracula: Bram Stoker's Classic Horror Thriller by Bram Stoker: Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. (Best Classic Horror Novels of All Time)

by Bram Stoker

“It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that to-night, 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?”

The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out 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.

His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere.

“Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!”

This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror!

When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.

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!

But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings.

I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and she was better dead.

Remember, my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker.

Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.