Dracula

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?

“Denn die Todten reiten schnell”— (“For the dead travel fast.”)

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.

“Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring!”

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

God preserve my sanity, for to this I am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. If I be sane, then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me; that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose. Great God! merciful God! Let me be calm, for out of that way lies madness indeed.

I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept without dreaming. Despair has its own calms.

No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and how dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.

For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else than what we’re doin’; and death be all that we can rightly depend on.