Dracula engsub

CHATER 1: Jonathan Starts His Journey

"Whooo!" went the whistle, and Jonathan Harker shut his eyes, allowing the romance and rhythm of the train to overtake him. He was travelling to Transylvania by rail to conduct some business with Count Dracula. jonathan was a lawyer who worked for the firm of s Mr.Peter Hawkins. The firm was advising the count on the purchase of carfax, a very old home in London.

Along the way to transylvamia, Jonathan visited Vienna, toured the streets of Budapest, strolled the splendid bridges over Danube,and hadd an excellent supper of chicken parika, a speciaty of region, at the Hotel Royale in Klauseburgh. For some reason he was very nervous. Although his bed at the hotel was comfortable enough, he had all sorts of strange dreams. It must be the parika, he thought.

After more parika for breakfast, this time in his porridge, Jonathan got back onto the train to continue his journey to the East. Looking out the windows, he saw a country that was full of beauty of every kind. There were streams, sweeping rivers, little towns, and the occasional castle on a hilltop. and at every station they passed there stood groups of interesting people, including women with full white sleeves and petticoats, and Slovakian men sportin heavy black mustaches, big cowboy hats, and enormous studded leather belts and boots.

It was twilight when the train arrived at Bistritz, in the Carpathian mountains. Count Dracula had directed Jonathan to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, where he was expected. After greeting Jonathan at the door, the hotel's elderly landlady nervously handed him a note:

'My friend, welcome. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight, for tomorrow you will take the final leg of your journey, by carriage, to my castle. I trust that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.' Your friend, Dracula.

"Do you know the count?" Jonathan asked the landlady. "Can you tall my anything about the castle?" ut instead of answering him, the old woman symply crossed herslef, handed over the room key, and hurried away.

Early the next morning, however, she knocked frantically on his door. "Oh! Young man," she cried, "must you go?"

Jonathan replied that indeed he must, for he had important business to conduct with the count.

"But don't you realize where you are going?" the landlady asked. "And on what day?" She didn't wait for the answers. "It is the eve of Saint George Day. Tonight at midnight, all of the world's evil things will take control."

Jonathn tried to comfort the old woman, but it was no use. Finally, firmly, he repeated that he had a job to do. and would be continuing as planned on the last leg of his journey at that night, by coach.

"Well, then at least take this, if only for your poor mother's sake." She took s crucifix from around her neck, and reached up and around to put it on his. Curiously, after the crucifix, she pressed tightly into his hand a head of garlic.

After she left, Jonathan took off the crucifix and look at it. He considered throwing it away along with the garlic. An old churchman of England, he didn't really approve of or believe in such things. Felling a strange, lingering uneasiness, however, he put the cross back around his neck.

When the coach arrived that evening, a small crowd quickly gathered around it. Carrying his bags, Jonathan walked past the coach driver, the elderly landlady, and some other hotel guests. All seemed to be staring at and discussing him.

In panicked and pitying whispers, they kept repeating the same word, "Vrolok." Upon opening up his little dictionary once he was seated in the coach, Jonathan learned it meant either "werewolf" or "vampire" in Serbian.

As the coach pulled away, Jonathan noticed many people in the now growing crowd making the sign of the cross. In his tiny journal, in which he recorded in shorthand everything that happened to him, Jonathan make a note to ask Count Dracula about the townspeople's strange superstitions. Jonathan wonders why even his fellow passengers were looking at him so sadly.

As they rode, the mountains and forests towered around them in beautiful colors of deep blue and purple and green. As the sun began to sink, however, dark shadows and ghostlike clouds replaced that rainbow. ANd the darker it got, the more restless the driver and other passengers became.

"Can't you go any faster?" one passenger asked the driver, in harsh whisper.

"I'm trying!" the driver wildly whispered back. Indeed, although they seemed to be making good time, the driver was obviously racing. Jonathan held on for dear life as the carriage rocked widly on its springs.

As the coach approached the Borgo Pass, heavy thunder filled the sky. The driveer and the other passengers craned over the edge of the coach, peering into the darkness, as though looking for something, Jonathan looked, too, but there was nothing and no one there.

"Too bad," the driver exclaimed. "The coach that was supposed to meet you to take you up to the castle is not here. You cannot wait here in the dark alone, as there are too many wolves about, and I must continue on. You will have to come with us, I can bring you back another time."

"Too bad," the other passengers murmured. But why did they all seem so cheerful?

"Not so fast," said a deep voice. A carriage driven by four coal-black horses pulled up alongside the coach. 'This must be the count'assistant,' Jonathan thought. The man's face was mostly hidden by a great black hat, but Jonathan could see a pair of very bright eyes, glowing almost red. "You were extremly early tonight," the assistant told the driver, "but I anticipated your game. Now give me the gentleman's luggage."