دراكولا

Jonathan Harker's Journal, 3 May. Bistritz.

I left Munich on the evening of the first of May and travelled east for two days by train. Buda-Pesth seemed a wonderful place, and I felt that I was leaving the West and entering the East. The further we went, the later the trains ran. In the country towns the people wore bright, simple clothes, and the women looked pretty.

I am a young lawyer from London, and my employer, Mr. Hawkins, had sent me on business. A nobleman called Count Dracula wanted to buy a house in England. I was carrying the papers for him to sign, and I was to explain the sale to him. Before I left, I had read everything I could find about his country. His castle lay in the far east of Transylvania, among the Carpathian mountains. It is one of the wildest and least known parts of Europe. I could not find the castle on any map.