"Bram Stoker - Dracula" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

stone wall above mentioned. There are many trees on it, which make it
in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or small lake,
evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and flows away
in a fair-sized stream. The house is very large and of all periods back,
I should say, to mediaeval times, for one part is of stone immensely thick,
with only a few windows high up and heavily barred with iron.
It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or church.
I could not enter it, as I had not the key of the door leading to it from
the house, but I have taken with my Kodak views of it from various points.
The house had been added to, but in a very straggling way, and I can
only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must be very great.
There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very large house
only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic asylum.
It is not, however, visible from the grounds."

When I had finished, he said, "I am glad that it is old and big.
I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house
would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day,
and after all, how few days go to make up a century.
I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times.
We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may
lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth,
not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling
waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young,
and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead,
is attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken.
The shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through
the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and
the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may."
Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord,
or else it was that his cast of face made his smile look
malignant and saturnine.

Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to pull my papers together.
He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of the books
around me. One was an atlas, which I found opened naturally to England,
as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found in certain
places little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed that one was
near London on the east side, manifestly where his new estate was situated.
The other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.

It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned.
"Aha!" he said. "Still at your books? Good! But you must not
work always. Come! I am informed that your supper is ready."
He took my arm, and we went into the next room, where I found
an excellent supper ready on the table. The Count again
excused himself, as he had dined out on his being away from home.
But he sat as on the previous night, and chatted whilst I ate.
After supper I smoked, as on the last evening, and the Count
stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every