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

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 the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out
around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes.
I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect
of shadow, but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion.
I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones,
worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using
every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed,
just as a lizard moves along a wall.

What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature, is it in the semblance
of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me.
I am in fear, in awful fear, and there is no escape for me.
I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of.


15 May.--Once more I have seen the count go out in his lizard fashion.
He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down,
and a good deal to the left. He vanished into some hole or window.
When his head had disappeared, I leaned out to try and see more,
but without avail. The distance was too great to allow a proper angle
of sight. I knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use
the opportunity to explore more than I had dared to do as yet.
I went back to the room, and taking a lamp, tried all the doors.
They were all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were
comparatively new. But I went down the stone stairs to the hall
where I had entered originally. I found I could pull back the bolts
easily enough and unhook the great chains. But the door was locked,
and the key was gone! That key must be in the Count's room.
I must watch should his door be unlocked, so that I may get it and escape.
I went on to make a thorough examination of the various stairs
and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them.
One or two small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing
to see in them except old furniture, dusty with age and moth-eaten.
At last, however, I found one door at the top of the stairway which,
though it seemed locked, gave a little under pressure.
I tried it harder, and found that it was not really locked,
but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges
had fallen somewhat,and the heavy door rested on the floor.
Here was an opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted
myself,and with many efforts forced it back so that I could enter.
I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms
I knew and a storey lower down. From the windows I could see
that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle,
the windows of the end room looking out both west and south.
On the latter side, as well as to the former, there was a great precipice.
The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, so that on
three sides it was quite impregnable, and great windows were
placed here where sling, or bow, or culverin could not reach,