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

women joined,and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter
rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear.
It seemed like the pleasure of fiends.

Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively,
and said in a soft whisper, "Yes, I too can love.
You yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so?
Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall
kiss him at your will. Now go! Go! I must awaken him,
for there is work to be done."

"Are we to have nothing tonight?" said one of them, with a low laugh,
as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor,
and which moved as though there were some living thing within it.
For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped
forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there
was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half smothered child.
The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror.
But as I looked, they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag.
There was no door near them, and they could not have passed
me without my noticing. They simply seemed to fade into
the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window,
for I could see outside the dim, shadowy forms for a moment
before they entirely faded away.

Then the horror overcame me,and I sank down unconscious.





CHAPTER 4


Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued


I awoke in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt,
the Count must have carried me here. I tried to satisfy myself
on the subject, but could not arrive at any unquestionable result.
To be sure, there were certain small evidences, such as that my
clothes were folded and laid by in a manner which was not my habit.
My watch was still unwound, and I am rigorously accustomed to wind
it the last thing before going to bed, and many such details.
But these things are no proof, for they may have been evidences that my
mind was not as usual, and, for some cause or another, I had certainly
been much upset. I must watch for proof. Of one thing I am glad.
If it was that the Count carried me here and undressed me,
he must have been hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact.
I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him which