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

around for the Count, but with surprise and gladness, made a discovery.
The room was empty! It was barely furnished with odd things, which seemed
to have never been used.

The furniture was something the same style as that in the
south rooms, and was covered with dust. I looked for the key,
but it was not in the lock, and I could not find it anywhere.
The only thing I found was a great heap of gold in one corner,
gold of all kinds, Roman, and British, and Austrian,and
Hungarian,and Greek and Turkish money, covered with a film
of dust, as though it had lain long in the ground.
None of it that I noticed was less than three hundred years old.
There were also chains and ornaments, some jewelled, but all
of them old and stained.

At one corner of the room was a heavy door. I tried it, for, since I
could not find the key of the room or the key of the outer door,
which was the main object of my search, I must make further examination,
or all my efforts would be in vain. It was open, and led through a stone
passage to a circular stairway, which went steeply down.

I descended, minding carefully where I went for the stairs
were dark, being only lit by loopholes in the heavy masonry.
At the bottom there was a dark, tunnel-like passage, through which
came a deathly, sickly odour, the odour of old earth newly turned.
As I went through the passage the smell grew closer and heavier.
At last I pulled open a heavy door which stood ajar, and found myself
in an old ruined chapel, which had evidently been used as a graveyard.
The roof was broken, and in two places were steps leading to vaults,
but the ground had recently been dug over, and the earth placed
in great wooden boxes, manifestly those which had been brought
by the Slovaks.

There was nobody about, and I made a search over every inch
of the ground, so as not to lose a chance. I went down even
into the vaults, where the dim light struggled,although to do
so was a dread to my very soul. Into two of these I went,
but saw nothing except fragments of old coffins and piles of dust.
In the third, however, I made a discovery.

There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty
in all, on a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count!
He was either dead or asleep. I could not say which, for eyes
were open and stony, but without the glassiness of death,and
the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor.
The lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of movement,
no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart.

I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain.
He could not have lain there long, for the earthy smell would have passed away