"stoker-dracula-168" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

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
has 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 not 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 put all 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 at 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
conceivable subject, hour after hour. I felt that it was getting
very late indeed, but I did not say anything, for I felt under
obligation to meet my host's wishes in every way. I was not sleepy
as the long sleep yesterday had fortified me; but I could not help
experiencing that chill which comes over one at the coming of the
dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that