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

and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who
claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for
when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they
found the Huns settled in it. I read that every known superstition
in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as
if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so
my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about
them.)

I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I
had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under
my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may
have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my
carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened
by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been
sleeping soundly then. I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of
porridge of maize flour which they said was "mamaliga," and
egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they
call "impletata." (Mem., get recipe for this also.) I had to hurry
breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it
ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I
had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to
move. It seems to me that the further east you go the more
unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China?

All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of
beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on
the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran
by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on
each side of them to be subject to great floods. It takes a lot of
water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear.
At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in
all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at
home or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short
jackets and round hats and home-made trousers; but others were very
picturesque. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them,
but they were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white
sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a
lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in
a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them. The
strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian
than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white
trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly
a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high
boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair
and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look
prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old
Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless
and rather wanting in natural self-assertion.