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

I fled, and felt somewhat safer in my own room, where there was no
moonlight and where the lamp was burning brightly.

When a couple of hours had passed I heard something stirring in
the Count's room, something like a sharp wail quickly suppressed;
and then there was silence, deep, awful silence, which chilled me.
With a beating heart, I tried the door; but I was locked in my prison,
and could do nothing. I sat down and simply cried.

As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without- the agonised
cry of a woman. I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered out
between the bars. There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair,
holding her hands over her heart as one distressed with running. She
was leaning against a corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at
the window she threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden
with menace:-

"Monster, give me my child!"

She threw herself on her knees, and raising up her hands, cried
the same words in tones which wrung my heart. Then she tore her hair
and beat her breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of
extravagant emotion. Finally, she threw herself forward, and, though I
could not see her, I could hear the beating of her naked hands against
the door.

Somewhere high overhead, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of
the Count calling in his harsh, metallic whisper. His call seemed to
be answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves. Before many
minutes had passed a pack of them poured, like a pent-up dam when
liberated, through the wide entrance into the courtyard.

There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was
but short. Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips.

I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child,
and she was better dead.

What shall I do? what can I do? How can I escape from this
dreadful thrall of night and gloom and fear?

25 June, morning.- No man knows till he has suffered from the
night how sweet and how dear to his heart and eye the morning can
be. When the sun grew so high this morning that it struck the top of
the great gateway opposite my window, the high spot which it touched
seemed to me as if the dove from the ark had lighted there. My fear
fell from me as if it had been a vapourous garment which dissolved
in the warmth. I must take action of some sort whilst the courage of
the day is upon me. Last night one of my post-dated letters went to
post, the first of that fatal series which is to blot out the very