"Freda Warrington - Dracula the Undead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Warrington Freda)

peasants of Transylvania come to Buda-Pesth to find work,' he said, 'while all the artists
of Buda-Pesth flock to Transylvania to paint!'
Van Helsing laughed. 'Is this considered a fair exchange?'
Emil told us that he knows a family of Szekely farmers with whom he has twice
before spent the summer in order to paint. Their farm, he said, is on the edge of a village
beyond Bistritz and near to the Borgo Pass. As he spoke, Jonathan looked at me, and
there passed between us a sort of mutual agreement that we would say nothing. It was
Van Helsing, however, who at once exclaimed, 'But that is our destination; I mean, to
explore the Carpathians from the Borgo Pass!'
Emil replied at once, 'Then we shall travel together. Elena and I can leave with you,
we have no special time at which to arrive; the family are always glad to receive us.
Indeed, you shall stay with us at the farm!'
'But this is excellent!' said Van Helsing. 'It will make easier our expedition, if we have
not to travel from Bistritz into the mountains in one day.'
I said, 'As long as it will put the farmers to no trouble.' I was taken with Emil's
outburst of friendliness and thought I had probably mistaken his sullen demeanour after
all.
'No trouble,' said he. 'They delight in visitors. The kindness of Transylvanians to
strangers is legendary.'
'Indeed,' I said. 'It will be only for a short time, anyway, two or three nights at most.'
So it is all decided. Emil and his daughter will join our party, and we shall convey
them with their easels and paints to the farm, and there leave them when we depart again
for home. Ah, how I anticipate that time! I miss our son so much. I must stop now and
write to him. Jonathan and I are preparing for bed. We left Van Helsing alone with
Professor Kovacs, no doubt to talk late into the night and catch up on several years'
wisdom. Kovacs is an historian with an interest in folklore ... I wish - oh, unworthy
thought - that I could eavesdrop upon their conversation! Sometimes I think Van Helsing
a little indiscreet, and it would surprise me not at all if he told his friend about our
experience with Count Dracula.

21 July
I am writing on the train to Bistritz, which seems interminably slow although the
landscape through which we pass is picturesque. We spent last night in Klausenburgh,
from whence I wrote to tell Quincey of the spires, cupolas, red-tiled mansions and storks'
nests. And of our strange hotel; a double door led through a vaulted passageway to a
shrub-filled courtyard, from which a staircase curved up to the timber galleries which ran
along the rows of bedrooms. The rooms were clean enough, but inferior, Jonathan said, to
the hotel in which he stayed last time. He wanted to stay at a different place so that no
one from last time should recognize him. The people here are kind, but so curious and
superstitious! I can understand him wanting to avoid their attentions. I did not mind, but
the tall courtyard with its shadowed galleries was very eerie. Once as I crossed it, I
glimpsed in an alcove a tiny gypsy woman, brown and gnarled within layer upon layer of
filthy clodies, a twist of black hair upon her head. She made a sign against the evil eye at
me and said something in Roumanian, which I half understood. 'His blood and yours,' or
something of that sort. I cannot explain it, but her feral look and her words sent a violent
shiver through me. Yet when I pulled at Jonathan's sleeve to point her out, she had
vanished! Whether she was a spirit, or had simply slipped away, I could not say. To think
of it makes me shudder. I was very glad to leave that place!
I have talked a little to Elena on the journey. She is shy, but warming to me as we
become acquainted. Her English-is excellent, and her German puts mine to shame - and