Dracula

things and
little are mixed. I am not sleepy, and, as I am not to be called
till I awake, naturally I write till sleep comes. There are many odd
things to put down, and, lest who reads them may fancy that I dined
too well before I left Bistritz, let me put down my dinner exactly.
I dined on what they call "robber steak"- bits of bacon, onion, and
beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted
over the fire, in the simple style of the London cat's meat! The
wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a queer sting on the
tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable. I had only a couple of
glasses of this, and nothing else.
When I got on the coach the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw
him talking with the landlady. They were evidently talking of me,
for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who
were sitting on the bench outside the door- which they call by a
name meaning "word-bearer"- came and listened, and then looked at
me, most of them pityingly. I could hear a lot of words often
repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd;
so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them
out. I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were
"Ordog"- Satan, "pokol"- hell, "stregoica"- witch, "vrolok" and
"vlkoslak"- both of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and
the other Servian for something that is either were-wolf or vampire.
(Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions.)
When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this
time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross
and pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty I got a
fellow-passenger to tell me what they meant; he would not answer at
first, but on learning that I was English he explained that it was a
charm or guard against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for
me, just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man; but
every one seemed so kind-hearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic
that I could not but be touched. I shall never forget the last glimpse
which I had of the innyard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all
crossing themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its
background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green
tubs clustered in the centre of the yard. Then our driver, whose
wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the box-seat- "gotza"
they call them- cracked his big whip over his four small horses, which
ran abreast, and we set off on our journey.
{CH01 ^paragraph 25}
I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of
the scene as we drove along, although had I known