Bram Stoker’s

DR ACUL A
(1897)

CHAPTER I
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
(Kept in shorthand.)

The story of ‘Dracula’ is told in epistolary form, pieced together from a series of letters and journal entries
revealing the perspectives of different characters. Jonathan Harker is a junior lawyer who has been trusted by his
employer to travel from England to Transylvania to conclude a real estate deal with the enigmatic Count Dracula.
Harker is engaged to be married to Mina Murray. The following extract is taken from his first journal entry, dated
3rd May in Bistritz, Romania.

Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made
search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some
foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of
that country. I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders
of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one
of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work giving
the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with
our own Ordnance Survey maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a
fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I
talk over my travels with Mina.
In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed
with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, 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

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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.
It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place.
Being practically on the frontier—for the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina—it has had a very
stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place,
which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century
it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war proper being assisted
by famine and disease.
Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight,
to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country. I was
evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual
peasant dress—white undergarment with long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting
almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, “The Herr Englishman?” “Yes,” I
said, “Jonathan Harker.” She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirt-sleeves,
who had followed her to the door. He went, but immediately returned with a letter:—

“My Friend.—Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well to-night. At
three to-morrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass
my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a
happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.

“Your friend,

“DRACULA.”

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