Count Dracula
A Transylvanian nobleman orchestrates Jonathan's journey from afar while his name inspires terror throughout the Carpathians.
Jonathan Harker, a young English solicitor's clerk, keeps a shorthand journal of his eastward journey from London through Munich, Vienna, and Buda-Pesth into the wild Carpathian mountains of Transylvania, where he is to conclude a property matter with a nobleman named Count Dracula. A careful, practical man, he notes the region's foods, peoples, and superstitions, meaning to recount them all to his fiancée, Mina. At the Golden Krone Hotel in Bistritz a courteous letter from the Count awaits him, but when Jonathan mentions Dracula's name the innkeeper and his wife cross themselves in fear and refuse to explain. On the eve of St. George's Day, when evil is said to hold full sway, the old landlady kneels and begs him not to go, finally pressing her own crucifix upon him "for your mother's sake." His sense of duty overriding a growing unease, Jonathan takes the night coach through the ominous Borgo Pass. There a strange calèche driven by a tall, bearded, red-eyed man with a grip of steel collects him. As wolves close in a silent ring and the horses panic, the driver quiets them with a whisper and drives the beasts back with a sweep of his arms. Thoroughly frightened yet resolute, Jonathan is carried at last into the moonlit courtyard of a vast, ruined, lightless castle.