"Barbara Hambly - Renfield" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

Renfield
- Slave of Dracula -

Barbara Hambly
Copyright © 2006


For George

With special thanks to Neil Gaiman


* All passages indicated with an asterisk are taken verbatim from Bram Stoker’s Dracula *




CHAPTER ONE

R.M.R.'s notes

20 May

7 flies, 3 spiders

I've filled many notebook pages and scraps of paper with these daily reckonings. Sometimes I look at
them and they make no sense to me, nothing at all but scratchmarks. In more sensible moments, I think
the counting is just a sad form of mental mis-chief. It's a way to avoid thinking about the truly essential
question, which is, of course, what does a single housefly mean?



000



Letter, Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra 20 May

My dearest Lucy,

I am writing this to you in the happiest of moods. Can you guess why? Yes, I've heard from Jonathan
today! He writes from Bistritz, the post-town nearest Castle Dracula-to receive a letter a mere two
weeks after it was posted is a miracle, for Transylvania. What a great thing it is, to be living so close to
the threshold of the twentieth century! He still has heard little con-cerning his client the Count, save that
he is rumored to keep not one but three beautiful wives. This may be proper form beyond the woods
and east of the Danube, but I know you will agree that it is two wives too many. I've always felt that I am
too trust-ing or too unimaginative to know the pangs of envy. Still, I must admit to a moment of jealousy,
and in my idle dreams these women cannot help but notice how fine a man my Jonathan is.
 I know that it would be unreasonable of me to expect Jonathan's business with the Count-the purchase
of property here in England somewhere-to be finished in more than a few days, yet already I begin to fret