"Brian Stoker - Dracula" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason
that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes
and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand."
I said I was sure of this, and then he went on.

"We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England.
Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many
strange things. Nay, from what you have told me of your
experiences already, you know something of what strange things
there may be."

This led to much conversation, and as it was evident that he wanted
to talk, if only for talking's sake, I asked him many questions regarding
things that had already happened to me or come within my notice.
Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by pretending
not to understand, but generally he answered all I asked most frankly.
Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked him
of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as for instance,
why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue flames.
He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a certain
night of the year, last night, in fact, when all evil spirits are supposed
to have unchecked sway, a blue flame is seen over any place where treasure
has been concealed.

"That treasure has been hidden," he went on, "in the region
through which you came last night, there can be but little doubt.
For it was the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian,
the Saxon, and the Turk. Why, there is hardly a foot of soil
in all this region that has not been enriched by the blood of men,
patriots or invaders. In the old days there were stirring times,
when the Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots
went out to meet them, men and women, the aged and the children too,
and waited their coming on the rocks above the passes, that they
might sweep destruction on them with their artificial avalanches.
When the invader was triumphant he found but little, for whatever
there was had been sheltered in the friendly soil."

"But how," said I, "can it have remained so long undiscovered,
when there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look?
"The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums,
the long, sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely. He answered.

"Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool!
Those flames only appear on one night, and on that night no man
of this land will, if he can help it, stir without his doors.
And, dear sir, even if he did he would not know what to do.
Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place
of the flame would not know where to look in daylight even
for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn,
be able to find these places again?"