"bram stoker - dracula(2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

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 Ordance 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 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