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

which is, however, not disagreeable.

I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else.

When I got on the coach, the driver had not taken his seat,
and I saw him talking to the landlady.

They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me,
and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the door--
came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly.
I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were
many nationalities in the crowd, so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary
from my bag and looked them out.

I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were
"Ordog"--Satan, "Pokol"--hell, "stregoica"--witch, "vrolok" and
"vlkoslak"--both mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the
other Servian for something that is either werewolf or vampire.
(Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions.)

When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this
time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross
and pointed two fingers towards me.

With some difficulty, I got a fellow passenger to tell me what they meant.
He would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English,
he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye.

This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to meet
an unknown man. But everyone seemed so kind-hearted, and so sorrowful,
and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched.

I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn yard
and its crowd of picturesque figures,all crossing themselves,
as they stood round the wide archway, with its background
of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs
clustered in the centre of the yard.

Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole
front of the boxseat,--"gotza" they call them--cracked his
big whip over his four small horses, which ran abreast,
and we set off on our journey.

I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty
of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language,
or rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking,
I might not have been able to throw them off so easily.
Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods,
with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees
or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road.