"stoker-dracula-168" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among
what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had
embarked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's
clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a
foreigner? Solicitor's clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor,-
for just before leaving London I got word that my examination was
successful; and I am now a full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my
eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a
horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake,
and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the
windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of
overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were
not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians.
All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of the
morning.

Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step
approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the
gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains
and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with
the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back.

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white
moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck
of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver
lamp, in which the name burned without chimney or globe of any kind,
throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of
the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a
courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange
intonation:-

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!" He made no
motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though
his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however,
that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward,
and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me
wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed
as cold as ice- more like the hand of a dead than a living man.
Again he said:-

"Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of
the happiness you bring!" The strength of the handshake was so much
akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not
seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to
whom I was speaking; so to make sure, I said interrogatively:-

"Count Dracula?" He bowed in a courtly way as he replied:-

"I am Dracula; and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house.
Come in; the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest."