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

faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into
manhood in my service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you
will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all
matters."

The Count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and
I fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some
cheese and a salad and a bottle of old Tokay, of which I had two
glasses, was my supper. During the time I was eating it the Count
asked me many questions as to my journey, and I told him by degrees
all I had experienced.

By this time I had finished my supper, and by my host's desire had
drawn up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he
offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke. I
had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very
marked physiognomy.

His face was a strong- a very strong- aquiline, with high bridge
of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed
forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely
elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the
nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion.
The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was
fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth;
these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed
astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears
were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and
strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of
extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his
knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but
seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were
rather coarse- broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were
hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut
to a sharp point. As the Count learned over me and his hands touched
me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath
was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do
what I would, I could not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it,
drew back; and with a grim sort of smile. which showed more than he
had yet done his protuberant teeth, sat himself down again on his
own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while; and as I
looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming
dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything; but as I
listened I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of
many wolves. The Count's eyes gleamed, and he said:-

"Listen to them- the children of the night. What music they make!"
Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he