“Where are we, then?” I tried, again in vain, to feel this was an ordinary conversation. Then I realized that I didn’t simply want to make the night pass swiftly or safely, if there was any chance of that. I wanted, too, to learn something about Dracula. Whatever he was, this creature, he had lived five hundred years. His answers would die with me, of course, but this fact did not prevent me from feeling a twinge of curiosity.
“Ah, where are we,” Dracula repeated. “It does not matter, I think. We are not in Wallachia, which is still ruled by fools.”
I stared at him. “Do you-do you know about the modern world?”
He looked at me with a surprised amusement that set his terrible face curling. For the first time I saw the long teeth, the receding gums, which gave him the look of an old dog when he smiled. The vision was gone as quickly as it had come-no, his mouth was normal, apart from that small stain of my blood-or someone’s-below the dark mustache. “Yes,” he said, and I was afraid for a second that I would have to hear him laugh. “I know the modern world. It is my prize, my favorite work.”
I felt that some kind of frontal attack might be in my interest, if it engaged him. “Then what do you want with me? I have avoided the modern for many years-unlike you, I live in the past.”
“Oh, the past.” He put his fingertips together again in the firelight. “The past is very useful, but only for what it can teach us about the present. The present is the rich thing. But I am very fond of the past. Come. Why not show you now, since you have eaten and rested?” He rose, again with that movement that seemed determined by some force other than the limbs of his body, and I rose quickly with him, afraid that this might be a trick, that he might lunge for me now. But he turned slowly and lifted a candle out of the stand near his chair and held it up. “Take a light with you,” he said, moving away from the hearth and into the dark of the great chamber. I took a second candle and followed him, staying clear of his strange clothing and chilling movements. I hoped he was not going to lead me back to my sarcophagus.
By the sparse light of our candles I began to see things I had not been able to see before-wonderful things. I could now make out long tables before me, tables of an ancient solidity. And on these lay piles and piles of books-crumbling leather-bound volumes and gilt covers that picked up the glimmer of my candle flame. There were other objects, too-never had I seen such an inkstand, or such strange quills and pens. There was a stack of parchment, glimmering in the candlelight, and an old typewriter supplied with thin paper. I saw the gleam of jewelled bindings and boxes, the curl of manuscripts in brass trays. There were great folios and quartos bound in smooth leather, and rows of more modern volumes on long shelves. In fact, we were surrounded; every wall seemed to be lined with books. Holding up my candle, I began to make out titles here and there, sometimes an elegant bloom of Arabic in the center of a red-leather binding, sometimes a Western language I could read. Most of the volumes were too old to have titles, however. It was a storehouse beyond compare, and I began to itch in spite of myself to open some of those books, to touch the manuscripts in their wooden trays.
Dracula turned, holding his candle aloft, and the light picked out the glow of jewels on his cap-topaz, emerald, pearl. His eyes were very bright. “What do you think of my library?”
“It looks like a-a remarkable collection. A treasure-house,” I said.
A kind of pleasure went over his terrible face. “You are correct,” he said softly. “This library is the finest of its kind in the world. It is the result of centuries of careful selection. But you will have plenty of time to explore the wonders I have assembled here. Now let me show you something else.”
He led the way towards a wall we had not yet approached, and there I saw a very old printing press, such as one comes across in late-mediaeval illustrations-a heavy contraption of black metal and dark wood with a great screw on top. The round plate was obsidian with the polish of ink; it picked up our light like a demonic mirror. There was a sheet of thick paper lying on the shelf of the press. Leaning closer I saw that it was partly printed, a discarded attempt, and that it was in English. “The Ghost in the Amphora,” ran the title. “Vampires from Greek Tragedy to Modern Tragedy.” And the byline: “Bartholomew Rossi.”
Dracula must have been waiting for my gasp of astonishment, and I did not disappoint him. “You see, I keep up with the finest modern research-up to the minute, as they say. When I cannot get a published work, or I want it at once, I sometimes print it myself. But here is something that will interest you easily as much.” He pointed at a table behind the press. It held a row of woodcuts. The largest of them, propped up to view, was the dragon of our books-mine and Paul’s-in reverse, of course. With difficulty, I kept myself from exclaiming aloud. “You are surprised,” Dracula said, holding his light near the dragon. Its lines were so familiar to me that I could have cut them with my own hand. “You know this image very well, I think.”
“Yes.” I held my candle tightly. “Did you print the books yourself? And how many of them are there?”
“My monks printed some of them, and I have continued their work,” he said quietly, looking down at the woodcut. “I have nearly fulfilled my ambition of printing fourteen hundred and fifty three of them, but slowly, so that I have time to distribute them as I work. Does that number mean anything to you?”
“Yes,” I said after a moment. “It is the year of the fall of Constantinople.”
“I thought you would see it,” he said with his bitter smile. “It is the worst date in history.”
“It seems to me there are many contenders for that honor,” I said, but he was shaking his great head above his great shoulders.
“No,” he said. He lifted his candle high and in its light I saw his eyes blaze up, red in their depths like a wolf’s, and full of hatred. It was like seeing a dead gaze suddenly rustle to life; I had thought his eyes bright before, but now they were savage with light. I could not speak; I could not look away. After a second he turned and contemplated the dragon again. “He has been a good messenger,” he said thoughtfully.
“Did you leave mine for me? My book?”
“Let us say that I arranged it.” He reached his battle-scarred fingers out to touch the carved block. “I am very careful about how they are distributed. They go only to the most promising scholars, and to those I think may be persistent enough to follow the dragon to his lair. And you are the first who has actually done it. I congratulate you. My other assistants I leave out in the world, to do my research.”
“I did not follow you,” I ventured to say. “You brought me here.”
“Ah -” Again that curve of the ruby lips, the twitch of the long mustache. “You would not be here if you had not wanted to come. No one else has ever disregarded my warning twice in a lifetime. You have brought yourself.”
I looked at the old, old press and the woodcut of the dragon. “Why do you want me here?” I did not wish to rouse his anger with my questions; tomorrow night he could kill me, if he liked, if I’d found no escape during the daytime hours. But I could not help asking him this.
“I have been waiting a long time for someone to catalogue my library,” he said simply. “Tomorrow you shall look at all of it in freedom. Tonight we shall talk.” He led the way back to our chairs with his powerful, slow step. His words gave me a great deal of hope-apparently he really did not mean to kill me tonight, and besides, my curiosity was rising high in me. I was not dreaming, it seemed; I was speaking with one who had lived through more history than any historian can presume to study in even a rudimentary way in a single career. I followed him, at a careful distance, and we sat down before the fire again. As I settled myself, I noticed that the table with my empty supper dishes was gone, and in its place was a comfortable ottoman, on which I cautiously propped my feet. Dracula sat magnificently upright in his great chair. Although his chair was tall, wooden, and mediaeval, mine was comfortably upholstered, like my ottoman, as if he had thought to provide his guest with something suited to modern weakness.