Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious.[55]
I awoke in my own bed. I think the Count carried me here. This room is now a sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who were – who are – waiting to suck my blood.
18 May. – I went down to look at that room again in daylight, for I must know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs, it was closed. The door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was no dream.
19 May. – I am surely in the toils.[56] Last night the Count asked me to write three letters, one saying that my work here was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days, another that I was starting on the next morning, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. It is madness to quarrel openly with the Count while I am so absolutely in his power. To refuse is to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him; my only chance is to prolong my opportunities. I am waiting for a chance to escape.
I asked him: what dates must I put on the letters? He calculated a minute, and then said, “The first letter must be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June 29.”
I know now the span of my life. God help me!
28 May. – There is a chance of escape, or to send word home. A band of gypsies[57] have come to the castle, and are encamped in the courtyard. There are thousands of them in Hungary and Transylvania, who are almost outside all law. They are fearless and without religion.
I shall write some letters home, and shall give them to the gypsies. I have already spoken to them through my window. They took their hats off and made many signs, which, however, I could not understand.
I have written the letters. Mina’s letter is in shorthand. I have given the letters; I threw them through the bars of my window with a gold piece. The gypsy man who took them pressed them to his heart and bowed, and then put them in his cap. I could do no more.
The Count has come. He sat down beside me, and said in his smoothest voice as he opened two letters, “The gypsies have given me these letters. I do not know not whence they come, but I shall, of course, take care. See! One is from you, and to my friend Peter Hawkins. The other is not signed. Well!” And he calmly held letter and envelope in the flame of the lamp.
Then he went on, “I shall send, of course, the letter to Hawkins. Your letters are sacred to me.”
When he went out of the room I heard the key. The door was locked.
An hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room. He was very courteous and very cheery, and he said, “So, my friend, you are tired? Get to bed.”
I passed to my room and went to bed, and slept without dreaming.
31 May. – This morning when I woke I decided to take some paper and envelopes from my bag and keep them in my pocket. But again a surprise, again a shock!
Every paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda, my letter of credit, in fact all that can be useful to me.
Moreover: the suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and rug…
17 June. – This morning the gypsies brought great, square boxes, with handles of thick rope. The boxes were packed in a great heap in one corner of the yard.
24 June, before morning. – Last night the Count left me early, and locked himself into his own room. Something is going on.
