Bram Stoker

Dracula's Guest Bram Stoker

"Dracula's Guest" follows an Englishman (whose name is never mentioned, but is presumed to be Jonathan Harker) on a visit to Munich before leaving for Transylvania. It is Walpurgis Night, and in spite of the hotelier's warning to not return late, the young man later leaves his carriage and wanders toward the direction of an abandoned "unholy" village. As the carriage departs with the frightened and superstitious driver, a tall and thin stranger scares the horses at the crest of a hill. After a few hours, as he reaches a desolate valley, it begins to snow; as a dark storm gathers intensity, the Englishman takes shelter in a grove of cypress and yew trees. The Englishman's location is soon illuminated by moonlight to be a cemetery, and he finds himself before a marble tomb with a large iron stake driven through the roof, the inscription reads: "Countess Dolingen of Gratz / in Styria / sought and found death / 1801". This inscription is now recognised as being a tribute to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, one of Stoker's fellow predecessor in terms of vampire writing. Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872) deals with a protagonist showing resemblances with Countess Dolingen. Carmilla's main protagonist is ultimately revealed to Countess Millarca Karnestein, a vampire. Inscribed on the back of the tomb, graven in great Russian letters, is: "The dead travel fast", which was an ode to the fable "Lenore".