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or the bottom of the shaving pot, which is fortunately of metal.

When I went into the dining room, breakfast was prepared, but I could
not find the Count anywhere. So I breakfasted alone. It is strange
that as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink. He must be a very
peculiar man! After breakfast I did a little exploring in the
castle. I went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards
the South.

The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every
opportunity of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a
terrific precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a
thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach
is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there
is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind
in deep gorges through the forests.

But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view
I explored further. Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked
and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is
there an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a
prisoner!




CHAPTER 3


Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued

When I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling came over
me. I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering
out of every window I could find, but after a little the conviction of
my helplessness overpowered all other feelings. When I look back
after a few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I
behaved much as a rat does in a trap. When, however, the conviction
had come to me that I was helpless I sat down quietly, as quietly as I
have ever done anything in my life, and began to think over what was
best to be done. I am thinking still, and as yet have come to no
definite conclusion. Of one thing only am I certain. That it is no
use making my ideas known to the Count. He knows well that I am
imprisoned, and as he has done it himself, and has doubtless his own
motives for it, he would only deceive me if I trusted him fully with
the facts. So far as I can see, my only plan will be to keep my
knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes open. I am, I know,
either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or else I am in
desperate straits, and if the latter be so, I need, and shall need,
all my brains to get through.

I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below
shut, and knew that the Count had returned. He did not come at once
into the library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found him
making the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed what I had all along
thought, that there are no servants in the house. When later I saw
him through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in
the dining room, I was assured of it. For if he does himself all
these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else in
the castle, it must have been the Count himself who was the driver of
the coach that brought me here.

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