It wasn’t that timeworn mortar, which flecked off beneath his fingers. As a cloud passed overhead, he heard something, though he could not place the origin. The moon cast an eerie pall to the landscape, as though in a single moment, all of nature could choose to be frozen, and hidden from mortal eyes it almost reminded him of tales told of the land of fairies, should one fall upon a fairy circle at some inopportune moment. He was a cruel figurehead, alight with monstrous passions. To Jonathan’s detriment, and sorrow, he wasn’t. If only the Count was but an ordinary man if he was but a cheerful host that could show him the sights by the daylight hours, he presumed that he should be wooed by this land. If only he had listened to the warnings of the villagers, and stayed far from it. In this land, sheltered from the waves of progress that stretched before the eye in London, it was almost another world. He leaned out the window for a better view, and minded a spot where stone crumbled at his touch along the edge.
#Pleasure in the pathless woods meaning windows#
The remote tower windows gave him the best vantage point, for one of the few natural scenes of beauty. It was easiest to see here, above the treetops. He focused himself more on nature, and less on whatever that was. Another breath two three the effect was lessened. When the vision and the sensation did not disperse at once, he moved to the next window. He presumed he had somehow caused such a malady to stir within him due to his musings about things which could not be. Jonathan touched the stones, so that he might steady himself. He frowned as quaint little specks of dust whirled about his vision, and reeled, almost too dizzy to breathe to stand upright for any longer. No, he must never fall into such a state of forgetting reality, and believing the fantasy. He rubbed his chest, vividly imagining how it would feel to have a bolt pierce him there, before he shook himself. That window’s view, easily luring one in for a look, only for an unexpected bolt to be fired from a proficient archer. If this was a land presently so unsettled, he could picture the shadowed recesses of the corner becoming an excellent location to conceal an assassin. They had been so beautifully and frightfully painted by the utterances of the man when he was carried away. Wars had been fought, and most likely won, by the Count’s boasts. He pondered the glory of this place in past centuries. No, should someone else have fallen victim to the Count’s methods, they could not have aided him. If he had but access to a map, perhaps this might be easier perhaps if he had a guidebook, penned by a helpful personage. He saw movement, and frowned, before realising it was no more threatening than quaint little specks of dust, floating and whirling through the rays of the vivid moonlight. He was quite desperate to get away from the walls of this castle. He was not at his leisure to just lay down his head anywhere, after previous events. He was mindful of his every step as he moved down the corridors, and of the area’s disrepair its danger its traps, left waiting for the unwary.
He had never seen an inkling of such creatures, and presumed they were too afraid of the Count’s diabolical ways to stray into the courtyard, much less fly through an open window.Īnd so, casting that rumination from him, he walked, and surveyed. Would he be left for the wolves, or would his bones be left in some dreadful location in these halls?ĭoubtless, not even the crows or other carrion birds would be able to locate his remains. No, he knew not the hour, as he had thought, nor the method, nor what was to be left of him, if anything. The final letter had been noted as the 29th instant, so he had but five more days. He had held the letter he was induced to write, and then dated it for the Count. In other moments, he found himself slipping into an odd serenity an acceptance of his fate that was, perhaps, dangerous to allow to continue.įor unlike other men, he knew the date, if not the hour, of the day he was to die. He rubbed his arms, both to soothe himself, as well as to ward off a slight chill.Īs Jonathan wandered the corridors, he was by turns anxious at the potential reappearance of his client his captor his gaoler his formerly presumed beneficiary in a splendid deal that may have left him quite well off for his future life. He knew it wasn’t safe to loiter, and pulled his thin jacket tighter about himself. Or perhaps he ought to call them what they were battlements of a bygone age. It was a balmy night within the castle, save for when the wind picked up. He was, by turns, pondering what it once had been in bygone days, in accordance with the Count’s speeches. It was the night of June 24th, as Jonathan Harker did his level best to find a way that would lead him out of this accursed place, and from this accursed land.
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