The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him. "You yourself never loved. You never love!" On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless,hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear. It seemed like the pleasure of fiends.
Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper, "Yes, I too can love. You yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! Go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done.”
Read the highlighted statements carefully. They create a kind of suspense…it seems as if there is some secret related to the Count’s past…some romantic secret…What is it? Could it be possible that he actually 'loved' somebody? If we take a look at the movie "Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)", similar statements are used in reference to the love story of Dracula and Elisabeta! But does it have any significance in the book? Did Stoker write something more than what's presented in the book? Can the story of Elisabeta be considered true? .....We can only keep guessing!
2. In chapter 3 itself, Jonathan Harker seems to know one of the three women,
"Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes, that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where."
I kept waiting for the suspense to unveil but nothing more was written about the fair girl in the entire novel.Who was she? Why did Harker find her face familiar?
3. While I was trying to find out if any page or chapter has been removed from the final book, I came upon a short story titled "Dracula's Guest". This story was also written by Bram Stoker. I actually got goosebumps after reading it and realising that it was originally meant to be the first chapter of "Dracula" !
The story mentions a mysterious woman called Countess Dolingen of Gratz. We can somehow make out that this Countess has some connection with Dracula. Moreover, it seems quite obvious that she too was a vampire. However, the strange part is that she hasn't been mentioned in the later chapters at all! If only the first chapter was removed then is it possible that her name or reference could be so easily omitted from the rest of the story? Who was this Countess Dolingen?What happened to her after Dracula and the other vampires were killed in the end? More important, why was the chapter removed?
4. The most disturbing element for me in the story was the character of Renfield. Till date, I haven't been able to understand his relationship with Dracula! I would again turn back to the 1992 movie wherein they have shown that Renfield was a solicitor who was dealing with the Count before the coming of Jonathan Harker. Also, his madness could be related to what he saw in Transylvania because even Harker suffered from brain fever after escaping the scary place.However, there is no such explanation in the book and thus, the story of Renfield is very unclear.
How did he know or meet Dracula? Why did he call the latter as his 'master' all the time? Why did Dracula choose a mental patient like Renfield to carry out his evil plotting?
5. The scariest part is the ending....Did Dracula really die so easily?
Well, I would highly appreciate if anyone could come up with some explanations for all this! These unanswered questions make Dracula all the more mysterious!
Let's see and hope if I can find out something more...I'l be back soon.
D
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