I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I\u00a0came into it; I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight,\u00a0my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of\u00a0dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by\u00a0their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming\u00a0when I saw them, for, though the moonlight was behind them, they threw\u00a0no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some\u00a0time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline\u00a0noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes that seemed to be\u00a0almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was
\nfair, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes\u00a0like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it\u00a0in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the\u00a0moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like\u00a0pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something\u00a0about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some\u00a0deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would\u00a0kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some\u00a0day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth.\u00a0They whispered together, and then they all three laughed–such a\u00a0silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have\u00a0come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable,\u00a0tingling sweetness of water-glasses when played on by a cunning hand.\u00a0The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her\u00a0on. One said:–<\/p>\n
“Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to\u00a0begin.” The other added:–<\/p>\n
“He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.” I lay quiet,\u00a0looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation.\u00a0The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement\u00a0of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent\u00a0the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter\u00a0underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood.<\/p>\n
I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under\u00a0the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply\u00a0gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling\u00a0and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips\u00a0like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining\u00a0on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp\u00a0teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of\u00a0my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she\u00a0paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked\u00a0her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the\u00a0skin of my throat began to tingle as one’s flesh does when the hand that\u00a0is to tickle it approaches nearer–nearer. I could feel the soft,\u00a0shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat,\u00a0and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there.
\nI closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited–waited with beating\u00a0heart.<\/p>\n
But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as\u00a0lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his\u00a0being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I\u00a0saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with\u00a0giant’s power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the\u00a0white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with\u00a0passion. But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to\u00a0the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light\u00a0in them was lurid, as if the flames of hell-fire blazed behind them. His\u00a0face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires;\u00a0the thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar\u00a0of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman\u00a0from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating\u00a0them back; it was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the\u00a0wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to\u00a0cut through the air and then ring round the room he said:–<\/p>\n
“How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when\u00a0I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware\u00a0how you meddle with him, or you’ll have to deal with me.” The fair girl,\u00a0with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:–<\/p>\n
“You yourself never loved; you never love!” On this the other women\u00a0joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the\u00a0room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure\u00a0of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively,\u00a0and said in a soft whisper:–<\/p>\n
“Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it\u00a0not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall\u00a0kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work\u00a0to be done.”<\/p>\n
“Are we to have nothing to-night?” said one of them, with a low laugh,\u00a0as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which\u00a0moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he\u00a0nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my\u00a0ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a\u00a0half-smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with\u00a0horror; but as I looked they disappeared, and with them the dreadful\u00a0bag. There was no door near them, and they could not have passed me\u00a0without my noticing. They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the\u00a0moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the\u00a0dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away.<\/p>\n
Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"menu_order":11,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["bram-stoker"],"pb_section_license":"public-domain"},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[68],"license":[50],"class_list":["post-70","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless","contributor-bram-stoker","license-public-domain"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/251"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/70\/revisions\/72"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/70\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/victoriananthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}