Castle Dracula

Castle Dracula is the fictitious residence of Count Dracula, the vampire character from Bram Stoker's Dracula novel (1897).

In Stoker's narrative, Castle Dracula is the single most important location. The first and the last part of the plot take place here. The inaccessible stronghold, which initially symbolises the vampire's power, finally becomes the scene of his extermination.

In the first chapters, the young lawyer Jonathan Harker, travelling from London via Paris, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Klausenburg and Bistritz, arrives here after being picked up in the Borgo Pass by a mysterious driver, whom Harker later recognises as his host, Count Dracula, himself. During the trip, he apparently falls asleep, but wakes up when the calèche reaches the stronghold. The driver disappears and Harker thinks himself lost, until the door opens and the Count bids him welcome. After some tasty meals, which Harker always enjoys alone, and various conversations about the property Carfax near Purfleet, which his host wishes to purchase, Harker discovers that his patron has some disturbing habits, like climbing down the walls of the building like a lizard. Harker finds himself a prisoner in the Castle. One night, when he falls asleep in a forbidden room, he is harassed by the three Vampire Sisters, who are interrupted by a furious Count, who claims the guest for himself. Apart from the scene with the vampiresses however, who provoke a strange desire in him to be kissed by those red lips, Harker is not attacked in any way. The Count induces him to stay for a much longer time than planned and write some letters home (predated 12 June 19 and 29 June), to appease his employer and his fiancée Mina Murray. Harker scales the walls of the Castle himself, enters the Count's empty room and discovers a crypt in the chapel, where 50 boxes with earth are stored; in one of them he finds the Count, who has just fed on blood. Harker tries to hit him with a shovel, but the blow is diverted by the Count's hypnotic powers. In this box, the Count is later transported, to be shipped to England later on. Harker remains in the Castle with the seductive female vampires, but finally manages to escape to Budapest, where he is taken care of by Sister Agatha.

All events are recorded in Harker's journal, which later serves his friends as a report about the vampire and as a travel guide. After Lucy Westenra, Mina Murray's old school friend, has died from a mysterious illness, Professor van Helsing visits Mina and reads the diary, which he confirms to be a realistic account of the unbelievable circumstances Jonathan was confronted with.

In the final chapters, the Vampire Hunters chase the Count, who returns to his homeland by ship. The vampire tricks them by directing the vessel to Galatz, while Van Helsing and his friends are waiting for the Czarina Catherine to show up in Varna. In Galatz, the party splits in three couplings: Van Helsing and Mina travel by train to Veresți near Suceava and continue with a purchased horse carriage over Bukovinan territory to the east end of the Borgo Pass; Jonathan and Arthur Holmwood buy a steam launch to follow the Count's box, transported by Slovak boatmen via the Sereth and the Bistrița River, while Dr. John Seward and Quincey Morris head in the same direction by horse. The box with the Count is taken over from the Slovaks by Szgany (Gypsies), who transport it by leiter wagon. The routes of the Szgany and the three couplings finally converge at a place in the immediate neighbourhood of the Castle, where Van Helsing and his men force the convoy to stop. Jonathan manages to decapitate the vampire with his Kukri Knife, while Quincey Morris plunges his Bowie messer into the foe's heart.

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