When I had finished, Dracula said, "I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day, and after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel from old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young, and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken. The shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I wish."

Somehow his words and his look did not seem to agree, or else it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and saturnine. Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to pull my papers together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of the books around me. One was an atlas, which I found opened naturally to England, as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found in certain places little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly where his new estate was situated. The other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.

Vocabulary:

Habitable: Possible to live in
Common: Here it means 'not aristocratic'
Voluptuousness: Loving pleasure
Gay: Cheerful and light-hearted
Mourning: Feeling sad for a long time
Attuned: Able to easily get used to
Mirth: Laughter and humour
Battlements: Protective bits on the top of the walls
Casements: Castle windows
Cast: Shape
Saturnine: Like a wise devil
Manifestly: Obviously