Page 38
"I am no longer young"
When I had finished, Dracula said, "I am glad that it is old and big. My family is very old, and it would kill me to live in a new house. You cannot make a house somewhere you want to live in just a day, and after all, there are very few days in a century. I am also happy that there is a church from the old times. We Transylvanians of high families do not like to think that our bones may lie with the bones of people who are not aristocrats. I do not look for fun or laughter. I do not want the bright pleasures of sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young. I am no longer young, and my heart, after long years of thinking about the dead, is not used to laughter. The walls of my castle are broken. There are many shadows, and the wind is cold when it blows through the broken walls and windows. I love the dark and the shadows, and I want to be alone with my thoughts when I wish."
Somehow his words were not the same as his expression. Maybe the shape of his face made his smile look evil and darkly amused. After a while he made an excuse and left me, so I started to collect my papers together. Dracula was away for some time, so I began to look at some of the books around me. One was a book of maps. I discovered that the book opened naturally to a map of England, as if that map had been used a lot. When I looked at the map I found that little rings had been drawn in certain places. I noticed that one ring was near London on the east side, obviously where his new property was. The other two were in Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.