Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

We took our evening meal in a little pub near the center of town. From there we could see the outer walls of the ruined palace, and as we ate our bread and stew, Georgescu told me that Târgoviste is a most apt place from which to travel to Dracula’s mountain fortress. “The second time he captured the Wallachian throne, in 1456,” he explained, “he decided to build a castle above the Arges to which he could escape invasions from the plain. The mountains between Târgoviste and Transylvania-and the wilds of Transylvania itself-have always been a place of escape for the Wallachians.”

He broke a piece of bread for himself and mopped up his stew with it, smiling. “Dracula knew there were already a couple of ruined fortresses, dating at least as far back as the eleventh century, above the river. He decided to rebuild one of them, the ancient Castle Arges. He needed cheap labour-don’t these things always come doon to having good help? So in his usual kindhairted way he invited all hisboyars-his lairds, you know, to a little Easter celebration. They came in their best clothes to that big courtyard right here in Târgoviste, and he gave them a great deal of food and drink. Then he killed off the ones he found most inconvenient, and marched the rest of them-and their wives and little ones-fifty kilometers up into the mountains to rebuild Castle Arges.”

Georgescu hunted around the table, apparently for another piece of bread. “Well, it’s moore complicated than that, actually-Roumanian history always is. Dracula’s older brother Mircea had been murthered years before by their political enemies in Târgoviste. When Dracula came to power he had his brother’s coffin doog up and found that the pooor man had been buried alive. That was when he sent out his Easter invitation, and the results gave him revenge for his brother as well as cheap labour to build his castle in the mountains. He had brick kilns built up near the original fortress, and anyone who’d survived the journey was forced to work night and day, carrying bricks and building the walls and towers. The auld songs from this region say that theboyars‘fine clothes fell off them in rags before they were done.” Georgescu scraped at his bowl. “I’ve noticed Dracula was often as practical a fellow as he was a nasty one.”

So tomorrow, my friend, we will set out on the trail of those unfortunate nobles, but by wagon, where they toiled into the mountains on foot.

It is remarkable to see the peasants walking around in their native costumes among the more modern dress of the townspeople. The men wear white shirts with dark vests and tremendous leather slippers laced up to the knee with leather thongs, for all the world like Roman shepherds come back to life. The women, who are mainly dark like the men and often quite handsome, wear heavy skirts and blouses with a vest tightly fastened over everything, and their clothing is embroidered with rich designs. They seem a lively folk, laughing and shouting over the business of bargaining in the marketplace, which I visited yesterday morning when I first arrived.

Less than ever do I have a way to mail this, so for now I shall keep it tucked safely in my bag.

Yours truly,

Bartholomew

My dear friend,

We have, to my delight, succeeded in making the trek to a village on the Arges, a day’s ride through mythically steep mountains in the wagon of the farmer whose palm I crossed liberally with silver. As a result I’m sore to the bones today, but elated. This village is a place of wonder for me, something from Grimm, not real life, and I wish you could see it for just an hour, to feel its immense distance from the whole West European world. The little houses, some of them poor and shabby but most with a rather cheerful air, have long low eaves and large chimneys, topped with the gigantic nests of the storks who summer here.

I walked all around with Georgescu this afternoon and discovered that a square in the center of the village provides their gathering place, with a well for the inhabitants and a great trough for the livestock, which are driven right through town twice a day. Under a ramshackle tree is the tavern, a noisy place where I have had to buy one round after another of unholy firewater for the local drinkers-think of this as you sit at the Golden Wolf with your tame pint of stout! There are one or two men among them with whom I can actually communicate a bit.

Some of these men, too, remember Georgescu from his last visit here six years ago and they greeted him with great thumps on the back when we first went in this afternoon, although others seem to avoid him. Georgescu says it is a day’s ride up to the fortress and back, and no one is yet willing to take us there. They talk of wolves, and bears, and of course vampires-pricolici,they call them in their language. I’m getting the feel for a few words of Roumanian, and my French, Italian, and Latin are all of the greatest service while I try to puzzle things out. As we interviewed some of the white-haired drinkers this evening, most of the town turned out to gawk not very discreetly at us-housewives, farmers, crowds of barefoot small children, and the young maidens, who are on the whole dark-eyed beauties. At one point, I was so surrounded by villagers pretending to draw water or sweep front steps or consult with the tavern keeper that I had to laugh aloud, which made them all stare.

More tomorrow. How I could use a good hour’s talk with you, and in my-our-own language!

Yours with devotion,

Rossi

My dear friend,

We have been, to my solemn awe, up to Vlad’s fortress and back. I know now why I wanted to see it; it made real for me, a little, in life the frightening figure I seek in his death-or will soon be seeking, somehow, somewhere, if my maps are of any help. I shall try to describe our excursion for you, as I wish you to be able to imagine the scene and as I want a record of it myself.

We set out around dawn in the wagon of a young farmer here, who seems to be a prosperous fellow and is the son of one of the old-timers at the tavern. He had apparently received orders from his sire to take us, and didn’t much like the appointment. When we first mounted the wagon, in the earliest light of the town square, he pointed up to the mountains a few times, shaking his head and saying, “Poenari? Poenari?” Finally, he seemed to resign himself to the task and gave rein to his horses, two big brown machines pulled from the fields for the day.

The man himself was a formidable-looking character, tall and hugely broad-shouldered under his blouse and wool vest, and with his hat on he towered a good two heads above us. This made his timidity about the excursion a little comic for me, although I certainly shouldn’t laugh about the fears of these peasants after what I saw in Istanbul (which, as I said before, I shall tell you in person). Georgescu tried to engage him during our drive into the deep forest, but the poor man sat holding his reins in silent despair (I thought), like a prisoner being led away to the block. Now and then his hand crept inside his shirt as if he wore some kind of protective amulet there-I guessed this from the leather thong around his neck and had to resist the temptation to request a look at it. I felt pity for the man and what we were putting him through, against all the proscriptions of his culture, and resolved to give him a little extra remuneration at the end of the trip.

We intended to stay the night, to give ourselves ample time to examine everything and to try to talk with any peasants we might encounter who live close to the site, and to this end the man’s father had provided us with rugs and blankets, and his mother had given us a store of bread, cheese, and apples tied up in a bundle in the back of the wagon. As we entered the forest, I felt a distinctly unscholarly thrill. I remembered Bram Stoker’s hero setting off into the Transylvanian forests-a fictional version of them, in any case-by stagecoach, and almost wished we’d departed at evening, so that I too might have glimpses of mysterious fires in the woods, and hear wolves howling. It was a shame, I thought, that Georgescu had never read the book, and I resolved to try to send him a copy from England, if I ever got back to such a humdrum place. Then I remembered my encounter in Istanbul and it sobered me.