Sample excerpts from the English translation [Spoiler Alert!]There are many stunning innovations in the Icelandic edition of Dracula, which do not appear in the 1897 original novel. Here we will share some of these with you, to make you even more curious:-) One of the most significant changes is the largely expanded role of the fair-haired vampire girl, who besets Harker with her incessant thirst for erotic intimacy: |
In the western tower, Harker meets with a blonde vampire girl who tries to seduce him.
When the light vanished I lost sight of her, but I could feel her coming closer and bending over me. I turned feeble, unable to move – The first rendez-vous is only the start of a whole series of intimate encounters.I leaned back in the chair and looked at her. A ray of light revealed the ruby heart on her chest and it seemed to me as though blood ran from it. Was I asleep? At first I only saw the beam in her eyes, but then I clearly saw that her bosom was bloody, and I remember how horrified I was. What happened next I only recall as if from a dream in which truth and fantasy merge. She sank down on my knee, and I felt her soft body in my arms as she wrapped hers around me so tightly that I could hardly breathe. I can still feel how she pressed her lips to my neck with a long, quivering kiss. It was as if I melted and lost all awareness, as if time and space dissolved. But then I woke up in pain and she whispered to me impetuously, “Take away the cross − the cross, I cannot stand it − take it away.” From a chapter omitted from the 1901 Hardcover edition, demonstrating Harker's emotional dependency.
Whether I am awake or sleeping, she haunts me – this strange creature. She scares me, and yet she attracts my thoughts, harder and harder. I don’t understand how I have changed − how I have become crazed and obsessed.
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