For me, Dracula has always been associated with travel and beautiful historical places.

...what will we someday do, I always wonder, without the pleasures of turning through books and stumbling on things we never meant to find?

It touched me to be trusted with something terrible.

...History it seemed could be something entirely different a splash of blood whose agony didn't fade overnight or over centuries.

You are a total stranger and you want to take my library book.

I've read there is no such thing as a single tear, that old poetic trope. And perhaps there isn't, since hers was simply a companion to my own.

It was strange, I reflected.. that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one's life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.