Lanternist Codes and Sexuality in Dracula and The Lady of the Shroud

Abstract

In Dracula, as Jonathan Harker and his fellow coach passengers arrive at the Borgo Pass, a strange caleche (a rather old form of light carriage) comes into view and the Englishman focuses in on the driver’s eyes:

I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight, as he turned to us.

He said to the driver, ‘You are early tonight, my friend.’

The man stammered in reply, ‘The English Herr was in a hurry.’

To which the stranger replied, ‘That is why, I suppose, you wished him to go on to Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my friend; I know too much, and my horses are swift.’

As he spoke he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hard-looking mouth, with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory. One of my companions whispered to another the line from Bürger’s ‘Lenore’.

‘Denn die Todten reiten Schnell.’ (‘For the dead travel fast.’)

The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a gleaming smile. The passenger turned his face away, at the same time putting out his two fingers and crossing himself.¹