— Dracula (1897), Chapter 2
About this quote
हिन्दी में
इन्हें सुनो—रात की संतानें। कैसा संगीत रचती हैं ये!
What it means
The claim is an aesthetic one, and it is sincere: the howling is not noise to the speaker, it is music, and children of the night claims kinship with the animals making it. The whole sentence runs off the gap between two people hearing one sound — terror for the guest, pleasure for the host.
The version that circulates usually softens it to what sweet music they make. The plain line is stranger, because there is no adjective to hide behind: he expects his guest to admire what is frightening him, and offers it the way a host points out a view from a window.
What it teaches you
A mismatch of register is information. When someone is delighted by the thing that has just alarmed you — a manager relaxed about a deadline you find impossible, a seller unbothered by the clause you are stuck on — the useful reading concerns their position, not your nerves being too fine; Harker’s error is to treat the difference as a matter of taste and go on being polite about it.
अर्थ और सीख
काउंट भेड़ियों की चीख को संगीत कह रहा है, और रात की संतानें कहकर उनसे अपना रिश्ता भी जोड़ रहा है। एक ही आवाज़ मेहमान के लिए दहशत है और मेज़बान के लिए आनंद — पंक्ति की पूरी ताक़त इसी फ़र्क़ में है। सीख: जब कोई उस चीज़ पर प्रसन्न हो जो आपको डरा रही है, तो वह उसके बारे में जानकारी है, आपकी घबराहट का सबूत नहीं।
Where it comes from
Count Dracula to Jonathan Harker, at the castle, as wolves howl in the valley below. Stoker punctuated it with a dash — ‘Listen to them–the children of the night’ — which most quotations smooth into a comma.
It is the moment Harker stops being a solicitor on a business trip. The Count is not making conversation; he is establishing whose house this is.
