Then, through the viewfinder, everything was too washed out. I begged Wagner to bring more contrast into the shot, so we set about dramatizing the light, hanging screens to define the space and throw shadows on the far walls. Then Wangenheim began botching the simple actions, dropping the book, catching his foot in the bedclothes. I hid myself, thinking him more likely to manage without me around. At last he made it without disaster to the window, but then it was Wagner’s turn: the camera caught on its cable and didn’t pan. Grau could stand it no longer, and left. We broke for five minutes and did it once more, with only an hour of time left, and miraculously, everything worked. Everyone relaxed. The scene fell together and even a cat wandered through as if it were at home.

At the end of each day, everything but the sets themselves is stowed away out of sight. The rights to Dracula have not been purchased and Grau has begun receiving inquisitive letters from solicitors representing Bram Stoker’s wife.

Talked to Grau about Wangenheim’s costume. Colors offer different sensibilities to light even in black-and-white photography. For the scenes in the castle, Wangenheim should have a blue waistcoat. This is not superstitious or fetishistic; it has to do with the value of gray that blue will provide.

Also: first day for Ruth Landshoff, who plays Ellen’s sister. The daughter of the shipowner, not even a professional actress, but someone I noticed months ago in the Grunewald, on her way to school. Beautiful and refined, she reminded me of a picture by Kaulbach, and I went to great lengths to meet her mother and ask permission for her to take part in the filming during her holidays. I’m irresistibly drawn to the idea of this woman in my film, in this infernal vision of swarming rats, of pestilential boats, of men who suck blood, of dark vaults, of black carriages pulled by phantom horses.…

During a half day’s shooting, she stands beside me, not sure where else to go. Wangenheim flirts with her. Wagner and I are filming Ellen’s sleep-connection to the vampire. The only sounds are the turning of the camera and Wangenheim’s whispering. It’s customary to build additional sets while shooting’s going on, a crowd of people standing nearby giving orders at the tops of their voices. But I work in silence, the silence of the film itself. A journalist from my parents’ hometown compared work on my set to a memorial service, presided over by “a tall thin gentleman in his white work coat, standing a bit out of the way, issuing directions in a very low voice.”