Given the many fascinating qualities that Dracula possesses, we may well forget his memory, meaning his ability to remember, and he does have such a very long history, he and his forebears, as he explains to Harker in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel:

Dracula has other memories as well, including memories of love, as he reminds his trio of brides after interrupting their lustful attack on Harker: “[Y]ou yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so?”

By contrast, in E. Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire (Lions Gate, 2000), Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe), who plays Graf Orlok, has an extremely poor memory. He cannot recall when he became a vampire or where he was born. One character chides him, complaining, “Count Dracula wouldn't say he couldn't remember.” But Schreck/Orlok must say it. He is ancient, so very ancient, that his memory has faded. Is it possible to conceive of a time before he existed? Such is difficult for him as well as for us. Might we recall the date of his birth, even if he is unable? Let us reconstruct that night, for it was indeed at night, when Orlok's symphony of horror was first heard in Germany, when he first cast his shadow on a Berlin theater screen, when not a single scratch appeared on a pristine print that advanced through a film projector, its teeth sinking into Nosferatu's sprocket holes with each turn of the take-up reel.