whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has
been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I
suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees
and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make
my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me
up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me. He held
my hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite
sweetness,
‘My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work
that I have not had much time for friendships, but since I
have been summoned to here by my friend John Seward I
have known so many good people and seen such nobility
that I feel more than ever, and it has grown with my
advancing years, the loneliness of my life. Believe me,
then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you
have given me hope, hope, not in what I am seeking of,
but that there are good women still left to make life
happy, good women, whose lives and whose truths may
make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am
glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you. For if
your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my
study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do
all for him that I can, all to make his life strong and manly,
and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are
Dracula
333 of 684
overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. Husband
Jonathan would not like to see you so pale, and what he
like not where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for
his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me about
Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress. I
shall stay in Exeter tonight, for I want to think much over
what you have told me, and when I have thought I will
ask you questions, if I may. And then too, you will tell me
of husband Jonathan’s trouble so far as you can, but not
yet. You must eat now, afterwards you shall tell me all.’
After lunch, when we went back to the drawing room,
he said to me, ‘And now tell me all about him.’
When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I
began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and
Jonathan a madman, that journal is all so strange, and I
hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he
had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said,
‘Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer
that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have
been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt. You must
be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even
half believed some very strange things.’
He reassured me by his manner as well as his words
when he said, ‘Oh, my dear, if you only know how
Dracula
334 of 684
strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you
who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any
one’s belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried
to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of
life that could close it, but the strange things, the
extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if
they be mad or sane.’
‘Thank you, thank you a thousand times! You have
taken a weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give
you a paper to read. It is long, but I have typewritten it
out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathan’s. It is the
copy of his journal when abroad, and all that happened. I
dare not say anything of it. You will read for yourself and
judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very
kind and tell me what you think.’
‘I promise,’ he said as I gave him the papers. ‘I shall in
the morning, as soon as I can, come to see you and your
husband, if I may.’
‘Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must
come to lunch with us and see him then. You could catch
the quick 3:34 train, which will leave you at Paddington
before eight.’ He was surprised at my knowledge of the
trains offhand, but he does not know that I have made up
Dracula
335 of 684
all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help
Jonathan in case he is in a hurry.
So he took the papers with him and went away, and I
sit here thinking, thinking I don’t know what.
LETTER (by hand), VAN HELSING TO MRS.
HARKER
25 September, 6 o’clock
‘Dear Madam Mina,
‘I have read your husband’s so wonderful diary. You
may sleep without doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is
true! I will pledge my life on it. It may be worse for
others, but for him and you there is no dread. He is a
noble fellow, and let me tell you from experience of men,
that one who would do as he did in going down that wall
and to that room, aye, and going a second time, is not one
to be injured in permanence by a shock. His brain and his
heart are all right, this I swear, before I have even seen
him, so be at rest. I shall have much to ask him of other
things. I am blessed that today I come to see you, for I
have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzled,
dazzled more than ever, and I must think.
‘Yours the most faithful,
‘Abraham Van Helsing.’
LETTER, MRS. HARKER TO VAN HELSING
Dracula
336 of 684
25 September, 6:30 P.M.
‘My dear Dr. Van Helsing,
‘A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has
taken a great weight off my mind. And yet, if it be true,
what terrible things there are in the world, and what an
awful thing if that man, that monster, be really in London!
I fear to think. I have this moment, whilst writing, had a
wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the 6:25
tonight from Launceston and will be here at 10:18, so that
I shall have no fear tonight. Will you, therefore, instead of
lunching with us, please come to breakfast at eight
o’clock, if this be not too early for you? You can get
away, if you are in a hurry, by the 10:30 train, which will
bring you to Paddington by 2:35. Do not answer this, as I
shall take it that, if I do not hear, you will come to
breakfast.
‘Believe me,
‘Your faithful and grateful friend,
‘Mina Harker.’
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
26 September.—I thought never to write in this diary
again, but the time has come. When I got home last night
Mina had supper ready, and when we had supped she told
me of Van Helsing’s visit, and of her having given him the
Dracula
337 of 684
two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she has been
about me. She showed me in the doctor’s letter that all I
wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man
of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing
that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark,
and distrustful. But, now that I know, I am not afraid,
even of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his
design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has
got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask
him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what Mina
says. We sat late, and talked it over. Mina is dressing, and I
shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over.
He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into
the room where he was, and introduced myself, he took
me by the shoulder, and turned my face round to the
light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny,
‘But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had
had a shock.’
It was so funny to hear my wife called ‘Madam Mina’
by this kindly, strong-faced old man. I smiled, and said, ‘I
was ill, I have had a shock, but you have cured me
already.’
‘And how?’
Dracula
338 of 684
‘By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and
then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not
know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses.
Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do,
and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto
been the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail
me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you don’t know
what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you
don’t, you couldn’t with eyebrows like yours.’
He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said, ‘So! You
are a physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I
am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast,
and, oh, sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but
you are blessed in your wife.’
I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so
I simply nodded and stood silent.
‘She is one of God’s women, fashioned by His own
hand to show us men and other women that there is a
heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here
on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist,
and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical
and selfish. And you, sir … I have read all the letters to
poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I
know you since some days from the knowing of others,
Dracula
339 of 684
but I have seen your true self since last night. You will
give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for
all our lives.’
We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind
that it made me quite choky.
‘and now,’ he said, ‘may I ask you for some more help?
I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to
know. You can help me here. Can you tell me what went
before your going to Transylvania? Later on I may ask
more help, and of a different kind, but at first this will do.’
‘Look here, Sir,’ I said, ‘does what you have to do
concern the Count?’
‘It does,’ he said solemnly.
‘Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the
10:30 train, you will not have time to read them, but I
shall get the bundle of papers. You can take them with
you and read them in the train.’
After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were
parting he said, ‘Perhaps you will come to town if I send
for you, and take Madam Mina too.’
‘We shall both come when you will,’ I said.
I had got him the morning papers and the London
papers of the previous night, and while we were talking at
the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, he was
eBook brought to you by
Create, view, and edit PDF. Download the free trial version.
Dracula
340 of 684
turning them over. His eyes suddenly seemed to catch
something in one of them, ‘The Westminster Gazette’, I
knew it by the colour, and he grew quite white. He read
something intently, groaning to himself, ‘Mein Gott! Mein
Gott! So soon! So soon!’ I do not think he remembered
me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the
train moved off. This recalled him to himself, and he
leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out,
‘Love to Madam Mina. I shall write so soon as ever I can.’
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY
26 September.—Truly there is no such thing as finality.
Not a week since I said ‘Finis,’ and yet here I am starting
fresh again, or rather going on with the record. Until this
afternoon I had no cause to think of what is done.
Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as he ever was.
He was already well ahead with his fly business, and he
had just started in the spider line also, so he had not been
of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written
on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up
wonderfully well. Quincey Morris is with him, and that is
much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling well of good
spirits. Quincey wrote me a line too, and from him I hear
that Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old
buoyancy, so as to them all my mind is at rest. As for
Dracula
341 of 684
myself, I was settling down to my work with the
enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might
fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on
me was becoming cicatrised.
Everything is, however, now reopened, and what is to
be the end God only knows. I have an idea that Van
Helsing thinks he knows, too, but he will only let out
enough at a time to whet curiosity. He went to Exeter
yesterday, and stayed there all night. Today he came back,
and almost bounded into the room at about half-past five
o’clock, and thrust last night’s ‘Westminster Gazette’ into
my hand.
‘What do you think of that?’ he asked as he stood back
and folded his arms.
I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what
he meant, but he took it from me and pointed out a
paragraph about children being decoyed away at
Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reached
a passage where it described small puncture wounds on
their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘It is like poor Lucy’s.’
‘And what do you make of it?’
Dracula
342 of 684
‘Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever
it was that injured her has injured them.’ I did not quite
understand his answer.
‘That is true indirectly, but not directly.’
‘How do you mean, Professor?’ I asked. I was a little
inclined to take his seriousness lightly, for, after all, four
days of rest and freedom from burning, harrowing, anxiety
does help to restore one’s spirits, but when I saw his face,
it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of our despair
about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern.
‘Tell me!’ I said. ‘I can hazard no opinion. I do not
know what to think, and I have no data on which to
found a conjecture.’
‘Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no
suspicion as to what poor Lucy died of, not after all the
hints given, not only by events, but by me?’
‘Of nervous prostration following a great loss or waste
of blood.’
‘And how was the blood lost or wasted?’ I shook my
head.
He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on,
‘You are a clever man, friend John. You reason well, and
your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not
let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is
Dracula
343 of 684
outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you
not think that there are things which you cannot
understand, and yet which are, that some people see things
that others cannot? But there are things old and new
which must not be contemplated by men’s eyes, because
they know, or think they know, some things which other
men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that
it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says
there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us
every day the growth of new beliefs, which think
themselves new, and which are yet but the old, which
pretend to be young, like the fine ladies at the opera. I
suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference.
No? Nor in materialization. No? Nor in astral bodies. No?
Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism …’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Charcot has proved that pretty well.’
He smiled as he went on, ‘Then you are satisfied as to
it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act,
and can follow the mind of the great Charcot, alas that he
is no more, into the very soul of the patient that he
influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you
simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to
conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell me, for I am a
student of the brain, how you accept hypnotism and reject
Dracula
344 of 684
the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there
are things done today in electrical science which would
have been deemed unholy by the very man who
discovered electricity, who would themselves not so long
before been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries
in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred
years, and ‘Old Parr’ one hundred and sixty-nine, and yet
that poor Lucy, with four men’s blood in her poor veins,
could not live even one day? For, had she live one more
day, we could save her. Do you know all the mystery of
life and death? Do you know the altogether of
comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the qualities
of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can you tell
me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one
great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old
Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he
could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can you tell
me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats
that come out at night and open the veins of cattle and
horses and suck dry their veins, how in some islands of the
Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all
day, and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or
pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because
that it is hot, flit down on them and then, and then in the
Dracula
345 of 684
morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy
was?’
‘Good God, Professor!’ I said, starting up. ‘Do you
mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat, and
that such a thing is here in London in the nineteenth
century?’
He waved his hand for silence, and went on, ‘Can you
tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations
of men, why the elephant goes on and on till he have sees
dynasties, and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat
of dog or other complaint? Can you tell me why men
believe in all ages and places that there are men and
women who cannot die? We all know, because science
has vouched for the fact, that there have been toads shut
up in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small
hole that only hold him since the youth of the world. Can
you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die
and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed
on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped
and cut again, and then men come and take away the
unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead,
but that rise up and walk amongst them as before?’
Here I interrupted him. I was getting bewildered. He
so crowded on my mind his list of nature’s eccentricities
Dracula
346 of 684
and possible impossibilities that my imagination was
getting fired. I had a dim idea that he was teaching me
some lesson, as long ago he used to do in his study at
Amsterdam. But he used them to tell me the thing, so that
I could have the object of thought in mind all the time.
But now I was without his help, yet I wanted to follow
him, so I said,
‘Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me
the thesis, so that I may apply your knowledge as you go
on. At present I am going in my mind from point to point
as a madman, and not a sane one, follows an idea. I feel
like a novice lumbering through a bog in a midst, jumping
from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to
move on without knowing where I am going.’
‘That is a good image,’ he said. ‘Well, I shall tell you.
My thesis is this, I want you to believe.’
‘To believe what?’
‘To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate.
I heard once of an American who so defined faith, ‘that
faculty which enables us to believe things which we know
to be untrue.’ For one, I follow that man. He meant that
we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth
check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a
railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep
Dracula
347 of 684
him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let
him think himself all the truth in the universe.’
‘Then you want me not to let some previous
conviction inure the receptivity of my mind with regard
to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson aright?’
‘Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth to
teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you
have taken the first step to understand. You think then
that those so small holes in the children’s throats were
made by the same that made the holes in Miss Lucy?’
‘I suppose so.’
He stood up and said solemnly, ‘Then you are wrong.
Oh, would it were so! But alas! No. It is worse, far, far
worse.’
‘In God’s name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you
mean?’ I cried.
He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair,
and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with
his hands as he spoke.
‘They were made by Miss Lucy!’
Dracula
348 of 684
Chapter 15
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY-cont.
For a while sheer anger mastered me. It was as if he had
during her life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table
hard and rose up as I said to him, ‘Dr. Van Helsing, are
you mad?’
He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the
tenderness of his face calmed me at once. ‘Would I were!’
he said. ‘Madness were easy to bear compared with truth
like this. Oh, my friend, why, think you, did I go so far
round, why take so long to tell so simple a thing? Was it
because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was it
because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted,
now so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life,
and from a fearful death? Ah no!’
‘Forgive me,’ said I.
He went on, ‘My friend, it was because I wished to be
gentle in the breaking to you, for I know you have loved
that so sweet lady. But even yet I do not expect you to
believe. It is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth,
that we may doubt such to be possible when we have
always believed the ‘no’ of it. It is more hard still to accept
Dracula
349 of 684
so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss Lucy.
Tonight I go to prove it. Dare you come with me?’
This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a
truth, Byron excepted from the category, jealousy.
‘And prove the very truth he most abhorred.’
He saw my hesitation, and spoke, ‘The logic is simple,
no madman’s logic this time, jumping from tussock to
tussock in a misty bog. If it not be true, then proof will be
relief. At worst it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is
the dread. Yet every dread should help my cause, for in it
is some need of belief. Come, I tell you what I propose.
First, that we go off now and see that child in the hospital.
Dr. Vincent, of the North Hospital, where the papers say
the child is, is a friend of mine, and I think of yours since
you were in class at Amsterdam. He will let two scientists
see his case, if he will not let two friends. We shall tell him
nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then …’
‘And then?’
He took a key from his pocket and held it up. ‘And
then we spend the night, you and I, in the churchyard
where Lucy lies. This is the key that lock the tomb. I had
it from the coffin man to give to Arthur.’
My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some
fearful ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I
Dracula
350 of 684
plucked up what heart I could and said that we had better
hasten, as the afternoon was passing.
We found the child awake. It had had a sleep and taken
some food, and altogether was going on well. Dr, Vincent
took the bandage from its throat, and showed us the
punctures. There was no mistaking the similarity to those
which had been on Lucy’s throat. They were smaller, and
the edges looked fresher, that was all. We asked Vincent
to what he attributed them, and he replied that it must
have been a bite of some animal, perhaps a rat, but for his
own part, he was inclined to think it was one of the bats
which are so numerous on the northern heights of
London. ‘Out of so many harmless ones,’ he said, ‘there
may be some wild specimen from the South of a more
malignant species. Some sailor may have brought one
home, and it managed to escape, or even from the
Zoological Gardens a young one may have got loose, or
one be bred there from a vampire. These things do occur,
you, know. Only ten days ago a wolf got out, and was, I
believe, traced up in this direction. For a week after, the
children were playing nothing but Red Riding Hood on
the Heath and in every alley in the place until this ‘bloofer
lady’ scare came along, since then it has been quite a gala
time with them. Even this poor little mite, when he woke
Dracula
351 of 684
up today, asked the nurse if he might go away. When she
asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted to play
with the ‘bloofer lady’.’
‘I hope,’ said Van Helsing, ‘that when you are sending
the child home you will caution its parents to keep strict
watch over it. These fancies to stray are most dangerous,
and if the child were to remain out another night, it
would probably be fatal. But in any case I suppose you
will not let it away for some days?’
‘Certainly not, not for a week at least, longer if the
wound is not healed.’
Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had
reckoned on, and the sun had dipped before we came out.
When Van Helsing saw how dark it was, he said,
‘There is not hurry. It is more late than I thought.
Come, let us seek somewhere that we may eat, and then
we shall go on our way.’
We dined at ‘Jack Straw’s Castle’ along with a little
crowd of bicyclists and others who were genially noisy.
About ten o’clock we started from the inn. It was then
very dark, and the scattered lamps made the darkness
greater when we were once outside their individual radius.
The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to
go, for he went on unhesitatingly, but, as for me, I was in
eBook brought to you by
Create, view, and edit PDF. Download the free trial version.
Dracula
352 of 684
quite a mixup as to locality. As we went further, we met
fewer and fewer people, till at last we were somewhat
surprised when we met even the patrol of horse police
going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the
wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With
some little difficulty, for it was very dark, and the whole
place seemed so strange to us, we found the Westenra
tomb. The Professor took the key, opened the creaky
door, and standing back, politely, but quite unconsciously,
motioned me to precede him. There was a delicious irony
in the offer, in the courtliness of giving preference on such
a ghastly occasion. My companion followed me quickly,
and cautiously drew the door to, after carefully
ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a spring
one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight.
Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox
and a piece of candle, proceeded to make a light. The
tomb in the daytime, and when wreathed with fresh
flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough, but now,
some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and
dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to
browns, when the spider and the beetle had resumed their
accustomed dominance, when the time-discoloured stone,
and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and
Dracula
353 of 684
tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the
feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable
and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed
irresistibly the idea that life, animal life, was not the only
thing which could pass away.
Van Helsing went about his work systematically.
Holding his candle so that he could read the coffin plates,
and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches
which congealed as they touched the metal, he made
assurance of Lucy’s coffin. Another search in his bag, and
he took out a turnscrew.
‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.
‘To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced.’
Straightway he began taking out the screws, and finally
lifted off the lid, showing the casing of lead beneath. The
sight was almost too much for me. It seemed to be as
much an affront to the dead as it would have been to have
stripped off her clothing in her sleep whilst living. I
actually took hold of his hand to stop him.
He only said, ‘You shall see, ‘and again fumbling in his
bag took out a tiny fret saw. Striking the turnscrew
through the lead with a swift downward stab, which made
me wince, he made a small hole, which was, however, big
enough to admit the point of the saw. I had expected a
Dracula
354 of 684
rush of gas from the week-old corpse. We doctors, who
have had to study our dangers, have to become
accustomed to such things, and I drew back towards the
door. But the Professor never stopped for a moment. He
sawed down a couple of feet along one side of the lead
coffin, and then across, and down the other side. Taking
the edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the
foot of the coffin, and holding up the candle into the
aperture, motioned to me to look.
I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty. It was
certainly a surprise to me, and gave me a considerable
shock, but Van Helsing was unmoved. He was now more
sure than ever of his ground, and so emboldened to
proceed in his task. ‘Are you satisfied now, friend John?’
he asked.
I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature
awake within me as I answered him, ‘I am satisfied that
Lucy’s body is not in that coffin, but that only proves one
thing.’
‘And what is that, friend John?’
‘That it is not there.’
‘That is good logic,’ he said, ‘so far as it goes. But how
do you, how can you, account for it not being there?’
Dracula
355 of 684
‘Perhaps a body-snatcher,’ I suggested. ‘Some of the
undertaker’s people may have stolen it.’ I felt that I was
speaking folly, and yet it was the only real cause which I
could suggest.
The Professor sighed. ‘Ah well!’ he said,’ we must have
more proof. Come with me.’
He put on the coffin lid again, gathered up all his things
and placed them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed
the candle also in the bag. We opened the door, and went
out. Behind us he closed the door and locked it. He
handed me the key, saying, ‘Will you keep it? You had
better be assured.’
I laughed, it was not a very cheerful laugh, I am bound
to say, as I motioned him to keep it. ‘A key is nothing,’ I
said, ‘there are many duplicates, and anyhow it is not
difficult to pick a lock of this kind.’
He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then
he told me to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst
he would watch at the other.
I took up my place behind a yew tree, and I saw his
dark figure move until the intervening headstones and
trees hid it from my sight.
It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place I
heard a distant clock strike twelve, and in time came one
Dracula
356 of 684
and two. I was chilled and unnerved, and angry with the
Professor for taking me on such an errand and with myself
for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to be keenly
observant, and not sleepy enough to betray my trust, so
altogether I had a dreary, miserable time.
Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something
like a white streak, moving between two dark yew trees at
the side of the churchyard farthest from the tomb. At the
same time a dark mass moved from the Professor’s side of
the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I too
moved, but I had to go round headstones and railed-off
tombs, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast,
and somewhere far off an early cock crew. A little ways
off, beyond a line of scattered juniper trees, which marked
the pathway to the church, a white dim figure flitted in
the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden by
trees, and I could not see where the figure had
disappeared. I heard the rustle of actual movement where I
had first seen the white figure, and coming over, found
the Professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When he
saw me he held it out to me, and said, ‘Are you satisfied
now?’
‘No,’ I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive.
‘Do you not see the child?’
Dracula
357 of 684
‘Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it
wounded?’
‘We shall see,’ said the Professor, and with one impulse
we took our way out of the churchyard, he carrying the
sleeping child.
When we had got some little distance away, we went
into a clump of trees, and struck a match, and looked at
the child’s throat. It was without a scratch or scar of any
kind.
‘Was I right?’ I asked triumphantly.
‘We were just in time,’ said the Professor thankfully.
We had now to decide what we were to do with the
child, and so consulted about it. If we were to take it to a
police station we should have to give some account of our
movements during the night. At least, we should have had
to make some statement as to how we had come to find
the child. So finally we decided that we would take it to
the Heath, and when we heard a policeman coming,
would leave it where he could not fail to find it. We
would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All
fell out well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a
policeman’s heavy tramp, and laying the child on the
pathway, we waited and watched until he saw it as he
flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation of
Dracula
358 of 684
astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good
chance we got a cab near the ‘Spainiards,’ and drove to
town.
I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to
get a few hours’ sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at
noon. He insists that I go with him on another expedition.
27 September.—It was two o’clock before we found a
suitable opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at
noon was all completed, and the last stragglers of the
mourners had taken themselves lazily away, when, looking
carefully from behind a clump of alder trees, we saw the
sexton lock the gate after him. We knew that we were safe
till morning did we desire it, but the Professor told me
that we should not want more than an hour at most.
Again I felt that horrid sense of the reality of things, in
which any effort of imagination seemed out of place, and I
realized distinctly the perils of the law which we were
incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all
so useless. Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to
see if a woman dead nearly a week were really dead, it
now seemed the height of folly to open the tomb again,
when we knew, from the evidence of our own eyesight,
that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders,
however, and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of
Dracula
359 of 684
going on his own road, no matter who remonstrated. He
took the key, opened the vault, and again courteously
motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesome
as last night, but oh, how unutterably mean looking when
the sunshine streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to
Lucy’s coffin, and I followed. He bent over and again
forced back the leaden flange, and a shock of surprise and
dismay shot through me.
There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the
night before her funeral. She was, if possible, more
radiantly beautiful than ever, and I could not believe that
she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than before,
and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom.
‘Is this a juggle?’ I said to him.
‘Are you convinced now?’ said the Professor, in
response, and as he spoke he put over his hand, and in a
way that made me shudder, pulled back the dead lips and
showed the white teeth. ‘See,’ he went on, ‘they are even
sharper than before. With this and this,’ and he touched
one of the canine teeth and that below it, ‘the little
children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend
John?’
Once more argumentative hostility woke within me. I
could not accept such an overwhelming idea as he
Dracula
360 of 684
suggested. So, with an attempt to argue of which I was
even at the moment ashamed, I said, ‘She may have been
placed here since last night.’
‘Indeed? That is so, and by whom?’
‘I do not know. Someone has done it.’
‘And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in
that time would not look so.’
I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did
not seem to notice my silence. At any rate, he showed
neither chagrin nor triumph. He was looking intently at
the face of the dead woman, raising the eyelids and
looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and
examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said,
‘Here, there is one thing which is different from all
recorded. Here is some dual life that is not as the
common. She was bitten by the vampire when she was in
a trance, sleep-walking, oh, you start. You do not know
that, friend John, but you shall know it later, and in trance
could he best come to take more blood. In trance she dies,
and in trance she is UnDead, too. So it is that she differ
from all other. Usually when the UnDead sleep at home,’
as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to
designate what to a vampire was ‘home’, ‘their face show
what they are, but this so sweet that was when she not
Dracula
361 of 684
UnDead she go back to the nothings of the common
dead. There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard
that I must kill her in her sleep.’
This turned my blood cold, and it began to dawn upon
me that I was accepting Van Helsing’s theories. But if she
were really dead, what was there of terror in the idea of
killing her?
He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in
my face, for he said almost joyously, ‘Ah, you believe
now?’
I answered, ‘Do not press me too hard all at once. I am
willing to accept. How will you do this bloody work?’
‘I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic,
and I shall drive a stake through her body.’
It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body
of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was
not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to
shudder at the presence of this being, this UnDead, as Van
Helsing called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is
all subjective, or all objective?
I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin,
but he stood as if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed
the catch of his bag with a snap, and said,
Dracula
362 of 684
‘I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as
to what is best. If I did simply follow my inclining I would
do now, at this moment, what is to be done. But there are
other things to follow, and things that are thousand times
more difficult in that them we do not know. This is
simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time,
and to act now would be to take danger from her forever.
But then we may have to want Arthur, and how shall we
tell him of this? If you, who saw the wounds on Lucy’s
throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the child’s at the
hospital, if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and
full today with a woman who have not change only to be
more rose and more beautiful in a whole week, after she
die, if you know of this and know of the white figure last
night that brought the child to the churchyard, and yet of
your own senses you did not believe, how then, can I
expect Arthur, who know none of those things, to
believe?
‘He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when
she was dying. I know he has forgiven me because in
some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him
say goodbye as he ought, and he may think that in some
more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive, and that
in most mistake of all we have killed her. He will then
Dracula
363 of 684
argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, that have killed
her by our ideas, and so he will be much unhappy always.
Yet he never can be sure, and that is the worst of all. And
he will sometimes think that she he loved was buried
alive, and that will paint his dreams with horrors of what
she must have suffered, and again, he will think that we
may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all, an
UnDead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn
much. Now, since I know it is all true, a hundred
thousand times more do I know that he must pass through
the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow, must
have one hour that will make the very face of heaven
grow black to him, then we can act for good all round and
send him peace. My mind is made up. Let us go. You
return home for tonight to your asylum, and see that all be
well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this
churchyard in my own way. Tomorrow night you will
come to me to the Berkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I
shall send for Arthur to come too, and also that so fine
young man of America that gave his blood. Later we shall
all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly
and there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set.’
eBook brought to you by
Create, view, and edit PDF. Download the free trial version.
Dracula
364 of 684
So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over
the wall of the churchyard, which was not much of a task,
and drove back to Piccadilly.
NOTE LEFT BY VAN HELSING IN HIS
PORTMANTEAU, BERKELEY HOTEL DIRECTED
TO JOHN SEWARD, M. D. (Not Delivered)
27 September
‘Friend John,
‘I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone
to watch in that churchyard. It pleases me that the
UnDead, Miss Lucy, shall not leave tonight, that so on the
morrow night she may be more eager. Therefore I shall fix
some things she like not, garlic and a crucifix, and so seal
up the door of the tomb. She is young as UnDead, and
will heed. Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming
out. They may not prevail on her wanting to get in, for
then the UnDead is desperate, and must find the line of
least resistance, whatsoever it may be. I shall be at hand all
the night from sunset till after sunrise, and if there be
aught that may be learned I shall learn it. For Miss Lucy or
from her, I have no fear, but that other to whom is there
that she is UnDead, he have not the power to seek her
tomb and find shelter. He is cunning, as I know from Mr.
Jonathan and from the way that all along he have fooled us
Dracula
365 of 684
when he played with us for Miss Lucy’s life, and we lost,
and in many ways the UnDead are strong. He have always
the strength in his hand of twenty men, even we four who
gave our strength to Miss Lucy it also is all to him.
Besides, he can summon his wolf and I know not what. So
if it be that he came thither on this night he shall find me.
But none other shall, until it be too late. But it may be
that he will not attempt the place. There is no reason why
he should. His hunting ground is more full of game than
the churchyard where the UnDead woman sleeps, and the
one old man watch.
‘Therefore I write this in case … Take the papers that
are with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read
them, and then find this great UnDead, and cut off his
head and burn his heart or drive a stake through it, so that
the world may rest from him.
‘If it be so, farewell.
‘VAN HELSING.’
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY
28 September.—It is wonderful what a good night’s
sleep will do for one. Yesterday I was almost willing to
accept Van Helsing’s monstrous ideas, but now they seem
to start out lurid before me as outrages on common sense.
I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his
Dracula
366 of 684
mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely there
must be some rational explanation of all these mysterious
things. Is it possible that the Professor can have done it
himself? He is so abnormally clever that if he went off his
head he would carry out his intent with regard to some
fixed idea in a wonderful way. I am loathe to think it, and
indeed it would be almost as great a marvel as the other to
find that Van Helsing was mad, but anyhow I shall watch
him carefully. I may get some light on the mystery.
29 September.—Last night, at a little before ten
o’clock, Arthur and Quincey came into Van Helsing’s
room. He told us all what he wanted us to do, but
especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all our wills
were centred in his. He began by saying that he hoped we
would all come with him too, ‘for,’ he said, ‘there is a
grave duty to be done there. You were doubtless surprised
at my letter?’ This query was directly addressed to Lord
Godalming.
‘I was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so
much trouble around my house of late that I could do
without any more. I have been curious, too, as to what
you mean.
Dracula
367 of 684
‘Quincey and I talked it over, but the more we talked,
the more puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself that
I’m about up a tree as to any meaning about anything.’
‘Me too,’ said Quincey Morris laconically.
‘Oh,’ said the Professor, ‘then you are nearer the
beginning, both of you, than friend John here, who has to
go a long way back before he can even get so far as to
begin.’
It was evident that he recognized my return to my old
doubting frame of mind without my saying a word. Then,
turning to the other two, he said with intense gravity,
‘I want your permission to do what I think good this
night. It is, I know, much to ask, and when you know
what it is I propose to do you will know, and only then
how much. Therefore may I ask that you promise me in
the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry
with me for a time, I must not disguise from myself the
possibility that such may be, you shall not blame
yourselves for anything.’
‘That’s frank anyhow,’ broke in Quincey. ‘I’ll answer
for the Professor. I don’t quite see his drift, but I swear
he’s honest, and that’s good enough for me.’
‘I thank you, Sir,’ said Van Helsing proudly. ‘I have
done myself the honour of counting you one trusting
Dracula
368 of 684
friend, and such endorsement is dear to me.’ He held out a
hand, which Quincey took.
Then Arthur spoke out, ‘Dr. Van Helsing, I don’t quite
like to ‘buy a pig in a poke’, as they say in Scotland, and if
it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman or my
faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a
promise. If you can assure me that what you intend does
not violate either of these two, then I give my consent at
once, though for the life of me, I cannot understand what
you are driving at.’
‘I accept your limitation,’ said Van Helsing, ‘and all I
ask of you is that if you feel it necessary to condemn any
act of mine, you will first consider it well and be satisfied
that it does not violate your reservations.’
‘Agreed!’ said Arthur. ‘That is only fair. And now that
the pourparlers are over, may I ask what it is we are to
do?’
‘I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to
the churchyard at Kingstead.’
Arthur’s face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way,
‘Where poor Lucy is buried?’
The Professor bowed.
Arthur went on, ‘And when there?’
‘To enter the tomb!’
Dracula
369 of 684
Arthur stood up. ‘Professor, are you in earnest, or is it
some monstrous joke? Pardon me, I see that you are in
earnest.’ He sat down again, but I could see that he sat
firmly and proudly, as one who is on his dignity. There
was silence until he asked again, ‘And when in the tomb?’
‘To open the coffin.’
‘This is too much!’ he said, angrily rising again. ‘I am
willing to be patient in all things that are reasonable, but in
this, this desecration of the grave, of one who …’ He
fairly choked with indignation.
The Professor looked pityingly at him. ‘If I could spare
you one pang, my poor friend,’ he said, ‘God knows I
would. But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths,
or later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths
of flame!’
Arthur looked up with set white face and said, ‘Take
care, sir, take care!’
‘Would it not be well to hear what I have to say?’ said
Van Helsing. ‘And then you will at least know the limit of
my purpose. Shall I go on?’
‘That’s fair enough,’ broke in Morris.
After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an
effort, ‘Miss Lucy is dead, is it not so? Yes! Then there can
be no wrong to her. But if she be not dead …’
Dracula
370 of 684
Arthur jumped to his feet, ‘Good God!’ he cried.
‘What do you mean? Has there been any mistake, has she
been buried alive?’ He groaned in anguish that not even
hope could soften.
‘I did not say she was alive, my child. I did not think it.
I go no further than to say that she might be UnDead.’
‘UnDead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a
nightmare, or what is it?’
‘There are mysteries which men can only guess at,
which age by age they may solve only in part. Believe me,
we are now on the verge of one. But I have not done.
May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?’
‘Heavens and earth, no!’ cried Arthur in a storm of
passion. ‘Not for the wide world will I consent to any
mutilation of her dead body. Dr. Van Helsing, you try me
too far. What have I done to you that you should torture
me so? What did that poor, sweet girl do that you should
want to cast such dishonour on her grave? Are you mad,
that you speak of such things, or am I mad to listen to
them? Don’t dare think more of such a desecration. I shall
not give my consent to anything you do. I have a duty to
do in protecting her grave from outrage, and by God, I
shall do it!’
Dracula
371 of 684
Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time
been seated, and said, gravely and sternly, ‘My Lord
Godalming, I too, have a duty to do, a duty to others, a
duty to you, a duty to the dead, and by God, I shall do it!
All I ask you now is that you come with me, that you
look and listen, and if when later I make the same request
you do not be more eager for its fulfillment even than I
am, then, I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me.
And then, to follow your Lordship’s wishes I shall hold
myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when
and where you will.’ His voice broke a little, and he went
on with a voice full of pity.
‘But I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me.
In a long life of acts which were often not pleasant to do,
and which sometimes did wring my heart, I have never
had so heavy a task as now. Believe me that if the time
comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look
from you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would
do what a man can to save you from sorrow. Just think.
For why should I give myself so much labor and so much
of sorrow? I have come here from my own land to do
what I can of good, at the first to please my friend John,
and then to help a sweet young lady, whom too, I come
to love. For her, I am ashamed to say so much, but I say it
Dracula
372 of 684
in kindness, I gave what you gave, the blood of my veins.
I gave it, I who was not, like you, her lover, but only her
physician and her friend. I gave her my nights and days,
before death, after death, and if my death can do her good
even now, when she is the dead UnDead, she shall have it
freely.’ He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and
Arthur was much affected by it.
He took the old man’s hand and said in a broken voice,
‘Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand, but
at least I shall go with you and wait.’
Dracula
373 of 684
Chapter 16
DR SEWARD’S DIARY-cont.
It was just a quarter before twelve o’clock when we got
into the churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark
with occasional gleams of moonlight between the dents of
the heavy clouds that scudded across the sky. We all kept
somehow close together, with Van Helsing slightly in
front as he led the way. When we had come close to the
tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared the proximity to
a place laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset
him, but he bore himself well. I took it that the very
mystery of the proceeding was in some way a
counteractant to his grief. The Professor unlocked the
door, and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for
various reasons, solved the difficulty by entering first
himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door.
He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to a coffin. Arthur
stepped forward hesitatingly. Van Helsing said to me,
‘You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss
Lucy in that coffin?’
‘It was.’
Dracula
374 of 684
The Professor turned to the rest saying, ‘You hear, and
yet there is no one who does not believe with me.’
He took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of
the coffin. Arthur looked on, very pale but silent. When
the lid was removed he stepped forward. He evidently did
not know that there was a leaden coffin, or at any rate,
had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead,
the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly
fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness.
He was still silent. Van Helsing forced back the leaden
flange, and we all looked in and recoiled.
The coffin was empty!
For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence
was broken by Quincey Morris, ‘Professor, I answered for
you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn’t ask such a thing
ordinarily, I wouldn’t so dishonour you as to imply a
doubt, but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour
or dishonour. Is this your doing?’
‘I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not
removed or touched her. What happened was this. Two
nights ago my friend Seward and I came here, with good
purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which was then
sealed up, and we found it as now, empty. We then
waited, and saw something white come through the trees.
Dracula
375 of 684
The next day we came here in daytime and she lay there.
Did she not, friend John?
‘Yes.’
‘That night we were just in time. One more so small
child was missing, and we find it, thank God, unharmed
amongst the graves. Yesterday I came here before
sundown, for at sundown the UnDead can move. I waited
here all night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was
most probable that it was because I had laid over the
clamps of those doors garlic, which the UnDead cannot
bear, and other things which they shun. Last night there
was no exodus, so tonight before the sundown I took
away my garlic and other things. And so it is we find this
coffin empty. But bear with me. So far there is much that
is strange. Wait you with me outside, unseen and unheard,
and things much stranger are yet to be. So,’ here he shut
the dark slide of his lantern, ‘now to the outside.’ He
opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and
locking the door behind him.
Oh! But it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after
the terror of that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds
race by, and the passing gleams of the moonlight between
the scudding clouds crossing and passing, like the gladness
and sorrow of a man’s life. How sweet it was to breathe
eBook brought to you by
Create, view, and edit PDF. Download the free trial version.
Dracula
376 of 684
the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay. How
humanizing to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the
hill, and to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the
life of a great city. Each in his own way was solemn and
overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I could see, striving
to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the
mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined
again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing’s
conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of
a man who accepts all things, and accepts them in the
spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has at stake.
Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug
of tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was
employed in a definite way. First he took from his bag a
mass of what looked like thin, wafer-like biscuit, which
was carefully rolled up in a white napkin. Next he took
out a double handful of some whitish stuff, like dough or
putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into
the mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling
it into thin strips, began to lay them into the crevices
between the door and its setting in the tomb. I was
somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what
it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near
also, as they too were curious.
Dracula
No comments:
Post a Comment