# Dracula (B1 edition)

*Bram Stoker*

## Chapter I: Jonathan Harker’s Journal

(*Kept in shorthand.*)

*3 May. Bistritz.*—I left Munich at 8:35 p.m. on 1st May. I arrived in Vienna early the next morning. The train should have arrived at 6:46, but it was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place. I only saw a little of it from the train, and I walked through a few of its streets. I was afraid to go very far from the station. We had arrived late, and the train would leave as close to the correct time as possible. I had the feeling that we were leaving the West and entering the East. We crossed the Danube on the most western of its splendid bridges. Here the river is very wide and deep. The bridge took us into lands with the old traditions of Turkish rule.

We left quite on time, and after dark we came to Klausenburgh. Here I stayed for the night at the Hotel Royale. For dinner, or rather supper, I had chicken cooked in some way with red pepper. It was very good, but it made me thirsty. (*Mem.*, get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter about it. He said it was called “paprika hendl.” It was a national dish, he said, so I could get it anywhere in the Carpathians. My little bit of German was very useful here. In fact, I don’t know how I could manage without it.

When I was in London, I had some free time. So I visited the British Museum and searched the books and maps in the library about Transylvania. I thought that some knowledge of the country would surely be important. After all, I had business with a nobleman from there. I find that the district he named is in the far east of the country. It lies just on the borders of three states: Transylvania, Moldavia and Bukovina. It is in the middle of the Carpathian mountains, one of the wildest and least known parts of Europe. I could not find any map or book that showed exactly where Castle Dracula is. This country has no maps yet as good as our own Ordnance Survey maps. But I found that Bistritz is a fairly well-known place. It is the post town that Count Dracula named. I shall write some of my notes here. They may help me remember things when I talk about my travels with Mina.

There are four different nationalities among the people of Transylvania. There are Saxons in the South, and mixed with them are the Wallachs, who come from the old Dacians. There are Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the Szekelys. They say that they come from Attila and the Huns. This may be true. When the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century, they found the Huns already living there. I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered in the horseshoe of the Carpathians. It is as if this place were the centre of some kind of whirlpool of the imagination. If so, my stay may be very interesting. (*Mem.*, I must ask the Count all about them.)

I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough. I had all sorts of strange dreams. A dog was howling all night under my window, and that may have been the reason. Or it may have been the paprika. I had to drink all the water in my carafe, and I was still thirsty. Towards morning I fell asleep. Then someone kept knocking at my door and woke me, so I must have been sleeping deeply by then. For breakfast I had more paprika and a kind of porridge made of maize flour. They said it was called “mamaliga.” I also had egg-plant filled with chopped meat, a very good dish, which they call “impletata.” (*Mem.*, get recipe for this also.) I had to hurry my breakfast, because the train left a little before eight. Or rather, it should have left then. I rushed to the station at 7:30, but then I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we started. It seems to me that the further east you go, the less punctual the trains are. What must they be like in China?

All day long we seemed to move slowly through a country full of every kind of beauty. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the tops of steep hills, like the pictures in old prayer books. Sometimes we ran beside rivers and streams. They had wide, stony edges on each side, so I think they often flood. It takes a lot of strong, fast water to sweep the edge of a river clear. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, in all sorts of clothes. Some of them were just like the farm people at home, or those I saw in France and Germany. They had short jackets, round hats and home-made trousers. But others were very colourful and interesting to look at. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them. But they were very thick and clumsy around the waist. They all had full white sleeves of some kind. Most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of cloth flying from them, like ballet dresses. But of course they wore petticoats under them. The strangest people we saw were the Slovaks. They seemed wilder than the rest. They had big cow-boy hats and great baggy trousers of a dirty white. They wore white linen shirts and enormous heavy leather belts. The belts were nearly a foot wide and covered with brass nails. They wore high boots with their trousers pushed into them. They had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very colourful, but they do not look pleasant. On the stage, people would think at once that they were an old Eastern band of robbers. But I am told that they are very harmless. In fact, they are rather shy and do not push themselves forward.

It was nearly dark when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place. It is almost on the frontier, because the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina. So it has had a very stormy history, and it certainly shows the marks of it. Fifty years ago there was a series of great fires. They did terrible damage five separate times. At the very start of the seventeenth century, enemies surrounded the town for three weeks. It lost 13,000 people. People died in the fighting itself, and also from hunger and disease.

Count Dracula had told me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel. To my great delight, I found that it was completely old-fashioned. Of course, I wanted to see as much as I could of the ways of the country. They were clearly expecting me. When I got near the door, I met a cheerful-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress. She wore a white underdress with a long double apron of coloured cloth, in front and at the back. It fitted almost too tightly to be modest. When I came close, she bowed and said, “The Herr Englishman?”

“Yes,” I said, “Jonathan Harker.”

She smiled and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirt-sleeves, who had followed her to the door. He went away, but came back at once with a letter:

“My Friend.—Welcome to the Carpathians. I am waiting eagerly for you. Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will wait for you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one. I trust also that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.

“Your friend,

“Dracula.”

*4 May.*—I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count. It told him to get the best place on the coach for me. But when I asked him for details, he did not want to talk. He pretended that he could not understand my German. This could not be true, because until then he had understood it perfectly. At least, he had answered my questions exactly as if he did. He and his wife, the old lady who had met me, looked at each other in a frightened way. He mumbled that the money had been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew. Then I asked him if he knew Count Dracula. Could he tell me anything about his castle? Both he and his wife crossed themselves. They said that they knew nothing at all, and they simply refused to say more. It was so near the time to leave that I had no time to ask anyone else. It was all very mysterious and not at all comforting.

Just before I left, the old lady came up to my room. She spoke in a very hysterical way:

“Must you go? Oh! young Herr, must you go?” She was so excited that she seemed to forget the little German she knew. She mixed it all up with some other language which I did not know at all. I could only follow her by asking many questions. I told her that I must go at once, and that I had important business. Then she asked again:

“Do you know what day it is?” I answered that it was the fourth of May. She shook her head and said again:

“Oh, yes! I know that! I know that, but do you know what day it is?” I said that I did not understand. She went on:

“It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full power? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?” She was so clearly upset that I tried to comfort her, but it did not help. At last she went down on her knees. She begged me not to go, or at least to wait a day or two before I started. It was all very silly, but I did not feel comfortable. However, I had business to do, and I could let nothing stop it. So I tried to lift her up. As seriously as I could, I said that I thanked her. But my duty was very important, and I must go. Then she stood up and dried her eyes. She took a crucifix from her neck and offered it to me. I did not know what to do. As an English Churchman, I have been taught that such things are partly a kind of idol worship. And yet it seemed so unkind to refuse. She was an old lady, she meant so well, and she was so upset. I suppose she saw the doubt in my face. She put the rosary round my neck and said, “For your mother’s sake.” Then she went out of the room. I am writing this part of the diary while I wait for the coach. It is, of course, late. The crucifix is still round my neck. Perhaps it is the old lady’s fear, or the many ghost stories of this place, or the crucifix itself. I do not know. But I do not feel nearly as calm in my mind as usual. If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring her my good-bye. Here comes the coach!

*5 May. The Castle.*—The grey of the morning has passed. The sun is high over the far horizon. The horizon looks jagged, but I do not know if that is trees or hills. It is so far away that big things and little things are mixed together. I am not sleepy. No one will call me until I wake, so of course I will write until sleep comes. There are many strange things to write down. Someone who reads them may think that I ate and drank too well before I left Bistritz. So let me write down my dinner exactly. I ate what they called “robber steak.” It was bits of bacon, onion and beef with red pepper. They were put on sticks and roasted over the fire, in the simple style of the cat’s meat sold in London! The wine was Golden Mediasch. It gives a strange sting on the tongue, but it is not unpleasant. I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else.

When I got on the coach, the driver was not yet in his seat. I saw him talking with the landlady. They were clearly talking about me, because every now and then they looked at me. Some people were sitting on the bench outside the door. They call it by a name that means “word-bearer.” These people came and listened, and then they looked at me, most of them with pity. I could hear many words repeated often. They were strange words, because there were many nationalities in the crowd. So I quietly took my dictionary of many languages from my bag and looked them up. I must say they did not cheer me. Among them were “Ordog”—Satan, “pokol”—hell, “stregoica”—witch, and “vrolok” and “vlkoslak.” These last two mean the same thing. One is Slovak and the other is Servian, for something that is either a were-wolf or a vampire. (*Mem.*, I must ask the Count about these superstitions.)

When we started, the crowd round the inn door had grown quite large. They all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers at me. With some difficulty I got a fellow-passenger to tell me what this meant. At first he would not answer. But when he learned that I was English, he explained. It was a charm, or a guard, against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for me. I was just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man. But everyone seemed so kind-hearted, so sad and so full of sympathy that I was touched. I shall never forget my last look at the inn-yard. The crowd of colourful figures stood round the wide archway, all crossing themselves. Behind them was the rich green of oleander and orange trees in green tubs in the middle of the yard. Then our driver cracked his big whip over his four small horses, which ran side by side. His wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the box-seat. They call them “gotza.” And so we set off on our journey.

As we drove along, I soon forgot my ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene. But if I had known the language, or rather languages, of my fellow-passengers, I might not have forgotten them so easily. In front of us lay a green, sloping land full of forests and woods. Here and there were steep hills, with groups of trees or farmhouses on top. The blank end walls of the farmhouses faced the road. Everywhere there was a confusing mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry. As we drove by, I could see the green grass under the trees covered with fallen petals. The road ran in and out among these green hills of what they call here the “Mittel Land.” Sometimes it was lost as it curved round the grass. Sometimes it was hidden by the ragged ends of pine woods. These woods ran down the hillsides here and there like tongues of flame. The road was rough, but we still seemed to fly over it with a feverish speed. I could not understand then the reason for the hurry. But the driver was clearly set on getting to Borgo Prund without losing any time. I was told that this road is excellent in summer. But it had not yet been repaired after the winter snows. In this way it is different from most roads in the Carpathians. There is an old tradition that they must not be kept in too good order. In old times the Hospadars would not repair them. They feared the Turk would think they were preparing to bring in foreign soldiers. That would make the war come sooner, and the war was always ready to break out.

Behind the green, rounded hills of the Mittel Land, great forest slopes rose up. They climbed to the high, steep sides of the Carpathians themselves. The mountains rose high on our right and left. The afternoon sun fell full on them and brought out all the wonderful colours of this beautiful range. There was deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks. There was green and brown where grass and rock mixed. There was an endless view of jagged rock and pointed crags. At last these were lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there were great cracks in the mountains. Through them, as the sun began to sink, we sometimes saw the white shine of falling water. We went round the bottom of a hill, and a high, snow-covered peak came into view. As we wound along our snake-like way, it seemed to be right in front of us. One of my companions touched my arm:

“Look! Isten szek!”—“God’s seat!”—and he crossed himself with deep respect.

As we wound along our endless way, the sun sank lower and lower behind us. The shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This seemed stronger because the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset. It seemed to glow with a delicate, cool pink. Here and there we passed Cszeks and Slovaks, all in colourful clothes. But I noticed, with pain, that very many of them had goitre. There were many crosses by the roadside, and as we passed, my companions all crossed themselves. Here and there a peasant man or woman knelt before a shrine. They did not even turn round as we came near. They seemed so lost in prayer that they had no eyes or ears for the outside world. There were many things new to me. For example, there were hay-ricks in the trees. Here and there were very beautiful groups of weeping birch trees. Their white trunks shone like silver through the delicate green of the leaves. Now and then we passed a leiter-wagon, the ordinary peasant’s cart. It had a long, snake-like backbone, made to follow the bumps of the road. On each one there was sure to be a group of peasants going home. The Cszeks had white sheepskins and the Slovaks had coloured ones. The Slovaks carried their long sticks like lances, with an axe at the end. As evening fell, it began to get very cold. In the growing twilight, the darkness of the trees—oak, beech and pine—seemed to melt into one dark mist. We climbed up through the Pass. In the deep valleys between the hills, dark firs stood out here and there. Behind them lay snow that had not yet melted.

Sometimes the road was cut through pine woods. In the darkness they seemed to close in on us. Great masses of greyness hung here and there on the trees. They gave a strange, weird and solemn feeling. This carried on the dark thoughts and fancies of earlier in the evening. Then the setting sun had shone strangely on the ghost-like clouds. Among the Carpathians, these clouds seem to wind through the valleys without end. Sometimes the hills were so steep that the horses could only go slowly, though our driver was in a hurry. I wanted to get down and walk up them, as we do at home. But the driver would not allow it.

“No, no,” he said; “you must not walk here; the dogs are too fierce.” Then he added something that he clearly meant as a grim joke. He looked round to see the others smile and approve. “And you may have enough of such matters before you go to sleep.” The only stop he would make was a short pause to light his lamps.

When it grew dark, the passengers seemed to get excited. They kept speaking to the driver, one after the other, as if they wanted him to go faster. He whipped the horses hard and without mercy with his long whip. With wild cries he urged them on to greater effort. Then through the darkness I could see a sort of patch of grey light ahead of us. It looked like a gap in the hills. The passengers grew more excited. The crazy coach rocked on its great leather springs. It swayed like a boat thrown about on a stormy sea. I had to hold on. The road grew more level, and we seemed to fly along. Then the mountains seemed to come closer on each side and to frown down on us. We were entering the Borgo Pass. One by one, several of the passengers offered me gifts. They pressed them on me so seriously that I could not refuse. The gifts were certainly strange and of many kinds. But each was given in simple good faith, with a kind word and a blessing. Each person also made that strange mixture of fearful signs which I had seen outside the hotel at Bistritz. It was the sign of the cross and the guard against the evil eye. Then, as we flew along, the driver leaned forward. On each side the passengers leaned over the edge of the coach and looked eagerly into the darkness. Clearly something very exciting was happening, or they expected something. I asked each passenger, but no one would give me the smallest explanation. This excitement went on for some time. At last we saw the Pass opening out in front of us on the eastern side. There were dark, rolling clouds above us. The air felt heavy and close, as if there would be thunder. It seemed as if the mountains had separated two kinds of air, and now we had come into the stormy one. I was now looking out myself for the carriage that would take me to the Count. Every moment I expected to see the bright light of lamps through the blackness. But all was dark. The only light came from the flickering rays of our own lamps. In their light, the steam from our hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud. We could now see the sandy road lying white in front of us. But there was no sign of a carriage on it. The passengers sat back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to laugh at my own disappointment. I was already thinking about what I should do. Then the driver looked at his watch and said something to the others. He spoke so quietly and in such a low voice that I could hardly hear. I thought it was “An hour less than the time.” Then he turned to me and spoke in German worse than my own:

“There is no carriage here. The Herr is not expected after all. He will now come on to Bukovina, and return tomorrow or the next day; better the next day.” While he was speaking, the horses began to neigh and snort and jump about wildly. The driver had to hold them back. Then the peasants all screamed and crossed themselves. A calèche with four horses drove up behind us, passed us, and stopped beside the coach. In the flash of our lamps I could see that the horses were coal-black, splendid animals. They were driven by a tall man with a long brown beard and a great black hat. The hat seemed to hide his face from us. I could only see the shine of a pair of very bright eyes. They 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.”

The stranger answered:

“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. 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 a line from Burger’s poem “Lenore”:

“Denn die Todten reiten schnell”— (“For the dead travel fast.”)

The strange driver clearly heard the words, because he looked up with a shining smile. The passenger turned his face away. At the same time he put out his two fingers and crossed himself.

“Give me the Herr’s luggage,” said the driver. Very quickly my bags were handed out and put in the calèche. Then I climbed down from the side of the coach, as the calèche was close beside it. The driver helped me. His hand caught my arm in a grip of steel. He must have been enormously strong. Without a word he shook his reins, the horses turned, and we rushed into the darkness of the Pass. I looked back. By the light of the lamps I saw the steam from the horses of the coach. Against it I saw the shapes of my recent companions, crossing themselves. Then their driver cracked his whip and called to his horses, and they rushed off on their way to Bukovina. As they disappeared into the darkness, I felt a strange chill. A lonely feeling came over me. But a cloak was thrown over my shoulders and a rug across my knees. The driver said in excellent German:

“The night is chill, mein Herr, and my master the Count told me to take all care of you. There is a flask of slivovitz (the plum brandy of the country) under the seat, if you should need it.” I did not take any, but it was a comfort to know it was there all the same. I felt a little strange, and quite frightened. I think that if there had been any other choice, I would have taken it. I would not have gone on that unknown night journey. The carriage went fast, straight ahead. Then we made a complete turn and went along another straight road. It seemed to me that we were simply going over the same ground again and again. So I noticed one particular point on the road, and found that this was true. I wanted to ask the driver what this all meant. But I was really afraid to do so. In my position, I thought, any protest would have no effect if he meant to delay. After a while, however, I wanted to know the time. I struck a match and looked at my watch by its flame. It was a few minutes before midnight. This gave me a sort of shock. I suppose the common superstition about midnight was stronger because of my recent experiences. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense.

Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road. It was a long, painful wailing, as if from fear. Another dog took up the sound, and then another and another. The wind now sighed softly through the Pass, and it carried a wild howling. The howling seemed to come from all over the country. It spread as far as the imagination could reach through the dark night. At the first howl the horses began to pull and rear up. But the driver spoke to them gently, and they became quiet. Still they shivered and sweated, as if they had run away in sudden fright. Then, far off, from the mountains on each side of us, came a louder and sharper howling. It was the howling of wolves. It affected the horses and me in the same way. I wanted to jump from the calèche and run. They reared again and jumped about madly. The driver had to use all his great strength to stop them from running away. In a few minutes, however, my ears got used to the sound. The horses became quiet enough for the driver to get down and stand in front of them. He petted and calmed them and whispered something in their ears. I have heard that horse-tamers do this. It had an extraordinary effect. Under his touch they became quite easy to control again, though they still trembled. The driver sat down in his seat again, shook his reins, and started off at a great speed. This time he went to the far side of the Pass. Then he suddenly turned down a narrow road which went off sharply to the right.

Soon we were closed in by trees. In places they made an arch right over the road, so we passed as if through a tunnel. In other places great frowning rocks stood boldly on each side, guarding us. We were sheltered, but we could hear the rising wind. It moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we rushed along. It grew colder and colder. Fine, powdery snow began to fall, and soon we and everything around us were covered with a white blanket. The sharp wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though it grew fainter as we went on. The howling of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer. It was as if they were closing round us from every side. I grew terribly afraid, and the horses shared my fear. The driver, however, was not worried at all. He kept turning his head to left and right, but I could not see anything through the darkness.

Suddenly, away on our left, I saw a faint, flickering blue flame. The driver saw it at the same moment. At once he stopped the horses, jumped to the ground and disappeared into the darkness. I did not know what to do, especially as the howling of the wolves grew closer. But while I was wondering, the driver suddenly appeared again. Without a word he took his seat, and we went on. I think I must have fallen asleep and kept dreaming of this. It seemed to happen again and again without end. Now, looking back, it is like a sort of terrible nightmare. Once the flame appeared so near the road that I could watch the driver’s movements, even in the darkness. He went quickly to the place where the blue flame rose. It must have been very faint, because it did not seem to light up the place around it at all. He gathered a few stones and arranged them in some kind of pattern. Once I saw a strange effect of the light. When he stood between me and the flame, he did not block it. I could still see its ghostly flicker. This shocked me. But it lasted only a moment, so I thought my eyes had deceived me as I strained to see through the darkness. Then for a time there were no blue flames. We rushed on through the darkness, with the wolves howling around us. It was as if they were following us in a moving circle.

At last the driver went further away than before. While he was gone, the horses began to tremble worse than ever. They snorted and screamed with fright. I could not see any reason for it, because the wolves had stopped howling completely. But just then the moon sailed through the black clouds. It appeared behind the jagged top of a high, overhanging rock covered with pines. By its light I saw a ring of wolves around us. They had white teeth and long red tongues hanging out. They had long, strong legs and rough, thick hair. They were a hundred times more terrible in their grim silence than when they howled. I myself felt frozen with fear. Only when a man is face to face with such horrors can he understand what they really mean.

All at once the wolves began to howl, as if the moonlight had some strange effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared. They looked round helplessly, and their eyes rolled in a way that was painful to see. But the living ring of terror surrounded them on every side, and they had to stay inside it. I called to the coachman to come. It seemed to me that this was our only chance. We had to try to break out through the ring and help him reach us. I shouted and beat the side of the calèche. I hoped the noise would scare the wolves away from that side and give him a chance to reach the carriage. I do not know how he got there. But I heard his voice raised in a tone of proud command. I looked towards the sound and saw him standing in the road. He swept his long arms, as if he were brushing away something that could not be seen or touched. The wolves fell back, and then back further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so we were in darkness again.

When I could see again, the driver was climbing into the calèche, and the wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange and unnatural that a terrible fear came over me. I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed endless as we rushed on our way. It was now almost completely dark, because the rolling clouds hid the moon. We kept going up. Sometimes we went quickly down for a while, but mostly we were going up. Suddenly I realised that the driver was stopping the horses in the courtyard of a huge ruined castle. No light came from its tall black windows. Its broken battlements made a jagged line against the moonlit sky.

### Glossary

- **diligence**: a big public coach pulled by horses.
- **calèche**: a light carriage pulled by horses.
- **crucifix**: a small cross with the figure of Christ on it.
- **eve**: the evening or day before a special day.
- **evil eye**: a look that people believe can bring bad luck.
- **superstition**: a belief in magic or luck that is not based on reason.
- **leiter-wagon**: a long farm cart with ladder-like sides.
- **Hospadars**: princes who ruled this part of Europe in old times.
- **goitre**: a big swelling in the front of the neck, caused by an illness.
- **battlements**: the top of a castle wall, with gaps for shooting through.

## Chapter II: Jonathan Harker’s Journal

*5 May.*—I must have been asleep. If I had been fully awake, I would certainly have noticed that we were coming near such a remarkable place. In the darkness the courtyard looked quite large. Several dark ways led from it under great round arches, so perhaps it seemed bigger than it really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight.

When the calèche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand to help me get down. Again I could not help noticing his enormous strength. His hand really seemed like a steel vice. It could have crushed mine if he had wanted to. Then he took out my bags and put them on the ground beside me. I was standing close to a great door. It was old and covered with large iron nails, and it was set in a doorway of heavy stone that stood out from the wall. Even in the dim light I could see that the stone had a lot of carving on it. But time and weather had worn the carving away. As I stood there, the driver jumped back into his seat and shook the reins. The horses started forward, and the carriage and everything disappeared down one of the dark openings.

I stood in silence where I was, because I did not know what to do. There was no sign of a bell or a knocker. My voice was not likely to get through these frowning walls and dark window openings. The time I waited seemed endless, and doubts and fears crowded in on me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure had I started on? Was this a normal thing in the life of a solicitor’s clerk? I had only been sent to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner. Solicitor’s clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor—because just before I left London, I got the news that I had passed my examination. So I am now a real, full solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I was awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare. I expected to wake up suddenly and find myself at home, with the dawn coming weakly in through the windows. I had sometimes felt like that in the morning after a day of too much work. But my skin felt the pinching, and my eyes were not deceived. I was really awake and in the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient and wait for the morning to come.

Just as I had decided this, I heard a heavy step coming towards me behind the great door. Through the cracks I saw the shine of a light coming closer. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the noise of heavy bolts being drawn back. A key was turned with a loud, grating noise, as if it had not been used for a long time. Then the great door swung open.

Inside stood a tall old man. He had no beard, only a long white moustache. He was dressed in black from head to foot, without a single spot of colour anywhere. In his hand he held an old silver lamp. The flame burned in it without a glass of any kind. It threw long, shaking shadows as it flickered in the wind from the open door. The old man waved me in with his right hand in a polite, old-fashioned way. He spoke in excellent English, but with a strange tone:

“Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!” He did not step forward to meet me. He stood like a statue, as if his gesture of welcome had turned him into stone. But the moment I stepped over the threshold, he moved forward suddenly. He held out his hand and took mine with a strength that made me wince. His hand also seemed as cold as ice, which did not help. It was more like the hand of a dead man than a living one. Again he said:

“Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring!” The strength of his handshake was very like the driver’s strength. I had not seen the driver’s face. So for a moment I wondered if I was speaking to the same person. To make sure, I asked:

“Count Dracula?”

He bowed politely as he answered:

“I am Dracula; and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in; the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest.” As he was speaking, he put the lamp on a holder on the wall. Then he stepped out and took my luggage. He had carried it in before I could stop him. I protested, but he insisted:

“No, sir, you are my guest. It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself.” He insisted on carrying my bags along the passage. Then he carried them up a great winding stair and along another great passage. Our steps rang loudly on its stone floor. At the end of it he threw open a heavy door. I was very happy to see a well-lit room inside, with a table ready for supper. In the huge fireplace a great fire of logs flamed and flared. Someone had just put fresh logs on it.

The Count stopped, put down my bags and closed the door. He crossed the room and opened another door. It led into a small room with eight sides, lit by a single lamp. It did not seem to have any window at all. He went through this room and opened another door, and waved me to enter. It was a welcome sight. Here was a great bedroom, full of light and warm from another log fire. Someone had also put logs on this fire not long ago, because the top logs were fresh. The fire sent a hollow roar up the wide chimney. The Count left my luggage inside and went out. Before he closed the door, he said:

“After your journey you will need to refresh yourself and wash and dress. I trust you will find all you wish. When you are ready, come into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared.”

The light and warmth and the Count’s polite welcome seemed to have taken away all my doubts and fears. Now I felt like myself again, and I found that I was half dead with hunger. So I quickly washed and dressed and went into the other room.

Supper was already on the table. My host stood on one side of the great fireplace, leaning against the stone. He waved his hand gracefully towards the table and said:

“I pray you, be seated and eat as you please. You will, I trust, excuse me that I do not join you; but I have dined already, and I do not take supper.”

I gave him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had given me to bring. He opened it and read it seriously. Then, with a charming smile, he gave it to me to read. One part of it, at least, gave me a thrill of pleasure:

“I am sorry that an attack of gout makes it quite impossible for me to travel for some time. I suffer from this illness all the time. But I am happy to say that I can send someone in my place who is good enough. I trust him completely. He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and very loyal. He is careful and quiet, and he has grown into a man while working for me. He will be ready to help you whenever you wish during his stay. He will follow your instructions in all matters.”

The Count himself came forward and took the cover off a dish. At once I began to eat an excellent roast chicken. This was my supper, with some cheese and a salad and a bottle of old Tokay wine. I had two glasses of the wine. While I was eating, the Count asked me many questions about my journey. Little by little I told him everything that had happened to me.

By this time I had finished my supper. My host wished me to sit by the fire, so I pulled up a chair. He offered me a cigar, and I began to smoke it. At the same time he apologised that he did not smoke himself. Now I had a chance to look at him carefully, and I found that he had a very unusual face.

His face was strong—very strong—with a nose like an eagle’s beak. The thin nose had a high bridge and strangely curved nostrils. He had a high, rounded forehead. His hair was thin round the temples but grew thickly everywhere else. His eyebrows were very heavy and almost met over his nose. They were so bushy that the hair seemed to curl because there was so much of it. I could see his mouth a little under the heavy moustache. It was hard and rather cruel-looking, with strangely sharp white teeth. These stuck out over his lips. His lips were remarkably red, which showed amazing life in a man of his age. His ears were pale, and very pointed at the tops. His chin was broad and strong, and his cheeks were firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary paleness.

Until then I had only noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight. They had seemed rather white and fine. But now I saw them close to me, and I could not help noticing that they were rather rough. They were broad, with short, thick fingers. Strangely, there were hairs in the centre of his palms. His nails were long and fine and cut to a sharp point. The Count leaned over me, and his hands touched me. I could not stop myself from shuddering. Perhaps his breath smelled bad. But a horrible feeling of sickness came over me, and I could not hide it, whatever I did. The Count clearly noticed it and drew back. He gave a grim sort of smile, which showed his sticking-out teeth more than before. Then he sat down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while. I looked towards the window and saw the first weak line of light of the coming dawn. There seemed to be a strange stillness over everything. But as I listened, I heard the howling of many wolves. It seemed to come from down below in the valley. The Count’s eyes shone, and he said:

“Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!” I suppose he saw some look on my face that seemed strange to him, because he added:

“Ah, sir, you who live in the city cannot understand the feelings of the hunter.” Then he stood up and said:

“But you must be tired. Your bedroom is all ready, and tomorrow you shall sleep as late as you will. I have to be away till the afternoon; so sleep well and dream well!” He bowed politely and opened the door to the eight-sided room for me himself, and I went into my bedroom....

I am in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things which I do not dare to admit even to my own soul. God keep me safe, if only for the sake of those who are dear to me!

*7 May.*—It is early morning again, but I have rested and enjoyed the last twenty-four hours. I slept till late in the day and woke up by myself. When I had dressed, I went into the room where we had had supper. I found a cold breakfast on the table. The coffee was kept hot because the pot stood on the hearth. There was a card on the table, and on it was written:

“I have to be absent for a while. Do not wait for me.—D.” I sat down and enjoyed a big meal. When I had finished, I looked for a bell, so that I could tell the servants I had finished. But I could not find one. There are certainly some strange things missing in the house. This is odd, because there are such extraordinary signs of wealth all round me. The plates and dishes are made of gold. They are so beautifully made that they must be worth an enormous amount. The curtains, the covers of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are of the most beautiful and expensive cloth. They must have cost a fortune when they were made. They are centuries old, but they are in excellent condition. I saw something like them at Hampton Court, but there they were old and worn and eaten by moths. But still, there is no mirror in any of the rooms. There is not even a mirror on my dressing-table. I had to take the little shaving mirror from my bag before I could shave or brush my hair. I have not yet seen a servant anywhere. I have not heard a sound near the castle except the howling of wolves.

Some time after I had finished my meal, I looked around for something to read. I do not know whether to call that meal breakfast or dinner, because I ate it between five and six o’clock. I did not want to go about the castle until I had asked the Count’s permission. There was absolutely nothing in the room—no book, no newspaper, not even anything to write with. So I opened another door in the room and found a sort of library. I tried the door opposite mine, but it was locked.

In the library, to my great delight, I found a huge number of English books. There were whole shelves full of them, and also magazines and newspapers bound into books. A table in the centre was covered with English magazines and newspapers, though none of them were very new. The books were of every kind—history, geography, politics, economics, plants, rocks, law. All of them were about England and English life, customs and manners. There were even books for looking things up, like the London Directory, the “Red” and “Blue” books, Whitaker’s Almanac, and the Army and Navy Lists. And there was the Law List. Somehow it made my heart glad to see it.

While I was looking at the books, the door opened and the Count came in. He greeted me warmly and hoped that I had had a good night’s rest. Then he went on:

“I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much here that will interest you. These companions”—and he laid his hand on some of the books—“have been good friends to me. For some years now, ever since I had the idea of going to London, they have given me many, many hours of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England; and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London. I long to be in the middle of the whirl and rush of people, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is. But alas! so far I only know your language through books. It is to you, my friend, that I look, so that I may learn to speak it.”

“But, Count,” I said, “you know and speak English perfectly!”

He bowed seriously.

“I thank you, my friend, for your too kind opinion. But still I fear that I am only a little way along the road I want to travel. True, I know the grammar and the words, but I do not know how to speak them.”

“Really,” I said, “you speak excellently.”

“Not so,” he answered. “I know well that if I moved and spoke in your London, everyone there would know me for a stranger. That is not enough for me. Here I am noble; I am *boyar*; the common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one. Men do not know him—and when they do not know him, they do not care for him. I am content if I am like the rest. Then no man will stop if he sees me, or pause in his speaking if he hears my words, and say, ‘Ha, ha! a stranger!’ I have been master for so long that I wish to be master still—or at least, no one else shall be master of me. You come to me not only as the agent of my friend Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London. You shall, I trust, stay here with me for a while. Then, by our talking, I may learn the English way of speaking. I wish you to tell me when I make a mistake in my speaking, even the smallest. I am sorry that I had to be away so long today. But you will, I know, forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand.”

Of course I said that I was very willing. I asked if I could come into that room when I liked. He answered, “Yes, certainly,” and added:

“You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked. There, of course, you will not wish to go. There is a reason why all things are as they are. If you saw with my eyes and knew with my knowledge, you would perhaps understand better.” I said I was sure of this, and then he went on:

“We are in Transylvania; and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there will be many strange things for you. No, from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be.”

This led to a long conversation. It was clear that he wanted to talk, even if only for the sake of talking. So I asked him many questions about things that had already happened to me or that I had noticed. Sometimes he moved away from the subject. Or he changed the conversation by pretending not to understand. But usually he answered all my questions very openly. As time went on, I grew a little bolder. I asked him about some of the strange things of the night before. For example, I asked why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue flames. He explained that people commonly believed something about a certain night of the year. On that night, all evil spirits are supposed to have full power. In fact, it was last night. On that night a blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been hidden.

“There can be little doubt,” he went on, “that treasure has been hidden in the land you came through last night. For centuries the Wallachian, the Saxon and the Turk fought over that ground. Why, there is hardly a foot of earth in all this land that has not been made rich by the blood of men, patriots or invaders. In old days there were exciting times. The Austrian and the Hungarian came up in great crowds, and the patriots went out to meet them. Men and women went, the old and the children too. They waited for the enemy on the rocks above the passes. From there they could sweep destruction down on them with their man-made avalanches. When the invader won, he found very little. Whatever there was had been hidden safely in the friendly earth.”

“But how,” I said, “can it have stayed undiscovered so long? There is a sure sign to show where it is, if men will only take the trouble to look.” The Count smiled. As his lips drew back over his gums, the long, sharp eye-teeth showed strangely. He answered:

“Because your peasant is a coward and a fool at heart! Those flames only appear on one night. And on that night no man of this land will go out of his door if he can help it. And, dear sir, even if he did, he would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant you told me of, who marked the place of the flame, would not know where to look in daylight, even for his own work. I would swear that even you would not be able to find these places again?”

“You are right there,” I said. “I know no more than the dead where to look for them.” Then we moved on to other subjects.

“Come,” he said at last, “tell me of London and of the house which you have got for me.” I said I was sorry for my carelessness and went into my own room to get the papers from my bag. While I was putting them in order, I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room. As I passed through, I noticed that the table had been cleared and the lamp lit, because by this time it was quite dark. The lamps were also lit in the study, or library. I found the Count lying on the sofa, reading—of all things in the world—an English Bradshaw’s Guide. When I came in, he cleared the books and papers from the table. Then he and I went through plans and deeds and figures of all kinds. He was interested in everything. He asked me a huge number of questions about the place and the land around it. He had clearly studied beforehand everything he could find about the neighbourhood. In the end he clearly knew very much more than I did. When I said this, he answered:

“Well, but, my friend, is it not necessary that I should? When I go there I shall be all alone. My friend Harker Jonathan—no, pardon me, I fall into my country’s habit of putting your family name first—my friend Jonathan Harker will not be by my side to correct and help me. He will be in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of the law with my other friend, Peter Hawkins. So!”

We went fully into the business of the purchase of the estate at Purfleet. I told him the facts and got his signature on the necessary papers. I wrote a letter to Mr. Hawkins and put it with them, ready to post. Then he began to ask me how I had found such a suitable place. I read him the notes which I had made at the time. I copy them here:

“At Purfleet, on a side road, I came across just the kind of place that seemed to be needed. There was an old, broken notice saying that the place was for sale. It has a high wall all round it. The wall is very old and built of heavy stones, and no one has repaired it for many years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with rust.

“The estate is called Carfax. No doubt the name comes from the old *Quatre Face*, because the house has four sides. They face north, south, east and west, like the points of a compass. The estate has about twenty acres in all, and the solid stone wall I mentioned goes all round it. There are many trees on it, which make it dark and gloomy in places. There is a deep, dark-looking pond or small lake. Some springs clearly feed it, because the water is clear and flows away in quite a large stream. The house is very large. Parts of it were built at all times in history, I should say back to the Middle Ages. One part is of very thick stone, with only a few windows high up, with heavy iron bars. It looks like part of an old castle tower. It is close to an old chapel or church. I could not go into it, because I did not have the key to the door that leads to it from the house. But I have taken photographs of it with my kodak from different places. People have added to the house over the years, but in a very untidy way. I can only guess how much ground it covers, but it must be very large. There are only a few houses near it. One is a very large house which was recently made bigger and turned into a private lunatic asylum. But you cannot see it from the grounds.”

When I had finished, he said:

“I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made fit to live in in a day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century. I am glad also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles do not like to think that our bones may lie among the common dead. I do not look for gaiety or fun. I do not want the bright pleasures of much sunshine and sparkling waters, which please the young and gay. I am no longer young. For weary years my heart has mourned over the dead, and it is not in tune with fun. Also, the walls of my castle are broken. The shadows are many, and the wind blows cold through the broken battlements and windows. I love the shade and the shadow, and I would be alone with my thoughts when I may.” Somehow his words and his look did not seem to agree. Or perhaps the shape of his face made his smile look evil and dark.

Soon after, he made an excuse and left me. He asked me to put all my papers together. He was away for some time, and I began to look at some of the books around me. One was an atlas. It fell open naturally at England, as if that map had been used a lot. When I looked at it, I found little rings marked in certain places. I examined them and noticed that one was near London on the east side. That was clearly where his new estate was. The other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.

It was nearly an hour before the Count came back. “Aha!” he said; “still at your books? Good! But you must not work always. Come; I am told that your supper is ready.” He took my arm, and we went into the next room. There I found an excellent supper ready on the table. The Count again apologised, because he had eaten while he was away from home. But he sat with me as on the night before and chatted while I ate. After supper I smoked, as on the last evening. The Count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every possible subject, hour after hour. I felt that it was getting very late indeed, but I did not say anything. I felt I had a duty to do what my host wanted in every way. I was not sleepy, because the long sleep yesterday had made me strong. But I could not help feeling that chill which comes over us when the dawn is coming. It is like the turn of the tide, in its way. People say that those who are near death usually die when the dawn comes or when the tide turns. Imagine someone who is tired and has to stay at his post, as if tied to it. If he has felt this change in the air, he can easily believe it. All at once we heard a cock crow. The sound came up very high and sharp, almost unnaturally, through the clear morning air. Count Dracula jumped to his feet and said:

“Why, there is the morning again! How careless I am to let you stay up so long. You must make your conversation about my dear new country of England less interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by us.” And with a polite bow, he quickly left me.

I went into my own room and drew back the curtains, but there was little to see. My window opened onto the courtyard. All I could see was the warm grey of the sky growing lighter. So I closed the curtains again and have written about this day.

*8 May.*—As I wrote in this book, I began to fear that I was writing too much. But now I am glad that I gave the details from the start. There is something so strange about this place and everything in it that I cannot help feeling uneasy. I wish I were safely out of it, or that I had never come. Perhaps this strange life at night is having an effect on me. But I wish that were all! If there were anyone to talk to, I could bear it, but there is no one. I have only the Count to speak with, and he!—I fear that I myself am the only living soul in the place. Let me write only plain facts, as far as I can. That will help me to stay strong. My imagination must not run wild. If it does, I am lost. Let me say at once how things stand with me—or how they seem to stand.

When I went to bed, I only slept for a few hours. I felt that I could not sleep any more, so I got up. I had hung my shaving mirror by the window, and I was just beginning to shave. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard the Count’s voice say to me, “Good-morning.” I jumped, because I was amazed that I had not seen him. The mirror showed the whole room behind me. When I jumped, I cut myself slightly, but I did not notice it at that moment. I answered the Count’s greeting and turned to the mirror again to see how I had made a mistake. This time there could be no mistake. The man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror! The whole room behind me was in the mirror, but there was no sign of a man in it, except me. This was frightening. It came on top of so many strange things. It began to increase that vague, uneasy feeling which I always have when the Count is near. But at that moment I saw that the cut had bled a little. The blood was running down over my chin. I put down the razor and half turned round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of devilish fury. Suddenly he grabbed at my throat. I pulled away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. At once he changed. The fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe it had ever been there.

“Take care,” he said, “take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous than you think in this country.” Then he took hold of the shaving mirror and went on: “And this is the wretched thing that has done the harm. It is a dirty toy of man’s vanity. Away with it!” He opened the heavy window with one pull of his terrible hand. Then he threw out the mirror, and it broke into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he went out without a word. It is very annoying. I do not see how I am to shave now, unless I use my watch-case or the bottom of my shaving-pot. Luckily the pot is made of metal.

When I went into the dining-room, breakfast was ready, but I could not find the Count anywhere. So I had breakfast alone. It is strange that I have not yet seen the Count eat or drink. He must be a very strange man! After breakfast I explored the castle a little. I went out onto the stairs and found a room that looked towards the South. The view was magnificent, and from where I stood I could see all of it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can see, there is a sea of green tree-tops. Sometimes there is a deep crack where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind through the forests in deep valleys.

But I do not have the heart to describe beauty. When I had seen the view, I explored further. There were doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all of them were locked and bolted. There is no way out of the castle anywhere, except from the windows in the castle walls.

The castle is a real prison, and I am a prisoner!

### Glossary

- **calèche**: a light carriage pulled by horses.
- **solicitor**: a lawyer who helps people with houses, wills and business.
- **gout**: an illness that makes the joints, often the feet, swollen and painful.
- **boyar**: a nobleman in Eastern Europe.
- **Law List**: a book with the names of all the lawyers in England.
- **Bradshaw’s Guide**: a book that gives the times of all the trains in Britain.
- **Quatre Face**: French words that mean “four faces”.
- **estate**: a large house with the land around it.
- **lunatic asylum**: an old name for a hospital for people who are mentally ill.
- **precipice**: a very steep, high side of a rock or mountain.

## Chapter III: Jonathan Harker’s Journal

When I found that I was a prisoner, a sort of wild feeling came over me. I rushed up and down the stairs. I tried every door and looked out of every window I could find. But after a little while, the knowledge that I was helpless became stronger than all my other feelings. When I look back after a few hours, I think I must have been mad for a time. I behaved very much as a rat does in a trap. But when I was sure that I was helpless, I sat down quietly. I was as quiet as I have ever been in my life. I began to think about what was best to do. I am still thinking, and I have not yet come to any clear decision. I am certain of only one thing. It is no use telling the Count what I think. He knows well that I am a prisoner. He has done it himself, and he surely has his own reasons for it. So if I trusted him fully with the facts, he would only deceive me. As far as I can see, my only plan is to keep my knowledge and my fears to myself, and to keep my eyes open. I know that one of two things is true. Perhaps my own fears are deceiving me, as if I were a baby. Or else I am in terrible danger. If that is so, I need all my brains to get through, and I shall go on needing them.

I had hardly decided this when I heard the great door below shut. I knew that the Count had come back. He did not come into the library at once, so I went carefully to my own room. I found him making the bed. This was strange, but it only proved what I had thought all along. There were no servants in the house. Later I saw him through the crack by the hinges of the door. He was laying the table in the dining-room. Then I was sure of it. If he does all these servants’ jobs himself, surely it proves that there is no one else to do them. This frightened me. If there is no one else in the castle, the Count himself must have been the driver of the coach that brought me here. This is a terrible thought. If it is true, what does it mean that he could control the wolves as he did, only by holding up his hand in silence? Why did all the people at Bistritz and on the coach have some terrible fear for me? What was the meaning of the gifts of the crucifix, the garlic, the wild rose and the mountain ash? God bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck! It comforts me and gives me strength whenever I touch it. It is strange that it should help me in a time of loneliness and trouble. I have been taught to dislike such things and to think of them as idol worship. Is there something in the thing itself? Or is it something I can touch that carries memories of sympathy and comfort? Some time, if I can, I must study this question and try to decide about it. In the meantime I must find out all I can about Count Dracula, because it may help me to understand. Tonight he may talk about himself, if I lead the conversation that way. But I must be very careful not to make him suspicious.

*Midnight.*—I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a few questions about the history of Transylvania, and he became wonderfully excited about the subject. When he spoke of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been at them all. Later he explained this. He said that to a *boyar*, the pride of his house and name is his own pride. Their glory is his glory, and their fate is his fate. Whenever he spoke of his family, he always said “we.” He spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could write down everything he said exactly as he said it. To me it was most fascinating. It seemed to hold a whole history of the country. He grew excited as he spoke. He walked about the room, pulling his great white moustache. He grabbed anything he put his hands on, as if he wanted to crush it with his strength. He said one thing which I shall write down as exactly as I can. In its way it tells the story of his race:

“We Szekelys have a right to be proud. In our veins flows the blood of many brave races, who fought as the lion fights, to be lords. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe came down from Iceland. They brought the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them. Their Berserkers showed it with terrible cruelty on the coasts of Europe, yes, and of Asia and Africa too. The peoples thought that the were-wolves themselves had come. Here too, when they came, they found the Huns. Their warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame. The dying peoples believed that the blood of those old witches ran in the veins of the Huns. Those witches had been driven out of Scythia and had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever as great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?” He held up his arms. “Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race? That we were proud? The Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar and the Turk poured their thousands on our frontiers, and we drove them back. Is that a wonder? Arpad and his armies swept through the Hungarian fatherland. When he reached the frontier, he found us here. Is that strange? It was there that the Honfoglalas was completed. And when the Hungarian flood swept east, the winning Magyars said the Szekelys were their own family. For centuries they trusted us to guard the frontier of Turkey-land. Yes, and more than that—the endless duty of the frontier guard. For, as the Turks say, ‘water sleeps, and the enemy never sleeps.’ In all the Four Nations, who received the ‘bloody sword’ more gladly than we did? Who came more quickly to the King’s flag at its call to war? Then there was the great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova. There the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down under the Crescent of the Turk. Who washed away that shame? Who but one of my own race, who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! What a sorrow it was that his own worthless brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk! He brought the shame of slavery on them! And was it not this Dracula who inspired another of his race in a later age? That one brought his armies over the great river into Turkey-land again and again. When he was beaten back, he came again, and again, and again. He had to come alone from the bloody field where his soldiers were being killed. For he knew that he alone could win in the end! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! What good are peasants without a leader? How can a war end without a brain and a heart to lead it? Again, after the battle of Mohács, we threw off the Hungarian yoke. We of the Dracula blood were among their leaders, because our spirit could not accept that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys—and the Dracula as their heart’s blood, their brains and their swords—can be proud of a history. Families that grew up overnight, like mushrooms, like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs, can never reach it. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace. And the glories of the great races are like a tale that has been told.”

By this time it was nearly morning, and we went to bed. (*Mem.*, this diary seems horribly like the beginning of the “Arabian Nights,” because everything has to stop at cockcrow—or like the ghost of Hamlet’s father.)

*12 May.*—Let me begin with facts—bare, simple facts. They are proved by books and figures, and there can be no doubt about them. I must not mix them up with experiences that depend only on what I saw, or on my memory of it. Last evening the Count came from his room. He began by asking me questions about the law and about doing certain kinds of business. I had spent a tiring day over books. Just to keep my mind busy, I had gone over some of the subjects I had studied at Lincoln’s Inn. The Count asked his questions in a certain order, so I shall try to write them down in that order. Somehow, some time, this knowledge may be useful to me.

First, he asked if a man in England could have two solicitors or more. I told him he could have a dozen if he wanted. But it would not be wise to have more than one solicitor working on one piece of business. Only one could act at a time, and changing would certainly be bad for him. He seemed to understand completely. Then he asked another question. Would there be any practical difficulty in having one man to look after banking, and another to look after shipping? This might be useful if local help were needed far from the home of the banking solicitor. I asked him to explain more fully, so that I would not give him wrong advice by mistake. So he said:

“I shall give you an example. Your friend and mine, Mr. Peter Hawkins, lives under the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far from London. Through your good self he buys for me my place in London. Good! Now let me say something openly here. You may think it strange that I looked for someone so far from London, instead of someone who lives there. My reason was this. I wanted no local interest to be served, only my own wish. A man living in London might perhaps have some purpose of his own or of a friend. So I went far away to find my agent, so that he would work only for my interest. Now, suppose I have many affairs, and I wish to send goods to Newcastle, or Durham, or Harwich, or Dover. Might it not be easier to send them to someone in these ports?” I answered that certainly it would be very easy. But we solicitors had a system of acting as agents for each other. So local work could be done locally on instructions from any solicitor. The client only had to put himself in the hands of one man. Then that man could carry out his wishes without any more trouble for the client.

“But,” he said, “I could be free to give orders myself. Is it not so?”

“Of course,” I replied. “Men of business often do that. They do not like any one person to know all their affairs.”

“Good!” he said. Then he went on to ask about how to send goods and what forms had to be filled in. He asked about all sorts of difficulties that might happen, but that could be prevented by thinking ahead. I explained all these things to him as well as I could. He certainly made me think that he would have been a wonderful solicitor. There was nothing that he did not think of or see in advance. He had never been in the country, and he clearly did not do much business. So his knowledge and his sharp mind were wonderful. He was satisfied about the points he had spoken of, and I had checked everything as well as I could in the books there. Then suddenly he stood up and said:

“Have you written since your first letter to our friend Mr. Peter Hawkins, or to anyone else?” I felt some bitterness in my heart as I answered no. So far I had not seen any chance of sending letters to anybody.

“Then write now, my young friend,” he said, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Write to our friend and to anyone else. And say, if it pleases you, that you shall stay with me until a month from now.”

“Do you wish me to stay so long?” I asked, because my heart grew cold at the thought.

“I wish it very much; no, I will take no refusal. Your master, employer, or whatever you call him, agreed that someone should come for him. It was understood that only my needs would be considered. I have not been mean with money. Is it not so?”

What could I do but bow and accept? It was for Mr. Hawkins’s good, not mine, and I had to think of him, not of myself. Besides, while Count Dracula was speaking, there was something in his eyes and in his manner which made me remember that I was a prisoner. Even if I wanted to say no, I could have no choice. The Count saw his victory in my bow and his power in the trouble on my face. He began at once to use them, but in his own smooth way that no one could resist:

“I pray you, my good young friend, do not write of things other than business in your letters. It will surely please your friends to know that you are well, and that you look forward to getting home to them. Is it not so?” As he spoke, he gave me three sheets of note-paper and three envelopes. They were all of the thinnest foreign paper for posting abroad. I looked at them and then at him. I noticed his quiet smile, with the sharp eye-teeth lying over his red lower lip. I understood as clearly as if he had said it: I should be careful what I wrote, because he would be able to read it. So I decided to write only formal notes now. But I would write fully to Mr. Hawkins in secret, and also to Mina. To her I could write in shorthand, which would puzzle the Count if he saw it. When I had written my two letters, I sat quietly reading a book. Meanwhile the Count wrote several notes. As he wrote, he looked at some books on his table. Then he took my two letters and put them with his own, and put away his writing things. The moment the door had closed behind him, I leaned over and looked at the letters. They were face down on the table. I did not feel guilty about doing this. In my situation, I felt that I should protect myself in every way I could.

One of the letters was addressed to Samuel F. Billington, No. 7, The Crescent, Whitby. Another was to Herr Leutner, Varna. The third was to Coutts & Co., London, and the fourth to Herren Klopstock & Billreuth, bankers, Buda-Pesth. The second and fourth were not sealed. I was just going to look at them when I saw the door-handle move. I sat back in my seat. I had just enough time to put the letters back as they had been and to pick up my book again. Then the Count came into the room, holding yet another letter in his hand. He picked up the letters on the table and put stamps on them carefully. Then he turned to me and said:

“I trust you will forgive me, but I have much work to do in private this evening. You will, I hope, find all things as you wish.” At the door he turned. After a moment’s pause he said:

“Let me advise you, my dear young friend—no, let me warn you very seriously. If you leave these rooms, you must not, for any reason, go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be warned! If sleep should ever come over you, now or at any time, or if it seems likely to come, then hurry to your own room or to these rooms. Your rest will then be safe. But if you are not careful about this, then—” He finished his speech in a horrible way. He moved his hands as if he were washing them. I understood completely. My only doubt was whether any dream could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of darkness and mystery which seemed to be closing around me.

*Later.*—I agree with the last words I wrote, but this time there is no doubt at all. I shall not be afraid to sleep in any place where he is not. I have put the crucifix over the head of my bed. I think that in this way my sleep is freer from dreams. And there it shall stay.

When he left me, I went to my room. After a little while I heard no sound, so I came out and went up the stone stair to the place where I could look out towards the South. The huge open view gave me some feeling of freedom, even though I could not reach it. It was so different from the narrow darkness of the courtyard. As I looked out at it, I felt that I really was in prison. I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, even if it was night air. I am beginning to feel that this life at night is having an effect on me. It is destroying my nerves. I jump at my own shadow, and I am full of all sorts of horrible ideas. God knows that there is good reason for my terrible fear in this cursed place! I looked out over the beautiful view. It was bathed in soft yellow moonlight, until it was almost as light as day. In the soft light the far hills seemed to melt. The shadows in the valleys and deep gorges were as black as velvet. The beauty alone seemed to cheer me. There was peace and comfort in every breath I took. As I leaned out of the window, something moving caught my eye. It was one floor below me and a little to my left. From the order of the rooms, I guessed that the windows of the Count’s own room would look out there. The window where I stood was tall and deep, with stone bars dividing it. It was worn by the weather, but still complete. But clearly the window-frame had not been there for many years. I moved back behind the stone and looked out carefully.

What I saw was the Count’s head coming out of the window. I did not see his face, but I knew the man by his neck and the movement of his back and arms. In any case, I could not mistake his hands. I had had so many chances to study them. At first I was interested and a little amused. It is wonderful how small a thing can interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my feelings changed to disgust and terror when I saw the whole man slowly come out of the window. He began to crawl down the castle wall over that terrible deep drop, *face down*. His cloak spread out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some strange effect of shadow. But I kept looking, and it could not be a mistake. I saw his fingers and toes hold on to the corners of the stones. The years had worn away the mortar from between them. He used every bump and uneven place in this way and moved downwards quite fast, just as a lizard moves along a wall.

What kind of man is this? Or what kind of creature is it that looks like a man? I feel the terror of this horrible place taking control of me. I am afraid—terribly afraid—and there is no escape for me. I am surrounded by terrors that I do not dare to think of....

*15 May.*—Once more I have seen the Count go out in his lizard way. He moved down and sideways, about a hundred feet down and quite far to the left. He disappeared into some hole or window. When his head had disappeared, I leaned out to try to see more, but it was no use. The distance was too great for me to see properly. I knew that he had left the castle now. I thought I would use the chance to explore more than I had dared to before. I went back to the room, took a lamp and tried all the doors. They were all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were quite new. But I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had first come in. I found that I could pull back the bolts easily enough and unhook the great chains. But the door was locked, and the key was gone! That key must be in the Count’s room. I must watch in case his door is unlocked, so that I can get the key and escape. I went on to examine carefully all the different stairs and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them. One or two small rooms near the hall were open. But there was nothing in them except old furniture, dusty with age and eaten by moths. At last, however, I found one door at the top of the stairway. It seemed to be locked, but it moved a little when I pushed it. I pushed harder and found that it was not really locked. The hinges had dropped a little, and the heavy door was resting on the floor. That was why it would not move. Here was a chance which I might not have again. So I made a great effort, and after many tries I forced it open enough to go in. I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew, and one floor lower down. From the windows I could see that the rooms ran along the south side of the castle. The windows of the end room looked out both west and south. On both sides there was a great precipice. The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, so no one could attack it on three sides. Here no sling, or bow, or old cannon could reach. So great windows were put in on these sides, and these rooms had light and comfort. A place that had to be guarded could not have them. To the west there was a great valley. Then, far away, great jagged mountains rose up like fortresses, peak after peak. The bare rock was covered with mountain ash and thorn trees. Their roots held on in the cracks and holes of the stone. This was clearly the part of the castle where the ladies had lived in past times. The furniture looked more comfortable than any I had seen. The windows had no curtains. The yellow moonlight poured in through the diamond-shaped panes, so I could even see colours. It also softened the thick dust which lay over everything. In some way it hid the damage done by time and by moths. My lamp did not seem to help much in the brilliant moonlight, but I was glad to have it with me. There was a terrible loneliness in the place which chilled my heart and made my nerves tremble. Still, it was better than living alone in the rooms which I had come to hate because the Count was there. I tried a little to control my nerves, and then I felt a soft calm come over me. Here I am, sitting at a little oak table. In old times perhaps some lovely lady sat here to write her badly spelt love-letter, with much thought and many blushes. And I am writing in my diary in shorthand everything that has happened since I last closed it. It is the modern nineteenth century with a vengeance! And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had powers of their own, and they still have them. Mere “modern” ways cannot kill them.

*Later: the Morning of 16 May.*—God keep me sane, because that is all I have left to pray for. Safety and the feeling of being safe are gone. While I live here, there is only one thing to hope for: that I may not go mad—if, in fact, I am not mad already. If I am sane, then surely this thought is enough to drive me mad: of all the evil things that hide in this hateful place, the Count is the least terrible to me. I can look to him alone for safety, even though this is only while I can be useful to him. Great God! Merciful God! Let me be calm, because that way lies madness indeed. I am beginning to understand some things that have puzzled me. Until now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say:

“My tablets! quick, my tablets! ’Tis meet that I put it down,” etc.,

I feel now as if my own brain were broken, or as if the shock had come that must destroy it. So I turn to my diary for rest. The habit of writing everything down exactly must help to calm me.

The Count’s mysterious warning frightened me at the time. It frightens me more now when I think of it. From now on he has a terrible power over me. I shall be afraid to doubt anything he says!

When I had written in my diary, I luckily put the book and pen back in my pocket. Then I felt sleepy. The Count’s warning came into my mind, but I took pleasure in disobeying it. Sleep was coming over me, and with it came the stubbornness that comes before sleep. The soft moonlight calmed me, and the wide view outside gave me a feeling of freedom that refreshed me. I decided not to go back tonight to the dark rooms that were full of gloom. I would sleep here instead. In old times ladies had sat and sung here and lived sweet lives. But their gentle hearts were sad for their men, who were away in the middle of cruel wars. I pulled a great sofa out of its place near the corner. Then, as I lay, I could look at the lovely view to the east and south. I did not think or care about the dust, and I settled down to sleep. I suppose I must have fallen asleep. I hope so, but I fear not. Everything that followed was shockingly real. It was so real that now, sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the morning, I cannot believe at all that it was only sleep.

I was not alone. The room was the same. It had not changed in any way since I came into it. In the brilliant moonlight I could see my own footsteps along the floor, where I had disturbed the dust of many years. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women. By their dress and manner they were ladies. When I saw them, I thought at the time that I must be dreaming. The moonlight was behind them, but they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me and looked at me for some time, and then they whispered together. Two were dark and had high noses like an eagle’s beak, like the Count’s. They had great dark, piercing eyes. Next to the pale yellow moon, their eyes seemed almost red. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. Somehow I seemed to know her face. I seemed to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but at that moment I could not remember how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against their full, ruby-red lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy. I felt a longing for them and at the same time a deadly fear. In my heart I felt a wicked, burning wish that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to write this down. Some day Mina might read it, and it would hurt her. But it is the truth. They whispered together, and then all three of them laughed. It was such a silvery, musical laugh. But it was hard, as if the sound could never have come through soft human lips. It was like the unbearable, tingling sweetness of water-glasses when a clever hand plays on them. The fair girl shook her head in a teasing way, and the other two urged her on. One said:

“Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to begin.”

The other added:

“He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.”

I lay quietly. I looked out from under my eyelashes, in an agony of delightful waiting. The fair girl came forward and bent over me until I could feel her breath on me. In one way it was sweet, as sweet as honey. It sent the same tingling through my nerves as her voice did. But under the sweetness there was something bitter, a bitter, unpleasant smell, like the smell of blood.

I was afraid to open my eyes, but I looked out and saw perfectly from under my lashes. The girl went down on her knees and bent over me. She was simply enjoying the moment with greedy delight. There was a slow, sensual pleasure in her which was both thrilling and disgusting. As she bent her neck, she actually licked her lips like an animal. In the moonlight I could see the wetness shining on her scarlet lips. I could see it on her red tongue as it licked the white, sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head. Her lips went below my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she stopped. I could hear the wet sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips. I could feel her hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle. It was the way your skin tingles when a hand is about to tickle it, and comes nearer—nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of her lips on the very sensitive skin of my throat. I felt the hard points of two sharp teeth, just touching and waiting there. I closed my eyes in a dreamy, helpless delight and waited—waited with a beating heart.

But at that moment another feeling swept through me as quick as lightning. I knew that the Count was there, and that he was wrapped in a storm of fury. My eyes opened without my wanting them to. I saw his strong hand take hold of the fair woman’s thin neck. With the power of a giant he pulled her back. Her blue eyes changed with fury, and her white teeth snapped with rage. Her fair cheeks burned red with anger. But the Count! I never imagined such anger and fury, not even in the demons of hell. His eyes were really blazing. The red light in them was terrible, as if the flames of hell-fire burned behind them. His face was as pale as death, and its lines were hard like tight wires. The thick eyebrows that met over his nose now seemed like a moving bar of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he threw the woman away from him. Then he waved at the others, as if he were beating them back. It was the same commanding movement that I had seen him use with the wolves. His voice was low, almost a whisper. Yet it seemed to cut through the air and then ring round the room. He said:

“How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you look at him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Be careful how you interfere with him, or you’ll have to deal with me.”

The fair girl laughed in a rude, teasing way and turned to answer him:

“You yourself never loved; you never love!”

At this, the other women joined in. Such hard, joyless, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear it. It seemed like the pleasure of devils. Then the Count turned, after looking carefully at my face, and said in a soft whisper:

“Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him, you shall kiss him as you wish. Now go! go! I must wake him, for there is work to be done.”

“Are we to have nothing tonight?” said one of them with a low laugh. She pointed to the bag which he had thrown on the floor. It moved as if there were some living thing inside it. For an answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me, there was a gasp and a low cry, like the cry of a half-smothered child. The women gathered round, while I was frozen with horror. But as I looked, they disappeared, and the dreadful bag went with them. There was no door near them, and they could not have passed me without my noticing. They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window. Outside I could see their dim, shadowy shapes for a moment before they faded away completely.

Then the horror was too much for me, and I fell down unconscious.

### Glossary

- **boyar**: a nobleman in Eastern Europe.
- **Voivode**: a ruler and war leader.
- **Berserkers**: wild Viking fighters in old times who fought without fear.
- **Honfoglalas**: the Hungarian name for the time when the Magyars took the land of Hungary.
- **yoke**: rule by another country, like a heavy weight on the neck.
- **mountain ash**: a small tree with red berries; people believed it kept evil away.
- **precipice**: a very steep, high side of a rock or mountain.
- **mortar**: the material between stones or bricks that holds them together.
- **sapphire**: a blue jewel.
- **water-glasses**: glasses with water in them that make music when you rub their edges.

## Chapter IV: Jonathan Harker’s Journal

I woke up in my own bed. If I had not dreamt it all, the Count must have carried me here. I tried to be sure about this, but I could not find any certain answer. There were some small signs, of course. My clothes were folded and put away in a way that was not my habit. My watch had not been wound. I always, without fail, wind it as the last thing before I go to bed. There were many other small details like these. But these things prove nothing. They may only show that my mind was not as usual. For some reason I had certainly been very upset. I must watch for proof. I am glad of one thing. If the Count carried me here and undressed me, he must have been in a hurry. My pockets have not been touched. I am sure he would not have accepted this diary. It would have been a mystery to him. He would have taken it or destroyed it. I look round this room. It has been so full of fear for me, but now it is a kind of safe place. Nothing can be more terrible than those awful women. They were—no, they *are*—waiting to suck my blood.

*18 May.*—I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for I *must* know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs, I found the door closed. It had been pushed so hard against the frame that part of the wood was broken. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been moved. But the door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was not a dream, and I must act on this belief.

*19 May.*—I am surely caught in a trap. Last night the Count asked me, in his smoothest voice, to write three letters. The first was to say that my work here was nearly done. It was to say I would start for home in a few days. The second was to say that I was leaving the next morning. The third was to say that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I wanted to refuse. But I felt it would be madness to argue openly with the Count now. I am completely in his power. If I refused, he would become suspicious and angry. He knows that I know too much. He knows that I must not live, because I could be dangerous to him. My only chance is to gain time. Something may happen that will give me a chance to escape. I saw in his eyes some of that growing anger. I had seen it when he threw that fair woman away from him. He explained that there were not many posts, and they were not reliable. He said that if I wrote now, my friends would not worry. He promised me very seriously that he would stop the later letters. They would wait at Bistritz until the right time, in case I could stay longer. To argue with him would only make him more suspicious. So I pretended to agree with him. I asked him what dates I should put on the letters. He thought for a minute, and then said:

“The first should be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June 29.”

Now I know how long I have to live. God help me!

*28 May.*—There is a chance of escape, or at least a chance to send a message home. A band of Szgany have come to the castle. They are camping in the courtyard. These Szgany are gipsies; I have notes about them in my book. They belong to this part of the world, though they are related to gipsies everywhere. There are thousands of them in Hungary and Transylvania, and they live almost outside all law. Usually they attach themselves to some great noble or *boyar* and take his name. They are without fear and without religion, except for their superstitions. They speak only their own kinds of the Romany language.

I shall write some letters home, and I shall try to get the Szgany to post them. I have already spoken to them through my window, to begin to know them. They took off their hats, bowed low and made many signs. But I could not understand the signs any more than their language....

I have written the letters. Mina’s letter is in shorthand. In the other letter I simply ask Mr. Hawkins to contact her. I have explained my situation to Mina, but without the horrors that I can only guess at. If I showed her my true feelings, it would shock her and frighten her to death. If the letters do not reach home, the Count will still not know my secret. He will not know how much I know....

I have given them the letters. I threw them through the bars of my window with a gold coin. I made what signs I could to ask them to post the letters. The man who took them pressed them to his heart and bowed. Then he put them in his cap. I could do nothing more. I went quietly back to the study and began to read. The Count did not come in, so I have written this here....

The Count has come. He sat down beside me and opened two letters. He said in his smoothest voice:

“The Szgany has given me these. I do not know where they come from, but of course I shall take care of them. See!”—he must have looked at it—“one is from you, and to my friend Peter Hawkins. The other”—here he saw the strange signs as he opened the envelope. The dark look came into his face, and his eyes burned with evil—“the other is a vile thing, an insult to friendship and hospitality! It is not signed. Well! So it cannot matter to us.” Calmly he held the letter and the envelope in the flame of the lamp until they were burnt. Then he went on:

“The letter to Hawkins—that I shall, of course, send on, since it is yours. Your letters are sacred to me. Forgive me, my friend, that I opened the seal without knowing. Will you not put it in a new cover?” He held out the letter to me. With a polite bow he handed me a clean envelope. I could only write the address again and hand it to him in silence. When he went out of the room, I heard the key turn softly. A minute later I went over and tried the door. It was locked.

An hour or two later, the Count came quietly into the room. His coming woke me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa. He was very polite and very cheerful. He saw that I had been sleeping, and he said:

“So, my friend, you are tired? Go to bed. There is the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure of talking tonight, since I have much work. But you will sleep, I hope.” I went to my room and went to bed. Strangely, I slept without dreaming. Even despair has its own calm moments.

*31 May.*—When I woke this morning, I had an idea. I would take some paper and envelopes from my bag and keep them in my pocket. Then I could write if I got a chance. But again there was a surprise, again a shock!

Every piece of paper was gone. All my notes were gone too, my notes about railways and travel. My letter of credit was gone. In fact, everything was gone that might be useful to me outside the castle. I sat and thought for a while. Then an idea came to me. I searched my travelling bag and the wardrobe where I had put my clothes.

The suit I had travelled in was gone. My overcoat and my rug were gone too. I could not find them anywhere. This looked like some new evil plan....

*17 June.*—This morning I was sitting on the edge of my bed, thinking very hard. Then I heard sounds outside: the cracking of whips, and horses’ feet hitting and scraping the rocky path beyond the courtyard. With joy I hurried to the window. Two great leiter-wagons drove into the yard. Each one was pulled by eight strong horses. At the head of each pair of horses walked a Slovak. Each man had a wide hat, a great belt with nails in it, a dirty sheepskin coat and high boots. They also carried long sticks in their hands. I ran to the door. I wanted to go down and try to join them through the main hall. I thought that the way might be open for them. Again a shock: my door was locked on the outside.

Then I ran to the window and shouted to them. They looked up at me stupidly and pointed. But just then the “hetman” of the Szgany came out. He saw them pointing to my window and said something, and they laughed. After that, nothing I did would make them even look at me. I cried out sadly and begged them in agony, but they firmly turned away. The leiter-wagons carried great square boxes with handles of thick rope. The boxes were clearly empty. The Slovaks lifted them easily, and they sounded hollow when they were moved roughly. They unloaded all the boxes and put them in a great heap in one corner of the yard. Then the Szgany gave the Slovaks some money. The Slovaks spat on it for luck, and each one went lazily to his horse’s head. Soon afterwards I heard the cracking of their whips die away in the distance.

*24 June, before morning.*—Last night the Count left me early and locked himself into his own room. As soon as I dared, I ran up the winding stairs. I looked out of the window that faced south. I wanted to watch for the Count, because something is going on. The Szgany are living somewhere in the castle, and they are doing some kind of work. I know this because now and then I hear a far-away, soft sound, like digging with tools. Whatever it is, it must be the end of some cruel, evil plan.

I had been at the window for a little less than half an hour. Then I saw something coming out of the Count’s window. I moved back and watched carefully. I saw the whole man come out. It was a new shock to me: he was wearing the suit that I had worn on my journey here. Over his shoulder hung the terrible bag that I had seen the women take away. There could be no doubt about what he was looking for. And he was dressed in my clothes, too! So this is his new evil plan. He will let other people see “me”, as they think. Then there will be proof that I was seen in the towns or villages, posting my own letters. And people here will believe that any evil thing he does was done by me.

It makes me furious to think that this can go on. And all the time I am shut up here, a real prisoner. Even a criminal has the protection of the law, which is his right and his comfort. I do not have even that.

I decided to watch for the Count to come back. For a long time I sat at the window and did not move. Then I began to notice some strange little specks floating in the moonlight. They were like the smallest grains of dust. They turned round and round and gathered in groups, like little clouds. As I watched them, I felt soothed, and a kind of calm came over me. I leaned back in the window opening into a more comfortable position. I wanted to enjoy their dancing in the air more fully.

Something made me jump up. It was a low, sad howling of dogs somewhere far below in the valley, which I could not see. The sound seemed to ring louder in my ears. And the floating bits of dust seemed to take new shapes to the sound as they danced in the moonlight. I felt myself fighting to wake up to some call of my instincts. No, my very soul was fighting. My half-remembered feelings were trying to answer the call. I was being hypnotised! Faster and faster the dust danced. The moonbeams seemed to tremble as they went past me into the darkness. More and more the specks gathered, until they seemed to take dim ghostly shapes. And then I jumped up, wide awake and in full control of my senses. I ran screaming from the place. The ghostly shapes were slowly becoming solid out of the moonbeams. They were the three ghostly women, and I was doomed to be theirs. I ran away. I felt a little safer in my own room. There was no moonlight there, and the lamp was burning brightly.

A couple of hours passed. Then I heard something moving in the Count’s room. It was something like a sharp cry that was quickly stopped. Then there was silence, a deep, awful silence, and it made me cold. With my heart beating, I tried the door. But I was locked in my prison and could do nothing. I sat down and simply cried.

As I sat there, I heard a sound in the courtyard outside. It was the cry of a woman in agony. I rushed to the window, pushed it up and looked out between the bars. There was indeed a woman there. Her hair was wild, and she was holding her hands over her heart, like someone who has been running. She was leaning against a corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at the window, she threw herself forward. She shouted in a voice full of threat:

“Monster, give me my child!”

She threw herself on her knees and raised her hands. She cried the same words, in a voice that broke my heart. Then she pulled her hair and beat her chest. She gave herself up completely to her wild grief. At last she threw herself forward. I could not see her, but I could hear her bare hands beating against the door.

Somewhere high above, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of the Count. He was calling in his hard, metal-like whisper. Wolves seemed to answer his call, howling from far and wide. In a few minutes a pack of them poured through the wide entrance into the courtyard. They came like water from a broken dam.

There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was short. Soon they ran away one by one, licking their lips.

I could not feel sorry for her. I knew now what had happened to her child, and it was better for her to be dead.

What shall I do? What can I do? How can I escape from this terrible thing of night and darkness and fear?

*25 June, morning.*—No man knows how sweet and dear the morning can be until he has suffered in the night. This morning the sun rose high enough to touch the top of the great gateway opposite my window. To me, that high bright spot was like the place where the dove from the ark landed. My fear fell from me. It was like a garment of mist that melted away in the warmth. I must act in some way while I have the courage of the day. Last night one of my letters with a false date went to the post. It was the first of those terrible letters which will wipe out every sign that I ever lived on this earth.

I must not think about it. Action!

It has always been at night that I have been troubled or threatened, or in danger or in fear. I have not yet seen the Count in daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when other people are awake, so that he can be awake while they sleep? If only I could get into his room! But there is no possible way. The door is always locked. There is no way in for me.

Yes, there is a way, if a man dares to take it. Where his body has gone, why can’t another body go? I have seen him crawl out of his window myself. Why should I not copy him and go in by his window? The chances are terrible, but my need is even more terrible. I shall risk it. At the worst it can only mean death. And a man’s death is not the same as a calf’s death. The life after death, which men fear, may still be open to me. God help me in my task! Good-bye, Mina, if I fail. Good-bye, my faithful friend and second father. Good-bye, all, and last of all Mina!

*Same day, later.*—I have done it, and with God’s help I have come safely back to this room. I must write down every detail in order. While my courage was fresh, I went straight to the window on the south side. At once I climbed out onto the narrow stone ledge that runs around the building on this side. The stones are big and roughly cut. Over time the mortar between them has been washed away. I took off my boots and set out on my desperate way. I looked down once. I wanted to be sure that a sudden sight of the awful depth would not overcome me. After that I kept my eyes away from it. I knew quite well the direction and distance of the Count’s window. I moved towards it as well as I could, using whatever holds I found. I did not feel dizzy. I suppose I was too excited. The time seemed very short until I found myself standing on the window-sill. I tried to push up the window. I was very nervous when I bent down and slid in through the window feet first. Then I looked around for the Count. But to my surprise and joy, I discovered that the room was empty! There was only a little furniture, odd pieces that seemed never to have been used. The furniture was in a similar style to that in the south rooms, and it was covered with dust. I looked for the key, but it was not in the lock. I could not find it anywhere. The only thing I found was a great heap of gold in one corner. There was gold of all kinds—Roman, British, Austrian, Hungarian, Greek and Turkish money. It was covered with a layer of dust, as if it had lain in the ground for a long time. None of the coins that I noticed was less than three hundred years old. There were also chains and jewellery, some with precious stones, but all of them were old and dirty.

In one corner of the room there was a heavy door. I tried it. I could not find the key of the room, or the key of the outer door. That key was the main thing I was looking for. So I had to search further, or all my efforts would be useless. The door was open. It led through a stone passage to a round staircase, which went steeply down. I went down very carefully, because the stairs were dark. The only light came through narrow slits in the thick stone walls. At the bottom there was a dark passage like a tunnel. A sick smell like death came through it. It was the smell of old earth that has just been dug up. As I went along the passage, the smell grew closer and heavier. At last I pulled open a heavy door that was half open. I found myself in an old, ruined chapel. It had clearly been used as a graveyard. The roof was broken. In two places there were steps going down to vaults. But the ground had been dug over recently. The earth had been put into great wooden boxes. They were clearly the boxes that the Slovaks had brought. There was nobody there. I looked for another way out, but there was none. Then I searched every inch of the ground, so that I would not miss any chance. I even went down into the vaults, where there was only a little light, although this filled my soul with dread. I went into two of them, but I saw nothing except pieces of old coffins and piles of dust. In the third one, however, I made a discovery.

There, in one of the great boxes, lay the Count! There were fifty boxes in all. He lay on a pile of newly dug earth. He was either dead or asleep. I could not say which. His eyes were open and looked like stone, but they did not have the glassy look of death. His cheeks had the warmth of life, although they were pale. His lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart. I bent over him and tried to find any sign of life, but I found none. He could not have lain there long, because the smell of the earth would have gone in a few hours. Next to the box was its lid, which had holes in it here and there. I thought he might have the keys on him. But when I went to search him, I saw the dead eyes. Dead as they were, there was such a look of hate in them that I ran from the place. He did not know that I was there, but the look was terrible. I left the Count’s room by the window and crawled up the castle wall again. When I reached my room, I threw myself on the bed, breathing hard, and tried to think....

*29 June.*—Today is the date of my last letter. The Count has done something to prove that the letter was real. Again I saw him leave the castle by the same window, wearing my clothes. As he went down the wall like a lizard, I wished I had a gun or some deadly weapon, so that I could destroy him. But I fear that no weapon made by man’s hand alone would have any effect on him. I did not dare to wait and see him return, because I was afraid of seeing those strange sisters. I came back to the library and read there until I fell asleep.

The Count woke me. He looked at me as grimly as a man can look, and said:

“Tomorrow, my friend, we must part. You return to your beautiful England, and I to some work. It may end in such a way that we never meet again. Your letter home has been sent. Tomorrow I shall not be here, but everything will be ready for your journey. In the morning the Szgany will come, who have some work of their own here. Some Slovaks will come too. When they have gone, my carriage will come for you. It will take you to the Borgo Pass to meet the diligence from Bukovina to Bistritz. But I hope that I shall see more of you at Castle Dracula.” I did not trust him, and I decided to test his honesty. Honesty! It seems wrong to use that word about such a monster. So I asked him directly:

“Why may I not go tonight?”

“Because, dear sir, my coachman and horses are away on a mission.”

“But I would happily walk. I want to get away at once.” He smiled such a soft, smooth, devilish smile that I knew there was some trick behind it. He said:

“And your baggage?”

“I do not care about it. I can send for it some other time.”

The Count stood up. He spoke with a sweet politeness that made me rub my eyes, because it seemed so real:

“You English have a saying which is close to my heart, for its spirit rules our *boyars*: ‘Welcome the coming; speed the parting guest.’ Come with me, my dear young friend. You shall not wait one hour in my house against your will. But I am sad that you are going, and that you want it so suddenly. Come!” Slowly and seriously, like a lord, he walked in front of me with the lamp. We went down the stairs and along the hall. Suddenly he stopped.

“Listen!”

Close by came the howling of many wolves. It was almost as if the sound jumped up when he raised his hand. It was like the music of a great orchestra under the conductor’s stick. After a moment he went on in his slow, proud way to the door. He pulled back the heavy bolts, unhooked the heavy chains and began to pull the door open.

To my great surprise, I saw that it was unlocked. I looked all round suspiciously, but I could not see a key of any kind.

As the door began to open, the howling of the wolves outside grew louder and angrier. Their red jaws with snapping teeth came in through the opening door. So did their feet with blunt claws as they jumped. I knew then that it was useless to fight against the Count at that moment. With such helpers under his command, I could do nothing. But the door still went on slowly opening, and only the Count’s body stood in the gap. Suddenly I realised that this might be my end. I was to be given to the wolves, and it would be at my own request. The idea was so evil that it was just like the Count. As a last chance, I cried out:

“Shut the door; I shall wait till morning!” I covered my face with my hands to hide my tears of bitter disappointment. With one sweep of his powerful arm, the Count threw the door shut. The great bolts banged back into their places, and the sound echoed through the hall.

In silence we went back to the library. After a minute or two I went to my own room. The last I saw of Count Dracula, he was kissing his hand to me. There was a red light of triumph in his eyes. And he had a smile that would make Judas in hell proud.

I was in my room and about to lie down when I thought I heard whispering at my door. I went to it softly and listened. If my ears did not trick me, I heard the voice of the Count:

“Back, back, to your own place! Your time has not yet come. Wait! Have patience! Tonight is mine. Tomorrow night is yours!” Then there was a low, sweet ripple of laughter. In a rage I threw the door open. Outside I saw the three terrible women, licking their lips. When I appeared, they all laughed a horrible laugh together and ran away.

I came back to my room and threw myself on my knees. Is the end so near, then? Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Lord, help me, and help those who love me!

*30 June, morning.*—These may be the last words I ever write in this diary. I slept until just before dawn. When I woke, I threw myself on my knees. I had decided that if Death came, he should find me ready.

At last I felt that slight change in the air, and I knew that the morning had come. Then came the welcome sound of the cock crowing, and I felt that I was safe. With a happy heart I opened my door and ran down to the hall. I had seen that the door was unlocked, and now escape was in front of me. My hands shook with eagerness as I unhooked the chains and pulled back the heavy bolts.

But the door would not move. Despair took hold of me. I pulled and pulled at the door. I shook it until it rattled in its frame, heavy as it was. I could see that the bolt of the lock was shut. It had been locked after I left the Count.

Then a wild desire took me to get that key, whatever the risk. I decided there and then to climb the wall again and get into the Count’s room. He might kill me, but death now seemed the better of two evils. Without stopping, I rushed up to the east window. I climbed down the wall, as before, into the Count’s room. It was empty, as I had expected. I could not see a key anywhere, but the heap of gold was still there. I went through the door in the corner, down the winding stairs and along the dark passage to the old chapel. I knew well enough now where to find the monster I was looking for.

The great box was in the same place, close against the wall. But now the lid was on it. It was not fastened down, but the nails were ready in their places to be hammered in. I knew I must reach the body to find the key. So I lifted the lid and laid it back against the wall. And then I saw something that filled my very soul with horror. There lay the Count, but he looked as if he were half young again. His white hair and moustache had changed to a dark iron-grey. His cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath. His mouth was redder than ever. On his lips there were drops of fresh blood. It ran from the corners of his mouth over his chin and neck. Even his deep, burning eyes seemed set in swollen flesh, for the eyelids and the bags under them were puffed up. It seemed as if the whole awful creature was simply full of blood. He lay like a dirty leech, tired out after drinking too much. I shook with horror as I bent over to touch him. Everything in me hated to touch him. But I had to search him, or I was lost. The coming night might see my own body become a feast for those three horrible women. I felt all over the body, but I could not find the key. Then I stopped and looked at the Count. There was a mocking smile on the swollen face, and it seemed to drive me mad. This was the creature I was helping to move to London. There, perhaps for centuries to come, he might satisfy his desire for blood among its millions of people. He might create a new and ever-growing circle of half-demons to feed on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad. A terrible desire came over me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no deadly weapon near me. But I took hold of a shovel that the workmen had used to fill the boxes. I lifted it high and struck at the hateful face with the edge of the blade. But as I did so, the head turned. The eyes looked straight at me with all their terrible, burning power, like the eyes of a basilisk. The sight seemed to freeze me. The shovel turned in my hand and slid off the face. It only made a deep cut above the forehead. The shovel fell from my hand across the box. As I pulled it away, the edge of the blade caught the edge of the lid. The lid fell back over the box and hid the horrible thing from my sight. The last thing I saw was the swollen face. It was covered in blood and fixed in a grin of hate that would have been at home in the deepest hell.

I thought and thought about what to do next. But my brain seemed to be on fire, and I waited while a feeling of despair grew over me. As I waited, I heard a gipsy song in the distance. Happy voices were singing it, and they were coming closer. Through their song I heard the rolling of heavy wheels and the cracking of whips. The Szgany and the Slovaks that the Count had spoken of were coming. I took a last look around, and at the box that held the evil body. Then I ran from the place and reached the Count’s room. I had decided to rush out as soon as the door was opened. I listened hard. Downstairs I heard the key grinding in the great lock and the heavy door swinging open. There must have been some other way in, or someone had a key for one of the locked doors. Then I heard many feet tramping. The sound died away in some passage, which sent up a ringing echo. I turned to run down again towards the vault, where I might find the new entrance. But at that moment a violent gust of wind seemed to come. The door to the winding stairs blew shut with such a crash that dust flew from above the door. When I ran to push it open, I found it was shut fast. I could not move it. I was a prisoner again, and the net of my fate was closing round me more tightly.

As I write, I can hear many feet tramping in the passage below. I hear the crash of heavy things being put down. They must be the boxes with their load of earth. There is a sound of hammering; it is the box being nailed down. Now I can hear the heavy feet tramping again along the hall, with many other lazy feet coming behind them.

The door is shut, and the chains rattle. The key grinds in the lock. I can hear the key being pulled out. Then another door opens and shuts. I hear the creaking of a lock and a bolt.

Listen! In the courtyard and down the rocky road I hear the rolling of heavy wheels, the crack of whips and the singing of the Szgany. They are going away into the distance.

I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Ugh! Mina is a woman, and she has nothing in common with them. They are devils from hell!

I shall not stay here alone with them. I shall try to climb down the castle wall, farther than I have ever tried before. I shall take some of the gold with me, in case I need it later. I may find a way out of this terrible place.

And then away for home! Away to the quickest and nearest train! Away from this cursed place, from this cursed land, where the devil and his children still walk on the earth!

At least God’s mercy is better than the mercy of these monsters. And the precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep—as a man. Good-bye, all! Mina!

### Glossary

- **shorthand**: a quick way of writing with special signs
- **Szgany**: gipsies who work for the Count
- **leiter-wagon**: a long farm cart with ladder-like sides
- **hetman**: a leader or chief of a group of men
- **letter of credit**: a paper from a bank that lets a traveller get money in other countries
- **the dove from the ark**: in the Bible story of Noah, the bird that brought the sign that the great flood was over
- **vault**: an underground room, often for the dead
- **leech**: a small worm that sticks to the skin and drinks blood
- **basilisk**: a creature in old stories that could kill people just by looking at them
- **precipice**: a very steep, high side of a rock or mountain

## Chapter V

*Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra.*

“*9 May.*

“My dearest Lucy,—

“Please forgive me for not writing for so long. I have simply had far too much work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes hard. I am longing to be with you by the sea. There we can talk freely together and make our wonderful, impossible plans. I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies. I have been practising shorthand very carefully. When we are married, I want to be useful to Jonathan. If I can write shorthand well enough, I can write down what he wants to say. Then I can type it out for him on the typewriter. I am practising very hard on that too. He and I sometimes write letters to each other in shorthand. He is keeping a journal of his travels abroad in shorthand. When I am with you, I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don’t mean one of those small diaries with two pages for each week and Sunday pushed into a corner. I mean a kind of journal that I can write in whenever I want to. I don’t think there will be much in it to interest other people. But it is not written for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day, if there is anything in it worth sharing. But really it is an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do. I shall interview people, write descriptions and try to remember conversations. People tell me that with a little practice you can remember everything that happens in a day. You can remember everything you hear people say too. Well, we shall see. I will tell you about my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few short, hurried lines from Jonathan in Transylvania. He is well, and he will come back in about a week. I am longing to hear all his news. It must be so nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we—I mean Jonathan and I—will ever see them together. There is the ten o’clock bell ringing. Good-bye.

“Your loving “Mina.

“Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a long time. I hear stories, especially about a tall, handsome man with curly hair???”

*Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray*.

“*17, Chatham Street*, “*Wednesday*.

“My dearest Mina,—

“I must say it is *very* unfair of you to call me a bad letter-writer. I have written to you *twice* since we said good-bye, and your last letter was only your *second*. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing that would interest you. London is very pleasant just now. We often go to picture-galleries, and we walk and ride in the park. About the tall man with curly hair, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the last Pop. Someone has clearly been telling stories. That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and mamma get on very well. They have so many things to talk about together. Some time ago we met a man who would be just right *for you*, if you were not already engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellent *parti*. He is handsome, he has money and he comes from a good family. He is a doctor and he is really clever. Just think! He is only twenty-nine, and he is in charge of a huge lunatic asylum all by himself. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me. He came here to see us, and now he often comes. I think he is one of the most determined men I have ever seen, and yet the calmest. Nothing seems to upset him at all. I can imagine what wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a strange habit of looking straight into your face, as if he is trying to read your thoughts. He tries this a lot with me. But I like to think that I am a hard nut for him to crack. I know that from my mirror. Do you ever try to read your own face? *I do*. And I can tell you it is not a bad thing to study. It is much harder than you can imagine, if you have never tried it. He says that I am an interesting case for him to study, and I humbly think that I am. As you know, I am not interested enough in clothes to describe the new fashions to you. Clothes are a bore. That is slang again, but never mind; Arthur says it every day. There, now it is all out. Mina, we have told each other all our secrets since we were *children*. We have slept in the same room and eaten together, and laughed and cried together. And now, although I have said something, I would like to say more. Oh, Mina, couldn’t you guess? I love him. My face is red as I write this. I *think* he loves me, but he has not told me so in words. But oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him! There, that makes me feel better. I wish I were with you, dear. I wish we were sitting by the fire as we undressed, as we used to sit. Then I would try to tell you how I feel. I don’t know how I can write this, even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I would tear up the letter. And I don’t want to stop, because I *do* want so much to tell you everything. Write to me *at once*, and tell me everything you think about it. Mina, I must stop. Good-night. Bless me in your prayers; and, Mina, pray for my happiness.

“LUCY.

“P.S.—I don’t need to tell you this is a secret. Good-night again.

“L.”

*Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray*.

“*24 May*.

“My dearest Mina,—

“Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so nice to be able to tell you, and to have your kind understanding.

“My dear, when one thing happens, everything happens at once. How true the old sayings are. Here I am, I shall be twenty in September, and I never had a proposal until today, not a real proposal. And today I have had three. Just think! THREE proposals in one day! Isn’t it awful! I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor men. Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don’t know what to do with myself. And three proposals! But please, don’t tell any of the girls. They would get all sorts of wild ideas. They would feel hurt and insulted if they did not get at least six on their very first day at home. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, are engaged. Soon we shall settle down quietly as old married women. So we can look down on vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three. But you must keep it a secret, dear, from *everyone*, except, of course, Jonathan. You will tell him, because if I were you I would certainly tell Arthur. A woman should tell her husband everything—don’t you think so, dear?—and I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be just as fair as they are. And I am afraid women are not always as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch. I told you about him: Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. On the outside he was very cool, but he was nervous all the same. He had clearly been preparing himself carefully for all sorts of little things, and he remembered them. But he nearly sat down on his silk hat, and men don’t usually do that when they are cool. Then he wanted to seem relaxed, so he kept playing with a lancet. He did it in a way that nearly made me scream. He spoke to me very honestly, Mina. He told me how dear I was to him, although he had known me for so short a time. He told me what his life would be like with me to help him and make him happy. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him. But when he saw me cry, he said he was a brute. He said he would not make my trouble worse. Then he stopped and asked if I could love him in time. When I shook my head, his hands trembled. Then, not quite sure of himself, he asked me if I already cared for someone else. He asked it very nicely. He said that he did not want to force my secret from me. He only wanted to know, because if a woman’s heart was free, a man could still hope. And then, Mina, I felt a kind of duty to tell him that there was someone. I only told him that much. Then he stood up. He looked very strong and very serious as he took both my hands in his. He said he hoped I would be happy. He said that if I ever needed a friend, I must count him as one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can’t stop crying, and you must excuse the ink spots all over this letter. Being proposed to is very nice and all that. But it isn’t a happy thing at all when you see a poor man go away, looking broken-hearted. You know that he loves you honestly. And you know that, whatever he says at the moment, you are going completely out of his life. My dear, I must stop here for now. I feel so miserable, though I am so happy.

“*Evening.*

“Arthur has just gone. I feel happier than when I stopped, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice man, an American from Texas. He looks so young and so fresh. It seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and had so many adventures. I understand poor Desdemona, when such a dangerous stream of stories was poured into her ear, even by a black man. I suppose we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from our fears, and so we marry him. I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I don’t. Mr. Morris told us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and yet—— My dear, I am going too fast. Mr. Quincey P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn’t, because Arthur tried twice to *make* a chance, and I helped him as much as I could. I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you first that Mr. Morris doesn’t always speak slang. He never does it to strangers or in front of them. He is really well educated and has beautiful manners. But he found out that it amused me to hear him talk American slang. So whenever I was there, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, because it fits exactly into whatever else he says. But that is how slang is. I don’t know if I shall ever speak slang myself. I don’t know if Arthur likes it, because I have never heard him use any yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me. He looked as happy and cheerful as he could, but I could see that he was very nervous all the same. He took my hand in his and said very sweetly:

“‘Miss Lucy, I know I ain’t good enough even to fix the laces of your little shoes. But I guess if you wait till you find a man that is good enough, you’ll end up joining them seven young women with the lamps. Won’t you just tie yourself up alongside of me? Let us go down the long road together, like two horses driving in double harness.’

“Well, he looked so good-humoured and so cheerful that it wasn’t half as hard to refuse him as it was with poor Dr. Seward. So I said, as lightly as I could, that I knew nothing about tying up horses. I said that I wasn’t trained for the harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in a light way. He hoped I would forgive him if that was a mistake, on such a serious, important day for him. He really did look serious when he said it, and I couldn’t help feeling a bit serious too. I know, Mina, you will think I am a terrible flirt. But I couldn’t help feeling a kind of proud joy that he was number two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word, he began to pour out a great river of loving words. He laid his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so serious about it! I shall never again think that a man is always playful and never serious, just because he is merry sometimes. I suppose he saw something in my face that stopped him. He suddenly stopped and spoke with a kind of manly passion. If I had been free, I could have loved him for it:

“‘Lucy, you are an honest-hearted girl, I know. I would not be here speaking to you like this if I did not believe you were true and brave, right down to the bottom of your soul. Tell me, like one good friend to another, is there anyone else that you care for? If there is, I’ll never trouble you again, not by a hair. But I will be, if you let me, a very faithful friend.’

“My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I, almost making fun of this great-hearted, true gentleman. I burst into tears. I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very messy and sentimental letter in more ways than one. I really felt very bad. Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is a wicked idea, and I must not say it. I am glad to say that, although I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morris’s brave eyes. And I told him straight out:

“‘Yes, there is someone I love, though he has not told me yet that he even loves me.’ I was right to speak to him so honestly, because his face lit up. He put out both his hands and took mine—I think I put them into his—and said warmly:

“‘That’s my brave girl. It’s better to be late with a chance of winning you than to be in time for any other girl in the world. Don’t cry, my dear. If it’s for me, I’m a hard nut to crack, and I’ll take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn’t know how lucky he is, well, he’d better find out soon, or he’ll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and your courage have made me your friend. And that’s rarer than a lover; it’s more unselfish anyhow. My dear, I’m going to have a pretty lonely walk from now until Kingdom Come. Won’t you give me one kiss? It’ll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like. That other good fellow hasn’t spoken yet. And he must be a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not love him.’ That quite won me, Mina. It *was* brave and sweet of him, and noble too, to speak so of the other man—wasn’t it? And he was so sad. So I leaned over and kissed him. He stood up with my two hands in his. He looked down into my face—I am afraid I was blushing very much—and he said:

“‘Little girl, I hold your hand, and you’ve kissed me. If these things don’t make us friends, nothing ever will. Thank you for being so sweet and honest with me, and good-bye.’ He pressed my hand hard. Then he picked up his hat and went straight out of the room without looking back. There was no tear, no trembling, no stopping. And I am crying like a baby. Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy? There are lots of girls who would worship the very ground he walks on. I know I would if I were free—only I don’t want to be free. My dear, this has upset me so much. I feel I cannot write about happiness at once, after telling you about this. And I don’t want to tell you about number Three until it can all be happy.

“Ever your loving “Lucy.

“P.S.—Oh, about number Three—I don’t need to tell you about number Three, do I? Besides, it was all so confused. It seemed only a moment from the time he came into the room until both his arms were round me and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don’t know what I have done to deserve it. I must just try in the future to show that I am grateful to God. He has been so good to me in sending me such a lover, such a husband and such a friend.

“Good-bye.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

(Kept in phonograph)

*25 May.*—My appetite is low today, like the sea at low tide. I cannot eat and I cannot rest, so I am writing my diary instead. Since I was refused yesterday, I have a kind of empty feeling. Nothing in the world seems important enough to be worth doing.... I knew that the only cure for this kind of feeling was work. So I went down among the patients. I chose one who has been very interesting for me to study. He is so strange that I have decided to understand him as well as I can. Today I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery.

I questioned him more fully than ever before. I wanted to know all the facts of his false beliefs. I now see that there was something cruel in the way I did it. I seemed to want to keep him at the point of his madness. That is a thing I avoid with my patients as I would avoid the mouth of hell.

(*Mem.*: in what situation would I *not* avoid the pit of hell?) *Omnia Romæ venalia sunt.* Hell has its price! *verb. sap.* If there is anything behind this feeling of mine, it will be useful to follow it *exactly* later. So I had better begin to do so now, therefore—

R. M. Renfield, aged 59.—Lively, hot-blooded character; great physical strength; too easily excited, in an unhealthy way; times of deep sadness, which end in some fixed idea that I cannot understand. I suppose that his hot-blooded character and the disturbing influence end in a state of mind that is complete and settled. He is possibly a dangerous man, and probably dangerous if he is unselfish. In selfish men, care protects their enemies as well as it protects themselves. This is what I think on this point. When a man’s self is the fixed centre, the force that pulls him inward is balanced by the force that pushes him outward. When duty or a cause is the fixed centre, the outward force is stronger. Then only an accident, or a series of accidents, can balance it.

*Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Hon. Arthur Holmwood.*

“*25 May.*

“My dear Art,—

“We’ve told stories by the camp-fire on the prairies. We’ve dressed each other’s wounds after trying to land on the Marquesas. And we’ve drunk to each other’s health on the shore of Titicaca. There are more stories to be told, and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won’t you let this happen at my camp-fire tomorrow night? I can ask you without worry. I know a certain lady is going to a certain dinner-party, so you are free. There will be only one other guest, our old friend from Korea, Jack Seward. He’s coming too. We both want to cry our tears together into the wine-cup. And we want to drink, with all our hearts, to the health of the happiest man in all the wide world. He has won the noblest heart that God has made, and the one most worth winning. We promise you a warm welcome and a loving greeting. And we promise a toast to your health as true as your own right hand. We both promise to take you home if you drink too much to a certain pair of eyes. Come!

“Yours, as ever and always, “Quincey P. Morris.”

*Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey P. Morris.*

“*26 May.*

“Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle.

“Art.”

### Glossary

- **shorthand**: a quick way of writing with special signs
- **Pop**: a popular concert, a kind of public music evening in London
- **parti**: a French word for a man who would be a good husband to marry
- **lancet**: a small, sharp knife that doctors use
- **Desdemona**: a young woman in Shakespeare’s play *Othello*; she fell in love with Othello while he told her stories of his adventures
- **the seven young women with the lamps**: from a Bible story about young women who were not ready, and so missed the wedding
- **Kingdom Come**: the end of the world; here it means “for the rest of my life”
- **Omnia Romæ venalia sunt**: Latin: “Everything in Rome can be bought”
- **verb. sap.**: Latin, short for “a word is enough for a wise man”
- **make your ears tingle**: be very surprising and exciting to hear

## Chapter VI: Mina Murray’s Journal

*24 July. Whitby.*—Lucy met me at the station. She looked sweeter and lovelier than ever. We drove up to the house at the Crescent, where they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which grows wider as it comes near the harbour. A great bridge on high stone legs crosses the valley. When you look through its arches, the view seems further away than it really is. The valley is beautifully green. It is so steep that from the high land on either side you look right across it. You can only see down into it if you are near the edge. The houses of the old town are on the other side, away from us. They all have red roofs, and they seem piled up one on top of the other without any order. They look like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right above the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey. The Danes attacked and robbed it long ago. It is the scene of part of “Marmion”, where the girl was built up inside the wall. It is a very noble ruin, huge, and full of beautiful and romantic corners. There is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between the abbey and the town there is another church, the parish church. Round it there is a big graveyard, full of tombstones. In my opinion this is the nicest place in Whitby. It lies right above the town and has a full view of the harbour. You can see all along the bay to the point of land called Kettleness, which reaches out into the sea. The graveyard falls so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away. Some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place, part of the stonework of the graves sticks out over the sandy path far below. There are paths through the churchyard, with seats beside them. People come and sit there all day long. They look at the beautiful view and enjoy the breeze. I shall come and sit here very often myself and work. In fact, I am writing now, with my book on my knee. I am listening to the talk of three old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day except sit up here and talk.

The harbour lies below me. On the far side, one long granite wall stretches out into the sea. It curves outwards at the end, and in the middle of the curve there is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs along the outside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall bends like an elbow, but the other way. Its end has a lighthouse too. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly becomes wide.

It is nice at high tide. But when the tide is out, the water becomes shallower and shallower until there is none. Then there is only the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this side, a great line of rocks rises for about half a mile. Its sharp edge runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it there is a floating buoy with a bell. In bad weather it swings and sends a sad sound in on the wind. There is a legend here that when a ship is lost, people hear bells out at sea. I must ask the old man about this. He is coming this way....

He is a funny old man. He must be terribly old, because his face is all knotted and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is nearly a hundred. He says he was a sailor with the Greenland fishing ships at the time of the battle of Waterloo. I am afraid he is a person who believes nothing. When I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey, he said very roughly:

“I wouldn’t fash myself about them, miss. Them things be all worn out. Mind, I don’t say that they never was. But I do say that they wasn’t in my time. They be all very well for visitors and day-trippers and the like. But not for a nice young lady like you. Them folk who come on foot from York and Leeds would believe anything. They be always eating salted herrings and drinking tea and looking to buy cheap jet. I wonder myself who’d bother telling lies to them—even the newspapers, which is full of fool-talk.” I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from. So I asked him if he would tell me something about whale-fishing in the old days. He was just making himself comfortable to begin, when the clock struck six. At that, he struggled to get up, and said:

“I must go off home now, miss. My grand-daughter doesn’t like to be kept waiting when the tea is ready. It takes me time to climb up the steps, for there be a many of ’em. And, miss, by the clock I badly want my belly-timber.”

He walked away slowly and painfully. I could see him hurrying down the steps as well as he could. The steps are a great feature of this place. They lead from the town up to the church. There are hundreds of them—I do not know how many. They wind up in a gentle curve. The slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must have had something to do with the abbey long ago. I shall go home too. Lucy went out visiting with her mother. They were only visits of duty, so I did not go. They will be home by now.

*1 August.*—I came up here an hour ago with Lucy. We had a very interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him. He is clearly their Sir Oracle. I think that in his time he must have been a very bossy person. He will not admit anything, and he contradicts everybody. If he cannot win an argument, he bullies people. Then he takes their silence to mean that they agree with him. Lucy looked sweetly pretty in her white cotton dress. She has got a beautiful colour in her cheeks since she came here. I noticed that the old men lost no time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down. She is so sweet with old people. I think they all fell in love with her at once. Even my old man gave in and did not argue with her. Instead, he argued twice as much with me! I got him onto the subject of the legends, and at once he began a kind of sermon. I must try to remember it and write it down:

“It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that’s what it be, an’ nowt else. These curses and ghosts and bogies and goblins and all such things be only fit to make children and silly women scream. They be nowt but bubbles of air. They, and all the signs and warnings, be all invented. Parsons and nasty book-writers and railway salesmen invent them. They do it to scare young folk, and to get people to do things they don’t want to do. It makes me angry to think of them. Why, it’s them that ain’t content with printing lies on paper and preaching them from the pulpit. They want to cut them on the tombstones too. Look all around you, in any direction you like. All them stones hold their heads up as well as they can, out of pride. But they lean over. They be simply falling down with the weight of the lies written on them. ‘Here lies the body’ or ‘Sacred to the memory’ is written on all of them. And yet in nearly half of them there bean’t no bodies at all. And nobody cares a pinch of snuff about their memories, never mind thinking them sacred. Lies, all of them, nothing but lies of one kind or another! My God, but it’ll be a strange mess at the Day of Judgment! They’ll come tumbling up in their burial shirts, all pushed together. They’ll try to drag their tombstones with them, to prove how good they was. Some of them will be trembling and shaking. Their hands will be so soft and slippery from lying in the sea that they can’t even keep hold of the stones.”

I could see from the old man’s pleased face, and from the way he looked round at his friends for approval, that he was “showing off”. So I said something to keep him going:

“Oh, Mr. Swales, you can’t be serious. Surely these tombstones are not all wrong?”

“Maybe! There may be a few, not many, that aren’t wrong. Except where they make out the people too good. For there be folk who think a little bowl be as big as the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Now look you here. You come here a stranger, and you see this kirk-garth.” I nodded, because I thought it better to agree. I did not quite understand his dialect, but I knew the word had something to do with the church. He went on: “And you think that all these stones be over folk that be buried here, safe and snug?” I agreed again. “Then that be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be dozens of these graves that be as empty as old Dun’s tobacco-box on Friday night.” He pushed one of his friends with his elbow, and they all laughed. “And my God! How could they be anything else? Look at that one, the one furthest back, behind the bier-bank. Read it!” I went over and read:

“Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, aged 30.” When I came back, Mr. Swales went on:

“Who brought him home, I wonder, to bury him here? Murdered off the coast of Andres! And you thought his body lay under there! Why, I could name you a dozen men whose bones lie up in the Greenland seas”—he pointed to the north—“or wherever the currents may have carried them. There be the stones around you. With your young eyes you can read the small print of the lies from here. This Braithwaite Lowrey—I knew his father. He was lost in the *Lively* off Greenland in ’20. Or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the same seas in 1777. Or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year later. Or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me. He was drowned in the Gulf of Finland in ’50. Do you think all these men will have to rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have my doubts about it! I tell you, when they got here they’d be pushing and shoving one another. It would be like a fight up on the ice in the old days. We’d be at one another from daylight to dark. Then we’d try to tie up our cuts by the light of the northern lights.” This was clearly a local joke, for the old man laughed loudly at it, and his friends joined in happily.

“But,” I said, “surely you are not quite right. You are starting from the idea that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will really be necessary?”

“Well, what else be the tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!”

“To please their relatives, I suppose.”

“To please their relatives, you suppose!” He said this with deep scorn. “How will it please their relatives to know that lies is written over them? And that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?” He pointed to a stone at our feet. It had been laid flat on the ground, and the seat rested on it, close to the edge of the cliff. “Read the lies on that flat stone,” he said. The letters were upside down for me from where I sat. But Lucy was more opposite them, so she leaned over and read:

“Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July, 29, 1873, falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son. ‘He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’ Really, Mr. Swales, I don’t see anything very funny in that!” She said this very seriously, and rather severely.

“You don’t see anything funny! Ha! ha! But that’s because you don’t understand. The sorrowing mother was a hell-cat. She hated him because he was crooked—he was a real cripple. And he hated her so much that he killed himself, so that she wouldn’t get the insurance money she had put on his life. He blew nearly the top of his head off with an old gun that they had for scaring the crows. It wasn’t crows it scared then, for it brought the flies and the crows to him. That’s the way he fell off the rocks. And as for hopes of a glorious resurrection, I’ve often heard him say myself that he hoped he’d go to hell. His mother was so religious that she’d be sure to go to heaven, and he didn’t want to end up where she was. Now isn’t that stone, anyway”—he hit it with his stick as he spoke—“a pack of lies? And won’t it make the angel Gabriel laugh when Geordie comes panting up the steps with the tombstone on his back, and asks for it to be taken as evidence!”

I did not know what to say. But Lucy stood up and changed the subject. She said:

“Oh, why did you tell us this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannot leave it. And now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a man who killed himself.”

“That won’t harm you, my pretty. And it may make poor Geordie glad to have such a pretty girl sitting on his lap. That won’t hurt you. Why, I’ve sat here on and off for nearly twenty years, and it hasn’t done me no harm. Don’t you worry about them that lies under you, or that doesn’t lie there either! It’ll be time for you to be scared when you see the tombstones all run away, and the place as bare as a field after the harvest. There’s the clock, and I must go. My respects to you, ladies!” And off he limped.

Lucy and I sat for a while. Everything in front of us was so beautiful that we held hands as we sat. She told me all over again about Arthur and their coming marriage. That made me just a little sad at heart, because I haven’t heard from Jonathan for a whole month.

*The same day.* I came up here alone, because I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope nothing can be wrong with Jonathan. The clock has just struck nine. I can see the lights all over the town. Sometimes they are in rows, where the streets are, and sometimes they are alone. They run right up the Esk and disappear in the curve of the valley. To my left, the view is cut off by the black line of the roof of the old house next to the abbey. The sheep and lambs are calling in the fields behind me. Below, I can hear a donkey’s hoofs clattering up the stone road. The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz, but in good time. Further along the harbour there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. Neither band can hear the other, but up here I can hear and see them both. I wonder where Jonathan is, and if he is thinking of me! I wish he were here.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*5 June.*—The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I understand the man. Some of his qualities are very strongly developed: selfishness, secrecy and purpose. I wish I could find out what his purpose is. He seems to have some fixed plan of his own, but I do not yet know what it is. His one good quality is a love of animals. But it has such strange sides to it that I sometimes think he is only unusually cruel. His pets are of strange kinds. At the moment his hobby is catching flies. He now has so many that I have had to complain to him myself. To my surprise, he did not get angry, as I had expected. He took the matter simply and seriously. He thought for a moment, and then said: “May I have three days? I shall clear them away.” Of course, I said that would be all right. I must watch him.

*18 June.*—He has now turned his mind to spiders. He has got several very big ones in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the number of flies is clearly getting smaller. But he has used half his food to bring more flies into his room from outside.

*1 July.*—His spiders are now becoming as great a problem as his flies. Today I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this. So I said that he must at least clear out some of them. He cheerfully agreed, and I gave him the same time as before to do it. While I was with him, he disgusted me very much. A horrible blow-fly came buzzing into the room, swollen from feeding on some dead animal. He caught it and held it happily between his finger and thumb for a few moments. Then, before I knew what he was going to do, he put it in his mouth and ate it. I told him off for it. But he argued quietly that it was very good and very healthy. He said that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the beginning of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He clearly has some deep problem in his mind. He keeps a little note-book, and he is always writing something in it. Whole pages are filled with lots of figures. Usually they are single numbers added up in groups. Then the totals are added up in groups again. It is as if he were balancing some account, as the accountants say.

*8 July.*—There is a method in his madness, and the idea in my mind is growing. Soon it will be a whole idea. And then, oh, my unconscious thinking! You will have to step aside for your conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that I could notice any change. Things are the same as before, except that he has got rid of some of his pets and got a new one. He has managed to get a sparrow, and he has already partly tamed it. His way of taming it is simple, because the spiders have already become fewer. But those that are left are well fed, because he still brings in the flies by tempting them with his food.

*19 July.*—We are making progress. My friend now has a whole colony of sparrows, and his flies and spiders have almost disappeared. When I came in, he ran to me. He said he wanted to ask me a great favour—a very, very great favour. As he spoke, he begged and tried to please me like a dog. I asked him what it was. He said, with a kind of joy in his voice and in his whole body:

“A kitten, a nice little, smooth, playful kitten, that I can play with, and teach, and feed—and feed—and feed!” I was ready for this request. I had noticed how his pets kept getting bigger and livelier. But I did not want his pretty family of tame sparrows to be wiped out in the same way as the flies and the spiders. So I said I would think about it. I asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten. His eagerness gave him away as he answered:

“Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten because I was afraid you would refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they?” I shook my head. I said that I was afraid it would not be possible at the moment, but that I would think about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning of danger in it. There was a sudden fierce look from the side of his eyes, which meant killing. The man is a murderous madman who has not yet fully developed. I shall test him with his present desire and see how it works out. Then I shall know more.

*10 p. m.*—I have visited him again. I found him sitting in a corner, thinking darkly. When I came in, he threw himself on his knees in front of me. He begged me to let him have a cat. He said that his salvation depended on it. But I was firm, and told him that he could not have it. At that, he went without a word and sat down in the corner where I had found him, biting his fingers. I shall see him early in the morning.

*20 July.*—I visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went on his rounds. I found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out the sugar he had saved on the window-sill. He was clearly beginning his fly-catching again, and doing it cheerfully and willingly. I looked around for his birds. I did not see them, so I asked him where they were. He answered, without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were a few feathers around the room, and on his pillow there was a drop of blood. I said nothing. But I went and told the keeper to tell me if there was anything strange about him during the day.

*11 a. m.*—The attendant has just come to tell me that Renfield has been very sick. He has thrown up a whole lot of feathers. “I believe, doctor,” he said, “that he has eaten his birds. He just took them and ate them raw!”

*11 p. m.*—I gave Renfield a strong opiate tonight, strong enough to make even him sleep. I took away his note-book to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is now complete, and the theory is proved. My murderous madman is of a special kind. I shall have to invent a new class for him. I shall call him a zoöphagous (life-eating) maniac. What he wants is to take in as many lives as he can. He has planned to do it by adding lives together, step by step. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird. And then he wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would his next steps have been? It would almost be worth finishing the experiment. It could be done if there were only a good enough reason. People laughed at experiments on living animals, and yet look at the results today! Why not move science forward in its most difficult and important area—the knowledge of the brain? Suppose I had the secret of even one such mind. Suppose I held the key to the fancies of even one lunatic. Then I could raise my own branch of science to a high level. Next to it, Burdon-Sanderson’s physiology or Ferrier’s brain-knowledge would be nothing. If only there were a good enough reason! I must not think too much about this, or I may be tempted. A good reason might make me decide to do it. For might I, too, have an unusual brain, from birth?

How well the man reasoned! Madmen always do, within their own limits. I wonder how many lives he thinks one man is worth, or if he thinks a man is worth only one. He has closed his account very exactly, and today he has begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives?

To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended, together with my new hope. And then, truly, I began a new record. So it will be until the Great Recorder adds me up. He will close my account book with a balance of profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you. Nor can I be angry with my friend, whose happiness is yours. I must just go on waiting without hope, and work. Work! Work!

If only I could have as strong a reason as my poor mad friend there—a good, unselfish reason to make me work—that would really be happiness.

*Mina Murray’s Journal.*

*26 July.*—I am anxious, and it calms me to put my feelings down here. It is like whispering to yourself and listening at the same time. And there is also something about the shorthand signs that makes it different from ordinary writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and I was very worried. But yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written to ask him if he had heard anything. He said the letter he sent with his own had just arrived. It is only one line, written at Castle Dracula. It says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan. I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, there is Lucy. Although she is so well, she has lately gone back to her old habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it. We have decided that I will lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has an idea about sleep-walkers. She thinks they always go out on the roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs. Then they suddenly wake up and fall over the edge, with a cry of despair that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy. She tells me that her husband, Lucy’s father, had the same habit. He used to get up in the night and dress and go out, if no one stopped him. Lucy is to be married in the autumn. She is already planning her dresses and how her house will be arranged. I understand her well, because I do the same. Only Jonathan and I will start our life in a very simple way. We shall have to try hard to live on the money we have. Mr. Holmwood is coming up here very soon—as soon as he can leave London. He is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming. He cannot leave yet, because his father is not very well. I think dear Lucy is counting the moments until he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I think it is the waiting that troubles her. She will be all right when he arrives.

*27 July.*—No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him, though I do not know why I should. But I do wish that he would write, even if it were only one line. Lucy walks in her sleep more than ever. Every night I am woken by her moving about the room. Luckily, the weather is so hot that she cannot catch cold. But the worry, and being woken all the time, is beginning to affect me. I am getting nervous and I cannot sleep well myself. Thank God, Lucy’s health stays good. Mr. Holmwood has suddenly been called to Ring to see his father, who is seriously ill. Lucy is unhappy that she must wait longer to see him, but it does not change her looks. She is a little fatter, and her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost that pale, bloodless look that she had. I pray it will all last.

*3 August.*—Another week has gone, and there is no news from Jonathan. He has not even written to Mr. Hawkins, who has written to me. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. Surely he would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not sound like him, and yet it is his handwriting. There is no mistake about that. Lucy has not walked much in her sleep this last week. But there is a strange concentration about her which I do not understand. Even in her sleep she seems to be watching me. She tries the door, and when she finds it locked, she goes round the room looking for the key.

*6 August.*—Another three days, and no news. This waiting is getting terrible. If I only knew where to write or where to go, I would feel better. But no one has heard a word from Jonathan since that last letter. I can only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable than ever, but otherwise she is well. Last night the weather looked very threatening. The fishermen say that a storm is coming. I must try to watch it and learn the signs of the weather. Today is a grey day. As I write, the sun is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey—except the green grass, which looks like an emerald among it all. There is grey, earthy rock. Grey clouds, coloured by the sunlight at their far edge, hang over the grey sea. The points of sand stretch into the sea like grey fingers. The sea rolls in over the shallow places and the flat sands with a roar. The sound is softened by the sea-mists that drift inland. The horizon is lost in a grey mist. Everything is huge and wide. The clouds are piled up like giant rocks. There is a “brool” over the sea that sounds like a warning of doom. Here and there are dark figures on the beach. Sometimes they are half hidden in the mist, and they seem like “men like trees walking”. The fishing-boats are racing for home. They rise and fall in the deep waves as they sweep into the harbour, leaning far over to one side. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is coming straight towards me. I can see by the way he lifts his hat that he wants to talk....

I have been very touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat down beside me, he spoke very gently:

“I want to say something to you, miss.” I could see he was not at ease. So I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to say everything he wanted. So he spoke, leaving his hand in mine:

“I’m afraid, my dear, that I must have shocked you. I’ve been saying all those wicked things about the dead, and such like, for weeks. But I didn’t mean them, and I want you to remember that when I’m gone. We old folk, who be confused and have one foot in the grave, don’t quite like to think about it. And we don’t want to feel scared of it. That’s why I’ve taken to making fun of it, so that I’d cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord love you, miss, I ain’t afraid of dying, not a bit. Only I don’t want to die if I can help it. My time must be very near now, for I be old. A hundred years is too much for any man to expect. And I’m so near it that the Old Man is already sharpening his scythe. You see, I can’t stop joking about it all at once. My jaws will keep moving the way they’re used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will blow his trumpet for me. But don’t you grieve and cry, my dear!”—for he saw that I was crying—“If he should come this very night, I’d not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a waiting for something else than what we’re doing. And death be all that we can really depend on. But I’m content, for it’s coming to me, my dear, and coming quick. It may be coming while we be looking and wondering. Maybe it’s in that wind out over the sea, that’s bringing loss and wrecks, and great trouble, and sad hearts. Look! Look!” he cried suddenly. “There’s something in that wind, and in the sea-mist beyond. It sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It’s in the air; I feel it coming. Lord, make me answer cheerfully when my call comes!” He held up his arms as if in prayer, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as if he were praying. After a few minutes of silence, he got up. He shook hands with me and blessed me, and said good-bye, and limped away. It all touched me and upset me very much.

I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his telescope under his arm. He stopped to talk to me, as he always does. But all the time he kept looking at a strange ship.

“I can’t understand her,” he said. “She’s a Russian, by the look of her. But she’s moving about in the strangest way. She can’t make up her mind at all. She seems to see the storm coming, but she can’t decide. Should she run north into the open sea, or come in here? Look there again! She is steered very strangely. She doesn’t obey the hand on the wheel. She changes direction with every puff of wind. We’ll hear more about her before this time tomorrow.”

### Glossary

- **“Marmion”**: a long poem by Walter Scott; part of its story happens at Whitby Abbey
- **fash**: a northern dialect word: to worry or trouble yourself
- **jet**: a hard black stone, found near Whitby, used for jewellery
- **belly-timber**: an old dialect word for food
- **Sir Oracle**: a person who talks as if he knows everything and nobody may disagree
- **kirk-garth**: a northern dialect word for a churchyard
- **bier-bank**: a dialect word for the place in the churchyard where a coffin is set down
- **mariner**: a sailor
- **unconscious thinking**: thinking that the brain does by itself, without our knowing it
- **zoöphagous**: eating living creatures
- **“brool”**: a deep, low, roaring sound
- **“men like trees walking”**: words from the Bible, about a blind man who began to see people only as unclear shapes
- **the Old Man ... his scythe**: Death, shown in pictures as an old man with a long, curved blade for cutting grass

## Chapter VII: Cutting from “The Dailygraph,” 8 August

(*Pasted in Mina Murray’s Journal.*) From a Correspondent.

*Whitby*.

One of the greatest and most sudden storms ever recorded has just hit this town. Its results were both strange and unlike anything else. The weather had been rather hot and heavy, but not more than usual for August. Saturday evening was as fine as anyone could remember. Yesterday the crowds of holiday-makers planned visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood’s Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and other places near Whitby. The steamers *Emma* and *Scarborough* made trips up and down the coast. An unusual number of people were “tripping” to and from Whitby. The day was very fine until the afternoon. Then some of the gossips noticed something. These people like to sit in the East Cliff churchyard. From that high place they watch the wide sea to the north and east. They pointed out a sudden show of “mares’-tails” high in the sky to the north-west. At that time the wind was blowing gently from the south-west. Weather experts call this “No. 2: light breeze.” The coastguard on duty reported it at once. One old fisherman has watched the weather signs from the East Cliff for more than fifty years. He said very firmly that a sudden storm was coming. The sunset was very beautiful, with grand masses of brightly coloured clouds. Quite a crowd gathered on the walk along the cliff in the old churchyard to enjoy it. The sun went down behind the black mass of Kettleness, which stood boldly across the western sky. On its way down, countless clouds showed every sunset colour. There was flame, purple, pink, green, violet and every shade of gold. Here and there were smaller masses that looked completely black. They had all sorts of shapes, and their edges were as sharp as giant silhouettes. The painters did not miss this. No doubt some sketches of the “Prelude to the Great Storm” will hang on the walls of the R. A. and R. I. next May. More than one captain decided then and there that his “cobble” or his “mule” would stay in the harbour until the storm had passed. These are the local names for the different kinds of boats. The wind died away completely during the evening. At midnight there was a dead calm and a heavy heat. There was also that strong tension in the air which affects sensitive people when thunder is coming. Only a few lights could be seen at sea. The coastal steamers usually stay very close to the shore. But even they kept well out to sea, and only a few fishing-boats were in sight. The only sail anyone noticed was a foreign schooner with all her sails set. She seemed to be going west. While she was in sight, people talked a lot about her officers, who were either foolish or did not know the danger. People tried to signal to her to take in some of her sails, because she was in danger. Before night fell she was seen with her sails flapping lazily. She rolled gently on the slow, rising and falling waves of the sea,

“As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.”

Shortly before ten o’clock the still air became very heavy and hard to bear. The silence was so deep that every sound carried clearly. You could hear a sheep in the fields or a dog barking in the town. The band on the pier was playing a lively French tune. It sounded wrong in the great harmony of nature’s silence. A little after midnight a strange sound came from over the sea. High overhead, the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming.

Then, without warning, the storm broke. It happened so fast that it seemed impossible at the time. Even afterwards it is hard to understand. The whole face of nature suddenly went wild. The waves rose with growing fury, each one higher than the one before. A short time before, the sea had been as smooth as glass. In a very few minutes it was like a roaring, hungry monster. White-topped waves beat madly on the flat sands and rushed up the sloping cliffs. Others broke over the piers. Their spray swept over the lamps of the lighthouses at the end of each pier of Whitby Harbour. The wind roared like thunder. It blew so hard that even strong men could hardly stay on their feet. Others held on grimly to the iron posts. The crowds of onlookers had to be cleared from the piers. Otherwise many more people would have died that night. To add to the difficulties and dangers, masses of sea-fog came drifting inland. They were white, wet clouds that swept by like ghosts. They were so damp and cold that it was easy to imagine something terrible. It was as if the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brothers. They seemed to touch them with the cold, wet hands of death. Many people shivered as the clouds of sea-mist swept past. At times the mist cleared. Then the sea could be seen for some distance in the bright flashes of lightning. The lightning now came thick and fast. Sudden crashes of thunder followed it. The whole sky seemed to shake under the heavy footsteps of the storm.

Some of the scenes we saw were grand beyond measure and gripping to watch. The sea rose as high as mountains. Each wave threw huge masses of white foam towards the sky. The storm seemed to grab the foam and whirl it away into space. Here and there a fishing-boat with a scrap of sail ran madly for shelter before the wind. Now and then we saw the white wings of a sea-bird thrown about by the storm. On the top of the East Cliff stood the new searchlight. It was ready for testing but had not yet been tried. The officers in charge of it got it working. Whenever the mist paused, they swept the light across the surface of the sea. Once or twice it was very useful. For example, a fishing-boat rushed into the harbour with its side under water. The light guided it, so it did not crash against the piers. Each time a boat reached the safety of the port, the people on shore shouted with joy. For a moment the shout seemed to cut through the gale. Then the rushing wind swept it away.

Before long the searchlight found a schooner some distance away, with all her sails set. It seemed to be the same ship that people had noticed earlier in the evening. By this time the wind had turned round to the east. A shudder went through the watchers on the cliff as they understood her terrible danger. Between her and the port lay the great flat reef. Many good ships have been wrecked on it over the years. With the wind blowing from that direction, she could not possibly reach the harbour entrance. It was now nearly the hour of high tide. But the waves were huge. Between them you could almost see the shallow sea floor near the shore. The schooner, with all her sails set, was rushing along at great speed. An old sailor put it like this: “She must end up somewhere, even if it’s only in hell.” Then came another rush of sea-fog, bigger than any before. It was a mass of wet mist. It seemed to cover everything like a grey cloth over a coffin. Now men could only use their ears. The roar of the storm, the crash of the thunder and the booming of the huge waves came through the wet darkness. They sounded even louder than before. The searchlight was kept pointed at the harbour mouth across the East Pier. Everyone expected the crash there. Men waited, holding their breath. Suddenly the wind turned to the north-east. The last of the sea-fog melted away in the wind. And then, *mirabile dictu*, the strange schooner rushed in between the piers. Driven by the wind, she leapt from wave to wave at great speed, with all her sails set. She reached the safety of the harbour. The searchlight followed her, and a shudder ran through everyone who saw her. A dead body was tied to the helm. Its head hung down, and it swung horribly from side to side with every movement of the ship. No other person could be seen on deck at all. Everyone was filled with awe. The ship had found the harbour as if by a miracle. And the only hand that steered her was the hand of a dead man! But all this happened more quickly than it takes to write these words. The schooner did not stop. She rushed across the harbour and threw herself onto a bank of sand and gravel. Many tides and storms have washed this sand into the south-east corner of the pier under the East Cliff. The local people call this pier Tate Hill Pier.

Of course there was a heavy shock as the ship drove up onto the sand. Every mast, rope and cable was strained. Some of the gear high up on the masts came crashing down. But the strangest thing of all happened at the very moment the ship touched the shore. An enormous dog sprang up onto the deck from below. It was as if the shock had shot it up. It ran forward and jumped from the front of the ship onto the sand. Then it ran straight for the steep cliff. There the churchyard hangs over the lane that goes to the East Pier. The cliff is so steep that parts of it have fallen away. So some of the flat tombstones actually stick out over the empty air. In the Whitby dialect people call these stones “thruff-steans” or “through-stones.” The dog disappeared into the darkness. The darkness seemed even deeper just outside the beam of the searchlight.

It happened that nobody was on Tate Hill Pier at that moment. All the people who live near it were either in bed or up on the heights above. So the coastguard on duty on the eastern side of the harbour ran down to the little pier at once. He was the first to climb on board. The men at the searchlight first searched the harbour entrance, but they saw nothing. Then they turned the light on the abandoned ship and kept it there. The coastguard ran to the back of the ship. When he came to the wheel, he bent over to look at it. At once he stepped back, as if some sudden feeling had shocked him. This made everyone curious, and quite a number of people began to run. It is a long way round from the West Cliff over the Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier. But your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and I arrived well ahead of the crowd. When I arrived, however, there was already a crowd on the pier. The coastguard and the police would not allow them on board. The chief boatman kindly let me climb on deck, because I was your correspondent. I was one of a small group who saw the dead sailor while he was still tied to the wheel.

It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even filled with awe. Such a sight is very rarely seen. The man’s hands were simply tied, one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix. It hung on a string of beads, which went round both wrists and the wheel. The ropes held everything tight. The poor man may have been sitting at one time. But the flapping and beating of the sails had moved the rudder, and so the wheel. It had pulled him backwards and forwards. The ropes that tied him had cut his flesh to the bone. Careful notes were made of everything. A doctor came immediately after me. He was Surgeon J. M. Caffyn, of 33, East Elliot Place. He examined the man. He said that the man must have been dead for a full two days. In his pocket was a bottle, carefully closed with a cork. It was empty except for a little roll of paper. This turned out to be the last part of the ship’s log. The coastguard said the man must have tied up his own hands. He must have pulled the knots tight with his teeth. A coastguard was the first person on board, and this may save some trouble later in the Admiralty Court. Coastguards cannot claim salvage. That right belongs to the first ordinary person who goes on board an abandoned ship. But already the lawyers are talking. One young law student is loudly saying that the owner has already lost all his rights. The tiller is a sign that someone holds the ship for its owner. But the tiller is held in a *dead hand*. So, he says, the property is held against the laws of mortmain. Of course the dead steersman has been taken away with great respect. He kept his honourable watch at that place until death. His loyalty was as noble as the young Casabianca’s. Now he lies in the mortuary to wait for the inquest.

The sudden storm is already passing, and its fury is growing less. The crowds are going home, and the sky is beginning to turn red over the Yorkshire hills. I shall send you more details of the abandoned ship in time for your next issue. She found her way into the harbour in the storm like a miracle.

*Whitby*

*9 August.*—The strange arrival of the abandoned ship in the storm last night has had a sequel. It is almost more surprising than the arrival itself. It turns out that the schooner is Russian, from Varna. She is called the *Demeter*. For ballast she carries almost nothing but silver sand. She has only a small amount of cargo: a number of great wooden boxes filled with earth. This cargo was sent to a Whitby solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington, of 7, The Crescent. This morning he went on board and officially took possession of the goods sent to him. The Russian consul also officially took possession of the ship. He was acting for the people who had hired her. He paid all the harbour charges and so on. Today nobody here talks about anything except this strange event. The officials of the Board of Trade have been very strict. They have made sure that every rule has been followed. The affair is going to be a “nine days’ wonder.” So they clearly want to make sure that nobody can complain afterwards. A lot of people were interested in the dog that jumped ashore when the ship struck. The S. P. C. A. is very strong in Whitby, and quite a few of its members have tried to look after the animal. But to everyone’s disappointment, it could not be found. It seems to have disappeared completely from the town. Perhaps it was frightened and ran away onto the moors, and it is still hiding there in terror. Some people fear this. They worry that later the dog itself might become a danger, because it is clearly a fierce animal. Early this morning a large dog was found dead in the road opposite its master’s yard. It was a half-bred mastiff, and it belonged to a coal merchant near Tate Hill Pier. It had been fighting, and clearly its enemy had been savage. Its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit open as if by a savage claw.

*Later.*—The Board of Trade inspector kindly allowed me to look through the log-book of the *Demeter*. It was in order up to three days before the end. But it held nothing of special interest, except facts about the missing men. The greatest interest, however, is in the paper found in the bottle. It was shown today at the inquest. These two papers tell a story together. I have never come across a stranger one. There is no reason to keep them secret, so I am allowed to use them. I am sending you a copy. I have only left out technical details about sailing and the cargo. It almost seems that some kind of madness took hold of the captain before he was far out at sea. It seems this madness grew steadily all through the voyage. Of course you must take what I say *cum grano*. Time was short, so a clerk of the Russian consul kindly translated for me. I am writing down what he said.

LOG OF THE “DEMETER.”

*Varna to Whitby.*

*Written 18 July. Things so strange are happening that I shall keep exact notes from now on until we land.*

On 6 July we finished loading cargo: silver sand and boxes of earth. At noon we set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands ... two mates, cook, and myself (captain).

On 11 July at dawn we entered the Bosphorus. Turkish Customs officers came on board. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way again at 4 p. m.

On 12 July through the Dardanelles. More Customs officers, and a flag-boat of the guard ships. Backsheesh again. The officers’ work was thorough, but quick. They want us gone soon. At dark we passed into the Archipelago.

On 13 July we passed Cape Matapan. The crew were unhappy about something. They seemed scared, but would not say why.

On 14 July I was rather worried about the crew. The men are all steady fellows who have sailed with me before. The mate could not find out what was wrong. They only told him there was *something*, and crossed themselves. That day the mate lost his temper with one of them and hit him. I expected a fierce quarrel, but all was quiet.

On 16 July the mate reported in the morning that one of the crew, Petrofsky, was missing. We could not explain it. He took the larboard watch at eight bells last night. Abramoff took over from him, but Petrofsky did not go to his bed. The men are more unhappy than ever. They all said they expected something like this. But they would only say that there was *something* on board. The mate is getting very impatient with them. I fear some trouble ahead.

On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin. He was full of awe and fear, and he told me a secret. He thought there was a strange man on the ship. He said that during his watch there was a rain-storm. So he was sheltering behind the deck-house. Then he saw a tall, thin man come up the stairs from below. The man was not like any of the crew. He went along the deck towards the front of the ship and disappeared. Olgaren followed carefully. But when he got to the front, he found no one, and all the hatches were closed. He was in a panic of superstitious fear. I am afraid the panic may spread. To calm it, I shall search the whole ship carefully today, from front to back.

Later in the day I gathered the whole crew together. They clearly thought there was someone on the ship. So I told them we would search it from front to back. The first mate was angry. He said it was foolish. He said that giving in to such silly ideas would make the men lose heart. He said he could keep them out of trouble with a handspike. I let him take the helm, while the rest began a thorough search. We all kept side by side in a line, with lanterns. We left no corner unsearched. There were only the big wooden boxes, so there were no odd corners where a man could hide. The men were very relieved when the search was over. They went back to work cheerfully. The first mate scowled, but said nothing.

*22 July*.—Rough weather for the last three days. All hands busy with the sails—no time to be frightened. The men seem to have forgotten their fear. The mate is cheerful again, and we are all on good terms. I praised the men for their work in bad weather. Passed Gibraltar and out through the Straits. All well.

*24 July*.—There seems to be some curse over this ship. We were already one man short. We are entering the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead. And yet last night another man was lost. He disappeared. Like the first one, he came off his watch and was never seen again. The men are all in a panic of fear. They sent a round robin. In it they asked to have a double watch, because they are afraid to be alone. The mate is angry. I fear there will be some trouble. Either he or the men will do something violent.

*28 July*.—Four days in hell. We were thrown about in a kind of whirlpool, and the wind was a storm. No sleep for anyone. The men are all worn out. I hardly know how to arrange a watch, since no one is fit to go on. The second mate offered to steer and keep watch, so that the men could snatch a few hours’ sleep. The wind is dropping. The seas are still terrible, but we feel them less, as the ship is steadier.

*29 July*.—Another tragedy. We had a single watch tonight, because the crew were too tired to double it. When the morning watch came on deck, they could find no one except the man at the wheel. They raised the alarm, and everyone came on deck. We made a thorough search, but found no one. We are now without the second mate, and the crew are in a panic. The mate and I agreed to carry weapons from now on and wait for any sign of the cause.

*30 July*.—Last night. We were glad that we are getting near England. Weather fine, all sails set. I went to bed worn out and slept deeply. The mate woke me. He told me that both the man on watch and the man at the wheel were missing. Only myself, the mate and two hands are left to work the ship.

*1 August*.—Two days of fog, and not a sail seen. I had hoped to signal for help in the English Channel, or to get into some port. We do not have the strength to work the sails, so we have to run before the wind. I dare not lower the sails, because we could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting towards some terrible end. The mate has now lost heart more than either of the men. His nature is stronger, but it seems to have turned against him inside. The men are past fear. They work steadily and patiently, ready for the worst. They are Russian; he is Roumanian.

*2 August, midnight*.—I woke from a few minutes’ sleep because I heard a cry. It seemed to come from just outside my porthole. I could see nothing in the fog. I rushed on deck and ran into the mate. He told me he heard the cry and ran. But there was no sign of the man on watch. One more gone. Lord, help us! The mate says we must be past the Straits of Dover. For a moment the fog lifted, and he saw North Foreland, just as he heard the man cry out. If so, we are now out in the North Sea. Only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us. And God seems to have left us.

*3 August*.—At midnight I went to take over from the man at the wheel. When I got there, I found no one. The wind was steady, and as we ran before it, the ship did not swing off course. I dared not leave the wheel, so I shouted for the mate. After a few seconds he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He looked wild-eyed and worn out. I greatly fear that he has lost his mind. He came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth at my ear. It was as if he feared that the air itself might hear:

“*It* is here; I know it now. On watch last night I saw It. It was like a man, tall and thin, and terribly pale. It was at the front of the ship, looking out. I crept up behind It and stabbed It with my knife. But the knife went through It, as empty as the air.”

As he spoke, he took his knife and stabbed wildly at the empty air. Then he went on:

“But It is here, and I’ll find It. It is in the hold, perhaps in one of those boxes. I’ll unscrew them one by one and look. You work the helm.”

Then, with a warning look and his finger on his lips, he went below. A choppy wind was starting to blow, and I could not leave the helm. I saw him come up on deck again with a tool-chest and a lantern. He went down the front hatchway. He is mad, completely raving mad, and there is no use in my trying to stop him. He can’t hurt those big boxes. They are listed on the invoice as “clay.” Pulling them about is the most harmless thing he can do. So here I stay and mind the helm, and I write these notes. I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears. Then, if I can’t steer to any harbour with this wind, I shall cut down the sails and wait. And I shall signal for help....

It is nearly all over now. I was just beginning to hope that the mate would come out calmer. I heard him knocking away at something in the hold, and work is good for him. Then a sudden, frightened scream came up the hatchway. It made my blood run cold. He came up onto the deck as if he had been shot from a gun. He was a raging madman, with his eyes rolling and his face twisted with fear.

“Save me! Save me!” he cried. Then he looked round at the thick blanket of fog. His horror turned to despair. He said in a steady voice: “You had better come too, captain, before it is too late. *He* is there. I know the secret now. The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left!”

I could not say a word or move forward to grab him. Before I could, he jumped onto the side of the ship. Then he threw himself into the sea on purpose. I suppose I know the secret too, now. It was this madman who got rid of the men one by one. And now he has followed them himself. God help me! How shall I explain all these horrors when I get to port? *When* I get to port! Will that ever happen?

*4 August.*—Still fog, and the sunrise cannot get through it. I know the sun has risen because I am a sailor. I do not know how else I know it. I dared not go below, and I dared not leave the helm. So I stayed here all night. And in the darkness of the night I saw It—Him! God forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard. It was better to die like a man. Nobody can object if a sailor dies like a sailor, in blue water. But I am the captain, and I must not leave my ship. But I shall defeat this fiend or monster. When my strength begins to fail, I shall tie my hands to the wheel. With them I shall tie something that He—It!—dare not touch. Then, whether the wind is good or bad, I shall save my soul and my honour as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act.... If we are wrecked, perhaps this bottle will be found. Then those who find it may understand. If not, ... well, then all men shall know that I was true to my duty. God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints, help a poor ignorant soul who is trying to do his duty....

Of course the verdict was an open one. There is no evidence to show. And there is now nobody left to say whether the man himself committed the murders or not. Almost all the people here believe that the captain is simply a hero. He is to be given a public funeral. It is already arranged. His body will be taken by a long line of boats up the river Esk for a little way. Then it will be brought back to Tate Hill Pier and carried up the abbey steps. He is to be buried in the churchyard on the cliff. The owners of more than a hundred boats have already given their names. They all wish to follow him to the grave.

No trace has ever been found of the great dog. Many people are sad about this. With public feeling as it is now, I believe the town would adopt him. Tomorrow is the funeral. And so this one more “mystery of the sea” will end.

*Mina Murray’s Journal.*

*8 August.*—Lucy was very restless all night, and I could not sleep either. The storm was terrible. It boomed loudly among the chimney-pots, and it made me shudder. When a sharp gust came, it sounded like a distant gun. Strangely, Lucy did not wake. But she got up twice and dressed herself. Luckily, each time I woke in time. I managed to undress her without waking her, and I got her back to bed. This sleep-walking is a very strange thing. Her will may be stopped in any physical way. As soon as that happens, her plan disappears, if she has one. Then she goes back almost exactly to the normal routine of her life.

Early in the morning we both got up and went down to the harbour. We wanted to see if anything had happened in the night. There were very few people about. The sun was bright, and the air was clear and fresh. But big, grim-looking waves forced their way in through the narrow mouth of the harbour. The waves themselves seemed dark, because the foam on top of them was like snow. They pushed in like a bully pushing through a crowd. Somehow I felt glad that Jonathan was not on the sea last night, but on land. But oh, is he on land or sea? Where is he, and how is he? I am getting terribly worried about him. If only I knew what to do, and could do something!

*10 August.*—The funeral of the poor sea-captain today was very moving. Every boat in the harbour seemed to be there. Captains carried the coffin all the way from Tate Hill Pier up to the churchyard. Lucy came with me, and we went early to our old seat. Meanwhile the line of boats went up the river to the Viaduct and came down again. We had a lovely view and saw the procession nearly all the way. The poor man was buried quite near our seat. So when the time came, we stood on the seat and saw everything. Poor Lucy seemed very upset. She was restless and uneasy all the time. I can’t help thinking that her dreaming at night is affecting her. She is quite strange in one thing. She will not admit to me that there is any cause for her restlessness. Or if there is one, she does not understand it herself. There is another cause too. Poor old Mr. Swales was found dead this morning on our seat. His neck was broken. The doctor said that he had clearly fallen back in the seat in some kind of fright. There was a look of fear and horror on his face. The men said it made them shudder. Poor dear old man! Perhaps he had seen Death with his dying eyes! Lucy is so sweet and sensitive that she feels these influences more strongly than other people do. Just now she was quite upset by a little thing. I did not pay much attention to it, though I am very fond of animals myself. One of the men often came up here to watch for the boats, and his dog followed him. The dog is always with him. They are both quiet. I never saw the man angry, and I never heard the dog bark. During the service the dog would not come to its master, who was on the seat with us. It stayed a few yards away, barking and howling. Its master spoke to it gently, then sharply, and then angrily. But it would neither come nor stop the noise. It was in a kind of fury. Its eyes were savage, and all its hair stood up like a cat’s tail when the cat is ready to fight. Finally the man got angry too. He jumped down and kicked the dog. Then he took it by the back of the neck. He half dragged and half threw it onto the tombstone that the seat stands on. The moment it touched the stone, the poor thing became quiet and began to tremble all over. It did not try to get away. It crouched down, shaking and cowering. It was so terribly frightened that I tried to comfort it, but it did no good. Lucy was full of pity too. But she did not try to touch the dog. She only looked at it with a look of terrible pain. I greatly fear that she is too sensitive to go through the world without trouble. I am sure she will dream about this tonight. So many things together will give her material for her dreams. There was the ship steered into port by a dead man. There was the way he was tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads. There was the moving funeral. And there was the dog, first furious and then terrified.

I think it will be best for her to go to bed physically tired out. So I shall take her for a long walk along the cliffs to Robin Hood’s Bay and back. Then she should not feel much like sleep-walking.

### Glossary

- **schooner**: a type of sailing ship.
- **R. A. and R. I.**: two famous art societies in London that hold big picture shows every year.
- **mirabile dictu**: Latin words meaning “wonderful to say”.
- **helm**: the wheel or handle that is used to steer a ship.
- **salvage**: the right to get money for saving a ship or its goods.
- **mortmain**: an old law word, from French, meaning “dead hand”: land or goods held by someone who cannot sell them.
- **cum grano**: Latin for “with a grain (of salt)”: do not believe it completely.
- **backsheesh**: a small payment or tip given to officials to get things done.
- **larboard watch**: one of the two groups of sailors who take turns on duty; “eight bells” marks the end of a watch.
- **round robin**: a letter signed by many people, with the names in a circle so no one signs first.
- **open verdict**: the decision of an inquest when it cannot say how or why someone died.

## Chapter VIII: Mina Murray’s Journal

*Same day, 11 o’clock p. m.*—Oh, but I am tired! I have made my diary a duty. If I had not, I would not open it tonight. We had a lovely walk. After a while Lucy was in high spirits. I think this was because of some dear cows. They came pushing their noses towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, and they frightened us terribly. I believe we forgot everything except, of course, our own fear. It seemed to clear our minds and give us a fresh start. We had a wonderful “severe tea” at Robin Hood’s Bay. It was in a sweet little old-fashioned inn. It had a bow-window right over the rocks of the beach, which were covered with seaweed. I believe our appetites would have shocked the “New Woman.” Men are kinder about such things, bless them! Then we walked home. We stopped to rest several times—or rather, many times. And our hearts were full of a constant fear of wild bulls. Lucy was really tired, and we meant to creep off to bed as soon as we could. But the young curate came in, and Mrs. Westenra asked him to stay for supper. Lucy and I both had to fight hard against sleep. I know it was a hard fight for me, and I was quite a hero. I think the bishops must meet some day and start breeding a new kind of curate. These curates will not take supper, however much people press them. And they will know when girls are tired. Lucy is asleep and breathing softly. She has more colour in her cheeks than usual, and she looks, oh, so sweet. If Mr. Holmwood fell in love with her when he saw her only in the drawing-room, I wonder what he would say if he saw her now. Some of the “New Woman” writers will one day have a new idea. They will say that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose that in future the New Woman will not lower herself to accept. She will do the proposing herself. And she will do a fine job of it, too! There is some comfort in that. I am so happy tonight, because dear Lucy seems better. I really believe she is past the worst, and that her troubles with dreaming are over. I would be quite happy if I only knew if Jonathan.... God bless and keep him.

*11 August, 3 a. m.*—Diary again. I can’t sleep now, so I may as well write. I am too upset to sleep. We have had such an adventure, such a terrible experience. I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my diary.... Suddenly I was wide awake. I sat up with a horrible feeling of fear. I also felt a kind of emptiness around me. The room was dark, so I could not see Lucy’s bed. I crept across and felt for her. The bed was empty. I lit a match and saw that she was not in the room. The door was shut, but not locked, as I had left it. I did not want to wake her mother, who has been more ill than usual lately. So I threw on some clothes and got ready to look for her. As I was leaving the room, I had an idea. The clothes she was wearing might give me a clue to where her dream was taking her. A dressing-gown would mean the house; a dress would mean outside. But the dressing-gown and the dress were both in their places. “Thank God,” I said to myself, “she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress.” I ran downstairs and looked in the sitting-room. Not there! Then I looked in all the other open rooms of the house. All the time a growing fear made my heart colder. Finally I came to the hall door and found it open. It was not wide open, but the lock had not caught. The people of the house are careful to lock the door every night. So I feared that Lucy must have gone out just as she was. There was no time to think about what might happen. A vague but powerful fear hid all the details from my mind. I took a big, heavy shawl and ran out. The clock was striking one as I reached the Crescent. There was not a soul in sight. I ran along the North Terrace, but I could see no sign of the white figure that I expected. At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier, I looked across the harbour to the East Cliff. I hoped—or feared, I don’t know which—to see Lucy in our favourite seat. There was a bright full moon, with heavy black clouds racing across the sky. As they sailed across, they turned the whole scene into a moving picture of light and shadow. For a moment or two I could see nothing. The shadow of a cloud hid St. Mary’s Church and everything around it. Then the cloud passed, and I could see the ruins of the abbey come into view. The edge of a narrow band of light moved along, as sharp as a sword-cut. Slowly the church and the churchyard became visible. Whatever I was expecting, I was not disappointed. There, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon fell on a figure, snowy white, half lying down. The next cloud came too quickly for me to see much. Shadow covered the light almost at once. But it seemed to me that something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone. It was bending over it. What it was, whether man or animal, I could not tell. I did not wait to look again. I flew down the steep steps to the pier and along by the fish-market to the bridge. That was the only way to reach the East Cliff. The town seemed dead, for I did not see a single person. I was glad of that, because I wanted no one to see poor Lucy’s condition. The time and the distance seemed endless. My knees shook, and I could hardly breathe as I struggled up the endless steps to the abbey. I must have gone fast. And yet it felt as if my feet were made of lead, and as if every joint in my body were rusty. When I was almost at the top, I could see the seat and the white figure. I was now close enough to make it out, even through the moments of shadow. There was certainly something, long and black, bending over the half-lying white figure. I called out in fright, “Lucy! Lucy!” Something raised a head. From where I was, I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes. Lucy did not answer, and I ran on to the entrance of the churchyard. As I went in, the church was between me and the seat, and for a minute or so I could not see her. When I could see her again, the cloud had passed. The moonlight was so bright that I could see Lucy clearly. She was half lying with her head over the back of the seat. She was quite alone. There was no sign of any living thing near her.

When I bent over her, I could see that she was still asleep. Her lips were open, and she was breathing—not softly as she usually does, but in long, heavy gasps. It was as if she was trying to fill her lungs with every breath. As I came close, she lifted her hand in her sleep. She pulled the collar of her nightdress close around her throat. As she did so, a little shudder went through her, as if she felt the cold. I threw the warm shawl over her and pulled the edges tight round her neck. She had so little on, and I was afraid she might catch a deadly chill from the night air. I was afraid to wake her all at once. I wanted my hands free to help her, so I fastened the shawl at her throat with a big safety-pin. But I must have been clumsy because I was so worried. I must have pinched or pricked her with it. After a while, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I had wrapped her up carefully, I put my shoes on her feet. Then I began, very gently, to wake her. At first she did not respond. But slowly she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, and sometimes she moaned and sighed. Time was passing fast. For that reason and many others, I wanted to get her home at once. So at last I shook her harder, and finally she opened her eyes and woke up. She did not seem surprised to see me. Of course, she did not understand at once where she was. Lucy always wakes up prettily. Her body must have been cold. And she must have been shocked to wake up half dressed in a churchyard at night. Even so, she did not lose her grace. She trembled a little and held on to me. I told her to come home with me at once. She got up without a word and obeyed me like a child. As we walked along, the gravel hurt my feet, and Lucy saw me wince. She stopped and wanted me to take my shoes back, but I would not. Outside the churchyard there was a puddle of water on the path, left from the storm. When we got there, I covered my feet with mud. I used each foot in turn to rub mud on the other. Then, if we met anyone on the way home, nobody would notice my bare feet.

Luck was with us, and we got home without meeting a soul. Once we saw a man walking along a street in front of us. He did not seem quite sober. But we hid in a doorway until he had gone up one of the narrow openings here. These are steep little lanes, which in Scotland they call “wynds.” My heart beat so loudly all the time that sometimes I thought I would faint. I was very anxious about Lucy. I worried about her health, in case she suffered from being out in the cold. But I also worried about her good name, in case the story got out. When we got in, we washed our feet and said a prayer of thanks together. Then I tucked her into bed. Before she fell asleep, she asked me—even begged me—not to say a word to anyone about her sleep-walking adventure. Not even to her mother. At first I did not want to promise. But then I thought about her mother’s health. The news of such a thing would worry her badly. I also thought about how such a story might be twisted if it got out. In fact, it certainly would be. So I thought it was wiser to promise. I hope I did right. I have locked the door, and the key is tied to my wrist. So perhaps nothing will disturb me again. Lucy is sleeping soundly. The light of the dawn is shining high and far over the sea....

*Same day, noon.*—All goes well. Lucy slept till I woke her. She did not even seem to have turned over. The adventure of the night does not seem to have harmed her. In fact, it has done her good, because she looks better this morning than she has for weeks. I was sorry to see that my clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her. It could even have been serious, because the skin of her throat was pierced. I must have pinched up a piece of loose skin and pushed the pin right through it. There are two little red points like pin-pricks. And on the band of her nightdress there was a drop of blood. I said I was sorry and was worried about it. But she laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it. Luckily it cannot leave a scar, as it is so tiny.

*Same day, night.*—We had a happy day. The air was clear, the sun was bright, and there was a cool breeze. We took our lunch to Mulgrave Woods. Mrs. Westenra drove by the road, and Lucy and I walked by the cliff-path and met her at the gate. I felt a little sad myself. I could not help feeling how *completely* happy it would have been if Jonathan had been with me. But there! I must just be patient. In the evening we walked on the Casino Terrace and heard some good music by Spohr and Mackenzie. Then we went to bed early. Lucy seems more peaceful than she has been for some time, and she fell asleep at once. I shall lock the door and keep the key safe, as before. But I do not expect any trouble tonight.

*12 August.*—I was wrong. Twice during the night Lucy woke me, because she was trying to get out. Even in her sleep she seemed a little impatient to find the door shut. She went back to bed, but as if she was protesting. I woke at dawn and heard the birds singing outside the window. Lucy woke too. I was glad to see that she was even better than the morning before. All her old cheerfulness seemed to have come back. She came and snuggled in beside me and told me all about Arthur. I told her how worried I was about Jonathan, and she tried to comfort me. Well, she partly succeeded. Sympathy can’t change the facts, but it can help to make them easier to bear.

*13 August.*—Another quiet day, and to bed with the key on my wrist as before. Again I woke in the night. Lucy was sitting up in bed, still asleep, pointing to the window. I got up quietly, pulled the blind aside and looked out. The moonlight was brilliant. The soft light over the sea and the sky was beautiful beyond words. Sea and sky melted together into one great, silent mystery. A great bat was flying between me and the moonlight. It came and went in great whirling circles. Once or twice it came quite close. But I suppose it was frightened when it saw me, because it flew away across the harbour towards the abbey. When I came back from the window, Lucy had lain down again and was sleeping peacefully. She did not move again all night.

*14 August.*—On the East Cliff, reading and writing all day. Lucy seems to love this spot as much as I do. It is hard to get her away from it when it is time to go home for lunch or tea or dinner. This afternoon she said something strange. We were coming home for dinner. We had come to the top of the steps up from the West Pier and stopped to look at the view, as we usually do. The setting sun was low in the sky, just dropping behind Kettleness. Its red light fell on the East Cliff and the old abbey. It seemed to bathe everything in a beautiful rosy glow. We were silent for a while. Then suddenly Lucy murmured, as if to herself:

“His red eyes again! They are just the same.”

It was such an odd thing to say, and it came out of nowhere, so it quite startled me. I turned round a little, so that I could see Lucy well without seeming to stare at her. She was half in a dream, with an odd look on her face that I could not quite understand. So I said nothing, but followed her eyes. She seemed to be looking across at our own seat. A dark figure was sitting there alone. I was a little startled myself. For a moment it seemed as if the stranger had great eyes like burning flames. But a second look showed me that it was not real. The red sunlight was shining on the windows of St. Mary’s Church behind our seat. As the sun went down, the light on the glass changed just a little. This made it look as if the light moved. I showed Lucy this strange effect. She came back to herself with a start, but she still looked sad. Perhaps she was thinking of that terrible night up there. We never talk about it, so I said nothing, and we went home to dinner. Lucy had a headache and went to bed early. I saw that she was asleep, and then I went out for a little walk myself. I walked west along the cliffs. I was full of sweet sadness, because I was thinking of Jonathan. When I was coming home, the moonlight was very bright. The front of our part of the Crescent was in shadow, but I could still see everything well. I glanced up at our window and saw Lucy’s head leaning out. I thought that perhaps she was looking out for me. So I took out my handkerchief and waved it. She did not notice or move at all. Just then the moonlight crept round a corner of the building, and the light fell on the window. I could see Lucy clearly. Her head was lying against the side of the window-sill, and her eyes were shut. She was fast asleep. And next to her, sitting on the window-sill, was something that looked like a large bird. I was afraid she might catch a chill, so I ran upstairs. But as I came into the room, she was moving back to her bed, fast asleep and breathing heavily. She was holding her hand to her throat, as if to protect it from the cold.

I did not wake her, but tucked her up warmly. I have made sure that the door is locked and the window is firmly closed.

She looks so sweet as she sleeps. But she is paler than usual, and there is a tired, worn look under her eyes that I do not like. I fear she is worrying about something. I wish I could find out what it is.

*15 August.*—Got up later than usual. Lucy was weak and tired, and she went on sleeping after we had been called. We had a happy surprise at breakfast. Arthur’s father is better, and he wants the wedding to happen soon. Lucy is full of quiet joy. Her mother is glad and sorry at the same time. Later in the day she told me why. She is sad to lose Lucy as her very own. But she is glad that Lucy will soon have someone to protect her. Poor dear, sweet lady! She told me in secret that she has received her death sentence. She has not told Lucy, and she made me promise to keep it secret. Her doctor told her that she must die within a few months at most, because her heart is getting weaker. At any time, even now, a sudden shock would almost certainly kill her. Ah, we were wise to keep the dreadful night of Lucy’s sleep-walking from her.

*17 August.*—No diary for two whole days. I have not had the heart to write. A kind of dark shadow seems to be falling over our happiness. No news from Jonathan. Lucy seems to be growing weaker, while her mother’s hours are coming to an end. I do not understand why Lucy is fading away like this. She eats well and sleeps well, and she enjoys the fresh air. But all the time the roses in her cheeks are fading. She gets weaker and more tired day by day. At night I hear her gasping as if for air. At night I always keep the key of our door tied to my wrist. But she gets up and walks about the room, and she sits at the open window. Last night, when I woke up, I found her leaning out. I tried to wake her, but I could not; she had fainted. When I managed to bring her round, she was as weak as water. She cried silently between long, painful struggles for breath. I asked her how she came to be at the window. She shook her head and turned away. I hope her illness does not come from that unlucky prick of the safety-pin. I looked at her throat just now while she lay asleep. The tiny wounds do not seem to have healed. They are still open, and, if anything, larger than before. Their edges are a pale white. They are like little white dots with red centres. If they do not heal within a day or two, I shall insist that the doctor looks at them.

*Letter, Samuel F. Billington & Son, Solicitors, Whitby, to Messrs. Carter, Paterson & Co., London.*

“*17 August.*

“Dear Sirs,—

“With this letter please receive the invoice of goods sent by the Great Northern Railway. These goods are to be delivered at Carfax, near Purfleet, as soon as they reach the goods station at King’s Cross. The house is empty at present, but we enclose the keys. They all have labels.

“There are fifty boxes in this load. Please put them in the partly ruined building which forms part of the house. It is marked ‘A’ on the rough plan we enclose. Your agent will easily recognise the place, because it is the old chapel of the house. The goods leave by the train at 9:30 tonight. They will arrive at King’s Cross at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon. Our client wishes the delivery to be made as soon as possible. So we would be grateful if you had teams ready at King’s Cross at that time. They should take the goods straight to their destination. Your departments may have their usual rules about payment. To avoid any delays because of these, we enclose a cheque for ten pounds (£10). Please let us know that you have received it. If the charge is less than this amount, you can return the rest. If it is more, we shall send a cheque for the difference at once when we hear from you. When you leave, please leave the keys in the main hall of the house. The owner will get them there when he enters the house with his own second key.

“Please do not think that we go beyond the limits of business politeness when we ask you so strongly to work as fast as you possibly can.

*“We are, dear Sirs, “Faithfully yours, “Samuel F. Billington & Son.”*

*Letter, Messrs. Carter, Paterson & Co., London, to Messrs. Billington & Son, Whitby.*

“*21 August.*

“Dear Sirs,—

“We have received the £10. We return a cheque for £1 17s. 9d. This is the amount left over, as shown in the receipted account enclosed. The goods have been delivered exactly as you instructed. The keys were left in a parcel in the main hall, as you asked.

“We are, dear Sirs, “Yours respectfully. “*Pro* Carter, Paterson & Co.”

*Mina Murray’s Journal.*

*18 August.*—I am happy today. I am writing this sitting on the seat in the churchyard. Lucy is much, much better. Last night she slept well all night and did not disturb me once. The roses seem to be coming back to her cheeks already, though she is still sadly pale and weak-looking. If she were anæmic in any way, I could understand it, but she is not. She is cheerful and full of life. All her unhealthy silence seems to have gone. She has just reminded me of *that* night—as if I needed reminding! She reminded me that it was here, on this very seat, that I found her asleep. As she told me, she tapped playfully with the heel of her boot on the stone slab and said:

“My poor little feet didn’t make much noise then! I daresay poor old Mr. Swales would have told me that it was because I didn’t want to wake up Geordie.”

She was in such a talkative mood that I asked her if she had dreamed at all that night. Before she answered, that sweet little frown came into her forehead. Arthur says he loves it—I call him Arthur because she does—and I don’t wonder that he does. Then she went on in a half-dreaming way, as if she was trying to remember it for herself:

“I didn’t quite dream, but it all seemed to be real. I only wanted to be here in this spot. I don’t know why, because I was afraid of something—I don’t know what. I remember passing through the streets and over the bridge, though I suppose I was asleep. A fish jumped as I went by, and I leaned over to look at it. And I heard a lot of dogs howling. As I went up the steps, the whole town seemed to be full of dogs, all howling at once. Then I had a vague memory of something long and dark with red eyes, just like the ones we saw in the sunset. And there was something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once. Then I seemed to be sinking into deep green water. There was a singing in my ears, as I have heard drowning men have. And then everything seemed to be passing away from me. My soul seemed to go out of my body and float about in the air. I seem to remember that once the West Lighthouse was right under me. Then there was a sort of terrible pain, as if I were in an earthquake. And I came back and found you shaking my body. I saw you do it before I felt you.”

Then she began to laugh. It seemed a little strange and eerie to me, and I listened to her, holding my breath. I did not quite like it. I thought it was better not to keep her mind on the subject. So we drifted on to other things, and Lucy was like her old self again. When we got home, the fresh breeze had made her stronger, and her pale cheeks were really rosier. Her mother was delighted when she saw her, and we all spent a very happy evening together.

*19 August.*—Joy, joy, joy! But not all joy. At last, news of Jonathan! The dear man has been ill; that is why he did not write. I am not afraid to think it or say it, now that I know. Mr. Hawkins sent the letter on to me and wrote to me himself, oh, so kindly. I am to leave in the morning and go to Jonathan. I shall help to nurse him if necessary, and bring him home. Mr. Hawkins says it would not be a bad thing if we were married out there. I have cried over the good Sister’s letter until I can feel it wet against my breast, where it lies. It is about Jonathan, so it must be next to my heart, because he is *in* my heart. My journey is all planned, and my luggage is ready. I am only taking one change of dress. Lucy will take my trunk to London and keep it until I send for it, because it may be that ... I must write no more. I must keep it to say to Jonathan, my husband. He has seen and touched this letter, and it must comfort me until we meet.

*Letter, Sister Agatha, Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, Buda-Pesth, to Miss Wilhelmina Murray.*

“*12 August.*

“Dear Madam,—

“I am writing because Mr. Jonathan Harker wishes it. He is not strong enough to write himself, though he is getting better, thanks to God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary. He has been in our care for nearly six weeks, with a violent brain fever. He asks me to send you his love. He also asks me to tell you this: by this post I am writing for him to Mr. Peter Hawkins, Exeter. I am to send Mr. Hawkins his dutiful respects. I am to say that he is sorry for his delay, and that all his work is finished. He will need a few weeks’ rest in our sanatorium in the hills, but then he will come home. He asks me to say that he does not have enough money with him. He would like to pay for his stay here, so that others in need will not go without help.

“Believe me, “Yours, with sympathy and all blessings, “Sister Agatha.

“P. S.—My patient is asleep, so I am opening this letter to tell you something more. He has told me all about you, and that you are soon to be his wife. All blessings to you both! He has had some terrible shock—so our doctor says. In his fever he has raved dreadfully. He talked of wolves and poison and blood, of ghosts and demons, and of things I am afraid to name. Always be careful with him. Nothing of this kind must excite him for a long time to come. The traces of an illness like his do not easily disappear. We should have written long ago. But we knew nothing of his friends, and he had nothing on him that anyone could understand. He came on the train from Klausenburg. The station-master there told the guard that he had rushed into the station, shouting for a ticket home. They could see from his wild manner that he was English. So they gave him a ticket to the furthest station on the way there that the train reached.

“You can be sure that he is well cared for. He has won all our hearts by his sweetness and gentleness. He is really getting better, and I have no doubt that in a few weeks he will be himself again. But be careful with him, to keep him safe. I pray to God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary that there are many, many happy years ahead for you both.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*19 August.*—A strange and sudden change in Renfield last night. About eight o’clock he began to get excited. He sniffed about like a hunting dog when it smells the birds. The attendant noticed his manner. He knows that I am interested in Renfield, so he encouraged him to talk. Renfield is usually polite to the attendant, and at times as humble as a servant. But tonight, the man tells me, he was very proud. He would not lower himself to talk with him at all. All he would say was:

“I don’t want to talk to you: you don’t count now; the Master is at hand.”

The attendant thinks that some sudden form of religious mania has taken hold of him. If so, we must watch out for storms. A strong man with a mania for killing and a religious mania at the same time might be dangerous. It is a dreadful combination. At nine o’clock I visited him myself. He treated me just as he had treated the attendant. In his great pride, he seemed to see no difference at all between me and the attendant. It looks like religious mania, and soon he will think that he himself is God. For an all-powerful Being, these tiny differences between one man and another are too small to matter. How these madmen give themselves away! The real God takes care that not even a sparrow falls. But the God that human vanity creates sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow. Oh, if men only knew!

For half an hour or more Renfield grew more and more excited. I did not pretend to be watching him, but I watched him closely all the same. All at once that shifty look came into his eyes. We always see it when a madman has got hold of an idea. With it came the shifty movement of the head and back that asylum attendants know so well. He became very quiet. He went and sat on the edge of his bed, as if he had given up. He stared into space with dull eyes. I wanted to find out if his calm was real or only pretended. So I tried to get him to talk about his pets. This subject had never failed to excite him. At first he did not answer. But at last he said crossly:

“Bother them all! I don’t care a pin about them.”

“What?” I said. “You don’t mean to tell me you don’t care about spiders?” (Spiders are his hobby at the moment, and his notebook is filling up with columns of small figures.)

He answered me with a riddle:

“The bride-maidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the bride. But when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine not to the eyes that are filled.”

He would not explain himself. He stayed stubbornly sitting on his bed all the time I was with him.

I am tired tonight and low in spirits. I cannot help thinking of Lucy, and how different things might have been. If I don’t sleep at once, there is chloral, the modern Morpheus—C2HCl3O. H2O! I must be careful not to let it become a habit. No, I shall take none tonight! I have thought of Lucy, and I shall not dishonour her by mixing the two. If I must, I shall stay awake all night....

*Later.*—I am glad I made that decision, and even gladder that I kept to it. I had been lying there, turning from side to side. I had heard the clock strike only twice. Then the night-watchman came up to me from the ward. He said that Renfield had escaped. I threw on my clothes and ran down at once. My patient is too dangerous to be wandering about. Those ideas of his might work out dangerously with strangers. The attendant was waiting for me. He said he had seen him less than ten minutes before. He had looked through the observation-trap in the door, and Renfield seemed to be asleep in his bed. Then he heard the sound of the window being torn out. He ran back and saw Renfield’s feet disappear through the window. He had sent for me at once. Renfield was only in his night-clothes, so he could not be far away. The attendant thought it would be more useful to watch where he went than to follow him. If he went out of the building by the door, he might lose sight of him. He is a big, heavy man and couldn’t get through the window. I am thin, so with his help I got out, but feet first. We were only a few feet above the ground, so I landed unhurt. The attendant told me that the patient had gone to the left in a straight line. So I ran as fast as I could. As I came through the belt of trees, I saw a white figure climb the high wall. That wall separates our grounds from the grounds of the empty house.

I ran back at once. I told the watchman to get three or four men immediately and follow me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our friend was dangerous. I got a ladder myself, crossed the wall and dropped down on the other side. I could see Renfield’s figure just disappearing behind the corner of the house, so I ran after him. On the far side of the house I found him. He was pressed close against the old oak door of the chapel, which is bound with iron. He seemed to be talking to someone. But I was afraid to go near enough to hear what he was saying. I feared I might frighten him, and then he would run off. Chasing a wandering swarm of bees is nothing compared with following a naked lunatic when the urge to escape is on him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not notice anything around him. So I dared to move nearer to him. I did this all the more because my men had now crossed the wall and were closing in on him. I heard him say:

“I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You for a long time and from far away. Now that You are near, I wait for Your commands. And You will not pass me by, will You, dear Master, when You give out good things?”

He *is* a selfish old beggar anyway. He thinks of the loaves and fishes even when he believes he is in a Real Presence. His manias make a shocking combination. When we closed in on him, he fought like a tiger. He is enormously strong. He was more like a wild animal than a man. I have never seen a lunatic in such a fit of rage before, and I hope I never shall again. It is lucky that we have found out his strength and his danger in good time. With strength and determination like his, he might have done terrible things before he was locked up. Anyway, he is safe now. Jack Sheppard himself couldn’t get free from the strait-waistcoat that holds him. And he is chained to the wall in the padded room. His cries are terrible at times. But the silences that follow are even more deadly, because he means murder in every turn and movement.

Just now he spoke clear words for the first time:

“I shall be patient, Master. It is coming—coming—coming!”

So I took the hint, and came away too. I was too excited to sleep, but writing this diary has calmed me. I feel that I shall get some sleep tonight.

### Glossary

- **“severe tea”**: Mina’s joke for a big, filling meal in the afternoon, with tea and plenty of food.
- **bow-window**: a curved window that sticks out from the wall of a building.
- **“New Woman”**: a modern, independent woman of the 1890s who wanted the same rights and freedom as men.
- **curate**: a young priest who helps the main priest of a church.
- **drawing-room**: the best room in a house, where guests are received.
- **shawl**: a large piece of cloth that a woman wears around her shoulders.
- **wynds**: a Scottish word for narrow, steep little streets.
- **safety-pin**: a pin bent round with a cover over its sharp point.
- **blind**: a piece of cloth that you pull down to cover a window.
- **window-sill**: the flat shelf at the bottom of a window.
- **invoice**: a paper that lists goods sent and their price.
- **anæmic**: ill because there is not enough blood, or not enough red cells in the blood.
- **Geordie**: a friendly short name for George; Lucy means George Canon, the man buried under the seat.
- **brain fever**: an old name for a serious illness with fever and confusion.
- **sanatorium**: a hospital where people rest and get better after a long illness.
- **mania**: a kind of madness in which one wild idea controls a person’s mind.
- **draweth nigh**: old words for “comes near”.
- **chloral**: a drug that makes people sleep; Morpheus was the Greek god of dreams.
- **loaves and fishes**: from the Bible; here it means the rewards and food a person hopes to get.
- **Real Presence**: a church phrase meaning that God is really there.
- **Jack Sheppard**: a famous English thief of the 1700s who escaped from prison many times.
- **strait-waistcoat**: a jacket that holds a violent person’s arms tight.

## Chapter IX

*Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra.*

“*Buda-Pesth, 24 August.*

“My dearest Lucy,—

“I know you will want to hear all that has happened since we said goodbye at the railway station at Whitby. Well, my dear, I got to Hull all right. I caught the boat to Hamburg, and then the train to here. I can hardly remember anything of the journey. I only knew that I was coming to Jonathan. I also knew that I would have to do some nursing, so I had better get all the sleep I could.... I found my dear one, oh, so thin and pale and weak-looking. All the strength of will has gone out of his dear eyes. The quiet dignity that I told you was in his face has disappeared. He is only a broken shadow of himself. He does not remember anything that has happened to him for a long time. At least, he wants me to believe so, and I shall never ask. He has had some terrible shock. I fear it might be too much for his poor brain if he tried to remember it. Sister Agatha is a good person and a born nurse. She tells me that he raved about dreadful things while his mind was ill. I wanted her to tell me what they were. But she only crossed herself and said she would never tell. She said that the ravings of the sick were the secrets of God. If a nurse heard them through her work, she should respect that trust. She is a sweet, good soul. The next day, when she saw I was troubled, she started to talk about it again. She said she could never tell what my poor dear raved about. Then she added: ‘I can tell you this much, my dear. It was not about anything wrong that he has done himself. And you, as his future wife, have no reason to worry. He has not forgotten you or what he owes to you. His fear was of great and terrible things, which no human being can talk about.’ I really believe the dear soul thought I might be jealous. Perhaps she feared I would think my poor dear had fallen in love with another girl. The idea of *my* being jealous about Jonathan! And yet, my dear, let me whisper it to you. I felt a thrill of joy go through me when I *knew* that no other woman was the cause of his trouble. I am now sitting by his bed, where I can see his face while he sleeps. He is waking!...

“When he woke, he asked me for his coat, because he wanted to get something from the pocket. I asked Sister Agatha, and she brought all his things. I saw that his notebook was among them. I was going to ask him to let me look at it. I knew then that I might find some clue to his trouble in it. But I suppose he saw my wish in my eyes. He sent me over to the window, saying he wanted to be quite alone for a moment. Then he called me back. When I came, he had his hand over the notebook, and he said to me very seriously:

“‘Wilhelmina’—then I knew that he was deadly serious. He has never called me by that name since he asked me to marry him—‘you know, dear, my ideas about the trust between husband and wife. There should be no secret, nothing hidden. I have had a great shock. When I try to think of what it was, I feel my head spin round. I do not know if it was all real or the dreaming of a madman. You know I have had brain fever, and that is to be mad. The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to start my life again here, with our marriage.’ You see, my dear, we had decided to marry as soon as the official papers are ready. ‘Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to share my not knowing? Here is the book. Take it and keep it. Read it if you want, but never let me know. Unless some solemn duty should call me back to the bitter hours written here, asleep or awake, sane or mad.’ He fell back, exhausted. I put the book under his pillow and kissed him. I have asked Sister Agatha to beg the Superior to let our wedding be this afternoon. I am waiting for her answer....

“She has come and told me that they have sent for the chaplain of the English mission church. We are to be married in an hour, or as soon after that as Jonathan wakes....

“Lucy, the time has come and gone. I feel very solemn, but very, very happy. Jonathan woke a little after the hour, and everything was ready. He sat up in bed, with pillows behind him. He answered his ‘I will’ firmly and strongly. I could hardly speak. My heart was so full that even those words seemed to choke me. The dear sisters were so kind. Please God, I shall never, never forget them. Nor shall I forget the serious and sweet duties I have taken on. I must tell you about my wedding present. The chaplain and the sisters left me alone with my husband—oh, Lucy, it is the first time I have written the words ‘my husband’! When they had left me alone with my husband, I took the book from under his pillow. I wrapped it up in white paper. I tied it with a little piece of pale blue ribbon which was round my neck. I sealed it over the knot with sealing-wax, and for my seal I used my wedding ring. Then I kissed it and showed it to my husband. I told him that I would keep it like that. Then it would be an outward and visible sign for us, all our lives, that we trusted each other. I told him that I would never open it except for his own dear sake. Or I would open it for the sake of some stern duty. Then he took my hand in his. Oh, Lucy, it was the first time he took *his wife’s* hand. He said that it was the dearest thing in all the wide world. He said he would go through all the past again to win it, if he had to. The poor dear meant to say a part of the past. But he cannot think about time yet. I shall not be surprised if at first he mixes up not only the month, but the year.

“Well, my dear, what could I say? I could only tell him that I was the happiest woman in all the wide world. I told him I had nothing to give him except myself, my life and my trust. And with these went my love and duty for all the days of my life. And, my dear, he kissed me and drew me to him with his poor weak hands. It was like a very solemn promise between us....

“Lucy dear, do you know why I tell you all this? It is not only because it is all sweet to me. It is because you have been, and are, very dear to me. You came from the schoolroom to prepare for the world of life. It was my privilege to be your friend and guide then. Now I want you to see, with the eyes of a very happy wife, where duty has led me. Then in your own married life you too may be as happy as I am. My dear, please Almighty God, may your life be all it promises. May it be a long day of sunshine, with no harsh wind, no forgetting of duty, no distrust. I must not wish you no pain, because that can never be. But I do hope you will be *always* as happy as I am *now*. Goodbye, my dear. I shall post this at once, and perhaps write to you again very soon. I must stop, because Jonathan is waking—I must look after my husband!

“Your ever-loving “Mina Harker.”

*Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Harker.*

“*Whitby, 30 August.*

“My dearest Mina,—

“Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and I hope you will soon be in your own home with your husband. I wish you could come home soon enough to stay with us here. The strong air would soon make Jonathan well again; it has made me quite well. I am as hungry as a cormorant. I am full of life, and I sleep well. You will be glad to know that I have quite stopped walking in my sleep. I think I have not moved out of my bed for a week—that is, once I got into it at night. Arthur says I am getting fat. Oh, I forgot to tell you that Arthur is here. We go for walks and drives and rides together. We go rowing, and we play tennis and go fishing together. And I love him more than ever. He *tells* me that he loves me more. But I doubt that, because at first he told me that he couldn’t love me more than he did then. But this is nonsense. There he is, calling me. So no more just now from your loving

“Lucy.

“P. S.—Mother sends her love. She seems better, poor dear.

“P. P. S.—We are to be married on 28 September.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*20 August.*—The case of Renfield becomes even more interesting. He has now become so much quieter that there are short periods when his passion stops. For the first week after his attack he was violent all the time. Then one night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet. He kept murmuring to himself: “Now I can wait; now I can wait.” The attendant came to tell me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him. He was still in the strait-waistcoat and in the padded room. But the red, flushed look had gone from his face. His eyes had some of their old pleading softness—I might almost say “cringing” softness. I was satisfied with his present condition, and I ordered the attendants to free him. The attendants hesitated, but in the end they did what I wished without protest. It was a strange thing that the patient had enough humour to see their distrust. He came close to me and said in a whisper, all the time looking at them secretly:

“They think I could hurt you! Fancy *me* hurting *you*! The fools!”

Somehow it was comforting to find that even this poor madman saw me as separate from the others. But all the same, I do not understand his thought. Should I take it that I have something in common with him, so that we are to stand together? Or does he hope to get from me some good so enormous that he needs me to be well? I must find out later on. Tonight he will not speak. Even the offer of a kitten, or even a full-grown cat, will not tempt him. He will only say: “I’m not interested in cats. I have more to think of now, and I can wait; I can wait.”

After a while I left him. The attendant tells me that he was quiet until just before dawn. Then he began to get uneasy, and at last violent. Finally he had a fit which exhausted him so much that he fainted into a kind of coma.

... For three nights the same thing has happened: violent all day, then quiet from moonrise to sunrise. I wish I could get some clue to the cause. It almost seems as if there was some influence which came and went. A happy thought! Tonight we shall play sane minds against mad ones. He escaped before without our help; tonight he shall escape with it. We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they are needed....

*23 August.*—“The unexpected always happens.” How well Disraeli knew life. Our bird found the cage open but would not fly. So all our clever arrangements were for nothing. At any rate, we have proved one thing: the periods of quiet last a reasonable time. In future we shall be able to loosen his bonds for a few hours each day. I have given orders to the night attendant. Once the patient is quiet, he is simply to shut him in the padded room until an hour before sunrise. The poor soul’s body will enjoy the relief, even if his mind cannot understand it. Listen! The unexpected again! I am called; the patient has escaped once more.

*Later.*—Another night adventure. Renfield cleverly waited until the attendant was coming into the room to check on him. Then he dashed out past him and flew down the passage. I sent word for the attendants to follow. Again he went into the grounds of the empty house. We found him in the same place, pressed against the old chapel door. When he saw me, he became furious. If the attendants had not seized him in time, he would have tried to kill me. While we were holding him, a strange thing happened. Suddenly he fought twice as hard, and then just as suddenly he grew calm. I looked round without thinking, but I could see nothing. Then I caught the patient’s eye and followed it. It was looking into the moonlit sky. I could see nothing there except a big bat, which was flapping its silent and ghostly way to the west. Bats usually turn and dart about, but this one seemed to fly straight on. It was as if it knew where it was going, or had some purpose of its own. The patient grew calmer every moment, and soon he said:

“You needn’t tie me; I shall go quietly!” We came back to the house without trouble. I feel there is something threatening in his calm, and I shall not forget this night....

*Lucy Westenra’s Diary*

*Hillingham, 24 August.*—I must copy Mina and keep writing things down. Then we can have long talks when we do meet. I wonder when that will be. I wish she were with me again, because I feel so unhappy. Last night I seemed to be dreaming again, just as I did at Whitby. Perhaps it is the change of air, or coming home again. It is all dark and horrible to me, because I can remember nothing. But I am full of vague fear, and I feel so weak and tired out. When Arthur came to lunch, he looked quite upset when he saw me. I didn’t have the spirit to try to be cheerful. I wonder if I could sleep in mother’s room tonight. I shall make an excuse and try.

*25 August.*—Another bad night. Mother did not seem to like my idea. She does not seem very well herself, and no doubt she is afraid of worrying me. I tried to stay awake, and I managed it for a while. But when the clock struck twelve, it woke me from a doze, so I must have been falling asleep. There was a kind of scratching or flapping at the window, but I did not mind it. I remember nothing more, so I suppose I must have fallen asleep then. More bad dreams. I wish I could remember them. This morning I am horribly weak. My face is deathly pale, and my throat hurts. There must be something wrong with my lungs, because I never seem to get enough air. I shall try to be cheerful when Arthur comes. If I don’t, I know he will be miserable to see me like this.

*Letter, Arthur Holmwood to Dr. Seward.*

“*Albemarle Hotel, 31 August.*

“My dear Jack,—

“I want you to do me a favour. Lucy is ill. That is, she has no special disease, but she looks awful, and she is getting worse every day. I have asked her if there is any cause. I do not dare to ask her mother. To worry the poor lady about her daughter, in her present state of health, would be fatal. Mrs. Westenra has told me in secret that she knows she will die—she has a disease of the heart. But poor Lucy does not know it yet. I am sure that something is troubling my dear girl’s mind. I am almost wild with worry when I think of her. To look at her gives me pain. I told her I would ask you to see her. At first she did not want it—I know why, old fellow—but in the end she agreed. It will be a painful task for you, I know, old friend. But it is for *her* sake. I must not hesitate to ask, and you must not hesitate to act. You are to come to lunch at Hillingham tomorrow, at two o’clock, so that Mrs. Westenra will not suspect anything. After lunch Lucy will find a chance to be alone with you. I shall come in for tea, and we can go away together. I am full of worry. I want to talk with you alone as soon as I can after you have seen her. Do not fail!

“Arthur.”

*Telegram, Arthur Holmwood to Seward.*

“*1 September.*

“Am called to see my father, who is worse. Am writing. Write to me fully by tonight’s post to Ring. Wire me if necessary.”

*Letter from Dr. Seward to Arthur Holmwood.*

“*2 September.*

“My dear old fellow,—

“About Miss Westenra’s health: I hurry to let you know at once what I think. In my opinion, nothing is wrong with how her body works, and she has no illness that I know of. At the same time, I am not at all satisfied with how she looks. She is sadly different from what she was when I saw her last. Of course you must remember that I did not have the full chance to examine her that I would wish. Our friendship itself makes a little difficulty, which not even medical science or custom can get over. I had better tell you exactly what happened. Then you can, in part, draw your own conclusions. After that I shall tell you what I have done and what I plan to do.

“I found Miss Westenra in what seemed to be happy spirits. Her mother was there. In a few seconds I decided that Lucy was doing all she could to mislead her mother and stop her from being anxious. I have no doubt she guesses, if she does not know, why care is needed. We had lunch alone. We all tried hard to be cheerful. And as a kind of reward for our efforts, some real cheerfulness came among us. Then Mrs. Westenra went to lie down, and Lucy was left with me. We went into her boudoir. Until we got there, she stayed cheerful, because the servants were coming and going. But as soon as the door was closed, the mask fell from her face. She sank down into a chair with a great sigh and hid her eyes with her hand. When I saw that her high spirits had failed, I at once used her change of mood to make a diagnosis. She said to me very sweetly:

“‘I cannot tell you how much I hate talking about myself.’ I reminded her that what a patient tells a doctor is sacred. But I told her that you were terribly anxious about her. She understood my meaning at once and settled that matter in a word. ‘Tell Arthur everything you choose. I do not care for myself, but all for him!’ So I am quite free.

“I could easily see that she is somewhat bloodless. But I could not see the usual signs of anæmia. And by chance I was actually able to test the quality of her blood. She was opening a window which was stiff, and a cord broke. She cut her hand slightly on the broken glass. It was a small thing in itself, but it gave me a clear chance. I took a few drops of the blood and have analysed them. The analysis shows a quite normal condition. I would say that, in itself, it shows a strong state of health. In other physical matters I was quite satisfied that there is no need to worry. But there must be a cause somewhere, so I have decided that it must be something in the mind. She complains that at times she finds it hard to breathe well. She also has heavy, deep sleep, with dreams that frighten her, but she can remember nothing about them. She says that as a child she used to walk in her sleep. When she was in Whitby, the habit came back. Once she walked out in the night and went to East Cliff, where Miss Murray found her. But she assures me that the habit has not come back lately. I am in doubt, so I have done the best thing I know. I have written to my old friend and teacher, Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam. He knows as much about rare and little-known diseases as anyone in the world. I have asked him to come over. You told me that all costs were to be paid by you. So I have told him who you are and what your relation is to Miss Westenra. This, my dear fellow, is what you wished. I am only too proud and happy to do anything I can for her. I know Van Helsing would do anything for me for a personal reason. So, whatever his reason for coming, we must accept his wishes. He may seem a man who decides things just as he likes. But this is because he knows what he is talking about better than anyone else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his time. And he has, I believe, a completely open mind. He has nerves of iron and a temper as cool as an icy stream. He has a will that nothing can break, and great self-control. His tolerance is so great that it is more than a virtue—it is a blessing. And he has the kindest and truest heart that beats. These things are his tools for the noble work he is doing for mankind. His work is both in theory and in practice. His views are as wide as his sympathy for all people. I tell you these facts so that you may know why I trust him so much. I have asked him to come at once. I shall see Miss Westenra again tomorrow. She is to meet me at the Stores, so that I do not alarm her mother by visiting again too soon.

“Yours always, “John Seward.”

*Letter, Abraham Van Helsing, M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc., to Dr. Seward.*

“*2 September.*

“My good Friend,—

“When I have received your letter, I am already coming to you. By good luck I can leave at once, without wrong to any of those who have trusted me. If my luck were different, it would be bad for those who have trusted me. For I come to my friend when he calls me to help those he holds dear. Tell your friend about that time when you sucked so quickly from my wound the poison of the gangrene. It came from that knife which our other friend, too nervous, let slip. Tell him that you did more for him then than all his great fortune could do. For now he wants my help, and you call for it. But it is extra pleasure to do it for him, your friend; it is to you that I come. So have rooms for me at the Great Eastern Hotel, so that I may be near. And please arrange it so that we may see the young lady not too late tomorrow. For it is likely that I may have to return here that night. But if it is needed, I shall come again in three days, and stay longer if I must. Till then, goodbye, my friend John.

“Van Helsing.”

*Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood.*

“*3 September.*

“My dear Art,—

“Van Helsing has come and gone. He came on with me to Hillingham. Lucy had wisely arranged for her mother to have lunch out, so we were alone with her. Van Helsing examined the patient very carefully. He is to report to me, and I shall advise you, because of course I was not there all the time. I fear he is very worried, but he says he must think. I told him about our friendship and how you trust me in this matter. He said: ‘You must tell him all you think. Tell him what I think, if you can guess it, if you will. No, I am not joking. This is no joke, but life and death, perhaps more.’ I asked what he meant by that, because he was very serious. This was when we had come back to town. He was having a cup of tea before starting back to Amsterdam. He would not give me any more clue. You must not be angry with me, Art. His silence means that all his brains are working for her good. He will speak plainly enough when the time comes, be sure of that. So I told him I would simply write an account of our visit. I would write it as if it were a special descriptive article for *The Daily Telegraph*. He seemed not to notice. He only remarked that the soot in London was not quite as bad as before. It used to be worse when he was a student here. I am to get his report tomorrow if he can possibly write it. In any case I am to have a letter.

“Well, about the visit. Lucy was more cheerful than on the day I first saw her, and she certainly looked better. She had lost some of the deathly look that upset you so much, and her breathing was normal. She was very sweet to the Professor (as she always is) and tried to make him feel at ease. But I could see that the poor girl was struggling hard to do it. I believe Van Helsing saw it too. I saw the quick look under his bushy eyebrows that I knew from the old days. Then he began to chat about all things except ourselves and diseases. He was so endlessly friendly that I saw poor Lucy’s pretended liveliness turn into real liveliness. Then, without any seeming change, he gently brought the conversation round to his visit. He said smoothly:

“‘My dear young miss, I have the so great pleasure because you are so much loved. That is much, my dear, even if there is something which I do not see. They told me you were low in spirit, and that you were of a deathly pale. To them I say: “Pouf!”’ And he snapped his fingers at me and went on: ‘But you and I shall show them how wrong they are. How can he’—and he pointed at me with the same look and gesture he once used to point me out to his class. That was on, or rather after, a certain occasion which he never fails to remind me of—‘know anything of a young ladies? He has his madmans to play with, and to bring them back to happiness, and to those that love them. It is much to do, and, oh, but there are rewards, because we can give such happiness. But the young ladies! He has no wife nor daughter. And the young do not tell themselves to the young, but to the old. They tell themselves to old ones like me, who have known so many sorrows and the causes of them. So, my dear, we will send him away to smoke the cigarette in the garden. And you and I have little talk all to ourselves.’ I took the hint and walked about. Soon the Professor came to the window and called me in. He looked serious, but said: ‘I have made careful examination, but I find no cause in how her body works. With you I agree that there has been much blood lost; it has been, but is not. But her condition is in no way anæmic. I have asked her to send me her maid, so that I may ask just one or two question. So I may not by chance miss anything. I know well what she will say. And yet there is cause; there is always cause for everything. I must go back home and think. You must send to me the telegram every day. And if there is cause, I shall come again. The disease—for not to be all well is a disease—interest me. And the sweet young dear, she interest me too. She charm me, and for her, if not for you or disease, I come.’

“As I tell you, he would not say a word more, even when we were alone. And so now, Art, you know all I know. I shall keep a strict watch. I hope your poor father is getting better. My dear old fellow, it must be a terrible thing for you. You are placed between two people who are both so dear to you. I know your idea of duty to your father, and you are right to keep to it. But if it is needed, I shall send you word to come at once to Lucy. So do not be too anxious unless you hear from me.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*4 September.*—The zoöphagous patient still keeps our interest. He had only one outburst, and that was yesterday, at an unusual time. Just before the stroke of noon, he began to grow restless. The attendant knew the signs and at once called for help. Luckily the men came running and were just in time. At the stroke of noon he became so violent that it took all their strength to hold him. In about five minutes, however, he began to get quieter and quieter. Finally he sank into a kind of sad, dark mood, and he has stayed in that state until now. The attendant tells me that his screams during the fit were really terrible. When I got in, I had my hands full looking after some of the other patients, who were frightened by him. Indeed, I can quite understand the effect. The sounds disturbed even me, though I was some distance away. It is now after the dinner-hour of the asylum. My patient still sits in a corner, brooding, with a dull, sulky, miserable look on his face. This look seems to hint at something rather than show it directly. I cannot quite understand it.

*Later.*—Another change in my patient. At five o’clock I looked in on him. He seemed as happy and content as he used to be. He was catching flies and eating them. He was counting his catch by making nail-marks on the edge of the door, between the ridges of padding. When he saw me, he came over and said sorry for his bad behaviour. In a very humble, cringing way he asked to be taken back to his own room and to have his notebook again. I thought it best to humour him. So he is back in his room with the window open. He has spread the sugar from his tea on the window-sill, and he is collecting quite a harvest of flies. He is not eating them now, but putting them into a box, as before. He is already searching the corners of his room for a spider. I tried to get him to talk about the past few days. Any clue to his thoughts would help me enormously. But he would not take the bait. For a moment or two he looked very sad. He said in a kind of far-away voice, as if he were saying it to himself rather than to me:

“All over! all over! He has deserted me. No hope for me now unless I do it for myself!” Then suddenly he turned to me in a determined way and said: “Doctor, won’t you be very good to me and let me have a little more sugar? I think it would be good for me.”

“And the flies?” I said.

“Yes! The flies like it, too, and I like the flies; so I like it.” And there are people who know so little that they think madmen do not argue! I got him a double supply. I left him as happy, I suppose, as any man in the world. I wish I could understand his mind.

*Midnight.*—Another change in him. I had been to see Miss Westenra, and I found her much better. I had just returned and was standing at our own gate, looking at the sunset. Then once more I heard him yelling. His room is on this side of the house, so I could hear it better than in the morning. It was a shock to turn away from the wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London. There were its fiery lights and inky shadows. There were all the wonderful colours that come on dirty clouds, just as they come on dirty water. Then I had to face all the grim hardness of my own cold stone building, full of living, breathing misery. And I had my own lonely heart, which had to bear it all. I reached him just as the sun was going down. From his window I saw the red disc sink. As it sank, he became less and less wild. And just as it dipped, he slid from the hands that held him and lay on the floor, a lifeless mass. It is wonderful, however, how quickly lunatics can get their minds back. Within a few minutes he stood up quite calmly and looked around him. I signalled to the attendants not to hold him, because I wanted to see what he would do. He went straight over to the window and brushed out the crumbs of sugar. Then he took his fly-box, emptied it outside, and threw away the box. Then he shut the window, crossed the room and sat down on his bed. All this surprised me, so I asked him: “Are you not going to keep flies any more?”

“No,” he said; “I am sick of all that rubbish!” He certainly is a wonderfully interesting case. I wish I could get some glimpse of his mind, or of the cause of his sudden passion. Wait—there may be a clue after all. That is, if we can find out why his fits came today at high noon and at sunset. Can it be that the sun has an evil influence at certain times, which affects certain natures? Just as the moon sometimes affects others? We shall see.

*Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam.*

“*4 September.*—Patient still better today.”

*Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam.*

“*5 September.*—Patient greatly improved. Good appetite; sleeps naturally; good spirits; colour coming back.”

*Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam.*

“*6 September.*—Terrible change for the worse. Come at once; do not lose an hour. Am holding back telegram to Holmwood till have seen you.”

### Glossary

- **raved / ravings**: talked wildly and without sense, because of illness or fever.
- **the Superior**: the woman in charge of the nuns in a convent or hospital.
- **chaplain**: a priest who works for a hospital, a school or a group of people abroad.
- **cormorant**: a large black sea bird that eats a lot of fish.
- **padded room**: a room with soft walls, so that a violent patient cannot hurt himself.
- **cringing**: acting in a very humble, frightened way, as if afraid of being hit.
- **humour (someone)**: to let someone do what they want, to keep them calm.
- **boudoir**: a lady’s small private sitting-room.
- **anæmia / anæmic**: an illness in which the blood is weak and the person looks pale and tired.
- **metaphysician**: a thinker who studies the deepest questions about life and the world.
- **gangrene**: a dangerous illness in which part of the body dies after an infection.

## Chapter X

*Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood.*

“*6 September.*

“My dear Art,—

“My news today is not so good. This morning Lucy had gone back a little. But one good thing has come from it. Mrs. Westenra was naturally anxious about Lucy, and she has asked for my professional advice about her. I used the opportunity. I told her that my old teacher, Van Helsing, the great specialist, was coming to stay with me. I said I would put her in his care together with myself. So now we can come and go without alarming her too much. A shock to her would mean sudden death. And this, in Lucy’s weak condition, might be a disaster for her. We are surrounded by difficulties, all of us, my poor old fellow. But, please God, we shall come through them all right. If there is any need, I shall write. So if you do not hear from me, you can be sure that I am simply waiting for news. In haste,

“Yours ever, “John Seward.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*7 September.*—The first thing Van Helsing said to me when we met at Liverpool Street was:

“Have you said anything to our young friend, her lover?”

“No,” I said. “I waited till I had seen you, as I said in my telegram. I wrote him a letter simply telling him that you were coming, because Miss Westenra was not so well. I said that I would let him know if there was need.”

“Right, my friend,” he said, “quite right! Better he not know as yet; perhaps he shall never know. I pray so. But if it is needed, then he shall know all. And, my good friend John, let me warn you. You deal with the madmen. All men are mad in some way or the other. And as you deal carefully with your madmen, so deal with God’s madmen too—the rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what you do, nor why you do it; you tell them not what you think. So you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may rest—where it may gather its kind around it and multiply. You and I shall keep as yet what we know here, and here.” He touched me on the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself in the same way. “I have for myself thoughts at the present. Later I shall show them to you.”

“Why not now?” I asked. “It may do some good; we may come to some decision.” He stopped and looked at me, and said:

“My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it is ripe—while the milk of its mother-earth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his gold—the farmer he pull the ear. He rub him between his rough hands and blow away the green chaff. And he say to you: ‘Look! he’s good corn; he will make good crop when the time comes.’” I did not see what this had to do with us, and I told him so. In reply he reached over and took my ear in his hand. He pulled it playfully, as he used to do long ago at lectures. He said: “The good farmer tell you so then because he knows, but not till then. But you do not find the good farmer dig up his planted corn to see if he grow. That is for the children who play at farming. It is not for those who take it as the work of their life. See you now, friend John? I have sown my corn, and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout. If he sprout at all, there’s some promise; and I wait till the ear begins to swell.” He stopped, because he clearly saw that I understood. Then he went on, very seriously:

“You were always a careful student, and your case-book was ever more full than the rest. You were only student then; now you are master, and I trust that good habit have not fail. Remember, my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker. Even if you have not kept the good practice, let me tell you this. This case of our dear miss may be—mind, I say *may be*—of great interest to us and others. It may be so great that all the rest may not make him kick the beam, as your people say. So take good note of it. Nothing is too small. I advise you, write down in record even your doubts and guesses. Later it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success!”

I described Lucy’s symptoms to him. They were the same as before, but much, much stronger. He looked very serious, but said nothing. He took with him a bag with many instruments and drugs in it. In one of his lectures he once called the equipment of a professor of healing “the horrible equipment of our helpful trade.” When we were shown in, Mrs. Westenra met us. She was alarmed, but not nearly as much as I expected. Nature, in one of her kind moods, has arranged that even death has some cure for its own terrors. Here is a case where any shock may be fatal. And here things are arranged in a special way. For some reason, things that are not personal do not seem to reach her. Even the terrible change in her daughter, whom she loves so much, does not reach her. It is something like the way Mother Nature treats a foreign body. She puts round it a covering of tissue that has no feeling. This covering protects the body from the evil that the foreign thing would otherwise do by touching it. If this is an ordered selfishness, then we should stop and think before we condemn anyone for the fault of egoism. There may be deeper roots for its causes than we know.

I used my knowledge of this kind of spiritual illness. I made a rule that she should not be with Lucy, or think of her illness, more than was absolutely necessary. She agreed at once—so quickly that I saw again the hand of Nature fighting for life. Van Helsing and I were shown up to Lucy’s room. I was shocked when I saw her yesterday, but I was horrified when I saw her today. She was ghastly, as pale as chalk. The red seemed to have gone even from her lips and gums, and the bones of her face stood out clearly. Her breathing was painful to see or hear. Van Helsing’s face became as hard as marble. His eyebrows came together until they almost touched over his nose. Lucy lay without moving and did not seem to have the strength to speak. So for a while we were all silent. Then Van Helsing signalled to me, and we went gently out of the room. As soon as we had closed the door, he stepped quickly along the passage to the next door, which was open. Then he pulled me quickly in with him and closed the door. “My God!” he said. “This is dreadful. There is no time to be lost. She will die simply for lack of blood to keep the heart working as it should. There must be transfusion of blood at once. Is it you or me?”

“I am younger and stronger, Professor. It must be me.”

“Then get ready at once. I will bring up my bag. I am prepared.”

I went downstairs with him. As we were going, there was a knock at the front door. When we reached the hall, the maid had just opened the door, and Arthur was stepping quickly in. He rushed up to me, saying in an eager whisper:

“Jack, I was so anxious. I read between the lines of your letter, and I have been in agony. Dad was better, so I ran down here to see for myself. Is that gentleman not Dr. Van Helsing? I am so thankful to you, sir, for coming.” When the Professor first saw him, he had been angry at being interrupted at such a time. But now he took in Arthur’s big, strong body. He saw the strong young manhood that seemed to come from him, and his eyes shone. Without a pause, he held out his hand and said to him seriously:

“Sir, you have come in time. You are the lover of our dear miss. She is bad, very, very bad. No, my child, do not go like that.” For Arthur suddenly turned pale and sat down in a chair, almost fainting. “You are to help her. You can do more than any that live, and your courage is your best help.”

“What can I do?” asked Arthur hoarsely. “Tell me, and I shall do it. My life is hers, and I would give the last drop of blood in my body for her.” The Professor has a strong sense of humour. From my old knowledge of him, I could see a trace of it in his answer:

“My young sir, I do not ask so much as that—not the last!”

“What shall I do?” There was fire in his eyes, and his open nostrils trembled with purpose. Van Helsing slapped him on the shoulder. “Come!” he said. “You are a man, and it is a man we want. You are better than me, better than my friend John.” Arthur looked confused, and the Professor kindly went on to explain:

“Young miss is bad, very bad. She wants blood, and blood she must have or die. My friend John and I have talked together. We are about to perform what we call transfusion of blood. That is to move it from the full veins of one to the empty veins which long for it. John was to give his blood, as he is the more young and strong than me”—here Arthur took my hand and pressed it hard in silence—“but now you are here, you are more good than us, old or young, who work much in the world of thought. Our nerves are not so calm and our blood not so bright as yours!” Arthur turned to him and said:

“If you only knew how gladly I would die for her, you would understand——”

He stopped, with a kind of choke in his voice.

“Good boy!” said Van Helsing. “In the not-so-far-off you will be happy that you have done all for her you love. Come now and be silent. You shall kiss her once before it is done, but then you must go; and you must leave at my sign. Say no word to Madame; you know how it is with her! There must be no shock, and any knowledge of this would be one. Come!”

We all went up to Lucy’s room. Arthur was told to stay outside. Lucy turned her head and looked at us, but said nothing. She was not asleep, but she was simply too weak to make the effort. Her eyes spoke to us; that was all. Van Helsing took some things from his bag and laid them on a little table out of sight. Then he mixed a narcotic, came over to the bed and said cheerfully:

“Now, little miss, here is your medicine. Drink it off, like a good child. See, I lift you so that to swallow is easy. Yes.” She had made the effort and succeeded.

It surprised me how long the drug took to work. This, in fact, showed how weak she was. The time seemed endless until sleep began to flicker in her eyelids. At last, however, the narcotic began to show its power, and she fell into a deep sleep. When the Professor was satisfied, he called Arthur into the room and told him to take off his coat. Then he added: “You may take that one little kiss while I bring over the table. Friend John, help to me!” So neither of us looked while he bent over her.

Van Helsing turned to me and said:

“He is so young and strong, and of blood so pure, that we need not defibrinate it.”

Then, quickly but with perfect method, Van Helsing performed the operation. As the transfusion went on, something like life seemed to come back to poor Lucy’s cheeks. And through Arthur’s growing paleness, the joy in his face seemed truly to shine. After a while I began to grow anxious, because the loss of blood was affecting Arthur, strong man as he was. It gave me an idea of the terrible strain Lucy’s body must have suffered. What weakened Arthur only partly restored her. But the Professor’s face was set. He stood with his watch in his hand, his eyes fixed now on the patient and now on Arthur. I could hear my own heart beat. Soon he said in a soft voice: “Do not move for a moment. It is enough. You look after him; I will look to her.” When it was all over, I could see how weak Arthur was. I dressed the wound and took his arm to lead him away. Then Van Helsing spoke without turning round—the man seems to have eyes in the back of his head:

“The brave lover, I think, deserve another kiss, which he shall have soon.” He had now finished his operation, and he arranged the pillow under the patient’s head. As he did so, the narrow black velvet band that she always seems to wear round her throat was pulled up a little. It was fastened with an old diamond buckle which her lover had given her. Now it showed a red mark on her throat. Arthur did not notice it. But I could hear the deep hiss of breath drawn in, which is one of Van Helsing’s ways of showing emotion. He said nothing at the moment, but turned to me and said: “Now take down our brave young lover, give him of the port wine, and let him lie down a while. He must then go home and rest, sleep much and eat much. So he may get back what he has given to his love. He must not stay here. Wait! a moment. I may take it, sir, that you are anxious about the result. Then take it with you that in all ways the operation is successful. You have saved her life this time. You can go home and rest easy in mind that all that can be done is done. I shall tell her all when she is well. She shall love you none the less for what you have done. Goodbye.”

When Arthur had gone, I went back to the room. Lucy was sleeping gently, but her breathing was stronger. I could see the bedcover move as her breast rose and fell. Van Helsing sat by the bed, looking at her closely. The velvet band covered the red mark again. I asked the Professor in a whisper:

“What do you make of that mark on her throat?”

“What do you make of it?”

“I have not examined it yet,” I answered. And then and there I began to loosen the band. Just over the external jugular vein there were two small holes. They were not large, but they did not look healthy. There was no sign of disease. But the edges were white and looked worn, as if by some rubbing or grinding. At once I thought that this wound, or whatever it was, might explain the clear loss of blood. But I gave up the idea as soon as I had it, because such a thing was impossible. If so, the whole bed would have been soaked scarlet with blood. The girl must have lost that much blood to be as pale as she was before the transfusion.

“Well?” said Van Helsing.

“Well,” I said, “I can make nothing of it.” The Professor stood up. “I must go back to Amsterdam tonight,” he said. “There are books and things there which I want. You must stay here all the night, and you must not let your eyes leave her.”

“Shall I have a nurse?” I asked.

“We are the best nurses, you and I. You keep watch all night. See that she is well fed, and that nothing disturbs her. You must not sleep all the night. Later on we can sleep, you and I. I shall be back as soon as possible. And then we may begin.”

“May begin?” I said. “What on earth do you mean?”

“We shall see!” he answered, as he hurried out. A moment later he came back. He put his head inside the door and said, with a warning finger held up:

“Remember, she is in your care. If you leave her, and harm comes, you shall not sleep easy afterwards!”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary—continued.*

*8 September.*—I sat up all night with Lucy. The drug wore off towards dusk, and she woke naturally. She looked like a different person from what she had been before the operation. Even her spirits were good, and she was full of happy liveliness. But I could see signs of the complete exhaustion she had been through. I told Mrs. Westenra that Dr. Van Helsing had ordered me to sit up with her. She almost laughed at the idea, and she pointed out her daughter’s new strength and excellent spirits. But I was firm, and I prepared for my long night watch. In the meantime I had had supper. When her maid had got her ready for the night, I came in and took a seat by the bed. She did not object in any way, but she looked at me gratefully whenever I caught her eye. After a long time, she seemed to be sinking into sleep. But with an effort she seemed to pull herself together and shake it off. This happened several times, with greater effort and with shorter pauses as time went on. It was clear that she did not want to sleep, so I raised the subject at once:

“You do not want to go to sleep?”

“No; I am afraid.”

“Afraid to go to sleep! Why? It is the gift we all long for.”

“Ah, not if you were like me—if sleep was to you a warning of horror!”

“A warning of horror! What on earth do you mean?”

“I don’t know; oh, I don’t know. And that is what is so terrible. All this weakness comes to me in sleep, until I dread the very thought of it.”

“But, my dear girl, you may sleep tonight. I am here watching you, and I can promise that nothing will happen.”

“Ah, I can trust you!” I took the opportunity and said: “I promise you that if I see any sign of bad dreams, I will wake you at once.”

“You will? Oh, will you really? How good you are to me. Then I will sleep!” And almost as she said it, she gave a deep sigh of relief and sank back, asleep.

All night long I watched by her. She never moved, but slept on and on in a deep, peaceful sleep that gave her life and health. Her lips were slightly open, and her breast rose and fell as regularly as a pendulum. There was a smile on her face. It was clear that no bad dreams had come to disturb her peace of mind.

In the early morning her maid came. I left Lucy in her care and went back home, because I was anxious about many things. I sent a short wire to Van Helsing and to Arthur, telling them of the excellent result of the operation. My own work had piled up in many ways, and it took me all day to clear it. It was dark when I was able to ask about my zoöphagous patient. The report was good; he had been quite quiet for the past day and night. While I was at dinner, a telegram came from Van Helsing in Amsterdam. He suggested that I should be at Hillingham tonight, as it might be good to be near. He said that he was leaving by the night mail and would join me early in the morning.

*9 September.*—I was very tired and worn out when I got to Hillingham. For two nights I had hardly slept a wink. My brain was beginning to feel that numbness which shows that the brain is exhausted. Lucy was up and in cheerful spirits. When she shook hands with me, she looked sharply into my face and said:

“No sitting up tonight for you. You are worn out. I am quite well again; I really am. And if there is to be any sitting up, it is I who will sit up with you.” I would not argue the point, but went and had my supper. Lucy came with me. Her charming company made me livelier, and I ate an excellent meal. I had a couple of glasses of the more than excellent port. Then Lucy took me upstairs and showed me a room next to her own, where a cosy fire was burning. “Now,” she said, “you must stay here. I shall leave this door open, and my door too. You can lie on the sofa. I know that nothing would make any of you doctors go to bed. Not while there is a patient above the horizon! If I want anything, I shall call out, and you can come to me at once.” I could only agree, because I was “dog-tired.” I could not have sat up if I had tried. So she promised again to call me if she wanted anything. I lay on the sofa and forgot all about everything.

*Lucy Westenra’s Diary.*

*9 September.*—I feel so happy tonight. I have been so terribly weak. So to be able to think and move about is like feeling sunshine again. It is like sunshine after a long time of east wind from a steel sky. Somehow Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel him warm around me. I suppose sickness and weakness are selfish things. They turn our inner eyes and our sympathy on ourselves. But health and strength set Love free, and in thought and feeling he can wander where he wants. I know where my thoughts are. If only Arthur knew! My dear, my dear, your ears must tingle as you sleep, as mine do while I am awake. Oh, the wonderful rest of last night! How I slept, with that dear, good Dr. Seward watching me. And tonight I shall not be afraid to sleep, since he is close by and within call. Thank everybody for being so good to me! Thank God! Good night, Arthur.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*10 September.*—I felt the Professor’s hand on my head, and I was wide awake in a second. That is one of the things that we learn in an asylum, at any rate.

“And how is our patient?”

“Well, when I left her, or rather when she left me,” I answered.

“Come, let us see,” he said. And we went into the room together.

The blind was down. I went over to raise it gently, while Van Helsing stepped over to the bed with his soft, cat-like walk.

As I raised the blind, the morning sunlight flooded the room. I heard the Professor’s low hiss of breath drawn in. I knew how rare it was, and a deadly fear shot through my heart. As I came across, he moved back. He cried out in horror: “Gott in Himmel!” His face, full of pain, said the same. He raised his hand and pointed to the bed. His iron face was drawn and as white as ashes. I felt my knees begin to tremble.

There on the bed, seemingly in a faint, lay poor Lucy. She was more horribly white and weak-looking than ever. Even her lips were white. Her gums seemed to have shrunk back from the teeth. We sometimes see this in a dead body after a long illness. Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp in anger. But the instinct of his life and all the long years of habit stopped him, and he put it down again softly. “Quick!” he said. “Bring the brandy.” I flew to the dining-room and came back with the decanter. He wet her poor white lips with it. Together we rubbed her palms, wrists and heart. He felt her heart, and after a few moments of terrible suspense he said:

“It is not too late. It beats, though but weakly. All our work is undone; we must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now. I have to call on you yourself this time, friend John.” As he spoke, he was reaching into his bag and taking out the instruments for transfusion. I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirt-sleeve. An opiate was not possible just then, and there was no need of one. So, without a moment’s delay, we began the operation. After a time, Van Helsing held up a warning finger. It did not seem a short time either. To feel your blood drain away is a terrible feeling, however willingly you give it. “Do not move,” he said, “but I fear that with growing strength she may wake. And that would make danger, oh, so much danger. But I shall take precaution. I shall give hypodermic injection of morphia.” Then he did it, quickly and skilfully. The effect on Lucy was not bad. Her faint seemed to change softly into the drugged sleep. A faint touch of colour came slowly back into her pale cheeks and lips. I felt a personal pride as I saw it. No man knows how it feels until he experiences it. It is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves.

The Professor watched me with a critical eye. “That will do,” he said. “Already?” I protested. “You took a great deal more from Art.” He smiled a sad sort of smile and replied:

“He is her lover, her *fiancé*. You have work, much work, to do for her and for others; and this will be enough for now.”

When we stopped the operation, he looked after Lucy, while I pressed my fingers on my own cut. I lay down while I waited for him to have time for me, because I felt faint and a little sick. After a while he bandaged my wound and sent me downstairs to get a glass of wine for myself. As I was leaving the room, he came after me and half whispered:

“Mind, nothing must be said of this. If our young lover should come unexpected, as before, no word to him. It would at once frighten him and make him jealous too. There must be none. So!”

When I came back, he looked at me carefully and then said:

“You are not much the worse. Go into the room, and lie on your sofa, and rest a while. Then have much breakfast, and come here to me.”

I followed his orders, because I knew how right and wise they were. I had done my part, and now my next duty was to keep up my strength. I felt very weak, and in my weakness I lost some of my amazement at what had happened. But I fell asleep on the sofa, wondering again and again how Lucy had gone so far backwards. How could she have been drained of so much blood with no sign of it anywhere? I think I must have gone on wondering in my dreams. Sleeping and waking, my thoughts always came back to the little holes in her throat. I thought of the ragged, worn look of their edges—tiny though they were.

Lucy slept well into the day. When she woke, she was fairly well and strong, though not nearly as much as the day before. When Van Helsing had seen her, he went out for a walk. He left me in charge, with strict orders that I was not to leave her for a moment. I could hear his voice in the hall, asking the way to the nearest telegraph office.

Lucy chatted with me freely and seemed quite unaware that anything had happened. I tried to keep her amused and interested. When her mother came up to see her, she did not seem to notice any change at all. But she said to me gratefully:

“We owe you so much, Dr. Seward, for all you have done. But you really must take care now not to overwork yourself. You are looking pale yourself. You need a wife to nurse you and look after you a bit; that you do!” As she spoke, Lucy turned bright red. But it was only for a moment. Her poor empty veins could not stand such an unusual rush of blood to the head for long. Then she went very pale, and she looked at me with begging eyes. I smiled and nodded and laid my finger on my lips. With a sigh, she sank back among her pillows.

Van Helsing came back in a couple of hours. Soon he said to me: “Now you go home, and eat much and drink enough. Make yourself strong. I stay here tonight, and I shall sit up with little miss myself. You and I must watch the case, and we must have no other to know. I have serious reasons. No, do not ask them; think what you will. Do not fear to think even the most not-probable. Good night.”

In the hall two of the maids came to me. They asked if they, or one of them, might sit up with Miss Lucy. They begged me to let them. I said that it was Dr. Van Helsing’s wish that either he or I should sit up. Then they asked me very sadly to speak to the “foreign gentleman” for them. I was very touched by their kindness. Perhaps it is because I am weak at present. And perhaps it is because they showed their devotion for Lucy’s sake. For again and again I have seen similar examples of woman’s kindness. I got back here in time for a late dinner. I went my rounds—all well—and wrote this down while waiting for sleep. It is coming.

*11 September.*—This afternoon I went over to Hillingham. I found Van Helsing in excellent spirits and Lucy much better. Soon after I arrived, a big parcel from abroad came for the Professor. He opened it with a great show of importance—a pretended one, of course—and showed us a great bundle of white flowers.

“These are for you, Miss Lucy,” he said.

“For me? Oh, Dr. Van Helsing!”

“Yes, my dear, but not for you to play with. These are medicines.” Here Lucy made a face. “No, but they are not to take boiled in water or in nasty form. So you need not wrinkle that so charming nose. Or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what pain he may have to suffer. He shall see so much beauty that he so loves so much all twisted. Aha, my pretty miss, that bring the so nice nose all straight again. This is medicine, but you do not know how. I put him in your window, I make pretty wreath, and hang him round your neck, so that you sleep well. Oh yes! They, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. It smell so like the waters of Lethe. And like that fountain of youth that the Conquistadores looked for in the Floridas, and find him all too late.”

While he was speaking, Lucy had been looking at the flowers and smelling them. Now she threw them down, half laughing and half disgusted, and said:

“Oh, Professor, I believe you are only playing a joke on me. Why, these flowers are only common garlic.”

To my surprise, Van Helsing stood up and spoke with all his sternness, his iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting:

“No playing with me! I never joke! There is grim purpose in all I do. And I warn you that you do not go against me. Take care, for the sake of others if not for your own.” Then he saw that poor Lucy was frightened, as she might well be, and he went on more gently: “Oh, little miss, my dear, do not fear me. I only do for your good. But there is much power for you in those so common flowers. See, I place them myself in your room. I make myself the wreath that you are to wear. But hush! No telling to others that make so curious questions. We must obey, and silence is a part of obedience. And obedience is to bring you strong and well into loving arms that wait for you. Now sit still a while. Come with me, friend John, and you shall help me decorate the room with my garlic. It is all the way from Haarlem, where my friend Vanderpool grow herb in his glass-houses all the year. I had to telegraph yesterday, or they would not have been here.”

We went into the room, taking the flowers with us. The Professor’s actions were certainly strange. You would not find them in any book of medicines that I ever heard of. First he shut the windows and latched them firmly. Next he took a handful of the flowers and rubbed them all over the window frames. It was as if he wanted every breath of air that might get in to carry the garlic smell. Then with the bunch he rubbed all over the door frame, above, below and at each side. He rubbed round the fireplace in the same way. It all seemed absurd to me, and soon I said:

“Well, Professor, I know you always have a reason for what you do, but this certainly puzzles me. It is good that we have no sceptic here. If we had, he would say that you were working some spell to keep out an evil spirit.”

“Perhaps I am!” he answered quietly, as he began to make the wreath which Lucy was to wear round her neck.

Then we waited while Lucy got ready for the night. When she was in bed, he came and fixed the wreath of garlic round her neck himself. The last words he said to her were:

“Take care you do not disturb it. And even if the room feel close, do not open the window or the door tonight.”

“I promise,” said Lucy, “and thank you both a thousand times for all your kindness to me! Oh, what have I done to be blessed with such friends?”

As we left the house in my fly, which was waiting, Van Helsing said:

“Tonight I can sleep in peace, and sleep I want. There were two nights of travel, and much reading in the day between. There was much worry on the day to follow, and a night to sit up, without to wink. Tomorrow in the morning early you call for me. And we come together to see our pretty miss, so much more strong for my ‘spell’ which I have worked. Ho! ho!”

He seemed so confident. But I remembered my own confidence two nights before, and its terrible result. So I felt awe and a vague terror. It must have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell my friend about it. But I felt it all the more, like tears that are held back.

### Glossary

- **kick the beam**: when one side of a scale goes up because it is lighter; here: all other cases together would seem less important than this one.
- **chaff**: the dry outer covering of grain, which is blown away.
- **narcotic**: a drug that makes a person sleep deeply.
- **defibrinate**: to take a certain substance out of blood so that it does not become thick.
- **jugular vein**: a large vein in the side of the neck.
- **hypodermic injection of morphia**: a drug against pain, put into the body with a needle.
- **“Gott in Himmel!”**: German for “God in heaven!”
- **lotus flower / Lethe**: in old Greek stories, a fruit and a river that make people forget everything.
- **Conquistadores**: Spanish soldiers who went to America in the 1500s; some looked for a magic fountain that made people young.
- **fly**: a light carriage pulled by one horse.

## Chapter XI

*Lucy Westenra’s Diary.*

*12 September.*—How good they all are to me. I really love that dear Dr. Van Helsing. I wonder why he was so anxious about these flowers. He really frightened me, he was so fierce. And yet he must have been right, because I feel comfort from them already. Somehow I am not afraid of being alone tonight, and I can go to sleep without fear. I shall not mind any flapping outside the window. Oh, the terrible struggle I have had against sleep so often lately! There was the pain of not sleeping, or the pain of the fear of sleep, with all its unknown horrors for me! How lucky some people are, whose lives have no fears and no dreads. For them sleep is a blessing that comes every night and brings nothing but sweet dreams. Well, here I am tonight, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with “virgin crants and maiden strewments.” I never liked garlic before, but tonight it is delightful! There is peace in its smell; I feel sleep coming already. Good night, everybody.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*13 September.*—I called at the Berkeley and found Van Helsing ready on time, as usual. The carriage ordered from the hotel was waiting. The Professor took his bag, which he always brings with him now.

Let everything be written down exactly. Van Helsing and I arrived at Hillingham at eight o’clock. It was a lovely morning. The bright sunshine and all the fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of nature’s yearly work. The leaves were turning all kinds of beautiful colours, but they had not yet begun to fall from the trees. When we went in, we met Mrs. Westenra coming out of the morning room. She always gets up early. She greeted us warmly and said:

“You will be glad to know that Lucy is better. The dear child is still asleep. I looked into her room and saw her, but I did not go in, in case I disturbed her.” The Professor smiled and looked full of joy. He rubbed his hands together and said:

“Aha! I thought I had diagnosed the case. My treatment is working.” She answered:

“You must not take all the credit yourself, doctor. Lucy’s state this morning is partly thanks to me.”

“How you do mean, ma’am?” asked the Professor.

“Well, I was anxious about the dear child in the night, and I went into her room. She was sleeping soundly—so soundly that even my coming did not wake her. But the room was terribly stuffy. There were a lot of those horrible, strong-smelling flowers everywhere. She actually had a bunch of them round her neck. I was afraid that the heavy smell would be too much for the dear child in her weak state. So I took them all away and opened the window a little to let in some fresh air. You will be pleased with her, I am sure.”

She moved off into her boudoir, where she usually had breakfast early. While she was speaking, I watched the Professor’s face, and I saw it turn grey like ashes. He had kept his self-control while the poor lady was there. He knew her state, and how much harm a shock would do. He actually smiled at her as he held open the door for her to go into her room. But the moment she had gone, he pulled me suddenly and strongly into the dining-room and closed the door.

Then, for the first time in my life, I saw Van Helsing break down. He raised his hands over his head in a kind of silent despair. Then he beat his palms together helplessly. Finally he sat down on a chair, put his hands before his face and began to sob. They were loud, dry sobs that seemed to come from the very breaking of his heart. Then he raised his arms again, as if he were appealing to the whole universe. “God! God! God!” he said. “What have we done, what has this poor thing done, that we are so hard pressed? Is there fate among us still, sent down from the pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such way? This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul. And we must not tell her, we must not even warn her, or she die, and then both die. Oh, how we are surrounded! How are all the powers of the devils against us!” Suddenly he jumped to his feet. “Come,” he said, “come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him all the same.” He went to the front door for his bag, and together we went up to Lucy’s room.

Once again I drew up the blind, while Van Helsing went towards the bed. This time he did not start as he looked at the poor face. It had the same awful, waxy paleness as before. He wore a look of stern sadness and endless pity.

“As I expected,” he murmured, with that hissing breath of his which meant so much. Without a word he went and locked the door. Then he began to lay out on the little table the instruments for yet another transfusion of blood. I had long ago seen that it was necessary, and I had begun to take off my coat. But he stopped me with a warning hand. “No!” he said. “Today you must operate. I shall provide. You are weakened already.” As he spoke, he took off his coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeve.

Again the operation; again the narcotic; again some colour came back to the grey cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep returned. This time I watched while Van Helsing rested and got his strength back.

Soon he found a chance to tell Mrs. Westenra that she must not remove anything from Lucy’s room without asking him first. He told her that the flowers had medical value, and that breathing their smell was part of the cure. Then he took over the care of the case himself. He said that he would watch this night and the next, and would send me word when to come.

After another hour Lucy woke from her sleep, fresh and bright. She seemed not much the worse for her terrible ordeal.

What does it all mean? I am beginning to wonder if my long habit of living among the insane is beginning to affect my own brain.

*Lucy Westenra’s Diary.*

*17 September.*—Four days and nights of peace. I am getting so strong again that I hardly know myself. It is as if I had passed through some long nightmare. Now I have just woken up to see the beautiful sunshine and feel the fresh morning air around me. I dimly half remember long, anxious times of waiting and fearing. There was darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make my present distress sharper. And then there were long periods of forgetting everything. Then I rose back to life, like a diver coming up through deep, heavy water. But since Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad dreaming seems to have passed away. The noises that used to frighten me out of my wits have all stopped. There was the flapping against the windows, and the distant voices which seemed so close to me. There were the harsh sounds that came from I do not know where. They ordered me to do I do not know what. I go to bed now without any fear of sleep. I do not even try to stay awake. I have grown quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful arrives for me every day from Haarlem. Tonight Dr. Van Helsing is going away, because he has to be in Amsterdam for a day. But I need not be watched; I am well enough to be left alone. Thank God for mother’s sake, and dear Arthur’s, and for all our friends who have been so kind! I shall not even feel the change. Last night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time. I found him asleep twice when I woke up. But I was not afraid to go to sleep again, although the branches or bats or something flapped almost angrily against the window-panes.

*“The Pall Mall Gazette,” 18 September.*

THE ESCAPED WOLF. PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF OUR INTERVIEWER.

*Interview with the Keeper in the Zoological Gardens.*

After many questions, and almost as many refusals, I managed to find the keeper of the part of the Zoological Gardens that includes the wolf section. All the time I used the words “Pall Mall Gazette” as a kind of magic charm. Thomas Bilder lives in one of the cottages in the enclosure behind the elephant-house. He was just sitting down to his tea when I found him. Thomas and his wife are warm and welcoming people. They are elderly and have no children. If the hospitality I enjoyed was the usual kind, their lives must be pretty comfortable. The keeper would not start on what he called “business” until supper was over and we were all satisfied. Then, when the table was cleared and he had lit his pipe, he said:

“Now, sir, you can go on and arsk me what you want. You’ll excuse me for refusin’ to talk about work before meals. I give the wolves and the jackals and the hyenas in our section their tea before I begin to arsk them questions.”

“What do you mean, ask them questions?” I asked. I wanted to get him into a talkative mood.

“’Ittin’ them over the ’ead with a pole is one way. Scratchin’ their ears is another, when gents with money want to show off a bit to their girls. I don’t mind the first so much—the ’ittin’ with a pole before I throw in their dinner. But I wait till they’ve ’ad their sherry and coffee, so to speak, before I try the ear-scratchin’. Mind you,” he added, like a philosopher, “there’s a lot of the same nature in us as in them animals. Here’s you, comin’ and arskin’ me questions about my business. And I was that grumpy that I’d ’ave told you to clear off before I’d answer. Only your bloomin’ half-quid stopped me. Not even when you arsked me, sarcastic-like, if I’d like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence, did I tell you to go to ’ell?”

“You did.”

“An’ when you said you’d report me for usin’ bad language, that was ’ittin’ me over the ’ead. But the half-quid made that all right. I weren’t goin’ to fight, so I waited for the food. I did with my ’owl what the wolves and lions and tigers do. But, Lord love your ’eart, now the old woman has stuck a piece of her tea-cake in me. She’s rinsed me out with her bloomin’ old teapot, and I’ve lit up my pipe. So now you may scratch my ears all you like, and you won’t get even a growl out of me. Go on with your questions. I know what you’re comin’ to: that escaped wolf.”

“Exactly. I want you to give me your view of it. Just tell me how it happened. When I know the facts, I’ll ask you what you think was the cause of it. And I’ll ask you how you think the whole thing will end.”

“All right, guv’nor. This is about the ’ole story. That wolf we called Bersicker was one of three grey ones that came from Norway to Jamrach’s. We bought them off him four years ago. He was a nice, well-behaved wolf that never gave any trouble worth talkin’ about. I’m more surprised at ’im for wantin’ to get out than at any other animal in the place. But there, you can’t trust wolves any more than women.”

“Don’t you mind him, sir!” Mrs. Tom broke in, with a cheerful laugh. “’E’s been lookin’ after the animals so long that, bless me, ’e’s like an old wolf ’imself! But there’s no ’arm in ’im.”

“Well, sir, it was about two hours after feedin’ yesterday when I first heard the noise. I was makin’ a bed of straw in the monkey-house for a young puma that’s ill. But when I heard the yelpin’ and ’owlin’, I came straight away. There was Bersicker, tearin’ like a mad thing at the bars, as if he wanted to get out. There weren’t many people about that day. Close by there was only one man. He was a tall, thin chap, with a ’ooked nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin’ through it. He had a ’ard, cold look and red eyes. I took a kind of dislike to him, because it seemed it was ’im they were angry at. He ’ad white kid gloves on ’is ’ands. He pointed at the animals and said to me: ‘Keeper, these wolves seem upset at something.’

“‘Maybe it’s you,’ I said, because I didn’t like the proud airs he gave ’imself. He didn’t get angry, as I ’oped he would. But he smiled a kind of rude smile, with a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. ‘Oh no, they wouldn’t like me,’ ’e said.

“‘Oh yes, they would,’ I said, copyin’ his way of talkin’. ‘They always like a bone or two to clean their teeth on about tea-time, and you ’ave a bagful.’

“Well, it was an odd thing, but when the animals saw us talkin’, they lay down. And when I went over to Bersicker, he let me stroke his ears, same as ever. That man came over, and bless me if he didn’t put in his hand and stroke the old wolf’s ears too!

“‘Take care,’ I said. ‘Bersicker is quick.’

“‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I’m used to ’em!’

“‘Are you in the business yourself?’ I said, takin’ off my ’at. A man who trades in wolves and such is a good friend to keepers.

“‘No,’ he said, ‘not exactly in the business, but I ’ave made pets of several.’ And with that he lifted his ’at as polite as a lord, and walked away. Old Bersicker kept lookin’ after ’im till ’e was out of sight. Then he went and lay down in a corner and wouldn’t come out the ’ole evening. Well, last night, as soon as the moon was up, the wolves here all began ’owlin’. There was nothing for them to ’owl at. There was no one near, except someone who was clearly callin’ a dog somewhere out at the back of the gardens, in the Park road. Once or twice I went out to see that all was right. It was, and then the ’owlin’ stopped. Just before twelve o’clock I took a look round before goin’ to bed. And, bust me, when I came opposite old Bersicker’s cage, I saw the rails broken and twisted and the cage empty. And that’s all I know for certain.”

“Did anyone else see anything?”

“One of our gardeners was comin’ ’ome about that time from a ’armony. He says he saw a big grey dog comin’ out through the garden ’edges. At least, so he says. But I don’t think much of it myself. If he did see it, ’e never said a word about it to his wife when ’e got ’ome. The escape of the wolf was made known, and we’d been up all night huntin’ the Park for Bersicker. Only after that did he remember seein’ anything. My own belief was that the ’armony ’ad got into his ’ead.”

“Now, Mr. Bilder, can you explain in any way how the wolf escaped?”

“Well, sir,” he said, with a sort of suspicious modesty, “I think I can. But I don’t know if you’d be satisfied with the theory.”

“Certainly I shall. A man like you knows the animals from experience. If you can’t make a good guess, who can even try?”

“Well then, sir, I explain it this way. It seems to me that wolf escaped—simply because he wanted to get out.”

Thomas and his wife both laughed so heartily at the joke that I could see they had used it before. The whole explanation was simply a clever trick to fool me. I could not match the worthy Thomas in joking. But I thought I knew a surer way to his heart, so I said:

“Now, Mr. Bilder, we’ll say that the first half-sovereign has been earned. Its brother is waiting for you when you’ve told me what you think will happen.”

“Right you are, sir,” he said quickly. “You’ll excuse me, I know, for teasin’ you. But the old woman here winked at me, and that was as good as tellin’ me to go on.”

“Well, I never!” said the old lady.

“My opinion is this: that wolf is hidin’ somewhere. The gardener who didn’t remember said he was gallopin’ northward faster than a horse could go. But I don’t believe him. You see, sir, wolves don’t gallop any more than dogs do; they aren’t built that way. Wolves are fine things in a storybook. And I dare say when they get in packs and chase somethin’ that’s more afraid than they are, they can make a devil of a noise. And they can chop it up, whatever it is. But, Lord bless you, in real life a wolf is only a low creature. He’s not half as clever or bold as a good dog, and he has not half a quarter as much fight in ’im. This one isn’t used to fightin’, or even to findin’ his own food. More likely he’s somewhere round the Park, hidin’ and shiverin’. And if he thinks at all, he’s wonderin’ where he’ll get his breakfast. Or maybe he’s gone down the steps into some basement yard and is in a coal-cellar. My eye, won’t some cook get a shock when she sees his green eyes shinin’ at her out of the dark! If he can’t get food, he’s bound to look for it. And maybe he’ll find a butcher’s shop in time. If he doesn’t, and some nursemaid goes walkin’ off with a soldier and leaves the baby in the pram—well, then I shouldn’t be surprised if there’s one baby less in the census. That’s all.”

I was handing him the half-sovereign when something came bobbing up against the window. Mr. Bilder’s face grew twice as long with surprise.

“God bless me!” he said. “If it isn’t old Bersicker, come back by ’imself!”

He went to the door and opened it. That seemed to me a most unnecessary thing to do. I have always thought that a wild animal looks best when there is something very strong between us. A personal experience has made that idea stronger rather than weaker.

After all, however, there is nothing like habit. Neither Bilder nor his wife thought any more of the wolf than I would of a dog. The animal itself was as peaceful and well-behaved as the father of all picture-wolves. That is Red Riding Hood’s old friend, when he won her trust in disguise.

The whole scene was a mixture of comedy and sadness that words cannot describe. Here was the wicked wolf that for half a day had frozen London with fear. He had set all the children in the town shivering in their shoes. Now he was there in a sort of sorry mood. He was welcomed and petted like a kind of wolfish prodigal son. Old Bilder examined him all over with the most tender care. When he had finished with the sorry animal, he said:

“There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of trouble; didn’t I say so all along? Here’s his head all cut and full of broken glass. ’E’s been gettin’ over some bloomin’ wall or other. It’s a shame that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. This is what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker.”

He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece of meat. In size, at least, it was good enough for the fatted calf. Then he went off to report.

I came away too, to report the only exclusive information given today about the strange adventure at the Zoo.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*17 September.*—After dinner I was busy in my study, bringing my books up to date. Because of other work and my many visits to Lucy, they had fallen sadly behind. Suddenly the door burst open, and my patient rushed in, his face twisted with passion. I was amazed. A patient getting into the Superintendent’s study by himself is almost unknown. Without a moment’s pause he came straight at me. He had a dinner-knife in his hand. I saw he was dangerous, so I tried to keep the table between us. But he was too quick and too strong for me. Before I could get my balance, he struck at me and cut my left wrist quite badly. But before he could strike again, I hit him with my right hand, and he fell flat on his back on the floor. My wrist bled freely, and quite a little pool ran on to the carpet. I saw that my friend did not intend to try again. So I bound up my wrist, watching the figure on the floor carefully all the time. When the attendants rushed in, we turned our attention to him. What he was doing made me feel sick. He was lying on his stomach on the floor, licking up the blood from my wounded wrist like a dog. He was easily held. To my surprise he went with the attendants quite calmly. He simply repeated over and over again: “The blood is the life! The blood is the life!”

I cannot afford to lose blood just now. I have lost too much lately for my physical health. And the long strain of Lucy’s illness and its horrible stages is telling on me. I am over-excited and tired, and I need rest, rest, rest. Luckily Van Helsing has not called me, so I need not give up my sleep. Tonight I could hardly do without it.

*Telegram, Van Helsing, Antwerp, to Seward, Carfax.*

(Sent to Carfax, Sussex, as no county was given; delivered twenty-two hours late.)

“*17 September.*—Do not fail to be at Hillingham tonight. If not watching all the time, visit often and see that flowers are as placed; very important; do not fail. Shall be with you as soon as possible after arrival.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*18 September.*—Just leaving for the train to London. Van Helsing’s telegram has filled me with dismay. A whole night lost, and I know from bitter experience what may happen in a night. Of course it is possible that all may be well. But what *may* have happened? Surely some horrible fate is hanging over us. Every possible accident stops us in everything we try to do. I shall take this cylinder with me. Then I can finish my entry on Lucy’s phonograph.

*Memorandum left by Lucy Westenra.*

*17 September. Night.*—I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no one may by any chance get into trouble because of me. This is an exact record of what happened tonight. I feel I am dying of weakness, and I hardly have the strength to write. But it must be done, even if I die doing it.

I went to bed as usual. I made sure that the flowers were placed as Dr. Van Helsing had told me, and I soon fell asleep.

I was woken by the flapping at the window. It had begun after that sleep-walking on the cliff at Whitby when Mina saved me, and now I know it so well. I was not afraid. But I did wish that Dr. Seward was in the next room, as Dr. Van Helsing said he would be. Then I could have called him. I tried to go to sleep, but I could not. Then the old fear of sleep came to me, and I decided to stay awake. Strangely, sleep kept trying to come then, when I did not want it. I was afraid to be alone, so I opened my door and called out: “Is there anybody there?” There was no answer. I was afraid to wake mother, so I closed my door again. Then outside in the bushes I heard a kind of howl like a dog’s, but fiercer and deeper. I went to the window and looked out. But I could see nothing except a big bat, which had clearly been beating its wings against the window. So I went back to bed, but I was determined not to go to sleep. Soon the door opened, and mother looked in. She saw by my moving that I was not asleep, so she came in and sat by me. She said to me, even more sweetly and softly than usual:

“I was worried about you, darling, and came in to see that you were all right.”

I was afraid she might catch cold sitting there. So I asked her to come in and sleep with me, and she came into bed and lay down beside me. She did not take off her dressing gown. She said she would only stay a while and then go back to her own bed. As she lay there in my arms, and I in hers, the flapping and beating came to the window again. She was startled and a little frightened, and cried out: “What is that?” I tried to calm her, and at last I succeeded, and she lay quiet. But I could hear her poor dear heart still beating terribly. After a while there was the low howl again out in the bushes. Shortly after that there was a crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was thrown on to the floor. The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in. And in the hole of the broken panes there was the head of a great, thin, hungry-looking grey wolf. Mother cried out in fright. She struggled up into a sitting position and grabbed wildly at anything that might help her. Among other things, she grabbed the wreath of flowers that Dr. Van Helsing insisted I wear round my neck. She tore it away from me. For a second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange and horrible gurgling in her throat. Then she fell over, as if struck by lightning. Her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a moment or two. The room and everything round me seemed to spin. I kept my eyes fixed on the window. But the wolf drew his head back, and a whole crowd of tiny specks seemed to come blowing in through the broken window. They turned and circled round like the pillar of dust that travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I tried to move, but there was some spell on me. And dear mother’s poor body weighed me down. It seemed to grow cold already, for her dear heart had stopped beating. And I remembered nothing more for a while.

The time did not seem long, but it was very, very awful, until I woke again. Somewhere near, a passing bell was ringing. The dogs all round the neighbourhood were howling. And in our bushes, seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing. I was dazed and stupid with pain and terror and weakness. But the sound of the nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother, come back to comfort me. The sounds seemed to have woken the maids too, because I could hear their bare feet pattering outside my door. I called to them, and they came in. They saw what had happened, and what was lying over me on the bed, and they screamed. The wind rushed in through the broken window, and the door slammed shut. They lifted off the body of my dear mother. After I had got up, they laid her on the bed, covered with a sheet. They were all so frightened and nervous. So I told them to go to the dining-room and each have a glass of wine. The door flew open for a moment and closed again. The maids screamed, and then went all together to the dining-room. I laid what flowers I had on my dear mother’s breast. When they were there, I remembered what Dr. Van Helsing had told me. But I didn’t like to take them away. And besides, I would have some of the servants sit up with me now. I was surprised that the maids did not come back. I called them but got no answer, so I went to the dining-room to look for them.

My heart sank when I saw what had happened. All four of them lay helpless on the floor, breathing heavily. The decanter of sherry was on the table, half full, but there was a strange, sharp smell about. I was suspicious, and I examined the decanter. It smelt of laudanum. I looked on the sideboard and found that the bottle which mother’s doctor uses for her—oh! did use—was empty. What am I to do? What am I to do? I am back in the room with mother. I cannot leave her, and I am alone, except for the sleeping servants, whom someone has drugged. Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, because I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window.

The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the draught from the window. The lights burn blue and dim. What am I to do? God protect me from harm this night! I shall hide this paper in my breast. They will find it there when they come to prepare me for burial. My dear mother gone! It is time that I go too. Goodbye, dear Arthur, if I do not live through this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me!

### Glossary

- **“virgin crants and maiden strewments”**: words from Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”: the flowers put on the grave of a young girl.
- **pagan**: from the old times before Christianity, when people believed in many gods.
- **half-quid / half-sovereign**: a gold coin worth half a pound (ten shillings).
- **’armony**: the keeper’s way of saying “harmony”: an evening of singing (and drinking) with friends.
- **prodigal son**: in a Bible story, a son who leaves home, wastes everything and comes back, and is welcomed by his father.
- **fatted calf**: in the same Bible story, the best animal, which the father kills for a feast when his son comes home.
- **simoon**: a hot, dry wind full of sand in the desert.
- **passing bell**: a church bell rung when someone has died.
- **laudanum**: a strong drug, made with opium, that makes people sleep.
- **decanter**: a glass bottle for serving wine or sherry at the table.

## Chapter XII: Dr. Seward’s Diary

*18 September.*—I drove to Hillingham at once and arrived early. I left my cab at the gate and went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently and rang the bell as quietly as I could. I was afraid of disturbing Lucy or her mother, and I hoped that only a servant would come to the door. After a while nobody had answered, so I knocked and rang again. Still there was no answer. I cursed the servants for their laziness. How could they lie in bed at such an hour? For it was now ten o’clock. So I rang and knocked again, more impatiently, but there was still no answer. Until then I had blamed only the servants, but now a terrible fear began to attack me. Was this empty silence one more link in the chain of doom that seemed to tighten around us? Was this really a house of death, and had I come too late? I knew that minutes, even seconds, of delay could mean hours of danger to Lucy. That was true if she had had another of those terrible relapses. So I went round the house to see if I could find a way in anywhere.

I could find no way in. Every window and every door was shut and locked, and I went back to the porch, not knowing what to do. As I did so, I heard the quick pit-pat of a horse’s feet. Someone was driving the horse fast. The sound stopped at the gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing running up the avenue. When he saw me, he gasped out:

“Then it was you, and you have just arrived. How is she? Are we too late? Did you not get my telegram?”

I answered as quickly and clearly as I could. I said that I had only got his telegram early in the morning. I had not lost a minute in coming here. And I could not make anyone in the house hear me. He stopped and raised his hat, and he said solemnly:

“Then I fear we are too late. God’s will be done!” Then his usual energy came back quickly, and he went on: “Come. If there is no open way to get in, we must make one. Time is everything to us now.”

We went round to the back of the house, where there was a kitchen window. The Professor took a small surgical saw from his case and handed it to me. He pointed to the iron bars that protected the window. I started on them at once, and very soon I had cut through three of them. Then we used a long, thin knife to push back the catch of the window frames, and we opened the window. I helped the Professor in, and then I followed him. There was no one in the kitchen or in the servants’ rooms, which were close by. We tried all the rooms as we went along. In the dining-room, which was dimly lit by rays of light through the shutters, we found four servant-women lying on the floor. We did not need to think that they were dead. We could hear their loud, heavy breathing, and there was a sharp smell of laudanum in the room. So there was no doubt about their condition. Van Helsing and I looked at each other, and as we moved away he said: “We can look after them later.” Then we went up to Lucy’s room. For a moment or two we stopped at the door to listen, but we could hear no sound. With white faces and trembling hands, we opened the door gently and went into the room.

How can I describe what we saw? Two women lay on the bed, Lucy and her mother. The mother lay farther in, and she was covered with a white sheet. The draught from the broken window had blown back the edge of the sheet. It showed her white, tight face, with a look of terror fixed on it. Lucy lay by her side, and her face was white and even more drawn. The flowers that had been round Lucy’s neck were now on her mother’s breast. Lucy’s throat was bare. It showed the two little wounds that we had noticed before, but now they looked horribly white and torn. Without a word the Professor bent over the bed, and his head almost touched poor Lucy’s breast. Then he turned his head quickly, like someone who is listening. He jumped to his feet and cried out to me:

“It is not too late yet! Quick! quick! Bring the brandy!”

I flew downstairs and came back with it. I was careful to smell and taste it first. I was afraid that it was drugged too, like the decanter of sherry that I found on the table. The maids were still breathing, but more restlessly, and I thought that the drug was wearing off. I did not stay to make sure, but went back to Van Helsing. He rubbed the brandy on her lips and gums, and on her wrists and the palms of her hands, as he had done once before. He said to me:

“I can do this. It is all that can be done at the moment. You go and wake those maids. Flick them in the face with a wet towel, and flick them hard. Make them get heat and fire and a warm bath. This poor soul is nearly as cold as the one beside her. She must be warmed before we can do anything more.”

I went at once. It was not hard to wake three of the women. The fourth was only a young girl, and the drug had clearly affected her more strongly. So I lifted her onto the sofa and let her sleep. The others were confused at first. But as they began to remember, they cried and sobbed hysterically. I was stern with them, however, and I did not let them talk. I told them that losing one life was bad enough. If they delayed, they would sacrifice Miss Lucy too. So, sobbing and crying, they went off, only half dressed, and got the fire and the water ready. Luckily the kitchen fire and the boiler fire were still burning, and there was plenty of hot water. We got a bath ready. We carried Lucy out just as she was and put her in it. We were busy rubbing her arms and legs when there was a knock at the hall door. One of the maids ran off, quickly put on some more clothes and opened it. Then she came back and whispered to us that a gentleman had come with a message from Mr. Holmwood. I simply told her to tell him that he must wait, because we could see no one now. She went away with the message. I was so busy with our work that I forgot about him completely.

In all my experience I had never seen the Professor work in such deadly earnest. I knew, and he knew, that it was an open fight with death. When we stopped for a moment, I told him so. He answered me in a way that I did not understand, but with the sternest look his face could have:

“If that were all, I would stop here, where we are now, and let her fade away into peace. For I see no light in life over her horizon.” Then he went on with his work. If anything, he worked even harder and more wildly than before.

Soon we both began to notice that the heat was starting to have some effect. Through the stethoscope, Lucy’s heart beat a little more loudly, and her lungs moved a little. Van Helsing’s face almost shone with joy. We lifted her from the bath and rolled her in a hot sheet to dry her. As we did so, he said to me:

“The first gain is ours! Check to the King!”

We took Lucy into another room, which was ready by now. We laid her in bed and made her swallow a few drops of brandy. I noticed that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her throat. She was still unconscious. She was as bad as we had ever seen her, or even worse.

Van Helsing called in one of the women. He told her to stay with Lucy and not to take her eyes off her until we came back. Then he made a sign to me to come out of the room.

“We must talk about what we should do,” he said, as we went down the stairs. In the hall he opened the dining-room door, and we went in. He closed the door carefully behind him. The shutters had been opened, but the blinds were already down. British women of the lower classes always follow the customs of death very strictly, and this was one of those customs. So the room was dim. But it was light enough for what we needed. Van Helsing’s stern look was now mixed with a look of confusion. He was clearly struggling painfully with some problem in his mind. So I waited for a moment, and then he spoke:

“What are we to do now? Where can we turn for help? We must have another transfusion of blood, and soon. If not, that poor girl’s life is not worth one more hour. You are already exhausted, and I am exhausted too. I am afraid to trust those women, even if they were brave enough to agree. What can we do to find someone who will open his veins for her?”

“What’s the matter with me, anyhow?”

The voice came from the sofa on the other side of the room. Its sound brought relief and joy to my heart, because it was the voice of Quincey Morris. Van Helsing turned angrily at the first sound. But his face softened, and a glad look came into his eyes as I cried out, “Quincey Morris!” and ran towards him with my hands held out.

“What brought you here?” I cried as our hands met.

“I guess Art is the cause.”

He handed me a telegram:

“Have not heard from Seward for three days, and am terribly anxious. Cannot leave. Father still in same condition. Send me word how Lucy is. Do not delay.—Holmwood.”

“I think I came just in time. You know you only have to tell me what to do.”

Van Helsing walked forward with long steps and took his hand. He looked him straight in the eyes and said:

“A brave man’s blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble. You are a real man, and no mistake. Well, the devil may work against us as hard as he can, but God sends us men when we need them.”

Once again we went through that terrible operation. I do not have the heart to describe the details. Lucy had had a terrible shock, and it affected her more than before. Plenty of blood went into her veins, but her body did not respond to the treatment as well as it had the other times. Her struggle back into life was something frightful to see and hear. However, her heart and her lungs both began to work better. Van Helsing gave her an injection of morphia under the skin, as before, and it worked well. Her faint became a deep sleep. The Professor watched her while I went downstairs with Quincey Morris. I sent one of the maids to pay one of the cabmen who were waiting. I left Quincey lying down after a glass of wine, and I told the cook to get a good breakfast ready. Then a thought came to me, and I went back to the room where Lucy now was. When I came softly in, I found Van Helsing with a sheet or two of note-paper in his hand. He had clearly read it, and he was thinking about it as he sat with his hand to his forehead. There was a look of grim satisfaction on his face, like a man who has had a doubt answered. He handed me the paper and only said: “It dropped from Lucy’s breast when we carried her to the bath.”

When I had read it, I stood looking at the Professor. After a pause I asked him: “In God’s name, what does it all mean? Was she mad, or is she mad? Or what kind of horrible danger is this?” I was so confused that I did not know what else to say. Van Helsing put out his hand and took the paper, saying:

“Do not worry about it now. Forget it for the moment. You shall know and understand it all at the right time, but that will be later. And now, what was it that you came to tell me?” This brought me back to the facts, and I was myself again.

“I came to speak about the death certificate. If we do not act properly and wisely, there may be an inquest. Then that paper would have to be shown. I hope that we need not have an inquest. If we had one, it would surely kill poor Lucy, if nothing else did. I know, and you know, and the other doctor who looked after her knows, that Mrs. Westenra had a disease of the heart. So we can certify that she died of it. Let us fill in the certificate at once. I will take it myself to the registrar, and then I will go on to the undertaker.”

“Good, oh my friend John! Well thought of! Truly, if Miss Lucy is unlucky in the enemies that attack her, she is at least lucky in the friends who love her. One, two, three, all open their veins for her, and one old man too. Ah yes, I know, friend John; I am not blind! I love you all the more for it! Now go.”

In the hall I met Quincey Morris. He had a telegram for Arthur. It told him that Mrs. Westenra was dead, and that Lucy had been ill too but was now getting better. It also said that Van Helsing and I were with her. I told Quincey where I was going, and he hurried me out. But as I was going, he said:

“When you come back, Jack, may I have two words with you, just the two of us?” I nodded and went out. I had no difficulty with the registration. I arranged with the local undertaker that he would come in the evening to measure for the coffin and to make the arrangements.

When I got back, Quincey was waiting for me. I told him I would see him as soon as I knew how Lucy was, and I went up to her room. She was still sleeping, and the Professor seemed not to have moved from his seat beside her. He put his finger to his lips. From this I understood that he expected her to wake soon. He did not want to wake her before nature did. So I went down to Quincey and took him into the breakfast-room. The blinds were not down there, and it was a little more cheerful than the other rooms—or rather, a little less gloomy. When we were alone, he said to me:

“Jack Seward, I don’t want to push myself in anywhere I have no right to be. But this is no ordinary case. You know I loved that girl and wanted to marry her. All that is past and gone now, but I still can’t help feeling anxious about her. What is wrong with her? The Dutchman—and he’s a fine old fellow, I can see that—said something when you two came into the room. He said that you must have *another* transfusion of blood, and that you and he were both exhausted. Now I know well that you medical men speak *in camera*. A man must not expect to know what you talk about in private. But this is no common matter, and, whatever it is, I have done my part. Isn’t that so?”

“That’s so,” I said, and he went on:

“I take it that you and Van Helsing had both already done what I did today. Isn’t that so?”

“That’s so.”

“And I guess Art was in it too. When I saw him four days ago at his own place, he looked strange. I haven’t seen anything go down so fast since I was on the Pampas. I had a mare there that I was fond of, and she went down in a single night. One of those big bats that they call vampires had got at her in the night. What with all he drank and the vein he left open, there wasn’t enough blood in her to let her stand up. I had to put a bullet through her as she lay there. Jack, if you can tell me without breaking a secret, Arthur was the first, isn’t that so?” As he spoke, the poor fellow looked terribly anxious. He was tortured by worry about the woman he loved. He knew nothing about the terrible mystery that seemed to surround her, and that made his pain even worse. His very heart was bleeding. It took all his manhood to stop him from breaking down—and he had a great deal of manhood, too. I paused before I answered. I felt that I must not give away anything that the Professor wanted to keep secret. But he already knew so much, and guessed so much, that there was no reason not to answer. So I answered with the same words: “That’s so.”

“And how long has this been going on?”

“About ten days.”

“Ten days! Then I guess, Jack Seward, that poor pretty creature that we all love has had the blood of four strong men put into her veins in that time. Man alive, her whole body couldn’t hold it.” Then he came close to me and spoke in a fierce half-whisper: “What took it out?”

I shook my head. “That,” I said, “is the real question. Van Helsing is simply frantic about it, and I don’t know what to do. I can’t even make a guess. There has been a series of small accidents. They have spoiled all our plans to keep Lucy properly watched. But these things shall not happen again. We will stay here until all is well—or ill.” Quincey held out his hand. “Count me in,” he said. “You and the Dutchman will tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

When Lucy woke late in the afternoon, her first movement was to feel in her breast. To my surprise, she took out the paper that Van Helsing had given me to read. The careful Professor had put it back where it came from, so that she would not be alarmed when she woke. Then her eyes fell on Van Helsing, and on me too, and she looked glad. Then she looked around the room and saw where she was, and she shuddered. She gave a loud cry and put her poor thin hands in front of her pale face. We both understood what that meant. She now fully understood that her mother was dead. So we did what we could to comfort her. No doubt our sympathy helped her a little, but she was very low in mind and spirit. She cried silently and weakly for a long time. We told her that one of us, or both, would now stay with her all the time, and that seemed to comfort her. Towards evening she fell into a light sleep. Then a very strange thing happened. While she was still asleep, she took the paper from her breast and tore it in two. Van Helsing stepped over and took the pieces from her. But she still went on making tearing movements, as if the paper were still in her hands. Finally she lifted her hands and opened them, as though she were throwing the pieces away. Van Helsing seemed surprised, and he frowned as if he were thinking hard, but he said nothing.

*19 September.*—All last night she slept badly. She was always afraid to sleep, and she was a little weaker each time she woke. The Professor and I took turns to watch, and we never left her alone for a moment. Quincey Morris said nothing about his plan, but I knew that all night long he walked round and round the house on guard.

When the day came, its searching light showed how much of poor Lucy’s strength had been destroyed. She could hardly turn her head, and the little food she could take seemed to do her no good. At times she slept, and both Van Helsing and I noticed the difference in her between sleeping and waking. While she was asleep, she looked stronger, though more worn and tired, and her breathing was softer. Her open mouth showed the pale gums drawn back from the teeth. So the teeth looked really longer and sharper than usual. When she woke, the softness of her eyes clearly changed her expression. Then she looked like her own self again, although a dying one. In the afternoon she asked for Arthur, and we sent him a telegram. Quincey went off to meet him at the station.

When Arthur arrived, it was nearly six o’clock. The sun was setting, full and warm. The red light streamed in through the window and gave more colour to her pale cheeks. When he saw her, Arthur was simply choking with emotion, and none of us could speak. In the hours that had passed, her fits of sleep had come more often. Perhaps it was not really sleep, but a coma that looked like sleep. So the times when she could talk had become shorter. But Arthur’s presence seemed to work on her like a medicine. She grew a little stronger and spoke to him more brightly than she had since we arrived. He too pulled himself together and spoke as cheerfully as he could. So we all made the best of everything.

It is now nearly one o’clock, and he and Van Helsing are sitting with her. I am to take their place in a quarter of an hour, and I am recording this on Lucy’s phonograph. They are to try to rest until six o’clock. I fear that tomorrow will end our watching, for the shock has been too great. The poor child cannot recover. God help us all.

*Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra.* (Unopened by her.)

“*17 September.*

“My dearest Lucy,

“It seems *an age* since I heard from you, or since I wrote to you. I know you will forgive me for all my faults when you have read all my news. Well, I got my husband home safely. When we arrived at Exeter, a carriage was waiting for us. In it was Mr. Hawkins, although he had an attack of gout. He took us to his house, where there were nice, comfortable rooms for us both, and we had dinner together. After dinner Mr. Hawkins said:

“‘My dears, I want to drink to your health and your success, and may every blessing be with you both. I have known you both since you were children. I have watched you grow up with love and pride. Now I want you to make your home here with me. I have no one left, no children at all; all are gone. And in my will I have left you everything.’ I cried, Lucy dear, as Jonathan and the old man held each other’s hands. Our evening was a very, very happy one.

“So here we are, settled in this beautiful old house. From my bedroom and from the drawing-room I can see the great elm trees of the cathedral close. Their big black trunks stand out against the old yellow stone of the cathedral. I can hear the rooks above, cawing and cawing, chattering and gossiping all day, as rooks do—and humans too. I need not tell you that I am busy arranging things and keeping house. Jonathan and Mr. Hawkins are busy all day. Now that Jonathan is a partner, Mr. Hawkins wants to tell him all about the clients.

“How is your dear mother? I wish I could run up to London for a day or two to see you, dear. But I dare not go yet, with so much to do. And Jonathan still needs looking after. He is beginning to put some flesh on his bones again, but the long illness made him terribly weak. Even now he sometimes wakes from his sleep suddenly, all trembling. Then I have to calm him gently until he is quiet again, as he usually is. But, thank God, this happens less often as the days go on. I hope that in time it will stop completely. And now that I have told you my news, let me ask about yours. When are you getting married, and where? Who will perform the ceremony? What will you wear? Will it be a public or a private wedding? Tell me all about it, dear. Tell me all about everything, because everything that interests you is dear to me. Jonathan asks me to send you his ‘respectful duty.’ But I do not think that is good enough from the junior partner of the important firm Hawkins & Harker. You love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb. So instead I simply send you his ‘love.’ Good-bye, my dearest Lucy, and all blessings on you.

“Yours,

“Mina Harker.”

*Report from Patrick Hennessey, M. D., M. R. C. S. L. K. Q. C. P. I., etc., etc., to John Seward, M. D.*

“*20 September.*

“My dear Sir,

“As you asked, I enclose a report on everything left in my care.... About the patient Renfield, there is more to say. He has had another outbreak. It might have ended terribly, but luckily nothing bad came of it. This afternoon a carrier’s cart with two men called at the empty house next to our grounds. You will remember that the patient ran away to that house twice. The men stopped at our gate to ask the porter the way, because they were strangers. I was looking out of the study window myself, having a smoke after dinner, and I saw one of them come up to the house. As he passed the window of Renfield’s room, the patient began to shout at him from inside. He called him all the foul names he could think of. The man seemed a decent enough fellow. He only told him to ‘shut up for a foul-mouthed beggar.’ Then our man accused him of robbing him and of wanting to murder him. He said that he would stop him, even if he were hanged for it. I opened the window and made a sign to the man not to pay attention. So the man looked the place over and decided what kind of place he had come to. Then he only said: ‘Lor’ bless yer, sir, I wouldn’t mind what was said to me in a bloomin’ madhouse. I pity ye and the guv’nor for havin’ to live in the house with a wild beast like that.’ Then he asked the way politely enough, and I told him where the gate of the empty house was. He went away, followed by threats and curses and insults from our man. I went down to see if I could find any reason for his anger. He is usually such a well-behaved man. Apart from his violent fits, nothing like this had ever happened. To my surprise, I found him quite calm and very friendly. I tried to get him to talk about what had happened. But he calmly asked me what I meant, and he made me believe that he had completely forgotten the whole thing. I am sorry to say, however, that it was only another example of his cunning. Within half an hour I heard of him again. This time he had broken out through the window of his room and was running down the avenue. I called to the attendants to follow me, and I ran after him, because I feared he was planning some mischief. My fear proved right. I saw the same cart that had passed before. It was coming down the road with some great wooden boxes on it. The men were wiping their foreheads, and their faces were red, as if from hard exercise. Before I could reach him, the patient rushed at them. He pulled one of them off the cart and began to knock his head against the ground. If I had not seized him just at that moment, I believe he would have killed the man there and then. The other fellow jumped down and hit him over the head with the thick end of his heavy whip. It was a terrible blow, but he did not seem to mind it. He seized that man too, and fought with the three of us. He pulled us backwards and forwards as if we were kittens. You know I am no light weight, and the others were both big, strong men. At first he fought in silence. But we began to get control of him, and the attendants were putting a strait-waistcoat on him. Then he began to shout: ‘I’ll stop them! They shan’t rob me! They shan’t murder me bit by bit! I’ll fight for my Lord and Master!’ He shouted all sorts of wild things like that, which made no sense. With great difficulty the attendants got him back to the house and put him in the padded room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken. However, I set it properly, and he is doing well.

“At first the two carriers made loud threats. They said they would take us to court for damages. They promised to bring all the punishments of the law down on us. But their threats were mixed with a kind of indirect apology, because one weak madman had beaten the two of them. They said that they had used up their strength carrying the heavy boxes and lifting them onto the cart. If not, they would have finished him quickly. They gave another reason for their defeat. They were terribly thirsty, they said, because their work was so dusty. And any place where they could get a drink was shamefully far from where they worked. I understood quite well what they meant. I gave them a strong glass of grog, or rather more than one, and a sovereign each. After that they laughed about the attack. They swore that they would meet a worse madman any day for the pleasure of meeting such a ‘bloomin’ good bloke’ as the writer of this letter. I took their names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They are: Jack Smollet, of Dudding’s Rents, King George’s Road, Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley’s Row, Guide Court, Bethnal Green. They both work for Harris & Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange Master’s Yard, Soho.

“I shall report to you anything of interest that happens here. I shall send you a telegram at once if there is anything important.

“Believe me, dear Sir,

“Yours faithfully,

“Patrick Hennessey.”

*Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra.* (Unopened by her.)

“*18 September.*

“My dearest Lucy,

“Such a sad blow has fallen on us. Mr. Hawkins has died very suddenly. Some people may not think it so sad for us. But we had both come to love him so much that it really feels as if we had lost a father. I never knew my father or my mother, so the dear old man’s death is a real blow to me. Jonathan is very upset. He feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who was his friend all his life. At the end Mr. Hawkins treated him like his own son and left him a fortune. For people with our modest background, it is more money than even a greedy man could dream of. But Jonathan feels it for another reason too. He says the great responsibility it puts on him makes him nervous. He is beginning to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and *my* belief in *him* helps him to believe in himself. But it is here that the terrible shock he suffered hurts him most. Oh, it is too hard! He has such a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature. With the help of our dear, good friend, that nature let him rise from clerk to master in a few years. And now it is so damaged that the very heart of its strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my troubles in the middle of your own happiness. But, Lucy dear, I must tell someone. It is a strain to keep up a brave and cheerful face for Jonathan, and I have no one here I can trust with my secrets. I dread coming up to London, as we must do the day after tomorrow. Poor Mr. Hawkins said in his will that he wanted to be buried in the grave with his father. As there are no relatives at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner. I shall try to come over and see you, dearest, even if only for a few minutes. Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings,

“Your loving

“Mina Harker.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*20 September.*—Only my strong will and my habit let me make an entry tonight. I am too miserable, too low in spirits, too sick of the world and everything in it, even life itself. I would not care if I heard the wings of the angel of death flapping at this moment. And lately he has been flapping those grim wings to some purpose. First Lucy’s mother and Arthur’s father, and now.... Let me get on with my work.

As planned, I took Van Helsing’s place watching over Lucy. We wanted Arthur to go and rest too, but at first he refused. Then I told him that we would need his help during the day. We must not all break down for lack of rest, because then Lucy would suffer. Only then did he agree to go. Van Helsing was very kind to him. “Come, my child,” he said; “come with me. You are sick and weak. You have had much sorrow and much pain of mind. And there is also that drain on your strength that we know of. You must not be alone, for to be alone is to be full of fears and alarms. Come to the drawing-room. There is a big fire there, and there are two sofas. You shall lie on one, and I on the other. Our sympathy will be a comfort to each other, even if we do not speak, and even if we sleep.” Arthur went off with him. He looked back with longing at Lucy’s face. It lay on her pillow, almost whiter than the fine white linen. She lay quite still, and I looked round the room to see that everything was as it should be. I could see that the Professor had used garlic in this room, as in the other. All the window frames smelled strongly of it. Round Lucy’s neck, over the silk handkerchief that Van Helsing made her keep on, was a rough wreath of the same strong-smelling flowers. Lucy was breathing loudly and heavily, and her face looked its worst, because her open mouth showed the pale gums. In the dim, uncertain light, her teeth seemed longer and sharper than they had been in the morning. Perhaps it was some trick of the light, but the canine teeth especially looked longer and sharper than the rest. I sat down beside her, and soon she moved uneasily. At the same moment there was a kind of dull flapping or beating at the window. I went over to it softly and looked out past the corner of the blind. The moon was full, and I could see that the noise came from a great bat. It was flying round and round, and every now and then it struck the window with its wings. No doubt the light attracted it, although the light was so dim. When I came back to my seat, I found that Lucy had moved a little. She had torn the garlic flowers away from her throat. I put them back as well as I could, and I sat watching her.

Soon she woke, and I gave her food, as Van Helsing had ordered. She took only a little, and without interest. Until now her illness had always been marked by an unconscious struggle for life and strength. But now that struggle seemed to be gone. It seemed strange to me that, as soon as she was conscious, she pressed the garlic flowers close to her. It was certainly odd. Whenever she fell into that heavy, sleepy state, with the loud breathing, she pushed the flowers away from her. But when she woke, she held them close. I could not be mistaken about this. In the long hours that followed, she slept and woke many times, and she did both things again and again.

At six o’clock Van Helsing came to take my place. Arthur had fallen into a doze by then, and kindly Van Helsing let him sleep on. When he saw Lucy’s face, I heard him draw in his breath with a hiss. He said to me in a sharp whisper: “Pull up the blind; I want light!” Then he bent down, with his face almost touching Lucy’s, and examined her carefully. He took away the flowers and lifted the silk handkerchief from her throat. As he did so, he started back. I heard him cry, “Mein Gott!” but the words were choked in his throat. I bent over and looked too, and as I saw it, a strange chill came over me.

The wounds on the throat had completely disappeared.

For a full five minutes Van Helsing stood looking at her, with his face at its sternest. Then he turned to me and said calmly:

“She is dying. It will not be long now. Mark me, it will make a big difference whether she dies awake or in her sleep. Wake that poor boy, and let him come and see the end. He trusts us, and we have promised him.”

I went to the dining-room and woke him. He was dazed for a moment. Then he saw the sunlight streaming in round the edges of the shutters. He thought he was late, and he said he was afraid. I told him that Lucy was still asleep. But I told him as gently as I could that Van Helsing and I both feared the end was near. He covered his face with his hands and slid down onto his knees by the sofa. He stayed there for perhaps a minute, with his head buried, praying, while his shoulders shook with grief. I took him by the hand and raised him up. “Come,” I said, “my dear old fellow, call up all your courage. It will be best and easiest for her.”

When we came into Lucy’s room, I could see that Van Helsing had been putting things straight. He always thought ahead. He had made everything look as pleasant as possible. He had even brushed Lucy’s hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny waves. When we came into the room, she opened her eyes. She saw Arthur and whispered softly:

“Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come!” He was bending down to kiss her when Van Helsing made a sign to him to move back. “No,” he whispered, “not yet! Hold her hand; it will comfort her more.”

So Arthur took her hand and knelt beside her. She looked her best, and all the soft lines of her face matched the angelic beauty of her eyes. Then slowly her eyes closed, and she sank into sleep. For a little while her breast rose and fell softly, and her breath came and went like a tired child’s.

And then, so slowly that we hardly noticed it, the strange change came that I had seen in the night. Her breathing grew loud and heavy, and her mouth opened. The pale gums were drawn back and made the teeth look longer and sharper than ever. She was in a kind of vague, unconscious state, half asleep and half awake. She opened her eyes, and they were now dull and hard at the same time. She spoke in a soft, voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips:

“Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!” Arthur bent eagerly over to kiss her. But at that instant Van Helsing, who had been startled by her voice just as I had, rushed at him. He caught him by the neck with both hands and dragged him back. He did it with a furious strength that I never thought he could have. He actually threw him almost across the room.

“Not for your life!” he said; “not for your living soul and hers!” And he stood between them like a lion that is trapped and ready to fight.

Arthur was so surprised that for a moment he did not know what to do or say. Before any violent feeling could take hold of him, he remembered the place and the moment. He stood silent, waiting.

I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, and so did Van Helsing. We saw a sudden look of rage pass over her face like a shadow. Her sharp teeth snapped together. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily.

Very soon after, she opened her eyes, and they were soft again. She put out her poor, pale, thin hand and took Van Helsing’s great brown one. She drew it to her and kissed it. “My true friend,” she said, in a faint voice, but with a sadness that no words can tell, “my true friend, and his! Oh, guard him, and give me peace!”

“I swear it!” he said solemnly. He knelt beside her and held up his hand, like a man who is taking an oath. Then he turned to Arthur and said to him: “Come, my child, take her hand in yours, and kiss her on the forehead, and only once.”

Their eyes met instead of their lips; and so they parted.

Lucy’s eyes closed. Van Helsing, who had been watching closely, took Arthur’s arm and drew him away.

And then Lucy’s breathing became loud and heavy again, and all at once it stopped.

“It is all over,” said Van Helsing. “She is dead!”

I took Arthur by the arm and led him away to the drawing-room. He sat down and covered his face with his hands. He sobbed in a way that nearly broke me down to see.

I went back to the room and found Van Helsing looking at poor Lucy. His face was sterner than ever. Some change had come over her body. Death had given back part of her beauty. Her forehead and cheeks had got back some of their soft, flowing lines. Even the lips had lost their deathly paleness. It was as if the blood was no longer needed for the work of the heart. So it had gone to make the harshness of death as gentle as possible.

“We thought her dying whilst she slept, And sleeping when she died.”

I stood beside Van Helsing and said:

“Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end!”

He turned to me and said with deep seriousness:

“Not so; alas! not so. It is only the beginning!”

When I asked him what he meant, he only shook his head and answered:

“We can do nothing yet. Wait and see.”

### Glossary

- **relapse**: a time when a sick person suddenly becomes ill again after getting a little better.
- **laudanum**: an old drug that makes people sleep.
- **decanter**: a glass bottle for wine or sherry, used at the table.
- **stethoscope**: the tool a doctor uses to listen to your heart and lungs.
- **transfusion**: putting blood from one person into another.
- **morphia**: a strong drug that stops pain and helps people sleep.
- **inquest**: an official inquiry into how someone died.
- **registrar**: an official who writes down births and deaths.
- **undertaker**: a person whose job is to prepare dead people and arrange funerals.
- **in camera**: in private, with nobody else listening.
- **gout**: an illness that makes the joints, often in the feet, swollen and painful.
- **will**: a paper that says who gets your money and things when you die.
- **cathedral close**: the land and houses around a cathedral (a large, important church).
- **rook**: a large black bird like a crow that lives in groups.
- **strait-waistcoat**: a jacket that holds a violent person’s arms tight.
- **padded room**: a room with soft walls, so that a violent patient cannot hurt himself.
- **grog**: a strong alcoholic drink mixed with water.
- **sovereign**: an old British gold coin worth one pound.
- **chief mourner**: the most important person at a funeral, usually the closest family member.
- **voluptuous**: here, full of a strange and dangerous desire.
- **canine teeth**: the four pointed teeth at the sides of the mouth.

## Chapter XIII: Dr. Seward’s Diary

The funeral was arranged for the day after next, so that Lucy and her mother could be buried together. I dealt with all the terrible formalities. The polite undertaker showed that his staff suffered from—or were blessed with—some of his own smooth, eager politeness. Even the woman who did the last services for the dead spoke to me like this. She had just come out of the death-room, and she spoke in a private way, as if we were in the same profession:

“She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. It’s quite a privilege to look after her. It’s not too much to say that she will do credit to our business!”

I noticed that Van Helsing never stayed far away. This was possible because the household was in disorder. There were no relatives near. Arthur had to be back the next day for his father’s funeral, so we could not tell anyone who should have been invited. So Van Helsing and I took it on ourselves to look through the papers and other things. He insisted on looking through Lucy’s papers himself. I asked him why. He was a foreigner, and I was afraid that he might not know the English legal rules well. Then he might cause some unnecessary trouble without knowing it. He answered me:

“I know; I know. You forget that I am a lawyer as well as a doctor. But this is not only for the law. You knew that when you avoided the coroner. I have more than him to avoid. There may be more papers—like this one.”

As he spoke, he took from his pocket-book the memorandum that had been in Lucy’s breast. It was the paper that she had torn in her sleep.

“When you find anything about the solicitor of the late Mrs. Westenra, seal all her papers and write to him tonight. As for me, I watch all night here in this room and in Miss Lucy’s old room. I myself shall search for what there may be. It is not good that her very thoughts go into the hands of strangers.”

I went on with my part of the work. In another half hour I had found the name and address of Mrs. Westenra’s solicitor, and I had written to him. All the poor lady’s papers were in order. There were clear instructions about the place of burial. I had hardly sealed the letter when, to my surprise, Van Helsing walked into the room and said:

“Can I help you, friend John? I am free, and if I may, I am at your service.”

“Have you got what you were looking for?” I asked. He replied:

“I did not look for any special thing. I only hoped to find, and I have found, all that there was. It was only some letters and a few notes, and a diary just begun. But I have them here, and for now we shall say nothing about them. I shall see that poor boy tomorrow evening. If he allows it, I shall use some of them.”

When we had finished the work in front of us, he said to me:

“And now, friend John, I think we may go to bed. We both need sleep, you and I, and rest to get back our strength. Tomorrow we shall have much to do, but tonight we are not needed. Alas!”

Before going to bed we went to look at poor Lucy. The undertaker had certainly done his work well, because the room had become a small *chapelle ardente*. There was a mass of beautiful white flowers, and death was made as little ugly as possible. The end of the white burial cloth was laid over her face. The Professor bent over and gently turned it back, and we were both startled by the beauty in front of us. The tall wax candles gave enough light to see it well. All Lucy’s loveliness had come back to her in death. The hours that had passed had not left any marks of “decay’s effacing fingers.” Instead, they had brought back the beauty of life. I really could not believe my eyes that I was looking at a dead body.

The Professor looked very serious and stern. He had not loved her as I had, and there was no need for tears in his eyes. He said to me: “Stay here till I come back,” and he left the room. He came back with a handful of wild garlic. It came from the box that was waiting in the hall but had not been opened. He placed the flowers among the others, on and around the bed. Then he took from his neck, inside his collar, a little gold crucifix, and he placed it over her mouth. He put the sheet back in its place, and we came away.

I was getting undressed in my own room when he knocked once at the door as a warning. Then he came in and at once began to speak:

“Tomorrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of post-mortem knives.”

“Must we do an autopsy?” I asked.

“Yes and no. I want to operate, but not in the way you think. Let me tell you now, but not a word to anyone else. I want to cut off her head and take out her heart. Ah! You, a surgeon, and so shocked! I have seen you do operations of life and death that make the others shudder. And your hand and your heart did not tremble. Oh, but I must not forget, my dear friend John, that you loved her. And I have not forgotten it, for it is I who shall operate, and you must only help. I would like to do it tonight, but for Arthur’s sake I must not. He will be free after his father’s funeral tomorrow, and he will want to see her—to see *it*. Then, when she is in her coffin, ready for the next day, you and I shall come when everyone sleeps. We shall unscrew the coffin-lid and do our operation. Then we shall put everything back, so that no one knows except us.”

“But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why cut up her poor body when there is no need? If there is no need for a post-mortem and nothing to gain by it, and it does no good to her, to us, to science, to human knowledge, then why do it? Without such a reason it is monstrous.”

For an answer he put his hand on my shoulder and said, with endless tenderness:

“Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart, and I love you more because it bleeds so. If I could, I would take on myself the burden that you carry. But there are things that you do not know. You shall know them, and bless me for knowing them, though they are not pleasant things. John, my child, you have been my friend now for many years. Did you ever know me to do anything without good reason? I may make mistakes—I am only a man—but I believe in all I do. Was it not for these reasons that you sent for me when the great trouble came? Yes! Were you not amazed, even horrified, when I would not let Arthur kiss his love, though she was dying? And when I pulled him away with all my strength? Yes! And yet you saw how she thanked me, with her so beautiful dying eyes, and her voice, so weak too. You saw her kiss my rough old hand and bless me? Yes! And did you not hear me swear a promise to her, so that she closed her eyes grateful? Yes!

“Well, I have good reason now for all I want to do. For many years you have trusted me. In the past weeks you have believed me, when there were things so strange that you might well have doubted. Believe me a little longer, friend John. If you do not trust me, then I must tell you what I think, and that is perhaps not good. And I shall work, trust or no trust. But if I work without my friend’s trust in me, I work with a heavy heart. I feel, oh! so lonely, when I need all the help and courage there can be!” He stopped for a moment and went on solemnly: “Friend John, there are strange and terrible days in front of us. Let us not be two, but one, so that we work to a good end. Will you not have faith in me?”

I took his hand and promised him. I held my door open as he went away, and I watched him go into his room and close the door. As I stood there without moving, I saw one of the maids pass silently along the passage. She had her back to me, so she did not see me. She went into the room where Lucy lay. The sight touched me. Such devotion is so rare. And we are so grateful to people who show it, without being asked, to those we love. Here was a poor girl who put aside her natural fear of death. She was going to watch alone beside the bed where the mistress she loved lay dead. In this way the poor body would not be lonely until it was laid to its eternal rest....

I must have slept long and deeply, for it was broad daylight when Van Helsing woke me by coming into my room. He came over to my bed and said:

“You need not worry about the knives; we shall not do it.”

“Why not?” I asked. His seriousness the night before had made a great impression on me.

“Because,” he said sternly, “it is too late—or too early. See!” He held up the little golden crucifix. “This was stolen in the night.”

“How, stolen,” I asked in surprise, “if you have it now?”

“Because I got it back from the worthless creature who stole it, from the woman who robbed the dead and the living. Her punishment will surely come, but not through me. She did not fully know what she was doing. And so, not knowing, she only stole. Now we must wait.”

He went away with these words. He left me with a new mystery to think about, a new puzzle to struggle with.

The morning was a dreary time, but at noon the solicitor came. He was Mr. Marquand, of Wholeman, Sons, Marquand & Lidderdale. He was very friendly and very grateful for what we had done, and he took all the worry about details off our hands. During lunch he told us that Mrs. Westenra had expected for some time to die suddenly from her heart. So she had put all her affairs in perfect order. Then he told us about the property. There was a certain entailed property of Lucy’s father’s. As there were now no children to inherit it, it went back to a distant branch of the family. Apart from that, the whole estate was left completely to Arthur Holmwood. This meant all the land and houses, and everything else she owned. When he had told us this much, he went on:

“To be honest, we did our best to stop her from leaving her property in this way. We pointed out that certain things might happen. They could leave her daughter without a penny. Or her daughter might not be as free as she should be in the matter of marriage. In fact, we pushed the matter so far that we almost quarrelled with her. She asked us if we were ready to carry out her wishes or not. Of course, after that we had no choice but to accept. We were right in principle. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, events would have shown that our judgment was correct. But to be honest, I must admit something. In this case any other arrangement would have made it impossible to carry out her wishes. Her mother died before her, so the daughter would have received the property. And the daughter might have lived only five minutes longer than her mother. Even then there would have been no will, because in such a case a will was not possible in practice. So at her death her property would have been treated as if she had left no will at all. In that case Lord Godalming would have had no claim in the world, although he was so dear a friend. And the heirs were distant relatives. They would not be likely to give up their rightful claims to a complete stranger for reasons of feeling. I assure you, my dear sirs, I am delighted at the result, perfectly delighted.”

He was a good fellow. But this was so great a tragedy, and he was delighted about one small part of it—the part that concerned him in his work. It was a clear lesson in how limited sympathy and understanding can be.

He did not stay long, but he said he would come back later in the day to see Lord Godalming. His visit had been a certain comfort to us, however. It told us that we would not have to fear any unfriendly criticism of anything we had done. Arthur was expected at five o’clock, so a little before that time we visited the death-room. Now it really was a room of death, because both mother and daughter lay in it. The undertaker, true to his trade, had shown off his goods as well as he could. There was an air of death about the place that made our spirits sink at once. Van Helsing ordered that the arrangement from before should be kept. He explained that Lord Godalming was coming very soon. It would hurt his feelings less to see all that was left of his *fiancée* quite alone. The undertaker seemed shocked at his own stupidity. He worked hard to put things back the way we had left them the night before. So when Arthur came, we saved him from every shock to his feelings that we could avoid.

Poor fellow! He looked desperately sad and broken. Even his strong, manly body seemed to have shrunk a little under the strain of so much emotion. I knew that he had loved his father very truly and deeply. To lose him, and at such a time, was a bitter blow to him. With me he was as warm as ever, and to Van Helsing he was sweetly polite. But I could not help seeing that he was holding something back. The Professor noticed it too, and he made a sign to me to take him upstairs. I did so, and I left him at the door of the room. I felt he would like to be quite alone with her. But he took my arm and led me in, and he said in a rough, low voice:

“You loved her too, old fellow. She told me all about it, and no friend had a closer place in her heart than you. I don’t know how to thank you for all you have done for her. I can’t think yet....”

Then he suddenly broke down. He threw his arms round my shoulders and laid his head on my chest, crying:

“Oh, Jack! Jack! What shall I do! The whole of life seems to have gone from me all at once, and there is nothing in the wide world for me to live for.”

I comforted him as well as I could. In such cases men do not need many words. A grip of the hand, an arm tightening over the shoulder, a sob at the same moment—these are signs of sympathy that are dear to a man’s heart. I stood still and silent until his sobs died away. Then I said softly to him:

“Come and look at her.”

Together we moved over to the bed, and I lifted the fine white cloth from her face. God! How beautiful she was. Every hour seemed to make her lovelier. It frightened and amazed me a little. As for Arthur, he began to tremble. Finally he was shaken with doubt, as if with a fever. At last, after a long pause, he said to me in a faint whisper:

“Jack, is she really dead?”

I sadly told him that she was. I felt that such a horrible doubt must not live a moment longer than I could help. So I went on to explain something. After death, I said, faces often became softer, and even went back to their young beauty. This happened especially when there had been sharp or long suffering before death. This seemed to take away all his doubt. He knelt beside the couch for a while and looked at her, lovingly and long. Then he turned away. I told him that this must be good-bye, because the coffin had to be prepared. So he went back and took her dead hand in his and kissed it. Then he bent over and kissed her forehead. He came away, looking back lovingly over his shoulder at her as he came.

I left him in the drawing-room and told Van Helsing that he had said good-bye. So Van Helsing went to the kitchen to tell the undertaker’s men to go on with the preparations and to screw down the coffin. When he came out of the room again, I told him about Arthur’s question. He replied:

“I am not surprised. Just now I doubted for a moment myself!”

We all had dinner together, and I could see that poor Art was trying to make the best of things. Van Helsing had been silent all through dinner. But when we had lit our cigars, he said:

“Lord——”; but Arthur interrupted him:

“No, no, not that, for God’s sake! Not yet, at any rate. Forgive me, sir. I did not mean to be rude. It is only because my loss is so recent.”

The Professor answered very sweetly:

“I only used that name because I was not sure what to call you. I must not call you ‘Mr.,’ and I have grown to love you—yes, my dear boy, to love you—as Arthur.”

Arthur held out his hand and took the old man’s hand warmly.

“Call me what you like,” he said. “I hope I may always have the title of a friend. And let me say that I cannot find the words to thank you for your goodness to my poor dear.” He paused a moment and went on: “I know that she understood your goodness even better than I do. Perhaps I was rude, or failed you in some way, at that time when you acted so—you remember”—the Professor nodded—“if so, you must forgive me.”

He answered with serious kindness:

“I know it was hard for you to trust me fully then. To trust such violence, one must understand it. And I think that you do not trust me now—that you cannot—because you do not understand yet. And there may be more times when I shall want you to trust me. You will not be able to understand then—and may not—and must not understand yet. But the time will come when your trust in me shall be whole and complete. Then you shall understand, as if the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless me from first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of others. And you shall bless me for her dear sake, because I swore to protect her.”

“And, indeed, indeed, sir,” said Arthur warmly, “I shall trust you in every way. I know and believe that you have a very noble heart. You are Jack’s friend, and you were hers. You shall do what you like.”

The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as if he were about to speak. Finally he said:

“May I ask you something now?”

“Certainly.”

“You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property?”

“No, poor dear; I never thought of it.”

“And as it is all yours, you have a right to do with it as you wish. I want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy’s papers and letters. Believe me, it is not idle curiosity. I have a reason, and be sure that she would have approved of it. I have them all here. I took them before we knew that all was yours. I did it so that no strange hand might touch them, and no strange eye might look through her words into her soul. I shall keep them, if I may. Even you may not see them yet, but I shall keep them safe. No word shall be lost, and at the right time I shall give them back to you. It is a hard thing that I ask, but you will do it, will you not, for Lucy’s sake?”

Arthur answered warmly and openly, like his old self:

“Dr. Van Helsing, you may do what you want. I feel that by saying this, I am doing what my dear one would have approved. I shall not trouble you with questions until the time comes.”

The old Professor stood up and said solemnly:

“And you are right. There will be pain for us all; but it will not be all pain, and this pain will not be the last. We, and you too—you most of all, my dear boy—will have to pass through the bitter water before we reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our duty, and all will be well!”

I slept on a sofa in Arthur’s room that night. Van Helsing did not go to bed at all. He walked to and fro, as if he was guarding the house. He never let the room where Lucy lay in her coffin out of his sight. The coffin was covered with the wild garlic flowers. Through the smell of lily and rose, they sent a heavy, overpowering smell into the night.

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*22 September.*—In the train to Exeter. Jonathan is sleeping.

It seems only yesterday that I made the last entry. And yet so much has happened since then! Then I was in Whitby, with all the world before me. Jonathan was away, and there was no news of him. And now I am married to Jonathan. Jonathan is a solicitor, a partner, rich, the master of his business. Mr. Hawkins is dead and buried. And Jonathan has had another attack that may harm him. Some day he may ask me about it. So down it all goes. My shorthand is rusty—see what unexpected wealth does to us—so it may be good to practise it again with an exercise anyway....

The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only ourselves and the servants there, and one or two old friends of his from Exeter. His London agent was there too. There was also a gentleman who came for Sir John Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society. Jonathan and I stood hand in hand. We felt that our best and dearest friend had gone from us....

We came back to town quietly and took a bus to Hyde Park Corner. Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while, so we sat down. But there were very few people there. It looked sad and lonely, with so many empty chairs. It made us think of the empty chair at home. So we got up and walked down Piccadilly. Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in the old days before I went to the school. I felt it was very improper. You can’t teach good manners and correct behaviour to other girls for some years without becoming a bit too strict yourself. But it was Jonathan, and he was my husband. We didn’t know anybody who saw us—and we didn’t care if they did—so we walked on. I was looking at a very beautiful girl in a big cart-wheel hat. She was sitting in a victoria outside Guiliano’s. Suddenly I felt Jonathan hold my arm so tightly that he hurt me. He said under his breath: “My God!” I am always anxious about Jonathan. I fear that some nervous attack may upset him again. So I turned to him quickly and asked him what was troubling him.

He was very pale, and his eyes seemed to be bulging out. Half in terror and half in amazement, he was staring at a tall, thin man. The man had a beaky nose, a black moustache and a pointed beard. He was also watching the pretty girl. He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either of us, so I had a good view of him. His face was not a good face. It was hard, and cruel, and sensual. His big white teeth looked even whiter because his lips were so red. They were pointed like an animal’s. Jonathan kept staring at him, until I was afraid the man would notice. I feared he might be offended, because he looked so fierce and nasty. I asked Jonathan why he was upset. He answered as if he clearly thought that I knew as much about it as he did: “Do you see who it is?”

“No, dear,” I said. “I don’t know him. Who is it?” His answer seemed to shock and thrill me. He said it as if he did not know that he was speaking to me, Mina:

“It is the man himself!”

The poor dear was clearly terrified of something—very greatly terrified. I truly believe that he would have fallen down if he had not had me to lean on and to support him. He kept staring. A man came out of the shop with a small parcel and gave it to the lady, and then she drove off. The dark man kept his eyes fixed on her. When the carriage moved up Piccadilly, he followed in the same direction and called a hansom. Jonathan kept looking after him and said, as if to himself:

“I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young. My God, if this is so! Oh, my God! My God! If I only knew! If I only knew!” He was upsetting himself so much. I was afraid that questions would keep his mind on the subject, so I stayed silent. I drew him away quietly, and he came easily, holding my arm. We walked a little further, and then went into the Green Park and sat for a while. It was a hot day for autumn, and there was a comfortable seat in a shady place. For a few minutes Jonathan stared at nothing. Then his eyes closed, and he quietly fell asleep with his head on my shoulder. I thought it was the best thing for him, so I did not disturb him. In about twenty minutes he woke up and said to me quite cheerfully:

“Why, Mina, have I been asleep? Oh, do forgive me for being so rude. Come, and we’ll have a cup of tea somewhere.” He had clearly forgotten all about the dark stranger. In his illness he had forgotten everything that this event had reminded him of. I don’t like this falling back into forgetfulness. It may cause some injury to the brain, or make an old one continue. I must not ask him, because I may do more harm than good. But somehow I must learn the facts of his journey abroad. I fear the time has come when I must open that parcel and know what is written in it. Oh, Jonathan, I know you will forgive me if I do wrong. But it is for your own dear sake.

*Later.*—A sad home-coming in every way. The house is empty of the dear soul who was so good to us. Jonathan is still pale and dizzy, because his illness has come back a little. And now there is a telegram from Van Helsing, whoever he may be:

“You will be sad to hear that Mrs. Westenra died five days ago, and that Lucy died the day before yesterday. They were both buried today.”

Oh, what a world of sorrow in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra! Poor Lucy! Gone, gone, never to come back to us! And poor, poor Arthur, to have lost such sweetness from his life! God help us all to bear our troubles.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*22 September.*—It is all over. Arthur has gone back to Ring and has taken Quincey Morris with him. What a fine fellow Quincey is! In my heart of hearts I believe that he suffered as much from Lucy’s death as any of us. But he carried himself through it like a moral Viking. If America can go on producing men like that, she will truly be a power in the world. Van Helsing is lying down, resting before his journey. He goes over to Amsterdam tonight, but says he will return tomorrow night. He only wants to make some arrangements, which he can only make in person. Then he is to stay with me, if he can. He says he has work to do in London which may take him some time. Poor old fellow! I fear that the strain of the past week has broken down even his iron strength. All through the burial I could see that he was holding himself back with terrible force. When it was all over, we were standing beside Arthur. Poor fellow, he was speaking of his part in the operation, when his blood went into his Lucy’s veins. I could see Van Helsing’s face turn white and purple by turns. Arthur was saying that since then he felt as if they two had really been married. He felt that she was his wife in the sight of God. None of us said a word about the other operations, and none of us ever will. Arthur and Quincey went away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I came on here. The moment we were alone in the carriage, he gave way to a real fit of hysterics. Since then he has denied to me that it was hysterics. He insisted that it was only his sense of humour showing itself under very terrible conditions. He laughed till he cried. I had to pull down the blinds, in case anyone saw us and judged us wrongly. Then he cried till he laughed again. He laughed and cried together, just as a woman does. I tried to be stern with him, as one is with a woman in such a case, but it had no effect. Men and women are so different in the ways they show nervous strength or weakness! Then his face grew serious and stern again. I asked him why he had laughed, and why at such a time. His answer was typical of him in a way, because it was logical and strong and mysterious. He said:

“Ah, you don’t understand, friend John. Do not think that I am not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh choked me. But do not think either that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he comes just the same. Always remember this: the laughter that knocks at your door and says, ‘May I come in?’ is not the true laughter. No! He is a king, and he comes when and how he likes. He asks no person; he chooses no suitable time. He says, ‘I am here.’ For example, I grieve my heart out for that so sweet young girl. I give my blood for her, though I am old and worn. I give my time, my skill, my sleep. I let my other patients go without, so that she may have all. And yet I can laugh at her very grave. I laugh when the clay from the gravedigger’s spade drops on her coffin and says ‘Thud! thud!’ to my heart, till the blood leaves my cheek. My heart bleeds for that poor boy—that dear boy. He is the age of my own boy, if I had been so blessed that he lived. And he has the same hair and eyes. There, now you know why I love him so. And yet he says things that touch my husband-heart deeply. They make my father-heart long for him as for no other man—not even for you, friend John. For you and I are more equal in experience than father and son. Yet even at such a moment King Laugh comes to me. He shouts and bellows in my ear, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’ Then the blood comes dancing back to my cheek. It brings with it some of the sunshine that he carries. Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh comes, he makes them all dance to the tune he plays. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall—all dance together. They dance to the music that he makes with that mouth of his that never smiles. And believe me, friend John, he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes, pulled tight by strains that pull us different ways. Then tears come. Like the rain on the ropes, they make us tighter still, until perhaps the strain becomes too great, and we break. But King Laugh comes like the sunshine, and he eases the strain again. And then we can bear to go on with our work, whatever it may be.”

I did not want to hurt him by pretending not to see his idea. But I did not yet understand why he had laughed, so I asked him. As he answered me, his face grew stern, and he spoke in quite a different tone:

“Oh, it was the grim irony of it all. This so lovely lady, with her garlands of flowers, looked as beautiful as life. One by one we wondered if she was truly dead. She was laid in that so fine marble house in that lonely churchyard, where so many of her family rest. She was laid there with the mother who loved her, and whom she loved. And that holy bell was going ‘Toll! toll! toll!’ so sad and slow. And those holy men, in the white clothes of the angels, were pretending to read books. Yet all the time their eyes were never on the page. And all of us stood with bowed heads. And all for what? She is dead; so! Is it not?”

“Well, Professor, for the life of me,” I said, “I can’t see anything to laugh at in all that. Why, your explanation makes it a harder puzzle than before. But even if the burial service was comic, what about poor Art and his trouble? Why, his heart was simply breaking.”

“Just so. Did he not say that the transfusion of his blood to her veins had made her truly his bride?”

“Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him.”

“Quite so. But there was a difficulty, friend John. If that is so, then what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet girl is a polyandrist. And I have my poor wife, who is dead to me but alive by the Church’s law, though her mind is all gone. So even I, a faithful husband to this now-no-wife, am a bigamist.”

“I don’t see where the joke comes in there either!” I said. I did not feel very pleased with him for saying such things. He laid his hand on my arm and said:

“Friend John, forgive me if I cause you pain. I did not show my feelings to others when it would hurt them. I showed them only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust. If you could have looked into my very heart then, when I wanted to laugh, or when the laugh arrived... And if you could look into it now, when King Laugh has packed up his crown and all that is his... For he goes far, far away from me, and for a long, long time. Then maybe you would pity me the most of all.”

I was touched by the tenderness of his voice, and asked why.

“Because I know!”

And now we are all scattered. For many long days loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings. Lucy lies in the tomb of her family. It is a grand house of death in a lonely churchyard, away from crowded London. There the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and wild flowers grow by themselves.

So I can finish this diary, and God only knows if I shall ever begin another. If I do, or if I even open this one again, it will be about different people and different subjects. For here at the end the romance of my life is told. Before I go back to take up my life’s work again, I say sadly and without hope:

“FINIS.”

*“The Westminster Gazette,” 25 September.*

A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY.

At present the people of Hampstead are troubled by a series of events. They seem to be very like the events that the writers of headlines called “The Kensington Horror,” or “The Stabbing Woman,” or “The Woman in Black.” During the past two or three days there have been several cases of young children who wandered away from home. Others did not come back from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to explain clearly where they had been. But most of them give the same excuse: they had been with a “bloofer lady.” It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed. Twice the children have not been found until early the next morning. People in the area generally think this: the first missing child said that a “bloofer lady” had asked him to come for a walk. The others picked up the phrase and used it when it suited them. This is even more natural because the little ones’ favourite game at present is luring each other away with tricks. A correspondent writes to us that it is wonderfully funny to see some of the tiny children pretending to be the “bloofer lady.” He says that some of our cartoonists might learn a lesson in grotesque humour by comparing the real thing and the picture. It is only natural, from the general rules of human nature, that the “bloofer lady” should be the popular part in these open-air shows. Our correspondent says innocently that even Ellen Terry could not be as charming as some of these little children with dirty faces pretend—and even imagine themselves—to be.

There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question. Some of the children, in fact all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds look as if a rat or a small dog might have made them. One by one, they are not very important. But together they would tend to show that the animal which makes them has a system or method of its own. The police of the district have been told to keep a sharp lookout for children who wander away, especially very young ones, in and around Hampstead Heath. They must also watch for any stray dog which may be about.

*“The Westminster Gazette,” 25 September.* *Extra Special.* THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR. ANOTHER CHILD INJURED. *The “Bloofer Lady.”*

We have just received news that another child, missed last night, was found only late in the morning. It was under a furze bush at the Shooter’s Hill side of Hampstead Heath. Perhaps fewer people go to that side than to the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat as in the other cases. It was terribly weak and looked very thin. When it had partly recovered, it too told the common story of being lured away by the “bloofer lady.”

### Glossary

- **undertaker**: a person whose job is to prepare dead people and arrange funerals.
- **corpse**: a dead body.
- **coroner**: an official who finds out why a person died when the death is sudden or strange.
- **chapelle ardente**: French: a room with many candles and flowers where a dead person lies before the funeral.
- **“decay’s effacing fingers”**: words from a poem: the way death slowly takes away a person’s beauty.
- **post-mortem / autopsy**: a medical examination of a dead body to find out why the person died.
- **crucifix**: a small cross with the figure of Christ on it.
- **entailed**: (of land or a house) that by law can only pass to certain members of a family.
- **heir**: a person who receives money or property when someone dies.
- **fiancée**: the woman a man is going to marry.
- **victoria**: a light open carriage pulled by a horse.
- **hansom**: a small two-wheeled cab pulled by one horse.
- **hysterics**: a state of wild laughing or crying that a person cannot control.
- **Viking**: one of the brave sea warriors from Scandinavia long ago.
- **polyandrist**: a woman who has more than one husband at the same time.
- **bigamist**: a person who is married to two people at the same time.
- **FINIS**: a Latin word that means “the end”.
- **bloofer lady**: a child’s way of saying “beautiful lady”.
- **lure**: to get someone to come with you by tricking them.
- **furze**: a wild bush with sharp thorns and yellow flowers.

## Chapter XIV: Mina Harker’s Journal

*23 September.*—Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so glad that he has plenty of work to do, because that keeps his mind off the terrible things. And oh, I am so happy that he is not weighed down now by the responsibility of his new position. I knew he would be true to himself. And now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the height of his new position! He keeps up in every way with the duties that come to him. He will be away all day till late, for he said he could not have lunch at home. My housework is done, so I shall take his foreign journal. I shall lock myself in my room and read it....

*24 September.*—I didn’t have the heart to write last night. That terrible record of Jonathan’s upset me so much. Poor dear! How he must have suffered, whether it is true or only imagination. I wonder if there is any truth in it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and then write all those terrible things? Or did he have some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not start talking to him about it.... And yet, that man we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain of him.... Poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral that upset him and sent his mind back to some old line of thought.... He believes it all himself. I remember what he said on our wedding day: “Unless some solemn duty comes to me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane.” There seems to be some thread that connects it all.... That fearful Count was coming to London.... If it should be so, and he came to London, with its millions of people.... There may be a solemn duty; and if it comes, we must not run away from it.... I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin to copy it out. Then we shall be ready for other eyes if needed. And if it is wanted, then perhaps poor Jonathan will not be upset, if I am ready. For I can speak for him and never let him be troubled or worried with it at all. If Jonathan ever gets over his nervousness completely, he may want to tell me all about it. Then I can ask him questions and find things out, and see how I can comfort him.

*Letter, Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker.*

“*24 September.* (*Confidence*)

“Dear Madam,—

“I pray you to pardon my writing to you. I am so far a friend that I sent you the sad news of Miss Lucy Westenra’s death. By the kindness of Lord Godalming, I have permission to read her letters and papers. I need this, because I am deeply worried about certain very important matters. In them I find some letters from you, which show how great friends you were and how you love her. Oh, Madam Mina, by that love, I beg you, help me. It is for the good of others that I ask. I ask it to put right a great wrong, and to lift many and terrible troubles. They may be greater than you can know. May it be that I see you? You can trust me. I am a friend of Dr. John Seward and of Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy). I must keep it private from everyone for the present. I would come to Exeter at once to see you, if you tell me I have the privilege to come. Tell me where and when. I beg your pardon, madam. I have read your letters to poor Lucy, and I know how good you are and how your husband suffers. So I pray you, if it may be, tell him nothing of this, in case it may harm him. Again your pardon, and forgive me.

“Van Helsing.”

*Telegram, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing.*

“*25 September.*—Come today by quarter-past ten train if you can catch it. Can see you any time you call.

“Wilhelmina Harker.”

MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL.

*25 September.*—I can’t help feeling terribly excited as the time for Dr. Van Helsing’s visit comes near. Somehow I expect that it will throw some light on Jonathan’s sad experience. And he looked after poor dear Lucy in her last illness, so he can tell me all about her. That is the reason he is coming. It is about Lucy and her sleep-walking, and not about Jonathan. Then I shall never know the real truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal takes hold of my imagination and colours everything with something of its own colour. Of course it is about Lucy. That habit came back to the poor dear, and that awful night on the cliff must have made her ill. In my own affairs I had almost forgotten how ill she was afterwards. She must have told him about her sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about it. And now he wants me to tell him what she knows, so that he may understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything about it to Mrs. Westenra. I would never forgive myself if anything I did brought harm to poor dear Lucy, even if it was only something I did not do. I hope, too, that Dr. Van Helsing will not blame me. I have had so much trouble and worry lately that I feel I cannot bear more just now.

I suppose a cry does us all good at times. It clears the air, as other rain does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me. And then Jonathan went away this morning, to stay away from me for a whole day and night. It is the first time we have been apart since our marriage. I do hope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and that nothing will happen to upset him. It is two o’clock, and the doctor will be here soon now. I shall say nothing about Jonathan’s journal unless he asks me. I am so glad I have typed out my own journal. Then, in case he asks about Lucy, I can hand it to him. It will save a lot of questions.

*Later.*—He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it all makes my head spin! I feel like someone in a dream. Can it all be possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathan’s journal first, I would never have accepted even a possibility. Poor, poor, dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered. Please, good God, may all this not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it. But it may even be a comfort and a help to him to know for certain that it is all true. It is terrible, and awful in what it means. But he will know that his eyes and ears and brain did not deceive him. Perhaps it is the doubt that haunts him. Perhaps when the doubt is removed, he will be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock. It does not matter which proves to be the truth—waking or dreaming. Dr. Van Helsing must be a good man as well as a clever one, if he is Arthur’s friend and Dr. Seward’s, and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look after Lucy. From seeing him, I feel that he *is* good and kind and of a noble nature. When he comes tomorrow, I shall ask him about Jonathan. And then, please God, all this sorrow and worry may lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practise interviewing. Jonathan’s friend on “The Exeter News” told him that memory was everything in such work. You must be able to write down almost every word that is spoken, exactly. You may have to improve some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview, and I shall try to record it *verbatim*.

It was half-past two o’clock when the knock came. I took my courage *à deux mains* and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door and announced “Dr. Van Helsing.”

I stood up and bowed, and he came towards me. He was a man of medium weight, strongly built. His shoulders were set back over a broad, deep chest. His neck was well balanced on his body, as his head is on his neck. The way he holds his head shows at once that he is a man of thought and power. His head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. His face is clean-shaven. It shows a hard, square chin and a large, firm mouth that moves a lot. His nose is a good size and rather straight. But it has quick, sensitive nostrils. They seem to get wider when his big, bushy eyebrows come down and his mouth tightens. His forehead is broad and fine. It rises almost straight at first, and then slopes back above two bumps or ridges that are wide apart. With such a forehead, his reddish hair cannot possibly fall over it. Instead it falls naturally back and to the sides. His big, dark blue eyes are set wide apart. They are quick and tender, or stern, as the man’s moods change. He said to me:

“Mrs. Harker, is it not?” I bowed to say yes.

“That was Miss Mina Murray?” Again I said yes.

“It is Mina Murray that I came to see, who was the friend of that poor dear child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is because of the dead that I come.”

“Sir,” I said, “you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra.” And I held out my hand. He took it and said tenderly:

“Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must be good, but I had yet to learn——” He finished his speech with a polite, old-fashioned bow. I asked him what he wanted to see me about, so he began at once:

“I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin to ask somewhere, and there was no one to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary—you need not look surprised, Madam Mina. It was begun after you had left, and she did it to copy you. In that diary she guesses certain things about a sleep-walking, and she writes that you saved her. So I come to you in great confusion. I ask you, out of your so great kindness, to tell me all of it that you can remember.”

“I think I can tell you all about it, Dr. Van Helsing.”

“Ah, then you have a good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies.”

“No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you if you like.”

“Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful; you will do me much favour.” I could not resist the temptation to puzzle him a little. I suppose some of the taste of the first apple still stays in our mouths. So I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow and said:

“May I read it?”

“If you wish,” I answered, as modestly as I could. He opened it, and for a moment his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed.

“Oh, you so clever woman!” he said. “I knew long ago that Mr. Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness. But see, his wife has all the good things. And will you not do me the honour and help me by reading it for me? Alas! I do not know the shorthand.” By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed. So I took the typewritten copy from my workbasket and handed it to him.

“Forgive me,” I said. “I could not help it. But I had been thinking that it was about dear Lucy that you wanted to ask. I did not want you to have to wait—not for my sake, but because I know your time must be precious. So I have written it out on the typewriter for you.”

He took it, and his eyes shone. “You are so good,” he said. “And may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read it.”

“Of course,” I said. “Read it while I order lunch, and then you can ask me questions while we eat.” He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light. Soon he was lost in the papers. I went to see about lunch, mainly so that he would not be disturbed. When I came back, I found him walking quickly up and down the room. His face was burning with excitement. He rushed up to me and took me by both hands.

“Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, “how can I say what I owe to you? This paper is like sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am dazed, I am dazzled, with so much light. And yet every time, clouds roll in behind the light. But that you do not, cannot, understand. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madam”—he said this very solemnly—“if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be a pleasure and a delight if I may serve you as a friend. As a friend—but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights. You are one of the lights. You will have a happy life and a good life, and your husband will be blessed in you.”

“But, doctor, you praise me too much, and—and you do not know me.”

“Not know you! I, who am old, and who have studied men and women all my life! I, who have made the brain my special subject, and all that belongs to it and all that follows from it! And I have read the diary that you have so kindly written out for me. It breathes truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy about your marriage and your trust—I do not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell such things all their lives that angels can read. They tell them by day and by hour and by minute. And we men who wish to know have in us something of angels’ eyes. Your husband has a noble nature, and you are noble too, for you trust. And trust cannot be where there is a mean nature. And your husband—tell me about him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and healthy?” I saw here a chance to ask him about Jonathan, so I said:

“He was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins’s death.” He interrupted:

“Oh, yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two letters.” I went on:

“I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town last Thursday he had a sort of shock.”

“A shock, and so soon after brain fever! That was not good. What kind of a shock was it?”

“He thought he saw someone who reminded him of something terrible, something which led to his brain fever.” And here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. There was the pity for Jonathan, and the horror he had gone through. There was the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been hanging over me ever since. It all came at once in a wild storm. I suppose I was hysterical. I threw myself on my knees, held up my hands to him, and begged him to make my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me up. He made me sit on the sofa and sat beside me. He held my hand in his and said to me with, oh, such endless sweetness:

“My life is an empty and lonely one. It is so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships. But my friend John Seward called me here. Since then I have known so many good people and seen such nobility. So I feel the loneliness of my life more than ever—and it has grown with my years. Believe me, then, that I come here full of respect for you. And you have given me hope. It is not hope in what I am looking for. It is hope that there are good women still left to make life happy. They are good women, whose lives and whose truths may be a good lesson for the children that are to come. I am glad, glad, that I may be of some use to you here. For if your husband suffers, he suffers within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do *all* for him that I can. I will do all to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overtired and perhaps too anxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale. And what he does not like in the one he loves is not good for him. Therefore, for his sake, you must eat and smile. You have told me all about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, in case it upsets you. I shall stay in Exeter tonight, for I want to think a lot about what you have told me. When I have thought, I will ask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me about husband Jonathan’s trouble, as 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.” Now that I had to speak to this great, learned man, I began to fear something. I feared he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman. That journal is all so strange. So 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 strange that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. Since yesterday I have been in a sort of fever of doubt. You must be kind to me, and not think me foolish because I have even half believed some very strange things.” He calmed me by his manner as well as his words when he said:

“Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange the matter is that I am here about, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of anyone’s belief, no matter how strange it is. I have tried to keep an open mind. And it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it. It is the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if one is 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 typed it out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathan’s. It is the copy of his journal when he was abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything about it. You will read it 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. “In the morning, as soon as I can, I shall 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 get you to Paddington before eight.” He was surprised that I knew the trains without looking them up. But he does not know that I have learned all the trains to and from Exeter. I did it so that I can help Jonathan if 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 nothing to fear. He is a noble fellow. And let me tell you this from my experience of men. He went down that wall and to that room—yes, and he went a second time! A man who would do that is not one to be hurt for ever 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 about other things. I am blessed that today I came to see you. For I have learned so much all at once 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.*

“*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 is true, what terrible things there are in the world! And what an awful thing if that man, that monster, is really in London! I am afraid to think of it. Just now, while I was writing, I had a wire from Jonathan. He says that he leaves Launceston by the 6:25 tonight and will be here at 10:18. So I shall have no fear tonight. Will you, therefore, come to breakfast at eight o’clock instead of lunch, if this is not too early for you? If you are in a hurry, you can get away by the 10:30 train, which will bring you to Paddington by 2:35. Do not answer this. If I do not hear from you, I shall take it that you will come to breakfast.

“Believe me,

“Your faithful and grateful friend,

“Mina Harker.”

*Jonathan Harker’s Journal.*

*26 September.*—I thought I would never write in this diary again, but the time has come. When I got home last night, Mina had supper ready. When we had eaten, she told me about Van Helsing’s visit. She told me that she had given him the two diaries, copied out, and how anxious she has been about me. She showed me in the doctor’s letter that everything I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt about the reality of the whole thing that knocked me down. I felt powerless, and in the dark, and full of distrust. But now that I *know*, I am not afraid, even of the Count. So he has succeeded after all in his plan to get 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 up late and talked it all over. Mina is dressing, and in a few minutes I shall call at the hotel and bring him over....

He was, I think, surprised to see me. 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. He looked at it closely and sharply, and then he said:

“But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock.” It was so funny to hear this kind, strong-faced old man call my wife “Madam Mina.” I smiled and said:

“I *was* ill, I *have* had a shock; but you have cured me already.”

“And how?”

“By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then everything seemed unreal. I did not know what to trust, not even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do. So I could only keep on working in what had always been the groove of my life. Then the groove stopped helping me, and I distrusted 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 coming to breakfast with you with so much pleasure. And, oh, sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife.” I could listen to him praising Mina for a whole day, so I simply nodded and stood silent.

“She is one of God’s women. He made her with His own hand. She shows us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter. And she shows 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, which doubts everything and is so selfish. And you, sir—I have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you. So I have known you for some days through what others know. 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. He was so serious and so kind that it made me feel quite choked.

“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 happened before you went 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 are going 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 went with him to the station. When we were parting, he said:

“Perhaps you will come to town if I send for you, and bring Madam Mina too.”

“We shall both come whenever you wish,” I said.

I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the night before. We were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, and he was turning the pages. Suddenly his eyes seemed to catch something in one of them, “The Westminster Gazette.” I knew it by its colour. He went quite white. He read something closely, groaning to himself: “Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! So soon!” I do not think he remembered me at that moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off. This brought him back to himself. He leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out: “Love to Madam Mina; I shall write as soon as ever I can.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*26 September.*—Truly there is no such thing as a final end. Not a week ago I said “Finis,” and yet here I am starting fresh again. Or rather, I am going on with the same record. Until this afternoon I had no reason to think of what is done. Renfield had become, in every way, as sane as he ever was. He was already well ahead with his fly business, and he had just started on spiders too. So he had not been any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday. From it I understand that he is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincey Morris is with him, and that is a great help, for he himself is a bubbling spring of good spirits. Quincey wrote me a line too. From him I hear that Arthur is beginning to get back some of his old cheerfulness. So my mind is at rest about them all. As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm I used to have for it. I could fairly have said that the wound poor Lucy left on me was healing into a scar. Now, however, everything is opened again, and God only knows what the end will be. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows too. But he will only let out enough at a time to make me more curious. He went to Exeter yesterday and stayed there all night. Today he came back. He almost jumped into the room at about half-past five o’clock, and he pushed 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, because I really did not know what he meant. But he took it from me and pointed to a paragraph about children being lured away at Hampstead. It did not mean much to me until I reached a passage about small punctured 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?”

“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. After all, four days of rest, free from burning, painful worry, does help to bring back one’s spirits. But when I saw his face, it made me serious. Never, even in the middle of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern.

“Tell me!” I said. “I cannot give an opinion. I do not know what to think, and I have no facts on which to base a guess.”

“Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion what poor Lucy died of? Not after all the hints, given not only by events, but by me?”

“Of nervous collapse, 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 mind is bold; but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear. And what is outside your daily life does not count for 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 looked at by men’s eyes. That is 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 everything. And if it cannot explain, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet every day we see new beliefs growing around us, which think themselves new. And yet they are only the old ones, 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 materialisation. 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 about it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it works. You can follow the mind of the great Charcot—alas that he is no more!—into the very soul of the patient that he influences. No? Then, friend John, am I to understand that you simply accept the fact? Are you happy to leave a blank between the beginning and the end of the argument? No? Then tell me—for I am a student of the brain—how you accept hypnotism and reject thought reading. Let me tell you something, my friend. Today electrical science does things that the very men who discovered electricity would have thought unholy. And not so long before, those men would themselves have been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why did Methuselah live nine hundred years, and ‘Old Parr’ one hundred and sixty-nine? And yet poor Lucy, with four men’s blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day. For if she had lived one more day, we could have saved her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know everything about comparative anatomy? Can you say why the qualities of animals are in some men, and not in others? Can you tell me why other spiders die small and soon, but one great spider lived for centuries? He lived in the tower of the old Spanish church. He grew and grew, till, when he came down, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps. Can you tell me why in the Pampas, yes, and in other places, there are bats that come at night? They open the veins of cattle and horses and suck their veins dry. Can you tell me about some islands of the Western seas? There are bats there which hang on the trees all day. Those who have seen them say they look like giant nuts or pods. When the sailors sleep on the deck because it is hot, the bats fly down on them. And then—and then in the morning dead men are found, as white as even Miss Lucy was.”

“Good God, Professor!” I said, jumping 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 longer than generations of men? Why the elephant goes on and on till he has seen whole dynasties? And why the parrot never dies, except from the bite of a cat or dog or some other illness? Can you tell me why men in all ages and places believe that there are a few who live on always, if they are allowed? That there are men and women who cannot die? We all know—because science has proved the fact—that toads have been shut up in rocks for thousands of years. Each one was shut in a hole so small that it only held him, since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself die and be buried? His grave is sealed, and corn is sown on it. The corn is harvested and cut, and sown and harvested and cut again. And then men come and take away the unbroken seal. And there lies the Indian fakir, not dead! He rises up and walks among them as before.” Here I interrupted him. I was getting confused. He had crowded my mind with his list of nature’s strange things and possible impossibilities, and my imagination was catching fire. I had a dim idea that he was teaching me some lesson, as he used to do long ago in his study at Amsterdam. But then he used to tell me the subject first. So I could keep the object of thought in mind all the time. Now I did not have this 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 can apply your knowledge as you go on. At present my mind is going from point to point the way a madman follows an idea, not a sane one. I feel like a beginner stumbling through a bog in a mist. I am jumping from one clump of grass to another, just trying blindly to move on. I do not know 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 give an example. I heard once of an American who defined faith like this: ‘that power which lets us believe things which we know to be untrue.’ For one, I follow that man. He meant that we should have an open mind. We must not let a little bit of truth stop the rush of a big truth, as a small rock stops a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him. But all the same, we must not let him think that he is all the truth in the universe.”

“Then you want me not to let some earlier belief close my mind to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson right?”

“Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth it to teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understanding. So you think that those so small holes in the children’s throats were made by the same thing that made the hole in Miss Lucy?”

“I suppose so.” He stood up and said solemnly:

“Then you are wrong. Oh, if only 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 into a chair with a gesture of despair. He put his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands as he spoke:

“They were made by Miss Lucy!”

### Glossary

- **brain fever**: an old name for a serious illness with fever and confusion.
- **shorthand**: a quick way of writing with special signs.
- **typewriter**: an old machine for writing letters on paper.
- **sleep-walking**: walking around while you are asleep.
- **verbatim**: word for word, exactly as it was said.
- **à deux mains**: French for “in both hands”; to take your courage in both hands means to be brave.
- **the first apple**: the apple that Eve ate in the Bible story; a picture of the wish to do something a little naughty.
- **nostrils**: the two openings in your nose.
- **hysterical**: so upset that you cannot control your feelings.
- **drawing-room**: a room in a large house where people sit and receive visitors.
- **groove**: here, the usual, fixed way you live and work every day.
- **physiognomist**: a person who believes he can know someone’s character from their face.
- **egoist**: a person who thinks mostly about himself or herself.
- **Mein Gott**: German for “My God”.
- **Finis**: a Latin word that means “the end”.
- **corporeal transference / materialisation / astral bodies**: ideas of the time about spirits: moving a body by the power of the mind, making a spirit appear as a body, and a spirit body that can leave the real body.
- **Charcot**: a famous French doctor who studied the brain and used hypnotism.
- **Methuselah / Old Parr**: a man in the Bible and an Englishman who were both said to have lived a very long time.
- **Pampas**: the wide, flat grasslands of South America.
- **dynasty**: a family of kings or rulers who rule one after another for a long time.
- **fakir**: a holy man in India who can do surprising things with his body.
- **thesis**: the main idea that someone wants to prove.

## Chapter XV: Dr. Seward’s Diary

For a while pure anger took control of me. It was as if he had struck Lucy on the face while she was alive. I hit the table hard and stood up as I said to him:

“Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?”

He raised his head and looked at me. Somehow the tenderness in his face calmed me at once.

“I wish I were!” he said. “Madness would be easy to bear, compared with a truth like this. Oh, my friend, why do you think I went such a long way round? Why did I take so long to tell you 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? Did I want revenge, now so late, for that time when you saved my life? You saved me from a terrible death. Ah no!”

“Forgive me,” I said.

He went on: “My friend, it was because I wished to break it to you gently. I know that you loved that so sweet lady. But even now I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to accept any abstract truth at once. We may doubt that it is possible, when we have always believed the ‘no’ of it. It is harder still to accept so sad a truth when it is real. And it is about such a one as Miss Lucy. Tonight I go to prove it. Dare you come with me?”

This shook me. A man does not like to prove such a truth. Byron made one exception, jealousy, when a man may wish:

“And prove the very truth he most abhorred.”

He saw that I was not sure, and spoke:

“The logic is simple. This time it is not a madman’s logic, jumping from tussock to tussock in a misty bog. If it is not true, then the proof will be a relief. At worst it will do no harm. But if it is true! Ah, there is the fear. Yet that very fear should help my cause, for in it there is some need to believe. Come, I tell you what I propose. First, we go 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. I think he is a friend of yours too, since you were in class at Amsterdam. He may not let two friends see his case, but he will let two scientists. We shall tell him nothing, 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, for I felt that some terrible ordeal was before us. But I could do nothing. So I found what courage I could, and said that we had better hurry, as the afternoon was passing....

We found the child awake. It had slept and had eaten some food, and in every way it was doing well. Dr. Vincent took the bandage from its throat and showed us the punctures. There was no mistaking how similar they were to the ones that had been on Lucy’s throat. They were smaller, and the edges looked fresher; that was all. We asked Vincent what he thought had caused them. He replied that it must have been the bite of some animal, perhaps a rat. But for his own part, he thought it was more likely one of the bats. There are so many of them on the northern heights of London.

“Out of so many harmless ones,” he said, “there may be some wild one from the South, of a more dangerous kind. Some sailor may have brought one home, and it managed to escape. Or a young one may have got loose from the Zoological Gardens. Or one may have been bred there from a vampire. These things do happen, you know. Only ten days ago a wolf got out, and I believe it was followed in this direction. For a week after that, the children played nothing but Red Riding Hood. They played it on the Heath and in every alley in the place. Then this ‘bloofer lady’ scare came along, and since then it has been a real holiday for them. Even this poor little thing asked the nurse, when he woke up today, if he might go away. 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 send the child home, you will warn its parents to watch it closely. These wishes to wander are most dangerous. If the child stayed out another night, it would probably be fatal. But in any case I suppose you will not let it go for some days?”

“Certainly not, not for a week at least. Longer, if the wound has not healed.”

Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had expected, and the sun had gone down before we came out. When Van Helsing saw how dark it was, he said:

“There is no hurry. It is later than I thought. Come, let us find somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our way.”

We dined at “Jack Straw’s Castle,” together with a little crowd of cyclists and others, who were noisy in a friendly way. About ten o’clock we left the inn. It was very dark by then. The lamps stood far apart, and when we were outside the circle of each one, the darkness seemed even greater. The Professor had clearly studied the road we had to take, for he went on without stopping. But as for me, I was quite confused about where we were. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people. At last we were a little surprised even to meet the horse police, who were riding their usual round in the suburbs. At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, and we climbed over it. It was very dark, and the whole place seemed so strange to us. So it was a little difficult, but we found the Westenra tomb. The Professor took the key and opened the creaky door. Then he stood back and politely signed to me to go in first. He did it quite without thinking. There was a delicious irony in the offer. He showed such fine manners on such a horrible occasion! My companion followed me quickly. He carefully checked that the lock was a falling one, and not a spring one. Then he cautiously pulled the door closed. With a spring lock we would have been in a bad situation. Then he searched in his bag, took out a matchbox and a piece of candle, and made a light. In the daytime, with fresh flowers all round it, the tomb had looked grim and horrible enough. But now some days had passed. The flowers hung limp and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns. The spider and the beetle were masters of the place again, as they usually are. There was stone, darkened by time, and mortar covered in dust, and rusty, damp iron. There was dull brass and cloudy silver-plating. All these things gave back the weak light of a candle. The effect was more miserable and dirty than anyone could imagine. It forced on me the idea that life—animal life—was not the only thing which could pass away.

Van Helsing went about his work carefully, step by step. He held his candle so that he could read the plates on the coffins. He held it so that the wax dropped in white patches, which went hard as they touched the metal. In this way he made sure which coffin was Lucy’s. He searched in his bag again, and took out a turnscrew.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced.”

At once he began taking out the screws. At last he lifted off the lid, and we saw the lead case underneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed an insult to the dead. It was as bad as taking off her clothes in her sleep while she was alive. I actually took hold of his hand to stop him.

He only said: “You shall see.”

Again he searched in his bag, and took out a tiny fret-saw. He struck the turnscrew through the lead with a quick downward stab, which made me wince. It made a small hole, but it was big enough for the point of the saw. I had expected a rush of gas from the body, which was a week old. We doctors have had to study our dangers, and we have to get used to such things. So I drew back towards the door. But the Professor never stopped for a moment. He sawed down about two feet along one side of the lead coffin, then across, and down the other side. He took the edge of the loose piece and bent it back towards the foot of the coffin. Then he held the candle up to the opening, and signed to me to look.

I came near and looked. The coffin was empty.

It was certainly a surprise to me, and it gave me a great shock. But Van Helsing was not moved. He was now surer than ever of his ground, and so he felt bolder to go on with his task.

“Are you satisfied now, friend John?” he asked.

I felt all the stubborn love of argument in my nature wake up inside 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, “as far as it goes. But how do you—how can you—explain why it is not there?”

“Perhaps a body-snatcher,” I suggested. “Some of the undertaker’s people may have stolen it.” I felt that I was speaking nonsense. 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 the coffin-lid on again and gathered up all his things into the bag. He blew out the light and put the candle in the bag too. We opened the door and went out. Behind us he closed the door and locked it. He handed me the key and said: “Will you keep it? It is better that you are sure.”

I laughed—it was not a very cheerful laugh, I must say—and signed to him to keep it. “A key is nothing,” I said. “There may be copies. And anyhow, it is not difficult to pick a lock of that kind.”

He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he told me to watch at one side of the churchyard, while he would watch at the other. I took my place behind a yew-tree. I saw his dark figure move away, until the headstones and trees between us hid it from my sight.

It was a lonely watch. Just after I had taken my place, I heard a distant clock strike twelve. In time came one and two. I was cold and nervous. I was angry with the Professor for taking me on such an errand, and with myself for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to watch closely. But I was not sleepy enough to fail in my duty completely. So altogether I had a dreary, miserable time.

Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white streak. It was moving between two dark yew-trees, at the side of the churchyard farthest from the tomb. At the same time a dark shape moved from the Professor’s side of the ground and went quickly towards it. Then I moved too. But I had to go round headstones and tombs with railings round them, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was cloudy, and somewhere far off an early cock crowed. A little way off there was a line of scattered juniper-trees, which marked the path to the church. Beyond it a white, dim figure moved quickly in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden by trees, and I could not see where the figure disappeared. I heard the sound of real movement where I had first seen the white figure. I came over, and found the Professor holding a tiny child in his arms. When he saw me, he held it out to me and said:

“Are you satisfied now?”

“No,” I said, and I felt that I said it aggressively.

“Do you not see the child?”

“Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded?” I asked.

“We shall see,” said the Professor. With one impulse we made our way out of the churchyard, and he carried the sleeping child.

When we had gone a little distance away, we went into a group of trees. We struck a match and looked at the child’s throat. There was not a scratch or a scar of any kind on it.

“Was I right?” I asked in triumph.

“We were just in time,” said the Professor thankfully.

Now we had to decide what to do with the child, so we talked about it. If we took it to a police-station, we would have to give some account of our movements during the night. At least, we would have to say how we had come to find the child. So in the end we decided to take it to the Heath. When we heard a policeman coming, we would leave it where he could not fail to find it. Then we would find our way home as quickly as we could. Everything went well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman’s heavy steps. We laid the child on the path, and we waited and watched. He flashed his lantern here and there, until he saw it. We heard his cry of surprise, and then we went away silently. By good luck we got a cab near the “Spaniards,” and drove to town.

I cannot sleep, so I am making 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 shall go with him on another expedition.

*27 September.*—It was two o’clock before we found a good chance for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all finished. The last of the mourners had lazily gone away. Then, looking carefully from behind a group of alder-trees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safe till morning, if we wanted. But the Professor told me that we would not need more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrible sense of the reality of things, where any effort of imagination seemed out of place. And I saw clearly the dangers from the law that we were risking in our unholy work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless. It was outrageous to open a lead coffin to see if a woman dead nearly a week was really dead. But now it seemed the height of foolishness to open the tomb again. We knew from the evidence of our own eyes that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however, and said nothing. Van Helsing had a way of going his own road, no matter who objected. He took the key, opened the vault, and again politely signed to me to go first. The place was not as horrible as last night. But oh, how terribly poor and mean it looked when the sunshine streamed in! Van Helsing walked over to Lucy’s coffin, and I followed. He bent over and again forced back the lead flap. Then a shock of surprise and dismay went through me.

There lay Lucy, as it seemed, 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, no, redder than before. And on the cheeks there was a delicate pink colour.

“Is this a trick?” I said to him.

“Are you convinced now?” the Professor answered. As he spoke, he reached over his hand and pulled back the dead lips, in a way that made me shudder. He showed the white teeth.

“See,” he went on, “see, they are even sharper than before. With this and this”—and he touched one of the canine teeth and the one below it—“the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend John?”

Once more, a hostile wish to argue woke inside me. I *could* not accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested. So I tried to argue, and even at that moment I was ashamed of it. 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 I was silent. Van Helsing did not seem to notice my silence. At any rate, he showed neither disappointment nor triumph. He was looking closely at the face of the dead woman. He raised the eyelids and looked at the eyes. Once more he opened the lips and examined the teeth. Then he turned to me and said:

“Here, there is one thing which is different from all that is recorded. Here is some double life that is not like 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 all later. In trance he could best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she is Un-Dead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually, when the Un-Dead sleep at home”—as he spoke, he swept his arm round to show what “home” was to a vampire—“their face show what they are. But this one is so sweet. When she is not Un-Dead, she go back to the nothings of the common dead. There is no evil there, see. And so it is hard that I must kill her in her sleep.”

This turned my blood cold. I began to realise that I was accepting Van Helsing’s theories. But if she were really dead, what was there to fear in the idea of killing her? He looked up at me, and clearly saw the change in my face, for he said, almost joyfully:

“Ah, you believe now?”

I answered: “Do not push 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 cutting up the body of the woman I had loved in this way. And yet the feeling was not as strong as I had expected. In fact, I was beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsing called it. I was beginning to hate it. Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective?

I waited a long time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as if lost in thought. Then he closed the catch of his bag with a snap, and said:

“I have been thinking, and I have made up my mind what is best. If I simply followed my wish, I would do now, at this moment, what is to be done. But there are other things to follow. They are a thousand times more difficult, because we do not know them. This is simple. She has yet no life taken, though that will come in time. To act now would be to take the danger from her for ever. But then we may need Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? You saw the wounds on Lucy’s throat. You saw the wounds so similar on the child’s throat at the hospital. You saw the coffin empty last night, and full today. In it lies a woman who has not changed in a whole week after she died. She has only become more rosy and more beautiful. You know of this, and you know of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard. And yet you did not believe your own senses. How, then, can I expect Arthur to believe? He knows none of those things. He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven me. He thinks that I had some mistaken idea when I stopped him saying good-bye as he should. And he may think that, from some more mistaken idea, this woman was buried alive. And he may think that we killed her, the biggest mistake of all. Then he will argue that it is we, the mistaken ones, who have killed her by our ideas. And so he will be very unhappy always. Yet he can never be sure, and that is the worst of all. Sometimes he will think that the woman he loved was buried alive. That will paint his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered. And then again he will think that we may be right. He will think that his so beloved was, after all, an Un-Dead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now I know it is all true. So I know a hundred thousand times more 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 is well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard in my own way. Tomorrow night you will come to me at 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 who gave his blood. Later we shall all have work to do. I come with you as far as Piccadilly and dine there. For I must be back here before the sun sets.”

So we locked the tomb and came away. We climbed over the wall of the churchyard, which was not a difficult 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. I wish that the Un-Dead, Miss Lucy, shall not leave tonight, so that on the next night she may be more eager. So I shall put there some things she does not like—garlic and a crucifix—and so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as Un-Dead, and she will take notice of them. But these things only stop her coming out. They may not win against her wish to get in. For then the Un-Dead is desperate, and must find the easiest way, whatever it may be. I shall be near all the night, from sunset till after the sunrise. If there is anything that may be learned, I shall learn it. For Miss Lucy, or from her, I have no fear. But there is that other, who is the reason that she is Un-Dead. He have now the power to look for her tomb and find shelter there. He is cunning. I know it from Mr. Jonathan. I know it from the way that all along he has fooled us, when he played with us for Miss Lucy’s life, and we lost. And in many ways the Un-Dead are strong. He have always the strength of twenty men in his hand. Even the strength that we four gave to Miss Lucy has all gone to him too. Besides, he can call his wolf, and I know not what else. So if he comes there on this night, he shall find me. But no one else shall—until it is too late. But it may be that he will not try to come to the place. There is no reason why he should. His hunting ground is more full of game than the churchyard. There only the Un-Dead woman sleep, and the one old man watch.

“So I write this in case.... Take the papers that are with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read them. Then find this great Un-Dead, 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 a person. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsing’s monstrous ideas. But now they seem to stand out before me in an ugly light, as insults to common sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his mind has become unbalanced in some way. Surely there must be *some* reasonable explanation of all these mysterious things. Is it possible that the Professor did it himself? He is so unusually clever. If he went mad, he would carry out some fixed idea in a wonderful way. I do not like to think it. Indeed, it would be almost as great a wonder 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, morning.*.... Last night, 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 he spoke especially to Arthur, as if all our wills depended on 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 surely surprised at my letter?” This question was put directly to Lord Godalming.

“I was. It upset me a little for a while. There has been so much trouble around my house lately that I could do without any more. I have been curious, too, about what you mean. Quincey and I talked it over. But the more we talked, the more puzzled we got. Now I can say for myself that I’m quite lost about any meaning of anything.”

“Me too,” said Quincey Morris, short and simple.

“Oh,” said the Professor, “then you are nearer the beginning, both of you, than friend John here. He has to go a long way back before he can even get so far as to begin.”

It was clear that he had seen I was back in my old doubting state of mind, without my saying a word. Then he turned to the other two and said, very seriously:

“I want your permission to do what I think good tonight. It is, I know, much to ask. When you know what I plan to do, you will know, and only then, how much. So may I ask you to promise me in the dark? Afterwards you may be angry with me for a time. I must not hide from myself that this may happen. But then you shall not blame yourselves for anything.”

“That’s frank anyhow,” Quincey broke in. “I’ll answer for the Professor. I don’t quite see what he’s driving at, 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 friend, and such support 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. If it is anything that concerns my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian, I cannot make such a promise. If you can assure me that your plan does not go against either of these two, then I give my consent at once. But for the life of me, I cannot understand what you are driving at.”

“I accept your limit,” said Van Helsing. “And all I ask of you is this. If you feel you must condemn any act of mine, you will first think about it well. And you will be satisfied that it does not go against your conditions.”

“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, and he said in an amazed sort of way:

“Where poor Lucy is buried?”

The Professor bowed. Arthur went on: “And when we are there?”

“To enter the tomb!”

Arthur stood up. “Professor, are you serious, or is it some monstrous joke? Pardon me, I see that you are serious.” He sat down again. But I could see that he sat firmly and proudly, like a man whose dignity has been touched. There was silence until he asked again:

“And when we are in the tomb?”

“To open the coffin.”

“This is too much!” he said, standing up again angrily. “I am willing to be patient in all things that are reasonable. But in this—this desecration of the grave—of one who——” He really choked with anger.

The Professor looked at him with pity. “If I could save you one pain, my poor friend,” he said, “God knows I would. But this night our feet must walk on paths of thorns. Or else later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk on paths of flame!”

Arthur looked up with a set, white face and said:

“Take care, sir, take care!”

“Would it not be good to hear what I have to say?” said Van Helsing. “Then you will at least know the limit of my purpose. Shall I go on?”

“That’s fair enough,” Morris broke in.

After a pause Van Helsing went on. It clearly cost him 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——”

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 an agony 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 Un-Dead.”

“Un-Dead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare, or what is it?”

“There are mysteries which men can only guess at. Age by age they may solve them only in part. Believe me, we are now at the edge of one. But I have not finished. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?”

“Heavens and earth, no!” cried Arthur in a storm of passion. “Not for the whole world will I agree to any cutting of her dead body. Dr. Van Helsing, you test me too far. What have I done to you, that you should torture me like this? What did that poor, sweet girl do, that you want to bring such dishonour on her grave? Are you mad to speak such things, or am I mad to listen to them? Don’t dare to think any more of such a desecration. I shall not give my consent to anything you do. I have a duty to protect her grave from insult. And, by God, I shall do it!”

Van Helsing rose from where he had been sitting all the time. He said, seriously and sternly:

“My Lord Godalming, I, too, have a duty to do. It is 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. Later I shall make the same request. If you are not then even more eager for it than I am, then—then I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me. And then, to follow your Lordship’s wishes, I shall be ready to give an account to you, when and where you will.”

His voice broke a little, and he went on in a voice full of pity:

“But I beg you, do not go away in anger with me. In a long life I have done many things that were not pleasant to do. Sometimes they hurt my heart. But I have never had so heavy a task as now. Believe me, if the time comes for you to change your mind about 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. Why should I give myself so much work and so much sorrow? I have come here from my own land to do what good I can. At first it was to please my friend John. And then it was to help a sweet young lady, whom I too came to love. For her—I am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindness—I gave what you gave: the blood of my veins. I gave it, I, who was not her lover like you, but only her doctor 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 Un-Dead, she shall have it freely.”

He said this with a very serious, sweet pride, and Arthur was deeply moved 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.”

### Glossary

- **abhorred**: hated very much.
- **tussock**: a thick clump of grass that stands up above wet ground.
- **bog**: soft, wet ground where it is easy to sink.
- **punctures**: small holes in the skin made by something sharp.
- **turnscrew**: an old word for a screwdriver.
- **body-snatcher**: a person who steals dead bodies from graves.
- **sexton**: a man who looks after a church and its churchyard.
- **canine teeth**: the long, pointed teeth at the side of the mouth.
- **grave** (as in “a grave duty”)**: serious; it is also the word for a place where a dead person is buried.
- **buy a pig in a poke**: to agree to something before you know what it really is.
- **pourparlers**: a French word for talks before an agreement.
- **desecration**: doing damage or great disrespect to a holy place.

## Chapter XVI: Dr. Seward’s Diary

It was just a quarter before twelve o’clock when we got into the churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark. Now and then the moon shone through the gaps in the heavy clouds that raced across the sky. Somehow we all kept close together, with Van Helsing a little in front as he led the way. When we came close to the tomb, I watched Arthur carefully. I was afraid that being near a place with such a sad memory would upset him. But he bore it well. I thought that the very mystery of what we were doing somehow worked against his grief. The Professor unlocked the door. He saw that we were all hesitating, for different reasons, and that was natural. So he solved the difficulty by going in first himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door. Then he lit a dark lantern and pointed to the coffin. Arthur stepped forward, hesitating. Van Helsing said to me:

“You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that coffin?”

“It was.”

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 clearly did not know that there was a lead coffin inside, or at any rate he had not thought of it. When he saw the cut in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for a moment. But it fell away again just as quickly, so that he stayed a ghastly white. He was still silent. Van Helsing forced back the lead flap, and we all looked in and drew back.

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. Usually I wouldn’t ask such a thing. I wouldn’t dishonour you so much as to suggest 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 moved her or touched her. What happened was this. Two nights ago my friend Seward and I came here—with a good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which was then sealed up, and we found it empty, as now. We then waited, and saw something white come through the trees. The next day we came here in the 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 among the graves. Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at sundown the Un-Dead can move. I waited here all the night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. Most probably that was because I had laid garlic over the clamps of those doors. The Un-Dead cannot bear garlic. And I laid other things there which they keep away from. Last night there was no going out. So tonight, before the sundown, I took away my garlic and other things. And so it is that we find this coffin empty. But be patient with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait with me outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to come. So”—here he shut the dark slide of his lantern—“now to the outside.”

He opened the door, and we went out one by one. He came last and locked the door behind him.

Oh! but how fresh and pure the night air seemed after the terror of that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by! The moonlight shone for a moment between the racing clouds, then crossed and passed—like the gladness and sorrow of a man’s life. How sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, with no taint of death and decay in it! It made us feel human again to see the red light in the sky beyond the hill. Far away we heard the low, dull roar that marks the life of a great city. Each of us in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent. I could see that he was trying to understand the purpose and the inner meaning of the mystery. I was myself fairly patient. I was half ready again to throw away my doubts and to accept Van Helsing’s conclusions. Quincey Morris was calm, in the way of a man who accepts all things. He accepts them with cool bravery, even when he risks all that he has. He could not smoke, so he cut himself a good-sized piece of tobacco and began to chew. As for Van Helsing, he was busy with a definite task. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like thin, wafer-like biscuit, carefully rolled up in a white napkin. Next he took out two handfuls of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the mass between his hands. Then he took this and rolled it into thin strips. He began to lay them into the cracks between the door and its frame in the tomb. I was a little puzzled at this. I was close, so I asked him what he was doing. Arthur and Quincey came near too, as they were also curious. He answered:

“I am closing the tomb, so that the Un-Dead may not enter.”

“And is that stuff you have put there going to do it?” asked Quincey. “Great Scott! Is this a game?”

“It is.”

“What is that which you are using?” This time the question came from Arthur.

Van Helsing respectfully lifted his hat as he answered: “The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence.”

That answer shocked even the most doubting of us. Each of us felt that it was impossible to distrust the Professor now. His purpose was so earnest that he could use for it the thing that was most sacred to him. In respectful silence we took the places he gave us, close round the tomb. There we were hidden from the sight of anyone coming near. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had already learned this watching horror on my earlier visits. And yet even I, who had refused the proofs until an hour ago, felt my heart sink. Never did tombs look so ghastly white. Never did cypress, or yew, or juniper seem so full of the gloom of funerals. Never did tree or grass wave or rustle in such a threatening way. Never did a branch creak so mysteriously. And never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a sad warning through the night.

There was a long silence, a big, aching emptiness. Then from the Professor came a sharp “S-s-s-s!” He pointed, and far down the avenue of yews we saw a white figure coming towards us. It was a dim white figure, which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped. At that moment a ray of moonlight fell on the masses of driving clouds. It showed very clearly a dark-haired woman, dressed in the clothes of the grave. We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw was a fair-haired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry. It was like the cry a child gives in its sleep, or a dog as it lies dreaming before the fire. We were starting forward. But the Professor stood behind a yew-tree, and we saw his warning hand, and it kept us back. Then, as we looked, the white figure moved forward again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear Arthur gasp, as we recognised the face of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra—but how changed! The sweetness had turned to hard, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and at his sign we all came forward too. The four of us stood in a line before the door of the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew back the slide. The light fell strongly on Lucy’s face. We could see that the lips were crimson with fresh blood. The stream had trickled over her chin and stained the pure white linen of her death-robe.

We shuddered with horror. In the shaking light I could see that even Van Helsing’s iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me. If I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen.

Lucy saw us—I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it had her shape. She drew back with an angry snarl, like a cat that is taken by surprise. Then her eyes moved over us. They were Lucy’s eyes in form and colour. But they were Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle eyes we knew. At that moment what was left of my love turned into hate and disgust. If she had had to be killed then, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with an unholy light, and a voluptuous smile spread over her face. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! Until now she had held the child tightly to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. Now, with a careless movement, and as heartless as a devil, she threw it to the ground. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which forced a groan from Arthur. She came towards him with her arms held out and a wanton smile. He fell back and hid his face in his hands.

She still came forward, however, and with a slow, voluptuous grace she said:

“Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!”

There was something sweet like the devil in her voice. It was something like the ringing of glass when it is struck. It rang through the brains even of us who heard the words spoken to another. As for Arthur, he seemed to be under a spell. He took his hands from his face and opened his arms wide. She was leaping into them, when Van Helsing jumped forward and held his little golden crucifix between them. She drew back from it. Her face was suddenly twisted and full of rage, and she rushed past him as if to enter the tomb.

But when she was a foot or two from the door, she stopped, as if some force held her that she could not resist. Then she turned. Her face was shown in the clear, sudden moonlight and by the lamp, which no longer shook in Van Helsing’s iron hand. Never did I see such defeated hatred on a face. And never, I hope, will such a face be seen again by human eyes. The beautiful colour became a dead grey-blue. The eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell-fire. The brows were wrinkled as though the folds of the skin were the coils of Medusa’s snakes. And the lovely, blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, like the masks of passion of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death—if looks could kill—we saw it at that moment.

And so for a full half minute, which seemed like for ever, she stayed there. On one side was the raised crucifix, and on the other the sacred seal on her way in. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur:

“Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to go on with my work?”

Arthur threw himself on his knees and hid his face in his hands as he answered:

“Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like this ever any more.” And he groaned in his soul.

Quincey and I moved towards him at the same moment, and took his arms. We heard the click of the lantern as Van Helsing closed it and held it down. He came close to the tomb and began to remove from the cracks some of the sacred thing which he had put there. Then he stood back. We all looked on in horrified amazement. We saw the woman pass in through the gap where hardly a knife-blade could have gone. At that moment her body was as real and solid as our own. We all felt glad and relieved when we saw the Professor calmly putting the strings of putty back along the edges of the door.

When this was done, he lifted the child and said:

“Come now, my friends. We can do no more till tomorrow. There is a funeral at noon, so we shall all come here not long after that. The friends of the dead will all be gone by two. And when the sexton lock the gate, we shall stay. Then there is more to do; but not like this of tonight. As for this little one, he is not much harmed, and by tomorrow night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the police will find him, as on the other night. And then to home.”

He came close to Arthur and said:

“My friend Arthur, you have had a hard trial. But afterwards, when you look back, you will see why it was necessary. You are now in the bitter waters, my child. By this time tomorrow you will, please God, have passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters. So do not grieve too much. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me.”

Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other on the way. We had left the child in safety, and we were tired. So we all slept, some of us more truly than others.

*29 September, night.*—A little before twelve o’clock we three—Arthur, Quincey Morris and I—called for the Professor. It was strange to notice that, without speaking of it, we had all put on black clothes. Of course Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning. But the rest of us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by half-past one. We walked about, keeping out of the sight of officials. When the gravediggers had finished their task, the sexton locked the gate. He believed that everyone had gone. So then we had the place all to ourselves. Instead of his little black bag, Van Helsing had with him a long leather one, something like a cricket bag. It was clearly quite heavy.

We were alone, and we had heard the last footsteps die away up the road. Then we silently followed the Professor to the tomb, as if we had been ordered to. He unlocked the door, and we went in, closing it behind us. Then he took the lantern from his bag and lit it. He also took out two wax candles and lit them. He melted their ends and stuck them on other coffins, so that they would give enough light to work by. He lifted the lid off Lucy’s coffin again, and we all looked. Arthur was trembling like a leaf. We saw that the body lay there in all its death-beauty. But there was no love in my own heart. There was nothing but disgust for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy’s shape without her soul. I could see even Arthur’s face grow hard as he looked. Then he said to Van Helsing:

“Is this really Lucy’s body, or only a demon in her shape?”

“It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you all see her as she was, and is.”

As she lay there, she seemed like a nightmare of Lucy. There were the pointed teeth, and the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth, which made one shudder to see. Her whole look was of the flesh, with no spirit in it. It seemed like a devilish mockery of Lucy’s sweet purity. Van Helsing, carefully and in order as usual, began taking the various things out of his bag. He placed them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and some plumbing solder. Then he took out a small oil-lamp. When it was lit in a corner of the tomb, it gave out gas which burned very hot with a blue flame. Then came his operating knives, which he placed close to his hand. Last came a round wooden stake. It was about two and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end of it had been hardened by burning in the fire, and it was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer, like the ones people use in the coal-cellar to break up lumps of coal. For me, a doctor’s preparations for work of any kind are exciting and give me strength. But these things filled both Arthur and Quincey with a kind of alarm. They both kept their courage, however, and stayed silent and quiet.

When all was ready, Van Helsing said:

“Before we do anything, let me tell you this. It comes from the knowledge and experience of the ancients, and of all those who have studied the powers of the Un-Dead. When they become such, the curse of immortality comes with the change. They cannot die. They must go on, age after age, adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world. For all who die from the attacks of the Un-Dead become Un-Dead themselves, and they prey on their own kind. And so the circle goes on, always widening, like the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, think if you had met that kiss which you know of, before poor Lucy die. Or again, last night, when you open your arms to her. Then in time, when you had died, you would have become *nosferatu*, as they call it in Eastern Europe. And for all time you would make more of those Un-Deads that so have fill us with horror. The career of this so unhappy dear lady is only just begun. Those children whose blood she suck are not yet so much the worse. But if she lives on, Un-Dead, they lose more and more of their blood. By her power over them they come to her. And so she draw their blood with that so wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all stops. The tiny wounds on the throats disappear. The children go back to their plays, never knowing what has been. But the most blessed thing of all is this. This now Un-Dead shall be made to rest as true dead. Then the soul of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free. By night she works wickedness. By day she grows lower and lower as she takes it into herself. Instead of this, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that strikes the blow that sets her free. I am willing to do this. But is there none among us who has a better right? Think of it afterwards, in the silence of the night when sleep does not come. Will it be no joy to think: ‘It was my hand that sent her to the stars. It was the hand of him that loved her best. It was the hand that she would have chosen herself, of all hands, if it had been for her to choose’? Tell me if there is such a one among us?”

We all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all saw: the endless kindness of this idea. His should be the hand which would give Lucy back to us as a holy memory, and not an unholy one. He stepped forward and spoke bravely, though his hand trembled and his face was as pale as snow:

“My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not fail!”

Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder and said:

“Brave lad! A moment’s courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It will be a terrible ordeal—do not be fooled about that. But it will be only for a short time. And then your joy will be greater than your pain was. You will come out of this grim tomb as though you walk on air. But you must not stop once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you all the time.”

“Go on,” said Arthur in a rough voice. “Tell me what I am to do.”

“Take this stake in your left hand, ready to place the point over the heart. Take the hammer in your right. Then we begin our prayer for the dead. I shall read him—I have here the book—and the others shall follow. Then strike in God’s name. So all may be well with the dead that we love, and the Un-Dead pass away.”

Arthur took the stake and the hammer. Once his mind was set on action, his hands never trembled or even shook. Van Helsing opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we could. Arthur placed the point over the heart. As I looked, I could see it press into the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might.

The Thing in the coffin twisted about. A hideous screech that froze our blood came from the open red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted wildly. The sharp white teeth bit together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was covered with a crimson foam. But Arthur never stopped. He looked like a figure of Thor as his steady arm rose and fell. He drove the mercy-bearing stake deeper and deeper. The blood from the pierced heart welled up and spurted round it. His face was set, and a high sense of duty seemed to shine through it. The sight of it gave us courage, so that our voices seemed to ring through the little vault.

And then the twisting and quivering of the body grew less. The teeth seemed to bite, and the face to quiver. At last it lay still. The terrible task was over.

The hammer fell from Arthur’s hand. He staggered, and he would have fallen if we had not caught him. Great drops of sweat stood on his forehead, and his breath came in broken gasps. It had truly been an awful strain on him. If something greater than human reasons had not forced him to his task, he could never have finished it. For a few minutes we were so busy with him that we did not look towards the coffin. But when we did, a murmur of surprise ran from one to the other of us. We stared so eagerly that Arthur stood up, for he had been sitting on the ground. He came and looked too. Then a glad, strange light broke over his face. It drove away completely the dark horror that had lain on it.

There in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had feared so much. We had grown to hate it so much that destroying it was an honour. That honour was given to the one with the best right to it. Instead there lay Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of matchless sweetness and purity. It was true that we could still see the marks of care and pain and wasting, as we had seen them in life. But these were all dear to us, for they showed her true to what we knew. All of us felt that a holy calm lay like sunshine over the thin face and body. It was only an earthly sign and symbol of the calm that was to rule for ever.

Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, and said to him:

“And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven?”

Then the terrible strain broke. Arthur took the old man’s hand in his and raised it to his lips. He pressed it and said:

“Forgiven! God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, and me peace.”

He put his hands on the Professor’s shoulder and laid his head on his breast. For a while he cried silently, while we stood without moving. When he raised his head, Van Helsing said to him:

“And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would want you to, if it were for her to choose. For she is not a grinning devil now—not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer is she the devil’s Un-Dead. She is God’s true dead, whose soul is with Him!”

Arthur bent and kissed her. Then we sent him and Quincey out of the tomb. The Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the point of it in the body. Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with garlic. We soldered up the lead coffin and screwed on the coffin-lid. Then we gathered up our things and came away. When the Professor locked the door, he gave the key to Arthur.

Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone and the birds sang. It seemed as if all nature had been tuned to a different note. There was gladness and joy and peace everywhere. For we ourselves were at rest about one thing, and we were glad, though our joy was quiet.

Before we moved away, Van Helsing said:

“Now, my friends, one step of our work is done, and for us it was the most painful one. But a greater task remains: to find out the author of all this our sorrow, and to stamp him out. I have clues which we can follow. But it is a long task, and a difficult one, and there is danger in it, and pain. Shall you not all help me? We have learned to believe, all of us—is it not so? And since that is so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do we not promise to go on to the bitter end?”

Each of us in turn took his hand, and the promise was made. Then, as we moved off, the Professor said:

“Two nights from now you shall meet with me and dine together at seven of the clock with friend John. I shall ask two others to come, two that you do not know yet. And I shall be ready to show all our work and to explain our plans. Friend John, you come home with me, for I have much to discuss, and you can help me. Tonight I leave for Amsterdam, but I shall return tomorrow night. And then our great search begins. But first I shall have much to say, so that you may know what is to do and what is to fear. Then we shall make our promise to each other again. For there is a terrible task before us, and once our feet are on the plough, we must not draw back.”

### Glossary

- **dark lantern**: a lamp with a small door (a slide) that can hide its light.
- **putty**: a soft, sticky paste used to fill cracks.
- **Host**: the holy bread used in church; the Sacred Wafer.
- **Indulgence**: special permission from the Church.
- **voluptuous**: beautiful in a way that makes men think of physical love.
- **wantonness**: wild behaviour without shame.
- **Medusa**: a monster in Greek stories with snakes instead of hair.
- **stake**: a strong pointed piece of wood.
- **soldering iron**: a hot tool used to melt metal and join pieces together.
- **missal**: a church book of prayers.
- **nosferatu**: another word for a vampire.
- **mourning**: the time of sadness after someone dies, when people often wear black.

## Chapter XVII: Dr. Seward’s Diary

When we arrived at the Berkeley Hotel, Van Helsing found a telegram waiting for him:

“Am coming up by train. Jonathan at Whitby. Important news.—Mina Harker.”

The Professor was delighted. “Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina,” he said, “pearl among women! She arrive, but I cannot stay. She must go to your house, friend John. You must meet her at the station. Telegraph her *en route*, so that she may be prepared.”

When the wire was sent, he had a cup of tea. Over it he told me of a diary that Jonathan Harker kept when he was abroad. He gave me a typewritten copy of it, and also of Mrs. Harker’s diary at Whitby.

“Take these,” he said, “and study them well. When I have returned, you will be master of all the facts. Then we can better begin our inquiry. Keep them safe, for there is much treasure in them. You will need all your faith, even you who have had such an experience as that of today. What is told here”—he laid his hand heavily and seriously on the packet of papers as he spoke—“may be the beginning of the end for you and me and many others. Or it may ring the death-bell of the Un-Dead who walk the earth. Read all, I pray you, with the open mind. And if you can add in any way to the story told here, do so, for it is all-important. You have kept a diary of all these so strange things; is it not so? Yes! Then we shall go through all these together when we meet.”

He then got ready to leave, and shortly after he drove off to Liverpool Street. I made my way to Paddington. I arrived there about fifteen minutes before the train came in.

The crowd melted away in the busy, hurried way that is usual on arrival platforms. I was beginning to feel uneasy, afraid that I might miss my guest. Then a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl stepped up to me. After a quick glance, she said: “Dr. Seward, is it not?”

“And you are Mrs. Harker!” I answered at once. Then she held out her hand.

“I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucy; but——” She stopped suddenly, and a quick blush spread over her face.

A blush rose to my own cheeks too. Somehow this put us both at ease, for it was a silent answer to hers. I got her luggage, which included a typewriter. First I sent a wire to my housekeeper, to have a sitting-room and a bedroom prepared at once for Mrs. Harker. Then we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street.

In due time we arrived. Of course, she knew that the place was a lunatic asylum. But I could see that she could not stop a shudder when we went in.

She told me that, if she might, she would come to my study soon, as she had much to say. So here I am, finishing my entry in my phonograph diary while I wait for her. I have not yet had the chance to look at the papers which Van Helsing left with me, though they lie open before me. I must get her interested in something, so that I may have a chance to read them. She does not know how precious time is, or what a task we have in hand. I must be careful not to frighten her. Here she is!

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*29 September.*—After I had made myself tidy, I went down to Dr. Seward’s study. At the door I stopped for a moment, for I thought I heard him talking with someone. But he had asked me to be quick, so I knocked at the door. He called out, “Come in,” and I went in.

To my great surprise, there was no one with him. He was quite alone. On the table opposite him was something that I knew at once, from descriptions, was a phonograph. I had never seen one, and I was very interested.

“I hope I did not keep you waiting,” I said. “But I stayed at the door because I heard you talking, and I thought there was someone with you.”

“Oh,” he replied with a smile, “I was only entering my diary.”

“Your diary?” I asked him in surprise.

“Yes,” he answered. “I keep it in this.” As he spoke, he laid his hand on the phonograph. I felt quite excited about it, and I said without thinking:

“Why, this is even better than shorthand! May I hear it say something?”

“Certainly,” he replied eagerly, and stood up to make it ready for speaking. Then he stopped, and a troubled look spread over his face.

“The fact is,” he began awkwardly, “I only keep my diary in it. And as it is entirely—almost entirely—about my cases, it may be awkward—that is, I mean——”

He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his embarrassment:

“You helped to care for dear Lucy at the end. Let me hear how she died. I shall be very grateful for all that I can learn of her. She was very, very dear to me.”

To my surprise, he answered with a look of horror on his face:

“Tell you of her death? Not for the wide world!”

“Why not?” I asked, for a serious, terrible feeling was coming over me.

Again he stopped, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse. At last he stammered:

“You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the diary.”

Even while he was speaking, an idea came to him. He spoke in a different voice, simply, without thinking, like a child: “That’s quite true, upon my honour. Honest Indian!”

I could not help smiling, and he made a face. “I gave myself away that time!” he said. “But do you know that, although I have kept the diary for months now, it never once struck me how I would find any particular part of it, if I wanted to look it up?”

By this time I had made up my mind. The diary of a doctor who had cared for Lucy might add something to what we knew of that terrible Being. So I said boldly:

“Then, Dr. Seward, you had better let me copy it out for you on my typewriter.”

He grew as pale as death as he said:

“No! no! no! For all the world, I wouldn’t let you know that terrible story!”

Then it was terrible; my feeling was right! For a moment I thought. My eyes moved round the room, without my knowing it, looking for something, or some chance, to help me. They fell on a great pile of typewriting on the table. He saw the look in my eyes, and without thinking his eyes followed it. When they saw the packet, he understood what I meant.

“You do not know me,” I said. “When you have read those papers—my own diary, and my husband’s also, which I have typed—you will know me better. I have not held back from giving every thought of my own heart to this cause. But of course you do not know me—yet. And I must not expect you to trust me so far.”

He is certainly a man of noble nature; poor dear Lucy was right about him. He stood up and opened a large drawer. In it, arranged in order, were a number of hollow metal cylinders covered with dark wax. He said:

“You are quite right. I did not trust you because I did not know you. But I know you now. And let me say that I should have known you long ago. I know that Lucy told you of me; she told me of you too. May I make the only amends that I can? Take the cylinders and hear them. The first half-dozen of them are personal to me, and they will not horrify you. Then you will know me better. By then dinner will be ready. In the meantime I shall read over some of these documents. Then I shall be better able to understand certain things.”

He carried the phonograph up to my sitting-room himself and set it up for me. Now I shall learn something pleasant, I am sure. It will tell me the other side of a true love story, and I already know one side of it....

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*29 September.*—I was so lost in that wonderful diary of Jonathan Harker, and in his wife’s diary, that I forgot the time. Mrs. Harker had not come down when the maid came to say that dinner was ready. So I said: “She is possibly tired; let dinner wait an hour.” And I went on with my work. I had just finished Mrs. Harker’s diary when she came in. She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her eyes were red from crying. Somehow this moved me very much. Lately I have had reason for tears, God knows! But the relief of tears was not given to me. And now the sight of those sweet eyes, bright with recent tears, went straight to my heart. So I said as gently as I could:

“I greatly fear I have upset you.”

“Oh, no, you have not upset me,” she replied. “But I have been more touched by your grief than I can say. That is a wonderful machine, but it is cruelly true. It told me the pain of your heart in its very tones. It was like a soul crying out to Almighty God. No one must hear them spoken ever again! See, I have tried to be useful. I have copied out the words on my typewriter. Now no one else need hear your heart beat, as I did.”

“No one need ever know, shall ever know,” I said in a low voice.

She laid her hand on mine and said very seriously:

“Ah, but they must!”

“Must! But why?” I asked.

“Because it is a part of the terrible story. It is a part of poor dear Lucy’s death and all that led to it. We have a struggle before us, to rid the earth of this terrible monster. In it we must have all the knowledge and all the help that we can get. I think that the cylinders you gave me held more than you meant me to know. But I can see that there is much light in your record on this dark mystery. You will let me help, will you not? I know everything up to a certain point. Your diary only took me to 7 September. But already I see how poor Lucy was attacked, and how her terrible fate was being worked out. Jonathan and I have been working day and night since Professor Van Helsing saw us. He has gone to Whitby to get more information, and he will be here tomorrow to help us. We need have no secrets among us. If we work together, with complete trust, we can surely be stronger. We would be weaker if some of us were in the dark.”

She looked at me so pleadingly. At the same time she showed such courage and determination. So I gave in to her wishes at once.

“You shall do as you like in the matter,” I said. “God forgive me if I do wrong! There are terrible things that you have yet to learn. But you have already travelled so far on the road to poor Lucy’s death. So I know that you will not be content to stay in the dark. No, the end—the very end—may give you a ray of peace. Come, dinner is ready. We must keep one another strong for what is before us. We have a cruel and dreadful task. When you have eaten, you shall learn the rest. And I shall answer any questions you ask, if there is anything which you do not understand, though it was clear to us who were there.”

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*29 September.*—After dinner I came with Dr. Seward to his study. He brought back the phonograph from my room, and I took my typewriter. He placed me in a comfortable chair. He arranged the phonograph so that I could touch it without getting up. And he showed me how to stop it in case I wanted to pause. Then, very thoughtfully, he took a chair with his back to me, so that I might feel as free as possible. He began to read. I put the forked metal tubes to my ears and listened.

At last the terrible story of Lucy’s death, and—and all that followed, was finished. I lay back in my chair without any strength. Luckily I am not the fainting kind. When Dr. Seward saw me, he jumped up with a cry of horror. He quickly took a bottle from a cupboard and gave me some brandy. In a few minutes it made me feel a little better. My brain was all in a whirl. Through all the many horrors there came one holy ray of light: my dear, dear Lucy was at last at peace. Without that, I do not think I could have borne it without making a scene. It is all so wild and mysterious and strange. If I had not known Jonathan’s experience in Transylvania, I could not have believed it. As it was, I did not know what to believe. So I got out of my difficulty by turning to something else. I took the cover off my typewriter and said to Dr. Seward:

“Let me write this all out now. We must be ready for Dr. Van Helsing when he comes. I have sent a telegram to Jonathan to come on here when he arrives in London from Whitby. In this matter dates are everything. I think that if we get all our material ready, with every item in order of time, we shall have done much. You tell me that Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris are coming too. Let us be able to tell them when they come.”

So he set the phonograph at a slow speed, and I began to type from the beginning of the seventh cylinder. I used manifold paper, and so I made three copies of the diary, just as I had done with all the rest. It was late when I finished. But Dr. Seward went about his work of visiting his patients on his round. When he had finished, he came back and sat near me, reading. So I did not feel too lonely while I worked. How good and thoughtful he is! The world seems full of good men—even if there *are* monsters in it. Before I left him, I remembered something Jonathan had put in his diary. At the station in Exeter, the Professor had been very upset when he read something in an evening paper. Dr. Seward keeps his newspapers. So I borrowed his files of “The Westminster Gazette” and “The Pall Mall Gazette,” and took them to my room. I remember how much “The Dailygraph” and “The Whitby Gazette” helped us. I had made cuttings from them. They helped us to understand the terrible events at Whitby when Count Dracula landed. So I shall look through the evening papers since then, and perhaps I shall find some new light. I am not sleepy, and the work will help to keep me calm.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*30 September.*—Mr. Harker arrived at nine o’clock. He had got his wife’s wire just before he set out. If one can judge from his face, he is unusually clever, and full of energy. If this journal is true, he is also a man of great courage. And judging by our own wonderful experiences, it must be true. Going down to the vault a second time was a remarkable act of daring. After reading his account of it, I was ready to meet a fine, strong man. But I hardly expected the quiet, business-like gentleman who came here today.

*Later.*—After lunch Harker and his wife went back to their own room. As I passed a while ago, I heard the click of the typewriter. They are working hard. Mrs. Harker says that they are joining together, in order of time, every scrap of evidence they have. Harker has got the letters between the man at Whitby who received the boxes and the London carriers. It was these carriers who took charge of the boxes. He is now reading his wife’s typed copy of my diary. I wonder what they make of it. Here it is....

How strange that it never struck me that the very next house might be the Count’s hiding-place! Goodness knows we had enough clues from the behaviour of the patient Renfield! The bundle of letters about the purchase of the house was with the typed copy. Oh, if we had only had them earlier, we might have saved poor Lucy! Stop; that way madness lies! Harker has gone back and is again putting his material together. He says that by dinner-time they will be able to show a whole connected story. He thinks that in the meantime I should see Renfield. Until now, Renfield has been a sort of index to the coming and going of the Count. I hardly see this yet, but when I get the dates, I suppose I shall. What a good thing that Mrs. Harker typed out my cylinders! We could never have found the dates otherwise....

I found Renfield sitting calmly in his room with his hands folded, smiling kindly. At that moment he seemed as sane as anyone I ever saw. I sat down and talked with him on a lot of subjects, and he dealt with all of them naturally. Then, without being asked, he spoke of going home. As far as I know, he has never mentioned this subject during his stay here. In fact, he spoke quite confidently of being let out at once. I had talked with Harker, and read the letters and the dates of Renfield’s outbursts. Without that, I think I would have been ready to sign for him after a short time of observation. As it is, I am darkly suspicious. All those outbreaks were in some way linked with the Count being near. What, then, does this complete contentment mean? Can it be that his instinct is satisfied that the vampire will win in the end? Wait; he himself is zoöphagous. And in his wild ravings outside the chapel door of the empty house, he always spoke of “master.” All this seems to confirm our idea. However, after a while I came away. Just now my friend is a little too sane for it to be safe to question him too deeply. He might begin to think, and then—! So I came away. I do not trust these quiet moods of his. So I have given the attendant a hint to watch him closely, and to have a strait-waistcoat ready in case of need.

*Jonathan Harker’s Journal.*

*29 September, in train to London.*—I received Mr. Billington’s polite message that he would give me any information he could. So I thought it best to go down to Whitby and make my inquiries on the spot. My aim now was to trace that horrid cargo of the Count’s to its place in London. Later, we may be able to deal with it. Billington junior, a nice lad, met me at the station. He brought me to his father’s house, where they had decided that I must stay the night. They are hospitable, with true Yorkshire hospitality: they give a guest everything, and leave him free to do as he likes. They all knew that I was busy, and that my stay was short. Mr. Billington had all the papers about the boxes ready in his office. I saw again one of the letters which I had seen on the Count’s table, and it almost gave me a shock. That was before I knew of his devilish plans. Everything had been carefully thought out, and done in order and with precision. He seemed to have been ready for every obstacle which might come by accident in the way of his plans. To use an American phrase, he had “taken no chances.” His instructions were carried out with perfect accuracy. That was simply the logical result of his care. I saw the invoice and made a note of it: “Fifty cases of common earth, to be used for experimental purposes.” I also saw the copy of the letter to Carter Paterson, and their reply. I got copies of both of these. This was all the information Mr. Billington could give me. So I went down to the port and saw the coastguards, the Customs officers and the harbour-master. They all had something to say about the strange arrival of the ship, which is already becoming part of local tradition. But no one could add anything to the simple description “Fifty cases of common earth.” Then I saw the station-master. He kindly put me in touch with the men who had actually received the boxes. Their count matched the list exactly. They had nothing to add, except that the boxes were “main and mortal heavy,” and that moving them was dry work. One of them said it was hard luck. There wasn’t any gentleman “such-like as yourself, squire,” to thank them for their work in a liquid form. Another added that the thirst they got then was so great that it had still not quite gone away. Needless to say, before I left I took care to remove this cause of complaint, for ever and properly.

*30 September.*—The station-master was kind enough to give me a note to his old friend, the station-master at King’s Cross. So when I arrived there in the morning, I was able to ask him about the arrival of the boxes. He, too, put me in touch with the right officials at once. I saw that their count matched the original invoice. Here the chances of getting an unusual thirst had been limited. However, they had made noble use of them, and again I had to deal with the result after the fact.

From there I went on to Carter Paterson’s central office, where I was treated with the greatest politeness. They looked up the business in their day-book and letter-book. At once they telephoned to their King’s Cross office for more details. By good luck, the men who had done the carting were waiting for work. The official sent them over at once. With one of them he also sent the way-bill. He sent all the papers about the delivery of the boxes at Carfax too. Here again I found that the count agreed exactly. The carriers’ men were able to add a few details to the few written words. I soon found that these details were almost all about how dusty the job was, and the thirst that it gave the workers. I gave them a chance, with some of the coins of the kingdom, to relieve this useful evil later. Then one of the men said:

“That ’ere ’ouse, guv’nor, is the strangest I ever was in. Blyme! but it ain’t been touched for a hundred years. There was dust that thick in the place, you might ’ave slept on it without ’urtin’ yer bones. An’ the place was that neglected, yer might ’ave smelled old Jerusalem in it. But the old chapel—that took the cike, that did! Me and my mate, we thought we’d never get out quick enough. Lor’, I wouldn’t take less than a quid a minute to stay there after dark.”

I have been in the house, so I could easily believe him. But if he knew what I know, I think he would have raised his price.

Of one thing I am now sure. *All* the boxes which arrived at Whitby from Varna in the *Demeter* were safely put in the old chapel at Carfax. There should be fifty of them there, unless any have been removed since then. From Dr. Seward’s diary, I fear they have.

I shall try to see the carter who took away the boxes from Carfax when Renfield attacked them. By following up this clue we may learn a good deal.

*Later.*—Mina and I have worked all day, and we have put all the papers into order.

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*30 September.*—I am so glad that I hardly know how to control myself. I suppose it is the relief after the fear that has haunted me. I feared that this terrible affair, and the opening of his old wound, might harm Jonathan. I saw him leave for Whitby with as brave a face as I could, but I was sick with worry. However, the effort has done him good. He was never so determined, never so strong, never so full of fiery energy as now. It is just as that dear, good Professor Van Helsing said: he is true grit. He gets better under a strain that would kill a weaker nature. He came back full of life and hope and determination. We have got everything in order for tonight. I feel quite wild with excitement. I suppose one ought to pity anything so hunted as the Count is. But that is just it: this Thing is not human—not even an animal. Reading Dr. Seward’s account of poor Lucy’s death, and what followed, is enough to dry up all the pity in one’s heart.

*Later.*—Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris arrived earlier than we expected. Dr. Seward was out on business and had taken Jonathan with him, so I had to see them. For me it was a painful meeting. It brought back all poor dear Lucy’s hopes of only a few months ago. Of course they had heard Lucy speak of me. And it seemed that Dr. Van Helsing, too, has been quite “blowing my trumpet,” as Mr. Morris put it. Poor fellows, neither of them knows that I know all about the proposals they made to Lucy. They did not know how much I knew, so they did not quite know what to say or do. They had to keep to safe subjects. However, I thought the matter over. I decided that the best thing I could do was to tell them everything right up to date. I knew from Dr. Seward’s diary that they had been at Lucy’s death—her real death. So I need not fear to give away any secret too early. So I told them, as well as I could, that I had read all the papers and diaries. I said that my husband and I had typed them and had just finished putting them in order. I gave them each a copy to read in the library. Lord Godalming took his and turned the pages—it does make a pretty big pile. Then he said:

“Did you write all this, Mrs. Harker?”

I nodded, and he went on:

“I don’t quite see what it all means. But you people are all so good and kind, and you have been working so hard and so earnestly. So all I can do is to accept your ideas blindly and try to help you. I have had one lesson already in accepting facts. It should make a man humble to the last hour of his life. Besides, I know you loved my poor Lucy—”

Here he turned away and covered his face with his hands. I could hear the tears in his voice. Mr. Morris, with natural tact, just laid a hand on his shoulder for a moment. Then he walked quietly out of the room. I suppose there is something in a woman’s nature that makes a man free to break down before her. He can show his tender feelings without feeling that it makes him less of a man. For when Lord Godalming was alone with me, he sat down on the sofa and gave way completely and openly. I sat down beside him and took his hand. I hope he did not think it too bold of me. And if he ever thinks of it afterwards, I hope he never will have such a thought. No, there I am unfair to him; I *know* he never will—he is too true a gentleman. I could see that his heart was breaking, so I said to him:

“I loved dear Lucy, and I know what she was to you, and what you were to her. She and I were like sisters. Now she is gone, will you not let me be like a sister to you in your trouble? I know what sorrows you have had, though I cannot measure how deep they are. If sympathy and pity can help in your suffering, won’t you let me be of some little help—for Lucy’s sake?”

In an instant the poor dear fellow was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed to me that everything he had lately suffered in silence came out all at once. He grew quite hysterical. He raised his open hands and beat his palms together in a perfect agony of grief. He stood up and then sat down again, and the tears rained down his cheeks. I felt endless pity for him, and without thinking I opened my arms. With a sob he laid his head on my shoulder. He cried like a tired child, and he shook with emotion.

We women have something of the mother in us. When the mother-spirit is called, it makes us rise above smaller things. I felt this big, sorrowing man’s head resting on me. It was as though it were the head of the baby that some day may lie on my breast. And I stroked his hair as though he were my own child. I never thought at the time how strange it all was.

After a little while his sobs stopped. He sat up and said he was sorry, though he did not try to hide his feelings. He told me about the days and nights that had passed—tiring days and sleepless nights. All that time he had been unable to speak with anyone. A man must speak like that in his time of sorrow. There was no woman who could give him her sympathy. His sorrow was surrounded by such terrible things that he could speak freely to no woman. “I know now how I suffered,” he said, as he dried his eyes. “But I do not know even yet how much your sweet sympathy has meant to me today. And no one else can ever know. I shall know better in time. Believe me, I am not ungrateful now. But my gratitude will grow as I understand more. You will let me be like a brother, will you not, for all our lives—for dear Lucy’s sake?”

“For dear Lucy’s sake,” I said, as we held hands.

“Yes, and for your own sake,” he added. “If a man’s respect and gratitude are ever worth winning, you have won mine today. If the future ever brings you a time when you need a man’s help, believe me, you will not call in vain. God grant that no such time may ever come to you, to break the sunshine of your life. But if it should ever come, promise me that you will let me know.”

He was so earnest, and his sorrow was so fresh, that I felt it would comfort him. So I said:

“I promise.”

As I came along the corridor, I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window. He turned as he heard my footsteps.

“How is Art?” he said. Then he noticed my red eyes and went on: “Ah, I see you have been comforting him. Poor old fellow! He needs it. No one but a woman can help a man when he is in trouble of the heart. And he had no one to comfort him.”

He bore his own trouble so bravely that my heart bled for him. I saw the manuscript in his hand. I knew that when he read it, he would realise how much I knew. So I said to him:

“I wish I could comfort all who suffer from the heart. Will you let me be your friend? And will you come to me for comfort if you need it? You will know later on why I speak.”

He saw that I was serious. He bent down, took my hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it. It seemed only poor comfort for such a brave and unselfish soul. So, on an impulse, I bent over and kissed him. The tears rose in his eyes, and for a moment his throat seemed to choke. Then he said quite calmly:

“Little girl, you will never regret that true-hearted kindness, so long as ever you live!”

Then he went into the study to his friend.

“Little girl!”—the very words he had used to Lucy. And oh, but he proved himself a friend!

### Glossary

- **en route**: French for “on the way”.
- **death-bell**: a church bell rung when someone dies; here, the sign that something will end.
- **Honest Indian!**: an old, childish way of saying “It’s really true!”
- **cylinders**: round tubes; here, the wax tubes on which a phonograph records voices.
- **manifold paper**: thin paper for making several copies at once on a typewriter.
- **that way madness lies**: words from Shakespeare: thinking about this will drive me mad.
- **main and mortal heavy**: the Whitby men’s way of saying “very, very heavy”.
- **way-bill**: a paper that lists the goods a carrier is moving.
- **took the cike**: the carrier’s way of saying “took the cake”: was the worst of all.
- **quid**: a pound (money).
- **true grit**: courage and strength of mind.
- **blowing my trumpet**: praising me to other people.

## Chapter XVIII: Dr. Seward’s Diary

*30 September.*—I got home at five o’clock. Godalming and Morris had already arrived. They had also studied the typed copy of the different diaries and letters. Harker and his wonderful wife had made this copy and put everything in order. Harker had not yet come back from his visit to the carriers’ men. Dr. Hennessey had written to me about these men. Mrs. Harker gave us a cup of tea. I can honestly say that, for the first time since I have lived in it, this old house seemed like *home*. When we had finished, Mrs. Harker said:

“Dr. Seward, may I ask a favour? I want to see your patient, Mr. Renfield. Do let me see him. What you have said about him in your diary interests me so much!”

She looked so pretty, and she asked so sweetly, that I could not refuse her. And there was no reason why I should. So I took her with me. When I went into the room, I told the man that a lady would like to see him. He simply answered: “Why?”

“She is going through the house, and wants to see everyone in it,” I answered.

“Oh, very well,” he said. “Let her come in, by all means. But just wait a minute till I tidy up the place.”

His way of tidying was strange. He simply swallowed all the flies and spiders in the boxes before I could stop him. It was clear that he feared some interference, or was jealous of it. When he had finished his disgusting task, he said cheerfully: “Let the lady come in.” Then he sat down on the edge of his bed with his head down. But he kept his eyelids raised, so that he could see her as she came in. For a moment I thought that he might want to kill her. I remembered how quiet he had been just before he attacked me in my own study. So I took care to stand where I could seize him at once if he jumped at her. She came into the room with an easy grace. This would at once win the respect of any lunatic. Easiness is one of the qualities that mad people respect most. She walked over to him, smiling pleasantly, and held out her hand.

“Good-evening, Mr. Renfield,” she said. “You see, I know you, because Dr. Seward has told me about you.”

He did not answer at once. He looked at her closely all over, with a fixed frown on his face. This look changed to one of wonder, and then to doubt. Then, to my great surprise, he said:

“You’re not the girl the doctor wanted to marry, are you? You can’t be, you know, because she’s dead.”

Mrs. Harker smiled sweetly as she answered:

“Oh no! I have a husband of my own. I was married to him before I ever saw Dr. Seward, or he saw me. I am Mrs. Harker.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“My husband and I are staying with Dr. Seward on a visit.”

“Then don’t stay.”

“But why not?”

I thought that this kind of conversation might not be pleasant for Mrs. Harker. It was not pleasant for me either. So I joined in:

“How did you know I wanted to marry anyone?”

His answer was full of contempt. For a moment he turned his eyes from Mrs. Harker to me. Then at once he turned them back again:

“What a stupid question!”

“I don’t see that at all, Mr. Renfield,” said Mrs. Harker. She took my side at once.

He answered her with as much politeness and respect as he had shown contempt to me:

“You will, of course, understand, Mrs. Harker, that our host is greatly loved and honoured. So everything about him is of interest in our little community. Dr. Seward is loved by his household and his friends. He is even loved by his patients. Some of them are hardly balanced in their minds, so they often mix up causes and effects. I myself have lived in a lunatic asylum. So I cannot help noticing something. Some of the people here argue in a false way. They fall into the errors of *non causa* and *ignoratio elenchi*.”

I opened my eyes wide at this new development. Here was my own pet lunatic, the most extreme of his type that I had ever met. And he was talking basic philosophy, with the manners of a polished gentleman. I wonder if Mrs. Harker’s presence had touched something in his memory. This new phase may have come by itself. Or it may have been in some way caused by her, without her knowing it. In either case, she must have some rare gift or power.

We went on talking for some time. He seemed to be quite reasonable. So she decided to lead him to his favourite subject. She looked at me with a question in her eyes as she began. Again I was surprised. He spoke about the question as calmly and fairly as a completely sane man. He even used himself as an example when he mentioned certain things.

“Why, I myself am an example of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed. They insisted that I should be put under control. I used to imagine that life was a real thing that lasted for ever. I believed that one could eat a great many living things and so make one’s life longer and longer, without end. It did not matter how low these creatures were in the order of nature. At times I held this belief so strongly that I actually tried to take human life. The doctor here will agree that I once tried to kill him. I wanted to make my own life stronger. I wanted to take his life into my own body through his blood. Of course, I was relying on the words of the Bible: ‘For the blood is the life.’ But a man who sells a certain quack medicine has used these true words so much. Now they have become cheap and common. Isn’t that true, doctor?”

I nodded. I was so amazed that I hardly knew what to think or say. It was hard to believe that I had seen him eat up his spiders and flies not five minutes before. I looked at my watch and saw that I should go to the station to meet Van Helsing. So I told Mrs. Harker that it was time to leave. She came at once. First she said pleasantly to Mr. Renfield:

“Good-bye, and I hope I may see you often, in circumstances that are more pleasant for you.”

To my surprise, he answered:

“Good-bye, my dear. I pray God I may never see your sweet face again. May He bless and keep you!”

When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing, I left the boys behind me. Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first became ill. And Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has been for many long days.

Van Helsing stepped down from the train carriage as quickly and lightly as an eager boy. He saw me at once and rushed up to me. He said:

“Ah, friend John, how goes all? Well? So! I have been busy, because I come here to stay if need be. All my affairs are settled, and I have much to tell. Madam Mina is with you? Yes. And her so fine husband? And Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too? Good!”

As I drove to the house, I told him what had happened. I also told him how my own diary had become useful because of Mrs. Harker’s idea. Here the Professor interrupted me:

“Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man’s brain—a brain that a man should have if he were much gifted—and a woman’s heart. The good God made her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination. Friend John, up to now luck has made that woman a help to us. After tonight she must have nothing more to do with this so terrible affair. It is not good that she runs so great a risk. We men are determined—no, have we not promised?—to destroy this monster. But it is no part for a woman. Even if she is not harmed, her heart may fail her among so much and so many horrors. And later she may suffer, both when awake, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And besides, she is young woman and not long married. There may be other things to think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has written all, so she must discuss it with us. But tomorrow she says good-bye to this work, and we go alone.”

I agreed with him with all my heart. Then I told him what we had found while he was away. The house which Dracula had bought was the very next one to my own. He was amazed, and he seemed to become very worried.

“Oh, if only we had known it before!” he said. “Then we might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy. However, ‘the milk that is spilt cries not out afterwards,’ as you say. We shall not think of that, but go on our way to the end.”

Then he was silent until we came in through my own gate. Before we went to get ready for dinner, he said to Mrs. Harker:

“I am told by my friend John, Madam Mina, that you and your husband have put in exact order all things that have happened, up to this moment.”

“Not up to this moment, Professor,” she said quickly, “but up to this morning.”

“But why not up to now? We have seen so far how much light all the little things have given. We have told our secrets, and yet no one who has told is the worse for it.”

Mrs. Harker began to blush. She took a paper from her pocket and said:

“Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go in? It is my record of today. I too have seen that we need to write down everything now, however small. But there is little in this except what is personal. Must it go in?”

The Professor read it over seriously and handed it back. He said:

“It need not go in if you do not wish it. But I pray that it may. It can only make your husband love you the more. And all of us, your friends, will honour you more—and value you and love you more as well.”

She took it back with another blush and a bright smile.

And so now, up to this very hour, all our records are complete and in order. The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner, before our meeting. The meeting is fixed for nine o’clock. The rest of us have already read everything. So when we meet in the study, we shall all know the facts. Then we can plan our battle against this terrible and mysterious enemy.

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*30 September.*—We met in Dr. Seward’s study two hours after dinner, which had been at six o’clock. Without meaning to, we formed a sort of board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table. Dr. Seward showed him to it as he came into the room. He made me sit next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary. Jonathan sat next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris. Lord Godalming was next to the Professor, and Dr. Seward was in the centre. The Professor said:

“I may, I suppose, take it that we all know the facts that are in these papers.”

We all said yes, and he went on:

“Then I think it is good that I tell you something of the kind of enemy we have to deal with. Then I shall tell you something of the history of this man, which has been found out for me. So then we can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measures to match.

“There are such beings as vampires. Some of us have evidence that they exist. Even without the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane people. I admit that at first I was a sceptic. For long years I have trained myself to keep an open mind. If not, I could not have believed until the fact thundered in my ear: ‘See! see! I prove; I prove.’ Alas! If I had known at first what I now know—no, if I had even guessed at him—one so precious life would have been spared to many of us who loved her. But that is gone. And we must work so that other poor souls do not die, while we can save them. The *nosferatu* do not die like the bee when he stings once. He only becomes stronger. And being stronger, he has yet more power to do evil. This vampire who is among us is as strong in body as twenty men. His cunning is more than human, because it has grown over the ages. He still has the help of necromancy. As the word itself shows, this is telling the future through the dead. And all the dead that he can come near are his to command. He is a brute, and more than a brute. He is a devil without feeling, and he has no heart. Within limits, he can appear when he wants, and where he wants, in any of the forms that belong to him. Within his range, he can direct the elements: the storm, the fog, the thunder. He can command all the lower creatures: the rat, and the owl, and the bat—the moth, and the fox, and the wolf. He can grow big and become small. And at times he can vanish and come unknown. How then are we to begin our attack to destroy him? How shall we find where he is? And when we have found it, how can we destroy him? My friends, this is much. It is a terrible task that we take on. There may be results to make the brave shudder. For if we fail in this fight, he must surely win. And then where do we end? Life is nothing; I do not care about it. But to fail here is not just life or death. It is that we become like him. From then on we become foul things of the night like him. We would be without heart or conscience, hunting the bodies and the souls of those we love best. For us the gates of heaven would be shut for ever. For who shall open them to us again? We would go on for all time, hated by all. We would be a stain on the face of God’s sunshine, an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face to face with duty. And in such a case, must we draw back? For me, I say no. But then I am old. Life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his song of birds, his music and his love, lies far behind me. You others are young. Some of you have seen sorrow, but there are fair days still waiting for you. What do you say?”

While he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand. When I saw his hand stretch out, I was so very afraid. I feared that our terrible danger was too much for him. But it was life to me to feel its touch—so strong, so sure of itself, so determined. A brave man’s hand can speak for itself. It does not even need a woman’s love to hear its music.

When the Professor had finished speaking, my husband looked into my eyes, and I looked into his. There was no need for words between us.

“I answer for Mina and myself,” he said.

“Count me in, Professor,” said Mr. Quincey Morris, in few words as usual.

“I am with you,” said Lord Godalming, “for Lucy’s sake, if for no other reason.”

Dr. Seward simply nodded. The Professor stood up and laid his golden crucifix on the table. Then he held out his hands on either side. I took his right hand, and Lord Godalming took his left. Jonathan held my right hand with his left, and reached across to Mr. Morris. So, as we all took hands, our solemn promise was made. My heart felt icy cold, but I did not even think of drawing back. We sat down in our places again. Dr. Van Helsing went on with a sort of cheerfulness. It showed that the serious work had begun. It was to be taken as seriously, and in as businesslike a way, as any other business of life:

“Well, you know what we have to fight against. But we, too, are not without strength. On our side we have the power of working together. The vampire kind does not have this power. We have the help of science. We are free to act and think. And the hours of the day and the night are ours equally. In fact, as far as our powers go, they are not chained, and we are free to use them. We give ourselves to a cause, and our aim is not a selfish one. These things are much.

“Now let us see how far the powers against us are limited, and what this one cannot do. In short, let us consider the limits of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular.

“All we can go on are traditions and superstitions. At first these do not seem much, when the matter is one of life and death—no, of more than either life or death. Yet we must be satisfied with them. First, because we have to be. We have no other means. And second, because after all these things—tradition and superstition—are everything. Does not the belief in vampires rest on them for other people—though not, alas! for us? A year ago, which of us would have accepted such a possibility? We live in the middle of our scientific, doubting, practical nineteenth century. We even laughed at a belief that we saw proved true under our very eyes. So let us accept this: the vampire, and the belief in his limits and his cure, rest for the moment on the same base. For, let me tell you, he is known everywhere that men have been. In old Greece, in old Rome. He flourishes all over Germany, in France, in India, even in the Chernosese. And in China, so far from us in every way, even there he is, and the people fear him to this day. He has followed the path of the berserker Icelander, the devil-begotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon, the Magyar. So far, then, we have all we can act on. And let me tell you, very many of the beliefs are proved true by what we have seen in our own so unhappy experience. The vampire lives on, and cannot die just because time passes. He can flourish when he can grow fat on the blood of the living. Even more, we have seen among us that he can even grow younger. His life powers grow strong, and seem to refresh themselves when his special food is plentiful. But he cannot flourish without this diet. He does not eat as others do. Even friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, never saw him eat, never! He throws no shadow. He makes no reflection in the mirror, as Jonathan again observed. He has the strength of many in his hand. Again Jonathan is witness, when he shut the door against the wolves. And when he helped him from the diligence too. He can change himself into a wolf. We understand this from the ship’s arrival in Whitby, when he tore open the dog. He can be a bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby. And friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy. He can come in a mist which he creates. That noble ship’s captain proved this. But from what we know, the distance of this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. He comes on moonlight rays as elemental dust. Again Jonathan saw those sisters like this in the castle of Dracula. He becomes so small. We ourselves saw Miss Lucy, before she was at peace, slip through a space as thin as a hair at the tomb door. Once he finds his way, he can come out of anything or go into anything. It does not matter how tightly it is closed, or even if it is joined with fire—solder, you call it. He can see in the dark. This is no small power, in a world which is half shut off from the light. Ah, but hear me to the end. He can do all these things, yet he is not free. No; he is even more of a prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he likes. He is not of nature, but he still has to obey some of nature’s laws—why, we do not know. He may not enter anywhere at first, unless someone of the household asks him to come. But afterwards he can come as he pleases. His power stops, like that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain times can he have limited freedom. If he is not at the place where he is going, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset. These things we are told, and in this record of ours we have proof by reasoning. So he can do as he wants within his limits when he has his earth-home, his coffin-home, his hell-home, the unholy place. We saw this when he went to the grave of the suicide at Whitby. But at other times he can only change when the time comes. It is said, too, that he can only cross running water at the slack or the flood of the tide. Then there are things which trouble him so much that he has no power, like the garlic that we know about. And there are sacred things, like this symbol, my crucifix. It was among us just now when we made our promise. To them he is nothing, but when they are near, he stays far off and silent with respect. There are others, too, which I shall tell you of, in case we need them in our search. A branch of wild rose on his coffin keeps him from moving out of it. A sacred bullet fired into the coffin kills him, so that he is truly dead. And as for the stake through him, we already know of its peace; or the cut-off head that gives rest. We have seen it with our eyes.

“So when we find the home of this man-that-was, we can keep him shut in his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to make his record. From all the sources there are, he tells me what he has been. He must indeed have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk. He fought over the great river, on the very border of Turkey-land. If so, he was no common man, for in that time, and for centuries after, people spoke of him as the cleverest and the most cunning. He was also the bravest of the sons of the ‘land beyond the forest.’ That mighty brain and that iron will went with him to his grave. And even now they are set against us. The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble family. But now and then there were members of it who had dealings with the Evil One. People of their own time believed this. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, in the mountains above Lake Hermanstadt. There the devil claims every tenth student as his own. In the records there are such words as ‘stregoica’—witch, ‘ordog’ and ‘pokol’—Satan and hell. And in one manuscript this very Dracula is called ‘wampyr,’ which we all understand too well. From this very man there have come great men and good women. Their graves make holy the earth where alone this foul thing can live. For this is one of its worst terrors: this evil thing has its roots deep in all that is good. In earth without holy memories it cannot rest.”

While they were talking, Mr. Morris was looking steadily at the window. Now he got up quietly and went out of the room. There was a little pause, and then the Professor went on:

“And now we must decide what we do. We have much information here, and we must plan our campaign. We know from Jonathan’s inquiry that fifty boxes of earth came from the castle to Whitby. All of them were delivered at Carfax. We also know that at least some of these boxes have been taken away. It seems to me that our first step should be to find out something. Are all the rest still in the house beyond that wall, which we look at today? Or have any more been taken away? If so, we must trace——”

Here we were interrupted in a very startling way. Outside the house there was the sound of a pistol-shot. A bullet broke the glass of the window. It bounced off the top of the window opening and struck the far wall of the room. I am afraid I am a coward at heart, because I screamed. The men all jumped to their feet. Lord Godalming rushed over to the window and pushed up the lower half. As he did so, we heard Mr. Morris’s voice outside:

“Sorry! I fear I have alarmed you. I shall come in and tell you about it.”

A minute later he came in and said:

“It was a stupid thing of me to do, and I ask your pardon, Mrs. Harker, most sincerely. I fear I must have frightened you terribly. But the fact is that a big bat came and sat on the window-sill while the Professor was talking. After recent events I have such a horror of the damned brutes that I cannot stand them. So I went out to have a shot. I have been doing this lately in the evenings, whenever I have seen one. You used to laugh at me for it then, Art.”

“Did you hit it?” asked Dr. Van Helsing.

“I don’t know. I think not, because it flew away into the wood.”

Without saying any more, he sat down. The Professor began his statement again:

“We must trace each of these boxes. And when we are ready, we must either catch or kill this monster in his lair. Or we must, so to speak, sterilise the earth, so that he can no longer find safety in it. So in the end we may find him in his form of man between the hours of noon and sunset. Then we can fight him when he is at his weakest.

“And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all is well. You are too precious to us to run such a risk. When we part tonight, you must ask no more questions. We shall tell you all in good time. We are men and are able to bear it. But you must be our star and our hope. And we shall act all the more freely because you are not in danger, as we are.”

All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved. But it did not seem good to me. They would face danger, and perhaps make themselves less safe, by taking care of me. And strength is the best safety. But their minds were made up. It was a bitter pill for me to swallow, but I could say nothing. I could only accept their noble care of me.

Mr. Morris started the discussion again:

“As there is no time to lose, I vote we have a look at his house right now. Time is everything with him. And quick action on our part may save another victim.”

I admit that my heart began to fail me when the time for action came so close. But I did not say anything, because I had a greater fear. If I seemed to be a burden or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave me out of their meetings altogether. They have now gone off to Carfax, with the means to get into the house.

In the way of men, they had told me to go to bed and sleep—as if a woman can sleep when those she loves are in danger! I shall lie down and pretend to sleep. Then Jonathan will not have more worry about me when he comes back.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*1 October, 4 a. m.*—We were just about to leave the house when an urgent message was brought to me from Renfield. He wanted to know if I would see him at once. He had something of the greatest importance to say to me. I told the messenger to say that I would deal with his wishes in the morning. I was busy just then. The attendant added:

“He seems very insistent, sir. I have never seen him so eager. If you don’t see him soon, I think he may have one of his violent fits.”

I knew the man would not say this without some reason. So I said: “All right; I’ll go now.” I asked the others to wait a few minutes for me, as I had to go and see my “patient.”

“Take me with you, friend John,” said the Professor. “His case in your diary interest me much. And now and again it had to do, too, with *our* case. I should much like to see him, and especial when his mind is disturbed.”

“May I come also?” asked Lord Godalming.

“Me too?” said Quincey Morris.

“May I come?” said Harker.

I nodded, and we all went down the passage together.

We found him very excited. But he was far more reasonable in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him. He understood himself in an unusual way. I had never met anything like it in a lunatic. And he took it for granted that his reasons would win over people who were completely sane. We all four went into the room, but at first none of the others said anything. He asked me to free him from the asylum at once and send him home. He supported this with arguments about his complete recovery. He pointed to his own present sanity.

“I appeal to your friends,” he said. “Perhaps they will not mind judging my case. By the way, you have not introduced me.”

I was so surprised that I did not notice at that moment how strange it was to introduce a madman in an asylum. Besides, there was a certain dignity in the man’s manner. He was so used to being treated as an equal. So I made the introduction at once: “Lord Godalming; Professor Van Helsing; Mr. Quincey Morris, of Texas; Mr. Renfield.” He shook hands with each of them, saying in turn:

“Lord Godalming, I had the honour of seconding your father at the Windham. I am sorry to learn that he is no more, because you now hold the title. He was a man loved and honoured by all who knew him. And in his youth, I have heard, he invented a punch of burnt rum. It was very popular on Derby night. Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great state. When it was received into the Union, it set an example. This may have great effects in the future, when the Pole and the Tropics may join with the Stars and Stripes. The power of treaties may yet prove a great engine for growth. That will happen when the Monroe doctrine takes its true place as a political fairy tale. What shall any man say of his pleasure at meeting Van Helsing? Sir, I do not apologise for leaving out all the usual titles. This man has completely changed medical treatment by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brain-matter. So the usual titles do not fit him. They would seem to make him just one of a group. Gentlemen, by your nationality, your family or your natural gifts, you are fit to hold your places in the moving world. I ask you to be my witnesses. I am at least as sane as most men who have their full freedom. And you, Dr. Seward, are a humanitarian and a medico-jurist as well as a scientist. I am sure that you will think it a moral duty to treat me as a case with exceptional circumstances.”

He made this last appeal with a polite, old-fashioned air of certainty, which had its own charm.

I think we were all amazed. For my own part, I knew the man’s character and history. And yet I was sure that his reason had come back. I felt a strong wish to tell him that I was satisfied about his sanity. I wanted to say that I would arrange the formal steps for his release in the morning. But I thought it was better to wait before saying something so serious. I knew from long ago how suddenly this particular patient could change. So I only made a general statement. I said that he seemed to be getting better very quickly. I said that I would have a longer talk with him in the morning. Then I would see what I could do to meet his wishes. This did not satisfy him at all, because he said quickly:

“But I fear, Dr. Seward, that you hardly understand my wish. I want to go at once—here—now—this very hour—this very moment, if I may. Time presses. In our unspoken agreement with the old scytheman, time is the most important part of the contract. Dr. Seward is such an admirable doctor. I am sure I only need to put before him so simple, yet so important a wish. Then it will surely be granted.”

He looked at me sharply. He saw the “no” in my face, so he turned to the others and studied them closely. He did not find enough of a response, so he went on:

“Is it possible that I have made a mistake in my belief?”

“You have,” I said honestly. But at the same time I felt that I was being brutal.

There was a long pause, and then he said slowly:

“Then I suppose I must only change the ground of my request. Let me ask for this favour—gift, privilege, whatever you like. In such a case I am happy to beg, not for my own sake, but for the sake of others. I am not free to give you all my reasons. But I promise you that they are good ones, sound and unselfish. They come from the highest sense of duty. If you could look into my heart, sir, you would fully approve of the feelings which move me. No, more: you would count me among the best and truest of your friends.”

Again he looked at us all sharply. I was more and more sure that this sudden change in his whole way of thinking was only another form or phase of his madness. So I decided to let him go on a little longer. I knew from experience that, like all lunatics, he would give himself away in the end. Van Helsing was looking at him very hard. His bushy eyebrows almost met because of his fixed concentration. He spoke to Renfield in a tone which did not surprise me at the time. It surprised me only when I thought about it afterwards, because he spoke as if to an equal:

“Can you not tell us honestly your real reason for wanting to be free tonight? I promise you this. You must satisfy even me—a stranger, without prejudice, and in the habit of keeping an open mind. If you do, Dr. Seward will give you the privilege you ask. He will do it at his own risk and on his own responsibility.”

Renfield shook his head sadly, with a look of deep regret on his face. The Professor went on:

“Come, sir, think again. You claim the right of reason to the highest degree, because you want to show us that you are completely reasonable. But we have reason to doubt your sanity. You are not yet released from medical treatment for this very problem. If you will not help us in our effort to choose the wisest course, how can we do the duty which you yourself put on us? Be wise, and help us. And if we can, we shall help you to get your wish.”

He still shook his head as he said:

“Dr. Van Helsing, I have nothing to say. Your argument is complete. If I were free to speak, I would not hesitate for a moment. But I am not my own master in this matter. I can only ask you to trust me. If I am refused, the responsibility is not mine.”

I thought it was now time to end the scene. It was becoming too comically serious. So I went towards the door, simply saying:

“Come, my friends, we have work to do. Good-night.”

However, as I got near the door, a new change came over the patient. He moved towards me so quickly that for a moment I was afraid. I feared that he was going to make another attack to kill me. But my fears had no ground. He held up his two hands, begging, and made his request in a moving way. He saw that his very strong emotion was working against him, because it brought us back to our old relations with him. So he showed his feelings even more. I looked at Van Helsing and saw my own belief in his eyes. So I became a little firmer in my manner, if not sterner. I made a sign to him that his efforts were useless. I had seen something of this same growing excitement in him before. It came when he had to ask for something that he had thought about a lot. For example, it was like this when he wanted a cat. I expected to see him fall into the same sullen acceptance this time. But this did not happen. When he found that his appeal would not succeed, he became quite frantic. He threw himself on his knees and held up his hands. He twisted them together as he begged pitifully. A flood of pleading poured out of him. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and his whole face and body showed the deepest emotion:

“Let me beg you, Dr. Seward, oh, let me beg you, to let me out of this house at once. Send me away how you like and where you like. Send keepers with me with whips and chains. Let them take me in a strait-waistcoat, with chains on my hands and legs, even to a prison. But let me go out of this. You don’t know what you do by keeping me here. I am speaking from the depths of my heart—of my very soul. You don’t know whom you are wronging, or how. And I may not tell. Woe is me! I may not tell. By all you hold sacred—by all you hold dear—by your love that is lost—by your hope that lives—for the sake of the Almighty, take me out of this and save my soul from guilt! Can’t you hear me, man? Can’t you understand? Will you never learn? Don’t you know that I am sane and serious now? That I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting for his soul? Oh, hear me! hear me! Let me go! let me go! let me go!”

I thought that the longer this went on, the wilder he would get. Then it would bring on a fit. So I took him by the hand and raised him up.

“Come,” I said sternly, “no more of this. We have had quite enough already. Get to your bed and try to behave more sensibly.”

He suddenly stopped and looked at me hard for several moments. Then, without a word, he got up, moved across and sat down on the side of the bed. The collapse had come, as before, just as I had expected.

I was the last of our group to leave the room. As I was leaving, he said to me in a quiet, well-bred voice:

“I hope, Dr. Seward, that you will be fair to me, and remember later on that I did what I could to convince you tonight.”

### Glossary

- **lunatic**: an old word for a person who is mentally ill.
- **asylum**: a hospital for people who are mentally ill.
- **non causa* and *ignoratio elenchi**: Latin names for two kinds of mistakes in reasoning.
- **quack medicine**: a false medicine sold by someone who is not a real doctor.
- **sceptic**: a person who does not easily believe things.
- **nosferatu**: another word for a vampire.
- **necromancy**: magic that uses the dead, for example to learn the future.
- **diligence**: a big public coach pulled by horses.
- **solder**: to join metal pieces together with hot, melted metal.
- **galley**: an old ship that slaves had to row.
- **crucifix**: a small cross with the figure of Christ on it.
- **Voivode**: a ruler and war leader.
- **manuscript**: an old book or paper written by hand.
- **lair**: the hiding place of a wild animal or a monster.
- **sterilise** (the earth)**: here, to make it holy so the vampire cannot use it.
- **seconding**: formally supporting someone who wants to join a club.
- **medico-jurist**: a person who knows about both medicine and the law.
- **the old scytheman**: Death, shown in pictures as an old man with a long, curved blade.
- **strait-waistcoat**: a jacket that holds a violent person’s arms tight.
- **frantic**: wild with fear or strong feeling.

## Chapter XIX: Jonathan Harker’s Journal

*1 October, 5 a. m.*—I went with the others on the search with an easy mind. I think I never saw Mina so completely strong and well. I am so glad that she agreed to stay back and let us men do the work. Somehow, it frightened me that she was part of this terrible business at all. But now her work is done. It is thanks to her energy, her brains and her foresight that the whole story is put together so that every point counts. So she may well feel that her part is finished. From now on she can leave the rest to us. We were, I think, all a little upset by the scene with Mr. Renfield. When we came away from his room, we were silent until we got back to the study. Then Mr. Morris said to Dr. Seward:

“Say, Jack, if that man wasn’t trying a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw. I’m not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose. And if he had, it was pretty rough on him not to get a chance.”

Lord Godalming and I were silent, but Dr. Van Helsing added:

“Friend John, you know more of lunatics than I do, and I am glad of it. I fear that if I had to decide, I would have set him free before that last hysterical outburst. But we live and learn. And in our present task we must take no chance, as my friend Quincey would say. All is best as they are.”

Dr. Seward seemed to answer them both in a dreamy kind of way:

“I don’t know, but I think I agree with you. If that man had been an ordinary lunatic, I would have taken the chance of trusting him. But he seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way. I am afraid of doing something wrong by helping his strange wishes. I can’t forget how he prayed almost as passionately for a cat. And then he tried to tear my throat out with his teeth. Besides, he called the Count ‘lord and master.’ He may want to get out to help him in some devilish way. That horrid thing has the wolves and the rats and his own kind to help him. So I suppose he would not be too proud to try to use a respectable lunatic. He certainly did seem serious, though. I only hope we have done what is best. These things, together with the wild work we have in hand, make a man lose his nerve.”

The Professor stepped over and laid his hand on his shoulder. He said in his serious, kind way:

“Friend John, have no fear. We are trying to do our duty in a very sad and terrible case. We can only do what we think best. What else have we to hope for, except the pity of the good God?”

Lord Godalming had slipped away for a few minutes, but now he came back. He held up a little silver whistle and said:

“That old place may be full of rats, and if so, I’ve got an antidote on call.”

We got over the wall and went towards the house. We took care to keep in the shadows of the trees on the lawn when the moonlight shone out. When we got to the porch, the Professor opened his bag and took out a lot of things. He laid them on the step and sorted them into four little groups, clearly one for each. Then he spoke:

“My friends, we are going into a terrible danger, and we need arms of many kinds. Our enemy is not only a spirit. Remember that he has the strength of twenty men. Our necks and our windpipes are of the common kind, so they can be broken or crushed. But his cannot be hurt by mere strength. A stronger man, or a group of men who are stronger than him in everything, can at certain times hold him. But they cannot hurt him as we can be hurt by him. So we must guard ourselves from his touch. Keep this near your heart.” As he spoke, he lifted a little silver crucifix and held it out to me, because I was nearest to him. “Put these flowers round your neck.” Here he handed me a wreath of withered garlic flowers. “For other, more earthly enemies, this revolver and this knife. And to help in everything, these so small electric lamps, which you can fasten to your chest. And for all, and above all at the last, this, which we must not desecrate without need.”

This was a piece of the Sacred Wafer, which he put in an envelope and handed to me. Each of the others got the same things.

“Now,” he said, “friend John, where are the skeleton keys? If we can open the door, we need not break into the house by the window, as before at Miss Lucy’s.”

Dr. Seward tried one or two skeleton keys. As a surgeon, he was clever with his hands, and this helped him well. Soon he found one that fitted. He moved it a little back and forward, and the bolt gave way. It shot back with a rusty clang. We pushed on the door. The rusty hinges creaked, and it slowly opened. It was surprisingly like the picture in Dr. Seward’s diary of the opening of Miss Westenra’s tomb. I think the same idea seemed to strike the others, because all together they drew back. The Professor was the first to move forward, and he stepped into the open door.

“*In manus tuas, Domine!*” he said, crossing himself as he passed over the threshold.

We closed the door behind us. We did not want our lamps to attract attention from the road when we had lit them. The Professor carefully tried the lock. He wanted to be sure that we could open it from inside if we had to leave in a hurry. Then we all lit our lamps and started our search.

The light from the tiny lamps fell in all sorts of strange shapes, as the rays crossed each other, or as our bodies threw great shadows. I could not get away from the feeling that someone else was among us. I suppose it was the memory of that terrible experience in Transylvania. The grim surroundings brought it back to me so strongly. I think we all had the same feeling. I noticed that the others kept looking over their shoulders at every sound and every new shadow. I felt myself doing just the same.

The whole place was thick with dust. The floor seemed to be inches deep in it, except where there were recent footsteps. When I held my lamp down, I could see the marks of hobnails in them, where the dust was cracked. The walls were fluffy and heavy with dust. In the corners there were masses of spiders’ webs. The dust had gathered on them until they looked like old torn rags, because the weight had pulled them partly down. On a table in the hall was a great bunch of keys, with a label on each, yellow with age. They had been used several times. On the table there were several similar gaps in the blanket of dust. They were like the gap that showed when the Professor lifted the keys. He turned to me and said:

“You know this place, Jonathan. You have copied maps of it, and you know it at least better than we do. Which is the way to the chapel?”

I had an idea of where it was, although on my earlier visit I had not been able to get into it. So I led the way. After a few wrong turnings I found myself opposite a low, arched oak door with iron bands across it.

“This is the spot,” said the Professor. He turned his lamp on a small map of the house. It was copied from the file of my letters about the purchase. With a little trouble we found the key on the bunch and opened the door. We were ready for something unpleasant. As we were opening the door, a faint, bad-smelling air seemed to breathe out through the gaps. But none of us ever expected such a smell as we met. None of the others had met the Count close up at all. When I had seen him, he was either in his rooms, at the stage when he was going without food, or full of fresh blood, in a ruined building open to the air. But here the place was small and closed. It had not been used for so long that the air was stale and foul. There was an earthy smell, like some dry, poisonous vapour, which came through the fouler air. But how shall I describe the smell itself? It was not only made of all the sicknesses of death, with the sharp, bitter smell of blood. It seemed as though rot itself had gone rotten. Ugh! It makes me sick to think of it. Every breath that monster breathed out seemed to have clung to the place and made it even more disgusting.

In ordinary circumstances such a stink would have ended our plan. But this was no ordinary case. We were part of a high and terrible purpose. It gave us a strength which rose above mere bodily feelings. At the first sickening breath we drew back without meaning to. After that, every one of us started our work as though that disgusting place were a garden of roses.

We examined the place carefully. As we began, the Professor said:

“The first thing is to see how many of the boxes are left. Then we must examine every hole and corner and crack. We must see if we can find some clue to what has happened to the rest.”

One look was enough to show how many were left, because the great earth chests were big. There was no mistaking them.

There were only twenty-nine left out of the fifty! Once I got a fright. I saw Lord Godalming suddenly turn and look out of the arched door into the dark passage beyond. I looked too, and for a moment my heart stood still. Somewhere, looking out from the shadow, I seemed to see the bright points of the Count’s evil face: the ridge of the nose, the red eyes, the red lips, the awful paleness. It was only for a moment. Lord Godalming said, “I thought I saw a face, but it was only the shadows,” and went back to his search. I turned my lamp in that direction and stepped into the passage. There was no sign of anyone. There were no corners, no doors, no openings of any kind, only the solid walls of the passage. So there could be no hiding-place, even for *him*. I decided that fear had helped my imagination, and I said nothing.

A few minutes later I saw Morris suddenly step back from a corner that he was examining. We all followed his movements with our eyes, because we were without doubt growing nervous. We saw a whole mass of glowing points of light, which twinkled like stars. We all drew back without thinking. The whole place was becoming alive with rats.

For a moment or two we stood there in horror. Only Lord Godalming seemed to be ready for such an emergency. He rushed over to the great oak door with iron bands. Dr. Seward had described it from the outside, and I had seen it myself. He turned the key in the lock, pulled back the huge bolts and swung the door open. Then he took his little silver whistle from his pocket and blew a low, shrill call. Dogs answered with yelps from behind Dr. Seward’s house. After about a minute, three terriers came dashing round the corner of the house. Without thinking, we had all moved towards the door. As we moved, I noticed that the dust had been much disturbed. The boxes which had been taken out had been carried this way. But even in that one minute the number of rats had greatly increased. They seemed to swarm over the place all at once. The lamplight shone on their moving dark bodies and their glittering, evil eyes. It made the place look like a bank of earth set with fireflies. The dogs dashed on, but at the doorway they suddenly stopped and snarled. Then, all at the same moment, they lifted their noses and began to howl most miserably. The rats were multiplying in thousands, and we moved out.

Lord Godalming lifted one of the dogs, carried him in and put him on the floor. The moment his feet touched the ground, he seemed to get his courage back. He rushed at his natural enemies. They ran from him so fast that he had hardly killed twenty of them before the whole mass had vanished. By now the other dogs had been lifted in too, in the same way. But they found very few rats to catch.

When the rats had gone, it seemed as if some evil presence had left. The dogs jumped about and barked happily. They made sudden dashes at their dead enemies. They turned them over and over and tossed them in the air with fierce shakes. We all seemed to feel our spirits rise. Perhaps the deadly air had been cleaned by the opening of the chapel door. Or perhaps it was the relief of finding ourselves in the open. I do not know. But the shadow of fear certainly seemed to slip off us like a robe. Our visit lost something of its grim meaning, though our determination did not weaken at all. We closed the outer door and barred and locked it. Then we took the dogs with us and began to search the house. We found nothing anywhere except an extraordinary amount of dust. All of it was untouched, except for my own footsteps from my first visit. The dogs never once showed any sign of uneasiness. Even when we went back to the chapel, they jumped about as though they were hunting rabbits in a summer wood.

The morning was growing light in the east when we came out at the front. Dr. Van Helsing had taken the key of the hall door from the bunch. He locked the door in the proper way, and put the key into his pocket when he had finished.

“So far,” he said, “our night has been very successful. No harm has come to us, such as I feared might come. And yet we have found out how many boxes are missing. More than all, I am glad of one thing. This first step—perhaps our most difficult and dangerous one—has been done without bringing in our most sweet Madam Mina. We have not troubled her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds and smells of horror. She might never forget them. We have learned one lesson too, if we may reason *a particulari*. The brute beasts which obey the Count’s command are still not under his spiritual power. For look! These rats would come to his call. In the same way, from his castle top he called the wolves when you wanted to leave, and at that poor mother’s cry. But though they come to him, they run in wild confusion from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur. We have other matters before us, other dangers, other fears. And that monster has not used his power over the animal world for the only time or the last time tonight. So be it that he has gone somewhere else. Good! It has given us a chance to cry ‘check’ in some ways in this chess game. We play it for the stake of human souls. And now let us go home. The dawn is close, and we have reason to be content with our first night’s work. Perhaps it is fated that many nights and days will follow, full of danger. But we must go on, and we shall draw back from no danger.”

The house was silent when we got back. There was only some poor creature screaming in one of the distant wards, and a low moaning sound from Renfield’s room. The poor man was no doubt torturing himself with useless thoughts of pain, as mad people do.

I came on tiptoe into our own room and found Mina asleep. She was breathing so softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it. She looks paler than usual. I hope the meeting tonight has not upset her. I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even out of our discussions. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. So I am glad that it is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear. And yet it might be worse to hide them from her than to tell her, if she once suspected that something was hidden. From now on our work is to be a sealed book to her. This will last at least until we can tell her that all is finished. Then the earth will be free from a monster of the underworld. I daresay it will be hard to begin to keep silent after we have trusted each other so fully. But I must be firm. Tomorrow I shall keep quiet about tonight’s doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened. I am resting on the sofa, so as not to disturb her.

*1 October, later.*—I suppose it was natural that we all overslept, because the day had been a busy one, and the night had no rest at all. Even Mina must have felt tired out. I slept till the sun was high, but I woke before her. I had to call two or three times before she woke up. In fact, she was so deeply asleep that for a few seconds she did not recognise me. She looked at me with a sort of blank terror, like someone who has been woken out of a bad dream. She complained a little of being tired, and I let her rest till later in the day. We now know that twenty-one boxes have been taken away. If several were taken in any one of these removals, we may be able to trace them all. Of course, this will make our work much simpler, and the sooner we deal with it, the better. I shall look up Thomas Snelling today.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*1 October.*—It was towards noon when the Professor woke me by walking into my room. He was more jolly and cheerful than usual. It is quite clear that last night’s work has helped to take some of the heavy worry off his mind. After going over the adventure of the night, he suddenly said:

“Your patient interests me much. May I visit him with you this morning? Or if you are too busy, I can go alone, if it may be. It is a new experience for me to find a lunatic who talk philosophy, and reason so sound.”

I had some urgent work to do. So I told him that I would be glad if he went alone, because then I would not have to keep him waiting. I called an attendant and gave him the necessary instructions. Before the Professor left the room, I warned him not to get a false impression from my patient.

“But,” he answered, “I want him to talk of himself and of his strange belief about eating live things. He said to Madam Mina, as I see in your diary of yesterday, that he had once had such a belief. Why do you smile, friend John?”

“Excuse me,” I said, “but the answer is here.” I laid my hand on the typed pages. “Our sane and learned lunatic made that very statement about how he *used* to eat life. But at that moment his mouth was actually still sickening with the flies and spiders. He had eaten them just before Mrs. Harker came into the room.”

Van Helsing smiled in turn. “Good!” he said. “Your memory is true, friend John. I should have remembered. And yet it is this very crookedness of thought and memory which makes mental illness such a fascinating study. Perhaps I may gain more knowledge from the folly of this madman than from the teaching of the most wise. Who knows?”

I went on with my work, and soon I had finished the job in hand. It seemed that only a very short time had passed, but there was Van Helsing back in the study.

“Do I interrupt?” he asked politely as he stood at the door.

“Not at all,” I answered. “Come in. My work is finished, and I am free. I can go with you now, if you like.”

“There is no need; I have seen him!”

“Well?”

“I fear that he does not think much of me. Our talk was short. When I went into his room, he was sitting on a stool in the centre, with his elbows on his knees. His face was the picture of sullen discontent. I spoke to him as cheerfully as I could, and with as much respect as I could show. He did not answer at all. ‘Don’t you know me?’ I asked. His answer was not comforting: ‘I know you well enough; you are the old fool Van Helsing. I wish you would take yourself and your idiotic brain theories somewhere else. Damn all thick-headed Dutchmen!’ He would not say a word more. He sat there in his hard, sullen mood. He took no more notice of me than if I had not been in the room at all. So for this time I lost my chance of learning much from this so clever lunatic. So I shall go, if I may, and cheer myself with a few happy words with that sweet soul Madam Mina. Friend John, it gives me more joy than I can say that she is no more to be pained. She is no more to be worried with our terrible things. We shall much miss her help, but it is better so.”

“I agree with you with all my heart,” I answered seriously. I did not want him to weaken in this matter. “Mrs. Harker is better out of it. Things are quite bad enough for us. We are all men of the world, and we have been in many tight places in our time. But it is no place for a woman. If she had stayed involved in the affair, it would surely have destroyed her in time.”

So Van Helsing has gone to talk with Mrs. Harker and Harker. Quincey and Art are both out, following up the clues about the earth-boxes. I shall finish my round of work, and we shall meet tonight.

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*1 October.*—It is strange for me to be kept in the dark as I am today. For so many years Jonathan has trusted me with everything. Now I see him clearly avoiding certain matters, and those the most important of all. This morning I slept late after the tiredness of yesterday. Jonathan was late too, but he woke earlier than I did. He spoke to me before he went out, more sweetly and tenderly than ever. But he never said a word about what had happened on the visit to the Count’s house. And yet he must have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it must have upset him even more than it did me. They all agreed that it was best for me not to be drawn further into this awful work, and I agreed. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I *know* it comes from my husband’s great love. It comes from the good, good wishes of those other strong men too.

That has done me good. Well, some day Jonathan will tell me everything. He should never think for a moment that I kept anything from him. So I still keep my journal as usual. Then, if he has ever doubted my trust, I shall show it to him. Every thought of my heart will be written down there for his dear eyes to read. I feel strangely sad and low today. I suppose it is the reaction after the terrible excitement.

Last night I went to bed when the men had gone, simply because they told me to. I didn’t feel sleepy, and I was full of terrible anxiety. I kept thinking over everything that has happened since Jonathan came to see me in London. It all seems like a horrible tragedy, with fate pushing on without mercy to some fixed end. Everything one does seems to bring on the very thing that is most to be regretted. It does not matter how right it may be. If I hadn’t gone to Whitby, perhaps poor dear Lucy would be with us now. She hadn’t started visiting the churchyard till I came. If she hadn’t come there in the daytime with me, she wouldn’t have walked there in her sleep. And if she hadn’t gone there at night and asleep, that monster couldn’t have destroyed her as he did. Oh, why did I ever go to Whitby? There now, crying again! I wonder what has come over me today. I must hide it from Jonathan. I have never cried on my own account, and he has never made me shed a tear. If he knew that I had cried twice in one morning, the dear fellow would worry his heart out. I shall put on a brave face. If I do feel like crying, he shall never see it. I suppose it is one of the lessons that we poor women have to learn....

I can’t quite remember how I fell asleep last night. I remember hearing the sudden barking of the dogs. I also heard a lot of strange sounds from Mr. Renfield’s room, which is somewhere below this one. They were like praying, but very wild and loud. And then there was silence over everything. The silence was so deep that it startled me, and I got up and looked out of the window. All was dark and silent. The black shadows thrown by the moonlight seemed full of a silent mystery of their own. Nothing seemed to be moving. Everything seemed grim and fixed, like death or fate. So a thin streak of white mist seemed to have a mind and a life of its own. It crept very, very slowly across the grass towards the house. I think this change in my thoughts must have done me good. When I got back to bed, I felt a heavy sleepiness creeping over me. I lay there a while, but could not quite sleep. So I got out and looked out of the window again. The mist was spreading. It was now close up to the house. I could see it lying thick against the wall, as though it were creeping up to the windows. The poor man was louder than ever. I could not make out a word he said. But in some way I could hear a passionate pleading in his voice. Then there was the sound of a struggle, and I knew that the attendants were dealing with him. I was so frightened that I crept into bed. I pulled the bedclothes over my head and put my fingers in my ears. I was not at all sleepy then, or so I thought. But I must have fallen asleep. I do not remember anything except dreams until the morning, when Jonathan woke me. I think it took me an effort and a little time to realise where I was. It took time to see that it was Jonathan who was bending over me. My dream was very strange. It was almost a typical example of the way waking thoughts become mixed into dreams, or continue in them.

I dreamed that I was asleep and waiting for Jonathan to come back. I was very anxious about him, and I had no power to act. My feet, my hands and my brain were weighed down, so nothing could go at its usual speed. And so I slept uneasily and thought. Then I slowly began to realise that the air was heavy, and damp, and cold. I put back the bedclothes from my face. To my surprise, everything around me was dim. I had left the gaslight on for Jonathan, but turned down. Now it looked only like a tiny red spark through the fog. The fog had clearly grown thicker and poured into the room. Then I remembered that I had shut the window before I came to bed. I would have got out to make sure of it. But a heavy tiredness, like lead, seemed to chain my arms and legs and even my will. I lay still and bore it; that was all. I closed my eyes, but I could still see through my eyelids. (It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play on us, and how easily we can imagine things.) The mist grew thicker and thicker. Now I could see how it came in. It was like smoke—or like the white energy of boiling water. It was pouring in, not through the window, but through the joins of the door. It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed to gather into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room. Through the top of it I could see the light of the gas shining like a red eye. Things began to whirl through my brain, just as the cloudy column was now whirling in the room. And through it all came the words from the Bible: “a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.” Was it really some spiritual guidance of that kind which was coming to me in my sleep? But the pillar was made of both the day guide and the night guide, because the fire was in the red eye. At this thought the red eye fascinated me even more. Then, as I looked, the fire divided. It seemed to shine on me through the fog like two red eyes. Lucy told me of eyes like these when her mind wandered for a moment on the cliff. The dying sunlight had struck the windows of St. Mary’s Church then. Suddenly the horror came over me. This was how Jonathan had seen those awful women growing real out of the whirling mist in the moonlight. In my dream I must have fainted, because everything became black darkness. The last thing my imagination showed me was a livid white face bending over me out of the mist. I must be careful of such dreams. They would drive one mad if there were too many of them. I would ask Dr. Van Helsing or Dr. Seward to give me something to make me sleep. But I am afraid of alarming them. At the present time such a dream would become part of their fears for me. Tonight I shall try hard to sleep naturally. If I do not, tomorrow night I shall get them to give me a dose of chloral. That cannot hurt me for once, and it will give me a good night’s sleep. Last night tired me more than if I had not slept at all.

*2 October 10 p. m.*—Last night I slept, but did not dream. I must have slept deeply, because I did not wake when Jonathan came to bed. But the sleep has not refreshed me. Today I feel terribly weak and without spirit. I spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down and dozing. In the afternoon Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me. Poor man, he was very gentle. When I came away, he kissed my hand and asked God to bless me. Somehow it affected me very much. I am crying when I think of him. This is a new weakness, and I must be careful of it. Jonathan would be miserable if he knew I had been crying. He and the others were out till dinner-time, and they all came in tired. I did what I could to cheer them up. I suppose the effort did me good, because I forgot how tired I was. After dinner they sent me to bed. They all went off to smoke together, as they said. But I knew that they wanted to tell each other what had happened to each of them during the day. I could see from Jonathan’s manner that he had something important to tell. I was not as sleepy as I should have been. So before they went, I asked Dr. Seward to give me a little opiate of some kind, because I had not slept well the night before. He very kindly made me up a sleeping draught and gave it to me. He told me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild.... I have taken it, and I am waiting for sleep, which still stays away. I hope I have not done wrong. As sleep begins to play with me, a new fear comes. Perhaps I have been foolish to take away my own power of waking. I might need it. Here comes sleep. Good-night.

### Glossary

- **bluff**: a trick to make people believe something that is not true.
- **indexy**: (Dr. Seward’s own word) working like a sign that points to something else.
- **antidote**: a cure against poison; here, something that works against rats.
- **desecrate**: to treat a holy thing without respect.
- **skeleton key**: a key that can open many different locks.
- **hobnails**: short nails with big heads on the bottom of heavy boots.
- **a particulari**: Latin: reasoning from one single case.
- **terrier**: a small, brave dog, good at catching rats.
- **a sealed book**: something that is kept secret from someone.
- **livid**: very pale, with a grey or blue colour, like a dead body.
- **chloral / opiate**: drugs that make people sleep.
- **sleeping draught**: a drink with medicine that helps you sleep.

## Chapter XX: Jonathan Harker’s Journal

*1 October, evening.*—I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal Green. But unfortunately he was not in a state to remember anything. He had expected my visit, and he had expected beer with it. This had been too much for him, and he had started his drinking too early. However, I learned something from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor soul. She told me that he was only the assistant to Smollet. Of the two workmates, Smollet was the responsible one. So I drove off to Walworth. There I found Mr. Joseph Smollet at home, in his shirtsleeves. He was having a late tea, and he was drinking it out of a saucer. He is a decent, intelligent fellow. He is clearly a good, reliable kind of workman, with a good head of his own. He remembered everything about the boxes. He took out a wonderful notebook with dog-eared pages. It came from some mysterious place near the seat of his trousers. It was full of strange notes in thick pencil, half rubbed out. From this book he gave me the places where the boxes had gone. He said that he took one cartload of six boxes from Carfax. He left them at 197, Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town. He left another six at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey. If the Count meant to spread these terrible hiding places of his all over London, then these were his first choices. He chose these places for the first deliveries, so that later he could spread the boxes more widely. He had done all this in a careful, orderly way. This made me think that he could not mean to stay on only two sides of London. So far he had places in the far east on the north bank of the river. He also had places in the east on the south bank, and in the south. Surely he never meant to leave the north and west out of his evil plan. And surely he would not leave out the City itself. Nor would he leave out the very heart of fashionable London, in the south-west and west. I went back to Smollet. I asked him if he could tell us whether any other boxes had been taken from Carfax.

He replied:

“Well, guv’nor, you’ve treated me very ’andsome”—I had given him half a sovereign—“an’ I’ll tell you all I know. Four nights ago I heard a man called Bloxam talkin’ in the ’Are an’ ’Ounds, in Pincher’s Alley. He said that him an’ his mate ’ad ’ad a rare dusty job in a old ’ouse at Purfect. There ain’t many jobs like this one. An’ I’m thinkin’ that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell you somethin’.” I asked if he could tell me where to find him. I told him that the address would be worth another half-sovereign to him. So he quickly drank the rest of his tea and stood up. He said that he was going to start the search right away. At the door he stopped and said:

“Look ’ere, guv’nor, there’s no sense in me keepin’ you ’ere. I may find Sam soon, or I mayn’t. But anyhow he ain’t likely to be in a state to tell you much tonight. Sam is a rare one when he starts on the drink. Give me a envelope with a stamp on it, an’ put your address on it. Then I’ll find out where Sam is to be found, an’ I’ll post it to you tonight. But you’d better go after ’im early in the mornin’, or maybe you won’t catch ’im. Sam always starts work very early, never mind the drink the night before.”

This was all practical. So one of the children went off with a penny to buy an envelope and a sheet of paper. She could keep the change. When she came back, I wrote my address on the envelope and put a stamp on it. Smollet again faithfully promised to post the address when he found it. Then I went home. Anyway, we’re on the track. I am tired tonight, and I want sleep. Mina is fast asleep. She looks a little too pale, and her eyes look as though she has been crying. Poor dear, I am sure it worries her to be kept in the dark. It may also make her doubly anxious about me and the others. But it is best as it is. It is better for her to be disappointed and worried in this way now than to have her nerves broken. The doctors were quite right to insist that she should be kept out of this terrible business. I must be firm, because this particular burden of silence rests on me. I shall never talk about the subject with her, whatever happens. In fact, it may not be a hard task after all. She herself has become quiet about the subject. She has not spoken of the Count or of anything he has done since we told her of our decision.

*2 October, evening.*—A long, tiring and exciting day. The first post brought my addressed envelope. Inside was a dirty scrap of paper. On it someone had written with a carpenter’s pencil, in big, untidy letters:

“Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for the depite.”

I got the letter in bed, and I got up without waking Mina. She looked heavy, sleepy and pale, and far from well. I decided not to wake her. But I also decided something else. When I came back from this new search, I would arrange for her to go back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home, with her daily tasks to interest her. That would be better than staying here among us and knowing nothing. I saw Dr. Seward only for a moment. I told him where I was going. I promised to come back and tell the rest as soon as I found out anything. I drove to Walworth, and with some difficulty I found Potter’s Court. Mr. Smollet’s spelling misled me, because I asked for Poter’s Court instead of Potter’s Court. However, once I had found the court, it was easy to find Corcoran’s lodging-house. A man came to the door, and I asked him for the “depite.” He shook his head and said: “I dunno ’im. There ain’t no such person ’ere. I never ’eard of ’im in all my bloomin’ days. I don’t believe there’s nobody like that livin’ ’ere or anywhere.” I took out Smollet’s letter. As I read it, I thought that the lesson of the court’s name might guide me. “What are you?” I asked.

“I’m the depity,” he answered. At once I saw that I was on the right track. Spelling a word the way it sounds had misled me again. I gave him a half-crown tip, and then he told me everything he knew. Mr. Bloxam had slept off his beer at Corcoran’s the night before. He had left for his work at Poplar at five o’clock that morning. The deputy could not tell me where the place of work was. But he had a vague idea that it was some kind of “new-fangled ware’us.” With this small clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve o’clock before I got any useful hint about such a building. I got it at a coffee-shop, where some workmen were having their dinner. One of them said that a new “cold storage” building was going up in Cross Angel Street. This fitted the idea of a “new-fangled ware’us,” so I drove there at once. There I spoke to an unfriendly gatekeeper and an even more unfriendly foreman. Both of them became friendlier when I gave them some money. They put me on the track of Bloxam. I offered to pay his foreman a day’s wages for him. In return I wanted to ask him a few questions on a private matter. So someone was sent to fetch him. He was a clever enough fellow, though rough in his speech and manner. I promised to pay for his information and gave him some money in advance. Then he told me that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly. He had taken nine great boxes from Carfax to the Piccadilly house—“main heavy ones.” He had used a horse and cart which he hired for the job. I asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly. He replied:

“Well, guv’nor, I forgets the number. But it was only a few doors from a big white church or somethink like that, not long built. It was a dusty old ’ouse, too. But it was nothin’ to the dustiness of the ’ouse we took the bloomin’ boxes from.”

“How did you get into the houses if they were both empty?”

“The old party what hired me was waitin’ in the ’ouse at Purfleet. He ’elped me to lift the boxes an’ put them in the cart. Curse me, but he was the strongest chap I ever met. An’ him a old fellow, with a white moustache, so thin you would think he couldn’t throw a shadow.”

How these words sent a shiver through me!

“Why, ’e picked up ’is end of the boxes like they was pounds of tea. An’ me puffin’ an’ blowin’ before I could lift up my end at all—an’ I’m no chicken, neither.”

“How did you get into the house in Piccadilly?” I asked.

“He was there too. He must ’ave started off an’ got there before me. When I rang the bell, he came an’ opened the door ’imself. An’ he ’elped me to carry the boxes into the ’all.”

“The whole nine?” I asked.

“Yus. There was five in the first load an’ four in the second. It was main dry work, an’ I don’t remember too well ’ow I got ’ome.” I interrupted him:

“Were the boxes left in the hall?”

“Yus. It was a big ’all, an’ there was nothin’ else in it.” I tried once more to learn something:

“You didn’t have any key?”

“Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent opened the door ’imself, an’ he shut it again when I drove off. I don’t remember the last time—but that was the beer.”

“And you can’t remember the number of the house?”

“No, sir. But you won’t have no trouble about that. It’s a ’igh one with a stone front with a bow on it, an’ ’igh steps up to the door. I know them steps. I ’ad to carry the boxes up them with three loafers who came round to earn a copper. The old gent gave them shillin’s. They saw they got so much, so they wanted more. But ’e took one of them by the shoulder. He was about to throw ’im down the steps. Then the whole lot of them went away cursin’.”

I thought that with this description I could find the house. So I paid my friend for his information and started off for Piccadilly. I had learned something new and painful. Clearly the Count could handle the earth-boxes himself. If so, time was precious. He had now spread out a certain number of boxes. So he could choose his own time and finish the task without anyone seeing him. At Piccadilly Circus I paid off my cab and walked west. Beyond the Junior Constitutional I came to the house that Bloxam had described. I was sure that this was the next of the lairs that Dracula had prepared. The house looked as though no one had lived in it for a long time. The windows were covered with dust, and the shutters were closed. All the woodwork was black with age, and most of the paint had come off the iron. Until recently there had clearly been a large notice-board in front of the balcony. But it had been roughly torn away. Only the posts that had held it up were still there. Behind the rails of the balcony I saw some loose boards. Their raw edges looked white. I would have given a lot to see the notice-board whole. Perhaps it would have given some clue to the owner of the house. I remembered how I had looked into the history and purchase of Carfax. I felt that if I could find the former owner, we might discover some way of getting into the house.

There was nothing more to learn from the Piccadilly side at present, and nothing could be done. So I went round to the back to see if I could learn anything there. The mews were busy, because people lived in most of the Piccadilly houses. I asked one or two of the grooms and their helpers about the empty house. One of them said that he had heard it had been taken lately. But he couldn’t say who had taken it. However, he told me that until very recently there had been a “For Sale” notice-board on it. He thought he remembered the name of a firm on the board: Mitchell, Sons, & Candy, the house agents. Perhaps they could tell me something. I did not want to seem too eager. I did not want him to know or guess too much. So I thanked him in the usual way and walked slowly off. It was now getting dark, and the autumn night was closing in, so I did not lose any time. I found the address of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy in a directory at the Berkeley. Soon I was at their office in Sackville Street.

The gentleman who saw me was very smooth and polite in his manner. But he was just as unwilling to tell me anything. All through our talk he called the Piccadilly house a “mansion.” He told me once that it was sold, and after that he thought that my business was finished. I asked him who had bought it. He opened his eyes a little wider and paused a few seconds before he replied:

“It is sold, sir.”

“Excuse me,” I said, just as politely, “but I have a special reason for wanting to know who bought it.”

Again he paused, longer this time, and raised his eyebrows even more. “It is sold, sir,” was again his short reply.

“Surely,” I said, “you do not mind telling me that much.”

“But I do mind,” he answered. “The affairs of their clients are absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy.” Clearly he was a prig of the very worst kind, and there was no use arguing with him. I thought it best to meet him on his own ground, so I said:

“Your clients, sir, are lucky to have someone who guards their secrets so firmly. I am a professional man myself.” Here I handed him my card. “In this case I do not ask out of curiosity. I am acting for Lord Godalming. He wishes to know something about the property. He understood that it was for sale recently.” These words changed everything. He said:

“I would like to help you if I could, Mr. Harker. And I would especially like to help his lordship. We once did a small piece of business for him. We rented some rooms for him when he was the Honourable Arthur Holmwood. If you will give me his lordship’s address, I will ask the firm about the matter. In any case, I will write to his lordship by tonight’s post. It will be a pleasure if we can break our rules so far for his lordship. Then we can give him the information he wants.”

I wanted to make a friend, not an enemy. So I thanked him, gave him the address at Dr. Seward’s, and came away. It was now dark, and I was tired and hungry. I had a cup of tea at the Aërated Bread Company and came down to Purfleet by the next train.

I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale. But she made a brave effort to be bright and cheerful. It hurt my heart to think that I had had to keep things from her and so made her uneasy. Thank God, this will be the last night that she watches our meetings and feels the pain of our silence. It took all my courage to keep to our wise decision to keep her out of our grim task. She seems somehow to accept it better now. Or perhaps the subject itself has become hateful to her. When anyone mentions it by accident, she actually shudders. I am glad we made our decision in time. With such a feeling, our growing knowledge would be torture to her.

I could not tell the others about the day’s discovery until we were alone. After dinner we had a little music, to keep up appearances even among ourselves. Then I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed. The dear girl was more loving to me than ever. She held on to me as though she wanted to keep me there. But there was much to talk about, and I came away. Thank God, our not telling her things has made no difference between us.

When I came down again, I found the others all gathered round the fire in the study. In the train I had written my diary up to that point. I simply read it out to them, because this was the best way to give them all my news. When I had finished, Van Helsing said:

“This has been a great day’s work, friend Jonathan. Without doubt we are on the track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, then our work is near the end. But if there be some missing, we must search until we find them. Then shall we make our final *coup*, and hunt the wretch to his real death.” We all sat silent for a while. Then suddenly Mr. Morris spoke:

“Say! How are we going to get into that house?”

“We got into the other one,” answered Lord Godalming quickly.

“But, Art, this is different. We broke into the house at Carfax, but we had the night and a walled park to protect us. It will be a mighty different thing to commit burglary in Piccadilly, by day or by night. I confess I don’t see how we are going to get in. Unless that agency duck can find us a key of some sort. Perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in the morning.” Lord Godalming frowned. He stood up and walked about the room. After a while he stopped and said, turning from one of us to another:

“Quincey’s head is level. This burglary business is getting serious. We got away with it once. But now we have a hard job on our hands—unless we can find the Count’s basket of keys.”

Nothing much could be done before morning. Also, it would be wise to wait until Lord Godalming heard from Mitchell’s. So we decided not to take any action before breakfast time. For a good while we sat and smoked, and we talked about the matter from all sides. I used the time to bring this diary right up to the moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to bed....

Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly, and her breathing is regular. Her forehead is wrinkled into little lines, as though she is thinking even in her sleep. She is still too pale, but she does not look as worn out as she did this morning. Tomorrow will, I hope, put all this right. She will be herself again at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy!

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*1 October.*—I am puzzled again about Renfield. His moods change so quickly that I find it hard to keep up with them. They always mean something more than just his own well-being, so they are a very interesting study. This morning I went to see him, after he had sent Van Helsing away. His manner was that of a man who commands his own fate. In fact, he was commanding fate—in his own mind. He did not really care for any of the things of this earth. He was up in the clouds, and he looked down on all the weaknesses and needs of us poor humans. I thought I would use the chance to learn something, so I asked him:

“What about the flies these days?” He smiled at me in a very superior way—the kind of smile that Malvolio might have worn—and answered me:

“The fly, my dear sir, has one striking feature. Its wings stand for the soaring powers of the mind and soul. The ancients did well when they showed the soul as a butterfly!”

I thought I would push his comparison as far as logic would go, so I said quickly:

“Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it?” His madness defeated his reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face. He shook his head, more firmly than I had often seen him do, and said:

“Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want.” Here he brightened up. “I don’t care much about it at present. Life is all right; I have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to study zoöphagy!”

This puzzled me a little, so I led him on:

“Then you command life; you are a god, I suppose?” He smiled with a kind, gentle superiority that I cannot describe.

“Oh no! I would never claim for myself the qualities of God. I am not even concerned with His spiritual work. Let me explain my position as a thinker. In purely earthly things, I am in somewhat the same position that Enoch held in spiritual things!” This was a hard one for me. At that moment I could not remember why Enoch fitted. So I had to ask a simple question, though I felt that it lowered me in the eyes of the lunatic:

“And why with Enoch?”

“Because he walked with God.” I could not see the connection, but I did not like to admit it. So I went back to what he had denied:

“So you don’t care about life, and you don’t want souls. Why not?” I asked my question quickly and rather sternly, on purpose to upset him. It worked. For a moment, without knowing it, he fell back into his old servile manner. He bent low before me and tried hard to please me as he replied:

“I don’t want any souls, really, really! I don’t. I couldn’t use them if I had them; they would be of no use to me at all. I couldn’t eat them or——” He suddenly stopped. The old cunning look spread over his face, like a gust of wind over the surface of water. “And doctor, as to life, what is it after all? When you have got all you need, and you know that you will never want for anything, that is all. I have friends—good friends—like you, Dr. Seward.” He said this with a sly smile, full of a cunning I cannot describe. “I know that I shall never lack the means of life!”

I think that through the cloud of his madness he saw that I was against him in some way. So he at once went back to the last hiding place of people like him—a stubborn silence. After a short time I saw that it was useless to speak to him for now. He was sulking, so I came away.

Later in the day he sent for me. Usually I would not have come without a special reason. But just now I am so interested in him that I was glad to make the effort. Besides, I am glad of anything that helps the time pass. Harker is out, following up clues, and so are Lord Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study, studying hard the record that the Harkers prepared. He seems to think that if he knows all the details exactly, he will find some clue. He does not want to be disturbed in this work without a good reason. I would have taken him with me to see the patient. But Renfield had sent him away last time, so I thought he might not want to go again. There was also another reason. Renfield might not speak as freely in front of a third person as when he and I were alone.

I found him sitting on his stool in the middle of the floor. This position usually means that his mind is very active. When I came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on his lips:

“What about souls?” So it was clear that I had guessed correctly. His mind had been working on the question without his knowing it, even though he was a lunatic. I decided to have the matter out. “What about them yourself?” I asked. For a moment he did not reply. He looked all round him, and up and down, as though he hoped to find an idea for an answer.

“I don’t want any souls!” he said in a weak, apologetic way. The question seemed to be eating at his mind. So I decided to use it—to “be cruel only to be kind.” So I said:

“You like life, and you want life?”

“Oh yes! But that is all right; you needn’t worry about that!”

“But,” I asked, “how are we to get the life without getting the soul too?” This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up:

“You’ll have a nice time some day when you’re flying out there. The souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats will be buzzing and singing and meowing all round you. You’ve got their lives, you know, so you must put up with their souls!” Something seemed to affect his imagination. He put his fingers in his ears and shut his eyes. He screwed them up tightly, just as a small boy does when someone is washing his face with soap. There was something sad in it that touched me. It also taught me a lesson. It seemed that a child was in front of me—only a child. Yet the face was worn, and the short hairs on his unshaved jaws were white. Clearly some kind of disturbance was going on in his mind. I knew how his past moods had explained things that seemed to have nothing to do with him. So I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and go along with him. The first step was to win back his trust. So I asked him a question. I spoke quite loudly, so that he could hear me through his closed ears:

“Would you like some sugar to bring your flies round again?” He seemed to wake up all at once, and he shook his head. With a laugh he replied:

“Not much! Flies are poor things, after all!” After a pause he added, “But I don’t want their souls buzzing round me, all the same.”

“Or spiders?” I went on.

“Blow spiders! What’s the use of spiders? There isn’t anything in them to eat or”—he stopped suddenly, as though he had remembered a forbidden subject.

“So, so!” I thought to myself. “This is the second time he has suddenly stopped at the word ‘drink.’ What does it mean?” Renfield himself seemed to know that he had made a slip. He hurried on, as though to take my attention away from it:

“I don’t believe in such things at all. ‘Rats and mice and such small deer,’ as Shakespeare has it. ‘Chicken-feed of the larder’ you might call them. I’m past all that kind of nonsense. You might as well ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chopsticks. It is just as useless to try to interest me in the smaller meat-eating animals, when I know what is before me.”

“I see,” I said. “You want big things that you can really get your teeth into? How would you like to have elephant for breakfast?”

“What ridiculous nonsense you are talking!” He was getting too wide awake, so I thought I would press him hard. “I wonder,” I said thoughtfully, “what an elephant’s soul is like!”

I got the effect I wanted. At once he lost all his proud manner and became a child again.

“I don’t want an elephant’s soul, or any soul at all!” he said. For a few moments he sat there without hope. Suddenly he jumped to his feet. His eyes were blazing, and he showed all the signs of great excitement in the brain. “To hell with you and your souls!” he shouted. “Why do you torment me about souls? Haven’t I got enough to worry me, and pain me, and confuse me already, without thinking of souls!” He looked so hostile that I thought he was going to have another fit of wanting to kill. So I blew my whistle. But the moment I did so, he became calm and said, apologising:

“Forgive me, Doctor; I forgot myself. You do not need any help. I am so worried in my mind that I easily get irritable. If you only knew the problem I have to face, and that I am working out! Then you would pity me, and put up with me, and forgive me. Please do not put me in a strait-waistcoat. I want to think, and I cannot think freely when my body is tied up. I am sure you will understand!” Clearly he had control of himself. So when the attendants came, I told them not to mind, and they went away. Renfield watched them go. When the door was closed, he said with great dignity and sweetness:

“Dr. Seward, you have been very kind to me. Believe me, I am very, very grateful to you!” I thought it best to leave him in this mood, so I came away. There is certainly something to think about in this man’s state. Several points seem to make what the American reporter calls “a story,” if only one could put them in the right order. Here they are:

Will not mention “drinking.”

Fears the thought of carrying the burden of the “soul” of anything.

Has no fear of being without “life” in the future.

Despises the lower forms of life completely, though he fears that their souls will haunt him.

Logically, all these things point one way! He is sure in some way that he will get some higher life. He fears what will come with it—the burden of a soul. So it is a human life he is looking for!

And why is he so sure—?

Merciful God! The Count has been to him, and some new terrible plan is going on!

*Later.*—After my round I went to Van Helsing and told him what I suspected. He became very serious. He thought about it for a while, and then he asked me to take him to Renfield. I did so. As we came to the door, we heard the lunatic inside singing happily. He used to do this in a time which now seems so long ago. When we went in, we were amazed to see that he had spread out his sugar as before. The flies, slow and sleepy in the autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried to make him talk about the subject of our earlier conversation, but he would not listen. He went on with his singing, as though we were not there. He had got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a notebook. We had to come away knowing no more than when we went in.

His is a strange case indeed; we must watch him tonight.

*Letter, Mitchell, Sons and Candy to Lord Godalming.*

*“1 October.*

“My Lord,

“We are always only too happy to do what you wish. Mr. Harker explained your Lordship’s wish to us on your behalf. So we give you the following information about the sale and purchase of No. 347, Piccadilly. The original sellers are the executors of the late Mr. Archibald Winter-Suffield. The buyer is a foreign nobleman, Count de Ville. He made the purchase himself. He paid the money in banknotes ‘over the counter,’ if your Lordship will forgive us for using such a common expression. Beyond this we know nothing at all about him.

“We are, my Lord, “Your Lordship’s humble servants, “Mitchell, Sons & Candy.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*2 October.*—Last night I placed a man in the corridor. I told him to make an exact note of any sound he heard from Renfield’s room. I also told him to call me if anything strange happened. After dinner we all gathered round the fire in the study. Mrs. Harker had gone to bed. We discussed the attempts and discoveries of the day. Harker was the only one who had any result. We have great hopes that his clue may be an important one.

Before going to bed, I went round to the patient’s room and looked in through the small observation window in the door. He was sleeping soundly. His heart rose and fell with regular breathing.

This morning the man on duty reported to me. A little after midnight Renfield was restless and kept saying his prayers rather loudly. I asked the man if that was all. He replied that it was all he heard. There was something so suspicious about his manner that I asked him directly if he had been asleep. He denied sleeping, but he admitted that he had “dozed” for a while. It is too bad that men cannot be trusted unless someone watches them.

Today Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are looking after horses. Godalming thinks it will be good to have horses always ready. When we get the information we are looking for, there will be no time to lose. We must sterilise all the imported earth between sunrise and sunset. In this way we shall catch the Count at his weakest, with no safe place to run to. Van Helsing has gone to the British Museum to look up some old experts on ancient medicine. The old doctors believed in things that later doctors do not accept. The Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be useful to us later.

I sometimes think we must all be mad, and that we shall wake up sane in strait-waistcoats.

*Later.*—We have met again. We seem at last to be on the track, and our work tomorrow may be the beginning of the end. I wonder if Renfield’s quiet has anything to do with this. His moods have followed the actions of the Count so closely. So perhaps the coming destruction of the monster may reach him in some secret way. What passed in his mind between my argument with him today and his return to catching flies? If we could only get some hint of it, it might give us a valuable clue. He seems quiet for a while now.... Is he?—— That wild yell seemed to come from his room....

The attendant came bursting into my room. He told me that Renfield had somehow had an accident. He had heard him yell. When he went to him, he found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood. I must go at once....

### Glossary

- **guv’nor**: a friendly, informal way for a working man to say “sir”.
- **half a sovereign**: a gold coin worth half a pound, a good amount of money then.
- **depite / depity**: the carriers’ way of writing and saying “deputy”, here the man who runs the lodging-house.
- **loafers**: men who have no job and stand around doing nothing.
- **a copper**: a coin of very little value, like a penny.
- **mews**: a small street behind houses where horses were kept.
- **a bow**: here, a front of a house that curves out, with a curved window.
- **prig**: a person who is too proud of being correct and proper.
- **Quincey’s head is level**: Quincey thinks calmly and sensibly.
- **larder**: a cool room or cupboard where food is kept.
- **zoöphagy**: eating living creatures.

## Chapter XXI: Dr. Seward’s Diary

*3 October.*—Let me write down exactly everything that has happened since my last entry, as well as I can remember it. I must not forget a single detail that I can remember. I must go on with complete calm.

When I came to Renfield’s room, I found him lying on the floor on his left side. He was in a shining pool of blood. When I went to move him, it was clear at once that he had some terrible injuries. The parts of his body did not seem to work together, as they do even in a sane person who is half asleep. As his face came into view, I could see that it was horribly bruised. It looked as though it had been beaten against the floor. In fact, the pool of blood came from the wounds on his face. The attendant was kneeling beside the body. As we turned him over, he said to me:

“I think, sir, his back is broken. See, his right arm and leg and the whole side of his face are paralysed.” The attendant was extremely puzzled about how such a thing could have happened. He seemed quite confused, and he frowned as he said:

“I can’t understand the two things. He could mark his face like that by beating his own head on the floor. I saw a young woman do it once at the Eversfield Asylum, before anyone could get hold of her. And I suppose he might have broken his neck by falling out of bed, if he fell in an awkward twist. But for the life of me I can’t imagine how both things happened. If his back was broken, he couldn’t beat his head. And if his face was like that before he fell out of bed, there would be marks of it.” I said to him:

“Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him kindly to come here at once. I want him without a moment’s delay.” The man ran off. Within a few minutes the Professor appeared, in his dressing gown and slippers. When he saw Renfield on the ground, he looked closely at him for a moment and then turned to me. I think he saw my thought in my eyes, because he said very quietly, clearly so that the attendant would hear:

“Ah, a sad accident! He will need very careful watching, and much attention. I shall stay with you myself. But first I shall get dressed. If you will stay here, I shall join you in a few minutes.”

The patient was now breathing heavily and noisily. It was easy to see that he had suffered some terrible injury. Van Helsing came back extremely quickly, carrying a case of surgical instruments. He had clearly been thinking and had made up his mind, because almost before he looked at the patient, he whispered to me:

“Send the attendant away. We must be alone with him when he becomes conscious, after the operation.” So I said:

“I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all that we can for the moment. You had better go on your round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate. Let me know at once if there is anything unusual anywhere.”

The man went away, and we examined the patient carefully. The wounds on the face were not deep. The real injury was a fracture of the skull, where the bone was pressed in. It went right up through the motor area of the brain. The Professor thought for a moment and said:

“We must reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far as can be. The speed of the bleeding shows how terrible his injury is. The whole motor area seems to be affected. The bleeding in the brain will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once, or it may be too late.” As he was speaking, there was a soft knock at the door. I went over and opened it. In the corridor outside I found Arthur and Quincey in pyjamas and slippers. Arthur spoke:

“I heard your man call Dr. Van Helsing and tell him about an accident. So I woke Quincey—or rather I called him, because he was not asleep. Things are moving too fast and too strangely for any of us to sleep well these days. I’ve been thinking that tomorrow night will not see things as they have been. We’ll have to look back—and forward—a little more than we have done. May we come in?” I nodded and held the door open until they had come in. Then I closed it again. Quincey saw the position and state of the patient, and he noticed the horrible pool on the floor. He said softly:

“My God! What has happened to him? Poor, poor devil!” I told him briefly. I added that we expected the patient to become conscious again after the operation—for a short time, at least. Quincey went at once and sat down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him. We all watched patiently.

“We shall wait,” said Van Helsing, “just long enough to find the best spot for trephining. Then we can remove the blood clot as quickly and perfectly as possible, because it is clear that the bleeding is increasing.”

The minutes of waiting passed terribly slowly. I had a horrible sinking feeling in my heart. From Van Helsing’s face I could see that he too felt some fear about what was to come. I dreaded the words that Renfield might speak. I was really afraid to think. But I was sure of what was coming, like men I have read about who have heard the death-watch. The poor man’s breathing came in uneven gasps. Every moment it seemed that he would open his eyes and speak. But then a long, heavy, noisy breath would follow. And he would sink back into a deeper unconsciousness. I was used to sick beds and death, but this suspense grew and grew on me. I could almost hear my own heart beating. The blood rushing through my temples sounded like blows from a hammer. At last the silence became painful. I looked at my companions, one after another. I saw from their red faces and wet foreheads that they were suffering the same torture. A nervous tension lay over us all. It was as though some terrible bell above us would suddenly ring out loudly when we least expected it.

At last it was clear that the patient was sinking fast; he might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor and saw his eyes fixed on mine. His face was set hard as he spoke:

“There is no time to lose. His words may be worth many lives; I have been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul at stake! We shall operate just above the ear.”

Without another word he did the operation. For a few moments the breathing stayed heavy and noisy. Then there came a breath so long that it seemed it would tear open his chest. Suddenly his eyes opened and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare. This lasted a few moments. Then it softened into glad surprise, and a sigh of relief came from his lips. His body jerked, and as it did so, he said:

“I’ll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait-waistcoat. I have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. What’s wrong with my face? It feels all swollen, and it stings terribly.” He tried to turn his head. But even with that effort his eyes seemed to grow glassy again, so I gently put his head back. Then Van Helsing said in a quiet, serious voice:

“Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield.” When he heard the voice, his face brightened, in spite of its wounds, and he said:

“That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is of you to be here. Give me some water, my lips are dry, and I shall try to tell you. I dreamed”—he stopped and seemed to be fainting. I called quietly to Quincey: “The brandy—it is in my study—quick!” He flew off and came back with a glass, the bottle of brandy and a jug of water. We wet the dry lips, and the patient quickly came round. But it seemed that his poor injured brain had been working in the meantime, because when he was fully conscious, he looked at me sharply. There was a painful confusion in his look which I shall never forget. He said:

“I must not fool myself; it was no dream, but all a terrible reality.” Then his eyes moved round the room. When they saw the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed, he went on:

“If I were not sure already, I would know it from them.” For a moment his eyes closed—not from pain or sleep, but on purpose. It was as though he was gathering all his powers. When he opened them, he spoke quickly, and with more energy than he had shown so far:

“Quick, Doctor, quick. I am dying! I feel that I have only a few minutes, and then I must go back to death—or worse! Wet my lips with brandy again. I have something that I must say before I die, or before my poor crushed brain dies, anyway. Thank you! It was that night after you left me, when I begged you to let me go away. I couldn’t speak then, because I felt my tongue was tied. But apart from that, I was as sane then as I am now. For a long time after you left me, I was in an agony of despair. It seemed like hours. Then a sudden peace came to me. My brain seemed to become cool again, and I understood where I was. I heard the dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was!” As he spoke, Van Helsing’s eyes never blinked. But his hand came out, found mine and gripped it hard. However, he did not show his feelings. He nodded slightly and said in a low voice: “Go on.” Renfield went on:

“He came up to the window in the mist, as I had often seen him before. But he was solid then—not a ghost. His eyes were fierce, like a man’s when he is angry. He was laughing with his red mouth. He turned to look back over the line of trees, to where the dogs were barking. Then his sharp white teeth shone in the moonlight. At first I wouldn’t ask him to come in, though I knew he wanted to—just as he had wanted all along. Then he began promising me things—not in words, but by doing them.” The Professor interrupted him with one word:

“How?”

“By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones, with steel and sapphire on their wings. And big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on their backs.” Van Helsing nodded to him, and without thinking he whispered to me:

“The *Acherontia Aitetropos of the Sphinges*—what you call the ‘Death’s-head Moth’?” The patient went on without stopping.

“Then he began to whisper: ‘Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and every one a life. And dogs to eat them, and cats too. All lives! All red blood, with years of life in it; and not just buzzing flies!’ I laughed at him, because I wanted to see what he could do. Then the dogs howled, far away beyond the dark trees in His house. He waved to me to come to the window. I got up and looked out. He raised his hands and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire. Then He moved the mist to the right and left. I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red—like His, only smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped. And I thought he seemed to be saying: ‘All these lives will I give you, yes, and many more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!’ And then a red cloud, the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the window. And I was saying to Him: ‘Come in, Lord and Master!’ The rats were all gone. But He slid into the room through the window, though it was only open an inch. It was just as the Moon herself has often come in through the tiniest crack. And she has stood before me in all her size and glory.”

His voice was weaker, so I wet his lips with the brandy again, and he continued. But it seemed that his memory had gone on working in the meantime, because his story had moved further on. I was about to call him back to the point. But Van Helsing whispered to me: “Let him go on. Do not interrupt him. He cannot go back, and maybe could not go on at all if once he lost the thread of his thought.” Renfield went on:

“All day I waited to hear from him. But he did not send me anything, not even a blow-fly. When the moon came up, I was pretty angry with him. He slid in through the window, though it was shut, and he did not even knock. Then I got mad with him. He sneered at me. His white face looked out of the mist with his red eyes shining. He went on as though he owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn’t even smell the same as he went past me. I couldn’t hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker had come into the room.”

The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over. They stood behind him, where he could not see them, but where they could hear better. They were both silent. But the Professor jumped and trembled. His face, however, grew even grimmer and harder. Renfield went on without noticing:

“When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon, she wasn’t the same. It was like tea after someone has poured water into the teapot.” Here we all moved, but no one said a word. He went on:

“I didn’t know that she was here until she spoke, and she didn’t look the same. I don’t care for the pale people. I like them with lots of blood in them, and all of hers seemed to have run out. I didn’t think of it at the time. But when she went away, I began to think. And it made me mad to know that He had been taking the life out of her.” I could feel that the others trembled, as I did, but otherwise we stayed still. “So when He came tonight, I was ready for Him. I saw the mist creeping in, and I grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength. And I knew I was a madman—at times, anyway. So I decided to use my power. Yes, and He felt it too, because He had to come out of the mist to fight with me. I held tight. I thought I was going to win, because I didn’t mean to let Him take any more of her life. But then I saw His eyes. They burned into me, and my strength became like water. He slipped through it. When I tried to hold on to Him, He lifted me up and threw me down. There was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder. And the mist seemed to creep away under the door.” His voice was becoming weaker and his breathing noisier. Van Helsing stood up without thinking.

“We know the worst now,” he said. “He is here, and we know his purpose. It may not be too late. Let us be armed—the same as we were the other night. But lose no time; there is not a moment to spare.” There was no need to put our fear, or rather our certainty, into words. We all shared them. We all hurried to our rooms and took the same things that we had when we entered the Count’s house. The Professor had his things ready. As we met in the corridor, he pointed to them meaningfully and said:

“They never leave me; and they shall not, till this unhappy business is over. Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with. Alas! alas! That that dear Madam Mina should suffer!” He stopped; his voice was breaking. I do not know if rage or terror was stronger in my own heart.

Outside the Harkers’ door we stopped. Art and Quincey held back, and Quincey said:

“Should we disturb her?”

“We must,” said Van Helsing grimly. “If the door be locked, I shall break it in.”

“May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady’s room!”

Van Helsing said seriously, “You are always right; but this is life and death. All rooms are alike to the doctor. And even if they were not, they are all as one to me tonight. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, you put your shoulder down and push; and you too, my friends. Now!”

He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not open. We threw ourselves against it. With a crash it burst open, and we almost fell head first into the room. The Professor actually did fall. I looked across him as he got up from his hands and knees. What I saw horrified me. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up like bristles, and my heart seemed to stand still.

The moonlight was so bright that the room was light enough to see, even through the thick yellow blind. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker. His face was red, and he was breathing heavily, as though in a stupor. His wife, dressed in white, was kneeling on the near edge of the bed, facing outwards. By her side stood a tall, thin man, dressed in black. His face was turned away from us. But the moment we saw him, we all recognised the Count—in every way, even the scar on his forehead. With his left hand he held both of Mrs. Harker’s hands. He kept them away from him, with her arms stretched tight. His right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his breast. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood. A thin stream of blood ran down the man’s bare chest, which showed through his torn-open clothes. The two of them looked terribly like a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to make it drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face. The hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion. The great nostrils of his white, hooked nose opened wide and trembled at the edges. His sharp white teeth were behind the full lips of his blood-dripping mouth. They snapped together like those of a wild beast. With a sudden pull he threw his victim back on the bed, as though she had been thrown from a height. Then he turned and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor was on his feet. He was holding out towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the tomb, and shrank back. Further and further back he shrank, as we came forward, lifting our crucifixes. Suddenly the moonlight went, as a great black cloud sailed across the sky. Then the gaslight sprang up under Quincey’s match, and we saw nothing but a faint mist. As we looked, it trailed away under the door. The door had swung back after bursting open, and it was now in its old position. Van Helsing, Art and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker. By this time she had got her breath back, and with it she gave a scream. It was so wild, so ear-piercing, so full of despair! I think it will ring in my ears until the day I die. For a few seconds she lay there, helpless, with her clothes in disorder. Her face was ghastly pale. The blood that smeared her lips and cheeks and chin made the paleness even stronger. A thin stream of blood ran from her throat. Her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put her poor crushed hands before her face. Their whiteness showed the red mark of the Count’s terrible grip. From behind them came a low, lonely cry of pain. It made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and gently drew the bedcover over her body. Art looked at her face for a moment in despair, and then he ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me:

“Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments, till she recovers herself. I must wake him!” He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and began to flick it on Jonathan’s face. All the while his wife held her face between her hands. She was sobbing in a way that broke one’s heart to hear. I raised the blind and looked out of the window. There was plenty of moonlight. As I looked, I saw Quincey Morris run across the lawn. He hid in the shadow of a great yew-tree. I wondered why he was doing this. But at that moment I heard Harker’s quick cry as he half woke, and I turned to the bed. On his face, as you might expect, was a look of wild amazement. For a few seconds he seemed dazed. Then all at once he seemed to understand everything, and he started up. The quick movement roused his wife. She turned to him with her arms stretched out, as though to hold him. But at once she drew them back again. She put her elbows together and held her hands before her face. She shuddered until the bed under her shook.

“In God’s name, what does this mean?” Harker cried out. “Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear, what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! Has it come to this!” He raised himself to his knees and beat his hands wildly together. “Good God, help us! Help her! Oh, help her!” With a quick movement he jumped out of bed and began to pull on his clothes. All the man in him was awake at this need for instant action. “What has happened? Tell me all about it!” he cried, without stopping. “Dr. Van Helsing, you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for *him*!” His wife was full of terror and horror and distress. But through it all she saw that he would be in certain danger. At once she forgot her own grief. She took hold of him and cried out:

“No! No! Jonathan, you must not leave me. God knows I have suffered enough tonight, without the fear of his harming you. You must stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you!” Her face became wild as she spoke. He gave in to her. She pulled him down to sit on the side of the bed, and she held on to him fiercely.

Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his little golden crucifix and said with wonderful calm:

“Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you, no foul thing can come near. You are safe for tonight. And we must be calm and take counsel together.” She shuddered and was silent, with her head down on her husband’s breast. When she raised it, his white nightshirt was stained with blood. The blood was where her lips had touched it. It was also where the thin open wound in her neck had let drops fall. The moment she saw it, she drew back with a low cry. Through choking sobs she whispered:

“Unclean, unclean! I must never touch him or kiss him again. Oh, that it should be so! Now it is I who am his worst enemy. It is I whom he may have most reason to fear.” To this he answered firmly:

“Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I will not hear it said of you, and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by what I deserve! And may He punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if anything ever comes between us through any act or wish of mine!” He put out his arms and held her close to his breast. For a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head. His eyes blinked with tears above his trembling nostrils, and his mouth was set like steel. After a while her sobs became fewer and weaker. Then he spoke to me with a careful calm. I felt that it was testing his nerves to the limit:

“And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. I know the main fact too well. Tell me everything that has happened.” I told him exactly what had happened. He listened and seemed to show no feeling. But his nostrils twitched and his eyes blazed at one part of my story. I told how the cruel hands of the Count had held his wife in that terrible, horrible position. Her mouth had been pressed to the open wound in his breast. Even at that moment I found something interesting. His white face, set with passion, worked wildly above her bowed head. Yet at the same time his hands stroked her untidy hair tenderly and lovingly. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the door. They came in because we had called them. Van Helsing looked at me with a question in his eyes. I understood what he meant. Should we use their coming to turn the thoughts of the unhappy husband and wife? We could perhaps turn them away from each other and from themselves. So I nodded to show that I agreed. Then he asked them what they had seen or done. Lord Godalming answered:

“I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I looked in the study. But though he had been there, he had gone. He had, however——” He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on the bed. Van Helsing said seriously:

“Go on, friend Arthur. We want here no more secrets. Our hope now is in knowing all. Tell freely!” So Art went on:

“He had been there. It could only have been for a few seconds, but he made a terrible mess of the place. All the manuscript had been burned, and the blue flames were flickering among the white ashes. The cylinders of your phonograph were thrown on the fire too, and the wax had helped the flames.” Here I interrupted. “Thank God there is the other copy in the safe!” His face lit up for a moment, but it fell again as he went on: “Then I ran downstairs, but I could see no sign of him. I looked into Renfield’s room. But there was no trace there except——!” Again he paused. “Go on,” said Harker in a rough voice. So Art bowed his head and wet his lips with his tongue. Then he added: “except that the poor fellow is dead.” Mrs. Harker raised her head. She looked from one of us to another and said solemnly:

“God’s will be done!” I could not help feeling that Art was keeping something back. But I thought that he had a reason, so I said nothing. Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked:

“And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell?”

“A little,” he answered. “It may be a lot in the end, but at present I can’t say. I thought it would be good to know, if possible, where the Count would go when he left the house. I did not see him. But I saw a bat rise from Renfield’s window and flap away westward. I expected to see him go back to Carfax in some shape. But clearly he looked for some other lair. He will not be back tonight, because the sky is getting red in the east, and the dawn is close. We must work tomorrow!”

He said the last words through his shut teeth. For perhaps a couple of minutes there was silence. I imagined that I could hear our hearts beating. Then Van Helsing put his hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harker’s head and said:

“And now, Madam Mina—poor, dear, dear Madam Mina—tell us exactly what happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained. But it is need that we know all. For now, more than ever, all work must be done quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must end all, if it may be so. And now is the chance that we may live and learn.”

The poor, dear lady shivered. I could see how tense her nerves were. She held her husband closer and bent her head lower and lower on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly and held out one hand to Van Helsing. He took it in his and bent down and kissed it with deep respect. Then he held it tight. Her other hand was locked in her husband’s. He had his other arm round her to protect her. There was a pause, while she was clearly putting her thoughts in order. Then she began:

“I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me. But for a long time it did not work. I seemed to become more awake. Thousands of horrible thoughts began to crowd into my mind. All of them were connected with death and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble.” Her husband groaned without meaning to. She turned to him and said lovingly: “Do not worry, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me through this horrible task. It is a great effort for me to tell of this fearful thing at all. If you only knew that, you would understand how much I need your help. Well, I saw that I must try to help the medicine to work with my will, if it was to do me any good. So I firmly set myself to sleep. Sure enough, sleep must soon have come to me, because I remember nothing more. Jonathan had not woken me when he came in, because when I next remember anything, he was lying by my side. In the room there was the same thin white mist that I had noticed before. But I forget now if you know about this. You will find it in my diary, which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague terror which had come to me before. I had the same feeling that someone was there. I turned to wake Jonathan. But he was sleeping so deeply that it seemed as if he had taken the sleeping draught, and not I. I tried, but I could not wake him. This made me very afraid, and I looked around in terror. Then indeed my heart sank. Beside the bed stood a tall, thin man, all in black. It was as if he had stepped out of the mist. Or rather, it was as if the mist had turned into his figure, because it had completely disappeared. I knew him at once from the descriptions of the others. I knew the waxen face, and the high, hooked nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line. I knew the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between them. And I knew the red eyes. I had seemed to see them in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary’s Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had hit him. For a moment my heart stood still. I would have screamed, but I was paralysed. In the pause he spoke in a kind of sharp, cutting whisper. As he spoke, he pointed to Jonathan:

“‘Silence! If you make a sound, I shall take him and dash his brains out before your very eyes.’ I was horrified, and too confused to do or say anything. With a mocking smile he put one hand on my shoulder and held me tight. With the other hand he bared my throat. As he did so, he said: ‘First, a little refreshment to reward my efforts. You may as well be quiet. It is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have satisfied my thirst!’ I was confused. And, strangely, I did not want to stop him. I suppose it is part of the horrible curse, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity me! He placed his foul-smelling lips upon my throat!” Her husband groaned again. She held his hand tighter and looked at him with pity, as if he were the one who was hurt. Then she went on:

“I felt my strength fading away, and I was half fainting. I do not know how long this horrible thing lasted. But it seemed that a long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood!” The memory seemed to overcome her for a while. She drooped, and she would have sunk down if her husband’s arm had not held her up. With a great effort she recovered herself and went on:

“Then he spoke to me mockingly: ‘And so you, like the others, would play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me and to block my plans! You know now what it is to cross my path. They know it in part already, and they will know it in full before long. They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. While they played their wits against me, I was working secretly against them. Against me! I commanded nations, and plotted for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were born. And you, their best beloved one, are now to me flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin. You are my rich wine-press for a while. And later you shall be my companion and my helper. You shall have your revenge in turn, because every one of them shall serve your needs. But for now you are to be punished for what you have done. You have helped to stop me; now you shall come to my call. When my brain says “Come!” to you, you shall cross land or sea to do what I order. And for that purpose, this!’ With that he pulled open his shirt. With his long sharp nails he opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his and held them tight. With the other hand he seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound. So I had either to suffocate or to swallow some of the—— Oh my God! my God! What have I done? What have I done to deserve such a fate? All my days I have tried to walk humbly and do what is right. God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than deadly danger. And in mercy pity those who love her!” Then she began to rub her lips, as though to clean them of something unclean.

As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to grow light. Everything became clearer and clearer. Harker was still and quiet. But as the awful story went on, a grey look came over his face. It grew deeper and deeper in the morning light. Then the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up. Now his face looked dark against his hair, which was turning white.

We have arranged that one of us will stay within call of the unhappy pair. This will last until we can all meet together and plan what action to take.

Of this I am sure. In all its great daily journey, the sun rises today on no house more miserable than this one.

### Glossary

- **paralysed**: not able to move a part of the body.
- **motor area**: the part of the brain that controls the movements of the body.
- **trephine**: to make a small hole in the skull in an operation.
- **blood clot**: a thick lump of blood.
- **death-watch**: a small insect whose ticking sound people once believed meant that someone would soon die.
- **strait-waistcoat**: a jacket that holds a violent person’s arms tight.
- **Death’s-head Moth**: a large moth with a mark like a skull on its back.
- **stupor**: a state like very deep sleep, when a person cannot think or react.
- **Sacred Wafer**: a small piece of holy bread used in church.
- **yew-tree**: a dark evergreen tree, often seen in churchyards.
- **take counsel**: talk together to decide what to do.
- **phonograph**: an old machine that records and plays back voices on wax cylinders.
- **safe**: a strong metal box with a lock, for keeping valuable things.
- **sleeping draught**: a drink of medicine that helps you sleep.
- **lair**: the hiding place of a wild animal or a monster.
- **kin**: family; people related to you by blood.
- **wine-press**: a machine that presses grapes to get the juice out.
- **suffocate**: to die or nearly die because you cannot breathe.

## Chapter XXII: Jonathan Harker’s Journal

*3 October.*—I must do something or I will go mad, so I am writing this diary. It is now six o’clock. In half an hour we are going to meet in the study and eat something. We will do this because Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward agree that we cannot do our best work if we do not eat. And God knows, we will need our best today. I must keep writing at every chance, because I do not dare to stop and think. Everything, big and little, must go down on paper. Perhaps at the end the little things will teach us the most. But no lesson, big or little, could have brought Mina or me to a worse place than we are in today. However, we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that our faith is tested in times of trouble. She said that we must keep on trusting, and that God will help us up to the end. The end! Oh my God! What end?... To work! To work!

Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward came back from seeing poor Renfield. Then we talked seriously about what we must do. First, Dr. Seward told us what they had found. When he and Dr. Van Helsing went down to the room below, Renfield was lying on the floor in a heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of his neck were broken.

Dr. Seward asked the attendant on duty in the passage if he had heard anything. The man said that he had been sitting down. He admitted that he was half asleep. Then he heard loud voices in the room. After that, Renfield called out loudly several times, “God! God! God!” Then there was a sound of falling. When the attendant went into the room, Renfield was lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors saw him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard “voices” or “a voice.” The man said he could not say. At first it had seemed to him that there were two. But there was no one else in the room, so it could only have been one. He could swear, if necessary, that the patient spoke the word “God.” When we were alone, Dr. Seward told us that he did not want to look further into the matter. They had to think about an inquest. It would never do to tell the truth, because no one would believe it. So he thought he could use the attendant’s evidence and give a death certificate. It would say that Renfield died by accident, falling from his bed. If the coroner asked for it, there would be a formal inquest. But it would necessarily come to the same result.

Then we began to discuss our next step. The very first thing we decided was that Mina must know everything. Nothing at all must be kept from her, no matter how painful. She herself agreed that this was wise. It was sad to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, in such deep despair.

“There must be no hiding of things,” she said. “Alas! We have had too much of that already. And besides, nothing in all the world can give me more pain than I have already suffered—than I suffer now! Whatever happens, it must bring me new hope or new courage!”

Van Helsing was looking hard at her as she spoke. Then he said, suddenly but quietly: “But dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid? Not for yourself, but for others because of yourself, after what has happened?”

Her face became fixed and hard, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she answered: “Ah no! For my mind is made up!”

“To what?” he asked gently. We were all very still, because each of us, in our own way, had a vague idea of what she meant. Her answer came simply and directly, as if she were just stating a fact:

“Because if I find in myself—and I shall watch carefully for it—a sign of harm to anyone I love, I shall die!”

“You would not kill yourself?” he asked in a rough voice.

“I would, if there were no friend who loved me. A friend who would save me from such pain, and from so desperate an effort!” She looked at him meaningfully as she spoke. He had been sitting down, but now he stood up. He came close to her and put his hand on her head. Then he said solemnly:

“My child, there is such a friend, if it were for your good. For myself, I could answer to God for finding such a euthanasia for you, even at this moment, if it were best. No—if it were safe! But my child——” For a moment he seemed to choke, and a great sob rose in his throat. He swallowed it and went on:

“There are some here who would stand between you and death. You must not die. You must not die by any hand, but least of all by your own. Until the other one, who has made your sweet life unclean, is truly dead, you must not die. This is because, if he is still among the living Un-Dead, your death would make you just like him. No, you must live! You must struggle and fight to live, even though death would seem a gift too great for words. You must fight Death himself, whether he comes to you in pain or in joy, by day or by night, in safety or in danger! On your living soul I order you not to die—no, not even to think of death—until this great evil is past.”

The poor dear went white as death. She shook and shivered, as I have seen quicksand shake and shiver when the tide comes in. We were all silent; we could do nothing. At last she grew calmer. She turned to him and held out her hand. She spoke sweetly, but oh! so sadly:

“I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall try to do so. I shall try until this horror has passed away from me, if that may be in His good time.”

She was so good and brave that we all felt our hearts grow stronger, to work and to suffer for her. Then we began to discuss what we must do. I told her that she was to have all the papers in the safe. She was also to have all the papers, diaries and phonograph records that we might use later. And she was to keep the record as she had done before. She was pleased at the idea of having something to do—if “pleased” can be used about something so grim.

As usual, Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else. He had an exact plan of our work ready.

“Perhaps it is good,” he said, “that after our visit to Carfax we decided to do nothing with the earth-boxes there. If we had done so, the Count would have guessed our purpose. He would surely have acted in advance to stop us doing the same to the others. But now he does not know our plans. More than that, he very probably does not know that we have a power that can sterilise his lairs, so that he cannot use them as before. We now know so much more about where they are that, when we have examined the house in Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. Today, then, is ours, and our hope rests in it. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning protects us as it travels. Until it sets tonight, that monster must keep whatever form he has now. He is held inside the limits of his earthly body. He cannot melt into thin air or disappear through cracks and small holes. If he goes through a doorway, he must open the door like any man. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs and sterilise them. If we have not yet caught him and destroyed him, we shall drive him into a corner. There, in time, catching him and destroying him will be sure.”

Here I jumped up, because I could not control myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds were flying away from us. Each one was so full of Mina’s life and happiness. And while we talked, we could not act. But Van Helsing held up his hand in warning.

“No, friend Jonathan,” he said. “In this, the quickest way home is the longest way, as your proverb says. We shall all act, and act very fast, when the time has come. But think. Most probably the key to everything is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have bought many houses. He will have the deeds of purchase for them, and keys, and other things. He will have paper that he writes on. He will have his cheque-book. There are many things that he must keep somewhere. Why not in this place? It is so central and so quiet. He can come and go by the front or the back at any hour. In the great crowd of traffic, there is no one to notice. We shall go there and search that house. When we learn what it holds, we shall do what our friend Arthur calls, in his hunting words, ‘stop the earths.’ And so we run down our old fox—so? Is it not?”

“Then let us come at once,” I cried. “We are wasting the precious, precious time!”

The Professor did not move. He simply said: “And how are we to get into that house in Piccadilly?”

“Any way!” I cried. “We shall break in if we must.”

“And your police? Where will they be, and what will they say?”

I was shocked. But I knew that if he wanted to wait, he had a good reason. So I said, as quietly as I could: “Don’t wait longer than you must. I am sure you know what torture I am in.”

“Ah, my child, that I do. And truly I have no wish to add to your pain. But just think. What can we do until all the world is moving? Then our time will come. I have thought and thought, and it seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all. Now, we wish to get into the house, but we have no key. Is it not so?” I nodded.

“Now suppose that you were truly the owner of that house, and still could not get in. And suppose you did not have the bad conscience of the house-breaker. What would you do?”

“I should get a respectable locksmith and set him to work to pick the lock for me.”

“And your police, they would interfere, would they not?”

“Oh, no! Not if they knew the man was properly employed.”

“Then,” he said, looking at me as sharply as he spoke, “the only question is the conscience of the employer. And whether your policemen believe that this employer has a good conscience or a bad one. Your police must be very keen and clever men—oh, so clever!—at reading the heart, if they trouble themselves with such a thing. No, no, my friend Jonathan. You may take the lock off a hundred empty houses in this London of yours, or in any city in the world. If you do it as such things are rightly done, and at the time when they are rightly done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a very fine house in London. He went to Switzerland for the summer months and locked up his house. Then some burglar came, broke a window at the back and got in. Next he went and opened the shutters at the front. He walked out and in through the door, before the very eyes of the police. Then he held an auction in that house. He advertised it and put up a big notice. When the day came, a great auctioneer sold all the goods of that other man who owned them. Then the burglar went to a builder and sold him the house. They agreed that the builder would pull it down and take everything away within a certain time. And your police and other officials helped him all they could. When that owner came back from his holiday in Switzerland, he found only an empty hole where his house had been. All this was done *en règle*. And in our work we shall be *en règle* too. We shall not go so early that the policemen, who have little to think about then, will find it strange. We shall go after ten o’clock, when many people are about. At that hour such things would be done if we really were the owners of the house.”

I could not help seeing how right he was. The terrible despair on Mina’s face relaxed a little. There was hope in such good advice. Van Helsing went on:

“Once we are inside that house, we may find more clues. In any case, some of us can stay there while the rest find the other places where there are more earth-boxes—at Bermondsey and Mile End.”

Lord Godalming stood up. “I can be of some use here,” he said. “I shall wire to my people to have horses and carriages ready where they will be most useful.”

“Look here, old fellow,” said Morris. “It is a great idea to have everything ready in case we want to go on horseback. But don’t you think one of your snappy carriages, with your family coat of arms on it, would attract too much attention in a back street of Walworth or Mile End? It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south or east. And we should even leave them somewhere near the place we are going to.”

“Friend Quincey is right!” said the Professor. “His head is what you call ‘in plane with the horizon.’ It is a difficult thing that we go to do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us, if so it may be.”

Mina took a growing interest in everything. I was glad to see that the urgent business was helping her to forget, for a time, the terrible experience of the night. She was very, very pale—almost ghastly. She was so thin that her lips were drawn back, and her teeth showed rather a lot. I did not mention this last thing, because I did not want to give her needless pain. But my blood ran cold in my veins when I thought of what had happened to poor Lucy when the Count sucked her blood. As yet there was no sign that the teeth were growing sharper. But so far the time was short, and there was time for fear.

When we came to discuss the order of our work and how to divide our forces, there were new doubts. At last we agreed that we should destroy the Count’s lair close by before we started for Piccadilly. If he found it out too soon, we would still be ahead of him in our work of destruction. And if he were there in his purely material shape, at his weakest, it might give us some new clue.

As to dividing our forces, the Professor suggested a plan. After our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly. The two doctors and I should stay there, while Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End and destroyed them. The Professor said it was possible, if not likely, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day. If so, we might be able to deal with him then and there. At any rate, we might be able to follow him in force. I argued strongly against this plan, as far as my own going was concerned. I said that I meant to stay and protect Mina. I thought that my mind was made up about it. But Mina would not listen to my objection. She said that there might be some legal matter where I could be useful. Among the Count’s papers there might be some clue that I could understand from my experience in Transylvania. And as things were, we needed all the strength we could find to fight the Count’s extraordinary power. I had to give in, because Mina’s decision was fixed. She said that it was the last hope for *her* that we should all work together.

“As for me,” she said, “I have no fear. Things have been as bad as they can be. Whatever happens must have some hope or comfort in it. Go, my husband! God can, if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with anyone here.”

So I jumped up and cried out: “Then in God’s name let us come at once, for we are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we think.”

“Not so!” said Van Helsing, holding up his hand.

“But why?” I asked.

“Do you forget,” he said, actually smiling, “that last night he feasted heavily, and will sleep late?”

Did I forget! Shall I ever—can I ever! Can any of us ever forget that terrible scene! Mina fought hard to keep her brave face, but the pain was too much for her. She put her hands in front of her face, and she shuddered and moaned. Van Helsing had not meant to remind her of her frightful experience. In his hard thinking, he had simply forgotten her and her part in the affair. When he realised what he had said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her.

“Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, “dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! That I, of all those who honour you so much, should say anything so forgetful. These stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve it. But you will forget it, will you not?”

He bent low beside her as he spoke. She took his hand and looked at him through her tears. Then she said in a rough voice:

“No, I shall not forget, because it is good that I remember. And with it I have so many sweet memories of you that I take them all together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we must all eat so that we may be strong.”

Breakfast was a strange meal for all of us. We tried to be cheerful and to encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:

“Now, my dear friends, we go out to our terrible task. Are we all armed, as we were on that night when we first visited our enemy’s lair? Armed against attack by ghosts as well as attack by bodies?”

We all told him that we were.

“Then it is well. Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case *quite* safe here until the sunset. And before then we shall return—if—— We shall return! But before we go, let me see you armed against attack on your own person. Since you came down, I have myself prepared your room. I have placed there the things we know of, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard you yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and——”

There was a terrible scream, which almost froze our hearts to hear. When he placed the Wafer on Mina’s forehead, it burned her. It burned into the flesh as if it were a piece of white-hot metal. My poor darling’s brain told her the meaning of it as quickly as her nerves felt the pain. The two things together were too much for her, and her overstrained nature cried out in that dreadful scream. But the words for her thoughts came quickly. The echo of the scream was still ringing in the air when the reaction came. She sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of shame. She pulled her beautiful hair over her face, as a leper in old times pulled his cloak over his. And she cried out:

“Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty turns away from my polluted flesh! I must carry this mark of shame on my forehead until the Judgment Day.”

They all stopped still. I had thrown myself down beside her in helpless grief and agony. I put my arms around her and held her tight. For a few minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together. The friends around us turned away their eyes, and tears ran silently from them. Then Van Helsing turned and spoke seriously. He spoke so seriously that I could not help feeling he was somehow inspired, and was saying things that came from outside himself:

“It may be that you will have to carry that mark until God himself sees fit to put right all the wrongs of the earth, and of the children He has placed on it. And He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see it! May we see that red scar, the sign of God’s knowledge of what has happened, pass away. May it leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know. For as surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God sees it right to lift the heavy burden from us. Until then we carry our Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His Will. It may be that we are tools chosen for His good purpose. It may be that we rise to do His bidding as that other did, through the whip and shame, through tears and blood, through doubts and fears, and all that makes the difference between God and man.”

There was hope in his words, and comfort, and they helped us to accept what had happened. Mina and I both felt this. At the same moment we each took one of the old man’s hands, bent over it and kissed it. Then, without a word, we all knelt down together. Holding hands, we all swore to be true to each other. We men promised to lift the veil of sorrow from the head of the woman whom each of us, in his own way, loved. And we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task in front of us.

It was then time to start. So I said goodbye to Mina. Neither of us will forget that parting until the day we die. And we set out.

I have made up my mind about one thing. If we find out that Mina must become a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose this is why, in old times, one vampire meant many. Their horrible bodies could only rest in holy earth. In the same way, the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their dreadful ranks.

We entered Carfax without trouble and found everything the same as the first time. Among such ordinary things—neglect, dust and decay—it was hard to believe that there was any reason for the fear we already knew. If our minds had not been made up, and if terrible memories had not driven us on, we could hardly have gone on with our task. We found no papers and no sign that anyone used the house. In the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we had seen them last. Dr. Van Helsing spoke to us solemnly as we stood in front of them:

“And now, my friends, we have a duty to do here. We must sterilise this earth, so full of holy memories, which he has brought from a far distant land for such an evil use. He has chosen this earth because it has been holy. So we beat him with his own weapon, for we make it more holy still. It was made holy for such use by man; now we make it holy for God.”

As he spoke, he took a screwdriver and a wrench from his bag. Very soon the top of one of the boxes was thrown open. The earth smelled musty and stale, but somehow we did not seem to mind, because all our attention was on the Professor. He took a piece of the Sacred Wafer from his box and laid it on the earth with great respect. Then he shut the lid and began to screw it down tight, and we helped him as he worked.

One by one, we did the same with each of the great boxes. To all appearances we left them as we had found them. But in each one there was a piece of the Host.

When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly: “So much is already done. If we can be as successful with all the others, then the sunset of this evening may shine on Madam Mina’s forehead, all white as ivory and with no stain!”

We crossed the lawn on our way to the station to catch our train. From there we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and I saw Mina at the window of my own room. I waved my hand to her, and I nodded to tell her that our work there was done successfully. She nodded back to show that she understood. The last I saw, she was waving her hand goodbye. With heavy hearts we went to the station. We just caught the train, which was steaming in as we reached the platform.

I have written this in the train.

*Piccadilly, 12:30 o’clock.*—Just before we reached Fenchurch Street, Lord Godalming said to me:

“Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with us, in case there is any difficulty, because in the circumstances it would not seem so bad for us to break into an empty house. But you are a solicitor, and the Incorporated Law Society might tell you that you should have known better.”

I objected to not sharing any danger, even the danger of a bad name. But he went on: “Besides, it will attract less attention if there are not too many of us. My title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with any policeman who may come along. You had better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the Green Park, somewhere you can see the house. When you see the door opened and the locksmith has gone away, all of you come across. We shall be watching for you, and we shall let you in.”

“The advice is good!” said Van Helsing, so we said no more. Godalming and Morris hurried off in a cab, and we followed in another. At the corner of Arlington Street our group got out and walked slowly into the Green Park. My heart beat fast when I saw the house. So much of our hope was centred on it. It rose up grim and silent and empty among its more lively and smart-looking neighbours. We sat down on a bench with a good view of it. We began to smoke cigars, so as to attract as little attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass on feet of lead as we waited for the others to come.

At last we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Lord Godalming and Morris got out of it in an easy, unhurried way. From the driver’s seat came down a thick-set workman with his basket of tools, which was woven from rushes. Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. The two went up the steps together, and Lord Godalming showed him what he wanted done. The workman slowly took off his coat and hung it on one of the spikes of the railing. He said something to a policeman who was just walking slowly by. The policeman nodded in agreement. The man knelt down and placed his bag beside him. He searched through it and took out some tools, and he laid them neatly beside him. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole and blew into it. He turned to his employers and said something. Lord Godalming smiled. The man lifted a good-sized bunch of keys and chose one of them. He began to try the lock with it, as if he were feeling his way. After fumbling about for a bit, he tried a second key, and then a third. All at once the door opened under a light push from him, and he and the other two went into the hall. We sat still. My own cigar burned furiously, but Van Helsing’s went completely cold. We waited patiently. We saw the workman come out and bring in his bag. Then he held the door partly open with his knees, while he fitted a key to the lock. At last he handed this key to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and gave him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his coat and left. Not a single person took the slightest notice of the whole business.

When the man had really gone, we three crossed the street and knocked at the door. Quincey Morris opened it at once. Lord Godalming stood beside him, lighting a cigar.

“The place smells so horribly,” said Lord Godalming as we came in.

It did indeed smell horribly—like the old chapel at Carfax. From our earlier experience it was clear to us that the Count had been using the place quite freely. We moved to explore the house, all keeping together in case of attack, because we knew that we had a strong and cunning enemy to deal with. And as yet we did not know whether the Count might be in the house. In the dining-room, at the back of the hall, we found eight boxes of earth. Only eight boxes out of the nine we were looking for! Our work was not over. It would never be over until we found the missing box. First we opened the shutters of the window. It looked out across a narrow yard paved with stone, at the blank front of a stable. The stable was made to look like the front of a tiny house. There were no windows in it, so we were not afraid of being watched. We did not lose any time examining the boxes. We opened them one by one with the tools we had brought. Then we treated them as we had treated the others in the old chapel. It was clear to us that the Count was not in the house at present, and we began to search for any of his belongings.

We took a quick look at the rest of the rooms, from the basement to the attic. Then we decided that the dining-room held all the things that might belong to the Count. So we began to examine them in detail. They lay in a sort of orderly mess on the great dining-room table. There were the title deeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle. There were deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey. There were note-paper, envelopes, and pens and ink. Everything was covered in thin wrapping paper to keep the dust off. There were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin. The basin held dirty water which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all, there was a little heap of keys of all kinds and sizes. They probably belonged to the other houses. When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris took careful notes of the addresses of the houses in the East and the South. They took the keys with them in a great bunch, and they set out to destroy the boxes in those places. The rest of us are waiting, as patiently as we can, for them to return—or for the Count to come.

### Glossary

- **inquest**: an official inquiry into how someone died.
- **coroner**: an official who finds out why a person died, when the death was sudden or strange.
- **martyr**: a person who suffers or dies for what they believe.
- **euthanasia**: a gentle death to end great suffering.
- **quicksand**: wet sand that moves and pulls things down into it.
- **stop the earths**: a hunting phrase: to block the holes of a fox so that it cannot hide.
- **en règle**: French for “by the rules”: done in the correct, official way.
- **in plane with the horizon**: Van Helsing’s way of saying “level-headed”: calm and sensible.
- **leper**: a person with a terrible skin disease; in old times lepers covered themselves and had to stay away from other people.
- **recruiting sergeant**: a soldier whose job is to bring new men into the army.
- **four-wheeler**: a cab with four wheels, pulled by a horse.

## Chapter XXIII: Dr. Seward’s Diary

*3 October.*—The time seemed terribly long while we were waiting for Godalming and Quincey Morris to come. The Professor tried to keep our minds active by using them all the time. I could see his kind purpose from the side glances which he threw at Harker from time to time. The poor fellow is overwhelmed by a misery that is terrible to see. Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with a strong, young face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. Today he is a drawn, tired old man. His white hair matches well with his hollow, burning eyes and the lines that grief has written on his face. His energy is still there; in fact, he is like a living flame. This may yet save him. If all goes well, it will carry him through this time of despair. Then, in a way, he will wake again to the real things of life. Poor fellow, I thought my own trouble was bad enough, but his——! The Professor knows this well, and he is doing his best to keep Harker’s mind active. In the circumstances, what he said was of the greatest interest. Here it is, as well as I can remember it:

“Since they came into my hands, I have studied all the papers about this monster, over and over again. And the more I have studied, the more necessary it seems to stamp him out completely. All through them there are signs of his advance. They show not only his power, but that he knows his power. I learned from the research of my friend Arminius of Buda-Pesth that in life he was a most wonderful man. He was a soldier, a statesman and an alchemist—and alchemy was the highest form of science in his time. He had a mighty brain, learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no regret. He even dared to attend the Scholomance. There was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not try. Well, in him the powers of the brain lived on after the death of the body. But it seems that his memory was not all complete. In some powers of the mind he has been, and still is, only a child. But he is growing, and some things that were childish at first are now as big as a man. He is experimenting, and doing it well. If we had not crossed his path, he would be—and he may still be, if we fail—the father or helper of a new kind of beings. And their road must lead through Death, not Life.”

Harker groaned and said: “And all this is set against my darling! But how is he experimenting? Knowing that may help us to defeat him!”

“Ever since he came, he has been testing his power, slowly but surely. That big child-brain of his is working. It is lucky for us that it is still a child-brain. If he had dared to try certain things at the start, he would long ago have been beyond our power. However, he means to succeed. And a man who has centuries in front of him can afford to wait and to go slowly. *Festina lente* may well be his motto.”

“I don’t understand,” said Harker wearily. “Oh, please speak more plainly to me! Perhaps grief and trouble are making my brain slow.”

The Professor laid his hand gently on Harker’s shoulder as he spoke:

“Ah, my child, I will be plain. Do you not see how, lately, this monster has been creeping into knowledge by experiment? See how he used the zoöphagous patient to get into friend John’s home. For your Vampire can come when and how he likes afterwards. But the first time, he can only come in when someone who lives there asks him. But these are not his most important experiments. Do we not see how at first all these great boxes were moved by others? Then he did not know that it could be any other way. But all the time, that great child-brain of his was growing. He began to think about whether he might move the boxes himself. So he began to help. And then, when he found that this was all right, he tried to move them all alone. And so he made progress, and he scattered these graves of his. And no one but he knows where they are hidden. Perhaps he meant to bury them deep in the ground. He only uses them at night, or at the times when he can change his form. So they serve him just as well there, and no one can know that they are his hiding-places! But, my child, do not despair. This knowledge came to him just too late! Already all his lairs but one are sterilised for him. And before the sunset this one shall be the same. Then he will have no place where he can move and hide. I waited this morning so that we might be sure. Is there not more at stake for us than for him? Then why should we not be even more careful than he is? By my clock it is one hour. If all is well, friend Arthur and Quincey are already on their way to us. Today is our day, and we must go surely, even if slowly, and lose no chance. See! There will be five of us when those who are away come back.”

While he was speaking, a knock at the hall door startled us. It was the double knock of the telegraph boy. We all moved out into the hall together. Van Helsing held up his hand to keep us silent, then stepped to the door and opened it. The boy handed in a telegram. The Professor closed the door again. He looked at the address on it, then opened it and read it aloud.

“Look out for D. He has just now, 12:45, come from Carfax hurriedly and hastened towards the South. He seems to be going the round and may want to see you: Mina.”

There was a pause. Then Jonathan Harker’s voice broke the silence:

“Now, God be thanked, we shall soon meet!”

Van Helsing turned to him quickly and said: “God will act in His own way and in His own time. Do not fear, and do not be glad yet. What we wish for at the moment may be the cause of our ruin.”

“I care for nothing now,” Harker answered hotly, “except to wipe this brute off the face of the earth. I would sell my soul to do it!”

“Oh, hush, hush, my child!” said Van Helsing. “God does not buy souls in this way. And the Devil, though he may buy them, does not keep his word. But God is merciful and just. He knows your pain and your love for that dear Madam Mina. Just think how her pain would be doubled if she heard your wild words. Do not fear for any of us. We are all given to this cause, and today shall see the end. The time for action is coming. Today this Vampire is limited to the powers of a man, and until sunset he cannot change. It will take him time to get here—see, it is twenty minutes past one. However quick he is, it will still be some time before he can come here. What we must hope for is that my Lord Arthur and Quincey arrive first.”

About half an hour after we had received Mrs. Harker’s telegram, there came a quiet, firm knock at the hall door. It was just an ordinary knock, the kind that thousands of gentlemen give every hour. But it made the Professor’s heart and mine beat loudly. We looked at each other, and together we moved out into the hall. Each of us held his weapons ready to use—the spiritual ones in the left hand, the earthly ones in the right. Van Helsing pulled back the latch and held the door half open. Then he stood back, with both hands ready for action. The gladness in our hearts must have shown on our faces when we saw who was on the step, close to the door. It was Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris. They came in quickly and closed the door behind them. As they moved along the hall, Lord Godalming said:

“It is all right. We found both places. There were six boxes in each, and we destroyed them all!”

“Destroyed?” asked the Professor.

“For him!”

We were silent for a minute. Then Quincey said: “There’s nothing to do but wait here. But if he doesn’t turn up by five o’clock, we must start off. It won’t do to leave Mrs. Harker alone after sunset.”

“He will be here before long now,” said Van Helsing, who had been looking at his pocket-book. “*Nota bene*: in Madam’s telegram he went south from Carfax. That means he went to cross the river. He could only do so at slack of tide, which should be a little before one o’clock. The fact that he went south has a meaning for us. He is only suspicious so far. So from Carfax he went first to the place where he least expected any interference. You must have been at Bermondsey only a short time before him. He is not here already, and that shows that he went to Mile End next. This took him some time, because he would then have to be carried over the river in some way. Believe me, my friends, we shall not have long to wait now. We should have some plan of attack ready, so that we do not throw away any chance. Hush, there is no time now. Have all your weapons ready! Be ready!”

He held up a warning hand as he spoke, for we could all hear a key being softly put into the lock of the hall door.

Even at such a moment, I could not help admiring how a strong, leading spirit takes control. In all our hunting parties and adventures in different parts of the world, Quincey Morris had always been the one to plan what we did. And Arthur and I had always obeyed him without question. Now the old habit seemed to come back by instinct. He threw a quick glance around the room and at once laid out our plan of attack. Without speaking a word, he placed each of us in position with a movement of his hand. Van Helsing, Harker and I stood just behind the door. So when it was opened, the Professor could guard it, while we two stepped between the newcomer and the door. Godalming stood behind and Quincey in front, just out of sight, ready to move in front of the window. We waited in a suspense that made the seconds pass as slowly as in a nightmare. The slow, careful steps came along the hall. The Count clearly expected some surprise—or at least he feared it.

Suddenly, with a single leap, he jumped into the room. He got past us before any of us could raise a hand to stop him. There was something so like a panther in the movement—something so unhuman—that it seemed to wake us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker. With a quick movement he threw himself in front of the door that led into the room at the front of the house. When the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face. It showed his eye-teeth, long and pointed. But the evil smile quickly changed into a cold stare, full of a lion’s scorn. His face changed again when we all moved towards him together. It was a pity that we did not have a better plan of attack. Even at that moment I wondered what we were going to do. I myself did not know whether our deadly weapons would be of any use. Harker clearly meant to find out. He had his great Kukri knife ready, and he made a fierce and sudden cut at the Count. It was a powerful blow. Only the devilish quickness of the Count’s leap back saved him. One second later, and the sharp blade would have cut through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat. It made a wide gap, and a bundle of bank-notes and a stream of gold fell out of it. The Count’s face was so hellish that for a moment I feared for Harker. But I saw him raise the terrible knife high again for another blow. By instinct I moved forward to protect him, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm. And I was not surprised to see the monster shrink back, as each one of us made the same movement without thinking. It would be impossible to describe the look of hate and defeated evil—of anger and hellish rage—that came over the Count’s face. Against his burning eyes, his waxen colour became greenish-yellow. The red scar on his forehead showed on the pale skin like a beating wound. The next instant he made a twisting dive and slipped under Harker’s arm before the blow could fall. He grabbed a handful of the money from the floor, rushed across the room and threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled down into the stone-paved area below. Through the sound of the breaking glass I could hear the “ting” of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the stones.

We ran over and saw him jump up from the ground, unhurt. He rushed up the steps, crossed the stone-paved yard and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us:

“You think you can defeat me, you—with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher’s shop. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge has only just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine—my creatures, to do what I order, and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!”

With a scornful sneer he went quickly through the door. We heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond it opened and shut. We realised how hard it would be to follow him through the stable, and we moved towards the hall. The first of us to speak was the Professor:

“We have learnt something—much! In spite of his brave words, he fears us. He fear time, he fear want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very voice gives him away, or my ears deceive me. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of wild beasts, and understand such things. For me, I make sure that nothing here can be of use to him, if he comes back.”

As he spoke, he put the rest of the money into his pocket. He took the title-deeds in the bundle, just as Harker had left them. Then he swept the remaining things into the open fireplace and set fire to them with a match.

Godalming and Morris had rushed out into the yard, and Harker had lowered himself from the window to follow the Count. But the Count had bolted the stable door. By the time they had forced it open, there was no sign of him. Van Helsing and I tried asking questions at the back of the house. But the mews was empty, and no one had seen him leave.

It was now late in the afternoon, and sunset was not far off. We had to admit that our game was over. With heavy hearts we agreed with the Professor when he said:

“Let us go back to Madam Mina—poor, poor dear Madam Mina. All that we can do just now is done. And there, at least, we can protect her. But we need not despair. There is only one more earth-box, and we must try to find it. When that is done, all may yet be well.”

I could see that he spoke as bravely as he could to comfort Harker. The poor fellow was completely broken. Now and again he gave a low groan which he could not hold back—he was thinking of his wife.

With sad hearts we came back to my house. There we found Mrs. Harker waiting for us, looking cheerful. It did honour to her bravery and unselfishness. When she saw our faces, her own face became as pale as death. For a second or two her eyes were closed, as if she were praying in secret. Then she said cheerfully:

“I can never thank you all enough. Oh, my poor darling!” As she spoke, she took her husband’s grey head in her hands and kissed it. “Lay your poor head here and rest it. All will yet be well, dear! God will protect us if He wishes it in His good purpose.”

The poor fellow groaned. In his great misery there was no room for words.

We had a sort of quick supper together, and I think it cheered us all up a little. Perhaps it was just the warmth of food for hungry people—none of us had eaten anything since breakfast. Or perhaps being together helped us. But anyway, we were all less miserable, and we saw tomorrow as not completely without hope. We kept our promise and told Mrs. Harker everything that had happened. At times she grew snowy white, when danger had seemed to threaten her husband. At other times she grew red, when his love for her was shown. But she listened bravely and calmly. When we came to the part where Harker had rushed at the Count so wildly, she held on to her husband’s arm. She held it tight, as though her holding could protect him from any harm that might come. However, she said nothing until the whole story was told, and we had brought it right up to the present time. Then, without letting go of her husband’s hand, she stood up among us and spoke. Oh, if only I could give some idea of that scene! There was that sweet, sweet, good, good woman, in all the bright beauty of her youth and life. There was the red scar on her forehead. She knew it was there, and we saw it and ground our teeth, remembering where it had come from and how. There was her loving kindness against our grim hate, and her gentle faith against all our fears and doubts. And we knew that, as far as signs and symbols went, she was shut out from God, with all her goodness and purity and faith.

“Jonathan,” she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips, it was so full of love and tenderness. “Jonathan dear, and all of you, my true, true friends, I want you to remember something through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fight. I know that you must destroy, just as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live afterwards. But it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has caused all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what his joy will be when he, too, is destroyed in his worse part, so that his better part may live for ever in the spirit. You must pity him too, though that must not stop your hands from destroying him.”

As she spoke, I could see her husband’s face darken and tighten. It was as though the strong feeling in him were burning his whole being down to its centre. Without thinking, he held his wife’s hand tighter and tighter, until his knuckles looked white. She did not move away from the pain, which I knew she must have felt. Instead she looked at him with eyes that begged him more than ever. When she stopped speaking, he jumped to his feet, almost tearing his hand from hers as he spoke:

“May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of his which we are aiming at. If I could send his soul beyond it to burning hell for ever and ever, I would do it!”

“Oh, hush! Oh, hush! In the name of the good God. Don’t say such things, Jonathan, my husband, or you will crush me with fear and horror. Just think, my dear—I have been thinking about it all this long, long day—that ... perhaps ... some day ... I, too, may need such pity. And that some other man like you—with just as much reason for anger—may refuse it to me! Oh, my husband! My husband, truly I would have saved you from such a thought if there had been another way. But I pray that God has not kept your wild words, except as the heart-broken cry of a very loving and deeply hurt man. Oh, God, let these poor white hairs be proof of what he has suffered. All his life he has done no wrong, and so many sorrows have come to him.”

We men were all in tears now. We could not hold them back, and we wept openly. She wept too, when she saw that her sweeter advice had won. Her husband threw himself on his knees beside her. He put his arms round her and hid his face in the folds of her dress. Van Helsing signalled to us, and we went quietly out of the room. We left the two loving hearts alone with their God.

Before they went to bed, the Professor prepared the room against any coming of the Vampire. He told Mrs. Harker that she could rest in peace. She tried to make herself believe it. For her husband’s sake, she clearly tried to seem content. It was a brave struggle, and I think and believe that it was rewarded. Van Helsing had placed a bell close by, which either of them was to ring in any emergency. When they had gone to bed, Quincey, Godalming and I arranged to sit up, dividing the night between us. We would watch over the safety of the poor, suffering lady. The first watch is Quincey’s, so the rest of us will go to bed as soon as we can. Godalming has already gone to bed, because his is the second watch. Now that my work is done, I, too, shall go to bed.

*Jonathan Harker’s Journal.*

*3-4 October, close to midnight.*—I thought yesterday would never end. I had a deep longing for sleep. I had a kind of blind belief that when I woke, things would be changed, and that any change must now be for the better. Before we parted, we discussed what our next step should be, but we could not come to any decision. All we knew was that one earth-box was left, and that only the Count knew where it was. If he chooses to stay hidden, he may defeat us for years. And in the meantime!—the thought is too horrible. I do not dare to think of it even now. This I know: if there was ever a woman who was perfect in every way, it is my poor, wronged darling. I love her a thousand times more for her sweet pity last night. It was a pity that made my own hate of the monster seem low and mean. Surely God will not let the world become poorer by losing such a person. This gives me hope. We are all drifting towards the rocks now, and faith is our only anchor. Thank God! Mina is sleeping, and sleeping without dreams. I am afraid of what her dreams might be like, with such terrible memories behind them. As far as I have seen, she has not been so calm since the sunset. Then, for a while, a peace came over her face which was like spring after the cold winds of March. At the time I thought it was the soft red light of the sunset on her face. But somehow I now think it has a deeper meaning. I am not sleepy myself, though I am tired—tired to death. However, I must try to sleep. There is tomorrow to think of, and there is no rest for me until....

*Later.*—I must have fallen asleep, because Mina woke me. She was sitting up in bed with a frightened look on her face. I could see easily, because we did not leave the room in darkness. She had put a warning hand over my mouth, and now she whispered in my ear:

“Hush! There is someone in the corridor!”

I got up quietly, crossed the room and gently opened the door.

Just outside, Mr. Morris lay stretched out on a mattress, wide awake. He raised a warning hand for silence as he whispered to me:

“Hush! Go back to bed; it is all right. One of us will be here all night. We don’t mean to take any chances!”

His look and his movement did not allow any discussion. So I came back and told Mina. She sighed, and a real shadow of a smile came over her poor, pale face. She put her arms round me and said softly:

“Oh, thank God for good brave men!”

With a sigh, she sank back again to sleep. I am writing this now because I am not sleepy, though I must try again.

*4 October, morning.*—Once again during the night Mina woke me. This time we had all had a good sleep, for the grey of the coming dawn was making the windows into sharp oblongs, and the gas flame was like a small spot rather than a circle of light. She said to me quickly:

“Go, call the Professor. I want to see him at once.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I have an idea. I suppose it must have come in the night, and grown without my knowing it. He must hypnotise me before the dawn, and then I shall be able to speak. Go quick, dearest; the time is getting close.”

I went to the door. Dr. Seward was resting on the mattress. When he saw me, he jumped to his feet.

“Is anything wrong?” he asked, in alarm.

“No,” I replied, “but Mina wants to see Dr. Van Helsing at once.”

“I will go,” he said, and he hurried into the Professor’s room.

Two or three minutes later Van Helsing was in the room in his dressing-gown. Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming were with Dr. Seward at the door, asking questions. When the Professor saw Mina smile, a real smile pushed the worry from his face. He rubbed his hands as he said:

“Oh, my dear Madam Mina, this is indeed a change. See! Friend Jonathan, we have got our dear Madam Mina back to us today, as she was before!” Then he turned to her and said cheerfully: “And what am I do for you? For at this hour you do not want me for nothings.”

“I want you to hypnotise me!” she said. “Do it before the dawn, because I feel that then I can speak, and speak freely. Be quick, for the time is short!”

Without a word, he signalled to her to sit up in bed.

He looked hard at her and began to make passes in front of her with each hand in turn, from over the top of her head downwards. Mina looked hard at him for a few minutes. During that time my own heart beat like a hammer, for I felt that some crisis was near. Slowly her eyes closed, and she sat completely still. Only the gentle rise and fall of her breast showed that she was alive. The Professor made a few more passes and then stopped. I could see that his forehead was covered with great drops of sweat. Mina opened her eyes, but she did not seem the same woman. There was a far-away look in her eyes, and her voice had a sad, dreamy sound which was new to me. The Professor raised his hand for silence and signalled to me to bring the others in. They came in on tip-toe, closing the door behind them. They stood at the foot of the bed, watching. Mina did not seem to see them. Van Helsing broke the stillness. He spoke in a low, even voice, so as not to break the flow of her thoughts:

“Where are you?”

The answer came without any feeling: “I do not know. Sleep has no place it can call its own.”

For several minutes there was silence. Mina sat stiffly, and the Professor stood looking hard at her. The rest of us hardly dared to breathe. The room was growing lighter. Without taking his eyes from Mina’s face, Dr. Van Helsing signalled to me to pull up the blind. I did so, and the day seemed to be just upon us. A red streak shot up, and a rosy light seemed to spread through the room. At that instant the Professor spoke again:

“Where are you now?”

The answer came dreamily, but with purpose. It was as though she were translating something. I have heard her use the same tone when she reads her shorthand notes.

“I do not know. It is all strange to me!”

“What do you see?”

“I can see nothing; it is all dark.”

“What do you hear?” I could hear the strain in the Professor’s patient voice.

“The lapping of water. It is gurgling by, and little waves jump. I can hear them on the outside.”

“Then you are on a ship?”

We all looked at each other, each trying to learn something from the others. We were afraid to think. The answer came quickly:

“Oh, yes!”

“What else do you hear?”

“The sound of men stamping overhead as they run about. There is the creaking of a chain, and the loud tinkle as the check of the capstan falls into the ratchet.”

“What are you doing?”

“I am still—oh, so still. It is like death!”

The voice faded away into a deep breath, like someone sleeping, and the open eyes closed again.

By this time the sun had risen, and we were all in the full light of day. Dr. Van Helsing put his hands on Mina’s shoulders and laid her head down softly on her pillow. She lay like a sleeping child for a few moments. Then, with a long sigh, she woke and stared in wonder to see us all around her.

“Have I been talking in my sleep?” was all she said.

She seemed to understand the situation without being told, but she was eager to know what she had said. The Professor repeated the conversation, and she said:

“Then there is not a moment to lose. It may not be too late yet!”

Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming started for the door, but the Professor’s calm voice called them back:

“Stay, my friends. That ship, wherever it was, was pulling up its anchor while she spoke. There are many ships pulling up their anchors at this moment in your great Port of London. Which of them is it that you seek? God be thanked that we have a clue once again, though we do not know where it may lead us. We have been somewhat blind—blind in the way of men. For when we look back, we see what we might have seen looking forward, if we had been able to see what we might have seen! Alas, but that sentence is a puddle, is it not? We can know now what was in the Count’s mind when he seized that money, though Jonathan’s so fierce knife put him in a danger that even he fears. He meant escape. Hear me, ESCAPE! He saw that with only one earth-box left, and a pack of men following him like dogs after a fox, this London was no place for him. He have taken his last earth-box on board a ship, and he leaves the land. He thinks he will escape, but no! We follow him. Tally Ho! as friend Arthur would say when he put on his red coat! Our old fox is cunning, oh! so cunning, and we must follow him with cunning. I, too, am cunning, and in a little while I shall know his mind. In the meantime we may rest, and in peace. There are waters between us which he does not want to cross. And he could not cross them if he wished—unless the ship were to touch the land, and then only at full or slack tide. See, the sun has just risen, and the whole day until sunset is ours. Let us take a bath, and dress, and have breakfast. We all need it, and we can eat it comfortably, since he is not in the same land as us.”

Mina looked at him with pleading eyes as she asked: “But why must we look for him any more, when he has gone away from us?”

He took her hand and patted it as he replied: “Ask me nothings yet. When we have had breakfast, then I answer all questions.”

He would say no more, and we went off to dress.

After breakfast Mina asked her question again. He looked at her seriously for a minute and then said sadly:

“Because, my dear, dear Madam Mina, now more than ever we must find him, even if we have to follow him into the jaws of Hell!”

She grew paler as she asked weakly: “Why?”

“Because,” he answered solemnly, “he can live for centuries, and you are only a mortal woman. Now time is to be feared—since once he put that mark upon your throat.”

I was just in time to catch her as she fell forward in a faint.

### Glossary

- **alchemist**: in old times, a person who tried to change metals into gold and to find the secret of long life.
- **Scholomance**: a secret school in the mountains where, people said, the Devil taught magic.
- **Festina lente**: Latin for “hurry slowly”.
- **Nota bene**: Latin for “note well”: pay attention to this.
- **slack of tide**: the short time when the sea is not moving in or out, between high and low water.
- **jackal**: a wild animal like a dog that eats what other animals have killed.
- **mews**: a small street behind houses where horses were kept.
- **passes**: slow movements of the hands in front of someone’s face, used to hypnotise them.
- **capstan**: a machine on a ship that turns to pull up the anchor chain; the check falls into the ratchet with a click.
- **Tally Ho!**: the shout of hunters when they see the fox.

## Chapter XXIV: Dr. Seward’s Phonograph Diary, Spoken by Van Helsing

THIS to Jonathan Harker.

You are to stay with your dear Madam Mina. We shall go to make our search—if I can call it a search. For it is not search but knowing, and we only look for proof. But you stay and take care of her today. This is your best and most holy duty. Today nothing can find him here. Let me tell you, so that you will know what we four know already, for I have told them. He, our enemy, have gone away. He have gone back to his Castle in Transylvania. I know it as well as if a great hand of fire wrote it on the wall. He have prepared for this in some way, and that last earth-box was ready to ship somewhere. For this he took the money. For this he hurry at the last, so that we do not catch him before the sun go down. It was his last hope—except that he might hide in the tomb of poor Miss Lucy. He think she keep it open for him, because he thought she was like him. But there was not time. When that failed, he went straight to his last resource—his last earth-work, I might say, if I wished a *double entente*. He is clever, oh, so clever! He know that his game here was finished, and so he decide to go back home. He find a ship going by the route he came, and he go in it. We go off now to find what ship, and where it is going. When we have discovered that, we come back and tell you all. Then we will comfort you and poor dear Madam Mina with new hope. For it will be hope, when you think it over: all is not lost. This very creature that we hunt took hundreds of years to get as far as London. And yet in one day, when we knew how he had placed his boxes, we drove him out. He has limits, though he is powerful and can do much harm, and he does not suffer as we do. But we are strong, each in our purpose, and we are all stronger together. Take heart again, dear husband of Madam Mina. This battle has only begun. In the end we shall win—as sure as God sits on high to watch over His children. So be of much comfort until we return.

Van Helsing.

*Jonathan Harker’s Journal.*

*4 October.*—I played Van Helsing’s message on the phonograph to Mina, and the poor girl brightened up a great deal. Already the certainty that the Count is out of the country has comforted her, and comfort is strength to her. As for me, his horrible danger is not face to face with us now. So it seems almost impossible to believe in it. Even my own terrible experiences in Castle Dracula seem like a long-forgotten dream. Here in the fresh autumn air, in the bright sunlight——

Alas! How can I not believe! In the middle of my thought, my eye fell on the red scar on my poor darling’s white forehead. While that lasts, there can be no disbelief. And afterwards, the very memory of it will keep our faith crystal clear. Mina and I are afraid to be idle, so we have been over all the diaries again and again. Each time the reality seems greater. And yet somehow the pain and the fear seem less. There is something like a guiding purpose all through them, which is comforting. Mina says that perhaps we are the instruments of some final good. It may be so! I shall try to think as she does. We have not yet spoken to each other about the future. It is better to wait until we see the Professor and the others after their investigations.

The day is running by more quickly than I ever thought a day could run for me again. It is now three o’clock.

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*5 October, 5 p. m.*—Our meeting for reports. Present: Professor Van Helsing, Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, Mr. Quincey Morris, Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker.

Dr. Van Helsing described what steps they had taken during the day. They wanted to discover on what boat Count Dracula had escaped, and where it was going:

“I knew that he wanted to get back to Transylvania. So I felt sure that he must go by the mouth of the Danube, or by somewhere in the Black Sea. He came by that way. It was a dreary blank in front of us. *Omne ignotum pro magnifico*. And so with heavy hearts we start to find what ships left for the Black Sea last night. He was in a sailing ship, since Madam Mina told of sails being set. These ships are not so important that they go in your list of shipping in the *Times*. And so, by the suggestion of Lord Godalming, we go to your Lloyd’s. There they note all ships that sail, however small. There we find that only one ship going to the Black Sea went out with the tide. She is the *Czarina Catherine*. She sailed from Doolittle’s Wharf for Varna, and from there to other places and up the Danube. ‘Soh!’ said I. ‘This is the ship that the Count is on.’ So off we go to Doolittle’s Wharf. There we find a man in a wooden office so small that the man looks bigger than the office. We ask him about the movements of the *Czarina Catherine*. He swear much, and he have a red face and a loud voice. But he is a good fellow all the same. Quincey gives him something from his pocket which crackles as he rolls it up. The man puts it in a very small bag, hidden deep in his clothes. After that he is a still better fellow, and our humble servant. He comes with us and asks many men who are rough and hot. These are better fellows too, when they are no longer thirsty. They say much about ‘blood’ and ‘bloom’, and other things which I do not understand. But I guess what they mean. But all the same they tell us everything that we want to know.

“Between them they tell us this. Yesterday afternoon, at about five o’clock, a man came in a great hurry. He was a tall man, thin and pale, with a high nose and very white teeth. His eyes seemed to be burning. He was all in black, except for a straw hat. It suited neither him nor the time of year. He scattered his money about as he quickly asked what ship sailed for the Black Sea, and where to. Some men took him to the office and then to the ship. He would not go on board. He stopped at the shore end of the gang-plank and asked the captain to come to him. The captain came when he was told he would be well paid. He swore a lot at first, but he agreed to the terms. Then the thin man went off, and someone told him where a horse and cart could be hired. He went there and soon came back, driving the cart himself. On it was a great box. He lifted this down himself, though it took several men to put it on the truck for the ship. He talked a lot to the captain about how and where his box was to be placed. But the captain did not like it, and swore at him in many languages. He told him that if he liked, he could come and see where it would be put. But the thin man said ‘no’. He said he would not come yet, because he had much to do. At this the captain told him that he had better be quick—with blood. His ship would leave the place—of blood—before the turn of the tide—with blood. Then the thin man smiled. He said that of course the captain must go when he thought fit. But he would be surprised if he went quite so soon. The captain swore again, in many languages. The thin man bowed to him and thanked him. He said that he would trouble his kindness so far as to come on board before the sailing. At last the captain, redder than ever, answered him in even more languages. He did not want any Frenchmen—with bloom on them and blood too—in his ship—with blood on her too. And so the thin man asked where, close at hand, there might be a shop where he could buy ship forms. Then he left.

“No one knew where he went, ‘or bloomin’ well cared,’ as they said. They had something else to think about—well, with blood again. For it soon became clear to everyone that the *Czarina Catherine* would not sail as expected. A thin mist began to creep up from the river. It grew and grew, until soon a thick fog covered the ship and everything round her. The captain swore in many languages—very many languages—many languages with bloom and blood. But he could do nothing. The water rose and rose, and he began to fear that he would miss the tide altogether. He was not in a friendly mood when, just at full tide, the thin man came up the gang-plank again. He asked to see where his box had been stored. The captain answered that he wished the man and his box—old, and with much bloom and blood—were in hell. But the thin man did not take offence. He went down with the mate and saw where the box was placed. Then he came up and stood for a while on deck in the fog. He must have gone off the ship by himself, for no one noticed him. Indeed, they did not think about him. For soon the fog began to melt away, and everything was clear again. My thirsty friends with their language of bloom and blood laughed as they told the next part. The captain asked other sailors who were moving up and down the river at that hour. He found that few of them had seen any fog at all, except where it lay round the wharf. Then the captain’s swearing was even greater than his usual swearing in many languages, and more colourful than ever. However, the ship went out on the ebb tide. By morning she was surely far down at the mouth of the river. By the time they told us, she was well out to sea.

“And so, my dear Madam Mina, we have to rest for a time. Our enemy is on the sea, with the fog at his command. He is on his way to the mouth of the Danube. Sailing a ship takes time, however quick she is. When we start, we go faster on land, and we meet him there. Our best hope is to find him in the box between sunrise and sunset. Then he cannot fight, and we may deal with him as we should. We have some days in which we can get our plan ready. We know all about where he goes. We have seen the owner of the ship, who showed us invoices and all the papers there are. The box we seek is to be landed in Varna and given to an agent, a man named Ristics. He will show his papers there, and so our merchant friend will have done his part. The merchant asked if anything was wrong. If so, he said, he could telegraph and have inquiries made at Varna. We said ‘no’. For what must be done is not for the police or the customs. It must be done by us alone, and in our own way.”

Dr. Van Helsing finished speaking. Then I asked him if he was certain that the Count had stayed on board the ship. He replied: “We have the best proof of that: your own evidence, in the hypnotic trance this morning.”

I asked him again if it was really necessary for them to follow the Count. Oh! I dread Jonathan leaving me, and I know that he would surely go if the others went. He answered with growing passion. At first he spoke quietly. But as he went on, he grew more angry and more forceful. In the end we could clearly see some of that strong personal power. It had made him a leader among men for so long:

“Yes, it is necessary—necessary—necessary! First for your sake, and then for the sake of humanity. This monster has done much harm already. He did it in the small space where he found himself, and in a short time. In that time he was still like a body feeling its little way in the dark, not knowing. All this I have told these others. You, my dear Madam Mina, will learn it from the phonograph of my friend John, or from your husband’s. I have told them how his move took centuries of work. He left his own barren land—barren of people—and came to a new land. There the lives of men are as many as the stalks of standing corn. Suppose another of the Un-Dead tried to do what he has done. Then perhaps all the centuries of the world, past or future, could not help him. With this one, all the secret, deep and strong forces of nature must have worked together in some wonderful way. He has lived Un-Dead for all these centuries in that very place. It is full of strange things in the world of rocks and chemicals. There are deep caves and cracks in the earth that reach no one knows where. There have been volcanoes there. Some of their openings still send out waters with strange powers, and gases that kill or bring to life. Surely there is something magnetic or electric in some of these mixtures of secret forces. They work in a strange way on bodily life. And in himself, from the first, there were some great qualities. In a hard and warlike time he was famous. He had stronger nerves, a sharper brain and a braver heart than any man. In him some force of life has in a strange way reached its highest point. And as his body stays strong and grows and thrives, so his brain grows too. All this is without the help of the Devil, which he surely has. For that help has to give way to the powers that come from good and are symbols of it. And now this is what he is to us. He have infected you—oh, forgive me, my dear, that I must say this, but I speak for your good. He has infected you in such a way that, even if he does no more, you have only to live. You have only to live in your own old, sweet way. And so in time, death, which comes to all men with God’s permission, shall make you like him. This must not be! We have sworn together that it must not. So we are servants of God’s own wish. He wishes that the world, and the men for whom His Son died, will not be given over to monsters. Their very existence would insult Him. He has already allowed us to save one soul. And we go out like the old knights of the Cross to save more. Like them, we shall travel towards the sunrise. And like them, if we fall, we fall in a good cause.”

He paused, and I said: “But will the Count not be wise and accept his defeat? He has been driven from England. Will he not avoid it, as a tiger avoids the village where he has been hunted?”

“Aha!” he said. “Your comparison of the tiger is good, for me, and I shall take it. The people of India call a tiger that has once tasted human blood a man-eater. Your man-eater cares no more for other prey. He prowls without stopping until he gets a man. This creature that we hunt from our village is a tiger too, a man-eater, and he never stops prowling. No, he is not one who goes away and stays far off. In his life, his living life, he went over the Turkish border and attacked his enemy on his own ground. He was beaten back, but did he stay away? No! He came again, and again, and again. Look how he keeps going and how much he can bear. With the child-brain that he had, he long ago had the idea of coming to a great city. What does he do? He finds out the place in all the world that promises the most for him. Then he sits down on purpose to prepare for the task. With patience he finds out how great his strength is, and what his powers are. He studies new languages. He learns a new social life, and new forms of old ways. He learns the politics, the law, the finance and the science. He learns the habits of a new land, and of a new people. They have come into being since his time. The little that he has seen only sharpens his appetite and makes his desire keener. Yes, and it helps his brain to grow. For it all proves to him how right his first guesses were. He has done this alone—all alone!—from a ruined tomb in a forgotten land. What more may he not do when the greater world of thought is open to him? He can smile at death, as we know. He can thrive among diseases that kill off whole peoples. Oh, if such a one came from God, and not the Devil! What a force for good he might be in this old world of ours! But we have promised to set the world free. Our work must be done in silence, and all our efforts in secret. For in this enlightened age, men do not believe even what they see. So the doubts of wise men would be his greatest strength. They would be his sheath and his armour, and his weapons to destroy us, his enemies. And we are willing to risk even our own souls for the safety of one we love. We do it for the good of mankind, and for the honour and glory of God.”

After a general discussion, we decided that nothing would be settled for certain tonight. We should all sleep on the facts and try to think out the right conclusions. Tomorrow at breakfast we are to meet again. After we have told one another our conclusions, we shall decide on a definite plan of action.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I feel a wonderful peace and rest tonight. It is as if some haunting presence has been taken away from me. Perhaps ...

My guess was not finished; it could not be. For I saw in the mirror the red mark on my forehead, and I knew that I was still unclean.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*5 October.*—We all got up early, and I think that sleep did much good for every one of us. When we met at an early breakfast, there was more cheerfulness than any of us had ever expected to feel again.

It is really wonderful how strongly human nature springs back. If anything that stands in our way is removed, no matter what it is, and in any way—even by death—we fly back to our first feelings of hope and joy. More than once, as we sat around the table, I opened my eyes wide in wonder. Had all the past days been only a dream? Then I saw the red blotch on Mrs. Harker’s forehead, and only that brought me back to reality. Even now, as I think the matter over seriously, I can hardly believe that the cause of all our trouble still exists. Even Mrs. Harker seems to forget her trouble for long periods. She thinks of her terrible scar only now and again, when something brings it back to her mind.

We are going to meet here in my study in half an hour to decide what to do. I see only one difficulty just now. I know it by instinct rather than by reason. We shall all have to speak openly. And yet I fear that, in some mysterious way, poor Mrs. Harker’s tongue is tied. I *know* that she forms her own conclusions. From all that has happened, I can guess how brilliant and how true they must be. But she will not, or cannot, put them into words. I have mentioned this to Van Helsing, and he and I are going to talk it over when we are alone. I suppose it is that horrible poison in her veins, which is beginning to work. The Count had his own purposes when he gave her what Van Helsing called “the Vampire’s baptism of blood.” Well, perhaps there is a poison that makes itself out of good things. We live in an age when ptomaines are still a mystery, so we should not be surprised at anything! One thing I know. If my instinct about poor Mrs. Harker’s silences is right, then there is a terrible difficulty—an unknown danger—in the work before us. The same power that forces her to be silent may force her to speak. I dare not think further. If I did, I would dishonour a noble woman in my thoughts!

Van Helsing is coming to my study a little before the others. I shall try to bring up the subject with him.

*Later.*—When the Professor came in, we talked about how things stood. I could see that he had something on his mind that he wanted to say. But he hesitated to begin. After talking around the subject for a little while, he suddenly said:

“Friend John, there is something that you and I must talk of alone, at least at the first. Later, we may have to take the others into our confidence.” Then he stopped, so I waited. He went on:

“Madam Mina, our poor, dear Madam Mina is changing.”

A cold shiver ran through me. My worst fears were now confirmed. Van Helsing continued:

“We have the sad experience of Miss Lucy. So this time we must be warned before things go too far. Our task is now really more difficult than ever. This new trouble makes every hour of the greatest importance. I can see the signs of the vampire coming in her face. It is now only very, very slight. But it can be seen, if we have eyes to notice without to judge before. Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes are more hard. But these are not all. There is to her the silence now often, as so it was with Miss Lucy. She did not speak, even when she wrote what she wished to be known later. Now my fear is this. If it is so that she can, by our hypnotic trance, tell what the Count see and hear, is it not more true of him? He hypnotise her first. He drink of her very blood and make her drink of his. Then can he not, if he will, force her mind to tell him what she know?”

I nodded to show I agreed. He went on:

“Then what we must do is to prevent this. We must keep her ignorant of our plans, and so she cannot tell what she know not. This is a painful task! Oh, so painful that it break my heart to think of. But it must be. When we meet today, I must tell her something. For a reason which we will not speak, she must not more be of our council. She must simply be guarded by us.”

He wiped his forehead. It was covered in sweat at the thought of the pain he might have to cause. That poor soul was already so tortured. I knew that it would be some comfort to him if I told him that I had come to the same conclusion. At any rate, it would take away the pain of doubt. I told him, and the effect was as I expected.

It is now close to the time of our general meeting. Van Helsing has gone away to prepare for the meeting, and for his painful part of it. I really believe that he wants to be able to pray alone.

*Later.*—Right at the start of our meeting, Van Helsing and I both felt a great relief. Mrs. Harker had sent a message by her husband. She would not join us for now. She thought it better for us to be free to discuss our plans without her there to make things awkward. The Professor and I looked at each other for a moment, and somehow we both seemed relieved. For my part, I thought this: if Mrs. Harker understood the danger herself, then much pain and much danger were avoided. So we agreed, with a questioning look and an answer, and a finger on our lips, to keep silent about our suspicions. We would say nothing until we could talk alone again. We went at once into our Plan of Campaign. First Van Helsing roughly gave us the facts:

“The *Czarina Catherine* left the Thames yesterday morning. Even at the fastest speed she has ever made, she will need at least three weeks to reach Varna. But we can travel overland to the same place in three days. Now, let us allow two days less for the ship’s voyage, because of the weather that we know the Count can bring. If we also allow a whole day and night for our own delays, we have a margin of nearly two weeks. So, to be quite safe, we must leave here on the 17th at the latest. Then at any rate we shall be in Varna a day before the ship arrives. We shall be able to make whatever preparations are necessary. Of course we shall all go armed—armed against evil things, spiritual as well as physical.”

Here Quincey Morris added:

“I understand that the Count comes from a wolf country, and he may get there before us. I propose that we add Winchesters to our weapons. I sort of believe in a Winchester when there is any trouble of that kind around. Do you remember, Art, when we had the pack after us at Tobolsk? What wouldn’t we have given then for a repeater each!”

“Good!” said Van Helsing. “Winchesters it shall be. Quincey’s head is level at all times, but most of all when there is to hunt. My metaphor brings more shame to science than wolves bring danger to man! In the meantime we can do nothing here. And as I think that Varna is not known to any of us, why not go there more soon? It is as long to wait here as there. Tonight and tomorrow we can get ready. And then, if all be well, we four can set out on our journey.”

“We four?” said Harker, as a question, looking from one of us to another.

“Of course!” answered the Professor quickly. “You must remain to take care of your so sweet wife!”

Harker was silent for a while. Then he said in a hollow voice:

“Let us talk of that part of it in the morning. I want to talk it over with Mina.”

I thought that now was the time for Van Helsing to warn him not to tell her our plans. But he took no notice. I looked at him meaningfully and coughed. As his answer, he put his finger on his lips and turned away.

*Jonathan Harker’s Journal.*

*5 October, afternoon.*—For some time after our meeting this morning I could not think. Things have taken new turns. They leave my mind so full of wonder that there is no room for active thought. Mina’s decision not to take any part in the discussion set me thinking. I could not argue the matter with her, so I could only guess. I am as far as ever from an answer now. The way the others received it puzzled me too. The last time we talked of the subject, we agreed that nothing more would be hidden among us. Mina is sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child. Her lips are curved, and her face shines with happiness. Thank God, there are still such moments for her.

*Later.*—How strange it all is. I sat watching Mina’s happy sleep. I came as near to being happy myself as I suppose I ever shall. The evening drew on, and the earth took its shadows from the sun as it sank lower. The silence of the room grew more and more solemn to me. All at once Mina opened her eyes. She looked at me tenderly and said:

“Jonathan, I want you to promise me something on your word of honour. It is a promise made to me, but made in a holy way, in God’s hearing. It must not be broken, even if I should go down on my knees and beg you with bitter tears. Quick, you must make it to me at once.”

“Mina,” I said, “I cannot make a promise like that at once. I may have no right to make it.”

“But, dear one,” she said, with such spiritual intensity that her eyes were like pole stars, “it is I who wish it, and it is not for myself. You can ask Dr. Van Helsing if I am not right. If he disagrees, you may do as you will. No, more than that: if you all agree, later, you are set free from the promise.”

“I promise!” I said.

For a moment she looked supremely happy. But to me, all happiness for her was denied by the red scar on her forehead. She said:

“Promise me that you will not tell me anything of the plans made for the campaign against the Count. Not by word, or by hint, or by suggestion; not at any time while this remains on me!”

And she solemnly pointed to the scar. I saw that she was serious, and I said solemnly:

“I promise!”

And as I said it, I felt that from that moment a door had been shut between us.

*Later, midnight.*—Mina has been bright and cheerful all evening. She was so cheerful that all the others seemed to take courage, as if they had caught some of her gaiety. As a result, even I felt as if the dark cover of gloom that weighs us down was lifted a little. We all went to bed early. Mina is now sleeping like a little child. It is a wonderful thing that she can still sleep in the middle of her terrible trouble. Thank God for it, for then at least she can forget her worries. Perhaps her example will affect me, as her gaiety did tonight. I shall try it. Oh! for a dreamless sleep.

*6 October, morning.*—Another surprise. Mina woke me early, at about the same time as yesterday, and asked me to bring Dr. Van Helsing. I thought that it was another time for hypnotism, and I went for the Professor without a question. He had clearly expected some such call, for I found him dressed in his room. His door was a little open, so that he could hear when the door of our room opened. He came at once. As he came into the room, he asked Mina if the others might come too.

“No,” she said quite simply, “it will not be necessary. You can tell them just as well. I must go with you on your journey.”

Dr. Van Helsing was as startled as I was. After a moment’s pause he asked:

“But why?”

“You must take me with you. I am safer with you, and you shall be safer, too.”

“But why, dear Madam Mina? You know that your safety is our most solemn duty. We go into danger. And you are, or may be, more open to it than any of us, because of—because of circumstances—things that have been.”

He paused, embarrassed.

As she answered, she raised her finger and pointed to her forehead:

“I know. That is why I must go. I can tell you now, while the sun is coming up; I may not be able to again. I know that when the Count wills me, I must go. I know that if he tells me to come in secret, I must come by cunning. I must use any trick to deceive—even Jonathan.”

God saw the look that she turned on me as she spoke. If there is indeed a Recording Angel, that look is written down to her everlasting honour. I could only hold her hand tightly. I could not speak. My feelings were too strong even for the relief of tears. She went on:

“You men are brave and strong. You are strong in your numbers. You can defy what would be too much for the human strength of one person guarding alone. Besides, I may be useful, since you can hypnotise me. In that way you can learn things that even I myself do not know.”

Dr. Van Helsing said very seriously:

“Madam Mina, you are, as always, most wise. You shall with us come; and together we shall do that which we go out to achieve.”

When he had spoken, Mina’s long silence made me look at her. She had fallen back on her pillow, asleep. She did not even wake when I pulled up the blind and let in the sunlight, which flooded the room. Van Helsing signed to me to come with him quietly. We went to his room, and within a minute Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris were with us too. He told them what Mina had said, and went on:

“In the morning we shall leave for Varna. We have now to deal with a new factor: Madam Mina. Oh, but her soul is true. It is agony for her to tell us so much as she has done. But it is most right, and we are warned in time. No chance must be lost. In Varna we must be ready to act the very moment that ship arrives.”

“What shall we do exactly?” asked Mr. Morris briefly.

The Professor paused before he replied:

“We shall first board that ship. Then, when we have found the box, we shall place a branch of the wild rose on it. This we shall fasten there, for when it is there, none can come out. So at least says the superstition. And to superstition we must trust at the first. It was man’s faith in the early days, and it have its root in faith still. Then, when we get the chance that we look for, when none are near to see, we shall open the box, and—and all will be well.”

“I shall not wait for any chance,” said Morris. “When I see the box, I shall open it and destroy the monster. I’ll do it even with a thousand men looking on. I’ll do it even if I am to be wiped out for it the next moment!”

Without thinking, I took his hand, and I found it as firm as a piece of steel. I think he understood my look; I hope he did.

“Good boy,” said Dr. Van Helsing. “Brave boy. Quincey is all man. God bless him for it. My child, believe me, none of us shall stay behind or stop from any fear. I do but say what we may do—what we must do. But, indeed, indeed we cannot say what we shall do. There are so many things which may happen. Their ways and their ends are so different that we may not say until the moment comes. We shall all be armed, in all ways. And when the time for the end has come, our effort shall not be lacking. Now let us today put all our affairs in order. Let all things which touch on others dear to us, and who depend on us, be complete. For none of us can tell what, or when, or how, the end may be. As for me, my own affairs are in order. And as I have nothing else to do, I shall go and make arrangements for the travel. I shall have all tickets and so on for our journey.”

There was nothing more to be said, and we parted. I shall now settle all my affairs of earth, and be ready for whatever may come....

*Later.*—It is all done. My will is made, and all is complete. If Mina survives, she is my only heir. If it should not be so, then the others, who have been so good to us, shall have the rest.

It is now getting near sunset; Mina’s uneasiness makes me notice it. I am sure that there is something on her mind which the moment of exact sunset will reveal. These times are becoming very painful for us all. Each sunrise and sunset opens up some new danger—some new pain. Yet in God’s will, this may be the means to a good end. I write all these things in the diary because my darling must not hear them now. But if she can see them again one day, they shall be ready.

She is calling to me.

### Glossary

- **double entente**: Van Helsing’s phrase for a joke with two meanings; here “earth-work” means both a last defence and his box of earth.
- **resource**: something you can use when you are in trouble.
- **Omne ignotum pro magnifico**: Latin for “everything unknown seems great”.
- **wharf**: a place by a river or the sea where ships are loaded and unloaded.
- **gang-plank**: a board for walking between a ship and the land.
- **ebb tide**: the time when the sea goes out, away from the land.
- **customs**: the officials who check goods coming into or leaving a country.
- **knights of the Cross**: Christian soldiers of the Middle Ages who travelled east to fight for their faith.
- **man-eater**: a wild animal, such as a tiger, that hunts and eats people.
- **sheath**: a cover for the blade of a knife or sword.
- **blotch**: a mark or spot of colour on the skin.
- **ptomaines**: poisons that form in food when it goes bad; in those days, scientists did not understand them well.
- **baptism of blood**: Van Helsing’s name for what the Count did to Mina when he made her drink his blood.
- **head is level**: he thinks clearly and calmly.
- **metaphor**: a picture in words, when you speak about one thing as if it were another.
- **repeater**: a gun that can fire many times without loading again.
- **pole stars**: the Pole Star is a bright star in the north that sailors use to find their way.
- **Recording Angel**: an angel who, people believe, writes down all the good and bad things people do.
- **heir**: the person who gets your money and things when you die.

## Chapter XXV: Dr. Seward’s Diary

*11 October, Evening.*—Jonathan Harker has asked me to write this down. He says he hardly feels able to do it himself, and he wants an exact record kept.

I think that none of us were surprised when we were asked to see Mrs. Harker a little before sunset. Lately we have come to understand that sunrise and sunset are times of special freedom for her. At these times her old self can show itself. No controlling force holds her down or holds her back, or pushes her to action. This mood or condition begins half an hour or more before the actual sunrise or sunset. It lasts until the sun is high, or while the clouds are still glowing with the rays streaming above the horizon. At first there is a sort of negative condition, as if some tie were loosened. Then complete freedom quickly follows. But when the freedom ends, the change back, or relapse, comes quickly. Only a time of warning silence comes before it.

Tonight, when we met, she seemed somewhat held back, and she showed all the signs of a struggle inside her. I myself thought it was because she was making a violent effort at the earliest moment she could. After a very few minutes, however, she had complete control of herself. She was half lying on the sofa. She signed to her husband to sit beside her there, and she made the rest of us bring our chairs up close. Taking her husband’s hand in hers, she began:

“We are all here together in freedom, perhaps for the last time! I know, dear; I know that you will always be with me to the end.”

This was to her husband. We could see that his hand had tightened on hers.

“In the morning we go out on our task, and God alone knows what may be waiting for any of us. You are going to be so good to me as to take me with you. I am a poor weak woman, whose soul perhaps is lost—no, no, not yet, but it is at any rate at stake. I know that you will do for me all that brave, earnest men can do. But you must remember that I am not as you are. There is a poison in my blood, in my soul, which may destroy me. It must destroy me, unless some help comes to us. Oh, my friends, you know as well as I do that my soul is at stake. And though I know there is one way out for me, you must not take it, and I must not take it!”

She looked at us all in turn, pleading, beginning and ending with her husband.

“What is that way?” asked Van Helsing in a hoarse voice. “What is that way, which we must not—may not—take?”

“That I may die now, either by my own hand or by another’s, before the greater evil is fully done. I know, and you know, that if I were once dead, you could and would set free my immortal spirit. You would do it just as you did for my poor Lucy. If death, or the fear of death, were the only thing in the way, I would not shrink from dying. I would die here and now, among the friends who love me. But death is not all. There is hope before us and a bitter task to be done. I cannot believe that to die in such a case is God’s will. So I, for my part, give up here the certainty of eternal rest. I go out into the dark, where there may be the blackest things that this world or the world below holds!”

We were all silent, for we knew by instinct that this was only a beginning. The faces of the others were set hard, and Harker’s face became ash-grey. Perhaps he guessed better than any of us what was coming. She continued:

“This is what I can give into the hotch-pot.”

I could not help noticing the strange legal phrase which she used in such a place, and so seriously.

“What will each of you give? Your lives, I know,” she went on quickly. “That is easy for brave men. Your lives are God’s, and you can give them back to Him. But what will you give to me?”

She looked at us again questioningly, but this time she avoided her husband’s face. Quincey seemed to understand. He nodded, and her face lit up.

“Then I shall tell you plainly what I want, for there must be nothing doubtful between us in this now. You must promise me, one and all—even you, my beloved husband—that, should the time come, you will kill me.”

“What is that time?” The voice was Quincey’s, but it was low and strained.

“When you are sure that I am so changed that it is better for me to die than to live. When I am dead in the flesh like that, then, without a moment’s delay, you will drive a stake through me and cut off my head. Or you will do whatever else may be needed to give me rest!”

Quincey was the first to get up after the pause. He knelt down before her, took her hand in his and said solemnly:

“I’m only a rough fellow. Perhaps I haven’t lived as a man should to win such an honour. But I swear to you by all that I hold sacred and dear: should the time ever come, I shall not flinch from the duty that you have set us. And I promise you, too, that I shall make all certain. For if I am only in doubt, I shall take it that the time has come!”

“My true friend!” was all she could say through her fast-falling tears, as she bent over and kissed his hand.

“I swear the same, my dear Madam Mina!” said Van Helsing.

“And I!” said Lord Godalming.

Each of them in turn knelt to her to take the oath. I followed, myself. Then her husband turned to her. His eyes were dull and weary. His face had a greenish paleness, which made even the snowy white of his hair seem less white. He asked:

“And must I, too, make such a promise, oh, my wife?”

“You too, my dearest,” she said, with endless longing and pity in her voice and eyes. “You must not shrink back. You are nearest and dearest and all the world to me. Our souls are joined into one, for all life and all time. Think, dear: there have been times when brave men have killed their wives and their women. They did it to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy. Their hands did not shake any the more when the ones they loved begged them to kill them. It is men’s duty towards those they love, in such times of hard trial! And oh, my dear, if I must meet death at any hand, let it be at the hand of him who loves me best. Dr. Van Helsing, I have not forgotten your mercy in poor Lucy’s case to him who loved—”

She stopped with a quick blush, and changed her words:

“—to him who had the best right to give her peace. If that time comes again, I look to you for this. Let it be a happy memory of my husband’s life that it was his loving hand which set me free. Let his hand free me from the awful power that holds me.”

“Again I swear!” came the Professor’s deep, ringing voice.

Mrs. Harker smiled—really smiled—as she leaned back with a sigh of relief and said:

“And now one word of warning, a warning which you must never forget. This time, if it ever comes, may come quickly and unexpectedly. In that case you must lose no time in using your chance. At such a time I myself might be—no! if the time ever comes, I *shall be*—joined with your enemy against you.”

“One more request.” She became very solemn as she said this. “It is not vital and necessary like the other. But I want you to do one thing for me, if you will.”

We all agreed, but no one spoke; there was no need to speak.

“I want you to read the Burial Service.”

A deep groan from her husband interrupted her. She took his hand in hers, held it over her heart, and continued:

“You must read it over me some day. Whatever the end of all this fearful situation may be, it will be a sweet thought to all or some of us. You, my dearest, will read it, I hope, for then it will be in your voice in my memory for ever—come what may!”

“But oh, my dear one,” he begged, “death is far away from you.”

“No,” she said, holding up a warning hand. “I am deeper in death at this moment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy on me!”

“Oh, my wife, must I read it?” he said, before he began.

“It would comfort me, my husband!” was all she said. And when she had got the book ready, he began to read.

“How can I—how could anyone—tell of that strange scene? Its solemnity, its gloom, its sadness, its horror; and, with all that, its sweetness. Think of a sceptic, who sees only a mocking copy of bitter truth in anything holy or emotional. Even he would have been melted to the heart if he had seen that little group of loving and devoted friends. They knelt round that stricken and sorrowing lady. He would have been melted, too, if he had heard the tender passion of her husband’s voice. His voice was so broken with emotion that he often had to pause. And so he read the simple and beautiful service from the Burial of the Dead. I—I cannot go on—words—and—v-voice—f-fail m-me!”

She was right in her instinct. It was all strange. Later it may seem very odd, even to us who felt its strong influence at the time. But it comforted us very much. Then came the silence which showed Mrs. Harker’s coming relapse from her freedom of soul. It did not seem so full of despair to any of us as we had feared.

*Jonathan Harker’s Journal.*

*15 October, Varna.*—We left Charing Cross on the morning of the 12th and got to Paris the same night. There we took the places that had been booked for us on the Orient Express. We travelled night and day, and we arrived here at about five o’clock. Lord Godalming went to the Consulate to see if any telegram had arrived for him. The rest of us came on to this hotel—“the Odessus.” Perhaps things happened on the journey; but I was too eager to get on to care about them. Until the *Czarina Catherine* comes into port, nothing in the whole wide world will interest me. Thank God! Mina is well, and she seems to be getting stronger; her colour is coming back. She sleeps a great deal; on the journey she slept nearly all the time. But before sunrise and sunset she is very wakeful and alert. It has become a habit for Van Helsing to hypnotise her at those times. At first some effort was needed, and he had to make many passes with his hands. But now she seems to give way at once, as if by habit, and hardly any action is needed. At these particular moments he seems to have the power simply to will, and her thoughts obey him. He always asks her what she can see and hear. To the first question she answers:

“Nothing; all is dark.”

And to the second:

“I can hear the waves lapping against the ship, and the water rushing by. Canvas and ropes strain, and masts and yards creak. The wind is high—I can hear it in the shrouds, and the bow throws back the foam.”

It is clear that the *Czarina Catherine* is still at sea, hurrying on her way to Varna. Lord Godalming has just come back. He had four telegrams, one for each day since we started. All of them said the same thing: the *Czarina Catherine* had not been reported to Lloyd’s from anywhere. Before leaving London, he had arranged for his agent to send him a telegram every day. It would say if the ship had been reported. He was to get a message even if she were not reported. In that way he could be sure that someone was keeping watch at the other end of the wire.

We had dinner and went to bed early. Tomorrow we are going to see the Vice-Consul. We will arrange, if we can, to get on board the ship as soon as she arrives. Van Helsing says that our chance will be to get on the boat between sunrise and sunset. Even if the Count takes the form of a bat, he cannot cross running water of his own free will. So he cannot leave the ship. He dare not change to a man’s form, because people would suspect him—and he clearly wishes to avoid that. So he must stay in the box. If, then, we can come on board after sunrise, he is at our mercy, for we can open the box and make sure of him, as we did of poor Lucy, before he wakes. The mercy he gets from us will not count for much. We think that we shall not have much trouble with officials or the sailors. Thank God! This is the country where bribery can do anything, and we have plenty of money. We only have to make sure that the ship cannot come into port between sunset and sunrise without our being warned. Then we shall be safe. Judge Moneybag will settle this case, I think!

*16 October.*—Mina’s report is still the same: lapping waves and rushing water, darkness and favouring winds. We are clearly in good time, and when we hear of the *Czarina Catherine* we shall be ready. As she must pass the Dardanelles, we are sure to get some report.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

*17 October.*—Everything is now pretty well fixed, I think, to welcome the Count back from his tour. Godalming told the shippers that he thought the box sent on board might contain something stolen from a friend of his. He got a half consent that he might open it at his own risk. The owner gave him a paper for the Captain. It told the Captain to help him in every way to do whatever he chose on board the ship. The owner also gave him a similar paper for his agent at Varna. We have seen the agent. He was much impressed by Godalming’s kind manner to him. We are all sure that he will do whatever he can to help us. We have already arranged what to do if we get the box open. If the Count is there, Van Helsing and Seward will cut off his head at once and drive a stake through his heart. Morris and Godalming and I shall stop anyone from interfering. We will do it even if we have to use the weapons which we shall have ready. The Professor says that if we can treat the Count’s body in this way, it will soon afterwards fall into dust. In that case there would be no evidence against us, if anyone suspected murder. But even if it did not fall into dust, we would stand or fall by our act. Perhaps some day this very writing may be evidence that comes between some of us and a rope. For myself, I would take the chance only too thankfully if it came. We mean to do everything we possibly can to carry out our plan. We have arranged with certain officials that the moment the *Czarina Catherine* is seen, a special messenger will tell us.

*24 October.*—A whole week of waiting. Every day there are telegrams to Godalming, but always the same story: “Not yet reported.” Mina’s hypnotic answer, morning and evening, never changes: lapping waves, rushing water, and creaking masts.

*Telegram, October 24th.*

*Rufus Smith, Lloyd’s, London, to Lord Godalming, care of H. B. M. Vice-Consul, Varna.* “*Czarina Catherine* reported this morning from Dardanelles.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*25 October.*—How I miss my phonograph! Writing a diary with a pen is tiresome for me; but Van Helsing says I must. We were all wild with excitement yesterday when Godalming got his telegram from Lloyd’s. I know now what men feel in battle when they hear the call to action. Mrs. Harker, alone of our party, did not show any signs of emotion. After all, it is not strange that she did not. We took special care not to let her know anything about it. And we all tried not to show any excitement when she was with us. In the old days, I am sure, she would have noticed, no matter how we tried to hide it. But in this way she has greatly changed during the past three weeks. The lethargy grows on her. She seems strong and well, and she is getting back some of her colour. Even so, Van Helsing and I are not satisfied. We often talk about her; but we have not said a word to the others. It would break poor Harker’s heart—and certainly his nerve—if he knew that we even suspected anything. Van Helsing tells me that he examines her teeth very carefully while she is in the hypnotic state. He says that as long as they do not begin to sharpen, there is no active danger of a change in her. If this change should come, it would be necessary to take steps!... We both know what those steps would have to be, though we do not speak our thoughts to each other. Neither of us would shrink from the task—awful though it is to think about. “Euthanasia” is an excellent and a comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it.

It is only about 24 hours’ sail from the Dardanelles to here, at the speed the *Czarina Catherine* has come from London. So she should arrive some time in the morning. As she cannot possibly get in before then, we are all about to go to bed early. We shall get up at one o’clock, so as to be ready.

*25 October, Noon.*—No news yet of the ship’s arrival. Mrs. Harker’s hypnotic report this morning was the same as usual, so we may get news at any moment. We men are all in a fever of excitement, except Harker, who is calm. His hands are as cold as ice. An hour ago I found him sharpening the edge of the great Ghoorka knife which he now always carries with him. Things will look bad for the Count if the edge of that “Kukri” ever touches his throat, driven by that stern, ice-cold hand!

Van Helsing and I were a little alarmed about Mrs. Harker today. About noon she fell into a sort of lethargy which we did not like. We said nothing to the others, but neither of us was happy about it. She had been restless all morning, so at first we were glad to know that she was sleeping. But then her husband mentioned casually that she was sleeping so soundly that he could not wake her. So we went to her room to see for ourselves. She was breathing naturally, and she looked so well and peaceful that we agreed that sleep was better for her than anything else. Poor girl, she has so much to forget. If sleep brings forgetfulness to her, it is no wonder that it does her good.

*Later.*—We were right. She woke up after a refreshing sleep of some hours, and she seemed brighter and better than she had been for days. At sunset she gave the usual hypnotic report. Wherever he may be in the Black Sea, the Count is hurrying to his destination. To his doom, I trust!

*26 October.*—Another day and no news of the *Czarina Catherine*. She ought to be here by now. It is clear that she is still travelling *somewhere*, for Mrs. Harker’s hypnotic report at sunrise was still the same. Perhaps the ship is sometimes lying still because of fog. Some of the steamers which came in last evening reported patches of fog both to the north and to the south of the port. We must go on watching, as the ship may now be signalled at any moment.

*27 October, Noon.*—Most strange; still no news of the ship we are waiting for. Mrs. Harker reported last night and this morning as usual: “lapping waves and rushing water,” though she added that “the waves were very faint.” The telegrams from London have been the same: “no further report.” Van Helsing is terribly anxious. He told me just now that he fears the Count is escaping us. He added meaningfully:

“I did not like that lethargy of Madam Mina’s. Souls and memories can do strange things during trance.”

I was about to ask him more, but just then Harker came in, and Van Helsing held up a warning hand. Tonight at sunset we must try to make her speak more fully in her hypnotic state.

*28 October.*—Telegram. *Rufus Smith, London, to Lord Godalming, care H. B. M. Vice Consul, Varna.*

“*Czarina Catherine* reported entering Galatz at one o’clock today.”

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*28 October.*—The telegram came, announcing the arrival in Galatz. I do not think it was such a shock to any of us as might have been expected. True, we did not know from where, or how, or when, the blow would come. But I think we all expected that something strange would happen. The delay in the arrival at Varna made each of us feel sure that things would not be just as we had expected. We only waited to learn where the change would happen. But even so, it was a surprise. I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe, against ourselves, that things will be as they ought to be. We do not believe that they will be as we should know they will be. Transcendentalism is a beacon to the angels, even if it is a will-o’-the-wisp to man. It was a strange experience, and we all took it differently. Van Helsing raised his hand over his head for a moment, as though he were protesting to the Almighty. But he said not a word, and in a few seconds he stood up with his face stern and set. Lord Godalming grew very pale, and he sat breathing heavily. I myself was half stunned, and I looked in wonder from one to another. Quincey Morris tightened his belt with that quick movement which I knew so well. In our old wandering days it meant “action.” Mrs. Harker grew ghastly white, so that the scar on her forehead seemed to burn. But she folded her hands meekly and looked up in prayer. Harker smiled—actually smiled—the dark, bitter smile of a man who is without hope. But at the same time his action said the opposite of his words. His hands went by instinct to the handle of the great Kukri knife and rested there.

“When does the next train start for Galatz?” said Van Helsing to all of us.

“At 6:30 tomorrow morning!”

We all started, for the answer came from Mrs. Harker.

“How on earth do you know?” said Art.

“You forget—or perhaps you don’t know, though Jonathan and Dr. Van Helsing do—that I am the train fiend. At home in Exeter I always used to make up the time-tables, so as to be helpful to my husband. I found it so useful sometimes that I always study the time-tables now. I knew that if anything were to take us to Castle Dracula, we should go by Galatz, or at any rate through Bucharest. So I learned the times very carefully. Sadly, there are not many to learn, as the only train tomorrow leaves as I say.”

“Wonderful woman!” said the Professor softly.

“Can’t we get a special?” asked Lord Godalming.

Van Helsing shook his head:

“I fear not. This land is very different from yours or mine. Even if we did have a special, it would probably not arrive as soon as our regular train. Also, we have something to prepare. We must think. Now let us organize. You, friend Arthur, go to the train and get the tickets. Arrange that all be ready for us to go in the morning. You, friend Jonathan, go to the agent of the ship. Get from him letters to the agent in Galatz, with authority to search the ship just as it was here. Morris Quincey, you see the Vice-Consul. Get his help with his fellow in Galatz, and all he can do to make our way smooth. So no time will be lost when we are over the Danube. John will stay with Madam Mina and me, and we shall consult. For so, if time be long, you may be delayed. And it will not matter when the sun set, since I am here with Madam to make report.”

“And I,” said Mrs. Harker brightly, more like her old self than she had been for many a long day, “shall try to be of use in all ways. I shall think and write for you as I used to do. Something is shifting away from me in some strange way, and I feel freer than I have been lately!”

The three younger men looked happier at that moment, as they seemed to understand the meaning of her words. But Van Helsing and I turned to each other, and each of us met a grave and troubled look. We said nothing at the time, however.

When the three men had gone out to their tasks, Van Helsing asked Mrs. Harker to look up the copy of the diaries. She was to find him the part of Harker’s journal at the Castle. She went away to get it. When the door was shut behind her, he said to me:

“We mean the same! speak out!”

“There is some change. It is a hope that makes me sick, for it may deceive us.”

“Quite so. Do you know why I asked her to get the manuscript?”

“No!” said I, “unless it was to get a chance of seeing me alone.”

“You are in part right, friend John, but only in part. I want to tell you something. And oh, my friend, I am taking a great—a terrible—risk; but I believe it is right. Madam Mina said those words that stopped both of us short. In that moment, an inspiration came to me. In the trance of three days ago, the Count sent his spirit to her to read her mind. Or, more likely, he took her to see him in his earth-box in the ship, with the water rushing. It is just as her spirit go free at the rise and set of sun. He learn then that we are here. For she have more to tell, in her open life with eyes to see and ears to hear, than he has. He is shut in his coffin-box. Now he make his greatest effort to escape us. At present he want her not.

“He is sure, with his so great knowledge, that she will come at his call. But he cut her off. He take her, as he can do, out of his own power, so that she come not to him. Ah! there I have hope. Our man-brains have been of man so long, and they have not lost the grace of God. They will rise higher than his child-brain. His brain lie in his tomb for centuries, and it grow not yet to our size. It do only selfish work, and therefore small work. Here comes Madam Mina; not a word to her of her trance! She know it not. It would overwhelm her and bring despair, just when we want all her hope, all her courage. Most of all we want her great brain. It is trained like a man’s brain, but it is of sweet woman. And it have a special power which the Count give her. He may not take it away altogether—though he think not so. Hush! let me speak, and you shall learn. Oh, John, my friend, we are in awful straits. I fear, as I never feared before. We can only trust the good God. Silence! here she comes!”

I thought that the Professor was going to break down and become hysterical, just as he had when Lucy died. But with a great effort he controlled himself. He was perfectly calm when Mrs. Harker came lightly into the room. She looked bright and happy, and in doing her work she seemed to forget her misery. As she came in, she handed a number of typewritten sheets to Van Helsing. He looked over them seriously, and his face brightened as he read. Then, holding the pages between his finger and thumb, he said:

“Friend John, to you with so much experience already—and to you, too, dear Madam Mina, who are young—here is a lesson: do not ever fear to think. A half-thought has often been buzzing in my brain, but I fear to let him loose his wings. Now, with more knowledge, I go back to where that half-thought come from. And I find that he be no half-thought at all. He be a whole thought, though so young that he is not yet strong enough to use his little wings. No, like the ‘Ugly Duck’ of my friend Hans Andersen, he be no duck-thought at all. He is a big swan-thought that sail nobly on big wings, when the time come for him to try them. See, I read here what Jonathan have written:

“‘There was that other of his race, in a later age. Again and again he brought his forces over The Great River into Turkey Land. When he was beaten back, he came again, and again, and again. He came even though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being killed. For he knew that he alone could win in the end.’

“What does this tell us? Not much? No! The Count’s child-thought see nothing; so he speak so freely. Your man-thought see nothing; my man-thought see nothing, till just now. No! But then comes another word from someone who speak without thought, because she, too, know not what it mean—what it *might* mean. It is just like elements in nature, which rest. Then, in nature’s course, they move on their way and they touch—then pouf! There comes a flash of light, as wide as heaven. It blind and kill and destroy some; but it show up all the earth below for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ You, John, yes; for it is a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina; for crime touch you not—not but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not *a particulari ad universale*. There is this strange thing in criminals. It is so constant, in all countries and at all times, that even police come to know from experience that *it is*. And police know not much of philosophy. That is to be empiric. The criminal always work at one crime. That is the true criminal, who seems fated to crime, and who will do no other. This criminal has not a full man-brain. He is clever and cunning and full of ideas; but he be not of man-size as to brain. In much he be of child-brain. Now this criminal of ours is fated to crime also. He, too, have child-brain, and it is like a child to do what he have done. The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by principle, but by experience. And when he learn to do a thing, then he has the ground to start from to do more. ‘*Dos pou sto*,’ said Archimedes. ‘Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!’ To do a thing once is the fulcrum by which child-brain become man-brain. And until he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as he have done before! Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes are opened. To you the lightning flash show all the leagues,” for Mrs. Harker had begun to clap her hands, and her eyes sparkled. He went on:

“Now you shall speak. Tell us two dry men of science what you see with those so bright eyes.”

He took her hand and held it while she spoke. His finger and thumb closed on her pulse—by instinct and without thinking, I believe. She said:

“The Count is a criminal and of criminal type. Nordau and Lombroso would class him so, and *quâ* criminal his mind is not fully formed. So, in a difficulty, he has to fall back on habit. His past is a clue. We know one page of it—and that from his own lips. It tells us this. Once before, he was in what Mr. Morris would call a ‘tight place.’ Then he went back to his own country from the land he had tried to invade. From there, without losing his purpose, he prepared himself for a new effort. He came again, better equipped for his work, and he won. So he came to London to invade a new land. He was beaten. All hope of success was lost, and his existence was in danger. Then he fled back over the sea to his home. It was just as before, when he had fled back over the Danube from Turkey Land.”

“Good, good! oh, you so clever lady!” said Van Helsing eagerly, as he bent down and kissed her hand. A moment later he said to me, as calmly as if we were having a consultation in a sickroom:

“Seventy-two only; and in all this excitement. I have hope.”

Turning to her again, he said, full of eager expectation:

“But go on. Go on! There is more to tell, if you will. Be not afraid; John and I know. I do in any case, and I shall tell you if you are right. Speak, without fear!”

“I will try to; but you will forgive me if I seem egotistical.”

“Nay! fear not. You must be egotist, for it is of you that we think.”

“Then, as he is a criminal, he is selfish. His intellect is small, and his action is based on selfishness. So he keeps to one purpose. That purpose is remorseless. He fled back over the Danube and left his forces to be cut to pieces. In the same way, he now only wants to be safe, and he cares about nothing else. So his own selfishness frees my soul a little from the terrible power which he gained over me on that dreadful night. I felt it! Oh, I felt it! Thank God, for His great mercy! My soul is freer than it has been since that awful hour. All that haunts me now is a fear. In some trance or dream, he may have used my knowledge for his own ends.”

The Professor stood up:

“He has so used your mind. And by it he has left us here in Varna. Meanwhile the ship that carried him rushed through the fog all around it, up to Galatz. There, no doubt, he had made preparations for escaping from us. But his child-mind only saw so far. And it may be that God’s Providence works here as it always does. The very thing that the evil-doer counted on most, for his selfish good, may turn out to be his greatest harm. The hunter is caught in his own trap, as the great Psalmist says. For now he think he is free from every trace of us all. He think he has escaped us, with so many hours to spare. Then his selfish child-brain will whisper him to sleep. He think, too, that he has cut himself off from knowing your mind. So he think you can know nothing of him. There is where he fail! That terrible baptism of blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit. You have done so till now in your times of freedom, when the sun rise and set. At such times you go by my will and not by his. And this power is for the good of you and others; you have won it from your suffering at his hands. This is now all the more precious because he know it not. To guard himself, he has even cut himself off from knowing where we are. We, however, are not selfish. We believe that God is with us through all this blackness, and these many dark hours. We shall follow him, and we shall not flinch, even if we put ourselves in danger of becoming like him. Friend John, this has been a great hour, and it have done much to move us forward on our way. You must be scribe and write it all down. Then, when the others return from their work, you can give it to them. Then they shall know as we do.”

And so I have written it while we wait for their return. Mrs. Harker has typed out everything since she brought the MS. to us.

### Glossary

- **relapse**: a return to a bad state after a time of being better.
- **hotch-pot**: a legal word for putting everything together so that it can be shared.
- **flinch**: to move back or hesitate because something is frightening or painful.
- **Burial Service**: the prayers read in church when a dead person is buried.
- **sceptic**: a person who does not easily believe things, especially about religion.
- **yards / shrouds**: parts of a sailing ship: yards are poles that hold the sails; shrouds are ropes that hold up the masts.
- **bribery**: giving people money so that they will do what you want.
- **a rope**: here, death by hanging, the punishment for murder.
- **lethargy**: a state of being very tired and sleepy, with no energy.
- **euthanasia**: a gentle death to end great suffering.
- **Ghoorka knife / Kukri**: a large curved knife from Nepal.
- **train fiend**: Mina’s joke about herself: a person who loves studying train times.
- **special**: a special train, arranged only for one group of travellers.
- **will-o’-the-wisp**: a strange light seen at night over wet ground; it leads travellers the wrong way.
- **beacon**: a strong light that shows people the right way.
- **a particulari ad universale**: Latin: from one single case to a general rule.
- **empiric**: learning from experience, not from ideas or theory.
- **fulcrum**: the fixed point on which a bar rests when you use it to lift something heavy.
- **quâ**: Latin: as, in the role of.
- **egotistical**: talking or thinking too much about yourself.
- **remorseless**: without pity and without feeling sorry.
- **Psalmist**: the writer of the Psalms, holy songs in the Bible.
- **scribe**: a person who writes things down for others.
- **MS.**: short for manuscript: papers written by hand or on a typewriter.

## Chapter XXVI: Dr. Seward’s Diary

*29 October.*—I am writing this in the train from Varna to Galatz. Last night we all met a little before sunset. Each of us had done his work as well as he could. We have used all our thought, effort and chances. So we are ready for the whole of our journey, and for our work when we get to Galatz. When the usual time came, Mrs. Harker prepared herself for the hypnotic effort. Van Helsing had to try longer and harder than usual. At last she sank into the trance. Usually she speaks after a small hint. But this time the Professor had to ask her questions, and ask them quite firmly, before we learned anything. At last her answer came:

“I can see nothing. We are still. There are no waves lapping, only a steady swirl of water running softly against the hawser. I can hear men’s voices calling, near and far. I can hear the roll and creak of oars in the rowlocks. A gun is fired somewhere; its echo seems far away. Feet are tramping over my head, and ropes and chains are dragged along. What is this? There is a gleam of light. I can feel the air blowing on me.”

Here she stopped. She had risen from the sofa where she lay, as if on a sudden impulse. She raised both her hands, palms upwards, as if she were lifting a weight. Van Helsing and I looked at each other, and we understood. Quincey raised his eyebrows slightly and watched her closely. Harker’s hand closed round the handle of his Kukri without thinking. There was a long pause. We all knew that the time when she could speak was passing. But we felt that it was no use saying anything. Suddenly she sat up. As she opened her eyes, she said sweetly:

“Would none of you like a cup of tea? You must all be so tired!”

We could only make her happy, so we agreed. She hurried off busily to get tea. When she had gone, Van Helsing said:

“You see, my friends. *He* is close to land: he has left his earth-chest. But he has still to get on shore. In the night he may lie hidden somewhere. But if no one carries him on shore, or if the ship do not touch it, he cannot reach the land. In that case, if it is night, he can change his form. Then he can jump or fly on shore, as he did at Whitby. But if the day comes before he gets on shore, he cannot escape unless he is carried. And if he is carried, then the customs men may discover what the box contain. So, in short, if he does not escape on shore tonight, or before dawn, he will lose the whole day. Then we may arrive in time. For if he does not escape at night, we shall come on him in the daytime. He will be shut in his box and at our mercy. For he dare not be his true self, awake and visible, in case he is discovered.”

There was nothing more to say. So we waited patiently until dawn, when we might learn more from Mrs. Harker.

Early this morning we listened for her answer in the trance. We were breathless with anxiety. The hypnotic stage was even slower to come than before. When it came, there was so little time left before full sunrise that we began to despair. Van Helsing seemed to put his whole soul into the effort. At last, obeying his will, she answered:

“All is dark. I hear lapping water, level with me, and some creaking, like wood on wood.”

She paused, and the red sun shot up. We must wait till tonight.

And so we are travelling towards Galatz in an agony of waiting. We should arrive between two and three in the morning. But already, at Bucharest, we are three hours late. So we cannot possibly get in until well after sunrise. That means we shall have two more hypnotic messages from Mrs. Harker. One of them, or both, may perhaps show us more of what is happening.

*Later.*—Sunset has come and gone. Luckily it came at a time when nothing disturbed us. If it had happened while we were at a station, we might not have had the calm and privacy we needed. Mrs. Harker gave way to the hypnotic influence even less easily than this morning. I am afraid that her power of reading the Count’s feelings may die away, just when we need it most. It seems to me that her imagination is beginning to work. Until now, in the trance, she has spoken only of the simplest facts. If this goes on, it may lead us the wrong way in the end. If I thought that the Count’s power over her would die away along with her power of knowledge, it would be a happy thought. But I am afraid that it may not be so. When she did speak, her words were like a riddle:

“Something is going out. I can feel it pass me like a cold wind. Far off, I can hear confused sounds. They are like men talking in strange languages, fierce falling water, and the howling of wolves.”

She stopped, and a shudder ran through her. It grew stronger for a few seconds. At the end she was shaking as if she had a palsy. She said no more, even when the Professor ordered her to answer. When she woke from the trance, she was cold, tired out and weak. But her mind was fully alert. She could not remember anything, but she asked what she had said. When we told her, she thought about it deeply for a long time, in silence.

*30 October, 7 a. m.*—We are near Galatz now, and I may not have time to write later. We all waited anxiously for sunrise this morning. Van Helsing knew that it was getting harder to bring on the trance. So he began his passes earlier than usual. But they had no effect until the usual time. Then she gave way with even greater difficulty, only a minute before the sun rose. The Professor asked his questions without losing a moment. Her answer came just as quickly:

“All is dark. I hear water swirling by, level with my ears, and the creaking of wood on wood. Cattle are lowing far off. There is another sound, a strange one, like——”

She stopped and grew white, and then whiter still.

“Go on; go on! Speak, I command you!” said Van Helsing in a voice full of agony. At the same time there was despair in his eyes. The risen sun was already making even Mrs. Harker’s pale face red. She opened her eyes, and we all jumped as she spoke. She spoke sweetly, and she seemed not to care at all:

“Oh, Professor, why do you ask me to do what you know I can’t? I don’t remember anything.”

Then she saw the amazed looks on our faces. She turned from one to the other with a troubled look and said:

“What have I said? What have I done? I know nothing. I only know that I was lying here, half asleep, and I heard you say, ‘Go on! speak, I command you!’ It seemed so funny to hear you give me orders, as if I were a bad child!”

“Oh, Madam Mina,” he said sadly, “this is proof, if proof is needed, of how much I love and honour you. I speak a word for your good, more seriously than ever. And it seems so strange to you, because it is an order to her whom I am proud to obey!”

The whistles are sounding; we are getting near Galatz. We are on fire with anxiety and eagerness.

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*30 October.*—Mr. Morris took me to the hotel, where our rooms had been ordered by telegraph. He was the one who could most easily be spared, because he does not speak any foreign language. The work was shared out much as it had been at Varna. But this time Lord Godalming went to the Vice-Consul. We were in a great hurry, and his rank might serve at once as a kind of guarantee to the official. Jonathan and the two doctors went to the shipping agent. They wanted to learn the details of the arrival of the *Czarina Catherine*.

*Later.*—Lord Godalming has come back. The Consul is away, and the Vice-Consul is ill. So the usual work has been done by a clerk. He was very helpful, and offered to do anything he could.

*Jonathan Harker’s Journal.*

*30 October.*—At nine o’clock Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward and I called on Messrs. Mackenzie & Steinkoff. They are the agents of the London firm of Hapgood. Lord Godalming had telegraphed a request to London. In answer, the firm had sent them a wire, asking them to help us in every way they could. They were more than kind and polite. They took us at once on board the *Czarina Catherine*, which lay at anchor out in the river harbour. There we saw the Captain, whose name was Donelson. He told us about his voyage. He said that in all his life he had never had such a good run.

“Man!” he said, “but it made us afraid. We expected we would have to pay for it with some rare bad luck, to keep up the average. It’s no canny to run frae London to the Black Sea with a wind behind ye. It was as if the Deil himself was blowing on our sails for his own purpose. And all the time we couldn’t see a thing. Whenever we were near a ship, or a port, or a headland, a fog fell on us. It travelled with us. When it lifted and we looked out, the Deil a thing could we see. We ran past Gibraltar without being able to signal. We had to wait at the Dardanelles to get our permit to pass. Until then we were never near enough to call to anything. At first I thought I would slow down and sail about till the fog lifted. But then I thought: if the Deil wanted to get us into the Black Sea quick, he would do it whether we liked it or no. A quick voyage would not make the owners think badly of us, or hurt our trade. And the Old Mon, who had served his own purpose, would be decently grateful to us for not stopping him.”

This mixture of simplicity and cunning, of superstition and business sense, caught Van Helsing’s interest. He said:

“Mine friend, that Devil is more clever than some people think. And he know when he meet his match!”

The captain was not displeased with the compliment, and went on:

“When we got past the Bosphorus, the men began to grumble. Some o’ them, the Roumanians, came and asked me to throw a big box overboard. It had been put on board by a queer-looking old man just before we started frae London. I had seen them stare at the fellow. They put out their two fingers when they saw him, to guard against the evil eye. Man! but the superstition of foreigners is perfectly ridiculous! I sent them about their business pretty quick. But just after that a fog closed in on us. Then I felt a wee bit as they did about something. But I wouldn’t say it was about the big box. Well, on we went. The fog didn’t lift for five days, so I just let the wind carry us. If the Deil wanted to get somewhere, well, he would get there all right. And if he didn’t, well, we’d keep a sharp lookout anyhow. Sure enough, we had a clear way and deep water all the time. Two days ago the morning sun came through the fog. We found ourselves just in the river, opposite Galatz. The Roumanians were wild. They wanted me, right or wrong, to take out the box and throw it in the river. I had to argue wi’ them about it with a handspike. When the last o’ them got up off the deck holding his head, I had convinced them. Evil eye or no evil eye, my owners’ property and trust were better in my hands than in the river Danube. Mind ye, they had already brought the box up on deck, ready to throw it in. It was marked ‘Galatz *via* Varna.’ So I thought I’d let it lie there till we unloaded in the port, and get rid of it altogether. We didn’t do much unloading that day, and we had to stay the night at anchor. But in the morning, bright and early, an hour before sunrise, a man came on board. He had an order, written to him from England, to receive a box marked for one Count Dracula. Sure enough, the matter was all ready for him. He had his papers all right. And I was glad to be rid of the damned thing, for I was beginning to feel uneasy about it myself. If the Deil did have any luggage on board the ship, I’m thinking it was nothing other than that same box!”

“What was the name of the man who took it?” asked Dr. Van Helsing. He was eager, but he held it back.

“I’ll tell ye quick!” he answered. He stepped down to his cabin and brought out a receipt signed “Immanuel Hildesheim.” The address was Burgen-strasse 16. We found out that this was all the Captain knew. So we thanked him and came away.

We found Hildesheim in his office. He was a Hebrew, rather like the type you see on the stage at the Adelphi Theatre. He had a nose like a sheep’s, and he wore a fez. His arguments needed coins to make their points, and we did the punctuation. After a little bargaining he told us what he knew. It turned out to be simple but important. He had received a letter from Mr. de Ville of London. It told him to receive a box which would arrive at Galatz in the *Czarina Catherine*. He was to do this before sunrise if possible, so as to avoid the customs. Then he was to give the box into the care of a certain Petrof Skinsky. This man dealt with the Slovaks who traded down the river to the port. Hildesheim had been paid for his work with an English bank note. He had changed it for gold at the Danube International Bank in the proper way. When Skinsky came to him, he took him to the ship and handed over the box there. That way he saved the cost of carrying it. That was all he knew.

We then looked for Skinsky, but we could not find him. One of his neighbours did not seem to like him at all. He said that Skinsky had gone away two days before, and no one knew where. His landlord said the same. The landlord had received the key of the house by messenger, together with the rent that was due, in English money. This had been between ten and eleven o’clock last night. We were at a standstill again.

While we were talking, someone came running up. Out of breath, he gasped that Skinsky’s body had been found inside the wall of the churchyard of St. Peter. The throat had been torn open, as if by some wild animal. The people we had been speaking with ran off to see the horror. The women were crying out, “This is the work of a Slovak!” We hurried away. We did not want to be drawn into the affair in some way and kept there.

On our way home we could reach no clear conclusion. We were all sure that the box was on its way somewhere by water. But we would have to discover where. With heavy hearts we came back to the hotel, to Mina.

When we met together, the first question was whether to take Mina into our confidence again. Things are getting desperate. It is at least a chance, though a dangerous one. As a first step, I was released from my promise to her.

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*30 October, evening.*—They were so tired, worn out and low in spirits that nothing could be done until they had some rest. So I asked them all to lie down for half an hour. Meanwhile I would write up everything to the present moment. I feel so grateful to the man who invented the “Traveller’s” typewriter. And I am grateful to Mr. Morris for getting this one for me. I would have felt quite lost doing the work if I had to write with a pen....

It is all done. Poor dear, dear Jonathan, how much he must have suffered, and how much he must be suffering now! He lies on the sofa and hardly seems to breathe. His whole body seems to have collapsed. His brows are drawn together, and his face is tight with pain. Poor fellow, maybe he is thinking. I can see his face all wrinkled up as he concentrates on his thoughts. Oh! if I could only help at all.... I shall do what I can.

I have asked Dr. Van Helsing, and he has got me all the papers that I have not seen yet.... While they are resting, I shall go over everything carefully. Perhaps I may reach some conclusion. I shall try to follow the Professor’s example. I shall think about the facts in front of me without prejudice....

I do believe that, through God’s care, I have made a discovery. I shall get the maps and look over them....

I am more sure than ever that I am right. My new conclusion is ready, so I shall bring our party together and read it to them. They can judge it. It is good to be accurate, and every minute is precious.

*Mina Harker’s Memorandum.*

(Entered in her Journal.)

*Ground of inquiry.*—Count Dracula’s problem is to get back to his own place.

(*a*) He must be *brought back* by someone. This is clear. If he had the power to move himself as he wished, he could go as a man, or a wolf, or a bat, or in some other way. He clearly fears discovery or interference. He must be in a helpless state, because he is shut in his wooden box between dawn and sunset.

(*b*) *How is he to be taken?*—Here it may help us to rule out the ways one by one. By road, by rail, or by water?

1. *By Road.*—There are endless difficulties, especially in leaving the city.

(*x*) There are people, and people are curious. They ask questions. A hint, a guess, a doubt about what might be in the box, would destroy him.

(*y*) There are customs and octroi officers to pass, or there may be.

(*z*) His pursuers might follow. This is his greatest fear. So that no one will betray him, he has pushed away, as far as he can, even his victim—me!

2. *By Rail.*—No one is in charge of the box. It would have to take its chance of being delayed. And with enemies on his track, a delay would be fatal. It is true that he might escape at night. But what would he be, if he were left in a strange place with no safe place to fly to? He does not intend that, and he does not mean to risk it.

3. *By Water.*—In one way this is the safest way, but in another way it has the most danger. On the water he has no power except at night. Even then he can only call up fog and storm and snow and his wolves. But if he were wrecked, the living water would swallow him, helpless. Then he would truly be lost. He could make the ship drive to land. But if it were unfriendly land, where he was not free to move, his position would still be desperate.

We know from the record that he was on the water. So what we have to do is to find out *what* water.

The first thing is to understand exactly what he has done so far. Then we may see more clearly what his later task is to be.

*Firstly.*—We must separate out what he did in London as part of his general plan. At that time he was pressed for time and had to arrange things as well as he could.

*Secondly* we must see what he has done here, as well as we can guess it from the facts we know.

As to the first: he clearly intended to arrive at Galatz. He sent the invoice to Varna to deceive us, so that we would not find out how he left England. At that time his only purpose was to escape. The proof of this is the letter of instructions sent to Immanuel Hildesheim. It told him to clear the box and take it away *before sunrise*. There is also the instruction to Petrof Skinsky. We can only guess at these. But there must have been some letter or message, because Skinsky came to Hildesheim.

We know that his plans have been successful so far. The *Czarina Catherine* made an amazingly quick journey. It was so quick that Captain Donelson became suspicious. But his superstition, together with his careful good sense, played the Count’s game for him. He ran with his good wind through fogs and everything, until he arrived blindfold at Galatz. It has been proved that the Count’s arrangements were well made. Hildesheim cleared the box, took it off the ship and gave it to Skinsky. Skinsky took it—and here we lose the trail. We only know that the box is somewhere on the water, moving along. The customs and the octroi, if there are any, have been avoided.

Now we come to what the Count must have done after he arrived—*on land*, at Galatz.

The box was given to Skinsky before sunrise. At sunrise the Count could appear in his own form. Here we ask: why was Skinsky chosen to help in the work at all? In my husband’s diary, Skinsky is mentioned as a man who dealt with the Slovaks who trade down the river to the port. And the man’s remark that the murder was the work of a Slovak showed the general feeling against these people. The Count wanted to be cut off from others.

My guess is this. In London the Count decided to get back to his castle by water, as the safest and most secret way. He was brought from the castle by the Szgany. They probably handed their cargo to Slovaks, who took the boxes to Varna, for they were shipped from there to London. So the Count knew people who could arrange this service. When the box was on land, before sunrise or after sunset, he came out of his box. He met Skinsky and told him what to do. Skinsky was to arrange for the box to be carried up some river. When this was done, and the Count knew that everything was on its way, he wiped out his traces, as he thought. He did it by murdering his agent.

I have studied the map. I find that the river the Slovaks would most likely have gone up is either the Pruth or the Sereth. I read in the typed copy that in my trance I heard cows low. I heard water swirling level with my ears, and the creaking of wood. So the Count in his box was on a river, in an open boat. It was probably moved along by oars or poles, for the banks are near and it is working against the stream. There would be no such sound if it were floating down the stream.

Of course it may be neither the Sereth nor the Pruth, but perhaps we can find out more. Of these two rivers, the Pruth is easier for boats. But at Fundu the Sereth is joined by the Bistritza, which runs up round the Borgo Pass. The loop it makes is clearly as close to Dracula’s castle as anyone can get by water.

*Mina Harker’s Journal—continued.*

When I had finished reading, Jonathan took me in his arms and kissed me. The others kept shaking me by both hands, and Dr. Van Helsing said:

“Our dear Madam Mina is once more our teacher. Her eyes have seen where we were blind. Now we are on the track once again, and this time we may succeed. Our enemy is at his most helpless. If we can come on him by day, on the water, our task will be over. He has a start, but he has no power to hurry. He may not leave his box, because those who carry him may suspect. If they suspect, they will throw him in the stream, where he will perish. This he knows, and he will not do it. Now, men, to our Council of War. Here and now we must plan what each of us shall do.”

“I shall get a steam launch and follow him,” said Lord Godalming.

“And I shall get horses, to follow on the bank in case he lands,” said Mr. Morris.

“Good!” said the Professor. “Both good. But neither of you must go alone. There must be force to overcome force, if it is needed. The Slovak is strong and rough, and he carries rough weapons.”

All the men smiled, for between them they carried a small arsenal. Mr. Morris said:

“I have brought some Winchesters. They are pretty handy in a crowd, and there may be wolves. The Count, if you remember, took some other precautions. He gave some orders to others that Mrs. Harker could not quite hear or understand. We must be ready for everything.”

Dr. Seward said:

“I think I had better go with Quincey. We are used to hunting together. The two of us, well armed, will be a match for anything that comes along. You must not be alone, Art. We may have to fight the Slovaks. A chance stab with a knife would ruin all our plans—for I don’t suppose these fellows carry guns. There must be no chances this time. We shall not rest until the Count’s head and body have been separated. We must be sure that he cannot come back to life in another body.”

He looked at Jonathan as he spoke, and Jonathan looked at me. I could see that the poor dear was torn in his mind. Of course he wanted to be with me. But the boat party would most likely be the one which would destroy the ... the ... the ... Vampire. (Why did I hesitate to write the word?) He was silent for a while, and during his silence Dr. Van Helsing spoke:

“Friend Jonathan, this is for you, for two reasons. First, because you are young and brave and can fight. All our strength may be needed at the end. And again, because it is your right to destroy him—that thing—which has brought such sorrow to you and yours. Be not afraid for Madam Mina. She will be in my care, if I may. I am old. My legs are not so quick to run as they once were. I am not used to riding so long, or to chasing as we must, or to fighting with deadly weapons. But I can be useful in other ways; I can fight in another way. And I can die, if need be, as well as younger men. Now let me say what I wish. You, my Lord Godalming, and friend Jonathan, will go up the river in your so swift little steamboat. John and Quincey will guard the bank, where perhaps he may be landed. And meanwhile I will take Madam Mina right into the heart of the enemy’s country. The old fox is tied in his box, floating on the running stream. He cannot escape from it to land. He dares not raise the lid of his coffin-box, in case his Slovak carriers get afraid and leave him to perish. Meanwhile we shall go on the track where Jonathan went—from Bistritz over the Borgo. We shall find our way to the Castle of Dracula. Here Madam Mina’s hypnotic power will surely help. After the first sunrise, when we are near that fateful place, we shall find our way. Without her it would be all dark and unknown. There is much to be done, and other places to be made holy, so that this nest of snakes may be wiped out.”

Here Jonathan interrupted him hotly:

“Do you mean to say, Professor Van Helsing, that you would bring Mina right into the jaws of his death-trap? In her sad state, poisoned as she is with that devil’s illness? Not for the world! Not for Heaven or Hell!”

He became almost speechless for a minute, and then went on:

“Do you know what that place is? Have you seen that awful den of hellish evil? There the very moonlight is alive with horrible shapes. Every speck of dust that whirls in the wind is a hungry monster waiting to be born. Have you felt the Vampire’s lips on your throat?”

Here he turned to me. As his eyes fell on my forehead, he threw up his arms with a cry: “Oh, my God, what have we done to have this terror upon us!” And he sank down on the sofa, collapsed in misery. The Professor spoke in clear, sweet tones, which seemed to ring in the air. His voice calmed us all:

“Oh, my friend, it is because I want to save Madam Mina from that awful place that I would go. God forbid that I should take her into that place. There is work—wild work—to be done there, which her eyes must not see. We men here, all except Jonathan, have seen with our own eyes what must be done before that place can be made pure. Remember that we are in terrible trouble. The Count is strong and subtle and cunning. If he escapes us this time, he may choose to sleep for a century. And then in time our dear one”—he took my hand—“would come to him to keep him company. She would be like those others that you, Jonathan, saw. You have told us of their gloating lips. You heard their coarse laugh as they grabbed the moving bag that the Count threw to them. You shudder, and well you may. Forgive me that I cause you so much pain, but it is necessary. My friend, is it not a terrible need, for which I am giving perhaps my life? If anyone had to go into that place to stay, it is I who would have to go, to keep them company.”

“Do as you will,” said Jonathan, with a sob that shook him all over. “We are in the hands of God!”

*Later.*—Oh, it did me good to see the way these brave men worked. How can women help loving men when they are so serious, and so true, and so brave! It also made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is used properly? And what might it do when it is used for bad ends? I felt so thankful that Lord Godalming is rich. Mr. Morris also has plenty of money, and both of them are willing to spend it so freely. If they were not, our little expedition could not start so quickly or so well equipped. And it will start within another hour. It is not three hours since we arranged what part each of us would play. And now Lord Godalming and Jonathan have a lovely steam launch, with steam up, ready to start at a moment’s notice. Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris have half a dozen good horses, well equipped. We have all the maps and all kinds of equipment that can be had. Professor Van Helsing and I are to leave by the 11:40 train tonight for Veresti. There we are to get a carriage to drive to the Borgo Pass. We are bringing a good deal of cash, because we are to buy a carriage and horses. We shall drive ourselves, for we have no one we can trust in this matter. The Professor knows something of a great many languages, so we shall manage all right. We all have weapons; even I have a large-bore revolver. Jonathan would not be happy unless I was armed like the rest. Alas! there is one weapon the others carry that I cannot carry. The scar on my forehead forbids it. Dear Dr. Van Helsing comforts me. He tells me that I am fully armed, as there may be wolves. The weather is getting colder every hour, and snow-flurries come and go as warnings.

*Later.*—It took all my courage to say good-bye to my darling. We may never meet again. Courage, Mina! The Professor is looking at you closely; his look is a warning. There must be no tears now—unless God lets them fall in gladness.

*Jonathan Harker’s Journal.*

*October 30. Night.*—I am writing this by the light from the furnace door of the steam launch. Lord Godalming is building up the fire. He is experienced at the work. For years he has had a launch of his own on the Thames, and another on the Norfolk Broads. As for our plans, we finally decided that Mina’s guess was correct. If the Count chose any waterway to escape back to his Castle, it would be this one. It would be the Sereth, and then the Bistritza at the place where they join. We thought he would choose a place to cross the country between the river and the Carpathians. That place would be somewhere about the 47th degree of north latitude. We are not afraid of running at good speed up the river at night. There is plenty of water, and the banks are wide enough apart. So steaming is easy enough, even in the dark. Lord Godalming tells me to sleep for a while, because for now it is enough for one of us to be on watch. But I cannot sleep. How can I, with the terrible danger hanging over my darling, and her going out into that awful place.... My only comfort is that we are in the hands of God. Without that faith it would be easier to die than to live, and so be free of all the trouble. Mr. Morris and Dr. Seward set off on their long ride before we started. They are to keep up the right bank, far enough off to get on higher land. From there they can see a good stretch of river and avoid following its curves. For the first stages they have two men to ride and lead their spare horses—four in all—so as not to make people curious. Soon they will send the men away, and then they will look after the horses themselves. We may need to join forces. If so, they can give horses to our whole party. One of the saddles has a movable horn, and can easily be changed for Mina, if needed.

It is a wild adventure we are on. We are rushing along through the darkness. The cold from the river seems to rise up and strike us. All the mysterious voices of the night are around us. Here it all becomes real to me. We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways, into a whole world of dark and dreadful things. Godalming is shutting the furnace door....

*31 October.*—We are still hurrying along. Day has come, and Godalming is sleeping. I am on watch. The morning is bitterly cold. The heat of the furnace is welcome, though we have heavy fur coats. So far we have passed only a few open boats. None of them had on board any box or package like the size of the one we are looking for. The men were frightened every time we turned our electric lamp on them. They fell on their knees and prayed.

*1 November, evening.*—No news all day. We have found nothing of the kind we are looking for. We have now passed into the Bistritza. If our guess is wrong, our chance is gone. We have stopped and searched every boat, big and little. Early this morning one crew thought we were a Government boat, and treated us that way. We saw that this could make things easier. So at Fundu, where the Bistritza runs into the Sereth, we got a Roumanian flag. We now fly it where everyone can see it. This trick has worked with every boat we have searched since then. Everyone has shown us great respect. Not once has anyone objected to anything we chose to ask or do. Some of the Slovaks tell us that a big boat passed them. It was going faster than usual, because it had a double crew on board. This was before they came to Fundu. So they could not tell us whether the boat turned into the Bistritza or went on up the Sereth. At Fundu we could not hear of any such boat, so she must have passed there in the night. I am feeling very sleepy. Perhaps the cold is beginning to affect me, and nature must have rest some time. Godalming insists that he will keep the first watch. God bless him for all his goodness to poor dear Mina and me.

*2 November, morning.*—It is broad daylight. That good fellow would not wake me. He says it would have been a sin, because I was sleeping peacefully and forgetting my trouble. It seems terribly selfish of me to have slept so long and let him watch all night. But he was quite right. I am a new man this morning. As I sit here and watch him sleeping, I can do everything that is needed. I can look after the engine, steer and keep watch. I can feel my strength and energy coming back to me. I wonder where Mina is now, and Van Helsing. They should have got to Veresti about noon on Wednesday. It would take them some time to get the carriage and horses. So if they started and travelled hard, they would be at the Borgo Pass about now. God guide and help them! I am afraid to think what may happen. If only we could go faster! But we cannot; the engines are throbbing and doing their very best. I wonder how Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris are getting on. There seem to be endless streams running down the mountains into this river. But none of them are very large—at present, anyway. No doubt they are terrible in winter and when the snow melts. So the horsemen may not have met many obstacles. I hope that we may see them before we get to Strasba. If we have not overtaken the Count by then, we may need to discuss together what to do next.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*2 November.*—Three days on the road. No news, and no time to write it if there had been any, for every moment is precious. We have rested only as much as the horses needed. But we are both bearing it wonderfully. Those adventurous days of ours are proving useful now. We must push on. We shall never feel happy till we see the launch again.

*3 November.*—We heard at Fundu that the launch had gone up the Bistritza. I wish it wasn’t so cold. There are signs that snow is coming. If it falls heavily, it will stop us. In that case we must get a sledge and go on, Russian fashion.

*4 November.*—Today we heard that the launch had been held up by an accident. It happened when they were trying to force their way up the rapids. The Slovak boats get up all right, with the help of a rope and steering with knowledge. Some went up only a few hours before. Godalming is an amateur mechanic himself. It was clearly he who put the launch in order again. In the end they got up the rapids all right, with local help, and they are off on the chase again. I fear the boat is no better after the accident. The peasants tell us that once she was on smooth water again, she kept stopping now and then. She did this as long as they could see her. We must push on harder than ever. Our help may be needed soon.

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*31 October.*—Arrived at Veresti at noon. The Professor tells me that at dawn this morning he could hardly hypnotise me at all. All I could say was: “dark and quiet.” He is out now, buying a carriage and horses. He says that later he will try to buy extra horses, so that we can change them on the way. We have something more than 70 miles in front of us. The country is lovely and very interesting. If only things were different, how delightful it would be to see it all! If Jonathan and I were driving through it alone, what a pleasure it would be. We could stop and see the people, and learn something of their life. We could fill our minds and memories with all the colour and beauty of the whole wild, beautiful country and its quaint people! But, alas!—

*Later.*—Dr. Van Helsing has come back. He has got the carriage and horses. We are to have some dinner and start in an hour. The landlady is packing a huge basket of food for us. It seems enough for a company of soldiers. The Professor encourages her. He whispers to me that it may be a week before we can get any good food again. He has been shopping too. He has sent back here such a wonderful lot of fur coats and wraps and all sorts of warm things. There will be no chance of our being cold.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We shall soon be off. I am afraid to think what may happen to us. We are truly in the hands of God. He alone knows what may happen. I pray to Him with all the strength of my sad and humble soul. I pray that He will watch over my beloved husband. And I pray that, whatever may happen, Jonathan may know that I loved and honoured him more than I can say. I pray that he may know that my last and truest thought will always be for him.

### Glossary

- **trance**: a state like sleep in which a person can still hear and speak
- **hawser**: a thick rope used to tie a ship or boat
- **rowlocks**: the parts on the side of a boat that hold the oars
- **Kukri**: a large curved knife
- **passes**: slow movements of the hands used to hypnotise someone
- **palsy**: an illness that makes the body shake
- **canny**: (Scottish) safe, natural; “no canny” means strange and a little frightening
- **the Deil**: (Scottish) the Devil; the captain also calls him “the Old Mon” (the Old Man)
- **handspike**: a heavy wooden bar used on ships
- **fez**: a round red hat with a flat top and no brim
- **octroi**: a tax paid on goods brought into a town
- **Ground of inquiry**: the question that you want to study and answer
- **Council of War**: a meeting to plan a fight or a battle
- **steam launch**: a small boat with a steam engine
- **arsenal**: a large collection of weapons
- **Winchester**: a type of rifle (gun)
- **large-bore revolver**: a pistol that fires big bullets
- **furnace**: the closed fire that heats water to make steam for the engine
- **latitude**: a line on the map that shows how far north or south a place is
- **rapids**: a part of a river where the water runs very fast over rocks
- **sledge**: a vehicle that slides over snow
- **quaint**: old-fashioned and charming

## Chapter XXVII: Mina Harker’s Journal

*1 November.*—All day long we have travelled, and at a good speed. The horses seem to know that they are being kindly treated. They go willingly for their full stage at their best speed. We have now changed horses so many times, and found the same thing each time. So we feel hopeful that the journey will be an easy one. Dr. Van Helsing says very little. He tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and pays them well to exchange the horses. We get hot soup, or coffee, or tea, and off we go. It is a lovely country, full of every kind of beauty you can imagine. The people are brave and strong and simple, and they seem to have many good qualities. They are *very, very* superstitious. In the first house where we stopped, a woman served us. When she saw the scar on my forehead, she crossed herself. She put out two fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye. I believe they took the trouble to put extra garlic into our food, and I can’t stand garlic. Ever since then I have been careful not to take off my hat or veil. So I have escaped their suspicions. We are travelling fast. We have no driver with us to carry stories, so we travel ahead of the gossip. But I daresay the fear of the evil eye will follow close behind us all the way. The Professor seems tireless. All day he would not take any rest, though he made me sleep for a long time. At sunset he hypnotised me. He says that I answered as usual: “darkness, lapping water and creaking wood.” So our enemy is still on the river. I am afraid to think of Jonathan. But somehow I have no fear now for him, or for myself. I am writing this while we wait in a farmhouse for the horses to be got ready. Dr. Van Helsing is sleeping. Poor dear, he looks very tired and old and grey. But his mouth is set as firmly as a conqueror’s. Even in his sleep he is full of determination. When we are well on our way, I must make him rest while I drive. I shall tell him that we have days in front of us. We must not break down just when his strength will be needed most of all.... All is ready; we are leaving shortly.

*2 November, morning.*—I succeeded, and we took turns driving all night. Now the day has come, bright but cold. There is a strange heaviness in the air. I say “heaviness” because I cannot find a better word. I mean that it weighs on us both. It is very cold, and only our warm furs keep us comfortable. At dawn Van Helsing hypnotised me. He says I answered: “darkness, creaking wood and roaring water.” So the river is changing as they go up it. I do hope that my darling will not run into any danger—any more than he must. But we are in God’s hands.

*2 November, night.*—Driving all day long. The country gets wilder as we go. At Veresti the great spurs of the Carpathians seemed so far from us and so low on the horizon. Now they seem to gather round us and tower in front of us. We both seem to be in good spirits. I think each of us tries to cheer the other, and in doing so we cheer ourselves. Dr. Van Helsing says that we shall reach the Borgo Pass by morning. There are very few houses here now. The Professor says that the last horse we got will have to go on with us, because we may not be able to change. Besides the two we changed, he got two more. So now we have a rough four-in-hand. The dear horses are patient and good, and they give us no trouble. No other travellers bother us, so even I can drive. We shall get to the Pass in daylight; we do not want to arrive before that. So we take it easy, and each of us has a long rest in turn. Oh, what will tomorrow bring us? We are going to look for the place where my poor darling suffered so much. God grant that we may be guided the right way. May He watch over my husband, and over those who are dear to us both and are in such deadly danger. As for me, I am not worthy in His sight. Alas! I am unclean in His eyes. And I shall be, until He lets me stand before Him as one of those who have not earned His anger.

*Memorandum by Abraham Van Helsing.*

*4 November.*—This is to my old and true friend John Seward, M.D., of Purfleet, London, in case I may not see him. It may explain. It is morning, and I write by a fire which I have kept alive all night—Madam Mina helping me. It is cold, cold. It is so cold that the grey heavy sky is full of snow. When it falls, it will stay all winter, for the ground is getting hard to receive it. The cold seems to have affected Madam Mina. All day her head has been so heavy that she was not like herself. She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps! Usually she is so alert, but she have done nothing at all all day. She have even lost her appetite. She make no entry in her little diary—she who write so faithfully at every stop. Something whisper to me that all is not well. But tonight she is more *vif*. Her long sleep all day have refreshed and restored her, for now she is as sweet and bright as ever. At sunset I try to hypnotise her, but alas! with no effect. The power has grown less and less each day, and tonight it fail me altogether. Well, God’s will be done—whatever it may be, and wherever it may lead!

Now to the history. Madam Mina does not write in her shorthand, so I must write, in my clumsy old way. So none of our days will go without a record.

We got to the Borgo Pass just after sunrise yesterday morning. When I saw the signs of dawn, I got ready for the hypnotism. We stopped our carriage and got down, so that nothing would disturb us. I made a bed with furs. Madam Mina lay down and gave herself up to the hypnotic sleep as usual. But it came more slowly than ever, and it lasted a shorter time. As before, the answer came: “darkness and the swirling of water.” Then she woke, bright and radiant. We go on our way and soon reach the Pass. At this time and place she becomes all on fire with eagerness. Some new guiding power shows itself in her. She points to a road and says:

“This is the way.”

“How know you it?” I ask.

“Of course I know it,” she answers. Then, after a pause, she adds: “Has not my Jonathan travelled it and written of his travel?”

At first I think this somewhat strange. But soon I see that there is only one such by-road. It is used very little. It is very different from the coach road from the Bukovina to Bistritz, which is wider and harder, and more used.

So we came down this road. Sometimes we meet other ways. We are not always sure that they are roads at all, for they are neglected, and light snow has fallen. Then the horses know the way, and only they. I give them free rein, and they go on so patiently. Little by little we find all the things which Jonathan noted in that wonderful diary of his. Then we go on for long, long hours and hours. At first I tell Madam Mina to sleep. She tries, and she succeeds. She sleeps all the time, till at last I begin to grow suspicious. I try to wake her. But she sleeps on, and I cannot wake her, though I try. I do not wish to try too hard, in case I harm her. For I know that she has suffered much, and sleep at times is everything to her. I think I doze myself, for all of a sudden I feel guilty, as though I have done something wrong. I find myself sitting bolt upright, with the reins in my hand. The good horses go along, jog, jog, just as before. I look down and find Madam Mina still asleep. It is now not far from sunset. Over the snow the light of the sun flows in a great yellow flood. So we throw great long shadows where the mountain rises so steeply. For we are going up, and up; and all is oh! so wild and rocky, as though it were the end of the world.

Then I wake Madam Mina. This time she wakes without much trouble. Then I try to put her into the hypnotic sleep. But she does not sleep; it is as if I were not there. Still I try and try. Then all at once I find her and myself in the dark. I look round and find that the sun has gone down. Madam Mina laughs, and I turn and look at her. She is now quite awake. She looks better than I have ever seen her since that night at Carfax, when we first entered the Count’s house. I am amazed, and not at ease. But she is so bright and tender and thoughtful for me that I forget all fear. I light a fire, for we have brought a supply of wood with us. She prepares food while I unharness the horses. I tie them up in a sheltered place to feed. When I come back to the fire, she has my supper ready. I go to help her, but she smiles. She tells me that she has eaten already. She was so hungry that she would not wait. I like it not, and I have serious doubts. But I fear to frighten her, so I say nothing about it. She helps me, and I eat alone. Then we wrap ourselves in furs and lie beside the fire. I tell her to sleep while I watch. But soon I forget all about watching. Suddenly I remember that I must watch. Then I find her lying quietly, but awake, and looking at me with such bright eyes. Once, twice more the same thing happens, and I get much sleep before morning. When I wake, I try to hypnotise her. But alas! though she shuts her eyes obediently, she cannot sleep. The sun rises up, and up, and up. Then sleep comes to her too late, but so heavy that she will not wake. I have to lift her up and put her, still sleeping, in the carriage. I do this when I have harnessed the horses and made all ready. Madam still sleeps. In her sleep she looks healthier and redder than before. And I like it not. And I am afraid, afraid, afraid!—I am afraid of all things, even to think. But I must go on my way. We are playing for life and death, or for more than these, and we must not draw back.

*5 November, morning.*—Let me be accurate in everything. For though you and I have seen some strange things together, you may at first think that I, Van Helsing, am mad. You may think that the many horrors and the long strain on my nerves have at last turned my brain.

All yesterday we travelled, getting ever closer to the mountains. We moved into a land that grew more and more wild and empty. There are great, frowning cliffs and much falling water. It is as if Nature had once held her carnival here. Madam Mina still slept and slept. I was hungry and I ate, but I could not wake her—even for food. I began to fear that the deadly spell of the place was on her, poisoned as she is by that Vampire baptism. “Well,” I said to myself, “if she sleep all the day, then I shall not sleep at night.” We travelled on the rough road, for there was a road, of an ancient and imperfect kind. As we went, I held down my head and slept. Again I woke with a sense of guilt, and a feeling that time had passed. I found Madam Mina still sleeping, and the sun low down. But everything had truly changed. The frowning mountains seemed further away. We were near the top of a steep hill. On its summit was a castle just like the one Jonathan tells of in his diary. At once I was full of joy and of fear. For now, for good or bad, the end was near.

I woke Madam Mina and tried again to hypnotise her. But alas! it was no use until it was too late. The great dark was coming. Even after the sun went down, the sky threw the light of the gone sun onto the snow. So for a time everything was in a great twilight. Before the dark came, I took out the horses and fed them in what shelter I could find. Then I make a fire. Near it I make Madam Mina sit comfortably among her rugs. She is awake now, and more charming than ever. I got food ready, but she would not eat. She simply said that she was not hungry. I did not press her, for I knew it was no use. But I ate myself, for now I must be strong for everyone. Then, with the fear on me of what might happen, I drew a ring round where Madam Mina sat. I made it big, for her comfort. Over the ring I passed some of the Wafer, broken fine, so that all was well guarded. She sat still all the time—as still as one dead. She grew whiter and whiter, till the snow was not paler, and she said not a word. But when I came near, she clung to me. I could feel that the poor soul was shaking from head to foot. It was a pain to feel it. A little later, when she had grown quieter, I said to her:

“Will you not come over to the fire?”

I wished to test what she could do. She rose obediently. But when she had taken one step, she stopped and stood like someone struck.

“Why not go on?” I asked.

She shook her head, came back and sat down in her place. Then she looked at me with open eyes, like someone woken from sleep. She said simply:

“I cannot!”

And she said nothing more. I was full of joy. For I knew that what she could not do, none of those we feared could do. There might be danger to her body, but her soul was safe!

Soon the horses began to scream. They tore at the ropes that tied them, until I came to them and quieted them. When they felt my hands on them, they whinnied softly, as if in joy. They licked my hands and were quiet for a time. Many times through the night I came to them, until the cold hour came, when all nature is at its lowest. Every time I came, they grew quiet. In the cold hour the fire began to die. I was about to step out to feed it, for now the snow came in flying sweeps, and with it a cold mist. Even in the dark there was some kind of light, as there always is over snow. It seemed as though the snow-flurries and the wreaths of mist took the shape of women in trailing dresses. All was in a dead, grim silence, except that the horses whinnied and cowered, as if in terror of the worst. I began to fear—horrible fears. But then a sense of safety came to me in the ring where I stood. I began to think, too, that my fancies came from the night, and the gloom, and the unrest I have gone through, and all the terrible anxiety. It was as if my memories of all Jonathan’s horrible experience were fooling me. For the snowflakes and the mist began to wheel and circle round. At last I seemed to catch a shadowy glimpse of those women who would have kissed him. And then the horses cowered lower and lower. They moaned in terror, as men do in pain. Their fear was not even wild enough to let them break away. I feared for my dear Madam Mina when these strange figures came near and circled round. I looked at her, but she sat calmly and smiled at me. I wanted to step to the fire to feed it. But she caught me and held me back. She whispered so softly that it was like a voice one hears in a dream:

“No! No! Do not go outside. Here you are safe!”

I turned to her, looked in her eyes and said:

“But you? It is for you that I fear!”

At this she laughed—a low, unreal laugh—and said:

“Fear for *me*! Why fear for me? No one in all the world is safer from them than I am.”

As I wondered what her words meant, a puff of wind made the flame leap up. And I see the red scar on her forehead. Then, alas! I knew. If I had not known then, I would soon have learned. For the wheeling figures of mist and snow came closer, but they always kept outside the Holy circle. Then they began to take bodily form. And there before me stood the same three women, in real flesh—if God has not taken away my reason, for I saw it with my own eyes. They were the women Jonathan saw in the room, when they would have kissed his throat. I knew the swaying round shapes, the bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the rosy colour, the sensual lips. They kept smiling at poor dear Madam Mina. Their laugh came through the silence of the night. They twined their arms together and pointed to her. They spoke in those so sweet, tingling tones. Jonathan said these tones had the unbearable sweetness of water-glasses:

“Come, sister. Come to us. Come! Come!”

In fear I turned to my poor Madam Mina. And my heart leapt like a flame with gladness. For oh! the terror in her sweet eyes, the disgust, the horror, told my heart a story that was all of hope. Thank God, she was not one of them—not yet. I seized some of the firewood beside me. Holding out some of the Wafer, I moved towards them and towards the fire. They drew back before me and laughed their low, horrible laugh. I fed the fire, and I did not fear them. For I knew that we were safe inside our protections. They could not come near me while I was so armed. Nor could they come near Madam Mina while she stayed inside the ring. She could not leave it, any more than they could enter it. The horses had stopped moaning and lay still on the ground. The snow fell on them softly, and they grew whiter. I knew that there was no more terror for the poor beasts.

And so we stayed until the red of the dawn began to fall through the gloom of the snow. I was lonely and afraid, and full of sorrow and terror. But when that beautiful sun began to climb the horizon, life came back to me. At the first coming of the dawn, the horrible figures melted into the whirling mist and snow. The wreaths of transparent gloom moved away towards the castle, and were lost.

With the dawn coming, I turned to Madam Mina without thinking. I meant to hypnotise her. But she lay in a deep and sudden sleep, and I could not wake her. I tried to hypnotise her through her sleep. But she made no answer, none at all; and the day broke. I am still afraid to move. I have made my fire and have looked at the horses. They are all dead. Today I have much to do here, and I am waiting till the sun is high up. For there may be places where I must go where the sunlight will keep me safe, even though snow and mist hide it.

I will make myself strong with breakfast, and then I will go to my terrible work. Madam Mina still sleeps; and, thank God! she is calm in her sleep....

*Jonathan Harker’s Journal.*

*4 November, evening.*—The accident to the launch has been a terrible thing for us. Without it we would have overtaken the boat long ago. And by now my dear Mina would have been free. I am afraid to think of her, out on the open hills near that horrible place. We have got horses, and we are following the track. I am writing this while Godalming is getting ready. We have our weapons. The Szgany must look out if they want a fight. Oh, if only Morris and Seward were with us. We can only hope! If I write no more, good-bye, Mina! God bless and keep you.

*Dr. Seward’s Diary.*

*5 November.*—At dawn we saw the band of Szgany ahead of us, rushing away from the river with their leiter-wagon. They crowded round it in a group and hurried along, as if enemies were all around them. The snow is falling lightly, and there is a strange excitement in the air. It may be our own feelings, but the gloom is strange. Far off I hear the howling of wolves. The snow brings them down from the mountains. There are dangers to all of us, and from all sides. The horses are nearly ready, and we shall soon be off. We are riding to someone’s death. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be....

*Dr. Van Helsing’s Memorandum.*

*5 November, afternoon.*—I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy anyway, though proving it has been dreadful. I left Madam Mina sleeping inside the Holy circle, and I made my way to the castle. The blacksmith’s hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful. The doors were all open, but I broke them off their rusty hinges. I did not want some evil plan or bad luck to close them, so that once I was inside I could not get out. Jonathan’s bitter experience helped me here. From my memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I knew that my work lay there. The air was heavy and hard to breathe. It seemed as if there was some smoke of sulphur, which at times made me dizzy. Either there was a roaring in my ears, or I heard far off the howl of wolves. Then I thought of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in a terrible position. The dilemma had me between its horns.

I had not dared to take her into this place. I had left her safe from the Vampire in that Holy circle. And yet even there would be the wolf! I made up my mind that my work lay here. As to the wolves, we must accept them, if it were God’s will. At any rate, it was only death, and freedom beyond it. So I made the choice for her. If it had been only for myself, the choice would have been easy. The wolf’s jaws would be a better resting place than the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work.

I knew that there were at least three graves to find—graves that are lived in. So I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and sensual beauty that I shudder. I feel as though I have come to do murder. Ah, I do not doubt that in old times, when such things happened, many a man set out to do a task like mine. And at the last his heart failed him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay. At last the mere beauty and charm of the wanton Un-Dead have hypnotised him. And he stays on and on, till sunset comes and the Vampire sleep is over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look with love. The sensual mouth is offered for a kiss—and man is weak. And there is one more victim in the Vampire fold. One more joins the grim and horrible ranks of the Un-Dead!...

There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such a one. She lay in a tomb worn with age and heavy with the dust of centuries. There was that horrible smell which the Count’s lairs have had. And yet I was moved—I, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and my reason for hate. I was moved to a longing for delay. It seemed to stop my mind from working and to clog my very soul. Perhaps my need for natural sleep, and the strange heaviness of the air, were beginning to overcome me. It is certain that I was slipping into sleep. It was the open-eyed sleep of one who gives way to a sweet fascination. Then through the air, made still by the snow, came a long, low wail. It was so full of sorrow and pity that it woke me like the sound of a trumpet. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard.

Then I prepared myself again for my horrible task. By wrenching away the tops of tombs, I found another of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not stop to look at her as I had at her sister. I feared that once more I would begin to fall under the spell. But I go on searching. Soon I find the other sister, the fair one, in a high, great tomb, as if it was made for one much loved. Like Jonathan, I had seen her gather herself out of the atoms of the mist. She was so lovely to look at, so radiantly beautiful, so perfectly sensual. The very instinct of man in me made my head whirl with new feelings. It is the instinct that calls some men to love and to protect a woman. But thank God, that soul-wail of my dear Madam Mina had not died out of my ears. Before the spell could work on me any further, I had made myself strong for my wild work. By this time I had searched all the tombs in the chapel, as far as I could tell. Only three of these Un-Dead phantoms had been around us in the night. So I took it that there were no more active Un-Dead. There was one great tomb, more lordly than all the rest. It was huge, and of noble shape. On it was only one word:

DRACULA.

This, then, was the Un-Dead home of the King-Vampire, to whom so many more owed their Un-Dead life. Its emptiness spoke clearly and made certain what I knew. I was going to give these women back their dead selves through my awful work. But before I began, I laid some of the Wafer in Dracula’s tomb. So I banished him from it, Un-Dead, for ever.

Then my terrible task began, and I dreaded it. If it had been only one, it would have been fairly easy. But three! I had to begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horror. It was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy. So what would it be with these strange ones? They had lived on through centuries, and the passing years had made them stronger. If they could, they would have fought for their foul lives....

Oh, my friend John, it was butcher’s work. I was given strength by thoughts of other dead, and of the living. Over the living hung such a heavy cloud of fear. Without these thoughts, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even now. But, thank God, my nerve held until all was over. In the first one I saw the peace, and the gladness that came over her face just before the final end. It showed that her soul had been won. If I had not seen that, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have borne the horrible screeching as the stake drove home, the plunging of the twisting body, and the lips of bloody foam. I would have fled in terror and left my work undone. But it is over! And I can pity the poor souls now, and weep. I think of each of them, peaceful in her full sleep of death for a short moment before fading. For, friend John, my knife had hardly cut off the head of each, when the whole body began to melt away. It crumbled into its native dust. It was as though the death that should have come centuries ago had at last spoken. It said at once and loudly, “I am here!”

Before I left the castle, I fixed its entrances so that the Count can never again enter there Un-Dead.

When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she woke from her sleep. Seeing me, she cried out in pain that I had suffered too much.

“Come!” she said. “Come away from this awful place! Let us go to meet my husband. I know he is coming towards us.”

She was looking thin and pale and weak. But her eyes were pure and glowed with strong feeling. I was glad to see her paleness and her illness. For my mind was full of the fresh horror of that rosy vampire sleep.

And so, with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward to meet our friends—and *him*. Madam Mina tells me that she *knows* they are coming to meet us.

*Mina Harker’s Journal.*

*6 November.*—It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I set off towards the east. I knew Jonathan was coming from there. We did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take heavy rugs and wraps with us. We did not dare to risk being left without warmth in the cold and the snow. We had to take some of our food too, for we were in a complete wilderness. As far as we could see through the falling snow, there was not even a sign of a house. When we had gone about a mile, I was tired from the heavy walking and sat down to rest. Then we looked back. We saw where the clear line of Dracula’s castle cut the sky. We were so deep below the hill where it stood that the Carpathian mountains seemed far below it. We saw it in all its grandeur. It was perched a thousand feet up, on the summit of a sheer precipice. On every side there seemed to be a great gap between it and the steep side of the nearest mountain. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We could hear the distant howling of wolves. They were far off. The sound came muffled through the heavy snowfall, but even so it was full of terror. I could tell from the way Dr. Van Helsing was searching about that he was looking for a good place to defend. There we would be less open to attack. The rough road still led downwards; we could follow it through the drifted snow.

After a little while the Professor signalled to me, so I got up and joined him. He had found a wonderful spot. It was a sort of natural hollow in a rock, with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders. He took me by the hand and drew me in.

“See!” he said. “Here you will be in shelter. And if the wolves do come, I can meet them one by one.”

He brought in our furs and made a cosy nest for me. He got out some food and pressed it on me. But I could not eat. Even trying to eat disgusted me. I would have liked so much to please him, but I could not bring myself to try. He looked very sad, but he did not blame me. He took his field-glasses from their case, stood on the top of the rock, and began to search the horizon. Suddenly he called out:

“Look! Madam Mina, look! look!”

I jumped up and stood beside him on the rock. He handed me his glasses and pointed. The snow was now falling more heavily. It swirled about fiercely, for a high wind was beginning to blow. But at times there were pauses between the snow-flurries, and I could see a long way round. From our height it was possible to see a great distance. Far off, beyond the white waste of snow, I could see the river. It lay like a black ribbon in kinks and curls as it wound its way. Straight in front of us, and not far off, came a group of men on horseback, hurrying along. In fact they were so near that I wondered we had not noticed them before. In the middle of them was a cart, a long leiter-wagon. It swung from side to side with each hard bump in the road, like a dog’s tail wagging. The men stood out against the snow. From their clothes I could see that they were peasants or gypsies of some kind.

On the cart was a great square chest. My heart leaped when I saw it, for I felt that the end was coming. The evening was now getting close. I knew well that at sunset the Thing would be free. Until then it was a prisoner in there. After that it could escape from all pursuit in any of many forms. In fear I turned to the Professor. But to my alarm, he was not there. A moment later I saw him below me. He had drawn a circle round the rock, like the one we had found shelter in last night. When he had finished it, he stood beside me again and said:

“At least you shall be safe here from *him*!”

He took the glasses from me. At the next pause in the snow, he swept the whole space below us with them.

“See,” he said, “they come quickly. They are whipping the horses, and galloping as hard as they can.”

He paused, and went on in a hollow voice:

“They are racing for the sunset. We may be too late. God’s will be done!”

Down came another blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole landscape was blotted out. But it soon passed, and once more his glasses were fixed on the plain. Then came a sudden cry:

“Look! Look! Look! See, two horsemen follow fast, coming up from the south. It must be Quincey and John. Take the glass. Look before the snow blots it all out!”

I took it and looked. The two men might be Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris. At any rate, I knew that neither of them was Jonathan. At the same time I *knew* that Jonathan was not far off. Looking around, I saw two other men on the north side of the coming party. They were riding at break-neck speed. I knew one of them was Jonathan. Of course I took the other to be Lord Godalming. They too were chasing the party with the cart. When I told the Professor, he shouted with joy like a schoolboy. He looked hard until a snowfall made it impossible to see. Then he laid his Winchester rifle ready for use against the boulder at the opening of our shelter.

“They are all coming together,” he said. “When the time comes, we shall have gypsies on all sides.”

I got out my revolver and held it ready. For while we were speaking, the howling of wolves came louder and closer. When the snowstorm calmed for a moment, we looked again. It was strange to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us. And beyond, the sun was shining more and more brightly as it sank towards the far mountain tops. I swept the glass all around us. Here and there I could see dots moving, alone, in twos and threes, and in larger numbers. The wolves were gathering for their prey.

Every moment seemed an age while we waited. The wind came now in fierce bursts. The snow was driven wildly as it swept on us in circling eddies. At times we could not see an arm’s length in front of us. But at other times the hollow-sounding wind swept by and seemed to clear the air around us. Then we could see far away. Lately we had been so used to watching for sunrise and sunset that we knew quite accurately when it would be. And we knew that the sun would soon set. It was hard to believe our watches. By them we waited less than an hour in that rocky shelter before the different groups began to come together close to us. The wind came now in fiercer and more bitter sweeps, and more steadily from the north. It seemed to have driven the snow clouds away from us, for the snow fell only in occasional bursts. We could clearly see each person in each party, the hunted and the hunters. Strangely, the hunted men did not seem to realise, or at least to care, that they were being chased. But they seemed to hurry on with double speed as the sun dropped lower and lower on the mountain tops.

Closer and closer they came. The Professor and I crouched down behind our rock and held our weapons ready. I could see that he was determined that they should not pass. None of them at all knew that we were there.

All at once two voices shouted: “Halt!” One was my Jonathan’s, raised high with passion. The other was Mr. Morris’s strong, firm voice of quiet command. The gypsies may not have known the language. But there was no mistaking the tone, in whatever language the words were spoken. Without thinking, they pulled in their horses. At that instant Lord Godalming and Jonathan dashed up on one side, and Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris on the other. The leader of the gypsies was a splendid-looking fellow who sat his horse like a centaur. He waved them back, and in a fierce voice told his companions to go on. They whipped the horses, which sprang forward. But the four men raised their Winchester rifles and ordered them to stop in a way no one could mistake. At the same moment Dr. Van Helsing and I rose up behind the rock and pointed our weapons at them. The men saw that they were surrounded. They tightened their reins and stopped. The leader turned to them and gave a word. At this, every man of the gypsy party drew whatever weapon he carried, knife or pistol. Each one held himself ready to attack. In an instant the fight had begun.

The leader moved his reins quickly and threw his horse out in front. He pointed first to the sun—now close down on the hill tops—and then to the castle. He said something which I did not understand. In answer, all four men of our party threw themselves from their horses and dashed towards the cart. I should have felt terrible fear at seeing Jonathan in such danger. But the passion of battle must have been on me as well as on the rest of them. I felt no fear, only a wild, rising desire to do something. The leader of the gypsies saw our men move quickly, and he gave a command. At once his men formed round the cart in a disorderly way. Each one shouldered and pushed the others in his eagerness to carry out the order.

In the middle of this, I could see Jonathan on one side of the ring of men, and Quincey on the other. They were forcing a way to the cart. It was clear that they were set on finishing their task before the sun set. Nothing seemed to stop them, or even to slow them down. The pointed guns and the flashing knives of the gypsies in front did not seem to catch their attention at all. Nor did the howling of the wolves behind. Jonathan’s fierce rush and his clear single purpose seemed to frighten the men in front of him. Without thinking, they shrank aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped onto the cart. With a strength which seemed unbelievable, he lifted the great box and threw it over the wheel to the ground. Meanwhile, Mr. Morris had had to use force to get through his side of the ring of Szgany. All the time I was watching Jonathan breathlessly, I could see Mr. Morris from the corner of my eye. He was pressing desperately forward. I had seen the knives of the gypsies flash as he fought his way through them, and they cut at him. He had blocked them with his great bowie knife. At first I thought that he too had come through safely. Then he sprang to Jonathan’s side; Jonathan had by now jumped down from the cart. And I could see that Mr. Morris was clutching at his side with his left hand. The blood was spurting through his fingers. In spite of this, he did not delay. Jonathan attacked one end of the chest with desperate energy. He was trying to force off the lid with his great Kukri knife. At the same time Mr. Morris attacked the other end wildly with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the lid began to give way. The nails came out with a quick screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back.

By this time the gypsies had given in and made no resistance. They saw that the Winchesters were pointed at them, and that they were at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward. The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell long on the snow. I saw the Count lying inside the box on the earth. The rough fall from the cart had scattered some of it over him. He was deathly pale, just like a wax figure. His red eyes glared with the horrible look of revenge which I knew too well.

As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.

But in that instant came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife. I screamed as I saw it cut through the throat. At the same moment Mr. Morris’s bowie knife plunged into the heart.

It was like a miracle. Before our very eyes, almost in the time it takes to draw a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.

I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of the final end, there was a look of peace in the face. I never could have imagined that such a look might rest there.

The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky. Every stone of its broken battlements showed sharply against the light of the setting sun.

The gypsies thought that we were in some way the cause of the dead man’s strange disappearance. They turned without a word and rode away as if for their lives. Those who had no horses jumped onto the leiter-wagon. They shouted to the horsemen not to leave them behind. The wolves had moved back to a safe distance. Now they followed behind the gypsies, and left us alone.

Mr. Morris had sunk to the ground. He leaned on his elbow, with his hand pressed to his side. The blood was still gushing through his fingers. I flew to him, for the Holy circle did not keep me back now. So did the two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him, and the wounded man laid his head back on his shoulder. With a sigh and a weak effort, he took my hand in the hand that had no blood on it. He must have seen the pain of my heart in my face, for he smiled at me and said:

“I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God!” he cried suddenly. He struggled up into a sitting position and pointed to me. “It was worth dying for this! Look! look!”

The sun was now right down on the mountain top. Its red light fell on my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. All together the men sank on their knees. A deep and earnest “Amen” broke from them all as their eyes followed his pointing finger. The dying man spoke:

“Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not more spotless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!”

And, to our bitter grief, he died with a smile and in silence, a gallant gentleman.

### Glossary

- **evil eye**: a look that people believe can bring bad luck
- **veil**: a thin piece of cloth that covers the face
- **spurs**: here, lower hills that stick out from a mountain range
- **four-in-hand**: a carriage pulled by four horses
- **by-road**: a small side road
- **reins**: the long straps a driver uses to control a horse
- **vif**: (French) lively, full of energy
- **Holy circle**: a ring made with pieces of the Sacred Wafer that evil cannot cross
- **wreaths of mist**: mist that turns and curls in the air like rings
- **sulphur**: a yellow substance that burns with a bad smell
- **a dilemma had me between its horns**: I had to choose between two bad things
- **wanton**: here, wild and without shame in love
- **phantoms**: ghosts; shapes that seem real but are not alive
- **banished**: sent away and not allowed to come back
- **field-glasses**: an instrument with two lenses for seeing things far away
- **boulders**: very large rocks
- **leiter-wagon**: a long farm cart with ladder-like sides
- **centaur**: a creature from old Greek stories, half man and half horse
- **bowie knife**: a large hunting knife
- **battlements**: the top of a castle wall, with gaps to shoot through
- **gallant**: brave and noble

## Note

Seven years ago we all went through the flames. Since then some of us have found happiness, and we think it is well worth the pain we suffered. It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boy’s birthday is on the same day that Quincey Morris died. I know that his mother has a secret belief. She thinks that some of our brave friend’s spirit has passed into him. His bundle of names links all our little band of men together, but we call him Quincey.

In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania. We went over the old ground again. For us it was so full of clear and terrible memories, and it still is. We had seen those things with our own eyes and heard them with our own ears. But now it was almost impossible to believe that they were living truths. Every trace of all that had happened there was gone. The castle stood as before, high above a lonely, empty wasteland.

When we got home, we were talking about the old time. We could all look back on it without despair, because Godalming and Seward are both happily married. I took the papers from the safe. They had been there ever since our return, so long ago. Then one fact struck us. In all the mass of material that makes up this record, there is hardly one authentic document. There is nothing but a mass of typewriting. The only exceptions are the later note-books of Mina, Seward and myself, and Van Helsing’s memorandum. Even if we wished to, we could hardly ask anyone to accept these as proofs of such a wild story. Van Helsing had our boy on his knee, and he summed it all up. He said:

“We want no proofs; we ask no one to believe us! Some day this boy will know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and her loving care. Later on he will understand how some men loved her so much that they dared to risk so much for her sake.”

Jonathan Harker.

THE END

### Glossary

- **went through the flames**: lived through a time of great danger and suffering.
- **bundle of names**: a long row of first names given to one child.
- **little band**: a small group of friends who work together.
- **trace**: a small sign or mark that shows something was there.
- **wasteland**: a wild, empty piece of land where nothing grows and nobody lives.
- **despair**: the feeling of having no hope at all.
- **safe**: a strong metal box with a lock, for keeping money and important papers.
- **authentic**: real and original, not a copy.
- **memorandum**: a written note or report about something that happened.
- **gallant**: brave and good, especially in danger.