 CHAPTER XIV READ BY ELIZABETH CLETT M.B. Dennis Sayers Twenty-fourth September. I hadn't the heart to write last night that terrible record of Jonathan's upset me so. Poor dear! How he must have suffered, whether it be 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 had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject to him. And yet that man we saw yesterday—he seemed quite certain of him, poor fellow. I suppose it was the funeral upset him, and sent his mind back on some train of thought. He believes it all himself. I remember how on our wedding-day he said, Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane. There seems to be through it all some thread of continuity. That fearful count was coming to London. If it should be, and he came to London, with its teeming millions, there may be a solemn duty, and if it come we must not shrink from it. I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour, and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other eyes, if required. And if it be wanted, then perhaps, if I am ready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him, and never let him be troubled, or worried with it all. If ever Jonathan quite gets over the nervousness, he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions, and find out things, and see how I may comfort him. Letter Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker 24 September Confidence Dear Madam, I pray you to pardon my writing in that I am so far friend as that I sent to you sad news of Miss Lucy Westerner's death. By the kindness of Lord Galdeming I am empowered to read her letters and papers, for I am deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important. In them I find some letters from you, which show how great friends you were, and how you love her. O Madam Mina, by that love I implore you, help me. It is for others good that I ask to redress great wrong, and to lift much and terrible troubles that may be more great than you can know. May it be that I see you? You can trust me. I am friend of Dr. John Seward, and of Lord Galdeming, that was Arthur of Miss Lucy. I must keep it private for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see you at once, if you tell me I am privileged to come, and where and when. I implore your pardon, Madam. I have read your letters to poor Lucy, and know how good you are, and how your husband suffer. So I pray you, if it be, enlighten him not, lest it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me. Van Helsing. Telegram, Mrs. Harker, to Van Helsing. 25th September. Come today by quarter past ten train if you can catch it. Can see you any time you call. Willa Mina Harker. Mina Harker's Journal. 25th September. I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect that it will throw some light upon Jonathan's sad experience, and as he attended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me all about her. That is the reason of his coming. It is concerning 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 gets hold of my imagination and tinges 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. I had almost forgotten in my own affairs how ill she was afterwards. She must have told him of a sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about it, and now he wants me to tell him what I know, so that he may understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to Mrs. Westenra. I should never forgive myself if any act of mine were at even a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucy. I hope, too, Dr. Van Helsing will not blame me. I have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that I feel I cannot bear more just at present. I suppose it cried does us all good at times, clear as 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 a whole day and night, the first time we have been parted since our marriage. I do hope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and that nothing will occur to upset him. It is two o'clock, and the doctor will be here soon now. I shall say nothing of Jonathan's journal unless he asks me. I am so glad I have typewritten out my own journal, so that in case he asks about Lucy I can hand it to him. It will save much questioning." Later. He has come and gone. Oh! what a strange meeting! And how it all makes my head well round! I feel like one in a dream. Can it be all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathan's journal first, I should never have accepted even such a possibility. Ah! poor, poor dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered! Please the good God, all this may not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it. But it may be even a consolation unto help to him, terrible though it be, and awful in its consequences, to know for certain that his eyes and ears and brain did not deceive him, and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt which haunts him, that when the doubt is removed, no matter which, waking or dreaming may prove the truth, he would be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock. 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. I feel from having seen him that he is good and kind, and of a noble nature. When he comes to-morrow I shall ask him about Jonathan. And then please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practice interviewing. Jonathan's friend on the Exeter News told him that memory is everything in such work, that you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview. I shall try to record it, verbatim. It was half past two o'clock when the knock came. I took my courage a dear man, and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and announced Dr. Van Helsing. I rose and bowed, and he came towards me, a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest, and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and power. The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean shaven, shows a hard square chin, a large, resolute, mobile mouth, a good sized nose, rather straight, but with quick sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight, and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and a quick and tender, or stern, with the man's moves. He said to me, Mrs. Harker, is it not? I bowed ascent. That was Miss Meena Murray. Again I ascented. It is Miss Meena Murray that I came to see that was a friend of that poor dear child Lucy Westerner, Madame Meena. It is on account of the dead that I come. Sir, said I, you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westerner. And I held out my hand. He took it, and said tenderly, Oh, Madame Meena, I know that the friend of that poor little girl must be good, but I had yet to learn. He finished his speech with a courtly bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at once began. I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary—you need not look surprised, Madame Meena. It was begun after you had left, and was an imitation of you, and in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleepwalking in which she put down that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember. I can tell you I think, Doctor Van Helsing, all about it. Ah! Then you have 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, Madame Meena, I will be grateful. You will do me much favour. I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit. I suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still 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 demurely as I could. He opened it, and for an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed. Oh! You so clever woman! he said. I knew long that Mr. Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness, but see his wife have all the good things, and will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand. But I 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 of dear Lucy that you wish to ask, and so that you might not have time to wait, not on my account, but because I know your time must be precious, I have written it out on the typewriter for you. He took it, and his eyes glistened. You are so good, he said, and may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things, when I have read. By all means, I said, read it over whilst I order lunch, and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat. He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light, and became so absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed. When I came back I found him walking hurriedly, up and down the room, his face all ablaze 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 as sunshine, it opens the gate to me. I am dazed, I am dazzled with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that you do not, you cannot comprehend. Oh! But I am grateful to you, you so clever woman! Madam! he said this very solemnly, if ever Abraham Baum Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and 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 live a happy life and a good life, and your husband will be blessed in you. But, doctor, you praise me too much, and you do not know me. Not know you? I, who am old, and who have studied all my life, men and women, I who have made my specialty the brain, and all that belongs to him, and all that follow from him. And I have read your diary that you have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your marriage and your trust, not know you? Oh! Madam Mina! good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute such things that angels can read. And we men who wish to know have in us something of angels' eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too. For you trust and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your husband, tell me of him, is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and hearty? I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said, he was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins' 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 on Thursday last he had a sort of shock. A shock? And after brain-fever so soon? That is not good. What kind of shock was it? He thought he saw someone who recalled something terrible, something which led to his brain-fever. And here the whole thing seemed to have welled me in a rush, the pity for Jonathan, the horror which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me all since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me. He held my hand in his, and said to me with—oh!—such infinite sweetness! My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships. But since I have been summoned to hear about my friend John Seward, I have known so many good people, and seen such nobility, that I feel more than ever, and it has grown with my advancing years, the loneliness of my life. Believe me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope. Hope! Not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happy. Good women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am glad. Glad that I may be here of some use to you. For if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do all for him that I can, all to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps overanxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale, and what he like not, where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me about Lucy, and so now you shall not speak of it lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter to-night, for I want to think much over what you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan's trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now. Afterward you shall tell me all." After lunch, when we went back to the drawing-room, he said to me, And now, tell me all about him. When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman. That journal is also strange, and I hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him. So I said, Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt. You must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even half-believed some very strange things. He reassured me by his manner as well as his words, when he said, Oh, my dear! If you only know how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane. Oh, 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 type-written it out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathan's. It is the copy of his journal, when abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it. You will read for yourself and judge. And then, when I see you, perhaps, you'll be very kind and tell me what you think. I promise, he said as I gave him the papers. I shall in the morning, as soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may. Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and he must come to lunch with us and see him then. You could catch the quick three-thirty-four train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight. He was surprised at my knowledge of the trains offhand, but he does not know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry. So he took the papers with him and went away, and I said here thinking, thinking, I don't know what. Letter by hand, Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker. Twenty-five, September, six o'clock. Dear Madam Mina, I have read your husband so wonderful diary. You may sleep without doubt, strange and terrible as it is, it is true. I will pledge my life on it. It may be worse for others, but for him and you, there is no dread. He is a noble fellow, and let me tell you from experience of men that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and into that room, I, and going a second time, is not one to be injured impermanent by shock. His brain and his heart are all right. This, I swear, before I have even seen him, so be at rest. I shall have much to ask him of other things. I am blessed that today I come to see you. For I have learned all at once so much that again I am dazzled, dazzled more than ever, and I must think. Yours the most faithful, Abraham Van Helsing. Letter, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing. Twenty-fifth, September, six thirty p.m. My dear Dr. Van Helsing, a thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a great weight off my mind. And yet if it be true, what terrible things there are in the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that monster, be really in London! Oh! I fear to think! I have this moment whilst writing had a wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the six twenty-five to-night from Launceston, and will be here at ten-eighteen, so that I shall have no fear to-night. Will you therefore, instead of lunching with us, please come to breakfast at eight o'clock? If this be not too early for you, you can get away if you are in a hurry by the ten-thirty train, which will bring you to Paddington by two-thirty-five. Do not answer this, as I shall take it that if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast. Believe me, your faithful and grateful friend, Mina Harker. Jonathan Harker's Journal. Twenty-six, September. I thought never to write in this diary again, but the time has come. When I got home last night, Mina had supper ready, and when we had supped, she told me of Van Helsing's visit, and of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she has been about me. She showed me in the doctor's letter that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent and in the dark and distrustful, but now that I know I am not afraid even of the count. He has succeeded after all then in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out if he has anything like what Mina says. We sat late and talked it over. Mina is dressing, and I shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over. He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room where he was and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder and turned my face round to the light and said, after a sharp scrutiny, but Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock. It was so funny to hear my wife called Madam Mina by this kindly, strong-faced old man. I smiled and said, I was ill, I have had a shock, but you have cured me already. And how? By your letter to Mina last night, I was in doubt, and then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do, and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you don't know what it is like to doubt everything even yourself. No, you don't, you couldn't with eyebrows like yours. He seemed pleased and laughed as he said, so you are a physiognomist, I learn more here with each hour. I am with so much pleasure coming to your breakfast, and oh, sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife. I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply nodded and stood silent. She is one of God's women, fashioned by his own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little and egoist, and that, let me tell you, is much in this age so skeptical and selfish. And you, sir, I have read all the letters to poor Miss Mina, and some of them speak of youth. I know you since some days from the knowing of others, but I have seen your true self since last night. You will give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all our lives. We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite chokey. And now, he said, may I ask you for some more help? I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help me here. Can you tell me what went before you are going to Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help and of a different kind, but at first this will do. Look here, sir, I said, does what you have to do concern the count? It does, he said solemnly. Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the ten-thirty train you will not have time to read them, but I shall get the bundle of papers. You can take them with you and read them in the train. After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were parting he said, perhaps you will come to town if I send for you, and take Madame Mina, too. We shall both come when you will, I said. I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, he was turning them over. His eyes suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them. The Westminster Gazette. I knew it by the colour, and he grew quite white. He read something intently groaning to himself. My God, my God, so soon, so soon! I do not think he remembered me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off. This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out. Love to Madame Mina! I shall write so soon as ever I can! Dr. Seward's Diary 26 September Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a week since I said finesse, and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rather going on with the record. Until this afternoon I had no cause to think of what has done. Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as he ever was. He was already well ahead with his fly business, and he had just started in the spider-line also, so he had not been of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincy Morris is with him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling well of good spirits. Quincy wrote me a line, too, and from him I hear that Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy. So as to them all my mind is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to my work with enthusiasm, which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming sycotrized. Everything is, however, now reopened, and what is to be the end, God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows, too, but he will only let out enough at a time to wet curiosity. He went to Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. Today he came back, and almost bounded him to the room at about half past five o'clock, and thrust last night's Westminster Gazette into my hand. What do you think of that? He asked as he stood back and folded his arms. I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he meant, but he took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being decoyed away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reached a passage where it described small puncture wounds on their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up. Well, he said, it is like poor Lucy's. And what do you make of it? Simply that there is some cause in common, whatever it was that injured her has injured them. I did not quite understand his answer. That is true indirectly, but not directly. How do you mean, Professor? I asked. I was a little inclined to take his seriousness lightly, for, after all, four days of rest and freedom from burning, harrowing anxiety does help to restore one's spirits. But when I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern. Tell me, I said. I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what to think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture. Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion as to what poor Lucy died of, not after all the hints given, and not only by events, but by me, of nervous prostration following a great loss or waste of blood, and how was the blood lost or wasted? I shook my head. He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on, You are a clever man, friend John. You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see, nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot, but there are some things old and new which must not be contemplated by men's eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain, but yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs which think themselves new, and which are yet, but the old, would pretend to be young, like the fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference, no, nor in materialization, no, nor in astral bodies, no, nor in the reading of thought, no, nor in hypnotism. Yes, I said, Charcot has proved that pretty well. He smiled as he went on. Then you are satisfied as to it, yes, and of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcot, alas, that he is no more, into the very soul of the patient that he influence. No. Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact and are satisfied to let, from premise to conclusion, be a blank? No. Then tell me, for I am a student of the brain, how you accept hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very man who discovered electricity, who would themselves, not so long before, been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived 900 years and old par, 169, and yet the poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day? For had she lived one more day, we could save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy, and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men and not in others? Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church, and grew and grew till undescending he could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the pompous eye and elsewhere, there are bats that come out at night and open the veins of cattle and horses, and suck dry their veins? How in some islands of the western seas, there are bats which hang on the trees all day, and those who have seen them describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flipped down on then and then, and then in the morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was. Good God, Professor, I said starting up, do you mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat, and that such a thing is here in London in the 19th century? He waved his hand for silence, and then went on. Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of men? Why the elephant goes on and on till he have seas dynasties, and why the parrot never die only a bite of cat, of dog, or other complaint? Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are men and women who cannot die? We all know, because science has vouched for the fact that there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian faker can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed, and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped, and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken seal, and that there lie the Indian faker, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before? Here I interrupted him. I was getting bewildered. He so crowded on my mind, his list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities, that my imagination was getting fired. I had a dem idea that he was teaching me some lesson. As long ago, he used to in his study at Amsterdam, but he used them to tell me the thing so that I could have the object of thought in mind all the time. But now I was without his help, yet I wanted to follow him. So I said, professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the thesis so that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present, I am going in my mind from point to point as a madman, and not a sane one, follows an idea. I feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a mist. Jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without knowing where I am going. That is a good image, he said. Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is this. I want you to believe. To believe what? To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith. That faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue. For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth like a small rock does a railway truck. We shall get the small truth first. Good. We keep him and we value him, but all the same. We must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe. Then you want me not to let some previous conviction in your the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson and write? Ah, you are my favorite pupil still. It is worth to teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in the children's throats were made by the same that made the holes in Miss Lucy? I suppose so. He stood up and said solemnly. Then you are wrong. Oh, would it were so? But alas, no. It is worse, far worse. In God's name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean? I cried. He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke. They were made by Miss Lucy. Dennis Sayers. Robert Smith. Dr. Seward's diary continued, for a while sheer anger mastered me. It was as if he had during her life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose up as I said to him, Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad? He raised his head and looked at me and somehow the tenderness of his face calmed me at once. Would I were, he said. Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my friend, why think you? Did I go so far round? Why take so long to tell so simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted now, so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life and from a fearful death? Ah, no. Forgive me, said I. He went on, my friend. It was because I wished to be gentle in the breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady, but even yet I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always believed the know of it. It is more hard still to accept so sad a concrete truth and of such a one as Miss Lucy. Tonight I go to prove it. Dare you come with me? This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a truth. Byron accepted from the category jealousy and proved the very truth he most abhorred. He saw my hesitation and spoke. The logic is simple. No mad man's logic this time jumping from tussock to tussock in a misty bog. If it not be true, then proof will be relief. At worst, it will not harm. If it be true, ah, there is the dread. Yet every dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief. Come, I tell you what I propose. First that we go off now and see that child in the hospital. Dr. Vincent of the North Hospital, where the papers say the child is, is a friend of mine and I think of yours since you were in class at Amsterdam. He will let two scientists see his case if he will not let two friends. We shall tell him nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then, and then he took a key from his pocket and held it up. And then we spend the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is the key that lock the tomb. I had it from the coffin man to give to Arthur. My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful ordeal before us. I could do nothing however, so I plucked up what heart I could and said that we had better hasten as the afternoon was passing. We found the child awake. It had had asleep and taken some food and altogether was going on well. Dr. Vincent took the bandage from its throat and showed us the punctures. There was no mistake in the similarity to those which had been on Lucy's throat. They were smaller and the edges looked fresher. That was all. We asked Vincent to what he attributed them and he replied that it must have been a bite of some animal, perhaps a rat. But for his own part, he was inclined to think it was one of the bats which are so numerous on the northern heights of London. Out of so many harmless ones, he said, there may be some wild specimen from the south of a more malignant species. Some sailor may have brought one home and it managed to escape. Or even from the zoological gardens, a young one may have got loose or one be bred there from a vampire. These things do occur, you know. Only 10 days ago, a wolf got out and was, I believe, traced up in this direction. For a week after, the children were playing nothing but red riding hood on the heath and in every alley in the place until this bloper lady, Scare, came along. Since then it has been quite a gala time with them. Even this poor little mite, when he woke up today, asked the nurse if he might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted to play with the bloper lady. I hope, said Van Helsing, that when you are sending the child home you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it. These fancies to stray are most dangerous and if the child were to remain out another night it would probably be fatal. But in any case, I suppose you will not let it away for some days. Certainly not. Not for a week at least, longer if the wound is not healed. Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned on and the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw how dark it was, he said there is not hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let us seek somewhere that we may eat and then we shall go on our way. We dined at Jack Straw's castle along with a little crowd of bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About 10 o'clock we started from the inn. It was then very dark and the scattered lamps made the darkness greater when we were once outside their individual radius. The professor had evidently noted the road we were to go for he went unhesitatingly, but as for me, I was in quite a mix-up as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people. Till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With some little difficulty for it was very dark and the whole place seemed so strange to us. We found the Westenra tomb. The professor took the key, opened the creaky door and standing back politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to proceed him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the courtliness of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My companion followed me quickly and cautiously drew the door too after carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling and not a spring one. In the latter case, we should have been in a bad plight. Then he fumbled in his bag and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the daytime, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough, but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns, when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance, when the time discolored stone and dust encrusted mortar and rusty dank iron and tarnished brass and clouded silver plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle. The effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed, irresistibly, the idea that life, animal life, was not the only thing which could pass away. Van Helsing went about his work systematically, holding his candle so that he could read the coffin plates and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches, which congealed as they touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucy's coffin. Another search in his bag and he took out a turn screw. What are you going to do? I asked. To open the coffin, you shall yet be convinced. Straightway he began taking out the screws and finally lifted off the lid showing the casing of lead beneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed to be as much in her front to the dead as it would have been to have stripped off her clothing and her sleep whilst living. I actually took hold of his hand to stop him. He only said, you shall see. And again, fumbling in his bag, took out a tiny front saw. Striking the turn screw through the lead with a swift downward stab, which made me wince. He made a small hole, which was, however, big enough to admit the point of the saw. I had expected a rush of gas from the weak old corpse. We doctors who have had to study our dangers have to become accustomed to such things. And I drew back towards the door. But the professor never stopped for a moment. He sawed down a couple of feet along one side of the lead coffin and then across and down the other side. Taking the edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the foot of the coffin and holding up the candle into the aperture motion to me to look. I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty. It was certainly a surprise to me and gave me a considerable shock. But then Helsing was unmoved. He was now more sure than ever of his ground and so emboldened to proceed in his task. Are you satisfied now, friend John? Yes, I felt all the dogged argumentum-ness of my nature awake within me as I answered him. I am satisfied that Lucy's body is not in that coffin, but that only proves one thing. And what is that, friend John? That it is not there. That is good logic, he said, so far as it goes. But how do you, how can you account for it not being there? Perhaps a body snatcher, I suggested. Some of the undertaker's people may have stolen it. I felt that I was speaking folly and yet it was the only real cause which I could suggest, the professor sighed. Ah, well, he said, we must have more proof. Come with me. He put on the coffin lid again, gathered up all his things and placed them in the bag, blew out the light and placed the candle also in the bag. We opened the door and went out. Behind us he closed the door and locked it. He handed me the key saying, will you keep it? You had better be assured. I laughed, it was not a cheerful laugh, I am bound to say, as I motioned him to keep it. The key is nothing, I said. There are many duplicates and anyhow, it is not difficult to pick a lock of this kind. He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he told me to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at the other. I took up my place behind a yew tree and I saw his dark figure move until the intervening headstones and trees hit it from my sight. It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place, I heard a distant clock strike 12 and in time came one and two. I was chilled and unnerved and angry with the professor for taking me on such an errand and with myself for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to be keenly observant and not sleepy enough to betray my trust. So altogether I had a dreary, miserable time. Suddenly as I turned around, I thought I saw something like a white streak moving between the two dark yew trees at the side of the churchyard, farthest from the tomb. At the same time, a dark mass moved from the professor's side of the ground and hurriedly went towards it. Then I too moved, but I had to go around headstones and railed off tombs and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast and somewhere far off an early cock crew, hey little ways off, beyond a line of scattered juniper trees, which marked the pathway to the church, a white, dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden by trees and I could not see where the figure had disappeared. I heard the rustle of actual movement where I had first seen the white figure and coming over found the professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When he saw me, he held it out to me and said, are you satisfied now? No, I said in a way that I felt was aggressive. Do you not see the child? Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here and is it wounded? Shall see, said the professor, and with one impulse we took our way out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleepy child. When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of trees and struck a match and looked at the child's throat. It was without a scratch or a scar of any kind. Was I right? I asked triumphantly. We were just in time, said the professor, thankfully. We had now to decide what we were to do with the child and so consulted about it. If we were to take it to a police station, we should have to give some account of our movements during the night. At least we should have had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child. So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath and when we heard a policeman coming would leave it where he could not fail to find it. We would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell out well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath, we heard a policeman's heavy tramp and laying the child on the pathway. We waited and watched until he saw it as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation of astonishment and then we went away silently. By good chance we got a cab near the Spaniards and drove to town. I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours sleep as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I go with him on another expedition. 27 September. It was 2 o'clock before we found a suitable opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily away when, looking carefully from behind a clump of altered trees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew that we were safe till morning. It did we desire it. But the professor told me that we should not want more than an hour at most. Again, I felt that horrid sense of the reality of things in which any effort of imagination seemed out of place and I realized distinctly the perils of the law which we were incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was also useless, outrageous as it was to open a lead-in coffin to see if a woman dead nearly a week were really dead. It now seemed the height of folly to open the tomb again when we knew from the evidence of our own eyesight that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however, and rested silent for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road, no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, and again, courteously, motioned me to proceed. The place was not so gruesome as last night, but oh, how unutterably mean-looking when the sunshine streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucy's coffin and I followed. He bent over and again forced back the lead-in flange and a shock of surprise and dismay shot through me. There lay Lucy, seemingly, just as we had seen her the night before her funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever. And I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay, redder than before, and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom. Is this a juggle? I said to him. Are you convinced? Now, said the Professor in response, and as he spoke, he put over his hand and, in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the dead lips and showed the white teeth. See, he went on. They are even sharper than before. With this and this, and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below it, the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend John? Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I could not accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested. So, with an attempt to argue, which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said, she may have been placed here since last night. Indeed, and that is so. And by whom? I do not know. Someone has done it, and yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would not look so. I had no answer for this. So was silent. Van Helsing did not seem to notice my silence. At any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said, Here there is one thing which is different from all recorded. Here is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire when she was in a trance. Sleepwalking. Oh, you start. You do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it later. And in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she dies, and in trance she is undead too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when the undead sleep at home, as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to a vampire was home, their face show what they are. But this is so sweet that was when she was not undead she go back to the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep. This turned my blood cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsing's theories. But if she were really dead, what was there of terror in the idea of killing her? He looked at me and evidently saw the change in my face, for he almost said joyously, Ah, you believe now. I answered, Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing to accept how will you do this bloody work. I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a steak through her body. It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved, and yet the feeling was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this undead, as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective or all objective? I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with a snap and said, I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. If I did simply follow my inclining, I would do now, at this moment, what is to be done, but there are other things to follow, and things that are a thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This is simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time, and to act now would be to take danger from her forever. But then we may have to want, Arthur. And how shall we tell him of this? If you who saw the wounds on Lucy's throat and saw the wounds so similar on the childs at the hospitals, if you who saw the coffin empty last night and full today with a woman who have not changed only to be more rose and more beautiful in a whole week after she die, if you know of this and know of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard, and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how then can I expect Arthur, who know none of these things, to believe he doubted me when I took him her kiss when she was dying? I know he has forgiven me because in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him say goodbye as he ought. And he may think that in some more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive in that in most mistake of all we have killed her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones that have killed her by our ideas, and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet he never can be sure, and that is the worst of all. And he will sometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered, and again he will think that we may be right, and that his beloved was, after all, an undead. No, I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, since I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he must pass through the bitter waters to reach this sweet. He, poor fellow, must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to him. Then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind is made up. Let us go. You return home for tonight to your asylum and see that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard my own way. Tomorrow night you will come to me to the Barclay Hotel at ten o'clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too, and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly, and there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set. So we locked the tomb and came away and got over the wall of the churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly. Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau. Berkeley Hotel directed to John Seward, M.D., not delivered. 27 September, friend John, I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone to watch in that churchyard. It pleases me that the undead Miss Lucy shall not leave tonight, that so on the moral night she may be more eager. Therefore I shall fix some things she like not, garlic and a crucifix, and so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as undead and will heed. Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming out. They may not prevail on her wanting to get in, for then the undead is desperate and must find the line of least resistance, whatsoever it may be. I shall be at hand all the night from sunset till after sunrise, and if there be ought that may be learned, I shall learn it. For Miss Lucy, or from her, I have no fear. But that other to whom is there that she is undead, he have not the power to seek her tomb and find shelter. He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan, and from the way that all along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy's life, and we lost. And in many ways the undead are strong. He have always the strength in his hand of twenty men, even we four who gave our strength to Miss Lucy, it also is all to him. Besides, he can summon his wolf, and I know not what. So if it be that he came thither on this night, he shall find me. But none other shall until it be too late. But it may be that he will not attempt the place. There is no reason why he should. His hunting ground is more full of game than the churchyard where the undead woman sleeps and the one old man watch. Therefore I write this in case. Take the papers that are with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest and read them, and then find this great undead, and cut off his head and burn his heart or drive a stake through it so that the world may rest from him. If it be so, farewell. Ben Helsing. Dr. Seward's Diary, 28 September It is wonderful what a good night's sleep will do for one. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Ben Helsing's monstrous ideas, but now they seem to start out lurid before me as outrageous uncommon sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely there must be some rational explanation of all these mysterious things. Is it possible that the professor can have done it himself? He is so abnormally clever that if he went off his head, he would carry out his intent with regard to some fixed idea in a wonderful way. I am loath to think it, and indeed it would be almost as great a marvel as the other to find that Ben Helsing was mad. But anyhow, I shall watch him carefully. I may get some light on the mystery. 29 September Last night, at a little before ten o'clock, Arthur and Quincy came into Ben Helsing's room. He told us all what he wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur as if all our wills were centered in his. He began by saying that he hoped we would all come with him too. For, he said, there is a grave duty to be done in here. You were doubtless surprised at my letter. This query was directly addressed to Lord Galdami. I was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so much trouble around my house of late that I could do without any more. I have been curious, too, as to what you mean. Quincy and I talked it over, but the more we talked, the more puzzled we got. Until now, I can say for myself that I'm about up a tree as to any meaning about anything. Me, too, said Quincy Morris laconically. Oh, said the professor, then you are nearer the beginning, both of you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back before he can even get so far as to begin. It was evident that he recognized my return to my old doubting frame of mind, without my saying a word. Then, turning to the other two, he said with intense gravity, I want your permission to do what I think good this night. It is I know much to ask, and when you know what it is I propose to do, you will know, and only then, how much. Therefore, may I ask, you promise me in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry with me for a time, I must not disguise for myself the possibility that such may be. You shall not blame yourselves for anything. That's, Frank, anyhow, broken Quincy. I'll answer for the professor. I don't quite see his drift, but I swear he's honest, and that's good enough for me. Thank you, sir, said Ben Helsing proudly. I have done myself the honor of counting you one trusting friend, and such endorsement is dear to me. He held out a hand which Quincy took. Then Arthur spoke out, Dr. Ben Helsing, I don't quite like to buy a pig and a poke, as they say in Scotland, and if it be anything in which my honor as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of these two, then I give my consent at once. Though for the life of me, I cannot understand what you are driving at, except your limitation, said Ben Helsing, and all I ask of you is that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine, you will first consider it well and be satisfied that it does not violate your reservations. Agreed, said Arthur. That is only fair. And now that the poor parlay are over, may I ask what it is we are to do? I want you to come with me and to come in secret to the churchyard at Kingstead. Arthur's face fell, as he said, in an amazed sort of way, where poor Lucy is buried, the professor bowed. Arthur went on, and when there, to enter the tomb, Arthur stood up, Professor, are you in earnest, or is it some monstrous joke? Pardon me. I could see that you are in earnest, he sat down again, but I could see that he sat firmly and proudly as one who is on his dignity. There was silence until he asked again, and when in the tomb, to open the coffin. This is too much, he said angrily, rising again. I am willing to be patient in all things that are reasonable, but in this desecration of the grave, of one who, he fairly choked with indignation. The professor looked pityingly at him. If I could spare you one pang, my poor friend. He said, God knows I would, but this night our feet must tread in thorny baths, or later and forever. The feet you love must walk in paths of flame. Arthur looked up with set white face and said, Take care, sir. Take care. Would it not be well to hear what I have to say? said Van Helsing. And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose. Shall I go on? That's fair enough, broken Morris. After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort. Miss Lucy is dead. Is it not so? Yes. Then there can be no wrong to her, but if she not be 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 anguish that not even hope could soften. I did not say she was alive, my child. I did not think of it. I go no further than to say that she might be undead. Undead? Not alive, what do you mean? Is this all a nightmare or what is it? There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the verge of one. But I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy? Heavens and earth, no! cried Arthur in a storm of passion. Not for the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body. Dr. Ben Helsing, you try me too far. What have I done to you that you should torture me? So what did that poor sweet girl do that you should want to cast such dishonor on her grave? Are you mad that you speak of such things, or am I mad to listen to them? Don't dare think more of such a desecration. I shall not give my consent to anything you do. I have a duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage, and by God I shall do it. Ben Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated, and said, bravely and sternly, My Lord Goddoming, I too have a duty to do, a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead, and by God I shall do it. All I ask you now is that you come with me, that you look and listen, and if when later I make the same request, you do not be more eager for its fulfillment, even than I am. Then I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me, and then to follow your lordship's wishes, I shall hold myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when and where you will. His voice broke a little, and he went on with a voice full of pity. But I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me, in a long life of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did ring my heart, I have never had so heavy. Task us now. Believe me that if the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look from you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what a man can to save you from sorrow. Just think, for why should I give myself so much labor and so much of sorrow? I have come here from my own land to do what I can of good at the first to please my friend John, and then to help a sweet young lady whom I come 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, who was not like you her lover, but only her physician and her friend. I gave her my nights and days before death, after death, and if my death can do her good even now when she is the dead undead. She's shall have it freely. He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected by it. He took the old man's hand and said in a broken voice, oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand. But at least I shall go with you and wait. End of Chapter 15