 Chapter 4 of Dracula, by Bram Stoker. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Corinne LePage. Chapter 4. Jonathan Harker's Journal. Continued. I awoke in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt, the count must have carried me here. I tried to satisfy myself on the subject, but could not arrive at any unquestionable result. To be sure, there were certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid by in a manner which was not my habit. My watch was still unwound, and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and many such details. But these things are no proof, for they may have been evidences that my mind was not as usual, and from some cause or another I had certainly been much upset. I must watch for proof. Of one thing I am glad. If it was that the count carried me here and undressed me, he must have been hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact. I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him which he would not have brooked. He would have taken or destroyed it. As I looked round this room, although it had been to me so full of fear, it is now a sort of sanctuary. For nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women who were, who 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 it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jam that the part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside. I feared was no dream, and must act on this surmise. 19 May I am surely in the toils. Last night the count asked me in the suave's tones to write three letters, one saying that my work here was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days, another that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the letter, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I would feign have rebelled, but felt that in the present state of things it would be madness to quarrel openly with the count whilst I am so absolutely in his power, and to refuse would be to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live lest I be dangerous to him. My only chance is to prolong my opportunities. Something may occur which will give me a chance to escape. I saw in his eyes something of that gathering wrath which was manifest when he hurled that fair woman from him. He explained to me that posts were few and uncertain, and that my writing now would ensure ease of mind to my friends, and he assured me with so much impressiveness that he would countermand the later letters, which would be held over at Bistritz until due time in case chance would admit of my prolonging my stay, that to oppose him would have been to create a new suspicion. I therefore pretended to fall in with his views, and asked him what dates I should put on the letters. He calculated a minute, and then said, the first should be June 12th, the second June 19th, and the third June 29th. I now know the span of my life. God help me. 28 May. There is a chance of escape, at any rate, of being able to send word home. A band of Zani have come to the castle and are encamped in the courtyard. These Zani are gypsies. I have notes of them in my book. They are peculiar to this part of the world, though, allied to the ordinary gypsies all the world over. There are thousands of them in Hungary and Transylvania, who are almost outside all law. They attach themselves as a rule to some great noble, or boyer, and call themselves by his name. They are fearless and without religion, save my superstition, and they talk only their own varieties of Ramani tongue. I shall write some letters home, and shall try to get them to have them posted. I have already spoken them through my window to begin acquaintanceship. They took their hearts off and made obeisance and many signs, which, however, I could not understand any more than I could their spoken language. I have written the letters. Minas is in shorthand, and I simply ask Mr. Hawking's to communicate with her. To her I have explained my situation, but without the horrors which I may only surmise. It would shock and frighten her to death while I to expose my heart to her. Should the letters not carry, then the count shall not yet know my secret or the extent of my knowledge. I have given the letters. I threw them through the bars of my window with a gold piece, and made what signs I could to have them posted. The man who took them pressed them to his heart and bowed, and then put them in his cap. I could do no more. I stole back to the study and began to read. As the count did not come in, I have written here. The count has come. He sat down beside me and said in his smoothest voice as he opened two letters. The Zani has given me these of which, though I know not whence they come, I shall, of course, take care. See! he must have looked at it. One is from you, and to my friend Peter Hawking's, the other. Here he caught sight of the strange symbols as he opened the envelope, and the dark look came into his face, and his eyes blazed wickedly. The other is a vile thing, an outrage upon friendship in hospitality. It is not signed. Well! saw it cannot matter to us, and he calmly held letter and envelope in the flame of the lamp, till they were consumed. Then he went on. The letter to Hawking's, that I shall, of course, send on, since it is yours. Your letters are sacred to me. You're part of my friend, that unknowingly I did break the seal. Will you not cover it again? He held out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow handed me a clean envelope. I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence. When he went out of the room, I could hear the key turn softly. A minute later I went over and tried it, and the door was locked. When, an hour or two after, the count came quietly into the room, his coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa. He was very courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been sleeping, he said, So, my friend, you are tired. Get to bed. There is the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure to talk to-night, since there are many labours to me, but you will sleep, I pray. I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept without dreaming. Despair has its own combs. 31 May I sat and pondered a while, and then some thought occurred to me, and I made such of my portmanteau and in the wardrobe where I had placed my clothes. The suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and rug I could find no trace of them anywhere. This looked like some new scheme of villainy. 17 June They had also their long staves in hand. I ran to the door, intending to descend and try to join them through the main hall, as I thought that way might be open for them. Again a shock. My door was fastened on the outside. Then I ran to the window and cried to them. They looked up at me stupidly and pointed, but just then the Hetman of the Zani came out, and seeing them pointing to my window said something at which they laughed. Henceforth no effort of mine, no pittiest cry or agonised untreaty would make them even look at me. They resolutely turned away, the later wagons contained great square boxes, with handles of thick rope. These were evidently empty by the ease with which the Slovaks handled them, and by the resonance as they were roughly moved. When they were all unloaded and packed in a great heap in one corner of the yard, the Slovaks were given some money by the Zani, and spitting on it for luck lazily went to each of his horse's head. Shortly afterwards I heard the cracking of the 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 stair and looked out of the window which opened south. I thought I would watch for the Count, for there is something going on. The Zani are courted somewhere in the castle and are doing work of some kind. I know it, for now and then I hear a far away, muffled sound as of mattock in spade, and whatever it is it must be the end of some ruthless villainy. I had been out the window somewhat less than half an hour when I saw something coming out of the Count's window. I drew back and watched carefully and saw the whole man emerge. It was a new shock to me to find that he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn whilst travelling here, and slung over his shoulder the terrible bag which I had seen the women take away. There could be no doubt as to his quest, and my garb too. This then is his new scheme of evil, that he will allow others to see me as they think, so that he may both leave evidence that I have been seen in the towns of villages posting my own letters, and that any wickedness which he may do shall by the local people be attributed to me. It makes me rage to think that this can go on, and whilst I am shot up here, a veritable prisoner, but without that protection of the law which is even a criminal's right and consolation. I thought I would watch for the Count's return, and for long time sat doggedly at the window. Then I began to notice that there were some quite little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight. They were like the tiniest grains of dust, and they whirled around and gathered in clusters in a nebulous sort of way. I watched them with a sense of soothing, and a sort of calm stroll over me. I leaned back in the embrasure in a more comfortable position, so that I could enjoy more fully the aerial gambling. Something made me start up, a low, piteous howling of dogs, somewhere far below in the valley, which was hidden from my sight. Louder it seemed to ring in my ears, and the floating motes of dust to take new shapes to the sound as they danced in moonlight. I felt myself struggling to wake to some call of my instincts, nay my very soul was struggling, and my half-remembered sensibilities were striving to answer the call. I was becoming hypnotised, quicker and quicker danced the dust and the moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went by me into the mass of gloom beyond. More and more they gathered till they seemed to take dim phantom shapes, and then I started, broad awake and in full possession of my senses, and ran screaming from the place. The phantom shapes which were becoming gradually materialised from the moonbeams were those of the three ghostly women to whom I was doomed. I fled, I felt somewhat safer in my own room, where there was no moonlight, and where the lamp was burning brightly. When a couple of hours had passed I heard something stirring in the council room, something like a sharp wail quickly suppressed, and then there was silence, deep, awful silence which chilled me. With a beating heart I tried the door, but I was locked in my prison, and could do nothing. I sat down and simply cried. As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without, the agonised cry of a woman. I rushed to the window and throwing it up, peered out between the bars. There indeed was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding her hands over her heart as one distressed with running. She was leaning against a corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at the window she threw herself forward and shouted in a voice laden with menace. Monster, give me my child! She threw herself on her knees and raising up her hands cried the same words in tones which rung my heart. Then she tore her hair and beat her breast and abandoned herself to all the violences of extravagant emotion. Finally she threw herself forward, and though I could not see her I could hear the beating of her naked hands against the door. Somewhere high overhead, probably in the tower, I heard the voice of the Count calling in his harsh metallic whisper. His calls seemed to be answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves, before many minutes had passed a pack of them poured, like a pent-up dam when liberated, through the wide entrance into the courtyard. There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of wolves was but short. Before long they streamed away singly licking their lips. I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and she was better dead. What shall I do? What can I do? How can I escape from this dreadful thing of night and gloom and fear? 25 June Morning No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and how dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. When the sun grew so high this morning that it struck the top of the great gateway opposite my window, the high spard which it touched seemed to me as if the dove from the ark had lighted there. My fear fell from me as if it had been a vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth. I must take action of some sort whilst the courage of the day is upon me. Last night one of my post-dated letters went to post, the first of their fatal series which is to blot out the very traces of my existence from the earth. Let me not think of it. Action. It has always been at night time that I have been molested or threatened or in some way in danger or in fear. I have not yet seen the counten daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when others wake? That he may be awake whilst they sleep? If I could only get into his room, but there is no possible way the door is always locked. No way for me. Yes, there is a way if one dares to take it. Where his body has gone, why may not another body go? I have seen him myself crawl from his window. Why should not I imitate him and go in by his window? The chances are desperate, but my need is more desperate still. I shall risk it. At the worst it can only be death, and a man's death is not a calf's, and the dreaded hereafter may still be open to me. God help me in my task. Goodbye, Mina, if I fail. Goodbye, my faithful friend and second father. Goodbye all, and last of all, Mina. Same day, later. I have made the effort, and God helping me have come safely back to this room. I must put down every detail in order. I went whilst my courage was fresh straight to the window on the south side, and had once got outside on the narrow ledge of stone which runs around the building on this side. The stones are big and roughly cut, and the mortar has by process of time been washed away between them. I took off my boots and ventured out on the desperate way. I looked down once, so as to make sure that a sudden glimpse of the awful death would not overcome me, but after that kept my eyes away from it. I knew pretty well the direction and distance of the Count's window, and made for it as well as I could, having regard to the opportunities available. I did not feel dizzy. I suppose I was too excited, and the time seemed ridiculously short till I found myself standing on the windowsill and trying to raise up the sarge. I was filled with agitation, however, when I bent down and slid feet foremost in through the window. Then I looked around for the Count, but with surprise and gladness made a discovery. The room was empty. It was barely furnished with odd things, which seemed to have never been used. The furniture was something the same style as that in the south rooms, and was covered with dust. I looked for the key, but it was not in the lock, and I could not find it anywhere. The only thing I found was a great heap of gold in one corner. Gold of all kinds, Roman and British and Austrian and Hungarian and Greek and Turkish money, covered with a film of dust, as though it had lain long in the ground. None of it that I noticed was less than three hundred years old. There were also chains and ornaments, some jeweled, but all of them old and stained. At one corner of the room was a heavy door. I tried it for, since I could not find the key of the room or the key of the outer door, which was the main object of my search, I must make further examination, or all my efforts would be in vain. It was open, and led through a stone passage to a circular stairway, which went steeply down. I descended minding carefully where I went, for the stairs were dark, being only lit by loopholes in the heavy masonry. At the bottom there was a dark, tunnel-like passage, through which came a deathly, sickly odour, the odour of old earth newly turned. As I went through the passage, the smell grew closer and heavier. At last I pulled open heavy door, which stood ajar, and found myself in an old, ruined chapel, which had evidently been used as a graveyard. The roof was broken, and in two places were steps leading to vaults. But the ground had recently been dug over, and the earth placed in great wooden boxes manifestly those which had been brought by the Slovaks. There was nobody about, and I made search for any further outlet, but there was none. Then I went over every inch of the ground so as not to lose a chance. I went down even into the vaults, where the dim light struggled, although to do so was a dread to my very soul. Into two of these I went, but on nothing except fragments of old coffins and piles of dust. In the third, however, I made a discovery. There in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a pile of newly dug earth lay the Count. He was either dead or asleep, I could not say which, for the eyes were open and stony. But without the glassiness of death, and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor. The 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 in vain. He could not have lain there long, for the earthy smell would have passed away in a few hours. By the side of the box was its cover, pierced with holes here and there, and I thought he might have the keys on him, but when I went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them dead though they were such a look of hate, though unconscious of me on my presence, that I fled from the place and leaving the council room by the window, crawled up again the castle wall. Regaining my room I threw myself panting upon the bed and tried to think. 29 June Today is the date of my last letter, and the count has taken steps to prove that it was genuine, for again I saw him leave the castle by the same window, and in my clothes. As he went down the wall lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon that I might destroy him, but I fear that no weapon wrought alone by man's hand would have any effect on him. I dared not wait to see him return, for I feared to see those weird sisters. I came back to the library and read there till I fell asleep. I was awakened by the count, who looked at me as grimly as a man can look, as he said. Tomorrow, my friend, we must part. You return to your beautiful England, I, to some work which may have such an end that we may never meet. Your letter home has been dispatched. Tomorrow I shall not be here, but all shall be ready for your journey. In the morning come the Scani, who have some leavers of their own here, and also come some Slovaks. When they have gone my carriage shall come for you, and shall bear you to the borgo past to meet the diligence from Bukovina to Bistritz. But I am in hope that I shall see more of you at Castle Dracula. I suspected him, and determined to test his sincerity. Sincerity! It seemed like a profanation of the word to write it in connection with such a monster, so asked him point-blank. Why may I not go to-night? Because, dear sir, my coachmen and horses are away on a mission. But I would walk with pleasure. I want to get away at once. He smiled, such a soft, smooth, diabolical smile, that I knew there was some trick behind his smoothness. He said, and your baggage. I do not care about it. I can send for it some other time. The count stood up and said, with a sweet courtesy which made me rub my eyes, it seemed so real. You English have a saying which is close to my heart, for its spirit is that which rules our boyars. Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. Come with me, my dear young friend, not an hour shall you wait in my house against your will, though sad am I at your going, and that you so suddenly desire it. Come! With a stately gravity he, with the lamp, preceded me down the stairs and along the hall. Suddenly he stopped. Hark! Close at hand came the howling of many wolves. It was almost as if the sound sprang up at the rising of his hand, just as the music of a great orchestra seems to leap under the baton of the conductor. After a pause of a moment he proceeded in his stately way to the door, drew back the ponderous bolts, unhooked the heavy chains, and began to draw it open. To my intense astonishment I saw that it was unlocked, suspiciously I looked all around, but could see no key of any kind. As the door began to open, the howling of the wolves without grew louder and angrier. Their red jaws with chomping teeth and the blunt clawed feet as they leapt came in through the opening door. I knew then that to struggle at the moment against the count was useless. With such allies as these at his command I could do nothing, but still the door continued slowly to open and only the count's body stood in the gap. Suddenly it struck me that this might be the moment and means of my doom. I was to be given to the wolves, and at my own instigation. There was a diabolical wickedness in the idea great enough for the count, and as a last chance I cried out, shut the door I shall wait until morning, and 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, and the great bolts clanged and echoed through the hall as they shot back into their places. In silence we returned to the library, and after a minute or two I went to my own room. The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas and Helmite be proud of. When I was in my room and about to lie down I thought I heard a whispering at my door. I went to it softly and listened, unless my ears deceived me I heard the voice of the count. Back, back to your own place, your time is not yet come. Wait, have patience, tonight is mine, tomorrow night is yours. There was a low sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the door and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips, as I appeared they all joined in a horrible laugh and ran away. I came back to my room and threw myself on my knees. It is then so near the end. Tomorrow, tomorrow, Lord help me and those whom I am dear. 30 June. Morning. These may be the last words I ever write in this diary. I slept till just before dawn, and when I woke I threw myself on my knees for I determined that if death came he should find me ready. At last I felt that subtle change in the air and knew that morning had come, and then came the welcome cockroach and I felt that I was safe. With a glad heart I opened my door and ran down to the hall. I had seen that the door was unlocked and now escape was before me, with hands that trembled with eagerness I unhooked the chains and drew back the massive bolts, but the door would not move. Despair seized me. I pulled and pulled at the door, and it shook it till massive as it was. It rattled in its casement. I could see the bolt shot. It had been locked after I left the count. Then a wild desire took me to obtain that key at any risk, and I determined then and there to scale the wall again and go in the count's room. He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier choice of evils. Without a pause I rushed up to the east window and scrambled down the wall, as before into the count's room. It was empty, but that was as I expected. I could not see a key anywhere, but the heap of gold remained. I went through the door in the corner and down the winding stair, and along the dark passage to the old chapel. I knew now well enough where to find the monster I sought. The great box was in the same place, close against the wall, but the lid was laid on it, not fastened down, but with the nails ready in their places to be hammered home. I knew I must reach the body for the key, so I raised the lid and laid it back against the wall, and then I saw something which filled my very soul with horror. There lay the count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to a dark iron grey. The cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby red underneath. The mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole, awful creature was simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion. I shuddered as I bent over to touch him, and every sense in me revolted at the contact, but I had to search or I was lost. The coming night might see my own body a banquet in a similar way to those horrid three. I felt all over the body, but no sign could I find of the key. Then I stopped and looked at the count. There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where perhaps for centuries to come he might amongst its teeming millions satiate his lust for blood and create a new and ever widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless. The very thought of it drove me mad. A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I sieved a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high struck with the edge downward at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned and the eyes fell full upon me, with all their blaze of basalisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyse me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead. The shovel fell from my hand across the box, and as I pulled it away the flange of blade caught the edge of the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid thing from my sight. The last glimpse I had was of the bloated face, bloodstained and fixed with a grin of malice, which would have held its own in the nethermost hell. I thought and thought work should be my next move, but my brain seemed on fire, and I waited with a despairing feeling growing over me. As I waited, I heard in the distance a gypsy song sung by merry voices coming closer, and through their song the rolling heavy wheels and the cracking of whips, thus Ghani and the Slovaks of whom the Count had spoken were coming. With a last look around and at the box which contained the vile body, I ran from the place and gained the Count's room, determined to rush out at the moment the door should be opened, with strained ears. I listened and heard downstairs the grinding of the key in the great lock, and the falling back of the heavy door. There must have been some other means of entry, or someone had a key for one of the locked doors. Then there came the sound of many feet trumping, and dying away in some passage which sent up a clinging echo. I turned to run down again towards the vault where I might find the new entrance, but at the moment there seemed to come a violent puff of wind, and the door to the winding stair blew too with a shock that set the dust from the lintels flying. When I ran to push it open, I found that it was hopelessly fast. I was again a prisoner, and the net of doom was closing around me more closely. As I ride, there is in the passage below a sound of many trumping feet, and the crash of weights being set down heavily, doubtless the boxes with the freight of earth. There is a sound of hammering. It is the box being nailed down. Now I can hear the heavy feet trumping again along the hall, with many other idle feet coming behind them. The door is shut, and the chains rattle. There is a grinding of the key in the lock. I can hear the key withdraw, then another door opens and shuts. I hear the creaking of lock and bolt. Hark! In the courtyard, and down the rocky way, the roll of heavy wheels, the crack of whips, and the course of the Zghani as they pass into the distance. I am alone in the castle with those awful women. For Mina is a woman, and there is not in common. They are devils of the pit. I shall not remain alone with them. I shall try to scale the castle wall farther than I have yet attempted. I shall take some of the gold with me, lest I want it later. I may find a way from this dreadful place. And then a way for home. A way to the quickest and nearest train, away from this cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his children still walk with earthly feet. At least God's mercy is better than that of these monsters, and the precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep, as a man. Chapter 5 Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra 9. May My dearest Lucy Forgive my long delay in writing, but I've been simply overwhelmed with work. The life of an assistant school mistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air. I've been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have been practising shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can sternograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way, and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practising very hard. He and I sometimes write letter and shorthand, and he is keeping a sternographic journal if his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one of those two pages to the week with Sunday squeezed in a corner diaries, but a sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people, but it is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do, interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day. However we shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few heard lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning 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, shall ever see them together. There is the ten o'clock bell ringing. Goodbye. You're loving Mina. Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a long time. I hear rumours and especially of a tall, handsome, curly haired man. Letter Lucy Westenra to Mina Marie Seventeen Chatham Street Wednesday My dearest Mina, I must say, you tax me very unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I wrote to you twice since we parted, and your last letter was only your second. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing to interest you. Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a good deal to picture galleries for walks and rides in the park. As to the tall, curly haired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the last pop. Someone has evidently been telling tales. That was Mr. Homewood. He often comes to see us, and he and Mama get on very well together. They have so many things to talk about in common. We met some time ago a man that would just do for you, if you were not already engaged to Jonathan. He has an excellent party, being handsome, well-off and of good birth. He is a doctor, and really clever, just fancy. He is only nine and twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Homewood introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read one's thoughts. He tries on this very much with me, but I flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my glass. Do you ever try to read your own face? I do, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it. He says that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly think I do. I do not, as you now take sufficient interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress as a boa! That is laying again, but never mind. Arthur says that every day. There it is all out. Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since we were children, and we have slept together and eaten together and laughed and cried together, and now, though I have spoken, I would like to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn't you guess I love him? I'm blushing as I write for, though I think he loves me. He's not told me so in words. But, oh, Mina, I love him. I love him, I love him! There, that does me good. I wish I were here with you, dear, sitting by the fire and dressing as we used to sit, and I would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I'm afraid to stop, or I should tear up the letter, and I don't want to stop, for I do so want to tell you all. Let me hear from you at once, and tell me all 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 need not 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 have your sympathy. My dear, it never rains. But it pours. How true the old proverbs are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I have never had a proposal till today, not a real proposal, and today I have had three. Just fancy. Three proposals in one day? Isn't it awful? I feel sorry, really and truly sorry for two of the poor fellows. I mean, I'm so happy that I don't know what to do with myself, and three proposals? But for goodness sake, don't tell any of the girls, or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at least. Some girls are so vain. You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and who are going to settle down soberly into old married women, can despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep a secret, dear, from every one. Except, of course, Jonathan. You will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything, don't you think so, dear? And I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are, and women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number one came just before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic asylum man with the strong John, good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things and remembered them, but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to peer at ease he kept playing with the Lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me meaner very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him. 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 that he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time, and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for anyone else. He put it very nicely, saying he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know because if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope, and then mean I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was someone. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands and his, and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best. Oh, meaner dear, I can't help crying. You must excuse this letter being all blotted, being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn't at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken hearted, and to know that no matter what he makes say at the moment, you are passing quite out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present. I feel so miserable, though I am so happy. Evening. Arthur has just gone, and I feel better in spirit than when I left off, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, number two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh, that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has had such adventures. I sympathise with poor Desdemona when she had such a dangerous dream poured in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted a girl to love me. No, I don't, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and yet... My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincy P. Morris found me alone. It seemed that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn't, for Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him all I could. I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always speak slang, that is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them. For he is really well educated and has exquisite manners, but he found that it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang. I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my hand in his and said ever so sweetly, Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixings of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is, you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won't you just hitch up alongside me and let us go down the long road together driving in double harness? Well, he did look so good humid and so jolly that it didn't seem half as hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward, so I said as likely as I could that I did not know anything of hitching and that I wasn't broken to harness at all yet. He said that he had spoken in a light manner and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so, on so grave, so momentous an occasion for him, I would forgive him. He really did look serious when he was saying it and it couldn't help feeling a bit serious, too. I know, Mina, you will think me a horrid flirt, though I couldn't help feeling a sort of exaltation that he was number two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word, he began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always and never earnest because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he suddenly stopped and said with a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free. Lucy, you are an honest-hearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there anyone else that you care for? And if there is, I'll never trouble you a hair's breadth again, but will be, if you will 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 sloppy letter in more ways than one. And I really felt very badly. Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy and I must not say it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morris's brave eyes, and I told him out straight, 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 frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mine. I think I put them into his, and said in a hearty way, That's my brave girl. It's better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being 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 take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn't know he's happy as well, he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that's rarer than a lover. It's more unselfish anyhow. My dear, I'm going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom come. Won't give me one kiss. It'll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can you know if you like for that other good fellow. He must be a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not love him. Hasn't spoken yet. That quite won me meaner, for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble too, to a rival, wasn't it? And he's so sad, so I lent over and kissed him. He stood up with my two hands and his, and as he looked down into my face, I'm afraid I was blushing very much, he said. Little girl, I hold your hand, and you've kissed me, and if these things don't make us friends, nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and goodbye. He wrung my hand and, taking up his hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without a tear, or a quiver, or a pause, and I am crying like a baby. Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I were free, only I don't want to be free. My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once after telling you of it, and I don't wish to tell of the number three until it can be all happy. Ever you're loving, Lucy. P.S. Oh, about number three. I needn't tell you of number three, need I? Besides, it was also confused. It seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till 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 only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all his goodness to me and sending me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend. Goodbye. Dr. Seward's Diary Captain Phonograph 25 May I'm tired and appetite today. Cannot eat. Cannot rest. So diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling. Nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing. As I knew the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went down amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can. Today I seem to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery. I questioned him more fully than I had ever done with a view of making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it I was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seem to wish to keep him to the point of his madness, a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell. Memorandum Under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell? Omnialromae venalioshunt Hell has its price. Verbs up If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards accurately so I had better commenced to do so therefore RM Renfield age 59 Sanguine temperament great physical strength excitable periods of gloom ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally accomplished finish a possibly dangerous man probably dangerous if unselfish In selfish man caution is as secure an armor for their foes as for themselves What I think on this point is when self is the fixed point in the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal when duty, a cause, etc is the fixed point the latter force is paramount and only an accident or a series of accidents can balance it Letter Quincy P. Morris to Honourable Arthur Homewood 25 May Madeir Art We've told yarns by the campfire we've addressed one another's wounds after trying the landing at the Marquises and drunk health on the shore of Titicaca There are more yarns to be told and other wounds to be healed and another health to be drunk Won't you let this be at my campfire tomorrow night I have no hesitation in asking you as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner party and that you are free There will only be one other our old pal at the Korea He's coming too and we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine cup and to drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest men in all the wide world Who has won the noblest heart that God has made and the best worth winning We promise you a hearty welcome and a loving greeting and a health as true as your own right hand We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep a certain pair of eyes Come forever and always Quincy P. Morris Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincy P. Morris 26 May Count me in every time I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle Art End of Chapter 5 Recording by Corinna Page Chapter 6 of Dracula by Bram Stoker This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Corinna Page Chapter 6 Mina Murray's Journal 24 July Whitby Lucy met me at the station looking sweeter and lovelier than ever and we drove up to the house at the crescent in which they have rooms This is a lovely place The little river the esk runs through a deep valley which broadens out as it comes near the harbour A great viaduct with high piers through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is The valley is beautifully green and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it unless you are near enough to see down The houses of the old town the side away from us are all red roofed and seem piled up one over the other anyhow like the pictures we see of Nuremberg Right over the town is a ruin of Whitby Abbey which was sacked by the Danes and which is the scene of part of Marmian where the girl was built up in the wall It is a most noble ruin of immense size and full of beautiful and romantic bits. There is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows Between it and the town there is another church the parish one round which is a big graveyard all full of tombstones This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby for it lies right over the town and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Cattleness stretches out into the sea It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away and some of the graves have been destroyed In one place part of the stonework of the grave stretches out over the sandy pathway far below There are walks with seats beside them through the churchyard and people go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze I shall come and sit here very often myself and work Indeed I am writing now with my book on my knee and listening to the talk of three old men who are sitting beside me They seem to do nothing all day but sit up here and talk The harbour lies below me with on the far side into the sea with a curve outwards at the end of it in the middle of which is a lighthouse A heavy sea wall runs along outside of it On the near side the sea wall makes an elbow crooked inversely and its end too has a lighthouse Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour which then suddenly widens It is nice at high water but when the tide is out it shoals away to nothing running between banks of sand with rocks here and there Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef the sharp edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse At the end of it is a boy with a bell which swings in bad weather and sends a mournful sound on the wind They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea I must ask the old man about this He is a funny old man He must be awfully old for his face is all gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree He tells me that he is nearly a hundred and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought He is, I am afraid, a very skeptical person for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the wife lady at the abbey he said very briskly Oh, you wouldn't fashmizel about to miss! Don't things be all wore out Mind, I don't say that there never was but I do say that there wasn't in my time They be all very well for comers and trippers and to like but not for a nice young lady like you Them food folks from York and Leeds they'd be always eating cured errands and drinking tea and looking out to buy cheap jet wood credort I wonder mizel he'd be bothered telling lies to them Even the newspapers which is full of fool talk I thought he would be a good person to get things from so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whale fishing in the old days He was just setting himself to begin when the clock struck six whereupon he laboured to get up and said I must be going again where it's on now, miz My granddaughter don't like to be kept away when the tea is ready for it takes me time to grumble a boon degrees and there be a many of them and miz I looked at Billy Timbuss early by the clock He hobbled away and I could see him harrying the steps are a great feature on the place they lead from the town up to the church there are hundreds of them I do not know how many and they wind up in a delicate curve the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them I think they must originally have had something to do with the abbey I shall go home too Lucy went out visiting with her mother and as they were only duty calls I did not go they will be home by this first August I came up here an hour ago with Lucy and we had a most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him he is evidently the Sir Oracle of them and I should think must have been in his time a much dictatorial person he will not admit anything and down faces everybody if he can't out-og you them he bullies them and then takes their silence for agreement with his views she is sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock she has got a beautiful color since she has been here I noticed that the old man did not lose any time coming up and sitting near her when we sat down she is so sweet with old people I think they all fall in love with her on the spot even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her but gave me double share instead I got him on the subject of the legends and he went off at once into a sort of sermon I must try to remember it and put it down oh it would be all full talk lock stock and barrel that's what it would be and not else these bounds and wafts and bogos and bargests and boggles and all in it them is only fit to set barns and dizzy women a beldering they be not but air blips day and all grims and signs and warnings be all invented by persons and ills and bugbodies and railway toters to scare and scunner half-ins and get fucks to do something that they don't other inclined to oh it makes me oriful to think of them why it's them dad not content with printing loys on paper and preaching them out of pulp pits does want to be cut in them on the tombstones look here all around you and what are she will all them steens holding up their heads as well as they can out of their pride as a cat simply tumbling down with the weight of the loys wrote on them here lies the body or sacred to the memory wrote on all of them and yet no in half of them there being it no bodies at all and the memories of them being carried a pinch of snuff about much less sacred loys all of them and at him but loys of one kind or another my God would it be a quere scourgement at the day of judgment when they come tumbling up their desks all jubed together and trying to drag their team steens with them to prove how good they was some of them trembling and dithering with their hands that doesn't and slippy from loin and dizzy that I can't even keep their grub at them I could see from the old fellow's self-satisfied air and the way in which he looked around for approval of his cronies that he was showing off so I put in a word to keep him going oh, Mr. Swiles, you can't be serious surely these tombstones are not all wrong? Yablins there may be a porous view not wrong serving where they make out to people too good for to be folk that do tinker bomb will be like to see if it only be their own the whole thing be only loys now look you here you come here stranger and you see this Kirkgart I nodded for I thought it better to assent though I did not quite understand his dialect I knew it had something to do with the church he went on and you can say that all these steens be a boon folk that happened here snod and snog I assented again then that be just where the lie comes in why there be scores that these lay beds that be as tomb as old Dunn's back books on Friday night he nudged one of his companions and they all laughed in my gug how could they be otherwise look at that one the aftest abaft a beer bank read it I went over and read Edward Spensler Master Mariner murdered by pirates off the coast of the Andries April 1854 H. 30 when I came back Mr. Swales went on who brought him home my wonder to have him here murdered off the coast of the Andres and you consented his body lay under why I could name a dozen who's bones lie in the Greenland seas above he pointed northwards or where the currents may have drifted them there be the steens around you you can with your young eyes read the small print of the loys from here this bright white lorry I knew his father lost in the lively off Greenland in 20 or Andrew Woodhouse drowned in the same seas in 1777 or John Paxton drowned off Keep Farewell a year later or old John Rowlings who's grandfather sailed with me drowned in the Gulf of Finland in 50 do you think that all these men will have to make a rush to wait for you in the trumpet sounds oh you have me and the rooms about it why tell you that when they got here they'd be jumbling and jostling one another that way and it'd be like a fight up upon the ice in the old days when we'd be at one another from day light to dark trying to tie up our cuts by delight to do your roar or borealis this was evidently local pleasantry for the old man cackled over it and his cronies joined in with gusto but, I said surely you're not quite correct for you start on the assumption that all the poor people or their spirits will have to take their tombstones with them on the day of judgement do you think that will be really necessary well what else be they tombstones for answer me that miss to please their relatives I suppose to please their relatives you suppose this he said with intense scorn how will it pleasure their relatives to know that lois is wrote over them and that everybody in a place knows that they be lies he pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab on which the seat was rested close to the edge of the cliff read the lois on that troughsteen he said the letters were upside down to me from where I sat but Lucy was more opposite to them so she leant over and read sacred to the memory of George Cannon who died in the hope of a glorious resurrection on July 29th, 1873 falling from the rocks at Kettleness this tomb was erected by his soaring 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 spoke her case in that she spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely you don't see how funny but that's because you don't gum the sorrow and mother was a hellcat that hated him because he was a crocked a regular lameter he was and he aided her so that he committed suicide in order that she might not get an insurance she put on his life he blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket they had for scaring the crows with crows den for it had brought the clakes and the docks to him that's the way he fell off the rocks and as to the hopes of a glorious resurrection we've often heard him say that he hoped he'd go to hell for his mother was so poised that she'd be sure to go to heaven and he did not want to addle where she was no isn't that Steen at any rate he hammered it with his stick as he spoke apache l'oise and won't it make Gabriel Keco when George comes up hunting up the grease with the tombsteen mounts on his hump and asks to be took as evidence I did not know what to say but Lucy turned the conversation as she said rising up oh why did you tell us of 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 suicide oh that won't harm you my pretty and it may make poor George already gladsome to have so trim a last sitting on his lap I've heard you why have sat here off and on for now 20 years past and it hasn't done me no harm don't you fash about them as l'oise under you or that doesn't lie there either it'll be time for you to be getting scared when you see the tombstones all run away with it and a place as bare as a stubble field oh there's the cloak and I must be going my service to you ladies and off you hobbles Lucy and I sat a while and it was also beautiful before us as we sat and she told me all over again about Arthur and their coming marriage that made me just a little heart sick for I haven't heard from Jonathan in a whole month the same day I came up here alone for I am very sad there was no letter for me I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan the clock has just struck nine I see the lights scattered all over town sometimes in rows where the streets are and sometimes singly they run right up the esk and die away in the curve of the valley to my left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next to the abbey the sheep and lambs are bleeding in the fields away behind me and there is a clutter of donkeys hooves up the paved road below the band and the pier is playing our harsh waltz in good time and further along the key there is a salvation army meeting in the back street neither of the bands hear the other but up here I hear and see them both I wonder where Jonathan is and if he's thinking of me I wish he were here Dr. Seward's Diary 5 June the case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man he has certain qualities very largely developed selfishness secrecy and purpose I wish I could get at what is the object of the letter he seems to have some settled scheme of his own but what it is I do not yet know his redeeming quality is a love of animals though indeed he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel his pets are of odd sorts just now his hobby is catching flies he has at present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate to my astonishment he did not break out into a fury as I expected but took the matter in simple seriousness he thought for a moment and then said may I have three days I shall clear them away of course I said that would do I must watch him 18 June he has turned his mind now to spiders he has got several very big fellows in a box he keeps feeding them with his flies and the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished although he has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room 1st July his spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies and today I told him that he must get rid of them he looked very sad at this so I said that he must clear out some of them at all events he cheerfully acquiesced in this and I gave him the same time as before for reduction he disgusted me much while with him for when a horrid blow fly bloated with some carrion food buzzed into the room he caught it held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb and before I knew what he was going to do he put it in his mouth and ate it I scolded him for it but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome that it was life strong life and gave life to him this gave me an idea or the rudiment of one I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders he has evidently some deep problem in his mind for he keeps a little notebook in which he's always jotting down something whole pages of it are filled with masses of figures generally single numbers added up in batches and then the totals added in batches again as though he were focusing some account as the auditors put it 8 July there is a method in his madness and the rudimentary idea in my mind is growing it will be a whole idea soon and then oh unconscious celebration you will have to give the wall to your conscious brother I kept away from my friend for a few days so that I might notice if there were any change things remain as they were except that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one he has managed to get a sparrow and has already partially tamed it his means of taming is simple for already the spiders have diminished those that do remain however are well fed for he still brings in the flies by taming them with his food 19 July we are progressing my friend has now a whole colony of sparrows and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated when I came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favor a very very great favor and as he spoke he fond on me like a dog I asked him what it was and he said with a sort of rapture in his voice and bearing a kitten a nice little sleek playful kitten that I can play with and teach and feed and feed and feed I was not unprepared for this request for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and vivacity but I did not care that his pretty family of tamed sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders so I said I would see about it and asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten his eagerness betrayed him as he answered oh yes I would like a cat I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat no one would refuse me a kitten would they I shook my head and said that at present I feared it would not be possible but that I would see about it his face fell and I could see a warning of danger in it for it was a sudden fierce side long look which meant killing the man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac I shall test him with his present waving and see how it will work out then I shall know more 10 p.m I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner brooding when I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and implored me to let him have a cat that his salvation depended on it I was firm however and told him that he could not have it whereupon he went with utter word and sat down gnawing his fingers in the corner where I had found him I shall see him in the morning early 20 July visited Renfield very early before the attendant went on his rounds found him up and humming a tune he was spreading out his sugar which he had saved in the window and was manifestly beginning his fly-catching again and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace I looked around for his birds and not seeing them asked him where they were he replied without turning round they had all flown away there were a few feathers about the rumen on his pillow a drop of blood I said nothing but went and told the keeper to report to me if there are anything odd about him during the day 11 a.m the attendant has just been to me and said that Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers my belief is doctor he said that he has eaten his birds and just took and ate them raw 11 p.m I gave Renfield a strong opiate tonight enough to make him sleep and took away his pocket-book to look at it the thought that has been buzzing around my brain lately is complete and the theory proved my homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind I shall have to invent a new classification for him and call him a zoophagus life-eating maniac what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can and he has laid himself to achieve it in a cumulative way he gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds what would have been his later steps it would almost be worthwhile to complete the experiment it might be done if there were only a sufficient cause men sneered at vivisection look at its results today why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect the knowledge of the brain had I even the secret of one such mind did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which burdened Sanderson's physiology or farrier's brain knowledge would be as nothing if only there were sufficient cause I must not think too much of this a good cause might turn the scare with me for may not I too be of an exceptional brain congenitally how well the man reasoned lunatics always do within their own scope I wonder at how many lives he values a man or if that only one he has closed the account most accurately and today 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 with my new hope and that I truly began a new record so it will be until the great recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss oh Lucy Lucy I cannot be angry with you nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours but I must only wait on hopelessness and work work work if only I could have a stronger cause as my poor mad friend there a good unselfish cause to make me work that would be indeed happiness Mina Murray's Journal 26 July I'm anxious and it soothes me to express myself here it is like whispering to oneself and listening at the same time and there is also something about the shorthand symbols that make it different from writing I am unhappy about Lucy and about Lucy I had not heard from Jonathan for some time and was very concerned but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins who is always so kind sent me a letter from him I had written asking him if he had heard and he said the enclosed had just been received it is only a line dated from the castle Dracula and says that he is just starting for home that is not like Jonathan I do not understand it and it makes me uneasy then to Lucy although she is so well has lately taken to her old habit of walking in her sleep her mother has spoken to me about it and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night Mrs. Westonra has got an idea that sleepwalkers always go out on roofs of houses and along edges of cliffs and then get suddenly awakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place poor dear she is naturally anxious Lucy and she tells me that her husband Lucy's father had the same habit that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go out if he was not stopped Lucy is to be married in the autumn and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is to be arranged I sympathise with her for I do the same only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple way and we'll have to try to make both ends meet Mr. Homeward he is the honourable Arthur Homeward the only son of Lord Godolming is coming up here very shortly as soon as he can leave town for his father is not very well and 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 dare say it is the waiting which disturbs her she will be all right when he arrives 27 July no news from Jonathan I am getting quite uneasy about him though why I should I do not know but I do wish that he would write if it were only a single line Lucy walks more than ever and each night I am awakened by her moving about the room fortunately the weather is so hot that she cannot get cold but still the anxiety and the perpetually being awakened is beginning to tell on me and I am getting nervous and wakeful myself thank God Lucy's health keeps up Mr. Holmwood has been suddenly called to ring to see his father who has been taken seriously ill Lucy threats the postponement of seeing him but it does not touch her looks she is a trifle stouter and her cheeks are a lovely rose pink she has lost that anemic look which she had I pray it will all last 3 August another week gone and no news from Jonathan not even to Mr. Hawkins from whom I have heard oh I do hope he is not ill he surely would have written I look at that last letter of his but somehow it does not satisfy me it does not read like him and yet it is his writing there is no mistake of that Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week but there is an odd concentration about her which I do not understand even in her sleep she seems to be watching me she tries the door and finding it locked goes about the room searching for the key 6 August another three days and no news the suspense is getting dreadful if I only knew where to write to or where to go to I should feel easier but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since the last letter I must only pray to God for patience Lucy is more excitable than ever but is otherwise well last night was very threatening and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs today is a grey day and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds high over kettleness everything is grey except the green grass which seems like emerald amongst it grey earthy rock grey clouds tinged with the sunburst at the far edge hang over the grey sea into which the sand points stretch like grey fingers the sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar muffled in the sea mists drifting inland the horizon is lost in a grey mist all is vastness the clouds are piled up like giant rocks and there is a brool over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom dark figures are on the beach here and there sometimes half shrouded in the mist there seem men like trees walking the fishing boats are racing for home and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour bending to the scuppers here comes old Mr. Swales he's making straight for me and I can see by the way he lifts his hat that he wants to talk I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man when he sat down beside me he said in a very gentle way or 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 speak fully so he said leaving his hand in mine I'm afraid my dearie that I have shocked you by all the wicked things I've been saying about the dead and such like for weeks past but I didn't mean them and I want you to remember that when I'm gone we old folks at Bedarfold and with one foot a bathed a crock-hole don't altogether like to think of it and we don't want to feel scarred of it and that's why I've took to making light 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 nigh at hand now for I'd be old and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect and I'm so annoyed at it be the old man is already wet in his scythe you see I can't get out of the habit of coughing about it all at once the chaffs will wow guys they be used to someday soon the angel of death will sound his trumpet for me but don't you dull and greet my dearie for he saw that I was crying if he should come this far tonight I'd not refuse to answer his call for life be, after all only a waitin' for something else in what we're doing and death be all that we can rightly depend on but I'm content for it's coming to me my dearie and coming quick but it may be coming while we be looking and wondering maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's bringing with it lust and wreck and sort of stress and sad hearts look, look he cried suddenly there's something in that wind in the hust beyond that sounds and looks and tastes and smells like death it's in the air I feel it coming Lord make me answer cheerful when my call comes he held up his arms devoutly and raised his hut his mouth moved as though he were praying after a few minutes silence he got up, shook hands with me and blessed me and said goodbye and hobbled off it all touched me and upset me very much I was glad when the Coast Guard came along with his spyglass under his arm he stopped to talk with me as he always does but all the time kept looking at a strange ship I can't make her out he said she's a Roshan by the look of her but she's knocking about in the queerest way she doesn't know her mind a bit she seems to see the storm coming but can't decide whether to run up north in the open or to put in here look there again she has steered mighty strangely for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel changes about with every puff of the wind we'll hear more of her before this time tomorrow End of Chapter 6 Recording by Karin the Page