Dracula
began, to lead him to his favourite topic. I was again astonished, for
he addressed himself to the question with the impartiality of the
completest sanity; he even took himself as an example when he mentioned
certain things.
“Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed,
it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being
put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and
perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no
matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong
life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to
take human life. The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion I
tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers by
the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his
blood--relying, of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, ‘For the blood is
the life.’ Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has
vulgarised the truism to the very point of contempt. Isn’t that true,
doctor?” I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what to
either think or say; it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat up
his spiders and flies not five minutes before. Looking at my watch, I
saw that I should go to the station to meet Van Helsing, so I told Mrs.
Harker that it was time to leave. She came at once, after saying
pleasantly to Mr. Renfield: “Good-bye, and I hope I may see you often,
under auspices pleasanter to yourself,” to which, to my astonishment, he
replied:--
“Good-bye, my dear. I pray God I may never see your sweet face again.
May He bless and keep you!”
When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing I left the boys behind
me. Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first took
ill, and Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has been for
many a long day.
Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a
boy. He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying:--
“Ah, friend John, how goes all? Well? So! I have been busy, for I come
here to stay if need be. All affairs are settled with me, and I have
much to tell. Madam Mina is with you? Yes. And her so fine husband? And
Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too? Good!”
As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed, and of how my own
diary had come to be of some use through Mrs. Harker’s suggestion; at
which the Professor interrupted me:--
“Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man’s brain--a brain that a man
should have were he much gifted--and a woman’s heart. The good God
fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good
combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help
to us; after to-night she must not have to do with this so terrible
affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are
determined--nay, are we not pledged?--to destroy this monster; but it is
no part for a woman. Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her
in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer--both in
waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And, besides,
she is young woman and not so long married; there may be other things to
think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has wrote all, then she
must consult with us; but to-morrow she say good-bye to this work, and
we go alone.” I agreed heartily with him, and then I told him what we
had found in his absence: that the house which Dracula had bought was
the very next one to my own. He was amazed, and a great concern seemed
to come on him. “Oh that we had known it before!” he said, “for then we
might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy. However, ‘the milk
that is spilt cries not out afterwards,’ as you say. We shall not think
of that, but go on our way to the end.” Then he fell into a silence that
lasted till we entered my own gateway. Before we went to prepare for
dinner he said to Mrs. Harker:--
“I am told, Madam Mina, by my friend John that you and your husband have
put up in exact order all things that have been, up to this moment.”
“Not up to this moment, Professor,” she said impulsively, “but up to
this morning.”
“But why not up to now? We have seen hitherto how good light all the
little things have made. We have told our secrets, and yet no one who
has told is the worse for it.”
Mrs. Harker began to blush, and taking a paper from her pockets, she
said:--
“Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go in. It
is my record of to-day. I too have seen the need of putting down at
present everything, however trivial; but there is little in this except
what is personal. Must it go in?” The Professor read it over gravely,
and handed it back, saying:--
“It need not go in if you do not wish it; but I pray that it may. It can
but make your husband love you the more, and all us, your friends, more
honour you--as well as more esteem and love.” She took it back with
another blush and a bright smile.
And so now, up to this very hour, all the records we have are complete
and in order. The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner,
and before our meeting, which is fixed for nine o’clock. The rest of us
have already read everything; so when we meet in the study we shall all
be informed as to facts, and can arrange our plan of battle with this
terrible and mysterious enemy.
_Mina Harker’s Journal._
_30 September._--When we met in Dr. Seward’s study two hours after
dinner, which had been at six o’clock, we unconsciously formed a sort of
board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to
which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit
next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary; Jonathan sat
next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr.
Morris--Lord Godalming being next the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the
centre. The Professor said:--
“I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts
that are in these papers.” We all expressed assent, and he went on:--
“Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind of
enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you
something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me.
So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure
according.
“There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that they
exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the
teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane
peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that
through long years I have train myself to keep an open mind, I could not
have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. ‘See! see!
I prove; I prove.’ Alas! Had I known at the first what now I know--nay,
had I even guess at him--one so precious life had been spared to many of
us who did love her. But that is gone; and we must so work, that other
poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The _nosferatu_ do not die
like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being
stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is
amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of
cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have
still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the
divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are
for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in
callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear
at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he
can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the
thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and
the bat--the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become
small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to
begin our strike to destroy him? How shall we find his where; and having
found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much; it is a terrible
task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave
shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win; and then
where end we? Life is nothings; I heed him not. But to fail here, is not
mere life or death. It is that we become as him; that we henceforward
become foul things of the night like him--without heart or conscience,
preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us for
ever are the gates of heaven shut; for who shall open them to us again?
We go on for all time abhorred by all; a blot on the face of God’s
sunshine; an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face
to face with duty; and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say, no;
but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his
song of birds, his music and his love, lie far behind. You others are
young. Some have seen sorrow; but there are fair days yet in store. What
say you?”
Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so
much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I
saw his hand stretch out; but it was life to me to feel its touch--so
strong, so self-reliant, so resolute. A brave man’s hand can speak for
itself; it does not even need a woman’s love to hear its music.
When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I
in his; there was no need for speaking between us.
“I answer for Mina and myself,” he said.
“Count me in, Professor,” said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as usual.
“I am with you,” said Lord Godalming, “for Lucy’s sake, if for no other
reason.”
Dr. Seward simply nodded. The Professor stood up and, after laying his
golden crucifix on the table, held out his hand on either side. I took
his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left; Jonathan held my right with
his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took hands our
solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even
occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing
went on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work
had begun. It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way,
as any other transaction of life:--
“Well, you know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not
without strength. We have on our side power of combination--a power
denied to the vampire kind; we have sources of science; we are free to
act and think; and the hours of the day and the night are ours equally.
In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered, and we are
free to use them. We have self-devotion in a cause, and an end to
achieve which is not a selfish one. These things are much.
“Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against us are
restrict, and how the individual cannot. In fine, let us consider the
limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular.
“All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions. These do not
at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and death--nay
of more than either life or death. Yet must we be satisfied; in the
first place because we have to be--no other means is at our control--and
secondly, because, after all, these things--tradition and
superstition--are everything. Does not the belief in vampires rest for
others--though not, alas! for us--on them? A year ago which of us would
have received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific,
sceptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century? We even scouted a belief
that we saw justified under our very eyes. Take it, then, that the