DRACULA
Bram
Stoker
CHAPTER
XIV.
MINA
HARKER'S JOURNAL.
23 September.- Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so
glad that he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the
terrible things; and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down
with the responsibility of his new position. I knew he would be true
to himself, and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the
height of his advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties
that come upon him. He will be away all day till late, for he said he
could not lunch at home. My household work is done, so I shall take
his foreign journal, and lock myself up in my room and read it...
24 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 his 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 at 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 Westenra's death.
By the kindness of Lord Godalming, 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. Oh, 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 Godalming (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 privilege 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 may be, enlighten him not, lest
it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me.
"Van
Helsing."
Telegram, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing.
"25 September.- Come to-day by quarter-past ten train if
you can catch it. Can see you any time you call.
"Wilhelmina
Harker."
Mina Harker's Journal.
25 September.- I 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 her sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew
all about it; and now he wants me to tell him what she knows, so that
he may understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to
Mrs. Westenra; I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were
it 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 a cry does us all good at times- clears the air as
other rain does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that
upset me, and then Jonathan went away this morning to stay away from
me 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 type-written 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 whirl 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 a possibility.
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 and a 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 will 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 was 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 deux mains 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 one at once as indicative of
thought and power, the head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large
behind the ears. The face 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 are quick and
tender or stern with the man's moods. He said to me:-
"Mrs. Harker, is it not?" I bowed assent.
"That was Miss Mina Murray?" Again I assented.
"It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of
that poor dear child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of
the dead I come."
"Sir," I said, "you could have no better claim
on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra."
And I held out my hand. He took it and said tenderly:-
"Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily
girl must be good, but I had yet to learn-" He finished his
speech with a 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 Madam Mina; it was begun after you had left, and
was made in imitation of you- and in that diary she traces by
inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts 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
remember."
"I can tell you, I think, Dr. 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, Madam Mina, 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 of the 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 long knew
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." By
this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed; so I took
the type-written 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 wished to ask,
and so that you might not have 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 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
daze, I am dazzle, with so much light; and yet clouds roll in behind
the light every time. But that you do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but
I am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madam"- he said this
very solemnly- "if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for
you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be 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 have happy life and good life, and your husband will
be blessed in you."
"But, doctor, you praise me too much, and- and you do not
know me."
"Not know you- I, who am old, and who have studied 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's death." He interrupted:-
"Oh yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two
letters." I went on:-
"I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on
Thursday last he had a sort of shock."
"A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That was not
good. What kind of shock was it?"
"He thought he saw some one who recalled something
terrible, something which led to his brain fever." And here the
whole thing seemed to overwhelm 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 ever since, all
came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my
knees and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband
well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the
sofa, and sat by me; he held my hand in his, and said to me with, oh,
such infinite sweetness:-
"My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work
that I have not had much time for friendships; but since I have been
summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good
people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever- and it has
grown with my advancing years- the loneliness of my life. Believe me,
then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me
hope- hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women
still left to make life happy- good women, whose lives and whose
truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am
glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you; for if your husband
suffer, he suffer within the range of my study and experience. I
promise you that I will gladly do all for him that I can- all to make
his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must
eat. You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. Husband Jonathan
would not like to see you so pale; and what he like not where he love,
is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You
have told me all about Lucy, and so now we 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;
afterwards you shall tell me all."
After lunch, when we went back to the drawing-room, he said to
me:-
"And now tell me all about him." When it came to
speaking to this great, learned man, I began to fear that he would
think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman- that journal is all so
strange- and I hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and
he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said:-
"Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that
you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday
in a sort of fever of doubt; you must be kind to me, and not think me
foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things."
He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said:-
"Oh, my dear, if you only knew 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 be.
I have tried to keep an open mind; and it is not the ordinary things
of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary
things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane."
"Thank you, thank you, a thousand times! You have taken a
weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to
read. It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my
trouble and Jonathan's. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and
all that happened. I happ dare not say anything of it; you will read
for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be
very kind and tell me what you think."
"I promise," he said as I gave him the papers;
"I shall in the morning, so soon as I can, come to see you and
your husband, if I may."
"Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must
come to lunch with us and see him then; you could catch the quick 3:34
train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight." He was
surprised at my knowledge of the trains off-hand, 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 sit here
thinking- thinking I don't know what.
Letter (by hand), Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker.
"25 September, 6 o'clock.
"Dear Madam Mina,-
"I have read your husband's so wonderful diary. You may
sleep without doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is true! I will
pledge my life on it. It may be worse for others; but for him and you
there is no dread. He is a noble fellow; and let me tell you from
experience of men, that one who would do as he did in going down that
wall and to that room- ay, and going a second time- is not one to be
injured in permanence by a shock. His brain and his heart are all
right; this I swear, before I have even seen him; so be at rest. I
shall have much to ask him of other things. I am blessed that to-day I
come to see you, for I have learn all at once so much that again I am
dazzle- dazzle more than ever, and I must think.
"Yours the most faithful,
"Abraham
Van Helsing."
Letter, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing.
"25 September, 6:30 p.m.
"My dear Dr. Van Helsing,-
"A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a
great weight off my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things
there are in the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that
monster, be really in London! I fear to think. I have this moment,
whilst writing, had a wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the
6:25 to-night from Launceston and will be here at 10:18, 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 10:30
train, which will bring you to Paddington by 2:35. Do not answer this,
as I shall take it that if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast.
"Believe me,
"Your faithful and grateful friend,
"Mina Harker."
Jonathan Harker's Journal.
26 September.- I thought never to write in this diary again,
but the time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper
ready, and when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing's visit, and
of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious
she has been about me. She showed me in the doctor's letter that all I
wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the
doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I
felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I know,
I am not afraid, even of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then,
in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got
younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him
out, if he is anything like what Mina says. We sat late, and talked it
all 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 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 physiognomist. I learn more here with each
hour. I am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast; and, oh,
sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in
your wife." I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day,
so I simply nodded and stood silent.
"She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to
show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter,
and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble,
so little an egoist- and that, let me tell you, is much in this age,
so sceptical and selfish. And you, sir- I have read all the letters to
poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I know you since
some days from the knowing of others; but I have seen your true self
since last night. You will give me your hand, will you not? And let us
be friends for all our lives."
We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made
me quite choky.
"And now." he said, "may I ask you for some more
help? I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know.
You can help me here. Can you tell me what went before your going to
Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind;
but at first this will do."
"Look here, sir," I said, "does what you have to
do concern the Count?"
"It does," he said solemnly.
"Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the 10:30
train, you will not have time to read them; but I shall get the bundle
of papers. You can take them with you and read them in the
train."
After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were parting
he said:-
"Perhaps you will come to town if I send to you, and take
Madam Mina too."
"We shall both come when you will," I said.
I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the
previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window,
waiting for the train to start, he was turning them over. His eye
suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them, "The
Westminster Gazette"- I knew it by the colour- and he grew quite
white. He read something intently, groaning to himself. "Mein
Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! so soon!" I do not think he remembered
me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off.
This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out of the window and
waved his hand, calling out: "Love to Madam Mina; I shall write
so soon as ever I can."
Dr. Seward's Diary.
26 September.- Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a
week since I said "Finis," and yet here I am starting fresh
again, or rather going on with the same record. Until this afternoon I
had no cause to think of what is done. Renfield had become, to all
intents, as sane as he ever was. He was already well ahead with his
fly business; and he had just started in the spider line also; so he
had not been of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written
on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully
well. Quincey Morris is with him, and that is much of a help, for he
himself is a bubbling well of good spirits. Quincey wrote me a line
too, and from him I hear that Arthur is beginning to recover something
of his old buoyancy; so as to them all my mind is at rest. As for
myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I
used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound
which poor Lucy left on me was becoming cicatrised. Everything is,
however, now reopened; and what is to be the end God only knows. I
have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows too, but he will only
let out enough at a time to whet curiosity. He went to Exeter
yesterday, and stayed there all night. To-day he came back, and almost
bounded into the room at about half-past five o'clock, and thrust last
night's "Westminister 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 punctured
wounds on their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up.
"Well?" he said.
"It is like poor Lucy's."
"And what do you make of it?"
"Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it
was that injured her has injured them." I did not quite
understand his answer:-
"That is true indirectly, but not directly."
"How do you mean, Professor?" I asked. I was a little
inclined to take his seriousness lightly- for, after all, four days of
rest and freedom from burning, harrowing anxiety does help to restore
one's spirits- but when I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even in
the midst of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern.
"Tell me!" I said. "I can hazard no opinion. I
do not know what to think, and I have no data on which to found a
conjecture."
"Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no
suspicion as to what poor Lucy died of, not after all the hints given,
not only by events, but by me?"
"Of nervous prostration following on great loss or waste
of blood."
"And how the blood lost or waste?" I shook my head.
He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on:-
"You are 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 things old and new which must not be
contemplate by men's eyes, because they know- or think they know- some
things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our
science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it
says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day
the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new; and which are
yet but the old, which pretend to be young- like the fine ladies at
the opera. I suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference.
No? Nor in materialisation. No? Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the
reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism-"
"Yes," I said. "Charcot has proved that pretty
well." He smiled as he went on: "Then you are satisfied 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
student of the brain- how you accept the hypnotism and reject the
thought reading. Let me
tell you, my friend, that there are things done to-day in electrical
science which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who
discovered electricity- who would themselves not so long before have
been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it
that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and 'Old Parr' one hundred
and sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her
poor veins, could not live even one day? For, had she live one more
day, we could have save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and
death? Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy, and can say
wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others?
Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one
great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish
church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil
of all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and
elsewhere, there are bats that come 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, that
those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods and that when
the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on
them, and then- and then in the morning are found dead men, white as
even Miss Lucy was?"
"Good God, Professor!" I said, starting up. "Do
you mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat; and that such
a thing is here in London in the nineteenth century?" He waved
his hand for silence, and went on:-
"Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than
generations of men; why the elephant goes on and on till he have seen
dynasties; and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or
other complaint? Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and
places that there are some few who live on always if they be permit;
that there are men and women who cannot die? We all know- because
science has vouched for the fact- that there have been toads shut up
in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only
hold him since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian
fakir make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed
and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and
reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken
seal, and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up
and walk amongst them as before?" Here I interrupted him. I was
getting bewildered; he so crowded on my mind his list of nature's
eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was
getting fired. I had a dim idea that he was teaching me some lesson,
as long ago he used to do in his study at Amsterdam; but he used then
to tell me the thing, so that I could have the object of thought in
mind all the time. But now I was without this help, yet I wanted to
follow him, so I said:-
"Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the
thesis so that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present I
am going in my mind from point to point as a mad man, and not a sane
one, follows an idea. I feel like a novice blundering 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 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 a big truth, like a small rock
does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him,
and we value him; but all the same we must not let him think himself
all the truth in the universe."
"Then you want me not to let some previous conviction
injure the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter.
Do I read your lesson aright?"
"Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth to
teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the
first step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in
the children's throats were made by the same that made the hole in
Miss Lucy?"
"I suppose so" He stood up and said solemnly:-
"Then you are wrong. Oh, would it were so! but alas! no.
It is worse, far, far worse."
"In God's name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you
mean?" I cried.
He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and
placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he
spoke:-
"They were made by Miss Lucy!"
