DRACULA
Bram
Stoker
CHAPTER XVI.
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY.
It
was just a quarter before twelve o'clock when we got into the
churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark, with occasional
gleams of moonlight between the rents of the heavy clouds that scudded
across the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing
slightly in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the
tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared that the proximity to a
place laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset him; but he bore
himself well. I took it that the very mystery of the proceeding was in
some way a counteractant to his grief. The Professor unlocked the
door, and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons,
solved the difficulty by entering first himself. The rest of us
followed, and he closed the door. He then lit a dark lantern and
pointed to the coffin. Arthur stepped forward hesitatingly; Van
Helsing said to me:-
"You
were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that
coffin?"
"It
was." The Professor turned to the rest saying:-
"You
hear; and yet there is no one who does not believe with me." He
took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin. Arthur looked on, very pale but silent; when the lid was
removed he stepped forward. He evidently did not know that there was a
leaden coffin, or, at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the
rent in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as
quickly fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness;
he was still silent. Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and we
all looked in and recoiled.
The
coffin was empty!
For
several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by Quincey
Morris:-
"Professor,
I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn't ask such a
thing ordinarily- I wouldn't so dishonour you as to imply a doubt; but
this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour. Is this
your doing?"
"I
swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed nor
touched her. What happened was this: Two nights ago my friend Seward
and I came here- with good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin,
which was then sealed up, and we found it, as now empty. We then
waited, and saw something white come through the trees. The next day
we came here in day-time, and she lay there. Did she not, friend
John?"
"Yes."
"That
night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing, and
we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves.
Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at sundown the
Un-Dead can move. I waited here all the night till the sun rose, but I
saw nothing. It was most probable that it was because I had laid over
the clamps of those doors garlic, which the Un-Dead cannot bear, and
other things which they shun. Last night there was no exodus, so
to-night before the sundown I took away my garlic and other things.
And so it is we find this coffin empty. But bear with me. So
far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me outside, unseen
and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be. So"- here he
shut the dark slide of his lantern- "now to the outside." He
opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the door
behind him.
Oh!
but it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of that
vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing
gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and
passing- like the gladness and sorrow of a man's life; how sweet it
was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay;
how humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and
to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city.
Each in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent,
and was, I could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner
meaning of the mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half
inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing's
conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who
accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery,
with hazard of all he has to stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut
himself a good-sized plug of tobacco and began to chew. As to Van
Helsing, he was employed in a definite way. First he took from his bag
a mass of what looked like thin, wafer-like biscuit, which was
carefully rolled up in a white napkin; next he took out a
double-handful of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty. He crumbled
the wafer up fine and worked it into the mass between his hands. This
he then took, and rolling it into thin strips, began to lay them into
the crevices between the door and its setting in the tomb. I was
somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what it was that
he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near also, as they too were
curious. He answered:-
"I
am closing the tomb, so that the Un-Dead may not enter."
"And
is that stuff you have put there going to do it?" asked Quincey.
"Great Scott! Is this a game?"
"It
is."
"What
is that which you are using?" This time the question was by
Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered:-
"The
Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence." It was
an answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt
individually that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the
Professor's, a purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of
things, it was impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took
the places assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the
sight of any one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur.
I had myself been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching
horror; and yet I, who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs,
felt my heart sink within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white;
never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of
funeral gloom; never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously;
never did bough creak so mysteriously; and never did the far-away
howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night.
There
was a long spell of silence, a big, aching void, and then from the
Professor a keen "S-s-s-s!" He pointed; and far down the
avenue of yews we saw a white figure advance- a dim white figure,
which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at
the moment a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds
and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the
cerements of the grave. We could not see the face, for it was bent
down over what we saw to be a fair-haired child. There was a pause and
a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it
lies before the fire and dreams. We were starting forward, but the
Professor's warning hand, seen by us as he stood behind a yew-tree,
kept us back; and then as we looked the white figure moved forwards
again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight
still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp
of Arthur, as we recognised the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy
Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine,
heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. Van
Helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we all advanced
too; the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb.
Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide; by the
concentrated light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the lips
were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over
her chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe.
We
shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even
Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I
had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen.
When
Lucy- I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her
shape- saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives
when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form
and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of
the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love
passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have
done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with
unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile.
Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she
flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she
had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog
growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning.
There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from
Arthur; when she advanced to him with outstreched arms and a wanton
smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands.
She
still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace,
said:-
"Come
to me Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry
for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!"
There
was something diabolically sweet in her tones- something of the
tingling of glass when struck- which rang through the brains even of
us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed
under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his
arms. She was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and
held between them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it,
and, with a suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as
if to enter the tomb.
When
within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped as if arrested
by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was shown in
the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver
from Van Helsing's iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled malice on
a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal
eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out
sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of
the flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely,
blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of
the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death- if looks could
kill- we saw it at that moment.
And
so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained
between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of
entry: Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur:-
"Answer
me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?"
Arthur
threw himself on his knees, and hid his face in his hands, as he
answered:-
"Do
as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like this
ever any more;" and he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I
simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the
click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down; coming close
to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred
emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on in horrified
amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal
body as real at that moment as our own, pass in through the interstice
where scarce a knife-blade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense
of relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of
putty to the edges of the door.
When
this was done, he lifted the child and said:
"Come
now, my friends; we can do no more till to-morrow. There is a funeral
at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the
sexton lock the gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do; but
not like this of to-night. As for this little one, he is not much
harm, and by to-morrow night he shall be well. We shall leave him
where the police will find him, as on the other night; and then to
home." Coming close to Arthur, he said:-
"My
friend Arthur, you have had sore trial; but after, when you will look
back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter
waters, my child. By this time tomorrow you will, please God, have
passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters; so do not mourn
overmuch. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me."
Arthur
and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other on the
way. We had left the child in safety, and were tired; so we all slept
with more or less reality of sleep.
29
September, night.- A little before twelve o'clock we three-Arthur,
Quincey Morris, and myself- called for the Professor. It was odd to
notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of
course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest
of us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by half-past one,
and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when
the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton, under the
belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place
all to ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had
with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag; it was
manifestly of fair weight.
When
we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up the
road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the
Professor to the tomb. He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing
it behind us. Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit, and
also two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck, by melting their
own ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light sufficient
to work by. When he again lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin we all
looked- Arthur trembling like an aspen- and saw that the body lay
there in all its death-beauty. But there was no love in my own heart,
nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape
without her soul. I could see even Arthur's face grow hard as he
looked. Presently he said to Van Helsing:-
"Is
this really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape?"
"It
is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you shall see her
as she was, and is."
She
seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth,
the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth- which it made one shudder to see-
the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish
mockery of Lucy's sweet purity. Van Helsing, with his usual
methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and
placing them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and
some plumbing solder, and then a small oil-lamp, which gave out, when
lit in a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at fierce heat with a
blue flame; then his operating knives, which he placed to hand; and
last a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick
and about three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in
the fire, and was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a
heavy hammer, such as in households is used in the coal-cellar for
breaking the lumps. To me, a doctor's preparations for work of any
kind are stimulating and bracing, but the effect of these things on
both Arthur and Quincey was to cause them a sort of consternation.
They both, however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet.
When
all was ready, Van Helsing said:-
"Before
we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lore and
experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the
powers of the Un-Dead. When they become such, there comes with the
change the curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age
after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world;
for all that die from the preying of the Un-Dead become themselves
Un-Dead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever
widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend
Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy
die; or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in
time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it in
Eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those Un-Deads that so
have fill us with horror. The career of this so unhappy dear lady is
but just begun. Those children whose blood she suck are not as yet so
much the worse; but if she live on, Un-Dead, more and more they lose
their blood and by her power over them they come to her; and so she
draw their blood with that so wicked mouth.
But if she die in truth, then all cease; the tiny wounds of the
throats disappear, and they go back to their plays unknowing ever of
what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when this now Un-Dead
be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor lady whom we
love shall again be free. Instead of working wickedness by night and
growing more debased in the assimilation of it by day, she shall take
her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a
blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. To
this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better
right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the
night when sleep is not: 'It was my hand that sent her to the stars;
it was the hand of him that loved her best; the hand that of all she
would herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose?' Tell me if
there be such a one amongst us?"
We
all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite
kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would
restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory; he stepped
forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was
as pale as snow:-
"My
true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me
what I am to do, and I shall not falter!" Van Helsing laid a hand
on his shoulder, and said:-
"Brave
lad! A moment's courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven
through her. It will be a fearful ordeal- be not deceived in that- but
it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your
pain was great; from this grim tomb you will emerge as though you
tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only
think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for
you all the time."
"Go
on," said Arthur hoarsely. "Tell me what I am to do."
"Take
this stake in your left hand, ready to place the point over the heart,
and the hammer in your right. Then when we begin our prayer for the
dead- I shall read him, I have here the book, and the others shall
follow- strike in God's name, that so all may be well with the dead
that we love and that the Un-Dead pass away."
Arthur
took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on
action his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened
his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we
could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could
see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might.
The
Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech
came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted
in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the
lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam.
But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as
his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the
mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled
and spurted up around it. His face was set, and high duty seemed to
shine through it; the sight of it gave us courage, so that our voices
seemed to ring through the little vault.
And
then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth
seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still.
The terrible task was over.
The
hammer fell from Arthur's hand. He reeled and would have fallen had we
not caught him. The great drops of sweat sprang from his forehead, and
his breath came in broken gasps. It had indeed been an awful strain on
him; and had he not been forced to his task by more than human
considerations he could never have gone through with it.
For a few minutes we were so taken up with him that we did not
look towards the coffin. When we did, however, a murmur of startled
surprise ran from one to the other of us, We gazed so eagerly that
Arthur rose, for he had been seated on the ground, and came and looked
too; and then a glad, strange light broke over his face and dispelled
altogether the gloom of horror that lay upon it.
There,
in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and
grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a
privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her
in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity.
True that there were there, as we had seen them in life, the
traces of care and pain and waste; but these were all dear to us, for
they marked her truth to what we knew. One and all we felt that the
holy calm that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was
only an earthly token and symbol of the calm that was to reign
forever.
Van
Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder, and said to him:-
"And
now, Arthur, my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven?"
The
reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old man's hand in
his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said:-
"Forgiven!
God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, and me
peace." He put his hands on the Professor's shoulder, and laying
his head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood
unmoving. When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him:-
"And
now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as
she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning
devil now- not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she
is the devil's Un-Dead. She is God's true dead, whose soul is with
Him!"
Arthur
bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the tomb;
the Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the point of
it in the body. Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with
garlic. We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the coffin-lid,
and gathering up our belongings, came away.
When the Professor locked the door he gave the key to Arthur.
Outside
the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it seemed as
if all nature were tuned to a different pitch. There was gladness and
mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves on one
account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy.
Before
we moved away Van Helsing said:-
"Now,
my friends, one step of our work is done, one the most harrowing to
ourselves. But there remains a greater task: to find out the author of
all this our sorrow and to stamp him out. I have clues which we can
follow; but it is a long task, and a difficult, and there is danger in
it, and pain. Shall you not all help me? We have learned to believe,
all of us- is it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes!
And do we not promise to go on to the better end?"
Each
in turn, we took his hand, and the promise was made. Then said the
Professor as we moved off:-
"Two
nights hence you shall meet with me and dine together at seven of the
clock with friend John. I shall entreat two others, two that you know
not as yet; and I shall be ready to all our work show and our plans
unfold. Friend John, you come with me home, for I have much to consult
about, and you can help me. To-night I leave for Amsterdam, but shall
return to-morrow night. And then begins our great quest. But first I
shall have much to say, so that you may know what is to do and to
dread. Then our promise shall be made to each other anew; for there is
a terrible task before us, and once our feet are on the ploughshare,
we must not draw back."
