DRACULA
Bram
Stoker
CHAPTER
XXII.
JONATHAN
HARKER'S JOURNAL.
3 October.- As I must do something or go mad, I write this
diary. It is now six o'clock, and we are to meet in the study in half
an hour and take something to eat, for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward
are agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best
will be, God knows, required today. I must keep writing at every
chance, for I dare not stop to think. All, big and little, must go
down; perhaps at the end the little things may teach us most. The
teaching, big or little, could not have landed Mina or me anywhere
worse than we are to-day. However, we must trust and hope. Poor Mina
told me just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that it
is in trouble and trial that our faith is tested- that we must keep on
trusting; and that God will aid us up to the end. The end! oh my God!
what end?... To work! To work!
When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing
poor Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr.
Seward told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down
to the room below they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a
heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the
neck were broken.
Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage
if he had heard anything. He said that he had been sitting down- he
confessed to half dozing- when he heard loud voices in the room, and
then Renfield had called out loudly several times, "God! God!
God!" After that there was a sound of falling, and when he
entered the room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as
the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard
"voices" or "a voice," and he said he could not
say; that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as
there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could
swear to it, if required, that the word "God" was spoken by
the patient. Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did
not wish to go into the matter; the question of an inquest had to be
considered, and it would never do to put forward the truth, as no one
would believe it. As it was, he thought that on the attendant's
evidence he could give a certificate of death by misadventure in
falling from bed. In case the coroner should demand it, there would be
a formal inquest, necessarily to the same result.
When the question began to be discussed as to what should be
our next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be
in full confidence; that nothing of any sort- no matter how painful-
should be kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it
was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a
depth of despair. "There must be no concealment," she said,
"Alas! we have had too much already. And besides there is nothing
in all the world that can give me more pain than I have already
endured- than I suffer now! Whatever may happen, it must be of new
hope or of new courage to me!" Van Helsing was, looking at her
fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly but quietly:-
"But dear Madam Mina are you not afraid; not for yourself,
but for others from yourself, after what has happened?" Her face
grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a
martyr as she answered:-
"Ah no! for my mind is made up!"
"To what?" he asked gently, whilst we were all very
still; for each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she
meant. Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she were
simply stating a fact:-
"Because if I find in myself- and I shall watch keenly for
it- a sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die!"
"You would not kill yourself?" he asked, hoarsely.
"I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would
save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort!" She looked at
him meaningly as she spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and
came close to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly:
"My child, there is such an one if it were for your good.
For myself I could hold it in my account with God to find such an
euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it were best. Nay, were it
safe! But my child-" for a moment he seemed choked, and a great
sob rose in his throat; he gulped it down and went on:-
"There are here some who would stand between you and
death. You must not die. You must not die by any hand; but least of
all by your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is
true dead you must not die; for if he is still with the quick Un-Dead,
your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must
struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon
unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in
pain or in joy; by the day, or the night; in safety or in peril! On
your living soul I charge you that you do not die- nay nor think of
death- till this great evil be past." The poor dear grew white as
death, and shook and shivered, as I have seen a quicksand shake and
shiver at the incoming of the tide. We were all silent; we could do
nothing. At length she grew more calm and turning to him said,
sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out her hand.-
"I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me
live, I shall strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time,
this horror may have passed away from me." She was so good and
brave that we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and
endure for her, and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her
that she was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or
diaries and phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the
record as she had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of
anything to do- if "pleased" could be used in connection
with so grim an interest.
As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and
was prepared with an exact ordering of our work.
"It is perhaps well" he said "that at our
meeting after our visit to Carfax we decided not to do anything with
the earthboxes that lay there. Had we done so, the Count must have
guessed our purpose, and would doubtless have taken measures in
advance to frustrate such an effort with regard to the others; but now
he does not know our intentions. Nay more, in all probability, he does
not know that such a power exists to us as can sterilise his lairs, so
that he cannot use them as of old. We are now so much further advanced
in our knowledge as to their disposition, that, when we have examined
the house in Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. To-day,
then, is ours; and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our
sorrow this morning guards us in its course. Until it sets tonight,
that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He is confined
within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into
thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go
through a door-way, he must open the door like a mortal. And so we
have this day to hunt out all his lairs and sterilise them. So we
shall, if we have not yet catch him and destroy him, drive him to bay
in some place where the catching and the destroying shall be, in time,
sure." Here I started up for I could not contain myself at the
thought that the minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Mina's
life and happiness were flying from us, since whilst we talked action
was impossible. But Van Helsing held up his hand warningly. "Nay,
friend Jonathan," he said, "In this, the quickest way home
is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all act and act with
desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in all probable
the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may
have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have deeds of
purchase, keys and other things. He will have paper that he write on;
he will have his book of cheques. There are many belongings that he
must have somewhere; why not in this place so central, so quiet, where
he come and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the very
vast of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and
search that house; and when we learn what it holds, then we do what
our friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt 'stop the earths' and
so we run down our old fox- so? is it not?"
"Then let us come at once," I cried, "we are
wasting the precious, precious time!" The Professor did not move,
but simply said:-
"And how are we to get into that house in
Piccadilly?"
"Any way!" I cried. "We shall break in if need
be."
"And your police; where will they be, and what will they
say?"
I was staggered; but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a
good reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could:-
"Don't wait more than need be; you know, I am sure, what
torture I am in."
"Ah, my child, that I do; and indeed there is no wish of
me to add to your anguish. But just think, what can we do, until all
the world be at movement. Then will come our time. I have thought and
thought, and it seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all.
Now we wish to get into the house, but we have no key; is it not
so?" I nodded.
"Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that
house, and could not still get it, and think there was to you no
conscience of the housebreaker, what would you do?"
"I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work
to pick the lock for me."
"And your police, they would interfere, would they
not?"
"Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly
employed."
"Then," he looked at me keenly as he spoke, "all
that is in doubt is the conscience of the employer, and the belief of
your policemen as to whether or no that employer has a good conscience
or a bad one. Your police must indeed be zealous men and clever- oh so
clever!- in reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such
matter. No, no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred
empty house in this your London, or of any city in the world; and if
you do it as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things
are rightly done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman
who owned a so fine house in your London, and when he went for months
of summer to Switzerland and lock up his house, some burglar came and
broke window at back and got in. Then he went and made open the
shutters in front and walk out and in through the door, before the
very eyes of the police. Then he have an auction in that house, and
advertise it, and put up big notice; and when the day come he sell off
by a great auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them.
Then he go to a builder, and he sell him that house, making an
agreement that he pull it down and take all away within a certain
time. And your police and other authority help him all they can. And
when that owner come back from his holiday in Switzerland he find only
an empty hole where his house had been. This was all done en regle,
and in our work we shall be en regle too. We shall not go so early
that the policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem it
strange; but we shall go after ten o'clock, when there are many about,
and when such things would be done were we indeed owners of the
house."
I could not but see how right he was and the terrible despair
of Mina's face became relaxed a thought; there was hope in such good
counsel. Van Helsing went on:-
"When once within that house we may find more clues; at
any rate some of us can remain there whilst the rest find the other
places where there be more earth-boxes- at Bermondsey and Mile
End."
Lord Godalming stood up. "I can be of some use here,"
he said. "I shall wire to my people to have horses and carriages
where they will be most convenient."
"Look here, old fellow," said Morris, "it is a
capital idea to have all ready in case we want to go horse-backing;
but don't you think that one of your snappy carriages with its
heraldic adornments in a byway of Walworth or Mile End would attract
too much attention for our purposes? it seems to me that we ought to
take cabs when we go south or east; and even leave them somewhere near
the neighborhood we are going to."
"Friend Quincey is right!" said the Professor.
"His head is what you call in plane with the horizon. It is a
difficult thing that we go to do, and we do not want no peoples to
watch us if so it may."
Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced
to see that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a
time the terrible experience of the night. She was very, very
pale-almost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away,
showing her teeth in somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this
last, lest it should give her needless pain; but it made my blood run
cold in my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the
Count had sucked her blood. As yet there was no sign of the teeth
growing sharper, but the time as yet was short, and there was time for
fear.
When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts
and of the disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt.
It was finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should
destroy the Count's lair close at hand. In case he should find it out
too soon, we should thus be still ahead of him in our work of
destruction; and his presence in his purely material shape, and at his
weakest, might give us some new clue.
As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor
that, after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in
Piccadilly; that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst
Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End
and destroyed them. It was possible, if not likely, the Professor
urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and
that if so we might be able to cope with him then and there. At any
rate, we might be able to follow him in force. To this plan I
strenuously objected, and so far as my going was concerned, for I said
that I intended to stay and protect Mina. I thought that my mind was
made up on the subject; but Mina would not listen to my objection. She
said that there might be some law matter in which I could be useful;
that amongst the Count's papers might be some clue which I could
understand out of my experience in Transylvania; and that, as it was,
all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the Count's
extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Mina's resolution was
fixed; she said that it was the last hope for her that we should all
work together. "As for me," she said, "I have no fear.
Things have been as bad as they can be; and whatever may happen must
have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my husband! God can,
if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one present."
So I started up crying out: "Then in God's name let us come at
once, for we are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier
than we think."
"Not so!" said Van Helsing, holding up his hand.
"But why?" I asked.
"Do you forget," he said, with actually a smile,
"that last night he banqueted heavily, and will sleep late?"
Did I forget! shall I ever- can I ever! Can any of us ever
forget that terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave
countenance; but the pain overmastered her and she put her hands
before her face, and shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had not
intended to recall her frightful experience. He had simply lost sight
of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort. When it
struck him what he said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and
tried to comfort her. "Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "dear,
dear Madam Mina, alas! that I of all who so reverence you should have
said anything so forgetful. These stupid old lips of mine and this
stupid old head do not deserve so; but you will forget it, will you
not?" He bent low beside her as he spoke; she took his hand, and
looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely:-
"No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember;
and with it I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take
it all together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready,
and we must all eat that we may be strong."
Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful
and encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful
of us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:-
"Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible
enterprise. Are we all armed, as we were on that night when first we
visited our enemy's lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal
attack?" We all assured him. "Then it is well. Now Madam
Mina, you are in any case quite safe here until the sunset; and before
then we shall return- if- We shall return! But before we go let me see
you armed against personal attack. I have myself, since you came down,
prepared your chamber by the placing of things of which we know, so
that He may not enter. Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead I
touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son,
and-"
There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to
hear. As he had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it-
had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot
metal. My poor darling's brain had told her the significance of the
fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it; and the two so
overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that
dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came quickly; the echo
of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the
reaction, and she sand on her knees on the floor in an agony of
abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of
old his mantle, she wailed out:-
"Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted
flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the
Judgement Day." They all paused. I had thrown myself beside her
in an agony of helpless grief, and putting my arms around held her
tight. For a few minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst
the friends around us turned away their eyes that ran tears silently.
Then Van Helsing turned and said gravely; so gravely that I could not
help feeling that he was in some way inspired, and was stating things
outside himself:-
"It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God
himself see fit, as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day, to
redress all wrongs of the earth and of His children that He has placed
thereon. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be
there to see, when that red scar, the sign of God's knowledge of what
has been, shall pass away and leave your forehead as pure as the heart
we know. For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God
sees right to lift the burden that is hard upon us. Till then we bear
our Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His Will. It may be that we
are chosen instruments of His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His
bidding as that other through stripes and shame; through tears and
blood; through doubts and fears, and all that makes the difference
between God and man."
There was hope in his words, and comfort, and they made for
resignation. Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took
one of the old man's hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a
word we all knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be
true to each other. We men pledged ourselves to raise the veil of
sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way, we loved; and
we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task which lay before
us.
It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a
parting which neither of us shall forget to our dying day; and we set
out.
To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina
must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown
and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one
vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in
sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for
their ghastly ranks.
We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same
as on the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so
prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any
ground for such fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been made
up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could
hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, or any sign
of use in the house; and in the old chapel the great boxes looked just
as we had seen them last. Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we
stood before them:-
"And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must
sterilise this earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought
from a far distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth
because it has been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for
we make it more holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now
we sanctify it to God." As he spoke he took from his bag a
screw-driver and a wrench, and very soon the top of one of the cases
was thrown open. The earth smelled musty and close; but we did not
somehow seem to mind, for our attention was concentrated on the
Professor. Taking from his box a piece of the Sacred Wafer he laid it
reverently on the earth, and then shutting down the lid began to screw
it home, we aiding him as he worked.
One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes,
and left them as we had found them to all appearance; but in each was
a portion of the Host.
When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said
solemnly:-
"So much is already done. If it may be that with all the
others we can be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may
shine on Madam Mina's forehead all white as ivory and with no
stain!"
As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch
our train we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and
in the window of my own room saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and
nodded to tell that our work there was successfully accomplished.
She nodded in reply to show that she understood. The last I
saw, she was waving her hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart
that we sought the station and just caught the train, which was
steaming in as we reached the platform.
I have written this in the train.
Piccadilly, 12:30 o'clock.- Just before we reached Fenchurch
Street Lord Godalming said to me:-
"Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not
come with us in case there should be any difficulty; for under the
circumstances it wouldn't seem so bad for us to break into an empty
house. But you are a solicitor and the Incorporated Law Society might
tell you that you should have known better." I demurred as to my
not sharing any danger even of odium, but he went on: "Besides,
it will attract less attention if there are not too many of us. My
title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with any
policeman that may come along. You had better go with Jack and the
Professor and stay in the Green Park, somewhere in sight of the house;
and when you see the door opened and the smith has gone away, do you
all come across. We shall be on the look out for you, and shall let
you in."
"The advice is good!" said Van Helsing, so we said no
more. Godalming and
Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At the corner of
Arlington Street our contingent got our and strolled into the Green
Park. My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much of our hope
was centered, looming up grim and silent in its deserted condition
amongst its more lively and spruce-looking neighbours. We sat down on
a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as to attract
as little attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass with
leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others.
At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in
leisurely fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris; and down from the
box descended a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of
tools. Morris paid the
cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. Together the two ascended
the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he wanted done. The
workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on one of the spikes
of the rail, saying something to a policeman who just then sauntered
along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the man kneeling down
placed his bag beside him. After searching through it, he took out a
selection of tools which he produced to lay beside him in orderly
fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole, blew into it, and,
turning to his employers, made some remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and
the man lifted a good sized bunch of keys; selecting one of them, he
began to probe the lock, as if feeling his way with it. After fumbling
about for a bit he tried a second, and then a third. All at once the
door opened under a slight push from him, and he and the two others
entered the hall. We sat still; my own cigar burnt furiously, but Van
Helsing's went cold altogether. We waited patiently as we saw the
workman come out and bring in his bag. Then he held the door partly
open, steadying it with his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the lock.
This he finally handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and
gave him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his
coat and departed; not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole
transaction.
When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and
knocked at the door. It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris,
beside whom stood Lord Godalming lighting a cigar.
"The place smells so vilely," said the latter as we
came in. It did indeed smell vilely- like the old chapel at Carfax-
and with our previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had
been using the place pretty freely. We moved to explore the house, all
keeping together in case of attack; for we knew we had a strong and
wily enemy to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count
might not be in the house. In the dining-room, which lay at the back
of the hall, we found eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of
the nine which we sought! Our work was not over, and would never be
until we should have found the missing box. First we opened the
shutters of the window which looked out across a narrow stone-flagged
yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed to look like the front of
a miniature house. There were no windows in it, so we were not afraid
of being overlooked. We did not lose any time in examining the chests.
With the tools which we had brought with us we opened them, one by
one, and treated them as we had treated those others in the old
chapel. It was evident to us that the Count was not at present in the
house, and we proceeded to search for any of his effects.
After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement
to attic, we came to the conclusion that the dining room contained any
effects which might belong to the Count; and so we proceeded to
minutely examine them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the
great dining-room table. There were title deeds of the Piccadilly
house in a great bundle; deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile
End and Bermondsey; notepaper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were
covered up in thin wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There
were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin-the
latter containing dirty water which was reddened as if with blood.
Last of all was a little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes,
probably those belonging to the other houses. When we had examined
this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris taking accurate
notes of the various addresses of the houses in the East and the
South, took with them the keys in a great bunch, and set out to
destroy the boxes in these places. The rest of us are, with what
patience we can, waiting their return- or the coming of the Count.
