3 October.—Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as
well as I can remember, since last I made an entry. Not a detail
that I can recall must be forgotten. In all calmness I must
proceed.
When I came to Renfield’s room I found him lying on the floor on
his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move
him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible
injuries. There seemed none of the unity of purpose between the
parts of the body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face
was exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it
had been beaten against the floor. Indeed it was from the face
wounds that the pool of blood originated.
The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we
turned him over, “I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his
right arm and leg and the whole side of his face are paralysed.”
How such a thing could have happened puzzled the attendant beyond
measure. He seemed quite bewildered, and his brows were gathered in
as he said, “I can’t understand the two things. He could mark his
face like that by beating his own head on the floor. I saw a young
woman do it once at the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay
hands on her. And I suppose he might have broken his neck by
falling out of bed, if he got in an awkward kink. But for the life
of me I can’t imagine how the two things occurred. If his back was
broke, he couldn’t beat his head, and if his face was like that
before the fall out of bed, there would be marks of it.”
I said to him, “Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to kindly
come here at once. I want him without an instant’s delay.”
The man ran off, and within a few minutes the Professor, in his
dressing gown and slippers, appeared. When he saw Renfield on the
ground, he looked keenly at him a moment, and then turned to me. I
think he recognized my thought in my eyes, for he said very
quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant, “Ah, a sad
accident! He will need very careful watching, and much attention. I
shall stay with you myself, but I shall first dress myself. If you
will remain I shall in a few minutes join you.”
The patient was now breathing stertorously and it was easy to
see that he had suffered some terrible injury.
Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity, bearing with
him a surgical case. He had evidently been thinking and had his
mind made up, for almost before he looked at the patient, he
whispered to me, “Send the attendant away. We must be alone with
him when he becomes conscious, after the operation.”
I said, “I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all
that we can at present. You had better go your round, and Dr. Van
Helsing will operate. Let me know instantly if there be anything
unusual anywhere.”
The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the
patient. The wounds of the face were superficial. The real injury
was a depressed fracture of the skull, extending right up through
the motor area.
The Professor thought a moment and said,”We must reduce the
pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far as can be. The
rapidity of the suffusion shows the terrible nature of his injury.
The whole motor area seems affected. The suffusion of the brain
will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be too
late.”
As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I went
over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and
Quincey in pajamas and slippers, the former spoke, “I heard your
man call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell him of an accident. So I woke
Quincey or rather called for him as he was not asleep. Things are
moving too quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of us
these times. I’ve been thinking that tomorrow night will not see
things as they have been. We’ll have to look back, and forward a
little more than we have done. May we come in?”
I nodded, and held the door open till they had entered, then I
closed it again. When Quincey saw the attitude and state of the
patient, and noted the horrible pool on the floor, he said softly,
“My God! What has happened to him? Poor, poor devil!”
I told him briefly, and added that we expected he would recover
consciousness after the operation, for a short time, at all events.
He went at once and sat down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming
beside him. We all watched in patience.
“We shall wait,” said Van Helsing, “just long enough to fix the
best spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly
remove the blood clot, for it is evident that the haemorrhage is
increasing.”
The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness.
I had a horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsing’s face I
gathered that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to
come. I dreaded the words Renfield might speak. I was positively
afraid to think. But the conviction of what was coming was on me,
as I have read of men who have heard the death watch. The poor
man’s breathing came in uncertain gasps.Each instant he seemed as
though he would open his eyes and speak, but then would follow a
prolonged stertorous breath, and he would relapse into a more fixed
insensibility. Inured as I was to sick beds and death, this
suspense grew and grew upon me. I could almost hear the beating of
my own heart, and the blood surging through my temples sounded like
blows from a hammer. The silence finally became agonizing. I looked
at my companions, one after another, and saw from their flushed
faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal torture. There
was a nervous suspense over us all, as though overhead some dread
bell would peal out powerfully when we should least expect it.
At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient
was sinking fast. He might die at any moment. I looked up at the
Professor and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly
set as he spoke, “There is no time to lose. His words may be worth
many lives. I have been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be
there is a soul at stake! We shall operate just above the ear.”
Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments
the breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath
so prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest.
Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless
stare. This was continued for a few moments, then it was softened
into a glad surprise, and from his lips came a sigh of relief. He
moved convulsively, and as he did so, said, “I’ll be quiet, Doctor.
Tell them to take off the strait waistcoat. I have had a terrible
dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. What’s wrong
with my face? It feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully.”
He tried to turn his head, but even with the effort his eyes
seemed to grow glassy again so I gently put it back. Then Van
Helsing said in a quiet grave tone, “Tell us your dream, Mr.
Renfield.”
As he heard the voice his face brightened, through its
mutilation, and he said, “That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is
of you to be here. Give me some water, my lips are dry, and I shall
try to tell you. I dreamed” …
He stopped and seemed fainting. I called quietly to Quincey,
“The brandy, it is in my study, quick!” He flew and returned with a
glass, the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened
the parched lips, and the patient quickly revived.
It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had been working
in the interval, for when he was quite conscious, he looked at me
piercingly with an agonized confusion which I shall never forget,
and said, “I must not deceive myself. It was no dream, but all a
grim reality.” Then his eyes roved round the room. As they caught
sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed
he went on, “If I were not sure already, I would know from
them.”
For an instant his eyes closed, not with pain or sleep but
voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties to bear.
When he opened them he said, hurriedly, and with more energy than
he had yet displayed, “Quick, Doctor, quick, I am dying! I feel
that I have but a few minutes, and then I must go back to death, or
worse! Wet my lips with brandy again. I have something that I must
say before I die. Or before my poor crushed brain dies anyhow.
Thank you! It was that night after you left me, when I implored you
to let me go away. I couldn’t speak then, for I felt my tongue was
tied. But I was as sane then, except in that way, as I am now. I
was in an agony of despair for a long time after you left me, it
seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My brain seemed
to become cool again, and I realized where I was. I heard the dogs
bark behind our house, but not where He was!”
As he spoke, Van Helsing’s eyes never blinked, but his hand came
out and met mine and gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray
himself. He nodded slightly and said, “Go on,” in a low voice.
Renfield proceeded. “He came up to the window in the mist, as I
had seen him often before, but he was solid then, not a ghost, and
his eyes were fierce like a man’s when angry. He was laughing with
his red mouth, the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when
he turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs
were barking. I wouldn’t ask him to come in at first, though I knew
he wanted to, just as he had wanted all along. Then he began
promising me things, not in words but by doing them.”
He was interrupted by a word from the Professor, “How?”
“By making them happen. Just as he used to send in the flies
when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and
sapphire on their wings. And big moths, in the night, with skull
and cross-bones on their backs.”
Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously,
“The Acherontia Atropos of the Sphinges, what you call the
`Death’s-head Moth’?”
The patient went on without stopping, “Then he began to
whisper.`Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them,
and every one a life. And dogs to eat them, and cats too. All
lives! All red blood, with years of life in it, and not merely
buzzing flies!’ I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could
do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house.
He beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He
raised his hands,and seemed to call out without using any words. A
dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a
flame of fire. And then He moved the mist to the right and left,
and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes
blazing red, like His only smaller. He held up his hand, and they
all stopped, and I thought he seemed to be saying, `All these lives
will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless
ages, if you will fall down and worship me!’ And then a red cloud,
like the color of blood, seemed to close over my eyes, and before I
knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying
to Him, `Come in, Lord and Master!’ The rats were all gone, but He
slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an
inch wide, just as the Moon herself has often come in through the
tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and
splendor.”
His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy
again, and he continued, but it seemed as though his memory had
gone on working in the interval for his story was further advanced.
I was about to call him back to the point, but Van Helsing
whispered to me, “Let him go on. Do not interrupt him. He cannot go
back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread
of his thought.”
He proceeded, “All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not
send me anything, not even a blowfly, and when the moon got up I
was pretty angry with him. When he did slide in through the window,
though it was shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with him. He
sneered at me, and his white face looked out of the mist with his
red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he owned the whole
place, and I was no one. He didn’t even smell the same as he went
by me. I couldn’t hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker
had come into the room.”
The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing
behind him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear
better. They were both silent, but the Professor started and
quivered. His face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still.
Renfield went on without noticing, “When Mrs. Harker came in to see
me this afternoon she wasn’t the same. It was like tea after the
teapot has been watered.” Here we all moved, but no one said a
word.
He went on, “I didn’t know that she was here till she spoke, and
she didn’t look the same. I don’t care for the pale people. I like
them with lots of blood in them, and hers all seemed to have run
out. I didn’t think of it at the time, but when she went away I
began to think, and it made me mad to know that He had been taking
the life out of her.” I could feel that the rest quivered, as I
did. But we remained otherwise still. “So when He came tonight I
was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I grabbed it
tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength. And as I
knew I was a madman, at times anyhow, I resolved to use my power.
Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to
struggle with me. I held tight, and I thought I was going to win,
for I didn’t mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His
eyes. They burned into me, and my strength became like water. He
slipped through it, and when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me
up and flung me down. There was a red cloud before me, and a noise
like thunder,and the mist seemed to steal away under the door.”
His voice was becoming fainter and his breath more stertorous.
Van Helsing stood up instinctively.
“We know the worst now,” he said. “He is here, and we know his
purpose. It may not be too late. Let us be armed, the same as we
were the other night, but lose no time, there is not an instant to
spare.”
There was no need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into
words, we shared them in common. We all hurried and took from our
rooms the same things that we had when we entered the Count’s
house. The Professor had his ready, and as we met in the corridor
he pointed to them significantly as he said, “They never leave me,
and they shall not till this unhappy business is over. Be wise
also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with Alas!
Alas! That dear Madam Mina should suffer!” He stopped, his voice
was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in
my own heart.
Outside the Harkers’ door we paused. Art and Quincey held back,
and the latter said, “Should we disturb her?”
“We must,” said Van Helsing grimly. “If the door be locked, I
shall break it in.”
“May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a
lady’s room!”
Van Helsing said solemnly, “You are always right. But this is
life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor. And even were
they not they are all as one to me tonight. Friend John, when I
turn the handle, if the door does not open, do you put your
shoulder down and shove. And you too, my friends. Now!”
He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We
threw ourselves against it. With a crash it burst open, and we
almost fell headlong into the room. The Professor did actually
fall, and I saw across him as he gathered himself up from hands and
knees. What I saw appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on
the back of my neck, and my heart seemed to stand still.
The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind
the room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay
Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though
in a stupor. Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards
was the white-clad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall,
thin man, clad in black. His face was turned from us, but the
instant we saw we all recognized the Count, in every way, even to
the scar on his forehead. With his left hand he held both Mrs.
Harker’s hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension.
His right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her
face down on his bosom. Her white night-dress was smeared with
blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare chest which
was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a
terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a
saucer of milk to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room,
the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard
described seemed to leap into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish
passion. The great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide
and quivered at the edge, and the white sharp teeth, behind the
full lips of the blood dripping mouth, clamped together like those
of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw his victim back upon
the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned and sprang at us.
But by this time the Professor had gained his feet, and was holding
towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer. The
Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the
tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we,
lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as
a great black cloud sailed across the sky. And when the gaslight
sprang up under Quincey’s match, we saw nothing but a faint vapor.
This, as we looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil
from its bursting open, had swung back to its old position. Van
Helsing, Art, and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time
had drawn her breath and with it had given a scream so wild, so
ear-piercing, so despairing that it seems to me now that it will
ring in my ears till my dying day. For a few seconds she lay in her
helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was ghastly, with a pallor
which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and
cheeks and chin. From her throat trickled a thin stream of blood.
Her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her
poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of
the Count’s terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate
wail which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression
of an endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the
coverlet gently over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her
face for an instant despairingly, ran out of the room.
Van Helsing whispered to me, “Jonathan is in a stupor such as we
know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Madam
Mina for a few moments till she recovers herself. I must wake
him!”
He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to
flick him on the face, his wife all the while holding her face
between her hands and sobbing in a way that was heart breaking to
hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the window. There was
much moonshine, and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run
across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew tree.
It puzzled me to think why he was doing this. But at the instant I
heard Harker’s quick exclamation as he woke to partial
consciousness, and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might
well be, was a look of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few
seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all
at once, and he started up.
His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him
with her arms stretched out, as though to embrace him. Instantly,
however, she drew them in again, and putting her elbows together,
held her hands before her face,and shuddered till the bed beneath
her shook.
“In God’s name what does this mean?” Harker cried out. “Dr.
Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is
wrong? Mina, dear what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my
God! Has it come to this!” And, raising himself to his knees, he
beat his hands wildly together.”Good God help us! Help her! Oh,
help her!”
With a quick movement he jumped from bed, and began to pull on
his clothes, all the man in him awake at the need for instant
exertion. “What has happened? Tell me all about it!” he cried
without pausing. “Dr. Van Helsing you love Mina, I know. Oh, do
something to save her. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her
while I look for him!”
His wife, through her terror and horror and distress, saw some
sure danger to him. Instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized
hold of him and cried out.
“No! No! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough
tonight, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must
stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you!” Her
expression became frantic as she spoke. And, he yielding to her,
she pulled him down sitting on the bedside, and clung to him
fiercely.
Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up
his golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness, “Do not
fear, my dear. We are here, and whilst this is close to you no foul
thing can approach. You are safe for tonight, and we must be calm
and take counsel together.”
She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head on her
husband’s breast. When she raised it, his white nightrobe was
stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where the thin
open wound in the neck had sent forth drops. The instant she saw it
she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking
sobs.
“Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh,
that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom
he may have most cause to fear.”
To this he spoke out resolutely, “Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame
to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you. And I shall
not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me
with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or
will of mine anything ever come between us!”
He put out his arms and folded her to his breast. And for a
while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head,
with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils. His
mouth was set as steel.
After a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and
then he said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt
tried his nervous power to the utmost.
“And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the
broad fact. Tell me all that has been.”
I told him exactly what had happened and he listened with
seeming impassiveness, but his nostrils twitched and his eyes
blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his
wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to the
open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to
see that whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively
over the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the
ruffled hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked
at the door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing
looked at me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to
take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts
of the unhappy husband and wife from each other and from
themselves. So on nodding acquiescence to him he asked them what
they had seen or done. To which Lord Godalming answered.
“I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our
rooms. I looked in the study but, though he had been there, he had
gone. He had, however … ” He stopped suddenly, looking at the
poor drooping figure on the bed.
Van Helsing said gravely, “Go on, friend Arthur. We want here no
more concealments. Our hope now is in knowing all. Tell
freely!”
So Art went on, “He had been there, and though it could only
have been for a few seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the
manuscript had been burned, and the blue flames were flickering
amongst the white ashes. The cylinders of your phonograph too were
thrown on the fire, and the wax had helped the flames.”
Here I interrupted. “Thank God there is the other copy in the
safe!”
His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he went on. “I ran
downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked into
Renfield’s room, but there was no trace there except … ” Again
he paused.
“Go on,” said Harker hoarsely. So he bowed his head and
moistening his lips with his tongue, added, “except that the poor
fellow is dead.”
Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of us
she said solemnly, “God’s will be done!”
I could not but feel that Art was keeping back something. But,
as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing.
Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked,”And you, friend Quincey,
have you any to tell?”
“A little,” he answered. “It may be much eventually, but at
present I can’t say. I thought it well to know if possible where
the Count would go when he left the house. I did not see him, but I
saw a bat rise from Renfield’s window, and flap westward. I
expected to see him in some shape go back to Carfax, but he
evidently sought some other lair. He will not be back tonight, for
the sky is reddening in the east, and the dawn is close. We must
work tomorrow!”
He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of
perhaps a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy
that I could hear the sound of our hearts beating.
Then Van Helsing said, placing his hand tenderly on Mrs.
Harker’s head, “And now, Madam Mina, poor dear, dear, Madam Mina,
tell us exactly what happened. God knows that I do not want that
you be pained, but it is need that we know all. For now more than
ever has all work to be done quick and sharp, and in deadly
earnest. The day is close to us that must end all, if it may be so,
and now is the chance that we may live and learn.”
The poor dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her
nerves as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head
lower and lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head
proudly, and held out one hand to Van Helsing who took it in his,
and after stooping and kissing it reverently, held it fast. The
other hand was locked in that of her husband, who held his other
arm thrown round her protectingly. After a pause in which she was
evidently ordering her thoughts, she began.
“I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me,
but for a long time it did not act. I seemed to become more
wakeful, and myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my
mind. All of them connected with death, and vampires, with blood,
and pain, and trouble.” Her husband involuntarily groaned as she
turned to him and said lovingly, “Do not fret, dear. You must be
brave and strong, and help me through the horrible task. If you
only knew what an effort it is to me to tell of this fearful thing
at all, you would understand how much I need your help. Well, I saw
I must try to help the medicine to its work with my will, if it was
to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to sleep. Sure enough
sleep must soon have come to me, for I remember no more. Jonathan
coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when next I
remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that I had
before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this. You will find
it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague
terror which had come to me before and the same sense of some
presence. I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so
soundly that it seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping
draught, and not I. I tried, but I could not wake him. This caused
me a great fear, and I looked around terrified. Then indeed, my
heart sank within me. Beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of
the mist, or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for
it had entirely disappeared, stood a tall, thin man, all in black.
I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen
face, the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin
white line, the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing
between, and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on
the windows of St. Mary’s Church at Witby. I knew, too, the red
scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant
my heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I
was paralyzed. In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting
whisper, pointing as he spoke to Jonathan.
“`Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his
brains out before your very eyes.’ I was appalled and was too
bewildered to do or say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed
one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat
with the other, saying as he did so, `First, a little refreshment
to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet. It is not the
first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my
thirst!’ I was bewildered, and strangely enough, I did not want to
hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such
is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity
me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat!” Her husband groaned
again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as
if he were the injured one, and went on.
“I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How
long this horrible thing lasted I know not, but it seemed that a
long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering
mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood!”The remembrance
seemed for a while to overpower her, and she drooped and would have
sunk down but for her husband’s sustaining arm. With a great effort
she recovered herself and went on.
“Then he spoke to me mockingly, `And so you, like the others,
would play your brains against mine. You would help these men to
hunt me and frustrate me in my design! You know now, and they know
in part already, and will know in full before long, what it is to
cross my path. They should have kept their energies for use closer
to home. Whilst they played wits against me, against me who
commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought for them,
hundreds of years before they were born, I was countermining them.
And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh,
blood of my blood, kin of my kin, my bountiful wine-press for a
while, and shall be later on my companion and my helper. You shall
be avenged in turn, for not one of them but shall minister to your
needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you have done.
You have aided in thwarting me. Now you shall come to my call. When
my brain says “Come!” to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my
bidding. And to that end this!’
With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp
nails opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt
out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with
the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that
I must either suffocate or swallow some to the … Oh, my God!
My God! What have I done? What have I done to deserve such a fate,
I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days.
God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril.
And in mercy pity those to whom she is dear!” Then she began to rub
her lips as though to cleanse them from pollution.
As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to
quicken, and everything became more and more clear. Harker was
still and quiet. But over his face, as the awful narrative went on,
came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light,
till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the
flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair.
We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the
unhappy pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking
action.
Of this I am sure. The sun rises today on no more miserable
house in all the great round of its daily course.