For a while sheer anger mastered me. It was as if he had during
her life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose
up as I said to him, “Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?”
He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness
of his face calmed me at once. “Would I were!” he said. “Madness
were easy to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my friend,
whey, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell so
simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my
life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I
wanted, no so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life,
and from a fearful death? Ah no!”
“Forgive me,” said I.
He went on, “My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in
the breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady.
But even yet I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to
accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be
possible when we have always believed the `no’ of it. It is more
hard still to accept so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as
Miss Lucy. Tonight I go to prove it. Dare you come with me?”
This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a truth,
Byron excepted from the catagory, jealousy.
“And prove the very truth he most abhorred.”
He saw my hesitation, and spoke, “The logic is simple, no
madman’s logic this time, jumping from tussock to tussock in a
misty bog. If it not be true, then proof will be relief. At worst
it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread. Yet every
dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief. Come,
I tell you what I propose. First, that we go off now and see that
child in the hospital. Dr. Vincent, of the North Hospital, where
the papers say the child is, is a friend of mine, and I think of
yours since you were in class at Amsterdam. He will let two
scientists see his case, if he will not let two friends. We shall
tell him nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then …
”
“And then?”
He took a key from his pocket and held it up. “And then we spend
the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is
the key that lock the tomb. I had it from the coffin man to give to
Arthur.”
My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful
ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what
heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon
was passing.
We found the child awake. It had had a sleep and taken some
food, and altogether was going on well. Dr, Vincent took the
bandage from its throat, and showed us the punctures. There was no
mistaking the similarity to those which had been on Lucy’s throat.
They were smaller, and the edges looked fresher, that was all. We
asked Vincent to what he attributed them, and he replied that it
must have been a bite of some animal, perhaps a rat, but for his
own part, he was inclined to think it was one of the bats which are
so numerous on the northern heights of London. “Out of so many
harmless ones,” he said, “there may be some wild specimen from the
South of a more malignant species. Some sailor may have brought one
home, and it managed to escape, or even from the Zoological Gardens
a young one may have got loose, or one be bred there from a
vampire. These things do occur, you, know. Only ten days ago a wolf
got out, and was, I believe, traced up in this direction. For a
week after, the children were playing nothing but Red Riding Hood
on the Heath and in every alley in the place until this `bloofer
lady’ scare came along, since then it has been quite a gala time
with them. Even this poor little mite, when he woke up today, asked
the nurse if he might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to
go, he said he wanted to play with the `bloofer lady’.”
“I hope,” said Van Helsing, “that when you are sending the child
home you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it.
These fancies to stray are most dangerous, and if the child were to
remain out another night, it would probably be fatal. But in any
case I suppose you will not let it away for some days?”
“Certainly not, not for a week at least, longer if the wound is
not healed.”
Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned
on, and the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw
how dark it was, he said,
“There is not hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let
us seek somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our
way.”
We dined at `Jack Straw’s Castle’ along with a little crowd of
bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About ten o’clock we
started from the inn. It was then very dark, and the scattered
lamps made the darkness greater when we were once outside their
individual radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we
were to go, for he went on unhesitatingly, but, as for me, I was in
quite a mixup as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and
fewer people, till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met
even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round.
At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed
over. With some little difficulty, for it was very dark, and the
whole place seemed so strange to us, we found the Westenra tomb.
The Professor took the key, opened the creaky door, and standing
back, politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to precede
him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the courtliness
of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My companion
followed me quickly, and cautiously drew the door to, after
carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a
spring one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight.
Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece
of candle, proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the daytime, and
when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome
enough, but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank
and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns,
when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed
dominance, when the time-discolored stone, and dust-encrusted
mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded
silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect
was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It
conveyed irresistibly the idea that life, animal life, was not the
only thing which could pass away.
Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his
candle so that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it
that the sperm dropped in white patches which congealed as they
touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucy’s coffin. Another
search in his bag, and he took out a turnscrew.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced.”
Straightway he began taking out the screws, and finally lifted
off the lid, showing the casing of lead beneath. The sight was
almost too much for me. It seemed to be as much an affront to the
dead as it would have been to have stripped off her clothing in her
sleep whilst living. I actually took hold of his hand to stop
him.
He only said, “You shall see,”and again fumbling in his bag took
out a tiny fret saw. Striking the turnscrew through the lead with a
swift downward stab, which made me wince, he made a small hole,
which was, however, big enough to admit the point of the saw. I had
expected a rush of gas from the week-old corpse. We doctors, who
have had to study our dangers, have to become accustomed to such
things, and I drew back towards the door. But the Professor never
stopped for a moment. He sawed down a couple of feet along one side
of the lead coffin, and then across, and down the other side.
Taking the edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the
foot of the coffin, and holding up the candle into the aperture,
motioned to me to look.
I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty. It was certainly a
surprise to me, and gave me a considerable shock, but Van Helsing
was unmoved. He was now more sure than ever of his ground, and so
emboldened to proceed in his task.”Are you satisfied now, friend
John?” he asked.
I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature awake
within me as I answered him, “I am satisfied that Lucy’s body is
not in that coffin, but that only proves one thing.”
“And what is that, friend John?”
“That it is not there.”
“That is good logic,” he said, “so far as it goes. But how do
you, how can you, account for it not being there?”
“Perhaps a body-snatcher,” I suggested. “Some of the
undertaker’s people may have stolen it.” I felt that I was speaking
folly, and yet it was the only real cause which I could
suggest.
The Professor sighed. “Ah well!” he said,” we must have more
proof. Come with me.”
He put on the coffin lid again, gathered up all his things and
placed them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle
also in the bag. We opened the door, and went out. Behind us he
closed the door and locked it. He handed me the key, saying, “Will
you keep it? You had better be assured.”
I laughed, it was not a very cheerful laugh, I am bound to say,
as I motioned him to keep it. “A key is nothing,” I said, “thee are
many duplicates, and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock of
this kind.”
He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he told me
to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at the
other.
I took up my place behind a yew tree, and I saw his dark figure
move until the intervening headstones and trees hid it from my
sight. It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place I
heard a distant clock strike twelve, and in time came one and two.
I was chilled and unnerved, and angry with the Professor for taking
me on such an errand and with myself for coming. I was too cold and
too sleepy to be keenly observant, and not sleepy enough to betray
my trust, so altogether I had a dreary, miserable time.
Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a
white streak, moving between two dark yew trees at the side of the
churchyard farthest from the tomb. At the same time a dark mass
moved from the Professor’s side of the ground, and hurriedly went
towards it. Then I too moved, but I had to go round headstones and
railed-off tombs, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast,
and somewhere far off an early cock crew. A little ways off, beyond
a line of scattered juniper trees, which marked the pathway to the
church, a white dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb.
The tomb itself was hidden by trees, and I could not see where the
figure had disappeared. I heard the rustle of actual movement where
I had first seen the white figure, and coming over, found the
Professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When he saw me he held
it out to me, and said, “Are you satisfied now?”
“No,” I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive.
“Do you not see the child?”
“Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it
wounded?”
“We shall see,”said the Professor, and with one impulse we took
our way out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child.
When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump
of trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child’s throat. It
was without a scratch or scar of any kind.
“Was I right?” I asked triumphantly.
“We were just in time,” said the Professor thankfully.
We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so
consulted about it. If we were to take it to a police station we
should have to give some account of our movements during the night.
At least, we should have had to make some statement as to how we
had come to find the child. So finally we decided that we would
take it to the Heath, and when we heard a policeman coming, would
leave it where he could not fail to find it. We would then seek our
way home as quickly as we could. All fell out well. At the edge of
Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman’s heavy tramp, and laying the
child on the pathway, we waited and watched until he saw it as he
flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation of
astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got
a cab near the `Spainiards,’ and drove to town.
I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a
few hours’ sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He
insists that I go with him on another expedition.
27 September.—It was two o’clock before we found a suitable
opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all
completed, and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken
themselves lazily away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump
of alder trees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew
that we were safe till morning did we desire it, but the Professor
told me that we should not want more than an hour at most. Again I
felt that horrid sense of the reality of things, in which any
effort of imagination seemed out of place, and I realized
distinctly the perils of the law which we were incurring in our
unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless. Outrageous
as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if a woman dead nearly a
week were really dead, it now seemed the height of folly to open
the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our own
eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders,
however, and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on
his own road, no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened
the vault, and again courteously motioned me to precede. The place
was not so gruesome as last night, but oh, how unutterably mean
looking when the sunshine streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to
Lucy’s coffin, and I followed. He bent over and again forced back
the leaden flange, and a shock of surprise and dismay shot through
me.
There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night
before her funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful
than ever, and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were
red, nay redder than before, and on the cheeks was a delicate
bloom.
“Is this a juggle?” I said to him.
“Are you convinced now?” said the Professor, in response, and as
he spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder,
pulled back the dead lips and showed the white teeth. “See,” he
went on,”they are even sharper than before. With this and this,”
and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below it, “the
little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend
John?”
Once more argumentative hostility woke within me. I could not
accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested. So, with an
attempt to argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said,
“She may have been placed here since last night.”
“Indeed? That is so, and by whom?”
“I do not know. Someone has done it.”
“And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time
would not look so.”
I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not
seem to notice my silence. At any rate, he showed neither chagrin
nor triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman,
raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening
the lips and examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and
said,
“Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded.
Here is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by
the vampire when she was in a trance, sleep-walking, oh, you start.
You do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it later, and
in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she
dies, and in trance she is Un-Dead, too. So it is that she differ
from all other. Usually when the Un-Dead sleep at home,” as he
spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to
a vampire was `home’, “their face show what they are, but this so
sweet that was when she not Un-Dead she go back to the nothings of
the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard
that I must kill her in her sleep.”
This turned my blood cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I
was accepting Van Helsing’s theories. But if she were really dead,
what was there of terror in the idea of killing her?
He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in my face, for
he said almost joyously, “Ah, you believe now?”
I answered, “Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing
to accept. How will you do this bloody work?”
“I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I
shall drive a stake through her body.”
It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the
woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was not so strong as I
had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence
of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsing called it, and to
loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all
objective?
I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he
stood as if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of
his bag with a snap, and said,
“I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is
best. If I did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this
moment, what is to be done. But there are other things to follow,
and things that are thousand times more difficult in that them we
do not know. This is simple. She have yet no life taken, though
that is of time, and to act now would be to take danger from her
forever. But then we may have to want Arthur, and how shall we tell
him of this? If you, who saw the wounds on Lucy’s throat, and saw
the wounds so similar on the child’s at the hospital, if you, who
saw the coffin empty last night and full today with a woman who
have not change only to be more rose and more beautiful in a whole
week, after she die, if you know of this and know of the white
figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard, and yet
of your own senses you did not believe, how then, can I expect
Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe?
“He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when she was dying.
I know he has forgiven me because in some mistaken idea I have done
things that prevent him say goodbye as he ought, and he may think
that in some more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive, and
that in most mistake of all we have killed her. He will then argue
back that it is we, mistaken ones, that have killed her by our
ideas, and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet he never can be
sure, and that is the worst of all. And he will sometimes think
that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint his dreams
with horrors of what she must have suffered, and again, he will
think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all,
an Un-Dead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now,
since I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I
know that he must pass through the bitter waters to reach the
sweet. He, poor fellow, must have one hour that will make the very
face of heaven grow black to him, then we can act for good all
round and send him peace. My mind is made up. Let us go. You return
home for tonight to your asylum, and see that all be well. As for
me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard in my own way.
Tomorrow night you will come to me to the Berkeley Hotel at ten of
the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too, and also that so
fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we shall all
have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly and there
dine, for I must be back here before the sun set.”
So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of
the churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to
Piccadilly.
NOTE LEFT BY VAN HELSING IN HIS PORTMANTEAU, BERKELEY HOTEL
DIRECTED TO JOHN SEWARD, M. D. (Not Delivered)
27 September
“Friend John,
“I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone to
watch in that churchyard. It pleases me that the Un-Dead, Miss
Lucy, shall not leave tonight, that so on the morrow night she may
be more eager. Therefore I shall fix some things she like not,
garlic and a crucifix, and so seal up the door of the tomb. She is
young as Un-Dead, and will heed. Moreover, these are only to
prevent her coming out. They may not prevail on her wanting to get
in, for then the Un-Dead is desperate, and must find the line of
least resistance, whatsoever it may be. I shall be at hand all the
night from sunset till after sunrise, and if there be aught that
may be learned I shall learn it. For Miss Lucy or from her, I have
no fear, but that other to whom is there that she is Un-Dead, he
have not the power to seek her tomb and find shelter. He is
cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all
along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy’s
life, and we lost, and in many ways the Un-Dead are strong. He have
always the strength in his hand of twenty men, even we four who
gave our strength to Miss Lucy it also is all to him. Besides, he
can summon his wolf and I know not what. So if it be that he came
thither on this night he shall find me. But none other shall, until
it be too late. But it may be that he will not attempt the place.
There is no reason why he should. His hunting ground is more full
of game than the churchyard where the Un-Dead woman sleeps, and the
one old man watch.
“Therefore I write this in case … Take the papers that are
with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read them, and
then find this great Un-Dead, and cut off his head and burn his
heart or drive a stake through it, so that the world may rest from
him.
“If it be so, farewell.
“VAN HELSING.”
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY
28 September.—It is wonderful what a good night’s sleep will do
for one. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsing’s
monstrous ideas, but now they seem to start out lurid before me as
outrages on common sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all.
I wonder if his mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely
there must be some rational explanation of all these mysterious
things. Is it possible that the Professor can have done it himself?
He is so abnormally clever that if he went off his head he would
carry out his intent with regard to some fixed idea in a wonderful
way. I am loathe to think it, and indeed it would be almost as
great a marvel as the other to find that Van Helsing was mad, but
anyhow I shall watch him carefully. I may get some light on the
mystery.
29 September.—Last night, at a little before ten o’clock, Arthur
and Quincey came into Van Helsing’s room. He told us all what he
wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if
all our wills were centered in his. He began by saying that he
hoped we would all come with him too, “for,” he said, “there is a
grave duty to be done there. You were doubtless surprised at my
letter?” This query was directly addressed to Lord Godalming. “I
was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so much trouble
around my house of late that I could do without any more. I have
been curious, too, as to what you mean.
“Quincey and I talked it over, but the more we talked, the more
puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself that I’m about up a
tree as to any meaning about anything.”
“Me too,” said Quincey Morris laconically.
“Oh,” said the Professor, “then you are nearer the beginning,
both of you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back
before he can even get so far as to begin.”
It was evident that he recognized my return to my old doubting
frame of mind without my saying a word. Then, turning to the other
two, he said with intense gravity,
“I want your permission to do what I think good this night. It
is, I know, much to ask, and when you know what it is I propose to
do you will know, and only then how much. Therefore may I ask that
you promise me in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be
angry with me for a time, I must not disguise from myself the
possibility that such may be, you shall not blame yourselves for
anything.”
“That’s frank anyhow,” broke in Quincey. “I’ll answer for the
Professor. I don’t quite see his drift, but I swear he’s honest,
and that’s good enough for me.”
“I thank you, Sir,” said Van Helsing proudly. “I have done
myself the honor of counting you one trusting friend, and such
endorsement is dear to me.” He held out a hand, which Quincey
took.
Then Arthur spoke out, “Dr. Van Helsing, I don’t quite like to
`buy a pig in a poke’, as they say in Scotland, and if it be
anything in which my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a
Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. If you can
assure me that what you intend does not violate either of these
two, then I give my consent at once, though for the life of me, I
cannot understand what you are driving at.”
“I accept your limitation,” said Van Helsing, “and all I ask of
you is that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine,
you will first consider it well and be satisfied that it does not
violate your reservations.”
“Agreed!” said Arthur. “That is only fair. And now that the
pourparlers are over, may I ask what it is we are to do?”
“I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to the
churchyard at Kingstead.”
Arthur’s face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way,
“Where poor Lucy is buried?”
The Professor bowed.
Arthur went on, “And when there?”
“To enter the tomb!”
Arthur stood up. “Professor, are you in earnest, or is it some
monstrous joke? Pardon me, I see that you are in earnest.” He sat
down again, but I could see that he sat firmly and proudly, as one
who is on his dignity. There was silence until he asked again, “And
when in the tomb?”
“To open the coffin.”
“This is too much!” he said, angrily rising again. “I am willing
to be patient in all things that are reasonable, but in this, this
desecration of the grave, of one who … ” He fairly choked with
indignation.
The Professor looked pityingly at him.”If I could spare you one
pang, my poor friend,” he said, “God knows I would. But this night
our feet must tread in thorny paths, or later, and for ever, the
feet you love must walk in paths of flame!”
Arthur looked up with set white face and said, “Take care, sir,
take care!”
“Would it not be well to hear what I have to say?” said Van
Helsing. “And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose.
Shall I go on?”
“That’s fair enough,” broke in Morris.
After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort,
“Miss Lucy is dead, is it not so? Yes! Then there can be no wrong
to her. But if she be not dead… ”
Arthur jumped to his feet, “Good God!” he cried. “What do you
mean? Has there been any mistake, has she been buried alive?”He
groaned in anguish that not even hope could soften.
“I did not say she was alive, my child. I did not think it. I go
no further than to say that she might be Un-Dead.”
“Un-Dead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare,
or what is it?”
“There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by
age they may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the
verge of one. But I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead
Miss Lucy?”
“Heavens and earth, no!” cried Arthur in a storm of passion.
“Not for the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her
dead body. Dr. Van Helsing, you try me too far. What have I done to
you that you should torture me so? What did that poor, sweet girl
do that you should want to cast such dishonor on her grave? Are you
mad, that you speak of such things, or am I mad to listen to them?
Don’t dare think more of such a desecration. I shall not give my
consent to anything you do. I have a duty to do in protecting her
grave from outrage, and by God, I shall do it!”
Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated,
and said, gravely and sternly, “My Lord Godalming, I too, have a
duty to do, a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead,
and by God, I shall do it! All I ask you now is that you come with
me, that you look and listen, and if when later I make the same
request you do not be more eager for its fulfillment even than I
am, then, I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me. And then,
to follow your Lordship’s wishes I shall hold myself at your
disposal to render an account to you, when and where you will.” His
voice broke a little, and he went on with a voice full of pity.
“But I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me. In a long
life of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which
sometimes did wring my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as
now. Believe me that if the time comes for you to change your mind
towards me, one look from you will wipe away all this so sad hour,
for I would do what a man can to save you from sorrow. Just think.
For why should I give myself so much labor and so much of sorrow? I
have come here from my own land to do what I can of good, at the
first to please my friend John, and then to help a sweet young
lady, whom too, I come to love. For her, I am ashamed to say so
much, but I say it in kindness, I gave what you gave, the blood of
my veins. I gave it, I who was not, like you, her lover, but only
her physician and her friend. I gave her my nights and days, before
death, after death, and if my death can do her good even now, when
she is the dead Un-Dead, she shall have it freely.” He said this
with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected by
it.
He took the old man’s hand and said in a broken voice, “Oh, it
is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand, but at least I
shall go with you and wait.”