Замок Дракулы в Румынии 19 страница

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 funereal 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 outstretched 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 a sore trial; but after, when you look

back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter

waters, my child. By this time to-morrow 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 all 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 becomes 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 assimilating 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 for ever.

 

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 bitter 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."

 

 

CHAPTER XVII

 

DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--_continued_

 

 

When we arrived at the Berkeley Hotel, Van Helsing found a telegram

waiting for him:--

 

"Am coming up by train. Jonathan at Whitby. Important news.--MINA

HARKER."

 

The Professor was delighted. "Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina," he said,

"pearl among women! She arrive, but I cannot stay. She must go to your

house, friend John. You must meet her at the station. Telegraph her _en

route_, so that she may be prepared."

 

When the wire was despatched he had a cup of tea; over it he told me of

a diary kept by Jonathan Harker when abroad, and gave me a typewritten

copy of it, as also of Mrs. Harker's diary at Whitby. "Take these," he

said, "and study them well. When I have returned you will be master of

all the facts, and we can then better enter on our inquisition. Keep

them safe, for there is in them much of treasure. You will need all your

faith, even you who have had such an experience as that of to-day. What

is here told," he laid his hand heavily and gravely on the packet of

papers as he spoke, "may be the beginning of the end to you and me and

many another; or it may sound the knell of the Un-Dead who walk the

earth. Read all, I pray you, with the open mind; and if you can add in

any way to the story here told do so, for it is all-important. You have

kept diary of all these so strange things; is it not so? Yes! Then we

shall go through all these together when we meet." He then made ready

for his departure, and shortly after drove off to Liverpool Street. I

took my way to Paddington, where I arrived about fifteen minutes before

the train came in.

 

The crowd melted away, after the bustling fashion common to arrival

platforms; and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might miss my

guest, when a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl stepped up to me, and,

after a quick glance, said: "Dr. Seward, is it not?"

 

"And you are Mrs. Harker!" I answered at once; whereupon she held out

her hand.

 

"I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucy; but----" She stopped

suddenly, and a quick blush overspread her face.

 

The blush that rose to my own cheeks somehow set us both at ease, for it

was a tacit answer to her own. I got her luggage, which included a

typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I had

sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sitting-room and bedroom

prepared at once for Mrs. Harker.

 

In due time we arrived. She knew, of course, that the place was a

lunatic asylum, but I could see that she was unable to repress a shudder

when we entered.

 

She told me that, if she might, she would come presently to my study, as

she had much to say. So here I am finishing my entry in my phonograph

diary whilst I await her. As yet I have not had the chance of looking at

the papers which Van Helsing left with me, though they lie open before

me. I must get her interested in something, so that I may have an

opportunity of reading them. She does not know how precious time is, or

what a task we have in hand. I must be careful not to frighten her. Here

she is!

 

 

_Mina Harker's Journal._

 

_29 September._--After I had tidied myself, I went down to Dr. Seward's

study. At the door I paused a moment, for I thought I heard him talking

with some one. As, however, he had pressed me to be quick, I knocked at

the door, and on his calling out, "Come in," I entered.

 

To my intense surprise, there was no one with him. He was quite alone,

and on the table opposite him was what I knew at once from the

description to be a phonograph. I had never seen one, and was much

interested.

 

"I hope I did not keep you waiting," I said; "but I stayed at the door

as I heard you talking, and thought there was some one with you."

 

"Oh," he replied with a smile, "I was only entering my diary."

 

"Your diary?" I asked him in surprise.

 

"Yes," he answered. "I keep it in this." As he spoke he laid his hand on

the phonograph. I felt quite excited over it, and blurted out:--

 

"Why, this beats even shorthand! May I hear it say something?"

 

"Certainly," he replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in train

for speaking. Then he paused, and a troubled look overspread his face.

 

"The fact is," he began awkwardly, "I only keep my diary in it; and as

it is entirely--almost entirely--about my cases, it may be awkward--that

is, I mean----" He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his

embarrassment:--

 

"You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end. Let me hear how she died;

for all that I know of her, I shall be very grateful. She was very, very

dear to me."

 

To my surprise, he answered, with a horrorstruck look in his face:--

 

"Tell you of her death? Not for the wide world!"

 

"Why not?" I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me.

Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse.

At length he stammered out:--

 

"You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the

diary." Even while he was speaking an idea dawned upon him, and he said

with unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with the naivete