Dracula

by Stoker, Bram

  Indeed one of the nicer aspects of writing a novel is that it does afford us room to recover from our writing errors and regain the reader’s full engagement!

  See how quickly Stoker is pulling us back in? Here we have Van Helsing seeing confirmation of what he has suspected: Lucy has been attacked by a vampire!

  Interesting to see Van Helsing answer Seward’s question with the same question, perhaps testing his skill, or being coy. Or is he simply not ready to reveal the true horrors that await them?

  Rhetorical question: How does Van Helsing show himself to be a thorough science practitioner by not telling Seward anything more at this point? And how does Stoker maintain and heighten suspense by keeping Van Helsing silent?

  Lucy’s “presage of horror” isn’t far from the truth, as we have seen how sleeping leaves one at risk to the dangers of Dracula. Harker was tormented by warnings of falling asleep in the wrong place, and Lucy’s nighttime visitor is clearly at fault for her condition. Even if she doesn’t know why she fears the night and falling asleep so much, one can only imagine the barely conscious horror of having a vampire clasped to one’s neck in the night.

  It should be noted that sleeping has long been a time when the most frightful things can happen to us—from Lucy’s encounters with the count to Freddie Krueger’s unconscious visitations to the Paranormal Activity that occurs when victims try to sleep in the eponymous movies. If you are a character in a horror film or novel, sleeping is the moment when you are at your most vulnerable.

  Had we not spoken earlier of multiple blood transfusions to come, this regression would have been a terrific “Gotcha” moment. The effect of Lucy’s condition after her rebound leaves Van Helsing and Seward devastated—which is just what Stoker wanted and just what his knowledge of psychology enabled him to pull off.

  Poe, one of Stoker’s inspirations, movingly wrote about his wife Virginia’s tuberculosis and how she would have periods when she seemed cured and “ … I again hoped.” Poe claimed that “… it was the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope & despair” that led to his alcoholism and “insanity.”

  Seward is no longer the flub-a-dub: He is a good friend, as his actions prove. All the principal characters of Dracula are profoundly changed by the end of the novel.

  Okay, we know garlic. But the characters of Dracula and the readers of Stoker’s period were not knowledgeable in vampiric lore. So we have here another mini-mystery, a foreshadowing of all that will be revealed about Dracula’s strengths and weaknesses. It is also a moment of a professor embracing old “superstitions” rather than science, or maybe this is a moment when science and superstition converge?

  When Van Helsing loses the faux Dutch dialect and gives us the simple statements, Stoker lets us see him as the strong, determined man he is meant to be.

  The “fairy tale” warning: Do not open the window or the door. When a dire warning is given, the character will undoubtably ignore the warning. An implied cliff-hanger … but we know what’s coming, don’t we?

  Chapter 11

  LUCY WESTENRA’S DIARY

  12 SEPTEMBER.—How good they all are to me. I quite love that dear Dr. Van Helsing. I wonder why he was so anxious about these flowers. He positively frightened me, he was so fierce. And yet he must have been right, for I feel comfort from them already. Somehow, I do not dread being alone tonight, and I can go to sleep without fear. I shall not mind any flapping outside the window. Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late, the pain of sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, and with such unknown horrors as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads, to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams. Well, here I am tonight, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with ‘virgin crants and maiden strewments.’ I never liked garlic before, but tonight it is delightful! There is peace in its smell. I feel sleep coming already. Goodnight, everybody.

  DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

  13 SEPTEMBER.—Called at the Berkeley and found Van Helsing, as usual, up to time. The carriage ordered from the hotel was waiting. The Professor took his bag, which he always brings with him now.

  Let all be put down exactly. Van Helsing and I arrived at Hillingham at eight o’clock. It was a lovely morning. The bright sunshine and all the fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of nature’s annual work. The leaves were turning to all kinds of beautiful colours, but had not yet begun to drop from the trees. When we entered we met Mrs. Westenra coming out of the morning room. She is always an early riser.

  She greeted us warmly and said, “You will be glad to know that Lucy is better. The dear child is still asleep. I looked into her room and saw her, but did not go in, lest I should disturb her.” The Professor smiled, and looked quite jubilant. He rubbed his hands together, and said:—

  “Aha! I thought I had diagnosed the case. My treatment is working.” To which she replied:—

  “You must not take all the credit to yourself, doctor. Lucy’s state this morning is due in part to me.”

  “How do you mean, ma’am?” asked the Professor.

  “Well, I was anxious about the dear child in the night, and went into her room. She was sleeping soundly, so soundly that even my coming did not wake her. But the room was awfully stuffy. There were a lot of those horrible, strong-smelling flowers about everywhere, and she had actually a bunch of them round her neck. I feared that the heavy odour would be too much for the dear child in her weak state, so I took them all away and opened a bit of the window to let in a little fresh air. You will be pleased with her, I am sure.”

  She moved off into her boudoir, where she usually breakfasted early. As she had spoken, I watched the Professor’s face, and saw it turn ashen gray. He had been able to retain his self-command whilst the poor lady was present, for he knew her state and how mischievous a shock would be. He actually smiled on her as he held open the door for her to pass into her room. But the instant she had disappeared he pulled me, suddenly and forcibly, into the dining room and closed the door.

  Then, for the first time in my life, I saw Van Helsing break down. He raised his hands over his head in a sort of mute despair, and then beat his palms together in a helpless way. Finally he sat down on a chair, and putting his hands before his face, began to sob, with loud, dry sobs that seemed to come from the very racking of his heart. Then he raised his arms again, as though appealing to the whole universe. “God! God! God!” he said. “What have we done, what has this poor thing done, that we are so sore beset? Is there fate amongst us still, send down from the pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such way? This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul, and we must not tell her, we must not even warn her, or she die, then both die. Oh, how we are beset! How are all the powers of the devils against us!” Suddenly he jumped to his feet. “Come,” he said, “come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not. We must fight him all the same.” He went to the hall door for his bag, and together we went up to Lucy’s room.

  Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the bed. This time he did not start as he looked on the poor face with the same awful, waxen pallor as before. He wore a look of stern sadness and infinite pity.

  “As I expected,” he murmured, with that hissing inspiration of his which meant so much. Without a word he went and locked the door, and then began to set out on the little table the instruments for yet another operation of transfusion of blood. I had long ago recognized the necessity, and begun to take off my coat, but he stopped me with a warning hand. “No!” he said. “Today you must operate. I shall provide. You are weakened already.” As he spoke he took off his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeve.

  Again the operation. Again the narcotic. Again some return of colour to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of health
y sleep. This time I watched whilst Van Helsing recruited himself and rested.

  Presently he took an opportunity of telling Mrs. Westenra that she must not remove anything from Lucy’s room without consulting him; that the flowers were of medicinal value, and that the breathing of their odour was a part of the system of cure. Then he took over the care of the case himself, saying that he would watch this night and the next, and would send me word when to come.

  After another hour Lucy waked from her sleep, fresh and bright and seemingly not much the worse for her terrible ordeal.

  What does it all mean? I am beginning to wonder if my long habit of life amongst the insane is beginning to tell upon my own brain.

  LUCY WESTENRA’S DIARY

  17 SEPTEMBER.—Four days and nights of peace. I am getting so strong again that I hardly know myself. It is as if I had passed through some long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful sunshine and feel the fresh air of the morning around me. I have a dim half remembrance of long, anxious times of waiting and fearing, darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present distress more poignant. And then long spells of oblivion, and the rising back to life as a diver coming up through a great press of water. Since, however, Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad dreaming seems to have passed away. The noises that used to frighten me out of my wits, the flapping against the windows, the distant voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I know not where and commanded me to do I know not what, have all ceased. I go to bed now without any fear of sleep. I do not even try to keep awake. I have grown quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful arrives for me every day from Haarlem. Tonight Dr. Van Helsing is going away, as he has to be for a day in Amsterdam. But I need not be watched. I am well enough to be left alone. Thank God for Mother’s sake, and dear Arthur’s, and for all our friends who have been so kind! I shall not even feel the change, for last night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time. I found him asleep twice when I awoke. But I did not fear to go to sleep again, although the boughs or bats or something flapped almost angrily against the window panes.

  THE PALL MALL GAZETTE

  18 SEPTEMBER.

  THE ESCAPED WOLF

  Perilous Adventure of Our Interviewer

  INTERVIEW WITH THE KEEPER IN THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS:

  After many inquiries and almost as many refusals, and perpetually using the words Pall Mall Gazette as a sort of talisman, I managed to find the keeper of the section of the Zoological Gardens in which the wolf department is included. Thomas Bilder lives in one of the cottages in the enclosure behind the elephant house, and was just sitting down to his tea when I found him. Thomas and his wife are hospitable folk, elderly, and without children, and if the specimen I enjoyed of their hospitality be of the average kind, their lives must be pretty comfortable. The keeper would not enter on what he called business until the supper was over, and we were all satisfied. Then when the table was cleared, and he had lit his pipe, he said:—

  “Now, Sir, you can go on and arsk me what you want. You’ll excoose me refoosin’ to talk of perfeshunal subjucts afore meals. I gives the wolves and the jackals and the hyenas in all our section their tea afore I begins to arsk them questions.”

  “How do you mean, ask them questions?” I queried, wishful to get him into a talkative humor.

  “‘Ittin’ of them over the ‘ead with a pole is one way. Scratchin’ of their ears in another, when gents as is flush wants a bit of a show-orf to their gals. I don’t so much mind the fust, the ‘ittin of the pole part afore I chucks in their dinner, but I waits till they’ve ‘ad their sherry and kawffee, so to speak, afore I tries on with the ear scratchin’. Mind you,” he added philosophically, “there’s a deal of the same nature in us as in them theer animiles. Here’s you a-comin’ and arskin’ of me questions about my business, and I that grump-like that only for your bloomin’ ‘arf-quid I’d ‘a’ seen you blowed fust ‘fore I’d answer. Not even when you arsked me sarcastic like if I’d like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence did I tell yer to go to ‘ell?”

  “You did.”

  “An’ when you said you’d report me for usin’ obscene language that was ‘ittin’ me over the ‘ead. But the ‘arf-quid made that all right. I weren’t a-goin’ to fight, so I waited for the food, and did with my ‘owl as the wolves and lions and tigers does. But, lor’ love yer ‘art, now that the old ‘ooman has stuck a chunk of her tea-cake in me, an’ rinsed me out with her bloomin’ old teapot, and I’ve lit hup, you may scratch my ears for all you’re worth, and won’t even get a growl out of me. Drive along with your questions. I know what yer a-comin’ at, that ‘ere escaped wolf.”

  “Exactly. I want you to give me your view of it. Just tell me how it happened, and when I know the facts I’ll get you to say what you consider was the cause of it, and how you think the whole affair will end.”

  “All right, guv’nor. This ‘ere is about the ‘ole story. That ‘ere wolf what we called Bersicker was one of three gray ones that came from Norway to Jamrach’s, which we bought off him four years ago. He was a nice well-behaved wolf, that never gave no trouble to talk of. I’m more surprised at ‘im for wantin’ to get out nor any other animile in the place. But, there, you can’t trust wolves no more nor women.”

  “Don’t you mind him, Sir!” broke in Mrs. Tom, with a cheery laugh. “‘E’s got mindin’ the animiles so long that blest if he ain’t like a old wolf ‘isself! But there ain’t no ‘arm in ‘im.”

  “Well, Sir, it was about two hours after feedin’ yesterday when I first hear my disturbance. I was makin’ up a litter in the monkey house for a young puma which is ill. But when I heard the yelpin’ and ‘owlin’ I kem away straight. There was Bersicker a-tearin’ like a mad thing at the bars as if he wanted to get out. There wasn’t much people about that day, and close at hand was only one man, a tall, thin chap, with a ‘ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin’ through it. He had a ‘ard, cold look and red eyes, and I took a sort of mislike to him, for it seemed as if it was ‘im as they was hirritated at. He ‘ad white kid gloves on ‘is ‘ands, and he pointed out the animiles to me and says, ‘Keeper, these wolves seem upset at something.’

  “‘Maybe it’s you,’ says I, for I did not like the airs as he give ‘isself. He didn’t get angry, as I ‘oped he would, but he smiled a kind of insolent smile, with a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. ‘Oh no, they wouldn’t like me,’ ‘e says.

  “‘Ow yes, they would,’ says I, a-imitatin’ of him. ‘They always like a bone or two to clean their teeth on about tea time, which you ‘as a bagful.’

  “Well, it was a odd thing, but when the animiles see us a-talkin’ they lay down, and when I went over to Bersicker he let me stroke his ears same as ever. That there man kem over, and blessed but if he didn’t put in his hand and stroke the old wolf’s ears too!

  “‘Tyke care,’ says I. ‘Bersicker is quick.’

  “‘Never mind,’ he says. I’m used to ’em!’

  “‘Are you in the business yourself?’ I says, tyking off my ‘at, for a man what trades in wolves, anceterer, is a good friend to keepers.

  “‘No,’ says he, ‘not exactly in the business, but I ‘ave made pets of several.’ And with that he lifts his ‘at as perlite as a lord, and walks away. Old Bersicker kep’ a-lookin’ arter ‘im till ‘e was out of sight, and then went and lay down in a corner and wouldn’t come hout the ‘ole hevening. Well, larst night, so soon as the moon was hup, the wolves here all began a-’owling. There warn’t nothing for them to ‘owl at. There warn’t no one near, except some one that was evidently a-callin’ a dog somewheres out back of the gardings in the Park road. Once or twice I went out to see that all was right, and it was, and then the ‘owling stopped. Just before twelve o’clock I just took a look round afore turnin’ in, an’, bust me, but when I kem opposite to old Bersicker’s cage I see the rails broken and t
wisted about and the cage empty. And that’s all I know for certing.”

  “Did any one else see anything?”

  “One of our gard’ners was a-comin’ ‘ome about that time from a ‘armony, when he sees a big gray dog comin’ out through the garding ‘edges. At least, so he says, but I don’t give much for it myself, for if he did ‘e never said a word about it to his missis when ‘e got ‘ome, and it was only after the escape of the wolf was made known, and we had been up all night a-huntin’ of the Park for Bersicker, that he remembered seein’ anything. My own belief was that the ‘armony ‘ad got into his ‘ead.”

  “Now, Mr. Bilder, can you account in any way for the escape of the wolf?”

  “Well, Sir,” he said, with a suspicious sort of modesty, “I think I can, but I don’t know as ‘ow you’d be satisfied with the theory.”

  “Certainly I shall. If a man like you, who knows the animals from experience, can’t hazard a good guess at any rate, who is even to try?”

  “Well then, Sir, I accounts for it this way. It seems to me that ‘ere wolf escaped—simply because he wanted to get out.”

  From the hearty way that both Thomas and his wife laughed at the joke I could see that it had done service before, and that the whole explanation was simply an elaborate sell. I couldn’t cope in badinage with the worthy Thomas, but I thought I knew a surer way to his heart, so I said, “Now, Mr. Bilder, we’ll consider that first half-sovereign worked off, and this brother of his is waiting to be claimed when you’ve told me what you think will happen.”