CHAPTER 14
MINAS HARKER'S JOURNAL
23 September.--Joanna is better after a bad night. I am so glad that she has plenty of work to do, for that keeps her mind off the terrible things, and oh, I am rejoiced that she is not now weighed down with the responsibility of her new position. I knew she would be true to herself, and now how proud I am to see my Joanna rising to the height of her advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come upon her. She will be away all day till late, for she said she could not lunch at home. My household work is done, so I shall take her foreign journal, and lock myself up in my room and read it.
24 September.--I hadn't the heart to write last night, that terrible record of Joanna's upset me so. Poor dear! How she must have suffered, whether it be true or only imagination. I wonder if there is any truth in it at all. Did she get her brain fever, and then write all those terrible things, or had she some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject to her. And yet that woman we saw yesterday! She seemed quite certain of her, poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral upset her and sent her mind back on some train of thought.
She believes it all herself. I remember how on our wedding day she said 'Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane . . .’ There seems to be through it all some thread of continuity. That fearful Countess was coming to London. If it should be, and she came to London, with its teeming millions . . . There may be a solemn duty, and if it come we must not shrink from it. I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other eyes if required. And if it be wanted, then, perhaps, if I am ready, poor Joanna may not be upset, for I can speak for her and never let her be troubled or worried with it at all. If ever Joanna quite gets over the nervousness she may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask her questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort her.
LETTER, VAN HELSING TO M. HARKER
24 September
(Confidence)
'Dear Sir,
'I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far friend as that I sent to you sad news of Mister Lucas Westenra's death. By the kindness of Lady Godalming, I am empowered to read his letters and papers, for I am deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important. In them I find some letters from you, which show how great friends you were and how you love him. Oh, Minass, by that love, I implore you, help me. It is for others' good that I ask, to redress great wrong, and to lift much and terrible troubles, that may be more great than you can know. May it be that I see you? You can trust me. I am friend of Dr. Joan Seward and of Lady Godalming (that was Artemis of Mister Lucas). I must keep it private for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see you at once if you tell me I am privilege to come, and where and when. I implore your pardon. I have read your letters to poor Lucas, and know how good you are and how your wife suffer. So I pray you, if it may be, enlighten her not, least it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me.
'VAN HELSING'
TELEGRAM, M. HARKER TO VAN HELSING
25 September.--Come today by quarter past ten train if you can catch it. Can see you any time you call.
'WILHELMINAS HARKER'
MINAS HARKER'S JOURNAL
25 September.--I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect that it will throw some light upon Joanna's sad experience, and as she attended poor dear Lucas in his last illness, she can tell me all about him. That is the reason of her coming. It is concerning Lucas and his sleep-walking, and not about Joanna. Then I shall never know the real truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal gets hold of my imagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour. Of course it is about Lucas. That habit came back to the poor dear, and that awful night on the cliff must have made his ill. I had almost forgotten in my own affairs how ill he was afterwards. He must have told her of his sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about it, and now she wants me to tell her what I know, so that she may understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to Westenra. I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucas. I hope too, Dr. Van Helsing will not blame me. I have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that I feel I cannot bear more just at present.
I suppose a cry does us all good at times, clears the air as other rain does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me, and then Joanna went away this morning to stay away from me a whole day and night, the first time we have been parted since our marriage. I do hope the dear fellow will take care of herself, and that nothing will occur to upset her. It is two o'clock, and the doctor will be here soon now. I shall say nothing of Joanna's journal unless she asks me. I am so glad I have typewritten out my own journal, so that, in case she asks about Lucas, I can hand it to her. It will save much questioning.
Later.--He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it all makes my head whirl round. I feel like one in a dream. Can it be all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Joanna's journal first, I should never have accepted even a possibility. Poor, poor, dear Joanna! How she must have suffered. Please the good God, all this may not upset her again. I shall try to save her from it. But it may be even a consolation and a help to her, terrible though it be and awful in its consequences, to know for certain that her eyes and ears and brain did not deceive her, and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt which haunts her, that when the doubt is removed, no matter which, waking or dreaming, may prove the truth, she will be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must be a good woman as well as a clever one if she is Artemis's friend and Dr. Seward's, and if they brought her all the way from Holland to look after Lucas. I feel from having seen her that she is good and kind and of a noble nature. When she comes tomorrow I shall ask her about Joanna. And then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practice interviewing. Joanna's friend on 'The Exeter News'told her that memory is everything in such work, that you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview. I shall try to record it verbatim.
It was half-past two o'clock when the knock came. I took my courage a deux mains and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and announced 'Dr. Van Helsing'.
I rose and bowed, and she came towards me, a woman of medium weight, strongly built, with her shoulders set back over a broad, deep bosom and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and power. The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face shows a hard, square chin, a large resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the woman's moods. She said to me,
'Harker, is it not?’ I bowed assent.
'That was Mister Minas Murray?'Again I assented.
'It is Minas Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear child Lucas Westenra. Minas, it is on account of the dead that I come.'
'Sir,’ I said, 'you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucas Westenra.’ and I held out my hand. She took it and said tenderly,
'Oh, Minas, I know that the friend of that poor little boy must be good, but I had yet to learn . . .'She finished her speech with a courtly bow. I asked her what it was that she wanted to see me about, so she at once began.
'I h
ave read your letters to Mister Lucas. Forgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with his at Whitby. He sometimes kept a diary, you need not look surprised, Minas. It was begun after you had left, and was an imitation of you, and in that diary he traces by inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which he puts down that you saved him. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember.'
'I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it.'
'Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies.'
'No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you if you like.'
'Oh, Minas, I well be grateful. You will do me much favour.'
I could not resist the temptation of mystifying her a bit, I suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths, so I handed her the shorthand diary. She took it with a grateful bow, and said, 'May I read it?'
'If you wish,’ I answered as demurely as I could. She opened it, and for an instant her face fell. Then she stood up and bowed.
'Oh, you so clever man!’ she said. 'I knew long that Ms. Joanna was a woman of much thankfulness, but see, her husband have all the good things. And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand.'
By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed. So I took the typewritten copy from my work basket and handed it to her.
'Forgive me,’ I said. 'I could not help it, but I had been thinking that it was of dear Lucas that you wished to ask, and so that you might not have time to wait, not on my account, but because I know your time must be precious, I have written it out on the typewriter for you.'
She took it and her eyes glistened. 'You are so good,’ she said. ‘and may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read.'
'By all means,’ I said, 'read it over whilst I order lunch, and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat.'
She bowed and settled herself in a chair with her back to the light, and became so absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch chiefly in order that she might not be disturbed. When I came back, I found her walking hurriedly up and down the room, her face all ablaze with excitement. She rushed up to me and took me by both hands.
'Oh, Minas,’ she said, 'how can I say what I owe to you? This paper is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am dazed, I am dazzled, with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that you do not, cannot comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever man. e,’ she said this very solemnly, 'if ever Abrianna Van Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and delight if I may serve you as a friend, as a friend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights. You are one of the lights. You will have a happy life and a good life, and your wife will be blessed in you.'
'But, doctor, you praise me too much, and you do not know me.'
'Not know you, I, who am old, and who have studied all my life women and men, I who have made my specialty the brain and all that belongs to her and all that follow from her! And I have read your diary that you have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucas of your marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Minas, good men tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read. And we women who wish to know have in us something of angels' eyes. Your wife is noble nature, and you are noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your wife, tell me of her. Is she quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is she strong and hearty?'
I saw here an opening to ask her about Joanna, so I said, 'She was almost recovered, but she has been greatly upset by Ms. Hawkins death.'
She interrupted, 'Oh, yes. I know. I know. I have read your last two letters.'
I went on, 'I suppose this upset her, for when we were in town on Thursday last she had a sort of shock.'
'A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That is not good. What kind of shock was it?'
'She thought she saw some one who recalled something terrible, something which led to her brain fever.’ and here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Joanna, the horror which she experienced, the whole fearful mystery of her diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to her, and implored her to make my wife well again. She took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me. She held my hand in hers, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness,
'My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships, but since I have been summoned to here by my friend Joan Seward I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever, and it has grown with my advancing years, the loneliness of my life. Believe me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope, hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good men still left to make life happy, good men, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you. For if your wife suffer, she suffer within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do all for her that I can, all to make her life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. wife Joanna would not like to see you so pale, and what she like not where she love, is not to her good. Therefore for her sake you must eat and smile. You have told me about Lucas, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter tonight, for I want to think much over what you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I may. And then too, you will tell me of wife Joanna's trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now, afterwards you shall tell me all.'
After lunch, when we went back to the drawing room, she said to me, ‘and now tell me all about her.'
When it came to speaking to this great learned woman, I began to fear that she would think me a weak fool, and Joanna a madman, that journal is all so strange, and I hesitated to go on. But she was so sweet and kind, and she had promised to help, and I trusted her, so I said,
'Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my wife. I have been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt. You must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things.'
She reassured me by her manner as well as her words when she said, 'Oh, my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane.'
'Thank you, thank you a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and Joanna's. It is the copy of her journal when abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it. You will read for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tell me what you think.'
'I promise,’ she said as I gave her the papers. 'I shall in the morning, as soon as I can, come to see you and your wife, if I may.'
'Joanna will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to lunch with us and see her then. You could catch the quick 3:34 train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight.'She was surprised at my knowledge of the trains of
fhand, but she does not know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Joanna in case she is in a hurry.
So she took the papers with her and went away, and I sit here thinking, thinking I don't know what.
LETTER (by hand), VAN HELSING TO MR. HARKER
25 September, 6 o'clock
'Dear Minas,
'I have read your husband's so wonderful diary. You may sleep without doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is true! I will pledge my life on it. It may be worse for others, but for her and you there is no dread. She is a noble fellow, and let me tell you from experience of women, that one who would do as she did in going down that wall and to that room, aye, and going a second time, is not one to be injured in permanence by a shock. Her brain and her heart are all right, this I swear, before I have even seen her, so be at rest. I shall have much to ask her of other things. I am blessed that today I come to see you, for I have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzled, dazzled more than ever, and I must think.
'Yours the most faithful,
'Abrianna Van Helsing.'
LETTER, MR. HARKER TO VAN HELSING
25 September, 6:30 P.M.
'My dear Dr. Van Helsing,
'A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a great weight off my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things there are in the world, and what an awful thing if that woman, that monster, be really in London! I fear to think. I have this moment, whilst writing, had a wire from Joanna, saying that she leaves by the 6:25 tonight from Launceston and will be here at 10:18, so that I shall have no fear tonight. Will you, therefore, instead of lunching with us, please come to breakfast at eight o'clock, if this be not too early for you? You can get away, if you are in a hurry, by the 10:30 train, which will bring you to Paddington by 2:35. Do not answer this, as I shall take it that, if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast.
'Believe me,
'Your faithful and grateful friend,
'Minas Harker.'
JOANNA HARKER'S JOURNAL
26 September.--I thought never to write in this diary again, but the time has come. When I got home last night Minas had supper ready, and when we had supped he told me of Van Helsing's visit, and of his having given her the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious he has been about me. He showed me in the doctor's letter that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new woman of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I know, I am not afraid, even of the Countess. She has succeeded after all, then, in her design in getting to London, and it was she I saw. She has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the woman to unmask her and hunt her out, if she is anything like what Minas says. We sat late, and talked it over. Minas is dressing, and I shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring her over.
She was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room where she was, and introduced myself, she took me by the shoulder, and turned my face round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny,
'But Minas told me you were ill, that you had had a shock.'
It was so funny to hear my husband called ' Minas' by this kindly, strong-faced old woman. I smiled, and said, 'I was ill, I have had a shock, but you have cured me already.'
‘and how?'
'By your letter to Minas last night. I was in doubt, and then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do, and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't, you couldn't with eyebrows like yours.'
She seemed pleased, and laughed as she said, 'So! You are a physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast, and, oh, lady, you will pardon praise from an old woman, but you are blessed in your husband.'
I would listen to her go on praising Minas for a day, so I simply nodded and stood silent.
'He is one of God's men, fashioned by Her own hand to show us women and other men that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist, and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish. And you, lady . . . I have read all the letters to poor Mister Lucas, and some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from the knowing of others, but I have seen your true self since last night. You will give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all our lives.'
We shook hands, and she was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite choky.
‘and now,’ she said, 'may I ask you for some more help? I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help me here. Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind, but at first this will do.'
'Look here, Sir,’ I said, 'does what you have to do concern the Count?'
'It does,’ she said solemnly.
'Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the 10:30 train, you will not have time to read them, but I shall get the bundle of papers. You can take them with you and read them in the train.'
After breakfast I saw her to the station. When we were parting she said, 'Perhaps you will come to town if I send for you, and take Minas too.'
'We shall both come when you will,’ I said.
I had got her the morning papers and the London papers of the previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, she was turning them over. Her eyes suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them, 'The Westminster Gazette', I knew it by the colour, and she grew quite white. She read something intently, groaning to herself, 'Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! So soon!'I do not think she remembered me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off. This recalled her to herself, and she leaned out of the window and waved her hand, calling out, 'Love to Minas. I shall write so soon as ever I can.'
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
26 September.--Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a week since I said 'Finis,’ and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rather going on with the record. Until this afternoon I had no cause to think of what is done. Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as she ever was. She was already well ahead with her fly business, and she had just started in the spider line also, so she had not been of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Artemis, written on Sunday, and from it I gather that she is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincy Morris is with her, and that is much of a help, for she herself is a bubbling well of good spirits. Quincy wrote me a line too, and from her I hear that Artemis is beginning to recover something of her old buoyancy, so as to them all my mind is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucas left on me was becoming cicatrised.
Everything is, however, now reopened, and what is to be the end God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks she knows, too, but she will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity. She went to Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. Today she came back, and almost bounded into the room at about half-past five o'clock, and thrust last night's 'Westminster Gazette'into my hand.
'What do you think of that?'she asked as she stood back and folded her arms.
I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what she meant, but she took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being decoyed away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reached a passage where it described small puncture wounds on their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up.
'Well?'she said.
'It is like poor Lucas's.'
‘and what do you make of i
t?'
'Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it was that injured his has injured them.'I did not quite understand her answer.
'That is true indirectly, but not directly.'
'How do you mean, Professor?’ I asked. I was a little inclined to take her seriousness lightly, for, after all, four days of rest and freedom from burning, harrowing, anxiety does help to restore one's spirits, but when I saw her face, it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of our despair about poor Lucas, had she looked more stern.
'Tell me!'I said. 'I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what to think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture.'
'Do you mean to tell me, friend Joan, that you have no suspicion as to what poor Lucas died of, not after all the hints given, not only by events, but by me?'
'Of nervous prostration following a great loss or waste of blood.'
‘and how was the blood lost or wasted?’ I shook my head.
She stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on, 'You are a clever woman, friend Joan. You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by women's eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other women have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new, and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young, like the fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialization. No? Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism . . .'
'Yes,’ I said. 'Charcot has proved that pretty well.'
She smiled as she went on, 'Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcot, alas that she is no more, into the very soul of the patient that she influence. No? Then, friend Joan, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell me, for I am a student of the brain, how you accept hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very woman who discovered electricity, who would themselves not so long before been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and 'Old Parr' one hundred and sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucas, with four women's blood in his poor veins, could not live even one day? For, had he live one more day, we could save him. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some women, and not in others? Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, she could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that come out at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins, how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them and then, and then in the morning are found dead women, white as even Mister Lucas was?'
'Good God, Professor!'I said, starting up. 'Do you mean to tell me that Lucas was bitten by such a bat, and that such a thing is here in London in the nineteenth century?'
She waved her hand for silence, and went on, 'Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of women, why the elephant goes on and on till she have sees dynasties, and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat of dog or other complaint? Can you tell me why women believe in all ages and places that there are women and men who cannot die? We all know, because science has vouched for the fact, that there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only hold her since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make herself to die and have been buried, and her grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then women come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before?'
Here I interrupted her. I was getting bewildered. She so crowded on my mind her list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired. I had a dim idea that she was teaching me some lesson, as long ago she used to do in her study at Amsterdam. But she used them to tell me the thing, so that I could have the object of thought in mind all the time. But now I was without her help, yet I wanted to follow her, so I said,
'Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the thesis, so that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present I am going in my mind from point to point as a madman, and not a sane one, follows an idea. I feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a midst, jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without knowing where I am going.'
'That is a good image,’ she said. 'Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is this, I want you to believe.'
'To believe what?'
'To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith, 'that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.' For one, I follow that woman. She meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep her, and we value her, but all the same we must not let her think herself all the truth in the universe.'
'Then you want me not to let some previous conviction inure the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson aright?'
'Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth to teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in the children's throats were made by the same that made the holes in Mister Lucas?'
'I suppose so.'
She stood up and said solemnly, 'Then you are wrong. Oh, would it were so! But alas! No. It is worse, far, far worse.'
'In God's name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean?’ I cried.
She threw herself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed her elbows on the table, covering her face with her hands as she spoke.
'They were made by Mister Lucas!'
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