by Raven, Simon
“Now, sir, what do I know to help me make an answer? Very little – except that Mr Fountain is in one respect – one only, as far as we know – behaving very oddly; and that a superior Cretan peasant has hinted, in the light of pure superstition, at the possibility of unpleasant consequences to come. But I also surmise for myself, Mr Seymour, that no one can go through what Mr Fountain has been through without in some way being affected – and perhaps permanently – for the worse. And then I tell myself that if there is one person whom Mr Fountain is liable to hold responsible for all the pain and humiliation he has suffered, if there is one person above all whom he is likely to resent – and even dangerously to resent, Mr Seymour – that person is Doctor Walter Goodrich. At which stage, sir, I remember, without any pleasure at all, that if we are to believe your friend Honeydew, then Doctor Goodrich is not going to be very tactful in his future dealings with Mr Fountain.
“So what do I conclude? That Mr Fountain must be kept away from Doctor Goodrich? Impossible. Mr Fountain is not a wealthy man, he must pursue his career, he must pursue it at Lancaster College, and he must therefore meet Doctor Goodrich very soon now and suffer daily intercourse with him thereafter. But fortunately, not just yet. We have a week, Mr Seymour, and even a little longer; and during this time, between now and Doctor Goodrich’s return, we must make a plan, a plan that will soften the impact between Mr Fountain and Doctor Goodrich and will somehow make them amenable one to another. Do you agree, sir?”
“I do.”
“And before making it, Mr Seymour, we must have the best possible information. We must try to ascertain the rules about this…thing which has happened to Mr Fountain. There is a mass of superstition, of which we know a certain amount, and there is, we conceive, a scientific truth – of which we know nothing at all. The superstition will be interesting and, since it reflects human experience after a fashion, not entirely irrelevant. As for the scientific truth, it is vital. I know a man who will enlighten us fully on both counts. So tomorrow at ten, sir, you will accompany me, if you please, to the British Museum. And there I can promise you a most interesting morning with Doctor Erik Holmstrom, a gentleman of deep learning and most pleasant wit.”
XII
Doctor Erik Holmstrom was small and wizened – rather like Ratty Arnold, except that he was palpably sane. Incongruously enough, he had a fine deep voice, which rumbled round his sepulchral office in the basement of the British Museum like the distant thunder which, on a still summer day, heralds the slow approach of rain.
He had already been briefed by Tyrrel, I gathered, but he listened with attention while I told him of our adventures in Crete and Hydra and added what little I could of Richard’s experiences in Greece before our arrival there. Then he sat back, pushed his modest stomach comfortably out in front of him, patted it, and lit a cheroot.
“You realise,” he growled, “that I am not a consultant for individual cases? I can tell you what I know of this subject, and help you to relate it to these particular circumstances. But I am not to be regarded as a physician. I will take no responsibility. None.”
“We know that, Erik,” said Tyrrel, who seemed on unaccountably intimate terms with him. “What we want is for you to tell us the rules. This is unfamiliar country: we need a map.”
“There are no rules,” said Holmstrom. “In this, as in other human afflictions, there are only probabilities. There is no map: there are only occasional signposts – many of which have been turned, by irresponsible people, to point the wrong way.”
“Tell us what you know,” said Tyrrel abruptly. “Tell us what the superstitious say, and then what the instructed say. We must have something to go on, Erik. Do your best – and then leave the responsibility squarely with us.”
“I had no intention of leaving it anywhere else,” said Doctor Holmstrom. He tilted his chair back and sent a stream of smoke towards the ceiling. Then he sat forward again, put his chin in his left hand, and began, slowly and with great care, to tell us what he knew.
“Vampirism,” he said, “is a phenomenon popularly associated with Central and Eastern Europe. In fact, of course, it is universal – and extremely rare. The reason why we connect it so readily with the Balkan states is that it was in this part of the world that the most substantial and entertaining corpus of legend was first established. Most simple people are good at producing grim superstitions; but the Slav and Magyar inhabitants of Eastern Europe share with certain Scandinavians a genius for spicing their tales with a kind of succinct and plausible nastiness that one seldom finds elsewhere. The vampire myth was just the sort of material they needed. Hence their particular insistence on it, and hence the popular idea that vampires exist only between the Carpathian mountains and the Northern shores of the Eastern Mediterranean. In fact you will find as many, or as few, in Boston as in Budapest. But because of their skilful use of the legend, the East Europeans have a corner in vampirism; and this, roughly, is what their superstition maintains.
“It postulates a taste in a living human being for sucking the blood of other human beings. How, in the first instance such a taste should arise is uncertain; but clearly, from a purely superstitious point of view, there is a connection with the magical notion that by possessing yourself of any living part of another person or animal you increase your own power both over the creature concerned and in nature generally. Nail-parings, hair, testicles…but what could be more significant, what could possibly increase your power so much, as actually drinking human blood? In any case, there it is: a living person has this taste, and he indulges it at the expense of his fellow men. But now we come to one of the most terrifying and also most misleading aspects of the whole affair: for according to the superstition, anybody who is used by a vampire becomes infected with the taste himself. And even worse. He may die from loss of blood, he may, for whatever reason, survive; but in either case he himself has now become a vampire and as such will continue to roam the earth in search of human prey even after he has died his human death and regardless of how soon or late this may occur.
“Now, as to the exact powers enjoyed by a vampire after death, opinion differs a good deal from region to region. At one end of the scale, the vampire is credited only with the freedom to wander from his grave between sunset and sunrise. At the other extreme, he is supposed to be able to survive in all respects as a normal human being, save that he will always avoid the light of the sun as far as possible and will tend to be languid during the day time. Then there are several ancillary powers, variously affirmed and denied. Most forms of the legend maintain that vampires can induce hypnosis in their intended victims. Some versions say that after dark – whether or not he must spend the day in the tomb – the vampire can transform himself into a bat or a wolf at will – or can even change himself into a kind of thin mist, thus facilitating entrance into places where he is, for excellent reasons, unwelcome. One may remark, incidentally, that some talent of this nature is presupposed by the very condition of his existence, or how would a vampire escape from his tomb in the first place? But it is idle to insist on logic when dealing with matters of this kind. What it boils down to is that any man who has given blood to a vampire, whether to a living vampire or a ‘dead’ one, becomes a vampire in his turn and is endowed, when he dies, with some form of bodily immortality. Such a creature is nourished by human blood – though he continues to exist when deprived of it–: he dislikes sunlight, garlic, onions, salt water, and the form of the so called holy cross: he may or may not have supernatural powers other than that of surviving death: and he may or may not be able to exist unsuspected with and among other men.
“Finally, the matter of destroying such creatures. There is only one way of doing this. You must discover the vampire when he is inert and powerless, which, according to some, would be between sunrise and sunset, or according to others only when a crucifix is held straight in front of his eyes. You must then take a sharpened stake and drive it through his heart. Once this is done, the creature is fi
nally and properly dead; and all his victims, whether ‘dead’ or still living, are now released from the spell.
“So much for the superstition. Have you any questions you would like to ask?”
“Yes,” said Tyrrel: “I once heard that vampires are able to inspire affection and even sexual passion in their victims. What would you say to this?”
“That it is true,” said Holmstrom: “literally and scientifically true. I shall come on to that in a moment.”
There was sun outside, the kind sun of mid-September; but no sun came into Holmstrom’s basement office, which might almost have been a tomb itself, so damp it was and dreary. Listening to Holmstrom’s smooth, deep voice, I had almost begun to wonder if he were not himself akin to the vampires he described so carefully – lurking down in the dark by day, emerging at night, with his bright eyes and soothing voice, to seek his victims along the dull streets of Bloomsbury. But now he rose from his chair and waddled to the door; opening it slightly, he peered out and boomed down the corridor – “Coffee for three, girl” – an earthy statement which I found somewhat reassuring.
He returned to his chair and lit a fresh cheroot.
“So much,” he said, “for the superstition. Now for what we may euphemistically call the truth.”
He chuckled obscenely – a high-pitched chuckle, in odd contrast to his mellow voice – and spat with care and accuracy into the waste-paper basket at his side.
“Yes,” he said, his face twitching with amusement, “the truth… As we understand the matter – and you must realise that only very occasional examples come to our notice – the vampire is in fact a living human being with a peculiar type of sado-sexual perversion. The sexual element is quite obvious; you might consider, in this context, such relatively normal practices as fellatio or cunnilinctus. Nor is it difficult to see that vampiric intercourse, in a quiet way, has a deeply sadistic tinge to it. It follows, of course, that the victims of vampires tend to be of a masochistic type – and like most masochists, capable of assuming a sadistic role in their turn. You should also be reminded that sadistic practices – and among them this one – are liable to have a strong appeal for impotent males or frigid females.
“But if these are the bare psychological bones, so to say, it still does not do to dismiss out of hand the corpus of superstition. Legends cast in superstitious terms have a way of reflecting scientific reality, and so it is here. Allegations of immortality can be dismissed outright: they are merely the product of the Slav imagination which, confronted with something beastly, delights to make it positively fiendish. Again, tales of transformation into, say, the shape of a bat, clearly originate from the fact that creatures called vampire bats – who amply earn their title – are well known to exist in several parts of the world. But in other ways the superstition is nearer the mark. Take this business of hypnotic powers: it is not true that an initiation into vampiric practices confers these powers; but it is true that someone who wants to indulge such abnormal and dangerous tastes must possess a very strong and alluring personality to win over his victim in the first place. Thus it is clear that something at any rate comparable to an hypnotic talent is a precondition of ever becoming a vampire. This connects very closely with what John was asking about just now – the rumoured skill of the vampire in inducing strong affections and sexual passions. Vampires as such are not endowed with this ability; but plainly it may be necessary to inspire very considerable emotions of an amorous or sexual kind before a victim can be brought to assent to the vampire’s proposition. One sums up the matter by saying that sexual magnetism, being one element in the so called hypnotic personality, is a pre-requisite of vampiric practice.
“And then we come to this business of ‘infection’ or the transmission of taste. Now, quite plainly this taint cannot be passed on in some unspecified magical fashion; and equally plainly it cannot be physically transmitted, like influenza or syphilis, by means of a germ or virus. What there can be, however, is a form of contagion which is partly moral and partly psychological. Look at it this way. We have seen that a victim is likely to have the masochistic tendencies which his passive role requires of him; and we have remarked, as a matter of medical commonplace, that masochists are often apt to reverse the coin, as it were, and wield the whip themselves. Now, suppose you had someone who had been used by a vampire and subsequently felt the need to express himself sadistically. The chances that his sadism will take a vampiric form are clearly increased a thousandfold by the mere fact that he now knows about vampiric methods. This is a very simple proposition, and applies, mutatis mutandis, to the most elementary forms of sexual behaviour. A small boy at school, for example, feeling without real comprehension the need for sexual relief, will at first resort to some form of masturbation which he has discovered for himself. But once let him be initiated, by a school friend or a girl cousin, into some more elaborate amusement, and henceforth he will scorn self-abuse and seek for a partner with whom to play the new games he has learnt. At first it is a matter of novelty; later it is one of habitual preference and even imperious necessity. It is not so much that a taste has been transmitted as that a technique has been taught – a technique of which time and circumstance may well make an habitual pastime and even an all-governing urge. So with your vampiric initiate: opting, by way of a change, for a little sadistic satisfaction, he tries out the technique which has lately been practised upon himself, and ends up as an addict… Nor is his addiction in any way lessened by the knowledge that what he does not only humiliates his victim but may even kill him; for he is seeking, among other things, to revenge himself on his kind for his own predicament and his own sufferings… You follow the train of argument, Major Seymour? And you, John?”
“Very clearly,” said Tyrrel and I together.
“Of course,” remarked Holmstrom cheerfully, “I have grossly oversimplified. But it hardly matters, because from what you tell me this friend of yours has been involved in a classically simple situation.”
He need not, I felt, have been quite so off-hand about it. I was getting ready to make some mild protest, when I caught Tyrrel’s eye. His look carried a clear request to acquiesce in Doctor Holmstrom’s academic jocularity (after all, Richard was not Holmstrom’s friend), and in any case diversion was now provided by a young slattern, who brought in a tray with three cups of coffee on it and some damp biscuits.
“Made out of some vile essence,” said Holmstrom. “Get out this second, you frightful slut.”
Whining something about no need to be personal and coffee essence saving trouble, the depressed daughter of humanity slopped through the door.
“And now where were we?” said Doctor Holmstrom.
“Sado-sexual behaviour patterns,” said Tyrrel.
“Ah. Well at this stage we start applying what I have been telling you to the actual case in hand. If I am not mistaken, Mr Seymour, your friend was an attractive and vigorous young man, who nevertheless suffered from a condition of impotence and whose past history gives plain evidence of sado-masochistic tendencies?”
“I have never quite thought of them as such,” I said.
“I dare say not. But these incidents you have described to John Tyrrel here, which took place at school or Cambridge, and this perpetual willingness, despite occasional revolt, to bide the bidding of his Tutor – these things tell their own tale, Mr Seymour. It is very clear to me, and, I suspect, since your protest is so feeble, to you too, that Richard Fountain, lonely as he must have been in Greece, sexually impaired and psychologically malleable, was the perfect target for the kind of creature I have tried to describe to you… After all, what has Doctor Goodrich been to him these many years other than a kind of…spiritual vampire?”
“All right,” I said, “I accept this. It is now a question of what will happen next.”
“All questions of what will happen next are also questions of what has happened already. We never really know the answer to either, you see. In this case, what I suggest is as foll
ows. I suggest that when this woman first got hold of your friend she assumed (or pretended to assume in order to flatter him) that because of his bearing and his strength he would not be inclined to play a passive role. This despite his palpable impotence. So she used her charm and attraction to persuade him to join her in acts of a bestially sadistic but very general kind. After a time, however, she realised that this Richard Fountain was in reality a natural dependant, a person who both expected and desired that others should dictate their will to him. As you yourself have told Tyrrel, there was now no Doctor Goodrich for him to turn to. So what more probable than that he should turn, in complete obedience, to the woman whom he professed to love – a woman, if I am to believe what I am told, of considerable attraction and power?”
“Very good,” I said. “Please go on.”
“So what happened? He was subdued by this woman, made ill by her, cured at her instance, and finally nearly killed. He was rescued at the last minute by his friends; but one of them met his death as the direct result of the rescue. And what would you expect to come of all this?”
“It was my hope,” I said, “that you would tell me.”
Doctor Holmstrom chuckled – once again a nasty, high-pitched chuckle, in most ugly comparison with his smooth, rich speech.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll tell you. I should expect two things. In the first place, I should expect that sooner or later, when he once again sees fit to assert the aggressive side of his personality – a side, you will recall, that has been often enough asserted in the past – he will do so in a manner consistent with the… instruction that he has received from this woman. Perhaps he will ape the practices which were inflicted on himself, or perhaps those earlier ones which she demonstrated to him at their first acquaintance. In either event, the results will be very displeasing.