by Bram Stoker
CHAPTER XIV.
/Mina Harker's Journal./
_23 September._--Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so glad thathe has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the terriblethings; and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down with theresponsibility of his new position. I knew he would be true to himself,and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the height of hisadvancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come uponhim. He will be away all day till late, for he said he could not lunchat home. My household work is done, so I shall take his foreign journal,and lock myself up in my room and read it....
_24 September._--I hadn't the heart to write last night; that terriblerecord of Jonathan's upset me so. Poor dear! How he must have suffered,whether it be true or only imagination. I wonder if there is any truthin it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and then write all thoseterrible things; or had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shallnever know, for I dare not open the subject to him.... And yet thatman we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain of him.... Poor fellow!I suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back on sometrain of thought.... He believes it all himself. I remember how onour wedding-day he said: "Unless some solemn duty come upon me to goback to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane." There seemsto be through it all some thread of continuity.... That fearful Countwas coming to London.... "If it should be, and he came to London, withits teeming millions." ... There may be a solemn duty; and if it comewe must not shrink from it.... I shall be prepared. I shall get mytypewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be readyfor other eyes if required. And if it be wanted; then, perhaps, if I amready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him and neverlet him be troubled or worried with it all. If ever Jonathan quite getsover the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask himquestions and find out things, and see how I may comfort him.
_Letter, Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker._
"_24 September._ (_Confidence._)
"Dear Madam,--
"I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far friend as that Isend to you sad news of Miss Lucy Westenra's death. By the kindness ofLord Godalming, I am empowered to read her letters and papers, for Iam deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important. In them Ifind some letters from you, which show how great friends you were andhow you love her. Oh, Madam Mina, by that love, I implore you, help me.It is for others' good that I ask--to redress great wrong, and to liftmuch 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 a friend of Dr. JohnSeward and of Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy). I must keepit private for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see youat once if you tell me I am privilege to come, and where and when. Iimplore your pardon, madam. I have read your letters to poor Lucy, andknow how good you are and how your husband suffer; so I pray you, ifit may be, enlighten him not, lest it may harm. Again your pardon, andforgive me.
"/Van Helsing./"
_Telegram, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing._
"_25 September._--Come to-day by quarter-past ten train if you can catchit. Can see you any time you call.
"/Wilhelmina Harker./"
/Mina Harker's Journal./
_25 September._--I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the timedraws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expectit will throw some light upon Jonathan's sad experience; and as heattended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me all abouther. That is the reason for his coming; it is concerning Lucy and hersleep-walking, and not about Jonathan. Then I shall never know thereal truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal gets hold of myimagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour. Ofcourse it is about Lucy. That habit came back to the poor dear, and thatawful night on the cliff must have made her ill. I had almost forgottenin my own affairs how ill she was afterwards. She must have told him ofher sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about it;and now he wants me to tell him about it, so that he may understand. Ihope I did right in not saying anything of it to Mrs. Westenra; I shouldnever forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even a negative one,brought harm on poor dear Lucy. I hope, too, Dr. Van Helsing will notblame me; I have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that I feel Icannot bear more just at present.
I suppose a cry does us all good at times--clears the air as other raindoes. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me, andthen Jonathan went away this morning to stay away from me a whole dayand night, the first time we have been parted since our marriage. I dohope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and that nothing willoccur to upset him. It is two o'clock and the doctor will be here soonnow. I shall say nothing of Jonathan's journal unless he asks me. I amso glad I have typewritten out my own journal, so that, in case he asksabout Lucy, I can hand it to him; it will save much questioning.
_Later._--He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and howit all makes my head whirl round! I feel like one in a dream. Can itbe all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathan'sjournal first, I should never have accepted even a possibility. Poor,poor, dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered. Please the good God allthis may not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it; but itmay be even a consolation and a help to him--terrible though it be andawful in its consequences--to know for certain that his eyes and earsand brain did not deceive him, and that it is all true. It may be thatit is the doubt which haunts him; that when the doubt is removed, nomatter which--waking or dreaming--may prove the truth, he will be moresatisfied and better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must bea good man as well as a clever one if he is Arthur's friend and Dr.Seward's, and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look afterLucy. I feel from having seen him that he is good and kind and of anoble nature. When he comes tomorrow I shall ask him about Jonathan;and then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a goodend. I used to think I would like to practise interviewing; Jonathan'sfriend on "The Exeter News" told him that memory was everything insuch work--that you must be able to put down exactly almost every wordspoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rareinterview; 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, andannounced "Dr. Van Helsing."
I rose and bowed, and he came towards me; a man of medium height,strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest anda neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poiseof the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power; thehead is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face,clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large, resolute, mobilemouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitivenostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy eyebrows come down andthe mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at firstalmost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wideapart; such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumbleover it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyesare set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man'smoods. He said to me:--
"Mrs. Harker, is it not?" I bowed assent.
"That was Miss Mina Murray?" Again I assented.
"It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dearchild Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of the dead I come."
"Sir," I said, "you could have no better claim on me than that you werea friend and helper of Lucy Westenra." And I held out my hand. He tookit and said tenderly:--
"Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must begood, but I had yet to learn----" He finished his speech with a courtlybow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he atonce began:--
"I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I
had to beginto inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you werewith her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary--you need not looksurprised, Madam Mina; it was begun after you left, and was made inimitation of you--and in that diary she traces by inference certainthings to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her. Ingreat perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so muchkindness to tell me all of it that you remember."
"I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it."
"Ah, then you have a good memory for facts, for details? It is notalways so with young ladies."
"No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to youif you like."
"Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful; you will do me much favour." Icould not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit--I suppose itis some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in ourmouths--so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a gratefulbow, and said:--
"May I read it?"
"If you wish," I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it, and forthe instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed.
"Oh, you so clever woman!" he said. "I long knew that Mr. Jonathan wasa man of much thankfulness; but see, his wife have all the good things.And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it forme? Alas! I know not the shorthand." By this time my little joke wasover, and I was almost ashamed; so I took the typewritten copy from mywork-basket and handed it to him.
"Forgive me," I said: "I could not help it; but I had been thinkingthat it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you mightnot have to wait--not on my account, but because I know your time mustbe precious--I have written it out on the typewriter for you."
He took it, and his eyes glistened. "You are so good," he said. "And mayI 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 youcan ask me questions whilst we eat." He bowed and settled himself in achair with his back to the light, and became absorbed in the papers,whilst I went to see after lunch, chiefly in order that he might not bedisturbed. When I came back I found him walking hurriedly up and downthe room, his face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me andtook me by both hands.
"Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "how can I say what I owe to you? This paperis as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am daze, I am dazzle, with somuch light; and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But thatyou do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you soclever woman. Madam"--he said this very solemnly--"if ever Abraham VanHelsing 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 afriend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for youand those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights;you are one of the lights. You will have happy life and good life, andyour husband will be blessed in you."
"But, doctor, you praise me too much, and--and you do not know me."
"Not know you--I, who am old, and who have studied all my life men andwomen; I, who have made my speciality the brain and all that belongsto him and all that follow from him! And I have read your diary thatyou have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth inevery line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of yourmarriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tellall their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things thatangels can read; and we men who wish to know have in us something ofangels' eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too, foryou trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And yourhusband--tell me of him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone,and is he strong and hearty?" I saw here an opening to ask him aboutJonathan, so I said:--
"He has almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr.Hawkins's death." He interrupted:--
"Oh yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two letters." I wenton:--
"I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on Thursday last hehad a sort of shock."
"A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That was not good. What kindof shock was it?"
"He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, somethingwhich led to his brain fever." And here the whole thing seemed tooverwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Jonathan, the horror which heexperienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear thathas been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose Iwas hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands tohim, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my handsand raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me; he held myhand in his, 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 nothad much time for friendships; but since I have been summoned to hereby my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen suchnobility that I feel more than ever--and it has grown with my advancingyears--the loneliness of my life. Believe me, then, that I come herefull of respect for you, and you have given me hope--hope, not in whatI am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make lifehappy--good women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson forthe children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of someuse to you; for if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of mystudy and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do _all_ for himthat I can--all to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happyone. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious.Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale; and what he likenot where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you musteat and smile. You have told me all about Lucy, and so now we shall notspeak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter to-night, for Iwant to think over what you have told me, and when I have thought I willask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me of husbandJonathan'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, he said to me:--
"And now tell me all about him." When it came to speaking to this great,learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, andJonathan a madman--that journal is all so strange--and I hesitated togo on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and Itrusted him, so I said:--
"Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must notlaugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort offever of doubt; you must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that Ihave even half believed some very strange things." He reassured me byhis manner as well as his words when he said:--
"Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding whichI am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think littleof any one's belief, no matter how strange it be. I have tried to keepan open mind; and it is not the ordinary things of life that could closeit, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things thatmake one doubt if they be mad or sane."
"Thank you, thank you, a thousand times! You have taken a weight offmy mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It islong, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble andJonathan's. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all thathappened. I dare not say anything of it; you will read for yourself andjudge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tellme what you think."
"I promise," he said as I gave him the papers; "I shall in the morning,so soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may."
"Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to lunchwith us and see him then; you could catch the quick 3.34 train, whichwill leave you at Paddington before eight." He was surprised at myknowledge of the trains offhand, but he does not know that I have madeup all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan incase he is in a hurry.
So he took th
e papers with him and went away, and I sit herethinking--thinking I don't know what.
_Letter (by hand), Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker._
"_25 September, 6 o'clock._
"Dear Madam Mina,--
"I have read your husband's so wonderful diary. You may sleep withoutdoubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is _true_! I will pledge mylife on it. It may be worse for others; but for him and you there isno dread. He is a noble fellow; and let me tell you from experience ofmen, that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and tothat room--ay, and going a second time--is not one to be injured inpermanence by a shock. His brain and his heart are all right; this Iswear, before I have even seen him; so be at rest. I shall have much toask him of other things. I am blessed that to-day I come to see you, forI have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzle--dazzle morethan ever, and I must think.
"Yours the most faithful, "/Abraham Van Helsing./"
_Letter, Mrs. 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 weightoff my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things there arein the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that monster, bereally in London! I fear to think. I have this moment, whilst writing,had a wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the 6.25 to-nightfrom Launceston and will be here at 10.18, so that I shall have no fearto-night. Will you therefore, instead of lunching with us, please cometo breakfast, at eight o'clock, if this be not too early for you? Youcan get away, if you are in a hurry, by the 10.30 train, which willbring you to Paddington by 2.35. Do not answer this, as I shall take itthat, if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast.
"Believe me, "Your faithful and grateful friend, "/Mina Harker./"
/Jonathan Harker's Journal./
_26 September._--I thought never to write in this diary again, but thetime has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, andwhen we had supped she told me of Van Helsing's visit, and of her havinggiven him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she had beenabout me. She showed me in the doctor's letter that all I wrote down wastrue. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to thereality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and inthe dark, and distrustful. But, now that I _know_, I am not afraid, evenof the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in gettingto London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsingis the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like whatMina says. We sat late, and talked it all over. Mina is dressing, and Ishall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over....
He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room wherehe was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder and turned myface round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny:--
"But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock." Itwas so funny to hear my wife called "Madam Mina" by this kindly,strong-faced old man. I smiled, and said:--
"I _was_ ill, I _have_ had a shock; but you have cured me already."
"And how?"
"By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then everythingtook a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even theevidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not knowwhat to do; and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto beenthe groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrustedmyself. Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, evenyourself. No, you don't; you couldn't with eyebrows like yours." Heseemed pleased, and laughed as he said:--
"So! You are physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am withso much pleasure coming to you to breakfast; and, oh, sir, you willpardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife." Iwould listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply noddedand stood silent.
"She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us menand other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that itslight can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little anegoist--and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical andselfish. And you, sir--I have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucyand some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from theknowing of others; but I have seen your true self since last night. Youwill give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all ourlives."
We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quitechoky.
"And now," he said, "may I ask you for some more help? I have a greattask 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 Imay 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," he said solemnly.
"Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the 10.30 train, youwill 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 him to the station. When we were parting he said:
"Perhaps you will come to town if I send to you, and take Madam Minatoo."
"We shall both come when you will," I said.
I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previousnight, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting forthe train to start, he was turning them over. His eye suddenly seemedto catch something in one of them, "The Westminster Gazette"--I knewit by the colour--and he grew quite white. He read something intently,groaning to himself: "Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! so soon!" I do notthink he remembered me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, andthe train moved off. This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out ofthe window and waved his hand, calling out: "Love to Madam Mina; I shallwrite so soon as ever I can."
_Dr. Seward's Diary._
_26 September._--Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a weeksince I said "Finis," and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rathergoing on with the same record. Until this afternoon I had no cause tothink of what is done. Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane ashe ever was. He was already well ahead with his fly business; and hehad just started in the spider line also; so he had not been of anytrouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and fromit I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincey Morris iswith him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling wellof good spirits. Quincey wrote me a line too, and from him I hear thatArthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy; so as tothem all my mind is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to mywork with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I mightfairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becomingcicatrised. Everything is, however, now reopened; and what is to be theend God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows too,but he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity. He went toExeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. To-day he came back, andalmost bounded into my room at about half-past five o'clock, and thrustlast night's "Westminster Gazette" into my hand.
"What do you think of that?" he asked as he stood back and folded hisarms.
I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he meant; buthe took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children beingdecoyed away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reacheda passage where it described small punctured wounds on their throats. Anidea struck me, and I looked up. "Well?" he said.
"It is like poor Lucy's."
"And what do make of it?"
"Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it was that injuredher has injured them." I did not quite understand his answer:--
"That is true indirectly, but not directly."
"How do you mean, Professor?" I asked. I was a little inclined to takehis seriousness lightly--for, after
all, four days of rest and freedomfrom burning, harrowing anxiety does help to restore one's spirits--butwhen I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of ourdespair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern.
"Tell me!" I said. "I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what tothink, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture."
"Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion asto what poor Lucy died of; not after all the hints given, not only byevents, but by me?"
"Of nervous prostration following on great loss or waste of blood."
"And how the blood lost or waste?" I shook my head. He stepped over andsat down beside me, and went on:--
"You are clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold;but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your earshear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account toyou. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand,and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? Butthere are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men'seyes, because they know--or think they know--some things which othermen have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants toexplain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing toexplain. 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 pretendto be young--like the fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you donot believe in corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialisation. No?Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor inhypnotism----"
"Yes," I said. "Charcot has proved that pretty well." He smiled ashe went on: "Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of coursethen you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the greatCharcot--alas that he is no more!--into the very soul of the patientthat he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that yousimply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusionbe a blank? No? Then tell me--for I am student of the brain--how youaccept the hypnotism and reject the thought-reading. Let me tell you,my friend, that there are things done to-day in electrical sciencewhich would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discoveredelectricity--who would themselves not so long before have been burnedas wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it thatMethuselah lived nine hundred years, and 'Old Parr' one hundred andsixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her poorveins, could not live even one day? For, had she lived one more day, wecould have save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Doyou know the altogether of comparative anatomy, and can say whereforethe qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can youtell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one greatspider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church andgrew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all thechurch lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere,there are bats that come at night and open the veins of cattle andhorses and suck dry their veins; how in some islands of the Westernseas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, that those whohave seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when thesailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them,and then--and then in the morning are found dead men, white as evenMiss Lucy was?"
"Good God, Professor!" I said, starting up. "Do you mean to tell methat Lucy was bitten by such a bat; and that such a thing is here inLondon in the nineteenth century?" He waved his hand for silence, andwent on:--
"Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations ofmen; why the elephant goes on and on till he have seen dynasties; andwhy the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or other complaint?Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there aresome few who live on always if they be permit; that there are men andwomen who cannot die? We all know--because science has vouched for thefact--that there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands ofyears, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth ofthe world. Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to dieand have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, andthe corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and thenmen come and take away the unbroken seal, and that there lie the Indianfakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before?" HereI interrupted him. I was getting bewildered; he so crowded on my mindhis list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities thatmy imagination was getting fired. I had a dim idea that he was teachingme some lesson, as long ago he used to do in his study at Amsterdam;but he used then to tell me the thing, so that I could have the objectof thought in mind all the time. But now I was without his help, yet Iwanted to follow him, so I said:--
"Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the thesis, sothat I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present I am going inmy mind from point to point as a mad man, and not a sane one, follows anidea. I feel like a novice blundering through a bog in a mist, jumpingfrom one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on withoutknowing where I am going."
"That is good image," he said. "Well, I shall tell you. My thesis isthis: I want you to believe."
"To believe what?"
"To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard onceof an American who so defined faith: 'that which enables us to believethings which we know to be untrue.' For one, I follow that man. He meantthat we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth checkthe rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We getthe small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him; but all thesame we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe."
"Then you want me not to let some previous conviction injure thereceptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I readyour lesson aright?"
"Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth to teach you. Nowthat you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step tounderstand. You think then that those so small holes in the children'sthroats were made by the same that made the hole in Miss Lucy?"
"I suppose so." He 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.
He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed hiselbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke:--
"They were made by Miss Lucy!"