Mina
Harker's Journal30 September When we met in Dr. Seward's study two
hours after dinner, which had been at six o'clock, we unconsciously formed a sort
of board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to which
Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit next to him on
his right, and asked me to act as secretary. Jonathan sat next to me. Opposite
us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris, Lord Godalming being next
the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the centre. The Professor said, "I
may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts that are in
these papers." We all expressed assent, and he went on, "Then it were,
I think, good that I tell you something of the kind of enemy with which we have
to deal. I shall then make known to you something of the history of this man,
which has been ascertained for me. So we then can discuss how we shall act, and
can take our measure according. "There are such beings as vampires,
some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own
unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough
for sane peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that through
long years I have trained myself to keep an open mind, I could not have believed
until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. 'See! See! I prove, I prove.'
Alas! Had I known at first what now I know, nay, had I even guess at him, one
so precious life had been spared to many of us who did love her. But that is gone,
and we must so work, that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The
nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger, and
being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is amongst
us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men, he is of cunning more than
mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages, he have still the aids of necromancy,
which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead
that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute;
he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within his range,
direct the elements, the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner
things, the rat, and the owl, and the bat, the moth, and the fox, and the wolf,
he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How
then are we to begin our strike to destroy him? How shall we find his where, and
having found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much, it is a terrible
task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave shudder.
For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win, and then where end we? Life
is nothings, I heed him not. But to fail here, is not mere life or death. It is
that we become as him, that we henceforward become foul things of the night like
him, without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those
we love best. To us forever are the gates of heaven shut, for who shall open them
to us again? We go on for all time abhorred by all, a blot on the face of God's
sunshine, an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face to face
with duty, and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say no, but then I am old,
and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his song of birds, his music and
his love, lie far behind. You others are young. Some have seen sorrow, but there
are fair days yet in store. What say you?" Whilst he was speaking,
Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so much, that the appalling nature of
our danger was overcoming him when I saw his hand stretch out, but it was life
to me to feel its touch, so strong, so self reliant, so resolute. A brave man's
hand can speak for itself, it does not even need a woman's love to hear its music. When
the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I in his, there
was no need for speaking between us. "I answer for Mina and myself,"
he said. "Count me in, Professor," said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically
as usual. "I am with you," said Lord Godalming, "for Lucy's
sake, if for no other reason." Dr. Seward simply nodded. The
Professor stood up and, after laying his golden crucifix on the table, held out
his hand on either side. I took his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left, Jonathan
held my right with his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took
hands our solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even
occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing went on with
a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work had begun. It was to
be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way, as any other transaction of
life. "Well, you know what we have to contend against, but we too,
are not without strength. We have on our side power of combination, a power denied
to the vampire kind, we have sources of science, we are free to act and think,
and the hours of the day and the night are ours equally. In fact, so far as our
powers extend, they are unfettered, and we are free to use them. We have self
devotion in a cause and an end to achieve which is not a selfish one. These things
are much. "Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against
us are restrict, and how the individual cannot. In fine, let us consider the limitations
of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular. "All we have
to go upon are traditions and superstitions. These do not at the first appear
much, when the matter is one of life and death, nay of more than either life or
death. Yet must we be satisfied, in the first place because we have to be, no
other means is at our control, and secondly, because, after all these things,
tradition and superstition, are everything. Does not the belief in vampires rest
for others, though not, alas! for us, on them? A year ago which of us would have
received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific, sceptical, matter-of-fact
nineteenth century? We even scouted a belief that we saw justified under our very
eyes. Take it, then, that the vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his
cure, rest for the moment on the same base. For, let me tell you, he is known
everywhere that men have been. In old Greece, in old Rome, he flourish in Germany
all over, in France, in India, even in the Chermosese, and in China, so far from
us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples for him at this day. He have
follow the wake of the berserker Icelander, the devil-begotten Hun, the Slav,
the Saxon, the Magyar. "So far, then, we have all we may act upon,
and let me tell you that very much of the beliefs are justified by what we have
seen in our own so unhappy experience. The vampire live on, and cannot die by
mere passing of the time, he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood
of the living. Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow younger,
that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though they refresh themselves
when his special pabulum is plenty. "But he cannot flourish without
this diet, he eat not as others. Even friend Jonathan, who lived with him for
weeks, did never see him eat, never! He throws no shadow, he make in the mirror
no reflect, as again Jonathan observe. He has the strength of many of his hand,
witness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolves, and when he help
him from the diligence too. He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from
the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog, he can be as bat, as Madam
Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this
so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy. "He
can come in mist which he create, that noble ship's captain proved him of this,
but, from what we know, the distance he can make this mist is limited, and it
can only be round himself. "He come on moonlight rays as elemental
dust, as again Jonathan saw those sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become
so small, we ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hairbreadth
space at the tomb door. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything
or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with fire,
solder you call it. He can see in the dark, no small power this, in a world which
is one half shut from the light. Ah, but hear me through. "He can do
all these things, yet he is not free. Nay, he is even more prisoner than the slave
of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he lists, he who
is not of nature has yet to obey some of nature's laws, why we know not. He may
not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who
bid him to come, though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases,
as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. "Only at
certain times can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he
is bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset. These
things we are told, and in this record of ours we have proof by inference. Thus,
whereas he can do as he will within his limit, when he have his earth-home, his
coffin-home, his hell-home, the place unhallowed, as we saw when he went to the
grave of the suicide at Whitby, still at other time he can only change when the
time come. It is said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or
the flood of the tide. Then there are things which so afflict him that he has
no power, as the garlic that we know of, and as for things sacred, as this symbol,
my crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to them he is nothing,
but in their presence he take his place far off and silent with respect. There
are others, too, which I shall tell you of, lest in our seeking we may need them. "The
branch of wild rose on his coffin keep him that he move not from it, a sacred
bullet fired into the coffin kill him so that he be true dead, and as for the
stake through him, we know already of its peace, or the cut off head that giveth
rest. We have seen it with our eyes. "Thus when we find the habitation
of this man-that-was, we can confine him to his coffin and destroy him, if we
obey what we know. But he is clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth
University, to make his record, and from all the means that are, he tell me of
what he has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his
name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkeyland.
If it be so, then was he no common man, for in that time, and for centuries after,
he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest
of the sons of the 'land beyond the forest.' That mighty brain and that iron resolution
went with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us. The Draculas
were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions
who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned
his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where
the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the records are such words as
'stregoica' witch, 'ordog' and 'pokol' Satan and hell, and in one manuscript this
very Dracula is spoken of as 'wampyr,' which we all understand too well. There
have been from the loins of this very one great men and good women, and their
graves make sacred the earth where alone this foulness can dwell. For it is not
the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good, in soil
barren of holy memories it cannot rest." Whilst they were talking Mr.
Morris was looking steadily at the window, and he now got up quietly, and went
out of the room. There was a little pause, and then the Professor went on. "And
now we must settle what we do. We have here much data, and we must proceed to
lay out our campaign. We know from the inquiry of Jonathan that from the castle
to Whitby came fifty boxes of earth, all of which were delivered at Carfax, we
also know that at least some of these boxes have been removed. It seems to me,
that our first step should be to ascertain whether all the rest remain in the
house beyond that wall where we look today, or whether any more have been removed.
If the latter, we must trace . . ." Here we were interrupted in a very
startling way. Outside the house came the sound of a pistol shot, the glass of
the window was shattered with a bullet, which ricochetting from the top of the
embrasure, struck the far wall of the room. I am afraid I am at heart a coward,
for I shrieked out. The men all jumped to their feet, Lord Godalming flew over
to the window and threw up the sash. As he did so we heard Mr. Morris' voice without,
"Sorry! I fear I have alarmed you. I shall come in and tell you about it." A
minute later he came in and said, "It was an idiotic thing of me to do, and
I ask your pardon, Mrs. Harker, most sincerely, I fear I must have frightened
you terribly. But the fact is that whilst the Professor was talking there came
a big bat and sat on the window sill. I have got such a horror of the damned brutes
from recent events that I cannot stand them, and I went out to have a shot, as
I have been doing of late of evenings, whenever I have seen one. You used to laugh
at me for it then, Art." "Did you hit it?" asked Dr. Van
Helsing. "I don't know, I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood."
Without saying any more he took his seat, and the Professor began to resume his
statement. "We must trace each of these boxes, and when we are ready,
we must either capture or kill this monster in his lair, or we must, so to speak,
sterilize the earth, so that no more he can seek safety in it. Thus in the end
we may find him in his form of man between the hours of noon and sunset, and so
engage with him when he is at his most weak. "And now for you, Madam
Mina, this night is the end until all be well. You are too precious to us to have
such risk. When we part tonight, you no more must question. We shall tell you
all in good time. We are men and are able to bear, but you must be our star and
our hope, and we shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such
as we are." All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved, but it did
not seem to me good that they should brave danger and, perhaps lessen their safety,
strength being the best safety, through care of me, but their minds were made
up, and though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, I could say nothing, save
to accept their chivalrous care of me. Mr. Morris resumed the discussion,
"As there is no time to lose, I vote we have a look at his house right now.
Time is everything with him, and swift action on our part may save another victim." I
own that my heart began to fail me when the time for action came so close, but
I did not say anything, for I had a greater fear that if I appeared as a drag
or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave me out of their counsels altogether.
They have now gone off to Carfax, with means to get into the house. Manlike,
they had told me to go to bed and sleep, as if a woman can sleep when those she
loves are in danger! I shall lie down, and pretend to sleep, lest Jonathan have
added anxiety about me when he returns. |
