Bram Stoker

What I saw was the Count’s head com­ing out from the win­dow. I did not

I was not alone. The room was the same, un­changed in any way since I came into it; I could see along the floor, in the bril­liant moon­light, my own foot­step

Good night, every­body.

“This is what I can give into the hotch-pot.” I could not but note the quaint legal phrase which she used in such a place, and with all ser­i­ous­ness. “What will each of you give? Your lives I know,” she went on quickly, “that is easy for brave men. Your lives are God’s, and you can give them back to Him; but what will you give to me?” She looked again ques­tion­ingly, but this time avoided her hus­band’s face. Quin­cey seemed to un­der­stand; he nod­ded, and her face lit up. “Then I shall tell you plainly what I want, for there must be no doubt­ful mat­ter in this con­nec­tion between us now. You must prom­ise me, one and all—even you, my be­loved hus­band—that, should the time come, you will kill me.”

“What is that time?” The voice was Quin­cey’s, but it was low and strained.

“When you shall be con­vinced that I am so changed that it is bet­ter that I die that I may live. When I am thus dead in the flesh, then you will, without a mo­ment’s delay, drive a stake through me and cut off my head; or do whatever else may be want­ing to give me rest!”

Quin­cey was the first to rise after the pause. He knelt down be­fore her and tak­ing her hand in his said sol­emnly:―

“I’m only a rough fel­low, who hasn’t, per­haps, lived as a man should to win such a dis­tinc­tion, but I swear to you by all that I hold sac­red and dear that, should the time ever come, I shall not flinch from the duty that you have set us. And I prom­ise you, too, that I shall make all cer­tain, for if I am only doubt­ful I shall take it that the time has come!”

“My true friend!” was all she could say amid her fast-fall­ing tears, as, bend­ing over, she kissed his hand.

“I swear the same, my dear Madam Mina!” said Van Helsing.

“And I!” said Lord Godalm­ing, each of them in turn kneel­ing to her to take the oath. I fol­lowed, my­self. Then her hus­band turned to her wan-eyed and with a green­ish pal­lor which sub­dued the snowy white­ness of his hair, and asked:―

“And must I, too, make such a prom­ise, oh, my wife?”

“You too, my dearest,” she said, with in­fin­ite yearn­ing of pity in her voice and eyes. “You must not shrink. You are nearest and dearest and all the world to me; our souls are knit into one, for all life and all time. Think, dear, that there have been times when brave men have killed their wives and their wo­men­kind, to keep them from fall­ing into the hands of the en­emy. Their hands did not fal­ter any the more be­cause those that they loved im­plored them to slay them. It is men’s duty to­wards those whom they love, in such times of sore trial! And oh, my dear, if it is to be that I must meet death at any hand, let it be at the hand of him that loves me best. Dr. Van Helsing, I have not for­got­ten your mercy in poor Lucy’s case to him who loved”—she stopped with a fly­ing blush, and changed her phrase—“to him who had best right to give her peace. If that time shall come again, I look to you to make it a happy memory of my hus­band’s life that it was his lov­ing hand which set me free from the aw­ful thrall upon me.”

“Again I swear!” came the Pro­fessor’s res­on­ant voice. Mrs. Harker smiled, pos­it­ively smiled, as with a sigh of re­lief she leaned back and said:―

“And now one word of warn­ing, a warn­ing which you must never for­get: this time, if it ever come, may come quickly and un­ex­pec­tedly, and in such case you must lose no time in us­ing your op­por­tun­ity. At such a time I my­self might be—nay! if the time ever comes, shall be—leagued with your en­emy against you.”

“One more re­quest;” she be­came very sol­emn as she said this, “it is not vi­tal and ne­ces­sary like the other, but I want you to do one thing for me, if you will.” We all ac­qui­esced, but no one spoke; there was no need to speak:―

“I want you to read the Burial Ser­vice.” She was in­ter­rup­ted by a deep groan from her hus­band; tak­ing his hand in hers, she held it over her heart, and con­tin­ued: “You must read it over me some day. Whatever may be the is­sue of all this fear­ful state of things, it will be a sweet thought to all or some of us. You, my dearest, will I hope read it, for then it will be in your voice in my memory forever—come what may!”

“But oh, my dear one,” he pleaded, “death is afar off from you.”

“Nay,” she said, hold­ing up a warn­ing hand. “I am deeper in death at this mo­ment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy upon me!”

“Oh, my wife, must I read it?” he said, be­fore he began.

“It would com­fort me, my hus­band!” was all she said; and he began to read when she had got the book ready.

We think that we shall not have much trouble with of­fi­cials or the sea­men. Thank God! this is the coun­try where bribery can do any­thing, and we are well sup­plied with money. We have only to make sure that the ship can­not come into port between sun­set and sun­rise without our be­ing warned, and we shall be safe. Judge Money­bag will settle this case, I think!

Van Helsing ex­am­ines, he tells me, her teeth very care­fully, whilst she is in the hyp­notic con­di­tion, for he says that so long as they do not be­gin to sharpen there is no act­ive danger of a change in her. If this change should come, it would be ne­ces­sary to take steps! … We both know what those steps would have to be, though we do not men­tion our thoughts to each other. We should neither of us shrink from the task—aw­ful though it be to con­tem­plate. “Euthanasia” is an ex­cel­lent and a com­fort­ing word! I am grate­ful to who­ever in­ven­ted it.

“How can I—how could any­one—tell of that strange scene, its solem­nity, its gloom, its sad­ness, its hor­ror; and, withal, its sweet­ness. Even a scep­tic, who can see noth­ing but a trav­esty of bit­ter truth in any­thing holy or emo­tional, would have been melted to the heart had he seen that little group of lov­ing and de­voted friends kneel­ing round that stricken and sor­row­ing lady; or heard the tender pas­sion of her hus­band’s voice, as in tones so broken with emo­tion that of­ten he had to pause, he read the simple and beau­ti­ful ser­vice from the Burial of the Dead. I—I can­not go on—words—and—v-voice—f-fail m-me!”

She was right in her in­stinct. Strange as it all was, bizarre as it may here­after seem even to us who felt its po­tent in­flu­ence at the time, it com­for­ted us much; and the si­lence, which showed Mrs. Harker’s com­ing re­lapse from her free­dom of soul, did not seem so full of des­pair to any of us as we had dreaded.

Poor girl, she has so much to for­get that it is no won­der that sleep, if it brings ob­li­vion to her, does her good.

“When does the next train start for Gal­atz?” said Van Helsing to us gen­er­ally.

“At 6:30 to­mor­row morn­ing!” We all star­ted, for the an­swer came from Mrs. Harker.

“How on earth do you know?” said Art.

“You for­get—or per­haps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so does Dr. Van Helsing—that I am the train fiend. At home in Exeter I al­ways used to make up the timetables, so as to be help­ful to my hus­band. I found it so use­ful some­times, that I al­ways make a study of the timetables now. I knew that if any­thing were to take us to Castle Drac­ula we should go by Gal­atz, or at any rate through Bucharest, so I learned the times very care­fully. Un­hap­pily there are not many to learn, as the only train to­mor­row leaves as I say.”

“Won­der­ful wo­man!” mur­mured the Pro­fessor.