by Stoker, Bram
Well, my dear, number one came just before lunch. I told you of him, Ddr. John Seward, the lunatic asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them, but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don’t generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time, and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman’s heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best.
Oh, Mina dear, I can’t help crying, and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn’t at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken hearted, and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy.
EVENING.
Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left off, so I can go on telling you about the day.
Well, my dear, number two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has such adventures. I sympathize with poor Desdemona when she had such a stream poured in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I don’t, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and yet …
My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincey P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn’t, for Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him all I could, I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn’t always speak slang—that is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well educated and has exquisite manners—but he found out that it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang. I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet.
Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly …
“Miss Lucy, I know I ain’t good enough to regulate the fixin’s of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won’t you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?”
Well, he did look so good humoured and so jolly that it didn’t seem half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward. So I said, as lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I wasn’t broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so on so grave, so momentous, an occasion for him, I would forgive him. He really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn’t help feeling a bit serious too—I know, Mina, you will think me a horrid flirt—though I couldn’t help feeling a sort of exultation that he was number Two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free …
“Lucy, you are an honest hearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is I’ll never trouble you a hair’s breadth again, but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend.”
My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great-hearted, true gentleman. I burst into tears—I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one—and I really felt very badly.
Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morris’ brave eyes, and I told him out straight …
“Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he even loves me.” I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mine, I think I put them into his—and said in a hearty way …
“That’s my brave girl. It’s better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don’t cry, my dear. If it’s for me, I’m a hard nut to crack, and I take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn’t know his happiness, well, he’d better look for it soon, or he’ll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that’s rarer than a lover; it’s more selfish anyhow. My dear, I’m going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won’t you give me one kiss? It’ll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellow—he must be a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not love him—hasn’t spoken yet.”
That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble too, to a rival—wasn’t it?—and he so sad, so I leant over and kissed him.
He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down into my face—I am afraid I was blushing very much, he said, “Little girl, I hold your hand, and you’ve kissed me, and if these things don’t make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and goodbye.”
He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause, and I am crying like a baby.
Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I were free, only I don’t want to be free. My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it, and I don’t wish to tell of the number Three until it can be all happy. Ever your loving …
Lucy
P.S.—Oh, about number Three, I needn’t tell you of number Three, need I? Besides, it was all so confused. It seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don’t know what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me
in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend.
Goodbye.
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY (KEPT IN PHONOGRAPH)
25 MAY.—Ebb tide in appetite today. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling. Nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing. As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can. Today I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery.
I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness, a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell.
(Mem., under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?) Omnia romae venalia sunt. Hell has its price! If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards accurately, so I had better commence to do so, therefore …
R. M. Renfield, age 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it.
LETTER, QUINCEY P. MORRIS TO HON. ARTHUR HOLMOOD
25 May.
My dear Art,
We’ve told yarns by the campfire in the prairies, and dressed one another’s wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas, and drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told, and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won’t you let this be at my campfire tomorrow night? I have no hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner party, and that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack Seward. He’s coming, too, and we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart that God has made and best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come!
Yours, as ever and always,
Quincey P. Morris
TELEGRAM FROM ARTHUR HOLMWOOD TO QUINCEY P. MORRIS
26 May
Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle.
Art
The narration continues in epistolary fashion, but the point of view and thus the voice we are hearing is that of Mina Murray. Once again, we see how epistolary narration enables the writer to employ many different voices. The voice in the preceding four chapters was that of the sigma character, the character upon whom we have been focusing, Jonathan Harker—a male, like the book’s author. But now let’s ask ourselves: Can a male writer create convincing and engaging female characters?
My answer? A thin, unconvincing, non-credible character is not a gender issue. It strikes me as a writing issue. Let us see how Stoker handles this as we progress.
Lucy knows Mina is an assistant schoolmistress. Mina therefore writes this for our sake, to give readers this information, yet it is done so skillfully and briefly that we do not find it stilted.
With the expression “two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday …” Mina shows herself to be creative—and an avid journalist. (Yes, she’d probably have several blogs today!)
Most people don’t keep highly detailed, comprehensive journals. Mina has given us the means for accepting her atypical journaling efforts: She has shared her motivation.
Awareness! Mina is training herself in observation—to make herself a better writer! Any lesson here? So often beginning writers think it necessary to have superpowers of imagination to write fiction. Here’s the real formula: A lot of reality + a little bit of imagination = quality fiction.
Thanks to epistolary narration, what do we know that Mina does not? How does this knowledge inform our reading and our response to the story? What emotional impact does such narration give these kinds of statements?
Being picky readers, we might ask, “And just where is Mina hearing these rumors?” And had Mina revealed specifically her sources, it would be utterly wrong for the tone of the letter. Instead she is coy and playful, the way intimate friends often behave.
Lucy in her writing is something of a tease with her mock-scolding of Mina.
There is a frivolity, an impetuosity to Lucy, that comes through in her “social butterfly” routine: picture galleries, walks and rides in the park, etc. She is obviously a lively young woman (flirtatious? I’d say so!)—which adds powerful impact to the fate she suffers later.
Also, “Pop” refers to “Popular Concerts” held at St. James Hall within London’s Crystal Palace. We may assume that British readers of Stoker’s era would understand the reference.
Is there a bit of cattiness in Lucy’s remark? No matter how Mina and Lucy exchange complimentary remarks of the “You’re so sweet/dear/kind/thoughtful/nifty-keen-ginger-peachy-swell” variety, neither of these ladies is pure spun sugar. If there’s a touch of snitty and snippy in Lucy, she becomes all the more real because of it.
Apparently the readers of Stoker’s time would understand that “parti” meant “a good match,” although given that Lucy immediately lists Dr. Seward’s qualities, one might get this from context.
We come to the problem of reading a story in a different time and culture than the one in which it is set and was written. The phrase “lunatic asylum,” gives us modern, progressive, intuitive readers shudders of abhorrence at the insensitivity, the cruelty!
Whether we are writing contemporary realistic fiction or a historical novel or a science fiction novel of the far future, writers are a product of their time. Today’s writers are influenced by the ever-advancing “information age” culture—and that will come through in ways both big and small in whatever we write.
It’s phrases like “what a wonderful power he must have over his patients” that give Dracula’s psychosexual critics reams and reams of marginal notes.
Now Lucy proclaims (in so many words) “What an individual I am.” And with that we get a nice tad of irony. As she ticks off the number of her suitors, she seems anything but the Self-Esteem poster child.
But Stoker, with Lucy’s words, is again doing his fine job of showing. Lucy’s letter shows us Lucy… and that Lucy is not the person she thinks she is presenting!
Writers who use character charts to create fictive personages—What is his favorite color? What’s her astrological sign?—sometimes include questions like:
How does he see himself?
How do others see him?
The answers to these questions can be strikingly different. Few of us like to think of ourselves as a villain. Hitler did not get up in the morning thinking, People will someday damn me to a thousand hells and call me the greatest monster the world has ever seen! That’s what I’m aiming for!
Absurd as it may sound to us, he likely awoke with, What can I do today that will help Germany for the next thousand years …
Frightening, yes?
Because Stoker has kept Lucy so in control, he can let her gush. She is giving us the emphasis this revelation to her BFF Mina merits and is following the Classic Rule of Three: Three is not too little, not too much. Three is just right.
Is there some degree of humor and vanity in Miss
Lucy chiding the vain? Yes, and while we don’t read Stoker for laughs, he gives us the occasional comic moment, and considering the heaviness of the story, it’s particularly appreciated. If you are a writer who can turn on the funny, that’s a plus.
But be careful: There are few things sadder than a writer who isn’t funny trying to be funny.
Lucy’s observation of Dr. Seward reveals his nervousness, as is intended, and also reveals that Lucy is not an unskilled observer. We learn a great deal about a character by what the character observes and what he or she does not deem worthy of observation.
With just little dollops of showing (with precise details) and narration, Lucy gives us considerable information about Dr. Seward and about the nature of the relationship they will have from this point on.
We’ve discussed the rule: Show, don’t tell. But there is a time to tell and not show, to give the reader exposition and not dramatization—and that is when you want to step up the pace so as to get to more dramatic narrative sections.
Yes, I know it’s racist and you know it’s racist and Victorian England was racist and anti-Semitic and what more can we do but acknowledge it and move along for now?
A frequent criticism of Dracula is Mr. Quincey P. Morris and his slang. Despite Stoker’s admiration of America and American writers, we must agree his ear frequently turns to tin when he gives Quincey Morris something to say.
To borrow from the great Western film classic Blazing Saddles, Quincey often sounds as though he is speaking “authentic Frontier Gibberish.”
Dialect is tricky stuff. It’s usually a mistake to try too hard to render dialect phonetically. One of the modern masters of presenting authentic-sounding but intelligible writing is Walter Mosley. In one of his many fine novels, A Little Yellow Dog, Mosley gives us Depression-era, East Texas dialect, but just at the moment you might be saying, “I don’t quite get it,” he backs off, perhaps for exposition or straight anonymous third-person narration.
