Dracula

by Stoker, Bram

“Right y’are, Sir,” he said briskly. “Ye’ll excoose me, I know, for a-chaffin’ of ye, but the old woman here winked at me, which was as much as telling me to go on.”

  “Well, I never!” said the old lady.

  “My opinion is this: that ‘ere wolf is a’idin’ of, somewheres. The gard’ner wot didn’t remember said he was a-gallopin’ northward faster than a horse could go, but I don’t believe him, for, yer see, Sir, wolves don’t gallop no more nor dogs does, they not bein’ built that way. Wolves is fine things in a storybook, and I dessay when they gets in packs and does be chivyin’ somethin’ that’s more afeared than they is they can make a devil of a noise and chop it up, whatever it is. But, Lor’ bless you, in real life a wolf is only a low creature, not half so clever or bold as a good dog, and not half a quarter so much fight in ‘im. This one ain’t been used to fightin’ or even to providin’ for hisself, and more like he’s somewhere round the Park a’hidin’ an’ a’shiverin’ of, and if he thinks at all, wonderin’ where he is to get his breakfast from. Or maybe he’s got down some area and is in a coal cellar. My eye, won’t some cook get a rum start when she sees his green eyes a-shinin’ at her out of the dark! If he can’t get food he’s bound to look for it, and mayhap he may chance to light on a butcher’s shop in time. If he doesn’t, and some nursemaid goes out walkin’ or orf with a soldier, leavin’ of the hinfant in the perambulator—well, then I shouldn’t be surprised if the census is one babby the less. That’s all.”

  I was handing him the half-sovereign, when something came bobbing up against the window, and Mr. Bilder’s face doubled its natural length with surprise. “God bless me!” he said. “If there ain’t old Bersicker come back by ‘isself!”

  He went to the door and opened it, a most unnecessary proceeding it seemed to me. I have always thought that a wild animal never looks so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us. A personal experience has intensified rather than diminished that idea.

  After all, however, there is nothing like custom, for neither Bilder nor his wife thought any more of the wolf than I should of a dog. The animal itself was a peaceful and well-behaved as that father of all picture-wolves, Red Riding Hood’s quondam friend, whilst moving her confidence in masquerade.

  The whole scene was a unutterable mixture of comedy and pathos. The wicked wolf that for a half a day had paralyzed London and set all the children in town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood, and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal son. Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent said:—

  “There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of trouble. Didn’t I say it all along? Here’s his head all cut and full of broken glass. ‘E’s been a-gettin’ over some bloomin’ wall or other. It’s a shyme that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. This ‘ere’s what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker.”

  He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece of meat that satisfied, in quantity at any rate, the elementary conditions of the fatted calf, and went off to report.

  I came off too, to report the only exclusive information that is given today regarding the strange escapade at the Zoo.

  DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

  17 SEPTEMBER.—I was engaged after dinner in my study posting up my books, which, through press of other work and the many visits to Lucy, had fallen sadly into arrear. Suddenly the door was burst open, and in rushed my patient, with his face distorted with passion. I was thunderstruck, for such a thing as a patient getting of his own accord into the Superintendent’s study is almost unknown. Without an instant’s notice he made straight at me. He had a dinner knife in his hand, and as I saw he was dangerous, I tried to keep the table between us. He was too quick and too strong for me, however, for before I could get my balance he had struck at me and cut my left wrist rather severely. Before he could strike again, however, I got in my right hand and he was sprawling on his back on the floor. My wrist bled freely, and quite a little pool trickled on to the carpet. I saw that my friend was not intent on further effort, and occupied myself binding up my wrist, keeping a wary eye on the prostrate figure all the time. When the attendants rushed in, and we turned our attention to him, his employment positively sickened me. He was lying on his belly on the floor licking up, like a dog, the blood which had fallen from my wounded wrist. He was easily secured, and to my surprise, went with the attendants quite placidly, simply repeating over and over again, “The blood is the life! The blood is the life!”

  I cannot afford to lose blood just at present. I have lost too much of late for my physical good, and then the prolonged strain of Lucy’s illness and its horrible phases is telling on me. I am over excited and weary, and I need rest, rest, rest. Happily Van Helsing has not summoned me, so I need not forego my sleep. Tonight I could not well do without it.

  TELEGRAM, VAN HELSING, ANTWERP, TO SEWARD, CARFAX

  (Sent to Carfax, Sussex, as no county given, delivered late by twenty-two hours.)

  17 SEPTEMBER.—“Do not fail to be at Hilllingham tonight. If not watching all the time, frequently visit and see that flowers are as placed, very important, do not fail. Shall be with you as soon as possible after arrival.”

  DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

  18 SEPTEMBER.—Just off train to London. The arrival of Van Helsing’s telegram filled me with dismay. A whole night lost, and I know by bitter experience what may happen in a night. Of course it is possible that all may be well, but what may have happened? Surely there is some horrible doom hanging over us that every possible accident should thwart us in all we try to do. I shall take this cylinder with me, and then I can complete my entry on Lucy’s phonograph.

  MEMORANDUM LEFT BY LUCY WESTENRA

  17 SEPTEMBER, NIGHT.—I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no one may by any chance get into trouble through me. This is an exact record of what took place tonight. I feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing.

  I went to bed as usual, taking care that the flowers were

  placed as Dr. Van Helsing directed, and soon fell asleep.

  I was waked by the flapping at the window, which had begun after that sleep-walking on the cliff at Whitby when Mina saved me, and which now I know so well. I was not afraid, but I did wish that Dr. Seward was in the next room, as Dr. Van Helsing said he would be, so that I might have called him. I tried to sleep, but I could not. Then there came to me the old fear of sleep, and I determined to keep awake. Perversely sleep would try to come then when I did not want it. So, as I feared to be alone, I opened my door and called out, “Is there anybody there?” There was no answer. I was afraid to wake mother, and so closed my door again. Then outside in the shrubbery I heard a sort of howl like a dog’s, but more fierce and deeper. I went to the window and looked out, but could see nothing, except a big bat, which had evidently been buffeting its wings against the window. So I went back to bed again, but determined not to go to sleep. Presently the door opened, and mother looked in. Seeing by my moving that I was not asleep, she came in and sat by me. She said to me even more sweetly and softly than her wont:—

  “I was uneasy about you, darling, and came in to see that you were all right.”

  I feared she might catch cold sitting there, and asked her to come in and sleep with me, so she came into bed, and lay down beside me. She did not take off her dressing gown, for she said she would only stay a while and then go back to her own bed. As she lay there in my arms, and I in hers the flapping and buffeting came to the window again. She was startled and a little frightened, and cried out, “What is that?” I tried to pacify her, and at last succeeded, and she lay quiet. But I could hear her poor dear heart still beating terribly. After a while there was the howl again out in the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor. The window blind blew back w
ith the wind that rushed in, and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great, gaunt gray wolf. Mother cried out in a fright, and struggled up into a sitting posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would help her. Amongst other things, she clutched the wreath of flowers that Dr. Van Helsing insisted on my wearing round my neck, and tore it away from me. For a second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange and horrible gurgling in her throat. Then she fell over, as if struck with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a moment or two. The room and all round seemed to spin round. I kept my eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole myriad of little specks seems to come blowing in through the broken window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I tried to stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear Mother’s poor body, which seemed to grow cold already, for her dear heart had ceased to beat, weighed me down, and I remembered no more for a while.

  The time did not seem long, but very, very awful, till I recovered consciousness again. Somewhere near, a passing bell was tolling. The dogs all round the neighbourhood were howling, and in our shrubbery, seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing. I was dazed and stupid with pain and terror and weakness, but the sound of the nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort me. The sounds seemed to have awakened the maids, too, for I could hear their bare feet pattering outside my door. I called to them, and they came in, and when they saw what had happened, and what it was that lay over me on the bed, they screamed out. The wind rushed in through the broken window, and the door slammed to. They lifted off the body of my dear mother, and laid her, covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I had got up. They were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them to go to the dining room and each have a glass of wine. The door flew open for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and then went in a body to the dining room, and I laid what flowers I had on my dear mother’s breast. When they were there I remembered what Dr. Van Helsing had told me, but I didn’t like to remove them, and besides, I would have some of the servants to sit up with me now. I was surprised that the maids did not come back. I called them, but got no answer, so I went to the dining room to look for them.

  My heart sank when I saw what had happened. They all four lay helpless on the floor, breathing heavily. The decanter of sherry was on the table half full, but there was a queer, acrid smell about. I was suspicious, and examined the decanter. It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the sideboard, I found that the bottle which Mother’s doctor uses for her—oh! did use—was empty. What am I to do? What am I to do? I am back in the room with Mother. I cannot leave her, and I am alone, save for the sleeping servants, whom some one has drugged. Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window.

  The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the draught from the window, and the lights burn blue and dim. What am I to do? God shield me from harm this night! I shall hide this paper in my breast, where they shall find it when they come to lay me out. My dear mother gone! It is time that I go too. Goodbye, dear Arthur, if I should not survive this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me!

  Stoker seems to know just when the reader might be asking, “And how does Lucy feel about all this?” Thus we get her diary entry just when we need it!

  Earlier we spoke about how Dracula seems at times to be a “comedy of manners”; now it becomes a “dark comedy of manners,” with Mrs. Westenra’s dithering interference causing grim and ironic occurrences.

  To use the literary term, this is Van Helsing’s “Oops” moment. But note that Van Helsing is acting in accordance with the simple psychological dynamic: projection. He is intelligent enough to blame himself, at least in part, for the situation. Yet he cannot do so in full. And thus, it is Lucy’s mother who must take some blame. Stoker is inside Van Helsing’s head and understands the doctor better than does the doctor himself.

  Didn’t want you to miss it … the third transfusion! This time from Van Helsing himself. One might wonder, at what point should someone suggest Lucy sleep in a room without a window?

  And Van Helsing giving not a thought to wish he had told her before: It’s interesting that now that Seward is much less the obnoxious narcissist, Van Helsing sometimes seems to step into that role!

  Once more, Seward is thinking what he would never have imagined only a few chapters back. The doctor always differentiated himself from “madmen,” typically “treating them” in a detached and condescending way, and now he seems to sympathize with their plight. Seward is growing in his humanity.

  Boughs or bats … reader, what do you think?

  Back into “Stoker’s adventures in dialect,” but this round, working-class British doesn’t require much translation. You know that “Bersicker” is “Berserker,” right? It’s a little difficult to imagine a magazine reporter recording these quotes in a dialect as challenging to parse as this one can be at times. Stoker is creating a character here, but he’s also taking the reader out of the flow just a bit by forcing him to slow down in order to understand what the man is trying to say … but an escaped wolf is definitely a topic that will grab the readers, especially at this point in the novel when we know Dracula is on the scene.

  Dracula in one of his “less than masterful” disguises?

  Bilder’s “anceterer” is his unique take on a Cockney variant of “etcetera.”

  A wolf has considerable strength but not likely enough to twist and break the bars of a zoo cage. We do know, however, that Dracula and the count’s “coachmen” are superhumanly strong.

  Intentional comedy, the kind of punch line that Mark Twain, one of the American writers Stoker admired, would have employed as a conclusion to a “local color/shaggy-dog” story.

  And this comes as a surprise to us, too! But Stoker has established the relationship between “Bersicker” and Bilder. A successful surprise in a narrative is one that not only does surprise but that also seems inevitable!

  This signature line is spoken by Count Dracula, portrayed by Bela Lugosi, in the archetypal 1931 film. Here Renfield says it. Of course, Stoker did not originate the line. If we go to Leviticus 17:14: “… the blood of it [is] for the life thereof … the life of all flesh [is] the blood thereof.” Stoker knows his Bible—and, as we’ve mentioned, so does Dracula!

  Also notice the animalistic manner in which Renfield laps the blood … almost as if he also has become an inhuman being.

  Of course, when can anyone afford to lose blood, what with a vampire running around, but he’s thinking of Lucy here, not himself, nor is he whining about how inconvenienced he has been!

  Earlier mentions of Lucy’s interest in music make it credible that she has a phonograph; this would not be the case for the general populace for another decade or two. Accuracy is key, but so is consistency, and this reference does make sense here.

  Stoker springs another surprise for which we have been perfectly set up! We were told, by no less an authority than zookeeper Bilder and the observant newspaperman “Bersicker” had broken glass in his fur and that “… ’E’s been a-gettin’ over some bloomin’ wall or other. It’s a shyme that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. This ’ere’s what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker.” They had no way of knowing what the real story was.

  Nor did we.

  But once again, with a bit of chronology manipulation (no, A doesn’t always have to come before B or even Q!), we’re getting the shock Stoker intends.

  As is Lucy.

  And her mother!

  A frightening scene, to go from being surrounded by servants to being utterly alone. Although her “alone with the dead” is all the more ironic because we know she is not alone with the dead. She is alone with the dead and with the presence of the Undead. Stoker knows how to evoke the reader’s knowledge in su
ch situations when a character herself might not have that knowledge.

  Remember the first mention of the “blue flames” in Chapter 1?

  Here’s yet another cliff-hanger! How could the reader not turn the page?

  Chapter 12

  DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

  18 SEPTEMBER.—I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early. Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door. After a while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again, still no answer. I cursed the laziness of the servants that they should lie abed at such an hour, for it was now ten o’clock, and so rang and knocked again, but more impatiently, but still without response. Hitherto I had blamed only the servants, but now a terrible fear began to assail me. Was this desolation but another link in the chain of doom which seemed drawing tight round us? Was it indeed a house of death to which I had come, too late? I know that minutes, even seconds of delay, might mean hours of danger to Lucy, if she had had again one of those frightful relapses, and I went round the house to try if I could find by chance an entry anywhere.

  I could find no means of ingress. Every window and door was fastened and locked, and I returned baffled to the porch. As I did so, I heard the rapid pit-pat of a swiftly driven horse’s feet. They stopped at the gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing running up the avenue. When he saw me, he gasped out, “Then it was you, and just arrived. How is she? Are we too late? Did you not get my telegram?”

  I answered as quickly and coherently as I could that I had only got his telegram early in the morning, and had not lost a minute in coming here, and that I could not make any one in the house hear me. He paused and raised his hat as he said solemnly:—

  “Then I fear we are too late. God’s will be done!” With his usual recuperative energy, he went on, “Come. If there be no way open to get in, we must make one. Time is all in all to us now.”