Eventually, my mind became so tormented by what had happened — or what had not happened — that I had to abandon my biography and return my advance to the publisher who had commissioned it. It was a terrible time, and for a few weeks I needed to be hospitalized.
It was during this period that I decided to set out on a quest to see if what I had imagined — or thought I had imagined — had any validity. Painstaking research and many false trails led me to the conclusion that Abraham van Helsing was indeed a real person. That reference by Symons to Van Helsing’s papers, particularly the “unpublished” ones, haunted me.
After chasing down a thousand blind alleys I eventually traced Van Helsing’s papers to the library of University College Oxford of which Van Helsing had been an honorary fellow. There for over a century they had remained unnoticed in an old leather dressing case embossed with the Doctor’s initials, A van H, tucked away in the furthest recesses of the library’s vaults. It is hardly surprising, considering their content, that these papers remained unpublished in Professor Van Helsing’s lifetime and so I am more than grateful to the Master and fellows of University for allowing them at long last to see the light of day. Having read them however I am bound to say that the Professor’s warning in the foreword appended below is not an idle one. The pages that follow it are not for the faint hearted or the trivial minded.
REGGIE OLIVER
Foreword
by Dr. Abraham Van Helsing
Some years after the terrible incidents recorded by my friend Jonathan Harker and others, a number of documents fell into my hands relating to the early history of the person whom we knew as Count Dracula. I have attempted to form them into a coherent narrative and here place them before the reader, not for the vulgar enjoyment of the curious, nor yet to furnish some explanation for the phenomenon known as Vampirism, but to shed some light on the darkness which hides in every human breast and to offer a singular proof of that adage: “tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.”
My friend, the late Cornelius Vamberry, whose invaluable studies of Middle European superstition and lore are now world famous, told me where I might find the documents which I lay before the reader. For many years they were the property of a little-known religious sect called “The Brotherhood of God.” Founded in the early part of the seventeenth century, its members are devoted to solitary prayer, extreme ascetic practices and the healing of psychic sicknesses and abnormalities. They belong to no denomination and are consulted by both Protestant and Catholic alike on spiritual matters of an esoteric nature, and in particular when an exorcism has to be performed. Their library, at the Brother’s retreat house in the Black Forest, is a vast repository of occult lore and contains numerous unpublished manuscripts.
One of these is the Memorial of Martin Bellorius (1553-1635), one of the most outstanding scholars of the Renaissance which was an age of prodigious learning. Nowadays he is almost entirely forgotten, earning the occasional footnote in the history books for his influence on Cudworth and the Cambridge Platonists. In his lifetime he was renowned for his vast magnum opus Harmonia Mundi in which he attempted to reconcile all that was then known in science, in addition to Greek and Roman Philosophy, with Christianity. It is a work of immense learning and extreme tediousness. The Memorial is a surprising document in many ways. Not only is it far from being tedious and pedantic, unlike Bellorius’ other work, but it throws an astonishing light on his life about which little or nothing was hitherto known. It certainly goes some way to explaining the cryptic reference to him made by his old friend Robert Burton in the Anatomy of Melancholy (1.2.): “Some are afraid that heaven will fall on their heads: some they are damned or shall be. Some will not go alone for fear that they shall meet the devil; fear all old women as witches, and every black dog or cat they see suspect to be a demon, every man that comes near them to be maleficiated. Bellorius Polymathus speaks of himself as one that durst not walk abroad lest some sudden torment fall upon him and that this was umbra temporis acti, the shadow of time past.” We can now guess at what is meant by that mysterious phrase, “the shadow of time past” and why, as we know from other sources, he spent the last years of his life in a tower, rarely going out, and gripped by a nameless fear of something or someone.
At this moment it is only part of this document that I wish to lay before the select reader. Before this dreadful history is over Dr. Martin Bellorius will have more to say.
The Memorial was quite clearly not meant for publication in Bellorius’s lifetime. It was probably intended as some sort of expiation and explanation either to himself or to a confessor. This may account for and to some extent excuse the shocking frankness exhibited in many sections of the work. In my translation I have included these passages — albeit with great reluctance — for the sake of completeness and because I have no intention of placing these papers before the eyes of the general public.
In my opinion the narrative that follows should never be made accessible to the vulgar and is only to be read by scholars and other authorised and responsible persons. Nevertheless I must solemnly warn even them not to scan these pages in a spirit of idle curiosity. The history of corruption may corrupt, if read for vicious enjoyment. Let those who seek out wisdom not condemn, lest they be condemned; let those who would condemn remain ignorant. This is a book for all and none.
ABRAHAM Van HELSING
University College,
Oxford.
December 1894
I
I, Martin Bellorius, doctor and scholar, in the year of grace 1632 set down this account of certain incidents in my life. May God have mercy on my soul. The terrible things that this manuscript contains, its horrors, blasphemies and obscenities, are not written out of any idle desire to tell a story, but in the hope of reconciling myself to my God. For some years now I have been afraid to go outside my house, especially at night. The spectre of guilt gnaws at my nightly rest until I think I shall go mad; therefore I have come to the conclusion that I must unburden myself. If anyone comes across these pages during my lifetime, I must beg them to read no further; if these words come to them after my death I can only beseech them from beyond the grave, for the sake of my honour and their sanity to burn this manuscript. After which, let them pray earnestly for the salvation of my soul.
I will not trouble to describe my early life which was both blameless and industrious. I was the son of a notary in Augsberg who, when he discovered that I was the possessor of prodigious intellectual gifts, set me on the path which I was to follow, the career of a scholar and a teacher. But the story I have to tell begins when I was out of my first youth, at the point when you could say my life both began and ended.
It was in the year 1575 that I became a Doctor at the University of Wittenberg. I was a young man of only twenty-two summers, but I had acquired a reputation for learning which was not undeserved. My commentaries on the propositions of Euclid were among the first of their kind and are still highly regarded. Moreover I was well versed in Theology (Queen of all Sciences), Astronomy, Cosmology, Rhetoric, Grammar, Music and Natural Science. Not for nothing was I popularly known as Doctor Polymathus, The All-knowing Doctor. But, as I have learned to my cost, a man may know all things but lack the one thing that is needful, which is wisdom. I, who might have been most celebrated for learning in an age of learned men, lacked the sense of the humblest peasant who, when he sees the dark clouds massing, pregnant with rain and thunder, will run for shelter.
One night in that same year there came to my house a man carrying a letter for me. I did not see the man, as my housekeeper took the letter from him, but he had told her that he would wait at the Inn of the Silver Key nearby for an answer. The letter bore a strange insignium on the seal, a crown surmounting a pair of dragons clasping each other’s breast and breathing fire outward from one another. It was evidently the badge of some royal house. I asked my housekeeper about the messenger and she merely replied that he seemed to be a man of some rank and that his name was Ragul.
&nb
sp; The letter was in Latin — though full of the most disgraceful grammatical errors — and went as follows:
Most excellent and learned doctor! Hearing of your great sagacity and wit, a prodigy in one so young, even from so great a distance, my royal master was prompted to write to you, firstly to honour your wisdom and then to make a request of you. My royal master, whose power and splendour is doubtless familiar to one of your all pervading knowledge, has been blessed with the issue of two sons, to wit Mircea and Vladimir, and desires that their education should be conducted according to the most enlightened principles of the new learning. Accordingly His choice has lighted upon you as being the most apt and fitted for this highly honourable task. He therefore summons you to his august presence. In his munificence he offers you the sum of ninety golden thalers per year, together with recompense and accommodation for two assistants, if need be, rooms in his castle and all the honours that should pertain to such an exalted post. The bearer of this letter awaits your assent.
And it was signed, “Alexander of Glem, Chamberlain to His most Serene Potency, Xantho, third of that name, King of Transylvania, Lord of the Carpathian Hills, Prince of Wallachia, and the Plains of Gorg and Saranth to the River An. By the Grace of God.” This last added, it seems, as an afterthought.
My emotions were mixed. I was very flattered by this tribute from a far place but also alarmed that I was not so much being asked to go as tutor to his boys as ordered to go. I did not know the ways of kings and princes then. I thought they were all great men and must be obeyed on peril of my life and soul. But still I held back, for I loved my city and the honoured place I had in it, even though I was not paid half of what the King was offering me. At the same time I did not dare to refuse the proposal outright. So, fool that I was, I did nothing. I went about the town and lectured at the University and I tried not to go near the sign of the Silver Key.
It must have been on the third or fourth day after I received the letter that I noticed as I threaded my way from the University to my lodgings that a man was following me. He was a dark, thin man in a travel-stained cloak. I thought it might be my fancy, but when I stopped, he stopped. Dusk was falling and there were times when he would melt into the shadows under the overhanging eaves of houses that loomed crookedly over the cobbled ways. I thought he might be some student with mischief in mind. I knew he was not a footpad or he would have attacked me already.
Accordingly I walked on and then suddenly doubled back, hoping to meet with him face to face. I had courage in those days, the senseless courage of a man who has never felt fear. But he was too quick for me. So I laughed aloud and told myself it was a foolish joke. But when in the following days the shadowing continued I began to worry.
One evening my housekeeper told me that a man was standing outside my house. Looking through the shutters I saw in the shadow of a wall the person in the travel-stained cloak who had been following me. He stood quite still, making no effort to shelter from the rain which was falling heavily and forming pools and streams among the stones of the street. I asked my housekeeper if she knew who this man was and she said it was the man called Ragul who had come with the letter.
I darted out and was across the street in a moment. But the man was gone, which put me into a foolish rage. Why should a man avoid me when he must guess that I knew who he was and where to find him? This was a mystery beyond my wit to understand and I was angry because I felt I should know. The next day I went to the Silver Key and asked for Ragul. The landlord showed me to a private room where a man stood warming himself before a fire. Without his cloak he seemed less tall. He turned and I saw to my surprise that here was someone not much older than myself. He was a little over the average height, straight and thin, with a pale face and black hair. Only his eyes bore the signs of age and experience, and the way he held himself carried the quiet and unmistakable stamp of authority. I can remember so many things with painful clarity, but not the conversation that Ragul and I had in that room. All I know with certainty is that by the end of it I had agreed to go to Transylvania. I was given money for the journey and instructions in a scroll as to how to reach my destination. Ragul was not to accompany me but would meet me at the borders of his native land.
After I had left the inn that night I began almost instantly to regret my decision to go, and the following day I went back to the Silver Key with the money intending to return it and inform Ragul that I had changed my mind. But Ragul had left. There was a message for me bearing the Transylvanian seal left with the innkeeper. It contained a simple warning that on peril of my life and soul I was not to go back on my decision.
This filled me with great fear. Had I been older I might have ignored it, but in those days I could not tell an empty threat from a real one. And so I began my preparations to leave Wittenberg. My masters at the University were distressed at my leaving but did nothing to hinder me. They merely nodded their heads and talked in an almost wistful way about youthful impetuosity.
I found most trouble where I least expected it, in finding a servant to accompany me on the long journey to Transylvania. There were many able-bodied young men, poor enough in all conscience, who should have been glad of such an adventure, but they all preferred to starve rather than leave their homes. I needed a man strong and resourceful, but men like that knew their worth in my city, and perhaps they were not such fools as I was.
My problem however was solved in a curious way. During one of my last visits to the University I fell into conversation with a most learned man, Doctor Spankemius, whose work on the Nine Orders of Angels, as first revealed by Denys the Areopagite is, I suppose, known to the whole civilized world. We were, I think, discussing the assignation of the said angels to the various planetary spheres and the art of memorizing such associations when my old friend stopped suddenly and drew me aside. We had been walking round the cloister adjoining the Old Hall.
I knew this habit of his. He was a man of extraordinary caution. It had been nine years before he had been persuaded to publish his blameless and unheretical work on the angels. The merest suspicion of misconduct put him in a state bordering on terror. When we were safely lodged behind a pillar Spankemius pointed a trembling finger at a dark, stocky young man sitting under a sunlit arch. He was staring rather gloomily at the wall opposite.
“There,” said the learned doctor, “is a man who may have to leave this place sooner than you.” I recognized the man. He was called Matthew Verney, an Englishman and a student at the University. I asked my friend what he had done.
“There is no proof that he has done anything,” said Spankemius, “but there are rumours. We know that he is a student of alchemy and there are stories of conjurations, necromancy and the like. If we at the University do not condemn him soon, the town will, and then so much the worse for us. The townspeople show no mercy to sorcerers. Nor should they, by the Blood of Christ!”
I asked if it was certain that he had done these things.
“Certain it is that he is a strange man,” Spankemius replied, “and he was, they say, associated in Nurenberg with the man called Johann Faustus. I have myself seen him studying the works of Cornelius Agrippa and once he had Hermes Trismegistus under his arm.” I did not ask my friend how he had recognized the book.
I looked at the man Matthew Verney. His aspect did not seem to be very wicked, though I did not know then what wickedness truly looks like. But I recognized the face of a man at odds with the world, defiant and reckless.
When I had finished my conversation with the learned Doctor I returned to the cloister to find Verney still sitting in the place where we had first seen him. I began by telling him of the danger he was in both from the University authorities and the townspeople, but he seemed wholly indifferent to his peril. I then told him of the journey I was to make, how it would be fraught with danger, but how the rewards would be great and the adventures strange. Verney forgot his listless air and began to show interest. In short he consented to come as my steward — secre
tary, he called it — and we agreed to set off as soon as possible.
I was wise enough to know that for some it is better to court danger than risk boredom. Matthew was one of these, hence his flirtation — I thought at the time it was nothing more — with forbidden books and practices. I supposed that the open road and new sights would blow Agrippa and Faustus from his mind. But he had drunk deeply at that fountain, as I discovered later.
II
My choice of Verney as a companion almost brought disaster before we even set out. It was the time of the yearly reckoning at the University when every student and scholar comes before the most learned Inner Council of the University to be assessed; and if any student has a grievance against anyone, be it townsman, professor or fellow student, he may speak out and receive instant redress. This event took place in the Great Hall which, I hear, is now burned to the ground leaving no trace. As I remember, it was vast, big-beamed and lantern-lit. The vaulted wooden roof spanned a great area and would occasionally drop from its forest of interlocking joists the odd unwary mouse or beetle onto the congregation beneath.
On the night that I speak of, in December and almost the time when we celebrated Our Lord’s birth the great building was full of noise and smell and candlelight. We professors were grouped on a dais, a little raised from the general throng. Despite the raw, frosty weather outside the heat here was intense. It was close and stifling from a thousand packed bodies. To relieve the thickness of atmosphere some students at the back of the Hall had set up an impromptu band with flutes and viols. But the beadles with their staffs soon suppressed them.
The Chancellor made an interminable speech in Latin and began to read out the names of students who had somehow transgressed and were no longer acceptable at the University. Then someone at the back of the Hall shouted out the name of Matthew Verney. The Chancellor stopped. I saw his red, quivering chins rise with indignation, and his small, irritable eyes search the crowd for the offender. But other mouths took up the name until the great wooden hall rang with a thousand echoes of it. The Chancellor paddled the air with a soft, pink palm, his way of commanding silence.
The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar's Tale Page 2
