Lucy
Westenra's Diary17 September Four days and nights of peace. I am
getting so strong again that I hardly know myself. It is as if I had passed through
some long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful sunshine and feel
the fresh air of the morning around me. I have a dim half remembrance of long,
anxious times of waiting and fearing, darkness in which there was not even the
pain of hope to make present distress more poignant. And then long spells of oblivion,
and the rising back to life as a diver coming up through a great press of water.
Since, however, Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad dreaming seems
to have passed away. The noises that used to frighten me out of my wits, the flapping
against the windows, the distant voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh
sounds that came from I know not where and commanded me to do I know not what,
have all ceased. I go to bed now without any fear of sleep. I do not even
try to keep awake. I have grown quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful arrives
for me every day from Haarlem. Tonight Dr. Van Helsing is going away, as he has
to be for a day in Amsterdam. But I need not be watched. I am well enough to be
left alone. Thank God for Mother's sake, and dear Arthur's, and for all
our friends who have been so kind! I shall not even feel the change, for last
night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time. I found him asleep
twice when I awoke. But I did not fear to go to sleep again, although the boughs
or bats or something flapped almost angrily against the window panes. |
