Dr.
Seward's Diary29 September - continued It was just a quarter before
twelve o'clock when we got into the churchyard over the low wall. The night was
dark with occasional gleams of moonlight between the dents of the heavy clouds
that scudded across the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing
slightly in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the tomb I looked
well at Arthur, for I feared the proximity to a place laden with so sorrowful
a memory would upset him, but he bore himself well. I took it that the very mystery
of the proceeding was in some way a counteractant to his grief. The Professor
unlocked the door, and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons,
solved the difficulty by entering first himself. The rest of us followed, and
he closed the door. He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to a coffin. Arthur
stepped forward hesitatingly. Van Helsing said to me, "You were with me here
yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that coffin?" "It was." The
Professor turned to the rest saying, "You hear, and yet there is no one who
does not believe with me." He took his screwdriver and again took off
the lid of the coffin. Arthur looked on, very pale but silent. When the lid was
removed he stepped forward. He evidently did not know that there was a leaden
coffin, or at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead,
the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away again, so
that he remained of a ghastly whiteness. He was still silent. Van Helsing forced
back the leaden flange, and we all looked in and recoiled. The coffin was
empty! For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by
Quincey Morris, "Professor, I answered for you. Your word is all I want.
I wouldn't ask such a thing ordinarily, I wouldn't so dishonour you as to imply
a doubt, but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour. Is this
your doing?" "I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I
have not removed or touched her. What happened was this. Two nights ago my friend
Seward and I came here, with good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which
was then sealed up, and we found it as now, empty. We then waited, and saw something
white come through the trees. The next day we came here in daytime and she lay
there. Did she not, friend John? "Yes." "That night
we were just in time. One more so small child was missing, and we find it, thank
God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at
sundown the UnDead can move. I waited here all night till the sun rose, but I
saw nothing. It was most probable that it was because I had laid over the clamps
of those doors garlic, which the UnDead cannot bear, and other things which they
shun. Last night there was no exodus, so tonight before the sundown I took away
my garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But bear with
me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me outside, unseen and
unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be. So," here he shut the dark
slide of his lantern, "now to the outside." He opened the door, and
we filed out, he coming last and locking the door behind him. Oh! But it
seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of that vault. How sweet
it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing gleams of the moonlight between
the scudding clouds crossing and passing, like the gladness and sorrow of a man's
life. How sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and
decay. How humanizing to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and
to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each in
his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I could see,
striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the mystery. I was myself
tolerably patient, and half inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept
Van Helsing's conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who
accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard
of all he has at stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug
of tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a definite
way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like thin, wafer-like biscuit,
which was carefully rolled up in a white napkin. Next he took out a double handful
of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and
worked it into the mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into
thin strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its setting
in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what it
was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near also, as they too were curious. He
answered, "I am closing the tomb so that the UnDead may not enter." "And
is that stuff you have there going to do it?" "It is." "What
is that which you are using?" This time the question was by Arthur. Van Helsing
reverently lifted his hat as he answered. "The Host. I brought it from
Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence." It was an answer that appalled the
most sceptical of us, and we felt individually that in the presence of such earnest
purpose as the Professor's, a purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred
of things, it was impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places
assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any one approaching.
I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself been apprenticed by my former
visits to this watching horror, and yet I, who had up to an hour ago repudiated
the proofs, felt my heart sink within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white.
Never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funeral gloom.
Never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously. Never did bough creak so
mysteriously, and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage
through the night. There was a long spell of silence, big, aching, void,
and then from the Professor a keen "S-s-s-s!" He pointed, and far down
the avenue of yews we saw a white figure advance, a dim white figure, which held
something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of moonlight
fell upon the masses of driving clouds, and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired
woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. We could not see the face, for it
was bent down over what we saw to be a fair-haired child. There was a pause and
a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before
the fire and dreams. We were starting forward, but the Professor's warning hand,
seen by us as he stood behind a yew tree, kept us back. And then as we looked
the white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly,
and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear
the gasp of Arthur, as we recognized the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra,
but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty,
and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and obedient
to his gesture, we all advanced too. The four of us ranged in a line before the
door of the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide. By the concentrated
light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the lips were crimson with fresh
blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of
her lawn death-robe. We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous
light that even Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and
if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen. When
Lucy, I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape, saw
us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares,
then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form and colour, but Lucy's eyes
unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that
moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing. Had she then to be
killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed
with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God,
how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to the ground,
callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her
breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry,
and lay there moaning. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan
from Arthur. When she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile
he fell back and hid his face in his hands. She still advanced, however,
and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said, "Come to me, Arthur. Leave
these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest
together. Come, my husband, come!" There was something diabolically
sweet in her tones, something of the tinkling of glass when struck, which rang
through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As
for Arthur, he seemed under a spell, moving his hands from his face, he opened
wide his arms. She was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held
between them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a suddenly
distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb. When
within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if arrested by some
irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst
of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsing's nerves.
Never did I see such baffled malice on a face, and never, I trust, shall such
ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes
seemed to throw out sparks of hell fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the
folds of flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely, blood-stained
mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese.
If ever a face meant death, if looks could kill, we saw it at that moment. And
so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained between the
lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of entry. Van Helsing
broke the silence by asking Arthur, "Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed
in my work?" "Do as you will, friend. Do as you will. There can
be no horror like this ever any more." And he groaned in spirit. Quincey
and I simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the click
of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down. Coming close to the tomb,
he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred emblem which he had placed
there. We all looked on with horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back,
the woman, with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own, pass through
the interstice where scarce a knife blade could have gone. We all felt a glad
sense of relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty
to the edges of the door. When this was done, he lifted the child and said,
"Come now, my friends. We can do no more till tomorrow. There is a funeral
at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The friends of the
dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton locks the gate we shall remain.
Then there is more to do, but not like this of tonight. As for this little one,
he is not much harmed, and by tomorrow night he shall be well. We shall leave
him where the police will find him, as on the other night, and then to home." Coming
close to Arthur, he said, "My friend Arthur, you have had a sore trial, but
after, when you look back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the
bitter waters, my child. By this time tomorrow you will, please God, have passed
them, and have drunk of the sweet waters. So do not mourn over-much. Till then
I shall not ask you to forgive me." Arthur and Quincey came home with
me, and we tried to cheer each other on the way. We had left behind the child
in safety, and were tired. So we all slept with more or less reality of sleep.
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