| We must only hope! If I write no more Goodby... 173 |
[Jan. 26th, 2010|11:54 am] |
We must only hope! If I write no more Goodby Mina! God bless and keep youSEWARD'S DIARY
5 November-With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us dashing away from the river with their leiter wagonThey surrounded it in a cluster, and hurried along as though besetThe snow is falling lightly and there is a strange excitement in the airIt may be our own feelings, but the depression is strangeFar off I hear the howling of wolvesThe snow brings them down from the mountains, and there are dangers to all of us, and from all sidesThe horses are nearly ready, and we are soon offWe ride to death of some oneGod alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be?
DRVAN HELSING'S MEMORANDUM
5 November, afternoonThank God for that mercy at all events, though the proving it has been dreadfulWhen I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castleThe blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful, though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty hinges, lest some ill intent or ill chance should close them, so that being entered I might not get outJonathan's bitter experience served me hereBy memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I knew that here my work layThe air was oppressiveIt seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzyEither there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolvesThen I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plightThe dilemma had me between his horns
Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the Vampire in that Holy circleAnd yet even there would be the wolf! I resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must submit, if it were God's willAt any rate it was only death and freedom beyondSo did I choose for herHad it but been for myself the choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work
I knew that there were at least three graves to find, graves that are inhabitSo I search, and search, and I find one of themShe lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to do murderAh, I doubt not that in the old time, when such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerveSo he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton Undead have hypnotize himAnd he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire sleep be overThen the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss, and the man is weakAnd there remain one more victim in the Vampire foldOne more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Undead!?
There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such as the lairs of the Count have hadI, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for hateI was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyze my faculties and to clog my very soulIt may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome meCertain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open eyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a |
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