| There was one great tomb more lordly than all the... 312 |
[Jan. 31st, 2010|02:48 am] |
There was one great tomb more lordly than all the restHuge it was, and nobly proportionedOn it was but one word
DRACULA
This then was the Undead home of the King Vampire, to whom so many more were dueIts emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knewBefore I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in Dracula's tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from it, Undead, for ever
Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded itHad it been but one, it had been easy, comparativeBut three! To begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horrorFor it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived through centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the yearsWho would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives?
Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher workHad I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone onI tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did standHad I not seen the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realization that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butcheryI could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home, the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foamI should have fled in terror and left my work undoneBut it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death for a short moment ere fadingFor, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble into its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries ago had at last assert himself and say at once and loud, "I am here!"
Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never more can the Count enter there Undead
When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she woke from her sleep and, seeing me, cried out in pain that I had endured too much
"Come!" she said, "come away from this awful place! Let us go to meet my husband who is, I know, coming towards us She was looking thin and pale and weakBut her eyes were pure and glowed with fervourI was glad to see her paleness and her illness, for my mind was full of the fresh horror of that ruddy vampire sleep
And so with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward to meet our friends, and him, whom Madam Mina tell me that she know are coming to meet us
MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL
6 November-It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was comingWe did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take heavy rugs and wraps with usWe dared not face the possibility of being left without warmth in the cold and the snowWe had to take some of our provisions too, for we were in a perfect desolation, and so far as we could see through the snowfall, there was not even the sign of habitationWhen we had gone about a mile, I was tired with the heavy walking and sat down to restThen we looked back and saw where the clear line of Dracula's castle cut the skyFor we were so deep under the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective of the Carpathian mountains was far below itWe saw it in all its grandeur, perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice, and with seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the adjacent mountain on any sideThere was something wild and uncanny about the placeWe could hear the distant howling of wolvesThey were far off, but the sound, even though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was full of terrorI knew from the way DrVan Helsing was searching about that he was trying to seek some strategic point, where we would be less exposed in case of attackThe rough roadway still led downwardsWe could trace it through the drifted |
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