| And then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety... 109 |
[Jan. 29th, 2010|07:21 am] |
And then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good endI used to think I would like to practice interviewingJonathan's friend on "The Exeter News" told him that memory is everything in such work, that you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwardsHere was a rare interviewI shall try to record it verbatim
It was half-past two o'clock when the knock cameI took my courage a deux mains and waitedIn a few minutes Mary opened the door, and announced "Dr
I rose and bowed, and he came towards me, a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neckThe poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and powerThe head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the earsThe face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows come down and the mouth tightensThe forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sidesBig, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moodsHe said to me,
"MrsHarker, is it not?" I bowed assent
"That was Miss Mina Murray?" Again I assented
"It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear child Lucy WestenraMadam Mina, it is on account of the dead that I come
"Sir," I said, "you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra And I held out my handHe took it and said tenderly,
"Oh, Madam Mina, I know that the friend of that poor little girl must be good, but I had yet to learn?" He finished his speech with a courtly bowI asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at once began
"I have read your letters to Miss LucyForgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to askI know that you were with her at WhitbyShe sometimes kept a diary, you need not look surprised, Madam MinaIt was begun after you had left, and was an imitation of you, and in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved herIn great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember
"I can tell you, I think, DrVan Helsing, all about it
"Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies
"No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the timeI can show it to you if you like
"Oh, Madam Mina, I well be gratefulYou will do me much favour
I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit, I suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths, so I handed him the shorthand diaryHe took it with a grateful bow, and said, "May I read it?"
"If you wish," I answered as demurely as I couldHe opened it, and for an instant his face fellThen he stood up and |
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