Dracula, Bram Stoker [books to improve english txt] 📗

so sorrowful, and in such a depth of despair. “There must be no concealment,” she said, “Alas! we have had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that can give me more pain than I have already endured⁠—than I suffer now! Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!” Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly but quietly:⁠—

“But dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for others from yourself, after what has happened?” Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she answered:⁠—

“Ah no! for my mind is made up!”

“To what?” he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply stating a fact:⁠—

“Because if I find in myself⁠—and I shall watch keenly for it⁠—a sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die!”

“You would not kill yourself?” he asked, hoarsely.

“I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort!” She looked at him meaningly as she spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and came close to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly:

“My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But my child⁠—” For a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his throat; he gulped it down and went on:⁠—

“There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must not die. You must not die by any hand; but least of all by your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must not die; for if he is still with the quick Un-Dead, your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy; by the day, or the night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you do not die⁠—nay, nor think of death⁠—till this great evil be past.” The poor dear grew white as death, and shock and shivered, as I have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We were all silent; we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm and turning to him said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out her hand:⁠—

“I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time, this horror may have passed away from me.” She was so good and brave that we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her, and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries and phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the record as she had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of anything to do⁠—if “pleased” could be used in connection with so grim an interest.

As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was prepared with an exact ordering of our work.

“It is perhaps well,” he said, “that at our meeting after our visit to Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earth-boxes that lay there. Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose, and would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such an effort with regard to the others; but now he does not know our intentions. Nay, more, in all probability, he does not know that such a power exists to us as can sterilise his lairs, so that he cannot use them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge as to their disposition that, when we have examined the house in Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. Today, then, is ours; and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning guards us in its course. Until it sets tonight, that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs and sterilise them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching and the destroying shall be, in time, sure.” Here I started up for I could not contain myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Mina’s life and happiness were flying from us, since whilst we talked action was impossible. But Van Helsing held up his hand warningly. “Nay, friend Jonathan,” he said, “in this, the quickest way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all act and act with desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in all probable the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will