Stoker's Manuscript (4 page)

“You inquired?”

“This collar got me some answers at the Hall of Records.”

“I figured,” I said. “I’ve often . . .” I felt my throat swell and close. “. . . often thought about why God would place us in such a household.”

The rare scenes from our early past flashed in my mind—raised voices, broken objects, and our mother’s lamentations over an empty table.

“Remember, Joseph,” said Berns, “God sent that camera crew to the orphanage to get us to this free land and a loving home.”

I nodded. On this I agreed, except the use of his descriptor as
loving
. I would choose words like
kind
,
stern
, and
disciplined
, but I guess my idea of love differed from my brother’s.

“And He gave us both the tools to begin our own lives once we reached adulthood.”

“I know.”

“Whenever you feel shortchanged, just remember the cold floors and those poor souls stuck there, and all the adults who got lesser tools. Someone else has always got it worse.”

This I knew, but for years did not see how. What could count less than orphans?

Finally he drew his eyes down from the Lord and looked at me. “You are not to go there.”

Our mother’s remains, buried under her maiden name Petrescu, had been interred in our hometown of Baia Mare in the northern region. No word where our father’s ashes lay. I knew Romania, and Transylvania in particular, remained a land leery of strangers and crowded with superstition.

“Our ways are not their ways.” I loosely quoted Bram Stoker.

There was sadness in Berns’s eyes as he spoke. “The footsteps of murderers, including their sons’, stain the land they tread upon.”

“I don’t intend to wear one of those stickers—Hello, my name is . . .”

“And you somehow think this is pure coincidence someone chose you for this errand?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look.” He raised his voice. “I told you why . . .” He calmed and bowed his head toward Jesus.

“I won’t do anything foolish.”

“You already did, by agreeing to go. There’s danger there, a type not like here. You won’t like what you see, Joseph, and you’ll never be able to purge it from your memory.”

“Can I have your blessing?”

“If only I could,” he said. “Where you are going, God’s eyes do not watch.”

W
hy, might you ask, am I called to authenticate first editions and rare manuscripts? The answer is simple: I have a certain knack. Some might call it a gift. When you grow up not knowing any differently, you simply do what you do until at some point in adulthood you learn by chance that your capability is unique. For example, I went to grade school with a girl, Winona, who corrected the teacher on a Bible passage, contesting the woman’s interpretation. The teacher, a sister of the Order of the Holy Cross, took Winona to the Don’s office. From that day forward, Winona kept her own counsel on scriptural construal. One day I asked her how she knew what she knew, to which she replied, “God told me.”

“God speaks to you? Directly?”

She looked quizzically at me. “He doesn’t speak to you?”

And so it was with my gift, each of us bequeathed our unique talent at the table of God’s handouts, mine the ability to spot a manuscript or a rare book, to date paper or authenticate a signature with the naked eye, while convention would mandate chemical solutions and scientific instruments. Oh, I still had things tested at the Chicago Archive Lab, but they have yet to correct me.

How do I do this? Suffice it to say I can “see into” paper when I look at it. When focused on a piece of paper, I can “see” the structure of what I’m looking at, and much like someone whose sense of touch can identify a type of fabric, so a picture materializes in my mind of the structure before me. When I reach the requisite level of concentration, a fiber-rich piece of paper can look like a handful of hair to me, and the chemicals used look like flecks, or when grouped look like stains. Thus all paper is watermarked in some way, and I have learned to discern the marks.

Paper has always fascinated me. It all starts with the cellulose fibers bound by lignin, the substance that makes wood wood. Fibers are separated forcibly into a mass called wood pulp, which can then be turned into paper, either bleached white or unbleached. Separation is achieved by either a mechanical or chemical process, the former retaining the lignin whereas the chemicals dissolve the lignin. To recognize which process was used, I determine if the acidic lignin remains, which yellows the paper when exposed to bright light, or if the shorter fibers that indicate mechanical pounding are present.

The mechanical process was invented about two thousand years ago in China. It began by macerating tree bark into pulp and combining it with water, placing it in a mold, and allowing it to dry. When separated from its water base, what remained was a thin fragile surface capable of absorption. For the first seventeen centuries the process yielded one sheet at a time. This is referred to as handmade papermaking.

Not until the 1840s, following the Industrial Revolution, did mass production of paper commence, before which fabrics were added to whiten the surface, the cheaper stuff mostly coffee-colored or light gray. Chemical processes came later in the century. Regardless of type, I can “see” the additives, such as chalk or clay particles, used as filler in pulp to achieve the proper absorbency level on the surface to accept ink. Different places and eras infused different fillers. I can also “see” the mesh and roller lines left behind from production, as well as the feathered edges and “laid” markings left from handmade paper. All these forensics help point me toward a source.

When I arrived at the Rosenbach Museum and Library, I had an incubating appreciation of Bram Stoker’s accomplishment. Rather,
accomplishments
, for he was not of singular achievement. From the biography Mara gave me, I learned he had grown up Abraham Stoker, the son of a civil servant. He began adulthood in his dad’s professional footsteps, but then as his calling to the theater rang louder than the duties of a desk clerk, Stoker acquainted himself with the accomplished actor Henry Irving. Friendship led to business handshakes, and Irving’s Lyceum Theatre in London became Stoker’s vocation. That was 1878. As business manager, bookkeeper, personal assistant, and production and literary manager, his job kept him busy seven days a week while he met countless actors and playwrights, worked on dozens of scripts, and found time to renovate the theater when commercial electricity became available.

So how did he manage to write a half dozen novels, only one of significance, and run a major theater without assistants? He had help. That I could see as soon as I began perusing the documents.

The manuscript was part of a secured display at the museum that had finished its final public showing. It then moved to the catacombs, the environmentally controlled area where fragile pieces are handled. Each display had a set of handling instructions, and they had everything ready for me upon arrival. The curator unlocked the display case, broke the security seal, and then stood by as I began my work.

The display contained three groups of documents: notes, a handwritten final draft, and the typed manuscript from which the first edition had been typeset. Within the notes were dozens of pages devoted to vampire traits and powers, local nautical research, typed excerpts from books Stoker researched, and about fifty pages of outlines, characters, and plot. In short, his sweeping novel was no rush job.

Bram wrote right-handed and, while always adhering to the proper capitalization of words, wrote capital letters with flair while scribbling lowercase letters. His penmanship flattened when it looked like he was hurried. On his checklists he used lines through the completed tasks, not check marks. One checklist covered suggested titles,
The Un-Dead
being the original.

Pity he did not see the public’s overwhelming response to his masterpiece, for that came after his 1912 passing. Given such a time lag, I was surprised the original documents survived the first decades. For that we owe Bram’s widow, who secured not only the originals but his notes and source materials. She even lived long enough to see his vision materialize in moving pictures.

Stoker appeared to use at least two different types of paper. The typewritten pages were from Continental mass production mill paper; I recognized the long strands of northern European spruce commonly used in the kraft process of that era. However, the handwritten pages were mostly on paper that came from America, handmade from local upper New England sources. I recognized the “laid” lines from the mold. In addition, scribbles and verses decorated various pieces of hotel stationery to mark the author’s travels, such as a late chapter’s outline on letterhead from the old Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia.

Accompanying the documents were several anachronistic accessories, such as clips, paper clips, and an old pen. It was typical of the early 1890s to punch holes in the completed manuscript and bind with a post, or even twine, for the standard twisted wire clips that are still in current use did not come under patent until 1899, and other attempts at metal fasteners were neither stainless nor anodized and would have yielded black oxidation smears. I surmised these clips were added much later by Stoker’s widow as she assembled his belongings.

Per Mara’s suggestion, I familiarized myself with the prologue and scribbled notes. The prologue was the story of Jonathan Harker leaving the Four Seasons Hotel in Munich on the morning of
Walpurgisnacht
, which is, as I learned, the night when graves open and the dead walk forth in revelry, a sort of Mardi Gras for condemned souls. By nightfall, against the advice of his carriage driver, Jonathan dismounts and continues afoot, finding himself in a graveyard under a fierce storm both of nature and evil forces. He happens upon the tomb of a countess, which reads in Gothic German script:

Countess Dolingen of Gratz

in Styria

Sought and Found Death.

1801

The sarcophagus is of stone construction with a marble cap, topped by an iron stake. Also written on the tomb, though in Russian, was
The dead travel fast.
Jonathan, of course, survives his attack and goes on to become a central figure in the novel. In chapter twenty-seven, the final of Stoker’s published novel, Jonathan joins with his friends to ambush and kill Count Dracula while the vampire is being transported back to his castle in a box. Following a great struggle, the death blow puts an end to the villain, and he at once turns to dust.

Such was the second and all subsequent editions’ version, ending with chapter twenty-seven and the count’s quick disposal. However, what I was looking at was the first edition manuscript, and an epilogue followed chapter twenty-seven, clearly part of the original manuscript.

Why the change? Sometime between the fire that consumed all first editions and the second printing came the alteration. Since the prologue and epilogue held all the value to my client, I thought it wise to commit to memory their contents.

In the long-missed epilogue, a great lightning storm descends on Dracula’s Castle and turns it to rubble. A half dozen shadowy characters, referred to as
Regulats
, previously unmentioned in the novel, place the count’s coffin on the back of a horse-drawn cart, and they journey north from a place called Dreptu to his resting place. The graveyard is the same as in the prologue, and he is reunited with his deceased bride, Countess Dolingen. The trip is detailed enough in both time and natural markers that one could make the assumption it was a real location, but also generic enough that it could be anywhere from Pennsylvania to rural Scotland. It read:

From Dreptu, they took the Ladies River to where the last sweet chestnuts grow. It is there at Bethany Home you can see their fate at sunrise, the wicked men know their destination. It is but five minutes that way to where the Juden await judgement. They took the batter across the first building and beyond the stone bridge, a path not to miss, only seconds now, shading their eyes in the sunrise while tripping over stones.

I looked at Stoker’s notes and saw his legend of chapters. In an earlier take, the story had been sectioned into four books, indicated by Roman numerals, each of equal chapter counts of seven. Perhaps he intended twenty-seven chapters all along. Then I noticed the typewritten prologue was actually on that list as chapter two, right after the introductory chapter of the count engaging Mr. Harker’s firm to do business. Several corrections, scribbles, and lined-out words showed this to be a working draft, all changes in his own handwriting. A cleaner, revised page showed the novel changed to three equal nine-chapter books with a prologue and epilogue.

After reading both of the eliminated chapters, something struck me as odd: Why would Stoker change the story to preclude a meaningful sequel starring the villain count? Turning him to dust in his box ended any chance of a plausible resurrection, whereas the original manuscript placed him in his casket with a knife in his heart.

Mr. Stoker’s handwriting spoke much of the man. Rarely did he write over words to correct them, suggesting a high level of deliberation before committing ink to paper, an expensive commodity at the time. With a certain flair to accompany his hurry, his capital letters stood formally, followed by a scribble that contained no spelling errors. Small spaces interrupted every couple of letters to suggest he lifted his pen midword, like one would print. People who do that tend to strive for clarity and shun ambiguity in their written correspondence.

Amidst the notes were two other handwritings. One was the same as the man who signed the contract on behalf of Archibald Constable and Company, a right-handed script providing minor suggestions that I noticed did not make the final cut. But there was another handwriting on his notes that harkened me back to Mara’s suggestion that Stoker had help.

This was a left-handed writer who pressed hard onto the page, evidenced by how the ink absorbed into the paper. He, too, would write a few letters, then lift his pen. Then I found a page of notes dealing with vampire conventions, the page establishing their habits, limitations, and powers. Normally when an author deals with the most implausible parts of fantasy, his assumptions are not challenged, for it is his prerogative how and when to leap into unreality. However, it looked as if the “assistant” wrote the characteristics of vampires and Stoker marked them off as he incorporated or agreed with them. Then there were a few with lines through them and a
No
written by Stoker in the margins. These items did not see final print.

Then at the bottom of the page the words
No Epil
were written boldly by the left-hander. At first I thought it read
No Evil
, but something told me to look again at every word on the page. Whoever his assistant was emphatically insisted on discarding the epilogue, the version detailing the count’s burial beside his bride. The assistant also drew a line through
Dreptu
and boldly wrote,
NO! DO NOT USE!!

Also among the notes was the 1897
Times
article detailing the fire that consumed the publishing company’s office and warehouse. I recognized the bulk paper as northern European stock mechanically processed, typical of all news stock because of its high-yield harvest capacity and ink-absorption quality. Another
Times
article detailed a subsequent smaller conflag at the Lyceum Theatre, separated by a mere two weeks. In part it read: