Who Was Dracula? (8 page)

—

The next chapter details the battle for Lucy's life, told principally through Dr. Seward's diary. Van Helsing is a wise European professor who is intrigued by Lucy's malady and charmed by the young lady. When Lucy's mysterious nighttime illness returns, the two doctors recognize symptoms of anemia and prescribe an immediate blood transfusion. As they are deciding which of them is to donate blood, her fiancé, Arthur Holmwood, arrives and volunteers for the procedure. This immediately restores Lucy's health for several days. But her malady returns, requiring repeated transfusions from her three suitors as well as Van Helsing. The Dutch doctor seems secretly to be coming to conclusions about a diagnosis, and he wires for a package of garlic flowers from a friend in Haarlem. He spreads them around Lucy's room and arranges a wreath of the pungent flowers around her neck. This, he assures her, will provide a good night's sleep.

The next morning, Lucy's mother reports that she had checked on her daughter during the night and, overcome with the odor of the flowers, offered fresh air. She foolishly opened the window and removed the flowers from Lucy's neck.

When Van Helsing hears of Mrs. Westenra's mistake, he breaks into tears, raging against the powers of evil. He and Seward enter Lucy's room to find her pale, waxen, and near death once again. Now the novel combines her fate with a climax of tragedies: Lucy's mother dies from a weak heart; she is terrified when a wolf crashes through Lucy's bedroom window and a bat enters the room. (The wolf, we later learn, was borrowed from the London Zoo by a mysterious stranger.) Arthur's father, Lord Godalming, succumbs to his long illness and dies. And Peter Hawkins, Jonathan Harker's boss and law partner, dies in Exeter, leaving Jonathan and Mina heartbroken. Finally Lucy dies, weakened by her latest nighttime bout with anemia.

These deaths form a tragic climax in the middle of the novel, signaling the dark tragedy that has descended on all the characters. Lucy provides a suspiciously beautiful corpse, and Van Helsing seems to anticipate more difficulties, telling Seward, “We can do nothing as yet. Wait and see.” But Seward assumes that, with Lucy's death, these mysterious episodes are now finished. He closes his diary with the word “Finis.”

—

Stoker was anxious to incorporate factual details, and he consulted his brother Thornley about medical science—head injuries—using that information later in the novel. But the episodes with Lucy are jarringly naive about narcotics, anemia, and blood transfusions. Transfusions, in particular, were a novel procedure at that time. Proof of Stoker's unfamiliarity is the fact that his multiple, frantic transfusions are described only vaguely—these details would have made a horrific and gripping subject for Dr. Seward's diary. To a modern reader the transfusions sound wrong, as blood typing was not then recognized; it was discovered in 1901 and came into practice a decade later. The doctors' procedures in the novel, using any available man as a donor without checking blood type, would have been disastrous.

Arthur Holmwood, unaware that other men provided transfusions, tells Van Helsing and Seward that although they had been only engaged, he believes “the transfusion of his blood to her veins had made her truly his bride.” The doctors decide, for Arthur's peace of mind, to not tell him of the other donors. This commingling of blood as a surrogate for sex—both holy and unholy unions—becomes an important motif as the story proceeds.

—

Now the novel includes a chilling article from the
Westminster
Gazette
: the neighborhood of Hampstead, near Lucy's grave, has been haunted by sightings of a “bloofer lady” (presumably children's slang for “beautiful lady”). This mysterious woman is attracted to small children playing on the heath; when the children are later found, they are in a weakened condition with small tears or wounds on their throats. Van Helsing finds this article and groans sadly, “Mein Gott! So soon!”

The Dutch doctor has been studying Lucy's letters and diary entries from before her death in an effort to solve the mystery of her illness. He visits Mina and Jonathan Harker in Exeter. Mina surprises him with a typewritten account from her husband's journal—his horrific discoveries in Transylvania. She also relates how she and Jonathan, on a visit to London, saw a strange man in Piccadilly. The man was staring intently at a beautiful girl with a large hat, and Mina remembered him as “tall, thin . . . with a beaky nose and a black moustache and pointed beard [with] big white teeth [and lips] so red,” his teeth “pointed like an animal's.” Jonathan was mortified to see him, murmuring, “It is the man himself!” and explaining to Mina that the Count has grown younger since arriving in London.

Dr. Seward resumes his diary to record Dr. Van Helsing's musings on Lucy's fate. The two men decide to investigate, and they sneak into Lucy's tomb one evening, opening the coffin. Her body is gone. They observe a mysterious figure, dressed in white, returning to the cemetery and carrying a sleeping child. The figure disappears and the doctors rescue the child. The next day they enter Lucy's tomb again, finding her body in the coffin. She is now “more beautiful than ever,” with her lips “redder than before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom.” Van Helsing also notices that her canine teeth are now pointed. He decides that this vampire, having proven herself to be one of the “un-dead,” must be destroyed.

Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris arrive to assist with the expedition, and they are taken to the cemetery at night. The men are shocked to see the vampire Lucy on her nightly hunt. Lucy now has a cruel face, fiery eyes, and lips reddened by fresh blood. Van Helsing holds up a crucifix, and Lucy snarls, dashing back into her tomb.

The four men return the next day, hiding in the cemetery and then entering the crypt with Van Helsing's special toolkit. Dr. Seward's diary carefully records the excruciating procedure. Van Helsing places the tip of a thick, three-foot-long wooden stake against Lucy's heart and then instructs Arthur, Lord Godalming, to pound it securely in place. Steeling his resolve for this horrific deed, Arthur dutifully swings the hammer and the stake pierces her body. Lucy opens her eyes, writhes, screams, and contorts. Her teeth gnash until her lips bleed. Blood wells around the stake and spurts from the wound. When the task is done, the men look back at the body. Lucy is once again saintly and beautiful in death, with “a face of sweetness and purity.” Arthur and Quincey leave the tomb, and Van Helsing and Seward finish the grisly job, sawing off the top of the stake, cutting off her head, and stuffing her mouth with garlic. Finally, they seal the coffin and lock the door of the crypt.

—

Mina and Jonathan arrive in London, staying at Dr. Seward's home and asylum. Now the entire group of vampire hunters has been assembled: the Harkers, Seward, Arthur Holmwood, Quincey Morris, and Dr. Van Helsing. Jonathan has arrived from Whitby, where he has been researching the shipment of Dracula's boxes and reveals that Dracula's lair is in the abbey next to Seward's home. Meanwhile, Mina and Jonathan busy themselves by transcribing all of the journals, including Dr. Seward's phonograph cylinders, typing everything carefully and arranging the manuscripts in chronological order so that everyone can share the accounts. As readers, we are given the perspective of witnessing the assembly of the book that we are reading. Indicative of Stoker's fascination with records, accounts, and schedules, the manuscript provides vital clues for the characters, and they carefully study the collected information.

Van Helsing explains the rules of vampirism and the history of the ancient Count Dracula, their foe. The wise Dutch doctor has armed himself with garlic, crucifixes, and a package of consecrated host from a priest in Holland. Dracula, he explains, is bound to his coffins of native soil. Van Helsing plans to find all of the coffins and destroy them.

Here Bram Stoker must be given credit for ingeniously defining vampire mythology. The vague superstitions, expressed in earlier books, had to be clarified and expanded for
Dracula
. Stoker borrowed from everywhere. The bloody procedure for driving a stake through the heart was explained in
Varney the Vampire
, a popular “Penny Dreadful” novel from 1845, as well as Le Fanu's
Carmilla
from 1872. The use of garlic to repel a vampire was taken from folklore. But the inability of a vampire to cause a reflection was actually exaggerated from an old Transylvanian superstition, and Stoker was the first to apply it to vampires. Similarly, Dracula's difficulty in crossing running water and his need to sleep in consecrated native soil were Stoker's inventions. In the novel, Van Helsing points out the vampire's weakness during sunlight, but this bit of mythology was exaggerated in later movies—now it's assumed that sunlight will destroy a vampire. In fact, in Stoker's novel, Dracula appears several times in the sunlight.

Perhaps Stoker's most important contribution was the rule by which a vampire's victim, once dead, becomes a new vampire. This is evidenced in Lucy's fate, and it also endangers Mina. The idea of a spreading contagion imparted an exciting level of danger and morality to the story.

At this point in
Dracula
, the band of protagonists forms a sort of family at Seward's residence. The diaries include accounts of breakfasts or dinners together, where the players compare notes and plan their strategy, forming a “board or committee.” Mina becomes a sister/wife/mother to them all, impressing the men with her bravery and determination. She has a “man's brain . . . and a woman's heart,” according to Van Helsing. The men, in turn, are often brought to tears, wallowing in Victorian bathos, recalling Lucy's fate, Mina's selflessness, or Dracula's threat.

Having read about the mysterious patient, Renfield, Mina now asks to visit him. She and Dr. Seward find him unexpectedly rational and intelligent. The patient has similar conversations with Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris, impressing them with his sophistication as he begs to be set free.

The men search the abbey, take inventory of the boxes, and realize how many must have been moved to other locations: Dracula has planned several lairs around London. Jonathan bribes a workman and finds a house in Piccadilly, another residence that Dracula has purchased under the name Count de Ville.

Dracula's activities across London are neglected in most adaptations of the story. The locations of his homes and business connections suggest a number of inside jokes intended for friends. The Piccadilly house was near Hertford Street, the location of Bram's brother George Stoker's medical practice. Another house, in Chicksand Street, was near the site of the Jack the Ripper murders. It was also near a favorite East End social club sponsored by Baroness Burdett-Coutts, a supporter of Henry Irving and a friend of Stoker's. The baroness is also acknowledged with the information that Dracula's bankers in London were Coutts and Company.

During these expeditions to find Dracula's whereabouts, Mina has been left at the house, and the reader recognizes the significance of her troubled nights of sleep: Dracula has been paying her sinister visits. A clock begins ticking; will the men find the vampire and exterminate him before Mina succumbs?

—

Seward and Van Helsing are called to Renfield's cell; he's suffered a mysterious blow to his head and a broken neck. Van Helsing trephines the patient's skull to relieve the pressure, and Renfield confesses that Dracula has been visiting him, sending him bits of life to fulfill his obsessions. He confirms to the doctors that Dracula has been influencing Renfield's erratic need for blood and is now visiting Mina. Renfield refers to the vampire as his “lord and master.”

At the point in the novel, readers are treated to the dramatic scene where the vampire hunters encounter Dracula and Mina. The vampire is discovered in Jonathan and Mina's bedroom, forcing her to drink blood from an opened vein in his breast. The men push Dracula back, until a shadow passes in front of the moon and he dissolves away again, “nothing but a faint vapor.”

Mina's assault presents the most horrific view of Dracula, whose snarling warning indicates both revenge and carnal desire. Mina recognizes that she is now “unclean.” The implication is that this bloodlust has befouled her marriage to Jonathan. When Van Helsing attempts to correct this situation the next day, touching a piece of the holy wafer to Mina's forehead, the Host burns her flesh, leaving a prominent red scar that enshrines her shame.

The men discover that Renfield has died from his final encounter with Dracula, and the enraged vampire has “made hay of the place,” destroying their carefully assembled manuscript of notes and diary entries. Fortunately, another copy of the manuscript has been preserved in a safe. Again, Stoker memorializes the manuscript that we're reading, and we can trace its importance as the key that can give insight into Dracula's secrets.

—

The following day, the men begin their important process of extermination. They break into the abbey, opening each coffin and sprinkling bits of crushed Host, sanctified wafers, to prevent the vampire from returning to these resting places. Then they proceed to Dracula's house in Piccadilly, hiring a locksmith to break in, and similarly destroy these coffins. There they find evidence that Dracula had purchased two additional houses. Godalming and Morris proceed to those addresses, taking inventory of the missing coffins and sanctifying them.

Mina, however, has noticed Dracula leaving Carfax Abbey and sends a telegram to the men in Piccadilly, warning them. Dracula enters the house and bursts in on the men. They attempt to capture him, even slashing at him with a knife, but he escapes them by lunging through the window and running for the stables. As he does, he stops to offer his final warning: “You shall be sorry yet, each one of you. You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side.”