At five in the morning, I went with the others to search Dracula’s house. I felt much calmer than I had expected because Mina seemed stronger and healthier than ever.
I was relieved that she had agreed to stay behind and let us men handle the dangerous part of the work.
Somehow, it had always frightened me to have her involved in this terrible business. But now that she had finished organizing all the information, I felt that her part was complete. Thanks to her intelligence, energy, and careful attention to detail, we finally had the whole story laid out clearly.
The rest was for us to deal with.
We were all still disturbed by what had happened with Renfield.
When we returned to the study, none of us spoke for a while.
Finally, Quincey Morris turned to Dr. Seward.
“Jack, if that man wasn’t putting on an act, he was the sanest lunatic I’ve ever seen.”
He shook his head.
“I can’t help thinking he had some serious reason for wanting to get out. If he really did, it seems pretty hard on him that we wouldn’t even give him a chance.”
Arthur and I remained silent.
Van Helsing spoke thoughtfully.
“Friend John, you know more about mental illness than I do, and I am glad of it. If I had been the one making the decision, I might have released him before his final outburst.”
He sighed.
“But we learn as we go. And in the work we have before us, we cannot afford to take unnecessary risks. As our friend Quincey would say, it is better to be safe.”
Dr. Seward answered quietly.
“I think I agree with you.”
“If Renfield were simply an ordinary lunatic, I might have been willing to trust him.”
“But he seems strangely connected to the Count. I’m afraid that helping him might somehow help Dracula.”
“I can’t forget how passionately he once begged me for a cat, only to turn around and try to tear my throat out with his teeth.”
“And he called the Count his ‘lord and master.’ Maybe he wants to escape so he can help him in some terrible way.”
“That monster already has wolves, rats, bats, and other creatures at his command. I suppose he might even try to use a human lunatic.”
He paused.
“Still, Renfield certainly seemed sincere tonight. I only hope we made the right decision.”
“All this, together with the work we are about to undertake, is enough to make any man nervous.”
Van Helsing stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Friend John, do not be afraid.”
“We are trying to do our duty in a terrible and heartbreaking situation. All we can do is choose what we believe is right.”
“What else can we hope for except the mercy of God?”
A few minutes later, Arthur returned.
He held up a small silver whistle.
“That old house could be full of rats,” he said. “If it is, I have something ready for them.”
We crossed the wall and headed toward the house.
Whenever the moonlight broke through the trees, we stayed in the shadows along the lawn.
When we reached the entrance, Van Helsing opened his bag.
He took out a collection of objects and arranged them into four small groups, one for each of us.
Then he spoke.
“My friends, we are going into great danger tonight, so we need several kinds of protection.”
“Our enemy is not merely a spiritual threat.”
“Remember that he has the strength of twenty men.”
“Our bodies are ordinary. Our necks and throats can be crushed or broken. His body does not respond to physical force in the same way.”
“A strong man—or several strong men together—may sometimes be able to restrain him.”
“But that does not mean we can hurt him as easily as he can hurt us.”
“So we must protect ourselves from his touch.”
He picked up a small silver crucifix and handed it to me.
“Keep this close to your heart.”
Then he gave me a wreath of dried garlic flowers.
“Wear these around your neck.”
He handed me a revolver and a knife.
“These are for the more ordinary dangers.”
Then he showed me several tiny electric lamps.
“And these will help us see. Fasten them to your clothing.”
Finally, he handed me an envelope.
“And this is for the final protection. We must never use it carelessly.”
Inside was a piece of sacred wafer.
Each of us received the same equipment.
Van Helsing then looked at Seward.
“Now, friend John, do you have the skeleton keys?”
“If we can open the door normally, we won’t have to break a window as we did at Lucy’s tomb.”
Seward tried several keys.
His surgeon’s skill with his hands proved useful.
At last, one of the keys worked.
After moving it back and forth several times, the lock finally gave way.
The bolt slid back with a loud, rusty clang.
We pushed against the door.
The old hinges groaned.
Slowly, the door opened.
The sight immediately reminded me of Seward’s description of the night we opened Lucy’s tomb.
The others seemed to have the same thought, because we all instinctively stepped back.
Van Helsing was the first to move forward.
He crossed himself as he stepped through the doorway.
“In Your hands, Lord,” he murmured.
We closed the door behind us.
We did not want anyone outside to see our lights.
Van Helsing carefully checked the lock from the inside to make sure we could open it quickly if we needed to escape.
Then we switched on our lamps and began searching.
The tiny beams of light created strange shapes across the walls.
Whenever our bodies crossed the beams, enormous shadows appeared.
I could not shake the feeling that someone else was in the room with us.
The surroundings brought back terrible memories of my time in Transylvania.
I suspect the others felt the same.
Every sound made us look over our shoulders.
Every new shadow made us wonder if someone was standing there.
The entire house was covered in dust.
In most places, it was several inches thick.
Only a few recent footprints disturbed it.
When I lowered my lamp, I could see the marks left by hobnailed boots.
The walls were coated in dust as well.
Huge spider webs filled the corners. Dust had collected on them until they looked like old, torn pieces of cloth hanging from the ceiling.
On a table in the entrance hall stood a large bunch of keys.
Each key had an old, yellowed label attached to it.
The dust around the keys had been disturbed several times, showing that they had been used recently.
Van Helsing turned to me.
“You know this house, Jonathan.”
“You studied the plans and copied the maps. You know more about the building than the rest of us.”
“Which way leads to the chapel?”
I had a general idea.
During my earlier visit, I had never managed to enter the chapel, but I remembered roughly where it was.
I led the way.
After taking a few wrong turns, we finally reached a low, arched wooden door reinforced with iron.
“This is it,” Van Helsing said.
He pointed his lamp at a small map of the house.
It had been copied from the documents connected with Dracula’s purchase of the property.
After some searching, we found the right key.
The door opened.
A faint, disgusting smell immediately escaped through the cracks.
We expected something unpleasant.
But none of us were prepared for the full horror that came from inside.
The room was small and enclosed.
The air had been trapped there for a long time.
There was a dry, earthy smell mixed with something far worse.
It was impossible to describe.
It smelled of decay, stale blood, sickness, and something beyond ordinary corruption.
It was as though even the smell of death had itself begun to rot.
I felt sick just breathing it.
Every trace of Dracula seemed to have soaked into the room, making the place more disgusting than anything I had ever experienced.
Under normal circumstances, such a smell would have driven us away.
But these were not normal circumstances.
We had a purpose greater than our physical discomfort.
After the first wave of nausea passed, we forced ourselves to continue as though the room were filled with flowers instead of decay.
Van Helsing immediately began giving instructions.
“First, we must find out how many boxes remain.”
“Then we search every corner, every opening, every hidden space.”
“We need to discover what happened to the missing boxes.”
It did not take long to count them.
The huge boxes of earth were impossible to overlook.
Only twenty-nine remained.
Twenty-one were missing.
Suddenly, Arthur turned toward the arched doorway.
I followed his gaze.
For one terrifying moment, I thought I saw Dracula’s face watching us from the darkness.
The pale skin.
The sharp nose.
The red eyes.
The red lips.
That terrible expression.
My heart nearly stopped.
But Arthur said quietly:
“I thought I saw a face. It was only a shadow.”
I turned my lamp toward the passage and stepped outside.
There was no one there.
The passage had no corners, doors, or openings where anyone could hide.
Not even Dracula could have disappeared into the solid walls.
I decided that fear had simply made my imagination run wild.
I said nothing.
A few minutes later, Quincey suddenly stepped backward from one of the corners he had been examining.
We all watched him.
Then we saw what had frightened him.
A mass of tiny lights seemed to sparkle in the darkness.
For a moment, none of us understood what we were seeing.
Then we realized.
Rats.
Hundreds of them.
The entire place seemed to come alive with them.
We instinctively stepped back.
Arthur, however, was prepared.
He hurried to the large iron-bound door that Seward had mentioned.
He unlocked it, pulled back the heavy bolts, and threw it open.
Then he took out his little silver whistle and gave a low, sharp call.
From somewhere behind Seward’s house came the sound of barking dogs.
About a minute later, three terriers came running around the corner.
We had all moved toward the doorway.
As we did, I noticed something important.
The dust on the floor had been disturbed.
The missing boxes had been carried through this very route.
But there was no time to investigate further.
The rats were multiplying unbelievably fast.
Suddenly they seemed to be everywhere.
Their dark bodies moved through the lamplight, their eyes glittering like tiny sparks.
The whole floor looked like dark earth covered with fireflies.
The dogs rushed toward them.
But the moment they reached the doorway, all three stopped.
They growled.
Then they lifted their noses and began howling.
The rats poured out in enormous numbers.
Arthur picked up one of the dogs and carried it into the chapel.
The instant its paws touched the floor, the dog regained its courage.
It charged straight at the rats.
They scattered immediately.
Before the dog had killed more than a few dozen, Arthur brought in the other two dogs.
The rats fled in every direction.
Within moments, they were gone.
As soon as they disappeared, the atmosphere of the room seemed to change.
It felt as though some evil presence had left with them.
The dogs began running around happily.
They barked and chased the dead rats, tossing them into the air and shaking them violently.
Our spirits lifted as well.
I do not know whether the fresh air entering through the open chapel door had cleared the poisonous atmosphere, or whether we were simply relieved to have escaped the swarm.
Whatever the reason, the terrible sense of dread seemed to fall away from us.
But our determination remained as strong as ever.
We closed, locked, and barred the outer door.
Then, taking the dogs with us, we searched the rest of the house.
We found nothing unusual.
There was only dust—more dust than I had ever seen in one place.
Apart from my own footprints from my previous visit, everything seemed untouched.
The dogs never showed the slightest sign of fear.
Even when we returned to the chapel, they behaved as if they were simply playing in a summer forest.
By the time we came out through the front entrance, dawn was beginning to brighten the eastern sky.
Van Helsing took the hall-door key from the bunch.
He locked the door carefully and put the key in his pocket.
“So far, our night has been a great success,” he said.
“None of us has been harmed, despite the dangers I feared.”
“And, more importantly, we now know exactly how many boxes are missing.”
He looked relieved.
“Most of all, I am thankful that we completed this first—and perhaps most difficult and dangerous—step without involving our dear Mina.”
“We have not exposed her to the sights, sounds, and smells of this terrible place.”
“She will not have to carry those memories in her waking mind or her dreams.”
He paused.
“We have also learned something important.”
“The animals Dracula controls are not completely under his supernatural power.”
“These rats came when he called, just as the wolves once came from his castle.”
“But they fled from three little dogs.”
“So even though Dracula can command animals, they can still be frightened away by ordinary creatures.”
He looked toward the dark house.
“We still have many dangers ahead of us.”
“And I doubt Dracula has used all his power over the animal world tonight.”
“Perhaps he has already gone somewhere else.”
He gave a faint smile.
“If so, good.”
“Tonight we have at least managed to put Dracula in check in this terrible chess game, where human souls are the prize.”
“Now we should go home.”
“Dawn is almost here, and we have every reason to be satisfied with what we accomplished tonight.”
“We may have many more dangerous nights ahead of us.”
“But we must continue.”
“And we must not run from danger.”
When we returned to the house, everything was quiet.
Only the distant scream of one of the patients disturbed the silence.
From Renfield’s room came a low, mournful sound.
The poor man was probably torturing himself with his own thoughts, as disturbed minds sometimes do.
I quietly entered our room.
Mina was asleep.
Her breathing was so soft that I had to lean close to hear it.
She looked paler than usual.
I hoped the events of the night had not disturbed her.
I was deeply relieved that she would no longer be involved in our future work—or even in our private discussions.
This was too much for anyone to bear.
At first I had not understood that.
Now I did.
There might be things we would have to tell her eventually that would frighten her terribly.
But for now, keeping her away from the danger was the best thing we could do.
I lay down on the sofa so I would not disturb her.
Later that day, I realized that we had all slept far too long.
The previous night had been exhausting, and none of us had truly rested.
Even Mina must have been affected.
I slept until the sun was high, yet I still woke before her.
I had to call her several times before she opened her eyes.
For a few seconds she did not seem to recognize me.
She stared at me with the frightened, empty expression of someone suddenly awakened from a terrible dream.
She said she was tired.
I let her sleep longer.
We now knew that twenty-one of Dracula’s boxes had been removed.
If some of them had been moved together, we might be able to trace all of them.
That would make our work much easier.
The sooner we followed those clues, the better.
I decided to find Thomas Snelling that day.
Around noon, I was awakened by Van Helsing entering my room.
He seemed happier and more cheerful than usual.
It was obvious that the success of the previous night had lifted some of the heavy worry that had been weighing on him.
After discussing what had happened, he suddenly said:
“Your patient interests me greatly.”
“May I visit him with you this morning?”
“If you are too busy, I can go alone.”
“I have never before encountered a lunatic who can discuss philosophy and reason so clearly.”
I had work that needed my attention.
“If you don’t mind going alone, Professor, I would actually prefer it. Then I won’t have to make you wait.”
I called an attendant and gave him instructions.
Before Van Helsing left, I warned him not to be fooled by Renfield’s apparent intelligence.
“But I want him to talk about himself,” Van Helsing replied.
“And especially about his belief that he could gain life by consuming living things.”
“According to your diary, he told Mrs. Mina that he once believed this.”
“Why are you smiling, friend John?”
“I’m smiling because the answer is right here.”
I touched the typewritten pages.
“When our perfectly rational lunatic explained how he used to consume living things, his mouth was still full of the flies and spiders he had swallowed just before Mina entered the room.”
Van Helsing smiled.
“Good observation.”
“You are right. I should have remembered that.”
He paused thoughtfully.
“And yet this strange confusion between thought, memory, and reality is exactly what makes mental illness so fascinating.”
“Perhaps I will learn more from the foolishness of this madman than from the lectures of the wisest professor.”
“Who knows?”
I returned to my work.
Before long, I had finished everything I needed to do.
It seemed as though only a few minutes had passed.
Then Van Helsing returned to the study.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked politely from the doorway.
“Not at all,” I replied. “Come in. I’ve finished my work.”
“I can go with you now if you like.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I have already seen him.”
“Well?”
Van Helsing sighed.
“I don’t think he was very impressed by me.”
“Our conversation was extremely short.”
“When I entered his room, he was sitting on a stool in the middle of the room, with his elbows resting on his knees.”
“He looked deeply annoyed.”
“I greeted him as cheerfully and respectfully as I could.”
“He said nothing.”
“So I asked, ‘Don’t you know me?’”
Van Helsing shook his head.
“His answer was not exactly friendly.”
“He said, ‘I know you well enough. You’re that old fool Van Helsing. I wish you’d take yourself and your stupid theories somewhere else. Damn all thick-headed Dutchmen!’”
Van Helsing gave a helpless shrug.
“He would say nothing more.”
“He simply sat there, completely ignoring me as if I were not even in the room.”
“So much for my hope of learning anything from this unusually intelligent lunatic.”
“I think I will go and have a pleasant conversation with dear Mina instead.”
He smiled.
“John, I am deeply relieved that she will no longer have to suffer through our terrible business.”
“We will miss her help.”
“But this is better.”
“I agree completely,” I said.
I did not want Van Helsing to change his mind about keeping Mina away from the danger.
“She is better out of it.”
“This situation is already terrible enough for men who have spent their lives dealing with danger.”
“It is no place for a woman.”
“If she remained involved, I believe this whole affair would eventually destroy her.”
Van Helsing then went to speak with Mina and Jonathan.
Quincey and Arthur were both away, following the clues about the missing boxes of earth.
I finished my rounds and prepared for our meeting that night.
It felt strange to be kept completely in the dark.
Jonathan had always shared everything with me.
For years, there had been no secrets between us.
Now I could see that he was deliberately avoiding certain subjects—the most important subjects of all.
That morning, I slept late because of how exhausted I was.
Jonathan had also slept late, but he still woke before me.
Before he went out, he spoke to me with more tenderness than ever.
Yet he said nothing about what had happened during their visit to Dracula’s house.
He must have known how desperately anxious I was.
Poor dear Jonathan.
Perhaps the whole thing had hurt him even more deeply than it had hurt me.
Everyone had agreed that it was better for me to stay out of this terrible business.
I had accepted that.
But knowing that my husband was deliberately hiding things from me still hurt.
And now I was crying like a foolish child.
Yet I knew why.
It was because Jonathan loved me so deeply, and because all those brave men were trying to protect me.
Thinking about that made me feel better.
One day, Jonathan would tell me everything.
And I would continue keeping my journal as I always had.
If he ever doubted my honesty, I would show him these pages.
Every thought and feeling in my heart would be here for him to read.
Still, I felt strangely sad and weak today.
Perhaps this was simply the reaction to yesterday’s terrible excitement.
Last night, after the men left, I went to bed because they had ordered me to.
I was not sleepy.
My mind was full of anxiety.
I kept thinking about everything that had happened since Jonathan first came to London.
It all seemed like one terrible tragedy moving toward an ending that none of us could escape.
Sometimes it seemed that no matter what we did, even when we did the right thing, our actions only brought the worst possible outcome closer.
If I had never gone to Whitby, perhaps Lucy would still be alive.
She had not started visiting the churchyard until I arrived.
If she had never gone there with me during the day, perhaps she would never have begun walking there in her sleep.
And if she had never gone there at night, Dracula might never have found her.
Oh, why did I ever go to Whitby?
I found myself crying again.
I did not understand what was happening to me today.
I must hide this from Jonathan.
If he knew I had cried twice in one morning—when I had hardly ever cried for myself, and he had never once given me reason to cry—he would blame himself and be miserable.
So I would put on a brave face.
If I felt like crying, Jonathan would never see it.
Perhaps this was one of the things women had to learn.
I cannot remember exactly how I finally fell asleep.
I remember hearing the dogs barking suddenly.
Then came strange noises from somewhere below, almost like a man praying desperately.
They seemed to come from Renfield’s room.
Then everything became silent.
The silence was so complete that it frightened me.
I got up and looked out the window.
Everything was dark.
The moon cast long black shadows across the ground.
Nothing seemed to move.
The whole world looked frozen, as if death itself were watching.
Then I noticed a thin strip of white mist moving slowly across the grass toward the house.
It seemed almost alive.
For some reason, watching it helped distract me from my thoughts.
When I returned to bed, I began to feel sleepy.
I lay there for a while, but could not quite fall asleep.
So I got up again and looked outside.
The mist had spread.
It was now pressed against the walls of the house, almost as if it were climbing toward the windows.
Renfield’s cries had become louder.
I could not understand his words, but his voice sounded desperate.
Then I heard a struggle.
The attendants must have gone into his room to restrain him.
I was terrified.
I hurried back to bed, pulled the covers over my head, and covered my ears with my fingers.
I did not think I was sleepy.
But I must have fallen asleep.
The next thing I remember was Jonathan waking me in the morning.
For a few moments, I did not know where I was.
My dream had been strange.
It seemed to be a continuation of the thoughts that had filled my waking mind.
In the dream, I believed I was asleep, waiting for Jonathan to return.
I was desperately worried about him, but I could do nothing.
My hands, feet, and even my mind seemed weighed down.
Everything moved painfully slowly.
Then I became aware that the air around me was cold, damp, and heavy.
I pulled the covers away from my face.
Everything in the room looked dim.
The gas lamp I had left burning for Jonathan was turned low.
Through the fog, it looked like a tiny red spark.
Then I remembered that I had closed the window before going to bed.
I wanted to get up and check it.
But some terrible heaviness seemed to hold my body and even my willpower down.
So I simply lay there.
I could not move.
I closed my eyes, but somehow I could still see.
The mist became thicker.
Then I realized where it was coming from.
It was not entering through the window.
It was pouring through the cracks around the door.
It looked like smoke.
Or perhaps like white steam from boiling water.
The mist grew thicker and thicker until it formed a tall column in the middle of the room.
At the top of it, the red gas flame looked like a single glowing eye.
My thoughts began spinning wildly, just as the mist was swirling around me.
Then a phrase from the Bible came into my mind:
“A pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.”
For a moment, I wondered whether the strange column might actually be some kind of supernatural guidance.
But then the red light seemed to split into two.
Suddenly there were two glowing red eyes staring at me through the fog.
They reminded me of the red eyes Lucy had described when the dying sunlight reflected from the windows of St. Mary’s Church.
Then terror struck me.
I suddenly understood that this might be how Jonathan had seen those terrible women appear from the swirling mist at Dracula’s castle.
I must have fainted in the dream.
Everything became completely black.
The last thing my imagination showed me was a pale, lifeless face bending over me through the mist.
I must be careful about dreams like this.
If I have too many, they could destroy my peace of mind.
I thought about asking Van Helsing or Dr. Seward for something to help me sleep.
But I was afraid of frightening them.
They already worried about me enough.
If I told them about this dream, they might add it to their fears for my safety.
Tonight I would try to sleep naturally.
If I could not, then tomorrow night I would ask for a small dose of chloral.
One dose would not hurt me, and at least I would sleep properly.
Last night had exhausted me more than a completely sleepless night would have.
The following night, I slept without dreaming.
I must have slept very deeply because I did not wake when Jonathan came to bed.
But the sleep did not refresh me.
I felt terribly weak and exhausted.
I spent most of the day reading a little or lying down and drifting in and out of sleep.
In the afternoon, Renfield asked if he could see me.
Poor man.
He was extremely gentle.
When I left his room, he kissed my hand and asked God to bless me.
For some reason, his kindness affected me deeply.
Even now, thinking about it makes me cry.
This new weakness worries me.
I must be careful.
Jonathan would be terribly unhappy if he knew how often I had been crying.
Jonathan and the others stayed out until dinner.
When they finally returned, they looked exhausted.
I did everything I could to cheer them up.
Strangely, trying to make them feel better helped me forget my own tiredness.
After dinner, they sent me to bed.
Then they went off together to smoke and talk.
They said they simply wanted to relax.
But I knew better.
They wanted to tell one another what they had discovered during the day.
From Jonathan’s manner, I could tell that he had something important to report.
I was not sleepy enough to go to sleep naturally.
So before they left, I asked Dr. Seward for something to help me sleep.
He kindly prepared a mild sleeping medicine for me.
“It is very gentle,” he assured me. “It will do you no harm.”
I took it.
Now I am waiting for sleep.
But sleep still has not come.
And as I begin to feel it approaching, another thought frightens me.
Perhaps I was foolish to take something that might make it impossible for me to wake up.
I might need to be awake.
But I can feel sleep coming now.
Good night.