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Extracts from the private journal of Dr John Seward.
December 13th 1900.
We buried Abraham today.
He was laid down outside St Peter’s Church in Sloterdijk. It was an uneasy affair, any words of consolation the priest might have spoken were said in Dutch, and therefore incomprehensible to us. His family, who might have understood, appeared to draw little succour from them as they eyed us sullenly across the grave. It was evident that they resented being unable to view his body before it was interred, but certain precautions, that he had insisted we take had made his body an unfit sight for those who would not understand. I felt their eyes particularly upon me. A doctor is always suspect at a graveside, a headstone is a reminder of his failure at best, at worst he is watched carefully if he shows signs of lingering after the mourners have gone. I am sure there were some there who thought that; during the evening we spent alone with his corpse, I had taken a further, more material contribution to research from the old man than the records and papers which were his bequest to us.
I do not blame them for their concerns, we must have all seemed a sorry, suspicious lot, hovering over the grave like half-starved crows. Over the past year I have ceased to give mirrors more than a passing glance, even shaving very irregularly, as the sight of my face frightens me terribly. Instead, I chart my relative decline by observing Jonathan, who is the sole man on this earth who I am persuaded looks more haggard than I. Arthur’s clothes are still fine but he has shrunk inside them horribly, their enveloping bulk had rather too much in common with poor Abraham's coffin for my liking. Quincey might have offered us some welcome robustness, but he has long preceded Abraham into the earth, it fell to Mina to present some semblance of health and respectability, even in mourning her bloom has not faded, though I detected certain signs of sleeplessness around her eyes.
Despite the measures we took after his death, it did not seem to be out of the natural order of things, which was surprising considering the circumstances of his life. His decline was gradual and when he summoned us to his bedside in his last days, his faith seemed unshaken and he viewed his death with apparent equanimity.
Nevertheless, I am troubled.
I cannot forget his face after Mina called us up to his room. I learned long ago that the faces of the dead are not peaceful, some are as blank as chalk and others, worse, are twisted with pain and fear. His was not, thank God, one of the latter, but his expression seemed somehow surprised, as though the death he had been courting for a full year had nevertheless crept up on him at the last. I cannot comprehend it, but i must acknowledge that my reason was near overthrown by his death. I remember that there was a fly in his room, lingering out of its season and whining from behind the curtains, and I knew that if it landed on his still, beloved face, he would be unable to swat it away and I would be horribly tempted to do it for him, profaning his poor dead face in doing so. I have never hated a creature so much in my life.
My cough was very bad that night, my chest so deeply wracked that I feared I would be unfit for the night’s work. I know Abraham was uneasy at my morphine use, though he understood that it is one of the few things that can give me relief. I have however, been directed to a substitute, diacetylmorphine, which I am assured is not addictive. I therefore felt little guilt about administering a dose upon myself so that I could perform my necessary duties.(1)
I will not rehearse the grim details of the butchery of my dear mentor’s corpse, it caused me enough agony to perform such a sacrilege upon the body of dear Lucy, to erase the demonic Count’s greater crime, and I was a much stronger man then. Such shadows of men we have all become, that we were powerless in the face of Mina’s insistence that she attend this time. As ever, she acquitted herself well, barely allowing herself so much as a wince, or perhaps, like me, she operated in a state of trance. There was only one point where I thought she might falter, after the bulk of the work had been done. I was reaching forward to place the bulb of garlic in his mouth and I saw her face twist with agony. It was the indignity of it I suppose, my hands were shaking so the process was neither clean nor quick, and it was horrible, horrible to see the man I loved as a father so stripped of his humanity. But it was not him who Mina thought of in that moment, but of the companion of her youth. As I struggled with his jaw, already stiffening into rigor she bent her head alongside mine and muttered, low enough so that only I could hear.
“So this was done to Lucy too?”
I do not know if it was a question that required an answer, but words failed me nonetheless. I had not thought of Lucy in some years, had actively put her from my mind, and the sudden re-appearance of her spectre in that charnel-house was almost too much for me to bear. She must have seen this in my face because a brief unfathomable expression transformed her face into something alien, for a matter of seconds, before the Mina I knew returned, strained but resolute. She remained so for the rest of the night but in the days that followed I have seen the shadows beneath her eyes darken and I imagine she sleeps ill, as I have done for all the nights since.
I will take the next boat back to London tomorrow. I cannot bear this city any longer, I walk distractedly from the Prinsengracht to Dam square shuddering every time I catch sight of my reflection, twisted and elongated by the canals. What seeps through into them from the surrounding mud? All that lies in the earth is fixed, but if it reaches the water, might it not bob up?
No, I must not torment myself. I must hurry to London and steady ground again. Good heavens, I no longer feel any comfort in the presence of those most dear to me! After the funeral it began to drizzle and we all took shelter within the church. Once we were within, Mina drew me aside, taking my hands in hers. I remember her fingers were as cold as iron and strong around mine.
“You must visit us more often when we get home Jack,” she admonished me firmly.
“Of course,” I replied “I believe Jonathan could stand closer watching, he has declined since I last saw him.”
She smiled wanly, “it is not merely Jonathan who concerns me, you have isolated yourself recently Jack and now you have lost Abraham...It seems as though your life is closing in on you and I cannot fail to be concerned.”
How bitter kind words can sometimes feel! She can have had no idea how she afflicted me. I struggled to repress a shudder as she raised a hand to my shoulder. It was a friendly gesture, meant to impart courage but it felt like a brand, as though she was setting the seal on her speech. I fancy I can feel the press of her palm lingering still.
I will close this now. I pray that sleep will come.
Dr Seward’s Journal. 19th December
A most uncanny occurrence today, which has left me quite unnerved. I hope that by recording my fears they will cease to torment me so. (It may only serve to give them fresh life, but I know no other course to follow.)
I was visiting one of my few remaining patients, having gradually ceased taking residential cases. In this instance it was an elderly lady with a moderate tendency towards hypochondria, a condition that had occasionally resulted in hysterical episodes. She gains more from airing her neuroses than from any material help I might give her. Unfortunately a new underground train station is being built a few streets away from her house and she was convinced the the ‘fumes’ she believed were being emitted in the process of its construction were slowly poisoning her.(2) She required extensive reassurance and it was therefore already growing dark when I was finally able to take my leave.
As I was preparing to go she awoke from the slight half-doze that had crept up on her as the afternoon went on and fixed me with a disconcertingly bright gaze.
“It is not right,” she muttered fretfully, “all that turning over of earth, do they not think of what might have been lying in it?”
It was merely the utterance of an elderly and too easily excited lady, but it must have chimed too closely with some subterranean current of thought that I have been harbouring. It chilled me, and I went out into the frozen streets in a highly unsettled state. It may be this, and nothing more, that is to blame for what followed.
At first I walked along the busy main roads, thronged with people admiring the displays of produce prepared for Christmas. The pavements had been long cleared of snow by the press of feet but they were still slippery around the gutters and in the places where the brief afternoon sun had not rested. I was surrounded by a tide of humanity but unusually, I drew comfort from their closeness, from being one among many. Among these multitudes he may have walked for some time without me noticing. As it was, I only became aware of a man; indistinguishable from so many others in a black coat and top hat, walking a careful distance in front of me after we had turned into a more sparsely populated side-street.
He first came to my attention due to the fact that, despite the comparative emptiness of the pavement, he nevertheless remained directly in my path, so that, were I to quicken my pace, I would almost certainly collide with him. To avoid doing so, I slowed down, only to find his strides becoming longer and more measured too. Hesitating now, I moved to the left, only to find that he swerved to match my position.
Like most people with a nervous disposition, I have trained myself to ignore or rationalise occurrences that those of a more naturally stoic nature might more readily find alarming. So it was that I continued walking with every appearance of mental ease for some time, dread unfolding like a flower inside me.
It was fully dark now, and the houses were lighting their windows, the glow forming pools on the pavement. This had an unsettling effect, as the man who I was so unwillingly shadowing would become sharp-edged against the light, then abruptly disappear into the gloom. Every time he faded from view I felt my heart lift with the hope that he might have turned down another street or entered a house. Each time that hope was dashed. I began to entertain the most morbid imaginings, would this man think that I was following him with ill-intent? Was he waiting for an opportune moment to turn and strike me with his cane? Worse still, had I finally taken leave of my senses? Was I indeed following a perfectly innocent man, suffering the delusion that he was somehow compelling me to dog his steps?
I was so lost in these terrors that I completely lost my bearings. It was only when my surroundings became entirely familiar that I realised I was walking up my very own street. I was not twenty yards from my house! I began to feel relieved, I would reach my home and this bizarre spell would be broken. The man would go his own way, good heavens, he might even be a neighbour! Unconsciously I lengthened my stride as I drew level with my front gate, only to have to quickly come to a halt as the feared collision almost took place.
For the man had stopped outside my house.
In the silence of the street I could hear my heart thrumming wildly in my ears, though my face felt cold and entirely numb, as though it had ceased to respond to the dictates of my mind. The man seemed quite at ease, leaning casually on his cane. In the darkness he seemed to grow, his presence reaching out beyond the confines of his form, seeming to devour the faint lights and incidental noises of the night into a silence of a different, smothering quality. If I reached out only slightly I would touch his back, and I was filled with terrified nausea at the prospect, at the same time I was incapable of saving myself by stepping backwards.
I do not know how long we stood there, perhaps five minutes, perhaps fifty. The spell was broken by the opening of the door of the house next to mine. Light from the hallway spilled out, and cheerful voices were heard, preparing to take their leave. In the sudden illumination I saw the man turn his head slightly, for the first time looking back at me. As my eyes accustomed themselves to the light I caught a brief glimpse of his profile, unmistakeable to me, even after so many years, before he abruptly strode off down the street, leaving me in a state of near collapse, trembling against my gate.
I refuse to believe what i saw, it must have been a hallucination, brought on by the pitch of anxiety that I had suffered all through that long walk home. But of all visions, why this? I have not thought of poor mad, dead Renfield since we found his body on the floor of his cell.
But it was Renfield’s face that the man wore. Perhaps it was a sign that I will soon suffer a similar decline, maybe the mind, teetering on the edge of insanity, offers one last desperate warning to the vestiges of reason that remain. If so, I do not know how to arrest the process, perhaps it is a fate that I will not be able to avoid.
Dr Seward’s Journal. 23rd December.
For three days I have not left the house, pretending to be absorbed in sorting through Abraham’s papers. I sent my housekeeper off to her family for Christmas this morning so I have abandoned the pretense of being absorbed with anything bar the turmoil in my mind.
Since that night I have had the most dreadful dreams, worse in that they form themselves around the most ancient template imaginable. I am being ‘hag-ridden’ as the old wives termed it. I seem to wake in the darkest hour of the night, what exact time I cannot tell, as even were I able to do so much as turn my head to glance at the clock, there would not be enough light for me to see it. Thus immobilised, I become aware of a presence waiting at the foot of my bed, I watch helplessly as it crawls up above the bedclothes and kneels mercilessly on my chest, choking the breath from me until a deeper darkness swims before my eyes. I cannot see its face, but it feels female, and familiar to me, though I cannot think who it might represent. This is the worst thing. I have read so many studies of these dreams, which afflict peoples across the globe, I have transcribed so many accounts of similar nocturnal experiences from my patients that even in the dark and unreasoning hours of sleep that my subconscious seems to have maintained some level of detachment. But all this dissolves when I gaze up to the shadow where its face should be and somehow know the apparition. Then I am terrified beyond measure. it would be much simpler if the spectre bore either a generic fearsome countenance or indeed a clearly recognisable one, the Count for example, the appearance of Renfield’s face would equally have a certain logic to it considering recent events. As it is the uncertainty torments me, at some level my mind recognises my nocturnal visitor, but it chooses to withhold this knowledge from me, it has turned traitor, the only thing I am sure of is my own fear, the obscure sense of recognition, and a curious feeling, that I can only describe as guilt, that assails me even in the depths of my terror.
After I wake from these dreams I find it almost impossible to return to sleep that night. I have taken a somewhat higher dose of chloral than usual. I will abstain when my condition improves, I will retain control over this, at least. (3)
Dr Seward’s Journal. 24th December.
Feeling somewhat improved after a dreamless night, I resolved to visit the Harkers for Christmas Eve. I hired a hansom cab to travel to their home, though the distance is short. I could not bring myself to descend among the crowds once more, I could barely glance out of the window, the rain which fell in great grey sheets made every blurred figure a potential threat.
It was a great relief to arrive at Mina and Jonathan’s quiet house. It has always been a restful place, Jonathan has never truly recovered from his ordeal as a guest of the Count, so Mina has always striven to excise all that is unsettled from their life. Previously I have found the results a little stifling, but now I settled into that subdued order as though it were a warm bath.
I must admit that my near-atrophied doctor’s instincts did cause me some uneasiness when; after being ushered into the parlour, I first caught sight of Jonathan. When I had last seen him he was clearly in poor health, but now he struggled to rise from his chair to greet me and his hand trembled in mine when I took it. Taking my cue form Mina, I chose not to remark on his decline and we passed the first ten minutes in a grim charade, where he, an invalid and I, a nervous wreck of a man attempted to simulate the mannerisms and conversation of healthy men. It was with relief that we saw Mina return with the tea-things, giving us the excuse to collapse back into our chairs and allow her to direct the conversation.
As it was our talk was pleasantly desultory, at time containing great stretches of silence where the only sound was the rain hurling itself against the window.
“Lord it’s fierce out there,” I remarked, with the pleasure of one who is sat by the fire.
Mina smiled, “yes, we have become a lot more exposed since we had the tree cut down.”
“Oh!” I said, “I confess I did not really notice it,” on looking more carefully it struck me how exposed their front garden now was, with nothing but unbroken grass between the front window and the wall that hemmed the house in from the street. “Doesn’t it bother you that people can look in so easily?”
Jonathan shuddered, “better that than having those infernal branches clawing at the window, I could scarcely sleep.” In a rare burst of energy he leaned forward to stoke the fire violently, before subsiding back into his chair, breath coming quicker than before.
Mina and I shared a glance, and she steered the conversation back into less troubled waters. As time passed Jonathan’s eyes drooped and before too long he fell into a deep slumber. Noticing this Mina rose and carefully arranged a blanket around his legs, removing his plate from the arm of his chair lest he dislodged it. Watching this tableau I was struck by the contrast between the steadiness and grace of Mina’s movements, and the emaciated form of her husband, and I experienced a rush of foreboding.
This feeling had not left me when Mina sat down opposite me once more, fixing me with her bright gaze.
“I will let him sleep there,” she explained, “he tries to keep himself awake at night, so it is best to let him rest while he can.” Her eyes narrowed as she considered me more closely, “you don’t appear to be sleeping well either John, if you’ll forgive me saying so, you appear to be frightened of something.”
I had resolved not to burden either Jonathan or Mina with my troubles, or rather, I was not sure I could bring myself to speak about them, but after this slight invitation, in my weakness, I poured the whole sorry story out to Mina. To her eternal credit she heard me out patiently and with apparent interest.
After I had finally run out of words, she leaned back, her face troubled, and asked the question I had been dreading.
“Are you sure it is only a fantasy of your mind, and that Renfield has not indeed returned?”
I shuddered, “he died soon after we left him, you know this, Mina!”
“And you know as well as I that death may not be as final as it seems...do you recollect what was done with his body?”
I paused, deeply troubled, “no, he had no family that I know of. I arranged to have him buried in a local church, but I confess that I did not supervise the process...God in heaven Mina, that was an oversight!”
Mina got up to stoke the fire and I became aware of how dark it had begun. I also became conscious that the curtains had not been drawn and that I was sitting with my back to the window. I risked a glance behind me, there was nothing to see out there, but within we were lit up like a tableau. Was that a deeper shadow beyond the wall, peering in, like a cat waiting outside a mouse hole.
I was about to request that we draw the curtains, to give at least the illusion of protection against the night, but Mina forestalled me.
“I fear I may have worried you needlessly,” she began gravely, “it is perfectly possible that it may have been nothing more than a figment of your imagination.” She hesitated, “I know from experience that it is far worse to think of those to whom you are...connected, as a threat. The idea that someone might intimately know you and hate you at the same time...that is near unbearable.”
I felt bile rising in my throat. Can it be possible that he has returned? Does he wish to avenge himself upon me? Lord knows I only ever sought to help him, but he was a patient, a subject of enquiry, I attempted to destroy his dangerous delusions, but I did not consider that he might resent me, might hold me to blame for his situation. I saw how death changed Lucy, who was the sweetest woman alive. How might a reanimated madman feel? What might he do?
These thoughts so oppressed me that I scarcely notices Mina rising to summon a cab, only realising with a jolt that I was alone in the room after she had been gone for some minutes. Well not quite alone, but Jonathan was still dead to the world. Indeed, his face was so strangely shadowed by the dying firelight, and his breaths were so shallow that for a moment I feared that he had indeed expired while we were talking. I was tempted to wake him, to break the silence with something other than the faint hiss of the embers, but I held myself back from that act of selfishness. All the while I was conscious of the window behind me and the night beyond it staring knowingly, malevolently at my back.
Before I left, dithering in the hallway trying to summon the courage to make the short walk from the door to the waiting hansom, Mina asked me something that gave me pause.
“Have you heard from Arthur recently?” She was standing halfway up the stairs, so that in the low light I could not see her face clearly enough to discern whether the question was an idle one or not.
“No...I cannot say I have, mind you, we are not in the habit of corresponding regularly, why, have you?”
“No.” She came down, further into the light to see me off. “Good night John, and take care of yourself. I will pass your regards to Jonathan when he awakes.”
I quashed the childish desire to beg her to allow me to stay and I took my leave, turning for home with dread in my heart.
Dr Seward’s Journal. 26th December.
Someone has been in the house.
After I left the Harkers I took some more chloral, I do not remember how much. I therefore slept through much of Christmas Day, and today I went out, or more accurately, fled from the house, to visit an old friend of the family, who is one of my few acquaintances left here. The effects of sleep, however perilously procured, were evidently beneficial, for I may even have passed as merry in the time I spent there. While traveling home I recalled Mina’s enquiry as to whether I had heard from Arthur. The shameful truth was that I did not truly know, I have let all the correspondence I have received pile up in such a manner that it was perfectly possible that a letter from him might be sitting amongst it. In fact I had a recollection of seeing his handwriting relatively recently, perhaps on an envelope. I resolved to check as soon as I arrived home.
I knew something was wrong as soon as I crossed the threshold. Being alone in the house I had entirely neglected to light the fire for the past three days. Nevertheless there was the faint smell of woodsmoke in the air. The house did not feel as though a stranger remained within it, nevertheless I picked up a stout walking stick and walked cautiously towards my study.
Once within I saw Arthur’s handwriting immediately, or at least a fragment of it, the fragment that was all that remained of his letter, twisted so by the fire that it lolled obscenely out of the fireplace. I snatched it up, but all that remained was illegible. The worst of it is that this tiny scrap of paper was placed, he who burned it clearly wished me to know what he had done. The ashes of the fire had long cooled, this was no oversight made in haste but a calculated act. He wishes to torment me. He is succeeding.
It is strange, but I feel completely calm. I thought briefly of contacting Mina, but just as rapidly I dismissed the idea. If it is true that I am being pursued, then to go to her would merely expose others to danger. I have retrieved my revolver from my safe, though I am aware that my hands are shaking so severely that it will do me little good.
What can I do now but wait?
8pm
It is fully dark now, the wind is whipping the trees into a fury. I have barely taken my eyes from the window for three hours, every time I glance down at this page my heart races, fearing that I might have missed something creeping through the garden, now lurking beneath my window. I do not know why I continue to write, it can only be the compulsion of habit, for there is no control to be found in the lines on this page. I am writing more honestly than I have ever done, my madness and fear in reflected back up at me as though this book were a mirror.
Was that someone moving between the trees? Oh that I had the eyes of a cat or a fox!
It has been some minutes now, there has been nothing further but the wind, just now its voice was raised in a jeering yell, now it has subsided and it is almost perfectly quiet.
That was not the wind, nor a tapping, prying branch. That was the sound of my front door, opening, then closing once more.
He did not come here through the window.
I am frozen, all but my hand, twitching through the ink like a dying fly. Why can I not desist? I must turn! I can hear his footsteps coming down the hall!
I do not remember his tread being so light! Is he wearing a cape? No. That sounds almost more like the rustle of petticoats.
My study door lies like a wound at my back. The footsteps have stopped, nay paused, outside. He, (or she? God in heaven!) is playing with me. I am trying to remember Abraham, Quincey, something that will give me strength, but running through it all are Mina’s last words, about the intimacy of true hatred. My demon is not a ghastly face glimpsed through the windowpane, it has a key.
My heart is behaving very oddly, every beat feels like the last jerk of a machine juddering to a halt. Oh open the door and have done damn you!
My wish is granted, the door has been opened. She is here.
Extract from the Journal of Lord Arthur Holmwood. December 28th.
Dreadful, dreadful day. John is dead.
I came down with fears enough. John and I did not write often but I had expected a response from him to my last letter, even were it just to say “you’ve gone quite mad old thing, Renfield is as dead as a dodo, ergo he cannot be tramping around your estate.” I’d got myself into quite a lather and I just wanted to hear from his own lips that he had taken precautions with the corpse.
It seems that John had troubles enough of his own.
They say they found him at his desk, though there were apparently no papers before him, that his heart must have given out. I had a word with the Inspector in charge and he assured me that the housekeeper, on her return yesterday afternoon, had kept her head and called them directly, that they had found no signs of forced entry.
They may be right. I remember wondering, as we stood by that graveside in Amsterdam, how long it would be before John followed his mentor. I cannot keep seeing monsters in every shadow.
I thought it best to check with Mina first, she was in quite a state poor thing, but trying to hide it from Jonathan. She hadn’t told him yet, which was probably a good idea, the man looks as though one slight shock would finish him. Good Lord what has happened to us?
I asked her if John had said anything, strange. I didn’t go into particulars, didn’t want to alarm her.
“No.” She shook her head, fighting tears. “He was troubled when I last saw him, but you know he always kept his own counsel Arthur.”
Lord knows that’s true enough. Anyway, Mina has asked me to stay a while, so we can sort out John’s affairs. I’m mortally certain the man had no family to survive him, only us.
I think I will go out for a walk this afternoon, it may help to clear my head.