MEMORANDUM LEFT BY LUCY WESTENRA
17 September, Night.--I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no one may by any chance get into trouble through me. This is an exact record of what took place tonight. I feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing.
I went to bed as usual, taking care that the flowers were placed as Dr. Van Helsing directed, and soon fell asleep.
I was waked by the flapping at the window, which had begun after that sleep-walking on the cliff at Whitby when Mina saved me, and which now I know so well. I was not afraid, but I did wish that Dr. Seward was in the next room, as Dr. Van Helsing said he would be, so that I might have called him. I tried to sleep, but I could not. Then there came to me the old fear of sleep, and I determined to keep awake. Perversely sleep would try to come then when I did not want it. So, as I feared to be alone, I opened my door and called out. "Is there anybody there?" There was no answer. I was afraid to wake mother, and so closed my door again. Then outside in the shrubbery I heard a sort of howl like a dog's, but more fierce and deeper. I went to the window and looked out, but could see nothing, except a big bat, which had evidently been buffeting its wings against the window. So I went back to bed again, but determined not to go to sleep. Presently the door opened, and mother looked in. Seeing by my moving that I was not asleep, she came in and sat by me. She said to me even more sweetly and softly than her wont,
"I was uneasy about you, darling, and came in to see that you were all right."
I feared she might catch cold sitting there, and asked her to come in and sleep with me, so she came into bed, and lay down beside me. She did not take off her dressing gown, for she said she would only stay a while and then go back to her own bed. As she lay there in my arms, and I in hers the flapping and buffeting came to the window again. She was startled and a little frightened, and cried out, "What is that?"
I tried to pacify her, and at last succeeded, and she lay quiet. But I could hear her poor dear heart still beating terribly. After a while there was the howl again out in the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor. The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great, gaunt gray wolf.
Mother cried out in a fright, and struggled up into a sitting posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would help her. Amongst other things, she clutched the wreath of flowers that Dr. Van Helsing insisted on my wearing round my neck, and tore it away from me. For a second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange and horrible gurgling in her throat. Then she fell over, as if struck with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a moment or two.
The room and all round seemed to spin round. I kept my eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole myriad of little specks seems to come blowing in through the broken window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I tried to stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear Mother's poor body, which seemed to grow cold already, for her dear heart had ceased to beat, weighed me down, and I remembered no more for a while.
The time did not seem long, but very, very awful, till I recovered consciousness again. Somewhere near, a passing bell was tolling. The dogs all round the neighborhood were howling, and in our shrubbery, seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing. I was dazed and stupid with pain and terror and weakness, but the sound of the nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort me. The sounds seemed to have awakened the maids, too, for I could hear their bare feet pattering outside my door. I called to them, and they came in, and when they saw what had happened, and what it was that lay over me on the bed, they screamed out. The wind rushed in through the broken window, and the door slammed to. They lifted off the body of my dear mother, and laid her, covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I had got up. They were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them to go to the dining room and each have a glass of wine. The door flew open for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and then went in a body to the dining room, and I laid what flowers I had on my dear mother's breast. When they were there I remembered what Dr. Van Helsing had told me, but I didn't like to remove them, and besides, I would have some of the servants to sit up with me now. I was surprised that the maids did not come back. I called them, but got no answer, so I went to the dining room to look for them.
My heart sank when I saw what had happened. They all four lay helpless on the floor, breathing heavily. The decanter of sherry was on the table half full, but there was a queer, acrid smell about. I was suspicious, and examined the decanter. It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the sideboard, I found that the bottle which Mother's doctor uses for her--oh! did use--was empty. What am I to do? What am I to do? I am back in the room with Mother. I cannot leave her, and I am alone, save for the sleeping servants, whom some one has drugged. Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window.
The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the draught from the window, and the lights burn blue and dim. What am I to do? God shield me from harm this night! I shall hide this paper in my breast, where they shall find it when they come to lay me out. My dear mother gone! It is time that I go too. Goodbye, dear Arthur, if I should not survive this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me!
Here is another instance of Stoker being sloppy: I personally didn't notice it until I read Fred Saberhagen's The Dracula Tape.
Who drugged the wine?
Why would Dracula bother with using the wolf as a battering ram when he could just fling a rock and break the window to let himself in? (The Count, many times, seems to demonstrate a penchant for the overly dramatic.)
Was the late Mrs. Westerna under Dracula's influence, somehow? Otherwise, the Count must have some great luck, because otherwise, all his work would have been for nothing.
As Elizabeth pointed out before, Dracula is a very flawed book. Its popularity shows how good Stoker was at getting readers to suspend their disbelief.
Posted by: Marty Busse | September 19, 2005 at 09:42 AM
"Who drugged the wine?"
I always took it that one of the maids did it, her mind mesmerized by Dracula. (Or perhaps it was Mrs Westenra...who might have been under D's influence for quite some time, hence her removal of the garlic the night before and her grabbing the garlic from Lucy's neck when the wolf jumped through the window.) What I found interesting was that, here again, we have a case of Dracula being able to control minds from afar.
Posted by: Baby Jinx | September 19, 2005 at 11:14 AM
"Why would Dracula bother with using the wolf as a battering ram when he could just fling a rock and break the window to let himself in?"
Or turn himself into a wolf and jump through the window? He'd already been invited into the house by Lucy, and surely Drac wasn't afraid of getting a few glass cuts. Using a poor, tame, zoo wolf to do his dirty work seems like a bit of overkill.
Posted by: Baby Jinx | September 19, 2005 at 11:38 AM
Hmmm. Seems to me that the sequence is: Dracula breaks window (yes, this is stupid, why didn't he just throw a rock?). Lucy's mother dies, Lucy faints. Dracula enters, drugs the sherry. Lucy recovers, screams, enter maids. Exeunt maids. Maids drink and drowse.
But this is still stupid. I can see that Dracula might like an uninterrupted few hours with Lucy, but it is sheer luck for him that laudanum is present in the house and handy. And if the Count's hypnotic presence can keep Lucy unconscious or unable to call for help, why go to the rigamarole of drugging the sherry? Just enter through the window, keep Lucy pliable, lock Lucy's room door in case of interruption, and enjoy.
The answer, I think, is that Stoker was willing to forgo logic for effect. Emotionally, the piling up of horror upon horror -- mother dead, maids drugged, the house open and the evil within -- is very effective.
Posted by: Larco | September 19, 2005 at 02:01 PM
Re dramatic effect. Remember that Stoker was a theatre man - often he likes to go for the grand gesture. Of course, staging the wolf breaking through the window would not be easy. but one movie does it exceptionally well - "Count Dracula" with Louis Jourdan (if memory serves me well)?
Posted by: Elizabeth | September 19, 2005 at 02:19 PM
Reading over Lucy's entry once more, I agree with Larco's observation that Dracula entered the room before the maids were drugged, so it is highly probable that Dracula himself drugged the wine. But why engage the wolf?
Here's one possibility: Dracula did not know who was to be in Lucy's room that night -- mom, Van Helsing, Dr Seward, maids? -- so he commissioned Berserker to create a diversion or even to kill Lucy's hapless chaperone(s). Allowing the wolf to do the attacking/killing would provide the police with a tidy explanation for the killing without raising their suspicions that foul play was involved.
Posted by: Baby Jinx | September 19, 2005 at 02:40 PM
Re wolf. This is no ordinary wolf. Lucy's room is on the second floor. Not only does he have to leap - he has to bash in the window.
Re Mrs Westenra. Note her two final actions: she tears the garlic flowers from Lucy's neck and she hits Lucy's forehead with her own head. A case can indeed be made that Mommy Dearest is under the power of the Count.
Posted by: Elizabeth | September 19, 2005 at 03:25 PM
I would almost wonder whether the escape of Berserker from the zoo was simply a coverup for the fact that it was really Dracula who broke through the window, except for the following:
1. Lucy mentions at least twice in her journal that she heard the flapping at the window and the howling of the "dog" at the same time. Unless Drac was rapidly changing forms or was outside practicing his animal sounds, it would appear that the wolf was separate from the bat, and
2. When Berserker finally returns to the zookeeper, the keeper mention picking glass out of the wolf's fur.
Posted by: Baby Jinx | September 19, 2005 at 11:28 PM
Two other things that give me notice are Lucy writing:
1. "The door flew open for an instant and closed again."
Is this to be understood that Dracula was in the room in invisible form at the time?
2. "It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the sideboard, I found that the bottle which Mother's doctor uses for her--oh! did use--was empty."
That's where the laudanum came from but when did Drac get it? Did he take it after he followed (invisibly) the maids from Lucy's room or could he have gotten it long before by paying Mrs Westenra a visit in her bedroom, as it has been suggested that Mrs W was functioning under Drac's power?
Posted by: Baby Jinx | September 19, 2005 at 11:37 PM
Or did Mrs W do it herself (under Drac's power, of course)?
Posted by: Baby Jinx | September 20, 2005 at 02:13 AM