Helsing, whoever he may be. "You will be grieved to hear that Mrs.
Westenra died five days ago, and that Lucy died the day before
yesterday. They were both buried today."
Oh, what a wealth of sorrow in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra!
Poor Lucy! Gone, gone, never to return to us! And poor, poor
Arthur, to have lost such a sweetness out of his life! God help us
all to bear our troubles.
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY-CONT.
22 September.—It is all over. Arthur has gone back to Ring, and
has taken Quincey Morris with him. What a fine fellow is Quincey! I
believe in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy's
death as any of us, but he bore himself through it like a moral
Viking. If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a
power in the world indeed. Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest
preparatory to his journey. He goes to Amsterdam tonight, but says
he returns tomorrow night, that he only wants to make some
arrangements which can only be made personally. He is to stop with
me then, if he can. He says he has work to do in London which may
take him some time. Poor old fellow! I fear that the strain of the
past week has broken down even his iron strength. All the time of
the burial he was, I could see, putting some terrible restraint on
himself. When it was all over, we were standing beside Arthur, who,
poor fellow, was speaking of his part in the operation where his
blood had been transfused to his Lucy's veins. I could see Van
Helsing's face grow white and purple by turns. Arthur was saying
that he felt since then as if they two had been really married, and
that she was his wife in the sight of God. None of us said a word
of the other operations, and none of us ever shall. Arthur and
Quincey went away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I
came on here. The moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way
to a regular fit of hysterics. He has denied to me since that it
was hysterics, and insisted that it was only his sense of humorwas hysterics, and insisted that it was only his sense of humor
asserting itself under very terrible conditions. He laughed till he
cried, and I had to draw down the blinds lest any one should see us
and misjudge. And then he cried, till he laughed again, and laughed
and cried together, just as a woman does. I tried to be stern with
him, as one is to a woman under the circumstances, but it had no
effect. Men and women are so different in manifestations of nervous
strength or weakness! Then when his face grew grave and stern again
I asked him why his mirth, and why at such a time. His reply was in
a way characteristic of him, for it was logical and forceful and
mysterious. He said,
"Ah, you don't comprehend, friend John. Do not think that I am
not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did
choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the
laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter
who knock at your door and say, `May I come in?' is not true
laughter. No! He is a king, and he come when and how he like. He
ask no person, he choose no time of suitability. He say, `I am
here.' Behold, in example I grieve my heart out for that so sweet
young girl. I give my blood for her, though I am old and worn. I
give my time, my skill, my sleep. I let my other sufferers want
that she may have all. And yet I can laugh at her very grave, laugh
when the clay from the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and
say `Thud, thud!' to my heart, till it send back the blood from my
cheek. My heart bleed for that poor boy, that dear boy, so of the
age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with
his hair and eyes the same.
"There, you know now why I love him so. And yet when he say
things that touch my husband-heart to the quick, and make my
father-heart yearn to him as to no other man, not even you, friend
John, for we are more level in experiences than father and son, yet
even at such a moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and belloweven at such a moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow
in my ear,`Here I am! Here I am!' till the blood come dance back
and bring some of the sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek.
Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full
of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh come,
he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and
dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall, all
dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth
of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and
kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain
that pull us different ways. Then tears come, and like the rain on
the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too
great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and
he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go on with our labor,
what it may be."
I did not like to wound him by pretending not to see his idea,
but as I did not yet understand the cause of his laughter, I asked
him. As he answered me his face grew stern, and he said in quite a
different tone,
"Oh, it was the grim irony of it all,this so lovely lady
garlanded with flowers, that looked so fair as life, till one by
one we wondered if she were truly dead, she laid in that so fine
marble house in that lonely churchyard, where rest so many of her
kin, laid there with the mother who loved her, and whom she loved,
and that sacred bell going "Toll! Toll! Toll!' so sad and slow, and
those holy men, with the white garments of the angel, pretending to
read books, and yet all the time their eyes never on the page, and
all of us with the bowed head. And all for what? She is dead, so!
Is it not?"
"Well, for the life of me, Professor," I said, "I can't see
anything to laugh at in all that. Why, your expression makes it a
harder puzzle than before. But even if the burial service was
comic, what about poor Art and his trouble? Why his heart was
simply breaking."