6 September
"My dear Art,
"My news today is not so good. Lucy this morning had gone back a
bit. There is, however, one good thing which has arisen from it.
Mrs. Westenra was naturally anxious concerning Lucy, and has
consulted me professionally about her. I took advantage of the
opportunity, and told her that my old master, Van Helsing, the
great specialist, was coming to stay with me, and that I would put
her in his charge conjointly with myself. So now we can come and go
without alarming her unduly, for a shock to her would mean sudden
death, and this, in Lucy's weak condition, might be disastrous to
her. We are hedged in with difficulties, all of us, my poor fellow,
but, please God, we shall come through them all right. If any need
I shall write, so that, if you do not hear from me, take it for
granted that I am simply waiting for news, In haste,
"Yours ever,"
John Seward
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
7 September.—The first thing Van Helsing said to me when we met
at Liverpool Street was, "Have you said anything to our young
friend, to lover of her?"
"No," I said. "I waited till I had seen you, as I said in my
telegram. I wrote him a letter simply telling him that you were
coming, as Miss Westenra was not so well, and that I should let him
know if need be."
"Right, my friend," he said. "Quite right! Better he not know as
yet. Perhaps he will never know. I pray so, but if it be needed,
then he shall know all. And, my good friend John, let me caution
you. You deal with the madmen. All men are mad in some way or the
other, and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so
deal with God's madmen too, the rest of the world. You tell not
your madmen what you do nor why you do it. You tell them not what
you think. So you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may
rest, where it may gather its kind around it and breed. You and I
shall keep as yet what we know here, and here." He touched me on
the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself the samethe heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself the same
way. "I have for myself thoughts at the present. Later I shall
unfold to you."
"Why not now?" I asked. "It may do some good. We may arrive at
some decision."He looked at me and said,"My friend John, when the
corn is grown, even before it has ripened, while the milk of its
mother earth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint
him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him
between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff, and say to
you, 'Look! He's good corn, he will make a good crop when the time
comes.' "
I did not see the application and told him so. For reply he
reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully,
as he used long ago to do at lectures, and said, "The good
husbandman tell you so then because he knows, but not till then.
But you do not find the good husbandman dig up his planted corn to
see if he grow. That is for the children who play at husbandry, and
not for those who take it as of the work of their life. See you
now, friend John? I have sown my corn, and Nature has her work to
do in making it sprout, if he sprout at all, there's some promise,
and I wait till the ear begins to swell." He broke off, for he
evidently saw that I understood. Then he went on gravely, "You were
always a careful student, and your case book was ever more full
than the rest. And I trust that good habit have not fail. Remember,
my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should
not trust the weaker. Even if you have not kept the good practice,
let me tell you that this case of our dear miss is one that may be,
mind, I say may be, of such interest to us and others that all the
rest may not make him kick the beam, as your people say. Take then
good note of it. Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in
record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of
interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure,
not from success!"interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure,
not from success!"
When I described Lucy's symptoms, the same as before, but
infinitely more marked, he looked very grave, but said nothing. He
took with him a bag in which were many instruments and drugs, "the
ghastly paraphernalia of our beneficial trade," as he once called,
in one of his lectures, the equipment of a professor of the healing
craft.
When we were shown in, Mrs. Westenra met us. She was alarmed,
but not nearly so much as I expected to find her. Nature in one of
her beneficient moods has ordained that even death has some
antidote to its own terrors. Here, in a case where any shock may
prove fatal, matters are so ordered that, from some cause or other,
the things not personal, even the terrible change in her daughter
to whom she is so attached, do not seem to reach her. It is
something like the way dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an
envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil
that which it would otherwise harm by contact. If this be an
ordered selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one
for the vice of egoism, for there may be deeper root for its causes
than we have knowledge of.
I used my knowledge of this phase of spiritual pathology, and
set down a rule that she should not be present with Lucy, or think
of her illness more than was absolutely required. She assented
readily, so readily that I saw again the hand of Nature fighting
for life. Van Helsing and I were shown up to Lucy's room. If I was
shocked when I saw her yesterday, I was horrified when I saw her
today.
She was ghastly, chalkily pale. The red seemed to have gone even
from her lips and gums, and the bones of her face stood out
prominently. Her breathing was painful to see or hear. Van
Helsing's face grew set as marble, and his eyebrows converged till
they almost touched over his nose. Lucy lay motionless, and did not
seem to have strength to speak, so for a while we were all silent.