[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
sealed the entrance against us. He opened it for a while, for his own purposes - and when
payment was exacted, he slammed the great rocky jaws shut against all intruders.
We should be glad of that, I suppose. God forbid that they should ever open again,
spill forth their vile contents or draw more souls - whether innocent or corrupt - into their
maw!
I did what little I could for our friend Abraham, my dearest friend and teacher; that is,
I placed flowers for him on the ridge, and there said a prayer for his immortal soul. He
would be glad to see, at least, how happily and passionately attached are Jonathan and
Mina, how well Quincey thrives; to know that his lifelong crusade against the darkness
did not come to nothing.
Many days after the terrible events in the Scholomance, when Mina showed me the
journal she had kept upon writing paper during her captivity and asked me to complete
her account, she made confessions of such trusting intimacy, such as may be made only
between patient and doctor or the dearest of friends, that I could not help but be moved.
'I shall never keep a journal again,' she told me with gentle sadness, 'for it would only
remind me of those terrible times. Jonathan and I already have too much to remind us, in
our own memories and in each other.'
I had thought, after all that had befallen - not Dracula's evil alone, but Elena's - that
there could never be peace between them again. Somehow, in my awkward way, I said as
much. I thought Mina would be offended, but she only smiled sweetly and replied, 'Did
you think we could never forgive each other, Jonathan and I? But as he says, our sins are
just the same! It is true our union is not as peaceful as once it was, that we must often
comfort each other's nightmares or brood upon our own failings; but neither is it as staid
and proper as once it was. For we find in each other at least a little of the wild darkness
that lived in Dracula and in Elena. I do not believe that an understanding which yields
such joy can possibly be wholly evil. Do you, Dr Seward? And Quincey - Quincey is
Jonathan's. We must all believe it.'
It is not for me to condemn them, and indeed, I do not. Nor would Van Helsing, I
know, for none of us have been above temptation, not even he.
Note
What am I to make of this account, which my mother has shown to me on my twenty-
first birthday while I am on leave?
She said that she wanted me to know the truth now, while she and Papa are alive to
answer my questions - rather than for me to discover these accounts among their papers
after their deaths. But I cannot bring myself to ask questions of them, nor even to
mention it.
My life has been so happy until today, secure in the tender understanding that has
always existed between my parents. But to discover that their intimacy sprang from -
from this Memories stir now that I had thought long lost. I had forgotten Elena; forgotten
my incarceration at Carfax, or rather dismissed everything as some disordered product of
my many childhood fevers. Even forgotten, or transformed into some ogre of nightmares,
Count Dracula himself.
But now I begin to remember. Once flung open, the casket lid cannot be closed.
Is it possible that I had two fathers - one a saint, one a devil? From which do I take my
spirit?
Ah yes, now I remember Elena. Her soft dark hair, her lovely accent, the warmth of
her breasts and thighs as she held me upon her knee and stroked my hair with her long,
warm fingers. And one day she was no longer there. She vanished into the night.
I cannot believe she is dead.
I have seen death, and it is brought by bullets and shells, not by vampires or wooden
stakes or by fiery chasms that are gateways to the realms of the damned.
I must find her again, when this war is over. I must find Castle Dracula. I will never
know who I am until I see their faces again; two pale and dark phantoms, who haunt me
yet dissolve whenever I reach out to touch them. I cannot rest until I find the
Scholomance itself, and there discover what became of my other father, my dark father,
Dracula, the Undead.
- Quincey A. J. J. A. Harker [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
sealed the entrance against us. He opened it for a while, for his own purposes - and when
payment was exacted, he slammed the great rocky jaws shut against all intruders.
We should be glad of that, I suppose. God forbid that they should ever open again,
spill forth their vile contents or draw more souls - whether innocent or corrupt - into their
maw!
I did what little I could for our friend Abraham, my dearest friend and teacher; that is,
I placed flowers for him on the ridge, and there said a prayer for his immortal soul. He
would be glad to see, at least, how happily and passionately attached are Jonathan and
Mina, how well Quincey thrives; to know that his lifelong crusade against the darkness
did not come to nothing.
Many days after the terrible events in the Scholomance, when Mina showed me the
journal she had kept upon writing paper during her captivity and asked me to complete
her account, she made confessions of such trusting intimacy, such as may be made only
between patient and doctor or the dearest of friends, that I could not help but be moved.
'I shall never keep a journal again,' she told me with gentle sadness, 'for it would only
remind me of those terrible times. Jonathan and I already have too much to remind us, in
our own memories and in each other.'
I had thought, after all that had befallen - not Dracula's evil alone, but Elena's - that
there could never be peace between them again. Somehow, in my awkward way, I said as
much. I thought Mina would be offended, but she only smiled sweetly and replied, 'Did
you think we could never forgive each other, Jonathan and I? But as he says, our sins are
just the same! It is true our union is not as peaceful as once it was, that we must often
comfort each other's nightmares or brood upon our own failings; but neither is it as staid
and proper as once it was. For we find in each other at least a little of the wild darkness
that lived in Dracula and in Elena. I do not believe that an understanding which yields
such joy can possibly be wholly evil. Do you, Dr Seward? And Quincey - Quincey is
Jonathan's. We must all believe it.'
It is not for me to condemn them, and indeed, I do not. Nor would Van Helsing, I
know, for none of us have been above temptation, not even he.
Note
What am I to make of this account, which my mother has shown to me on my twenty-
first birthday while I am on leave?
She said that she wanted me to know the truth now, while she and Papa are alive to
answer my questions - rather than for me to discover these accounts among their papers
after their deaths. But I cannot bring myself to ask questions of them, nor even to
mention it.
My life has been so happy until today, secure in the tender understanding that has
always existed between my parents. But to discover that their intimacy sprang from -
from this Memories stir now that I had thought long lost. I had forgotten Elena; forgotten
my incarceration at Carfax, or rather dismissed everything as some disordered product of
my many childhood fevers. Even forgotten, or transformed into some ogre of nightmares,
Count Dracula himself.
But now I begin to remember. Once flung open, the casket lid cannot be closed.
Is it possible that I had two fathers - one a saint, one a devil? From which do I take my
spirit?
Ah yes, now I remember Elena. Her soft dark hair, her lovely accent, the warmth of
her breasts and thighs as she held me upon her knee and stroked my hair with her long,
warm fingers. And one day she was no longer there. She vanished into the night.
I cannot believe she is dead.
I have seen death, and it is brought by bullets and shells, not by vampires or wooden
stakes or by fiery chasms that are gateways to the realms of the damned.
I must find her again, when this war is over. I must find Castle Dracula. I will never
know who I am until I see their faces again; two pale and dark phantoms, who haunt me
yet dissolve whenever I reach out to touch them. I cannot rest until I find the
Scholomance itself, and there discover what became of my other father, my dark father,
Dracula, the Undead.
- Quincey A. J. J. A. Harker [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]