Dracula

satisfied, in the first place because we have to be, no other means is
at our control, and secondly, because, after all these things,
tradition and superstition, are everything.  Does not the belief in
vampires rest for others, though not, alas! for us, on them?  A year
ago which of us would have received such a possibility, in the midst
of our scientific, sceptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century?  We
even scouted a belief that we saw justified under our very eyes.  Take
it, then, that the vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his
cure, rest for the moment on the same base.  For, let me tell you, he
is known everywhere that men have been.  In old Greece, in old Rome,
he flourish in Germany all over, in France, in India, even in the
Chermosese, and in China, so far from us in all ways, there even is
he, and the peoples for him at this day.  He have follow the wake of
the berserker Icelander, the devil-begotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon,
the Magyar.

"So far, then, we have all we may act upon, and let me tell you that
very much of the beliefs are justified by what we have seen in our own
so unhappy experience.  The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere
passing of the time, he can flourish when that he can fatten on the
blood of the living.  Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can
even grow younger, that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem
as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty.

"But he cannot flourish without this diet, he eat not as others.  Even
friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him eat,
never!  He throws no shadow, he make in the mirror no reflect, as
again Jonathan observe.  He has the strength of many of his hand,
witness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolves, and
when he help him from the diligence too.  He can transform himself to
wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open
the dog, he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at
Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as
my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy.

"He can come in mist which he create, that noble ship's captain proved
him of this, but, from what we know, the distance he can make this
mist is limited, and it can only be round himself.

"He come on moonlight rays as elemental dust, as again Jonathan saw
those sisters in the castle of Dracula.  He become so small, we
ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a
hairbreadth space at the tomb door.  He can, when once he find his
way, come out from anything or into anything, no matter how close it
be bound or even fused up with fire, solder you call it.  He can see
in the dark, no small power this, in a world which is one half shut
from the light.  Ah, but hear me through.

"He can do all these things, yet he is not free.  Nay, he is even more
prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell.
He cannot go where he lists, he who is not of nature has yet to obey
some of nature's laws, why we know not.  He may not enter anywhere at
the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to
come, though afterwards he can come as he please.  His power ceases,
as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day.

"Only at certain times can he have limited freedom.  If he be not at
the place whither he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or
at exact sunrise or sunset.  These things we are told, and in this
record of ours we have proof by inference.  Thus, whereas he can do as
he will within his limit, when he have his earth-home, his
coffin-home, his hell-home, the place unhallowed, as we saw when he
went to the grave of the suicide at Whitby, still at other time he can
only change when the time come.  It is said, too, that he can only
pass running water at the slack or the flood of the tide.  Then there
are things which so afflict him that he has no power, as the garlic
that we know of, and as for things sacred, as this symbol, my
crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to them he is
nothing, but in their presence he take his place far off and silent
with respect.  There are others, too, which I shall tell you of, lest
in our seeking we may need them.

"The branch of wild rose on his coffin keep him that he move not from
it, a sacred bullet fired into the coffin kill him so that he be true
dead, and as for the stake through him, we know already of its peace,
or the cut off head that giveth rest.  We have seen it with our eyes.

"Thus when we find the habitation of this man-that-was, we can confine
him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know.  But he is
clever.  I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to
make his record, and from all the means that are, he tell me of what
he has been.  He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won
his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier
of Turkeyland.  If it be so, then was he no common man, for in that
time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and
the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land
beyond the forest.'  That mighty brain and that iron resolution went
with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us.  The
Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and
again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings
with the Evil One.  They learned his secrets in the Scholomance,
amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims
the tenth scholar as his due.  In the records are such words as
'stregoica' witch, 'ordog' and 'pokol' Satan and hell, and in one
manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as 'wampyr,' which we all
understand too well.  There have been from the loins of this very one
great men and good women, and their graves make sacred the earth where
alone this foulness can dwell.  For it is not the least of its terrors
that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good, in soil barren of
holy memories it cannot rest."