FOREWORD To the Reader of this Work: In submitting Captain Carter's strange manuscript to you in book form, I believe that a few words relative to this remarkable personality will be of interest. My first recollection of Captain Carter is of the few months he spent at my father's home in Virginia, just prior to the opening of the civil war. I was then a child of but five years, yet I well remember the tall, dark, smooth-faced, athletic man whom I called Uncle Jack. He seemed always to be laughing; and he entered into the sports of the children with the same hearty good fellowship he displayed toward those pastimes in which the men and women of his own age indulged; or he would sit for an hour at a time entertaining my old grandmother with stories of his strange, wild life in all parts of the world. We all loved him, and our slaves fairly worshipped the ground he trod. He was a splendid specimen of manhood, standing a good two inches over six feet, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features were regular and clear cut, his hair black and closely cropped, while his eyes were of a steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character, filled with fire and initiative. His manners were perfect, and his courtliness was that of a typical southern gentleman of the highest type. His horsemanship, especially after hounds, was a marvel and delight even in that country of magnificent horsemen. I have often heard my father caution him against his wild recklessness, but he would only laugh, and say that the tumble that killed him would be from the back of a horse yet unfoaled. When the war broke out he left us, nor did I see him again for some fifteen or sixteen years. When he returned it was without warning, and I was much surprised to note that he had not aged apparently a moment, nor had he changed in any other outward way. He was, when others were with him, the same genial, happy fellow we had known of old, but when he thought himself alone I have seen him sit for hours gazing off into space, his face set in a look of wistful longing and hopeless misery; and at night he would sit thus looking up into the heavens, at what I did not know until I read his manuscript years afterward. He told us that he had been prospecting and mining in Arizona part of the time since the war; and that he had been very successful was evidenced by the unlimited amount of money with which he was supplied. As to the details of his life during these years he was very reticent, in fact he would not talk of them at all. He remained with us for about a year and then went to New York, where he purchased a little place on the Hudson, where I visited him once a year on the occasions of my trips to the New York market—my father and I owning and operating a string of general stores throughout Virginia at that time. Captain Carter had a small but beautiful cottage, situated on a bluff overlooking the river, and during one of my last visits, in the winter of 1885, I observed he was much occupied in writing, I presume now, upon this manuscript. He told me at this time that if anything should happen to him he wished me to take charge of his estate, and he gave me a key to a compartment in the safe which stood in his study, telling me I would find his will there and some personal instructions which he had me pledge myself to carry out with absolute fidelity. After I had retired for the night I have seen him from my window standing in the moonlight on the brink of the bluff overlooking the Hudson with his arms stretched out to the heavens as though in appeal. I thought at the time that he was praying, although I never understood that he was in the strict sense of the term a religious man. Several months after I had returned home from my last visit, the first of March, 1886, I think, I received a telegram from him asking me to come to him at once. I had always been his favorite among the younger generation of Carters and so I hastened to comply with his demand. I arrived at the little station, about a mile from his grounds, on the morning of March 4, 1886, and when I asked the livery man to drive me out to Captain Carter's he replied that if I was a friend of the Captain's he had some very bad news for me; the Captain had been found dead shortly after daylight that very morning by the watchman attached to an adjoining property. For some reason this news did not surprise me, but I hurried out to his place as quickly as possible, so that I could take charge of the body and of his affairs. I found the watchman who had discovered him, together with the local police chief and several townspeople, assembled in his little study. The watchman related the few details connected with the finding of the body, which he said had been still warm when he came upon it. It lay, he said, stretched full length in the snow with the arms outstretched above the head toward the edge of the bluff, and when he showed me the spot it flashed upon me that it was the identical one where I had seen him on those other nights, with his arms raised in supplication to the skies. There were no marks of violence on the body, and with the aid of a local physician the coroner's jury quickly reached a decision of death from heart failure. Left alone in the study, I opened the safe and withdrew the contents of the drawer in which he had told me I would find my instructions. They were in part peculiar indeed, but I have followed them to each last detail as faithfully as I was able. He directed that I remove his body to Virginia without embalming, and that he be laid in an open coffin within a tomb which he previously had had constructed and which, as I later learned, was well ventilated. The instructions impressed upon me that I must personally see that this was carried out just as he directed, even in secrecy if necessary. His property was left in such a way that I was to receive the entire income for twenty-five years, when the principal was to become mine. His further instructions related to this manuscript which I was to retain sealed and unread, just as I found it, for eleven years; nor was I to divulge its contents until twenty-one years after his death. A strange feature about the tomb, where his body still lies, is that the massive door is equipped with a single, huge gold-plated spring lock which can be opened only from the inside. Yours very sincerely, Edgar Rice Burroughs. CONTENTS I On the Arizona Hills II The Escape of the Dead III My Advent on Mars IV A Prisoner V I Elude My Watch Dog VI A Fight That Won Friends VII Child-Raising on Mars VIII A Fair Captive from the Sky IX I Learn the Language X Champion and Chief XI With Dejah Thoris XII A Prisoner with Power XIII Love-Making on Mars XIV A Duel to the Death XV Sola Tells Me Her Story XVI We Plan Escape XVII A Costly Recapture XVIII Chained in Warhoon XIX Battling in the Arena XX In the Atmosphere Factory XXI An Air Scout for Zodanga XXII I Find Dejah XXIII Lost in the Sky XXIV Tars Tarkas Finds a Friend XXV The Looting of Zodanga XXVI Through Carnage to Joy XXVII From Joy to Death XXVIII At the Arizona Cave ILLUSTRATIONS With my back against a golden throne, I fought once again for Dejah Thoris . . . . . Frontispiece I sought out Dejah Thoris in the throng of departing chariots. She drew upon the marble floor the first map of the Barsoomian territory I had ever seen. The old man sat and talked with me for hours. CHAPTER I ON THE ARIZONA HILLS I am a very old man; how old I do not know. Possibly I am a hundred, possibly more; but I cannot tell because I have never aged as other men, nor do I remember any childhood. So far as I can recollect I have always been a man, a man of about thirty. I appear today as I did forty years and more ago, and yet I feel that I cannot go on living forever; that some day I shall die the real death from which there is no resurrection. I do not know why I should fear death, I who have died twice and am still alive; but yet I have the same horror of it as you who have never died, and it is because of this terror of death, I believe, that I am so convinced of my mortality. And because of this conviction I have determined to write down the story of the interesting periods of my life and of my death. I cannot explain the phenomena; I can only set down here in the words of an ordinary soldier of fortune a chronicle of the strange events that befell me during the ten years that my dead body lay undiscovered in an Arizona cave. I have never told this story, nor shall mortal man see this manuscript until after I have passed over for eternity. I know that the average human mind will not believe what it cannot grasp, and so I do not purpose being pilloried by the public, the pulpit, and the press, and held up as a colossal liar when I am but telling the simple truths which some day science will substantiate. Possibly the suggestions which I gained upon Mars, and the knowledge which I can set down in this chronicle, will aid in an earlier understanding of the mysteries of our sister planet; mysteries to you, but no longer mysteries to me. My name is John Carter; I am better known as Captain Jack Carter of Virginia. At the close of the Civil War I found myself possessed of several hundred thousand dollars (Confederate) and a captain's commission in the cavalry arm of an army which no longer existed; the servant of a state which had vanished with the hopes of the South. Masterless, penniless, and with my only means of livelihood, fighting, gone, I determined to work my way to the southwest and attempt to retrieve my fallen fortunes in a search for gold. I spent nearly a year prospecting in company with another Confederate officer, Captain James K. Powell of Richmond. We were extremely fortunate, for late in the winter of 1865, after many hardships and privations, we located the most remarkable gold-bearing quartz vein that our wildest dreams had ever pictured. Powell, who was a mining engineer by education, stated that we had uncovered over a million dollars worth of ore in a trifle over three months. As our equipment was crude in the extreme we decided that one of us must return to civilization, purchase the necessary machinery and return with a sufficient force of men properly to work the mine. As Powell was familiar with the country, as well as with the mechanical requirements of mining we determined that it would be best for him to make the trip. It was agreed that I was to hold down our claim against the remote possibility of its being jumped by some wandering prospector. On March 3, 1866, Powell and I packed his provisions on two of our burros, and bidding me good-bye he mounted his horse, and started down the mountainside toward the valley, across which led the first stage of his journey. The morning of Powell's departure was, like nearly all Arizona mornings, clear and beautiful; I could see him and his little pack animals picking their way down the mountainside toward the valley, and all during the morning I would catch occasional glimpses of them as they topped a hog back or came out upon a level plateau. My last sight of Powell was about three in the afternoon as he entered the shadows of the range on the opposite side of the valley. Some half hour later I happened to glance casually across the valley and was much surprised to note three little dots in about the same place I had last seen my friend and his two pack animals. I am not given to needless worrying, but the more I tried to convince myself that all was well with Powell, and that the dots I had seen on his trail were antelope or wild horses, the less I was able to assure myself. Since we had entered the territory we had not seen a hostile Indian, and we had, therefore, become careless in the extreme, and were wont to ridicule the stories we had heard of the great numbers of these vicious marauders that were supposed to haunt the trails, taking their toll in lives and torture of every white party which fell into their merciless clutches. Powell, I knew, was well armed and, further, an experienced Indian fighter; but I too had lived and fought for years among the Sioux in the North, and I knew that his chances were small against a party of cunning trailing Apaches. Finally I could endure the suspense no longer, and, arming myself with my two Colt revolvers and a carbine, I strapped two belts of cartridges about me and catching my saddle horse, started down the trail taken by Powell in the morning. As soon as I reached comparatively level ground I urged my mount into a canter and continued this, where the going permitted, until, close upon dusk, I discovered the point where other tracks joined those of Powell. They were the tracks of unshod ponies, three of them, and the ponies had been galloping. I followed rapidly until, darkness shutting down, I was forced to await the rising of the moon, and given an opportunity to speculate on the question of the wisdom of my chase. Possibly I had conjured up impossible dangers, like some nervous old housewife, and when I should catch up with Powell would get a good laugh for my pains. However, I am not prone to sensitiveness, and the following of a sense of duty, wherever it may lead, has always been a kind of fetich with me throughout my life; which may account for the honors bestowed upon me by three republics and the decorations and friendships of an old and powerful emperor and several lesser kings, in whose service my sword has been red many a time. About nine o'clock the moon was sufficiently bright for me to proceed on my way and I had no difficulty in following the trail at a fast walk, and in some places at a brisk trot until, about midnight, I reached the water hole where Powell had expected to camp. I came upon the spot unexpectedly, finding it entirely deserted, with no signs of having been recently occupied as a camp. I was interested to note that the tracks of the pursuing horsemen, for such I was now convinced they must be, continued after Powell with only a brief stop at the hole for water; and always at the same rate of speed as his. I was positive now that the trailers were Apaches and that they wished to capture Powell alive for the fiendish pleasure of the torture, so I urged my horse onward at a most dangerous pace, hoping against hope that I would catch up with the red rascals before they attacked him. Further speculation was suddenly cut short by the faint report of two shots far ahead of me. I knew that Powell would need me now if ever, and I instantly urged my horse to his topmost speed up the narrow and difficult mountain trail. I had forged ahead for perhaps a mile or more without hearing further sounds, when the trail suddenly debouched onto a small, open plateau near the summit of the pass. I had passed through a narrow, overhanging gorge just before entering suddenly upon this table land, and the sight which met my eyes filled me with consternation and dismay. The little stretch of level land was white with Indian tepees, and there were probably half a thousand red warriors clustered around some object near the center of the camp. Their attention was so wholly riveted to this point of interest that they did not notice me, and I easily could have turned back into the dark recesses of the gorge and made my escape with perfect safety. The fact, however, that this thought did not occur to me until the following day removes any possible right to a claim to heroism to which the narration of this episode might possibly otherwise entitle me. I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later. My mind is evidently so constituted that I am subconsciously forced into the path of duty without recourse to tiresome mental processes. However that may be, I have never regretted that cowardice is not optional with me. In this instance I was, of course, positive that Powell was the center of attraction, but whether I thought or acted first I do not know, but within an instant from the moment the scene broke upon my view I had whipped out my revolvers and was charging down upon the entire army of warriors, shooting rapidly, and whooping at the top of my lungs. Singlehanded, I could not have pursued better tactics, for the red men, convinced by sudden surprise that not less than a regiment of regulars was upon them, turned and fled in every direction for their bows, arrows, and rifles. The view which their hurried routing disclosed filled me with apprehension and with rage. Under the clear rays of the Arizona moon lay Powell, his body fairly bristling with the hostile arrows of the braves. That he was already dead I could not but be convinced, and yet I would have saved his body from mutilation at the hands of the Apaches as quickly as I would have saved the man himself from death. Riding close to him I reached down from the saddle, and grasping his cartridge belt drew him up across the withers of my mount. A backward glance convinced me that to return by the way I had come would be more hazardous than to continue across the plateau, so, putting spurs to my poor beast, I made a dash for the opening to the pass which I could distinguish on the far side of the table land. The Indians had by this time discovered that I was alone and I was pursued with imprecations, arrows, and rifle balls. The fact that it is difficult to aim anything but imprecations accurately by moonlight, that they were upset by the sudden and unexpected manner of my advent, and that I was a rather rapidly moving target saved me from the various deadly projectiles of the enemy and permitted me to reach the shadows of the surrounding peaks before an orderly pursuit could be organized. My horse was traveling practically unguided as I knew that I had probably less knowledge of the exact location of the trail to the pass than he, and thus it happened that he entered a defile which led to the summit of the range and not to the pass which I had hoped would carry me to the valley and to safety. It is probable, however, that to this fact I owe my life and the remarkable experiences and adventures which befell me during the following ten years. My first knowledge that I was on the wrong trail came when I heard the yells of the pursuing savages suddenly grow fainter and fainter far off to my left. I knew then that they had passed to the left of the jagged rock formation at the edge of the plateau, to the right of which my horse had borne me and the body of Powell. I drew rein on a little level promontory overlooking the trail below and to my left, and saw the party of pursuing savages disappearing around the point of a neighboring peak. I knew the Indians would soon discover that they were on the wrong trail and that the search for me would be renewed in the right direction as soon as they located my tracks. I had gone but a short distance further when what seemed to be an excellent trail opened up around the face of a high cliff. The trail was level and quite broad and led upward and in the general direction I wished to go. The cliff arose for several hundred feet on my right, and on my left was an equal and nearly perpendicular drop to the bottom of a rocky ravine. I had followed this trail for perhaps a hundred yards when a sharp turn to the right brought me to the mouth of a large cave. The opening was about four feet in height and three to four feet wide, and at this opening the trail ended. It was now morning, and, with the customary lack of dawn which is a startling characteristic of Arizona, it had become daylight almost without warning. Dismounting, I laid Powell upon the ground, but the most painstaking examination failed to reveal the faintest spark of life. I forced water from my canteen between his dead lips, bathed his face and rubbed his hands, working over him continuously for the better part of an hour in the face of the fact that I knew him to be dead. I was very fond of Powell; he was thoroughly a man in every respect; a polished southern gentleman; a staunch and true friend; and it was with a feeling of the deepest grief that I finally gave up my crude endeavors at resuscitation. Leaving Powell's body where it lay on the ledge I crept into the cave to reconnoiter. I found a large chamber, possibly a hundred feet in diameter and thirty or forty feet in height; a smooth and well-worn floor, and many other evidences that the cave had, at some remote period, been inhabited. The back of the cave was so lost in dense shadow that I could not distinguish whether there were openings into other apartments or not. As I was continuing my examination I commenced to feel a pleasant drowsiness creeping over me which I attributed to the fatigue of my long and strenuous ride, and the reaction from the excitement of the fight and the pursuit. I felt comparatively safe in my present location as I knew that one man could defend the trail to the cave against an army. I soon became so drowsy that I could scarcely resist the strong desire to throw myself on the floor of the cave for a few moments' rest, but I knew that this would never do, as it would mean certain death at the hands of my red friends, who might be upon me at any moment. With an effort I started toward the opening of the cave only to reel drunkenly against a side wall, and from there slip prone upon the floor. CHAPTER II THE ESCAPE OF THE DEAD A sense of delicious dreaminess overcame me, my muscles relaxed, and I was on the point of giving way to my desire to sleep when the sound of approaching horses reached my ears. I attempted to spring to my feet but was horrified to discover that my muscles refused to respond to my will. I was now thoroughly awake, but as unable to move a muscle as though turned to stone. It was then, for the first time, that I noticed a slight vapor filling the cave. It was extremely tenuous and only noticeable against the opening which led to daylight. There also came to my nostrils a faintly pungent odor, and I could only assume that I had been overcome by some poisonous gas, but why I should retain my mental faculties and yet be unable to move I could not fathom. I lay facing the opening of the cave and where I could see the short stretch of trail which lay between the cave and the turn of the cliff around which the trail led. The noise of the approaching horses had ceased, and I judged the Indians were creeping stealthily upon me along the little ledge which led to my living tomb. I remember that I hoped they would make short work of me as I did not particularly relish the thought of the innumerable things they might do to me if the spirit prompted them. I had not long to wait before a stealthy sound apprised me of their nearness, and then a war-bonneted, paint-streaked face was thrust cautiously around the shoulder of the cliff, and savage eyes looked into mine. That he could see me in the dim light of the cave I was sure for the early morning sun was falling full upon me through the opening. The fellow, instead of approaching, merely stood and stared; his eyes bulging and his jaw dropped. And then another savage face appeared, and a third and fourth and fifth, craning their necks over the shoulders of their fellows whom they could not pass upon the narrow ledge. Each face was the picture of awe and fear, but for what reason I did not know, nor did I learn until ten years later. That there were still other braves behind those who regarded me was apparent from the fact that the leaders passed back whispered word to those behind them. Suddenly a low but distinct moaning sound issued from the recesses of the cave behind me, and, as it reached the ears of the Indians, they turned and fled in terror, panic-stricken. So frantic were their efforts to escape from the unseen thing behind me that one of the braves was hurled headlong from the cliff to the rocks below. Their wild cries echoed in the canyon for a short time, and then all was still once more. The sound which had frightened them was not repeated, but it had been sufficient as it was to start me speculating on the possible horror which lurked in the shadows at my back. Fear is a relative term and so I can only measure my feelings at that time by what I had experienced in previous positions of danger and by those that I have passed through since; but I can say without shame that if the sensations I endured during the next few minutes were fear, then may God help the coward, for cowardice is of a surety its own punishment. To be held paralyzed, with one's back toward some horrible and unknown danger from the very sound of which the ferocious Apache warriors turn in wild stampede, as a flock of sheep would madly flee from a pack of wolves, seems to me the last word in fearsome predicaments for a man who had ever been used to fighting for his life with all the energy of a powerful physique. Several times I thought I heard faint sounds behind me as of somebody moving cautiously, but eventually even these ceased, and I was left to the contemplation of my position without interruption. I could but vaguely conjecture the cause of my paralysis, and my only hope lay in that it might pass off as suddenly as it had fallen upon me. Late in the afternoon my horse, which had been standing with dragging rein before the cave, started slowly down the trail, evidently in search of food and water, and I was left alone with my mysterious unknown companion and the dead body of my friend, which lay just within my range of vision upon the ledge where I had placed it in the early morning. From then until possibly midnight all was silence, the silence of the dead; then, suddenly, the awful moan of the morning broke upon my startled ears, and there came again from the black shadows the sound of a moving thing, and a faint rustling as of dead leaves. The shock to my already overstrained nervous system was terrible in the extreme, and with a superhuman effort I strove to break my awful bonds. It was an effort of the mind, of the will, of the nerves; not muscular, for I could not move even so much as my little finger, but none the less mighty for all that. And then something gave, there was a momentary feeling of nausea, a sharp click as of the snapping of a steel wire, and I stood with my back against the wall of the cave facing my unknown foe. And then the moonlight flooded the cave, and there before me lay my own body as it had been lying all these hours, with the eyes staring toward the open ledge and the hands resting limply upon the ground. I looked first at my lifeless clay there upon the floor of the cave and then down at myself in utter bewilderment; for there I lay clothed, and yet here I stood but naked as at the minute of my birth. The transition had been so sudden and so unexpected that it left me for a moment forgetful of aught else than my strange metamorphosis. My first thought was, is this then death! Have I indeed passed over forever into that other life! But I could not well believe this, as I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs from the exertion of my efforts to release myself from the anaesthesis which had held me. My breath was coming in quick, short gasps, cold sweat stood out from every pore of my body, and the ancient experiment of pinching revealed the fact that I was anything other than a wraith. Again was I suddenly recalled to my immediate surroundings by a repetition of the weird moan from the depths of the cave. Naked and unarmed as I was, I had no desire to face the unseen thing which menaced me. My revolvers were strapped to my lifeless body which, for some unfathomable reason, I could not bring myself to touch. My carbine was in its boot, strapped to my saddle, and as my horse had wandered off I was left without means of defense. My only alternative seemed to lie in flight and my decision was crystallized by a recurrence of the rustling sound from the thing which now seemed, in the darkness of the cave and to my distorted imagination, to be creeping stealthily upon me. Unable longer to resist the temptation to escape this horrible place I leaped quickly through the opening into the starlight of a clear Arizona night. The crisp, fresh mountain air outside the cave acted as an immediate tonic and I felt new life and new courage coursing through me. Pausing upon the brink of the ledge I upbraided myself for what now seemed to me wholly unwarranted apprehension. I reasoned with myself that I had lain helpless for many hours within the cave, yet nothing had molested me, and my better judgment, when permitted the direction of clear and logical reasoning, convinced me that the noises I had heard must have resulted from purely natural and harmless causes; probably the conformation of the cave was such that a slight breeze had caused the sounds I heard. I decided to investigate, but first I lifted my head to fill my lungs with the pure, invigorating night air of the mountains. As I did so I saw stretching far below me the beautiful vista of rocky gorge, and level, cacti-studded flat, wrought by the moonlight into a miracle of soft splendor and wondrous enchantment. Few western wonders are more inspiring than the beauties of an Arizona moonlit landscape; the silvered mountains in the distance, the strange lights and shadows upon hog back and arroyo, and the grotesque details of the stiff, yet beautiful cacti form a picture at once enchanting and inspiring; as though one were catching for the first time a glimpse of some dead and forgotten world, so different is it from the aspect of any other spot upon our earth. As I stood thus meditating, I turned my gaze from the landscape to the heavens where the myriad stars formed a gorgeous and fitting canopy for the wonders of the earthly scene. My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination—it was Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron. My longing was beyond the power of opposition; I closed my eyes, stretched out my arms toward the god of my vocation and felt myself drawn with the suddenness of thought through the trackless immensity of space. There was an instant of extreme cold and utter darkness. CHAPTER III MY ADVENT ON MARS I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that I was on Mars; not once did I question either my sanity or my wakefulness. I was not asleep, no need for pinching here; my inner consciousness told me as plainly that I was upon Mars as your conscious mind tells you that you are upon Earth. You do not question the fact; neither did I. I found myself lying prone upon a bed of yellowish, mosslike vegetation which stretched around me in all directions for interminable miles. I seemed to be lying in a deep, circular basin, along the outer verge of which I could distinguish the irregularities of low hills. It was midday, the sun was shining full upon me and the heat of it was rather intense upon my naked body, yet no greater than would have been true under similar conditions on an Arizona desert. Here and there were slight outcroppings of quartz-bearing rock which glistened in the sunlight; and a little to my left, perhaps a hundred yards, appeared a low, walled enclosure about four feet in height. No water, and no other vegetation than the moss was in evidence, and as I was somewhat thirsty I determined to do a little exploring. Springing to my feet I received my first Martian surprise, for the effort, which on Earth would have brought me standing upright, carried me into the Martian air to the height of about three yards. I alighted softly upon the ground, however, without appreciable shock or jar. Now commenced a series of evolutions which even then seemed ludicrous in the extreme. I found that I must learn to walk all over again, as the muscular exertion which carried me easily and safely upon Earth played strange antics with me upon Mars. Instead of progressing in a sane and dignified manner, my attempts to walk resulted in a variety of hops which took me clear of the ground a couple of feet at each step and landed me sprawling upon my face or back at the end of each second or third hop. My muscles, perfectly attuned and accustomed to the force of gravity on Earth, played the mischief with me in attempting for the first time to cope with the lesser gravitation and lower air pressure on Mars. I was determined, however, to explore the low structure which was the only evidence of habitation in sight, and so I hit upon the unique plan of reverting to first principles in locomotion, creeping. I did fairly well at this and in a few moments had reached the low, encircling wall of the enclosure. There appeared to be no doors or windows upon the side nearest me, but as the wall was but about four feet high I cautiously gained my feet and peered over the top upon the strangest sight it had ever been given me to see. The roof of the enclosure was of solid glass about four or five inches in thickness, and beneath this were several hundred large eggs, perfectly round and snowy white. The eggs were nearly uniform in size being about two and one-half feet in diameter. Five or six had already hatched and the grotesque caricatures which sat blinking in the sunlight were enough to cause me to doubt my sanity. They seemed mostly head, with little scrawny bodies, long necks and six legs, or, as I afterward learned, two legs and two arms, with an intermediary pair of limbs which could be used at will either as arms or legs. Their eyes were set at the extreme sides of their heads a trifle above the center and protruded in such a manner that they could be directed either forward or back and also independently of each other, thus permitting this queer animal to look in any direction, or in two directions at once, without the necessity of turning the head. The ears, which were slightly above the eyes and closer together, were small, cup-shaped antennae, protruding not more than an inch on these young specimens. Their noses were but longitudinal slits in the center of their faces, midway between their mouths and ears. There was no hair on their bodies, which were of a very light yellowish-green color. In the adults, as I was to learn quite soon, this color deepens to an olive green and is darker in the male than in the female. Further, the heads of the adults are not so out of proportion to their bodies as in the case of the young. The iris of the eyes is blood red, as in Albinos, while the pupil is dark. The eyeball itself is very white, as are the teeth. These latter add a most ferocious appearance to an otherwise fearsome and terrible countenance, as the lower tusks curve upward to sharp points which end about where the eyes of earthly human beings are located. The whiteness of the teeth is not that of ivory, but of the snowiest and most gleaming of china. Against the dark background of their olive skins their tusks stand out in a most striking manner, making these weapons present a singularly formidable appearance. Most of these details I noted later, for I was given but little time to speculate on the wonders of my new discovery. I had seen that the eggs were in the process of hatching, and as I stood watching the hideous little monsters break from their shells I failed to note the approach of a score of full-grown Martians from behind me. Coming, as they did, over the soft and soundless moss, which covers practically the entire surface of Mars with the exception of the frozen areas at the poles and the scattered cultivated districts, they might have captured me easily, but their intentions were far more sinister. It was the rattling of the accouterments of the foremost warrior which warned me. On such a little thing my life hung that I often marvel that I escaped so easily. Had not the rifle of the leader of the party swung from its fastenings beside his saddle in such a way as to strike against the butt of his great metal-shod spear I should have snuffed out without ever knowing that death was near me. But the little sound caused me to turn, and there upon me, not ten feet from my breast, was the point of that huge spear, a spear forty feet long, tipped with gleaming metal, and held low at the side of a mounted replica of the little devils I had been watching. But how puny and harmless they now looked beside this huge and terrific incarnation of hate, of vengeance and of death. The man himself, for such I may call him, was fully fifteen feet in height and, on Earth, would have weighed some four hundred pounds. He sat his mount as we sit a horse, grasping the animal's barrel with his lower limbs, while the hands of his two right arms held his immense spear low at the side of his mount; his two left arms were outstretched laterally to help preserve his balance, the thing he rode having neither bridle or reins of any description for guidance. And his mount! How can earthly words describe it! It towered ten feet at the shoulder; had four legs on either side; a broad flat tail, larger at the tip than at the root, and which it held straight out behind while running; a gaping mouth which split its head from its snout to its long, massive neck. Like its master, it was entirely devoid of hair, but was of a dark slate color and exceeding smooth and glossy. Its belly was white, and its legs shaded from the slate of its shoulders and hips to a vivid yellow at the feet. The feet themselves were heavily padded and nailless, which fact had also contributed to the noiselessness of their approach, and, in common with a multiplicity of legs, is a characteristic feature of the fauna of Mars. The highest type of man and one other animal, the only mammal existing on Mars, alone have well-formed nails, and there are absolutely no hoofed animals in existence there. Behind this first charging demon trailed nineteen others, similar in all respects, but, as I learned later, bearing individual characteristics peculiar to themselves; precisely as no two of us are identical although we are all cast in a similar mold. This picture, or rather materialized nightmare, which I have described at length, made but one terrible and swift impression on me as I turned to meet it. Unarmed and naked as I was, the first law of nature manifested itself in the only possible solution of my immediate problem, and that was to get out of the vicinity of the point of the charging spear. Consequently I gave a very earthly and at the same time superhuman leap to reach the top of the Martian incubator, for such I had determined it must be. My effort was crowned with a success which appalled me no less than it seemed to surprise the Martian warriors, for it carried me fully thirty feet into the air and landed me a hundred feet from my pursuers and on the opposite side of the enclosure. I alighted upon the soft moss easily and without mishap, and turning saw my enemies lined up along the further wall. Some were surveying me with expressions which I afterward discovered marked extreme astonishment, and the others were evidently satisfying themselves that I had not molested their young. They were conversing together in low tones, and gesticulating and pointing toward me. Their discovery that I had not harmed the little Martians, and that I was unarmed, must have caused them to look upon me with less ferocity; but, as I was to learn later, the thing which weighed most in my favor was my exhibition of hurdling. While the Martians are immense, their bones are very large and they are muscled only in proportion to the gravitation which they must overcome. The result is that they are infinitely less agile and less powerful, in proportion to their weight, than an Earth man, and I doubt that were one of them suddenly to be transported to Earth he could lift his own weight from the ground; in fact, I am convinced that he could not do so. My feat then was as marvelous upon Mars as it would have been upon Earth, and from desiring to annihilate me they suddenly looked upon me as a wonderful discovery to be captured and exhibited among their fellows. The respite my unexpected agility had given me permitted me to formulate plans for the immediate future and to note more closely the appearance of the warriors, for I could not disassociate these people in my mind from those other warriors who, only the day before, had been pursuing me. I noted that each was armed with several other weapons in addition to the huge spear which I have described. The weapon which caused me to decide against an attempt at escape by flight was what was evidently a rifle of some description, and which I felt, for some reason, they were peculiarly efficient in handling. These rifles were of a white metal stocked with wood, which I learned later was a very light and intensely hard growth much prized on Mars, and entirely unknown to us denizens of Earth. The metal of the barrel is an alloy composed principally of aluminum and steel which they have learned to temper to a hardness far exceeding that of the steel with which we are familiar. The weight of these rifles is comparatively little, and with the small caliber, explosive, radium projectiles which they use, and the great length of the barrel, they are deadly in the extreme and at ranges which would be unthinkable on Earth. The theoretic effective radius of this rifle is three hundred miles, but the best they can do in actual service when equipped with their wireless finders and sighters is but a trifle over two hundred miles. This is quite far enough to imbue me with great respect for the Martian firearm, and some telepathic force must have warned me against an attempt to escape in broad daylight from under the muzzles of twenty of these death-dealing machines. The Martians, after conversing for a short time, turned and rode away in the direction from which they had come, leaving one of their number alone by the enclosure. When they had covered perhaps two hundred yards they halted, and turning their mounts toward us sat watching the warrior by the enclosure. He was the one whose spear had so nearly transfixed me, and was evidently the leader of the band, as I had noted that they seemed to have moved to their present position at his direction. When his force had come to a halt he dismounted, threw down his spear and small arms, and came around the end of the incubator toward me, entirely unarmed and as naked as I, except for the ornaments strapped upon his head, limbs, and breast. When he was within about fifty feet of me he unclasped an enormous metal armlet, and holding it toward me in the open palm of his hand, addressed me in a clear, resonant voice, but in a language, it is needless to say, I could not understand. He then stopped as though waiting for my reply, pricking up his antennae-like ears and cocking his strange-looking eyes still further toward me. As the silence became painful I concluded to hazard a little conversation on my own part, as I had guessed that he was making overtures of peace. The throwing down of his weapons and the withdrawing of his troop before his advance toward me would have signified a peaceful mission anywhere on Earth, so why not, then, on Mars! Placing my hand over my heart I bowed low to the Martian and explained to him that while I did not understand his language, his actions spoke for the peace and friendship that at the present moment were most dear to my heart. Of course I might have been a babbling brook for all the intelligence my speech carried to him, but he understood the action with which I immediately followed my words. Stretching my hand toward him, I advanced and took the armlet from his open palm, clasping it about my arm above the elbow; smiled at him and stood waiting. His wide mouth spread into an answering smile, and locking one of his intermediary arms in mine we turned and walked back toward his mount. At the same time he motioned his followers to advance. They started toward us on a wild run, but were checked by a signal from him. Evidently he feared that were I to be really frightened again I might jump entirely out of the landscape. He exchanged a few words with his men, motioned to me that I would ride behind one of them, and then mounted his own animal. The fellow designated reached down two or three hands and lifted me up behind him on the glossy back of his mount, where I hung on as best I could by the belts and straps which held the Martian's weapons and ornaments. The entire cavalcade then turned and galloped away toward the range of hills in the distance. CHAPTER IV A PRISONER We had gone perhaps ten miles when the ground began to rise very rapidly. We were, as I was later to learn, nearing the edge of one of Mars' long-dead seas, in the bottom of which my encounter with the Martians had taken place. In a short time we gained the foot of the mountains, and after traversing a narrow gorge came to an open valley, at the far extremity of which was a low table land upon which I beheld an enormous city. Toward this we galloped, entering it by what appeared to be a ruined roadway leading out from the city, but only to the edge of the table land, where it ended abruptly in a flight of broad steps. Upon closer observation I saw as we passed them that the buildings were deserted, and while not greatly decayed had the appearance of not having been tenanted for years, possibly for ages. Toward the center of the city was a large plaza, and upon this and in the buildings immediately surrounding it were camped some nine or ten hundred creatures of the same breed as my captors, for such I now considered them despite the suave manner in which I had been trapped. With the exception of their ornaments all were naked. The women varied in appearance but little from the men, except that their tusks were much larger in proportion to their height, in some instances curving nearly to their high-set ears. Their bodies were smaller and lighter in color, and their fingers and toes bore the rudiments of nails, which were entirely lacking among the males. The adult females ranged in height from ten to twelve feet. The children were light in color, even lighter than the women, and all looked precisely alike to me, except that some were taller than others; older, I presumed. I saw no signs of extreme age among them, nor is there any appreciable difference in their appearance from the age of maturity, about forty, until, at about the age of one thousand years, they go voluntarily upon their last strange pilgrimage down the river Iss, which leads no living Martian knows whither and from whose bosom no Martian has ever returned, or would be allowed to live did he return after once embarking upon its cold, dark waters. Only about one Martian in a thousand dies of sickness or disease, and possibly about twenty take the voluntary pilgrimage. The other nine hundred and seventy-nine die violent deaths in duels, in hunting, in aviation and in war; but perhaps by far the greatest death loss comes during the age of childhood, when vast numbers of the little Martians fall victims to the great white apes of Mars. The average life expectancy of a Martian after the age of maturity is about three hundred years, but would be nearer the one-thousand mark were it not for the various means leading to violent death. Owing to the waning resources of the planet it evidently became necessary to counteract the increasing longevity which their remarkable skill in therapeutics and surgery produced, and so human life has come to be considered but lightly on Mars, as is evidenced by their dangerous sports and the almost continual warfare between the various communities. There are other and natural causes tending toward a diminution of population, but nothing contributes so greatly to this end as the fact that no male or female Martian is ever voluntarily without a weapon of destruction. As we neared the plaza and my presence was discovered we were immediately surrounded by hundreds of the creatures who seemed anxious to pluck me from my seat behind my guard. A word from the leader of the party stilled their clamor, and we proceeded at a trot across the plaza to the entrance of as magnificent an edifice as mortal eye has rested upon. The building was low, but covered an enormous area. It was constructed of gleaming white marble inlaid with gold and brilliant stones which sparkled and scintillated in the sunlight. The main entrance was some hundred feet in width and projected from the building proper to form a huge canopy above the entrance hall. There was no stairway, but a gentle incline to the first floor of the building opened into an enormous chamber encircled by galleries. On the floor of this chamber, which was dotted with highly carved wooden desks and chairs, were assembled about forty or fifty male Martians around the steps of a rostrum. On the platform proper squatted an enormous warrior heavily loaded with metal ornaments, gay-colored feathers and beautifully wrought leather trappings ingeniously set with precious stones. From his shoulders depended a short cape of white fur lined with brilliant scarlet silk. What struck me as most remarkable about this assemblage and the hall in which they were congregated was the fact that the creatures were entirely out of proportion to the desks, chairs, and other furnishings; these being of a size adapted to human beings such as I, whereas the great bulks of the Martians could scarcely have squeezed into the chairs, nor was there room beneath the desks for their long legs. Evidently, then, there were other denizens on Mars than the wild and grotesque creatures into whose hands I had fallen, but the evidences of extreme antiquity which showed all around me indicated that these buildings might have belonged to some long-extinct and forgotten race in the dim antiquity of Mars. Our party had halted at the entrance to the building, and at a sign from the leader I had been lowered to the ground. Again locking his arm in mine, we had proceeded into the audience chamber. There were few formalities observed in approaching the Martian chieftain. My captor merely strode up to the rostrum, the others making way for him as he advanced. The chieftain rose to his feet and uttered the name of my escort who, in turn, halted and repeated the name of the ruler followed by his title. At the time, this ceremony and the words they uttered meant nothing to me, but later I came to know that this was the customary greeting between green Martians. Had the men been strangers, and therefore unable to exchange names, they would have silently exchanged ornaments, had their missions been peaceful—otherwise they would have exchanged shots, or have fought out their introduction with some other of their various weapons. My captor, whose name was Tars Tarkas, was virtually the vice-chieftain of the community, and a man of great ability as a statesman and warrior. He evidently explained briefly the incidents connected with his expedition, including my capture, and when he had concluded the chieftain addressed me at some length. I replied in our good old English tongue merely to convince him that neither of us could understand the other; but I noticed that when I smiled slightly on concluding, he did likewise. This fact, and the similar occurrence during my first talk with Tars Tarkas, convinced me that we had at least something in common; the ability to smile, therefore to laugh; denoting a sense of humor. But I was to learn that the Martian smile is merely perfunctory, and that the Martian laugh is a thing to cause strong men to blanch in horror. The ideas of humor among the green men of Mars are widely at variance with our conceptions of incitants to merriment. The death agonies of a fellow being are, to these strange creatures, provocative of the wildest hilarity, while their chief form of commonest amusement is to inflict death on their prisoners of war in various ingenious and horrible ways. The assembled warriors and chieftains examined me closely, feeling my muscles and the texture of my skin. The principal chieftain then evidently signified a desire to see me perform, and, motioning me to follow, he started with Tars Tarkas for the open plaza. Now, I had made no attempt to walk, since my first signal failure, except while tightly grasping Tars Tarkas' arm, and so now I went skipping and flitting about among the desks and chairs like some monstrous grasshopper. After bruising myself severely, much to the amusement of the Martians, I again had recourse to creeping, but this did not suit them and I was roughly jerked to my feet by a towering fellow who had laughed most heartily at my misfortunes. As he banged me down upon my feet his face was bent close to mine and I did the only thing a gentleman might do under the circumstances of brutality, boorishness, and lack of consideration for a stranger's rights; I swung my fist squarely to his jaw and he went down like a felled ox. As he sunk to the floor I wheeled around with my back toward the nearest desk, expecting to be overwhelmed by the vengeance of his fellows, but determined to give them as good a battle as the unequal odds would permit before I gave up my life. My fears were groundless, however, as the other Martians, at first struck dumb with wonderment, finally broke into wild peals of laughter and applause. I did not recognize the applause as such, but later, when I had become acquainted with their customs, I learned that I had won what they seldom accord, a manifestation of approbation. The fellow whom I had struck lay where he had fallen, nor did any of his mates approach him. Tars Tarkas advanced toward me, holding out one of his arms, and we thus proceeded to the plaza without further mishap. I did not, of course, know the reason for which we had come to the open, but I was not long in being enlightened. They first repeated the word "sak" a number of times, and then Tars Tarkas made several jumps, repeating the same word before each leap; then, turning to me, he said, "sak!" I saw what they were after, and gathering myself together I "sakked" with such marvelous success that I cleared a good hundred and fifty feet; nor did I, this time, lose my equilibrium, but landed squarely upon my feet without falling. I then returned by easy jumps of twenty-five or thirty feet to the little group of warriors. My exhibition had been witnessed by several hundred lesser Martians, and they immediately broke into demands for a repetition, which the chieftain then ordered me to make; but I was both hungry and thirsty, and determined on the spot that my only method of salvation was to demand the consideration from these creatures which they evidently would not voluntarily accord. I therefore ignored the repeated commands to "sak," and each time they were made I motioned to my mouth and rubbed my stomach. Tars Tarkas and the chief exchanged a few words, and the former, calling to a young female among the throng, gave her some instructions and motioned me to accompany her. I grasped her proffered arm and together we crossed the plaza toward a large building on the far side. My fair companion was about eight feet tall, having just arrived at maturity, but not yet to her full height. She was of a light olive-green color, with a smooth, glossy hide. Her name, as I afterward learned, was Sola, and she belonged to the retinue of Tars Tarkas. She conducted me to a spacious chamber in one of the buildings fronting on the plaza, and which, from the litter of silks and furs upon the floor, I took to be the sleeping quarters of several of the natives. The room was well lighted by a number of large windows and was beautifully decorated with mural paintings and mosaics, but upon all there seemed to rest that indefinable touch of the finger of antiquity which convinced me that the architects and builders of these wondrous creations had nothing in common with the crude half-brutes which now occupied them. Sola motioned me to be seated upon a pile of silks near the center of the room, and, turning, made a peculiar hissing sound, as though signaling to someone in an adjoining room. In response to her call I obtained my first sight of a new Martian wonder. It waddled in on its ten short legs, and squatted down before the girl like an obedient puppy. The thing was about the size of a Shetland pony, but its head bore a slight resemblance to that of a frog, except that the jaws were equipped with three rows of long, sharp tusks. CHAPTER V I ELUDE MY WATCH DOG Sola stared into the brute's wicked-looking eyes, muttered a word or two of command, pointed to me, and left the chamber. I could not but wonder what this ferocious-looking monstrosity might do when left alone in such close proximity to such a relatively tender morsel of meat; but my fears were groundless, as the beast, after surveying me intently for a moment, crossed the room to the only exit which led to the street, and lay down full length across the threshold. This was my first experience with a Martian watch dog, but it was destined not to be my last, for this fellow guarded me carefully during the time I remained a captive among these green men; twice saving my life, and never voluntarily being away from me a moment. While Sola was away I took occasion to examine more minutely the room in which I found myself captive. The mural painting depicted scenes of rare and wonderful beauty; mountains, rivers, lake, ocean, meadow, trees and flowers, winding roadways, sun-kissed gardens—scenes which might have portrayed earthly views but for the different colorings of the vegetation. The work had evidently been wrought by a master hand, so subtle the atmosphere, so perfect the technique; yet nowhere was there a representation of a living animal, either human or brute, by which I could guess at the likeness of these other and perhaps extinct denizens of Mars. While I was allowing my fancy to run riot in wild conjecture on the possible explanation of the strange anomalies which I had so far met with on Mars, Sola returned bearing both food and drink. These she placed on the floor beside me, and seating herself a short ways off regarded me intently. The food consisted of about a pound of some solid substance of the consistency of cheese and almost tasteless, while the liquid was apparently milk from some animal. It was not unpleasant to the taste, though slightly acid, and I learned in a short time to prize it very highly. It came, as I later discovered, not from an animal, as there is only one mammal on Mars and that one very rare indeed, but from a large plant which grows practically without water, but seems to distill its plentiful supply of milk from the products of the soil, the moisture of the air, and the rays of the sun. A single plant of this species will give eight or ten quarts of milk per day. After I had eaten I was greatly invigorated, but feeling the need of rest I stretched out upon the silks and was soon asleep. I must have slept several hours, as it was dark when I awoke, and I was very cold. I noticed that someone had thrown a fur over me, but it had become partially dislodged and in the darkness I could not see to replace it. Suddenly a hand reached out and pulled the fur over me, shortly afterwards adding another to my covering. I presumed that my watchful guardian was Sola, nor was I wrong. This girl alone, among all the green Martians with whom I came in contact, disclosed characteristics of sympathy, kindliness, and affection; her ministrations to my bodily wants were unfailing, and her solicitous care saved me from much suffering and many hardships. As I was to learn, the Martian nights are extremely cold, and as there is practically no twilight or dawn, the changes in temperature are sudden and most uncomfortable, as are the transitions from brilliant daylight to darkness. The nights are either brilliantly illumined or very dark, for if neither of the two moons of Mars happen to be in the sky almost total darkness results, since the lack of atmosphere, or, rather, the very thin atmosphere, fails to diffuse the starlight to any great extent; on the other hand, if both of the moons are in the heavens at night the surface of the ground is brightly illuminated. Both of Mars' moons are vastly nearer her than is our moon to Earth; the nearer moon being but about five thousand miles distant, while the further is but little more than fourteen thousand miles away, against the nearly one-quarter million miles which separate us from our moon. The nearer moon of Mars makes a complete revolution around the planet in a little over seven and one-half hours, so that she may be seen hurtling through the sky like some huge meteor two or three times each night, revealing all her phases during each transit of the heavens. The further moon revolves about Mars in something over thirty and one-quarter hours, and with her sister satellite makes a nocturnal Martian scene one of splendid and weird grandeur. And it is well that nature has so graciously and abundantly lighted the Martian night, for the green men of Mars, being a nomadic race without high intellectual development, have but crude means for artificial lighting; depending principally upon torches, a kind of candle, and a peculiar oil lamp which generates a gas and burns without a wick. This last device produces an intensely brilliant far-reaching white light, but as the natural oil which it requires can only be obtained by mining in one of several widely separated and remote localities it is seldom used by these creatures whose only thought is for today, and whose hatred for manual labor has kept them in a semi-barbaric state for countless ages. After Sola had replenished my coverings I again slept, nor did I awaken until daylight. The other occupants of the room, five in number, were all females, and they were still sleeping, piled high with a motley array of silks and furs. Across the threshold lay stretched the sleepless guardian brute, just as I had last seen him on the preceding day; apparently he had not moved a muscle; his eyes were fairly glued upon me, and I fell to wondering just what might befall me should I endeavor to escape. I have ever been prone to seek adventure and to investigate and experiment where wiser men would have left well enough alone. It therefore now occurred to me that the surest way of learning the exact attitude of this beast toward me would be to attempt to leave the room. I felt fairly secure in my belief that I could escape him should he pursue me once I was outside the building, for I had begun to take great pride in my ability as a jumper. Furthermore, I could see from the shortness of his legs that the brute himself was no jumper and probably no runner. Slowly and carefully, therefore, I gained my feet, only to see that my watcher did the same; cautiously I advanced toward him, finding that by moving with a shuffling gait I could retain my balance as well as make reasonably rapid progress. As I neared the brute he backed cautiously away from me, and when I had reached the open he moved to one side to let me pass. He then fell in behind me and followed about ten paces in my rear as I made my way along the deserted street. Evidently his mission was to protect me only, I thought, but when we reached the edge of the city he suddenly sprang before me, uttering strange sounds and baring his ugly and ferocious tusks. Thinking to have some amusement at his expense, I rushed toward him, and when almost upon him sprang into the air, alighting far beyond him and away from the city. He wheeled instantly and charged me with the most appalling speed I had ever beheld. I had thought his short legs a bar to swiftness, but had he been coursing with greyhounds the latter would have appeared as though asleep on a door mat. As I was to learn, this is the fleetest animal on Mars, and owing to its intelligence, loyalty, and ferocity is used in hunting, in war, and as the protector of the Martian man. I quickly saw that I would have difficulty in escaping the fangs of the beast on a straightaway course, and so I met his charge by doubling in my tracks and leaping over him as he was almost upon me. This maneuver gave me a considerable advantage, and I was able to reach the city quite a bit ahead of him, and as he came tearing after me I jumped for a window about thirty feet from the ground in the face of one of the buildings overlooking the valley. Grasping the sill I pulled myself up to a sitting posture without looking into the building, and gazed down at the baffled animal beneath me. My exultation was short-lived, however, for scarcely had I gained a secure seat upon the sill than a huge hand grasped me by the neck from behind and dragged me violently into the room. Here I was thrown upon my back, and beheld standing over me a colossal ape-like creature, white and hairless except for an enormous shock of bristly hair upon its head. CHAPTER VI A FIGHT THAT WON FRIENDS The thing, which more nearly resembled our earthly men than it did the Martians I had seen, held me pinioned to the ground with one huge foot, while it jabbered and gesticulated at some answering creature behind me. This other, which was evidently its mate, soon came toward us, bearing a mighty stone cudgel with which it evidently intended to brain me. The creatures were about ten or fifteen feet tall, standing erect, and had, like the green Martians, an intermediary set of arms or legs, midway between their upper and lower limbs. Their eyes were close together and non-protruding; their ears were high set, but more laterally located than those of the Martians, while their snouts and teeth were strikingly like those of our African gorilla. Altogether they were not unlovely when viewed in comparison with the green Martians. The cudgel was swinging in the arc which ended upon my upturned face when a bolt of myriad-legged horror hurled itself through the doorway full upon the breast of my executioner. With a shriek of fear the ape which held me leaped through the open window, but its mate closed in a terrific death struggle with my preserver, which was nothing less than my faithful watch-thing; I cannot bring myself to call so hideous a creature a dog. As quickly as possible I gained my feet and backing against the wall I witnessed such a battle as it is vouchsafed few beings to see. The strength, agility, and blind ferocity of these two creatures is approached by nothing known to earthly man. My beast had an advantage in his first hold, having sunk his mighty fangs far into the breast of his adversary; but the great arms and paws of the ape, backed by muscles far transcending those of the Martian men I had seen, had locked the throat of my guardian and slowly were choking out his life, and bending back his head and neck upon his body, where I momentarily expected the former to fall limp at the end of a broken neck. In accomplishing this the ape was tearing away the entire front of its breast, which was held in the vise-like grip of the powerful jaws. Back and forth upon the floor they rolled, neither one emitting a sound of fear or pain. Presently I saw the great eyes of my beast bulging completely from their sockets and blood flowing from its nostrils. That he was weakening perceptibly was evident, but so also was the ape, whose struggles were growing momentarily less. Suddenly I came to myself and, with that strange instinct which seems ever to prompt me to my duty, I seized the cudgel, which had fallen to the floor at the commencement of the battle, and swinging it with all the power of my earthly arms I crashed it full upon the head of the ape, crushing his skull as though it had been an eggshell. Scarcely had the blow descended when I was confronted with a new danger. The ape's mate, recovered from its first shock of terror, had returned to the scene of the encounter by way of the interior of the building. I glimpsed him just before he reached the doorway and the sight of him, now roaring as he perceived his lifeless fellow stretched upon the floor, and frothing at the mouth, in the extremity of his rage, filled me, I must confess, with dire forebodings. I am ever willing to stand and fight when the odds are not too overwhelmingly against me, but in this instance I perceived neither glory nor profit in pitting my relatively puny strength against the iron muscles and brutal ferocity of this enraged denizen of an unknown world; in fact, the only outcome of such an encounter, so far as I might be concerned, seemed sudden death. I was standing near the window and I knew that once in the street I might gain the plaza and safety before the creature could overtake me; at least there was a chance for safety in flight, against almost certain death should I remain and fight however desperately. It is true I held the cudgel, but what could I do with it against his four great arms? Even should I break one of them with my first blow, for I figured that he would attempt to ward off the cudgel, he could reach out and annihilate me with the others before I could recover for a second attack. In the instant that these thoughts passed through my mind I had turned to make for the window, but my eyes alighting on the form of my erstwhile guardian threw all thoughts of flight to the four winds. He lay gasping upon the floor of the chamber, his great eyes fastened upon me in what seemed a pitiful appeal for protection. I could not withstand that look, nor could I, on second thought, have deserted my rescuer without giving as good an account of myself in his behalf as he had in mine. Without more ado, therefore, I turned to meet the charge of the infuriated bull ape. He was now too close upon me for the cudgel to prove of any effective assistance, so I merely threw it as heavily as I could at his advancing bulk. It struck him just below the knees, eliciting a howl of pain and rage, and so throwing him off his balance that he lunged full upon me with arms wide stretched to ease his fall. Again, as on the preceding day, I had recourse to earthly tactics, and swinging my right fist full upon the point of his chin I followed it with a smashing left to the pit of his stomach. The effect was marvelous, for, as I lightly sidestepped, after delivering the second blow, he reeled and fell upon the floor doubled up with pain and gasping for wind. Leaping over his prostrate body, I seized the cudgel and finished the monster before he could regain his feet. As I delivered the blow a low laugh rang out behind me, and, turning, I beheld Tars Tarkas, Sola, and three or four warriors standing in the doorway of the chamber. As my eyes met theirs I was, for the second time, the recipient of their zealously guarded applause. My absence had been noted by Sola on her awakening, and she had quickly informed Tars Tarkas, who had set out immediately with a handful of warriors to search for me. As they had approached the limits of the city they had witnessed the actions of the bull ape as he bolted into the building, frothing with rage. They had followed immediately behind him, thinking it barely possible that his actions might prove a clew to my whereabouts and had witnessed my short but decisive battle with him. This encounter, together with my set-to with the Martian warrior on the previous day and my feats of jumping placed me upon a high pinnacle in their regard. Evidently devoid of all the finer sentiments of friendship, love, or affection, these people fairly worship physical prowess and bravery, and nothing is too good for the object of their adoration as long as he maintains his position by repeated examples of his skill, strength, and courage. Sola, who had accompanied the searching party of her own volition, was the only one of the Martians whose face had not been twisted in laughter as I battled for my life. She, on the contrary, was sober with apparent solicitude and, as soon as I had finished the monster, rushed to me and carefully examined my body for possible wounds or injuries. Satisfying herself that I had come off unscathed she smiled quietly, and, taking my hand, started toward the door of the chamber. Tars Tarkas and the other warriors had entered and were standing over the now rapidly reviving brute which had saved my life, and whose life I, in turn, had rescued. They seemed to be deep in argument, and finally one of them addressed me, but remembering my ignorance of his language turned back to Tars Tarkas, who, with a word and gesture, gave some command to the fellow and turned to follow us from the room. There seemed something menacing in their attitude toward my beast, and I hesitated to leave until I had learned the outcome. It was well I did so, for the warrior drew an evil looking pistol from its holster and was on the point of putting an end to the creature when I sprang forward and struck up his arm. The bullet striking the wooden casing of the window exploded, blowing a hole completely through the wood and masonry. I then knelt down beside the fearsome-looking thing, and raising it to its feet motioned for it to follow me. The looks of surprise which my actions elicited from the Martians were ludicrous; they could not understand, except in a feeble and childish way, such attributes as gratitude and compassion. The warrior whose gun I had struck up looked enquiringly at Tars Tarkas, but the latter signed that I be left to my own devices, and so we returned to the plaza with my great beast following close at heel, and Sola grasping me tightly by the arm. I had at least two friends on Mars; a young woman who watched over me with motherly solicitude, and a dumb brute which, as I later came to know, held in its poor ugly carcass more love, more loyalty, more gratitude than could have been found in the entire five million green Martians who rove the deserted cities and dead sea bottoms of Mars. CHAPTER VII CHILD-RAISING ON MARS After a breakfast, which was an exact replica of the meal of the preceding day and an index of practically every meal which followed while I was with the green men of Mars, Sola escorted me to the plaza, where I found the entire community engaged in watching or helping at the harnessing of huge mastodonian animals to great three-wheeled chariots. There were about two hundred and fifty of these vehicles, each drawn by a single animal, any one of which, from their appearance, might easily have drawn the entire wagon train when fully loaded. The chariots themselves were large, commodious, and gorgeously decorated. In each was seated a female Martian loaded with ornaments of metal, with jewels and silks and furs, and upon the back of each of the beasts which drew the chariots was perched a young Martian driver. Like the animals upon which the warriors were mounted, the heavier draft animals wore neither bit nor bridle, but were guided entirely by telepathic means. This power is wonderfully developed in all Martians, and accounts largely for the simplicity of their language and the relatively few spoken words exchanged even in long conversations. It is the universal language of Mars, through the medium of which the higher and lower animals of this world of paradoxes are able to communicate to a greater or less extent, depending upon the intellectual sphere of the species and the development of the individual. As the cavalcade took up the line of march in single file, Sola dragged me into an empty chariot and we proceeded with the procession toward the point by which I had entered the city the day before. At the head of the caravan rode some two hundred warriors, five abreast, and a like number brought up the rear, while twenty-five or thirty outriders flanked us on either side. Every one but myself—men, women, and children—were heavily armed, and at the tail of each chariot trotted a Martian hound, my own beast following closely behind ours; in fact, the faithful creature never left me voluntarily during the entire ten years I spent on Mars. Our way led out across the little valley before the city, through the hills, and down into the dead sea bottom which I had traversed on my journey from the incubator to the plaza. The incubator, as it proved, was the terminal point of our journey this day, and, as the entire cavalcade broke into a mad gallop as soon as we reached the level expanse of sea bottom, we were soon within sight of our goal. On reaching it the chariots were parked with military precision on the four sides of the enclosure, and half a score of warriors, headed by the enormous chieftain, and including Tars Tarkas and several other lesser chiefs, dismounted and advanced toward it. I could see Tars Tarkas explaining something to the principal chieftain, whose name, by the way, was, as nearly as I can translate it into English, Lorquas Ptomel, Jed; jed being his title. I was soon appraised of the subject of their conversation, as, calling to Sola, Tars Tarkas signed for her to send me to him. I had by this time mastered the intricacies of walking under Martian conditions, and quickly responding to his command I advanced to the side of the incubator where the warriors stood. As I reached their side a glance showed me that all but a very few eggs had hatched, the incubator being fairly alive with the hideous little devils. They ranged in height from three to four feet, and were moving restlessly about the enclosure as though searching for food. As I came to a halt before him, Tars Tarkas pointed over the incubator and said, "Sak." I saw that he wanted me to repeat my performance of yesterday for the edification of Lorquas Ptomel, and, as I must confess that my prowess gave me no little satisfaction, I responded quickly, leaping entirely over the parked chariots on the far side of the incubator. As I returned, Lorquas Ptomel grunted something at me, and turning to his warriors gave a few words of command relative to the incubator. They paid no further attention to me and I was thus permitted to remain close and watch their operations, which consisted in breaking an opening in the wall of the incubator large enough to permit of the exit of the young Martians. On either side of this opening the women and the younger Martians, both male and female, formed two solid walls leading out through the chariots and quite away into the plain beyond. Between these walls the little Martians scampered, wild as deer; being permitted to run the full length of the aisle, where they were captured one at a time by the women and older children; the last in the line capturing the first little one to reach the end of the gauntlet, her opposite in the line capturing the second, and so on until all the little fellows had left the enclosure and been appropriated by some youth or female. As the women caught the young they fell out of line and returned to their respective chariots, while those who fell into the hands of the young men were later turned over to some of the women. I saw that the ceremony, if it could be dignified by such a name, was over, and seeking out Sola I found her in our chariot with a hideous little creature held tightly in her arms. The work of rearing young, green Martians consists solely in teaching them to talk, and to use the weapons of warfare with which they are loaded down from the very first year of their lives. Coming from eggs in which they have lain for five years, the period of incubation, they step forth into the world perfectly developed except in size. Entirely unknown to their mothers, who, in turn, would have difficulty in pointing out the fathers with any degree of accuracy, they are the common children of the community, and their education devolves upon the females who chance to capture them as they leave the incubator. Their foster mothers may not even have had an egg in the incubator, as was the case with Sola, who had not commenced to lay, until less than a year before she became the mother of another woman's offspring. But this counts for little among the green Martians, as parental and filial love is as unknown to them as it is common among us. I believe this horrible system which has been carried on for ages is the direct cause of the loss of all the finer feelings and higher humanitarian instincts among these poor creatures. From birth they know no father or mother love, they know not the meaning of the word home; they are taught that they are only suffered to live until they can demonstrate by their physique and ferocity that they are fit to live. Should they prove deformed or defective in any way they are promptly shot; nor do they see a tear shed for a single one of the many cruel hardships they pass through from earliest infancy. I do not mean that the adult Martians are unnecessarily or intentionally cruel to the young, but theirs is a hard and pitiless struggle for existence upon a dying planet, the natural resources of which have dwindled to a point where the support of each additional life means an added tax upon the community into which it is thrown. By careful selection they rear only the hardiest specimens of each species, and with almost supernatural foresight they regulate the birth rate to merely offset the loss by death. Each adult Martian female brings forth about thirteen eggs each year, and those which meet the size, weight, and specific gravity tests are hidden in the recesses of some subterranean vault where the temperature is too low for incubation. Every year these eggs are carefully examined by a council of twenty chieftains, and all but about one hundred of the most perfect are destroyed out of each yearly supply. At the end of five years about five hundred almost perfect eggs have been chosen from the thousands brought forth. These are then placed in the almost air-tight incubators to be hatched by the sun's rays after a period of another five years. The hatching which we had witnessed today was a fairly representative event of its kind, all but about one per cent of the eggs hatching in two days. If the remaining eggs ever hatched we knew nothing of the fate of the little Martians. They were not wanted, as their offspring might inherit and transmit the tendency to prolonged incubation, and thus upset the system which has maintained for ages and which permits the adult Martians to figure the proper time for return to the incubators, almost to an hour. The incubators are built in remote fastnesses, where there is little or no likelihood of their being discovered by other tribes. The result of such a catastrophe would mean no children in the community for another five years. I was later to witness the results of the discovery of an alien incubator. The community of which the green Martians with whom my lot was cast formed a part was composed of some thirty thousand souls. They roamed an enormous tract of arid and semi-arid land between forty and eighty degrees south latitude, and bounded on the east and west by two large fertile tracts. Their headquarters lay in the southwest corner of this district, near the crossing of two of the so-called Martian canals. As the incubator had been placed far north of their own territory in a supposedly uninhabited and unfrequented area, we had before us a tremendous journey, concerning which I, of course, knew nothing. After our return to the dead city I passed several days in comparative idleness. On the day following our return all the warriors had ridden forth early in the morning and had not returned until just before darkness fell. As I later learned, they had been to the subterranean vaults in which the eggs were kept and had transported them to the incubator, which they had then walled up for another five years, and which, in all probability, would not be visited again during that period. The vaults which hid the eggs until they were ready for the incubator were located many miles south of the incubator, and would be visited yearly by the council of twenty chieftains. Why they did not arrange to build their vaults and incubators nearer home has always been a mystery to me, and, like many other Martian mysteries, unsolved and unsolvable by earthly reasoning and customs. Sola's duties were now doubled, as she was compelled to care for the young Martian as well as for me, but neither one of us required much attention, and as we were both about equally advanced in Martian education, Sola took it upon herself to train us together. Her prize consisted in a male about four feet tall, very strong and physically perfect; also, he learned quickly, and we had considerable amusement, at least I did, over the keen rivalry we displayed. The Martian language, as I have said, is extremely simple, and in a week I could make all my wants known and understand nearly everything that was said to me. Likewise, under Sola's tutelage, I developed my telepathic powers so that I shortly could sense practically everything that went on around me. What surprised Sola most in me was that while I could catch telepathic messages easily from others, and often when they were not intended for me, no one could read a jot from my mind under any circumstances. At first this vexed me, but later I was very glad of it, as it gave me an undoubted advantage over the Martians. CHAPTER VIII A FAIR CAPTIVE FROM THE SKY The third day after the incubator ceremony we set forth toward home, but scarcely had the head of the procession debouched into the open ground before the city than orders were given for an immediate and hasty return. As though trained for years in this particular evolution, the green Martians melted like mist into the spacious doorways of the nearby buildings, until, in less than three minutes, the entire cavalcade of chariots, mastodons and mounted warriors was nowhere to be seen. Sola and I had entered a building upon the front of the city, in fact, the same one in which I had had my encounter with the apes, and, wishing to see what had caused the sudden retreat, I mounted to an upper floor and peered from the window out over the valley and the hills beyond; and there I saw the cause of their sudden scurrying to cover. A huge craft, long, low, and gray-painted, swung slowly over the crest of the nearest hill. Following it came another, and another, and another, until twenty of them, swinging low above the ground, sailed slowly and majestically toward us. Each carried a strange banner swung from stem to stern above the upper works, and upon the prow of each was painted some odd device that gleamed in the sunlight and showed plainly even at the distance at which we were from the vessels. I could see figures crowding the forward decks and upper works of the air craft. Whether they had discovered us or simply were looking at the deserted city I could not say, but in any event they received a rude reception, for suddenly and without warning the green Martian warriors fired a terrific volley from the windows of the buildings facing the little valley across which the great ships were so peacefully advancing. Instantly the scene changed as by magic; the foremost vessel swung broadside toward us, and bringing her guns into play returned our fire, at the same time moving parallel to our front for a short distance and then turning back with the evident intention of completing a great circle which would bring her up to position once more opposite our firing line; the other vessels followed in her wake, each one opening upon us as she swung into position. Our own fire never diminished, and I doubt if twenty-five per cent of our shots went wild. It had never been given me to see such deadly accuracy of aim, and it seemed as though a little figure on one of the craft dropped at the explosion of each bullet, while the banners and upper works dissolved in spurts of flame as the irresistible projectiles of our warriors mowed through them. The fire from the vessels was most ineffectual, owing, as I afterward learned, to the unexpected suddenness of the first volley, which caught the ship's crews entirely unprepared and the sighting apparatus of the guns unprotected from the deadly aim of our warriors. It seems that each green warrior has certain objective points for his fire under relatively identical circumstances of warfare. For example, a proportion of them, always the best marksmen, direct their fire entirely upon the wireless finding and sighting apparatus of the big guns of an attacking naval force; another detail attends to the smaller guns in the same way; others pick off the gunners; still others the officers; while certain other quotas concentrate their attention upon the other members of the crew, upon the upper works, and upon the steering gear and propellers. Twenty minutes after the first volley the great fleet swung trailing off in the direction from which it had first appeared. Several of the craft were limping perceptibly, and seemed but barely under the control of their depleted crews. Their fire had ceased entirely and all their energies seemed focused upon escape. Our warriors then rushed up to the roofs of the buildings which we occupied and followed the retreating armada with a continuous fusillade of deadly fire. One by one, however, the ships managed to dip below the crests of the outlying hills until only one barely moving craft was in sight. This had received the brunt of our fire and seemed to be entirely unmanned, as not a moving figure was visible upon her decks. Slowly she swung from her course, circling back toward us in an erratic and pitiful manner. Instantly the warriors ceased firing, for it was quite apparent that the vessel was entirely helpless, and, far from being in a position to inflict harm upon us, she could not even control herself sufficiently to escape. As she neared the city the warriors rushed out upon the plain to meet her, but it was evident that she still was too high for them to hope to reach her decks. From my vantage point in the window I could see the bodies of her crew strewn about, although I could not make out what manner of creatures they might be. Not a sign of life was manifest upon her as she drifted slowly with the light breeze in a southeasterly direction. She was drifting some fifty feet above the ground, followed by all but some hundred of the warriors who had been ordered back to the roofs to cover the possibility of a return of the fleet, or of reinforcements. It soon became evident that she would strike the face of the buildings about a mile south of our position, and as I watched the progress of the chase I saw a number of warriors gallop ahead, dismount and enter the building she seemed destined to touch. As the craft neared the building, and just before she struck, the Martian warriors swarmed upon her from the windows, and with their great spears eased the shock of the collision, and in a few moments they had thrown out grappling hooks and the big boat was being hauled to ground by their fellows below. After making her fast, they swarmed the sides and searched the vessel from stem to stern. I could see them examining the dead sailors, evidently for signs of life, and presently a party of them appeared from below dragging a little figure among them. The creature was considerably less than half as tall as the green Martian warriors, and from my balcony I could see that it walked erect upon two legs and surmised that it was some new and strange Martian monstrosity with which I had not as yet become acquainted. They removed their prisoner to the ground and then commenced a systematic rifling of the vessel. This operation required several hours, during which time a number of the chariots were requisitioned to transport the loot, which consisted in arms, ammunition, silks, furs, jewels, strangely carved stone vessels, and a quantity of solid foods and liquids, including many casks of water, the first I had seen since my advent upon Mars. After the last load had been removed the warriors made lines fast to the craft and towed her far out into the valley in a southwesterly direction. A few of them then boarded her and were busily engaged in what appeared, from my distant position, as the emptying of the contents of various carboys upon the dead bodies of the sailors and over the decks and works of the vessel. This operation concluded, they hastily clambered over her sides, sliding down the guy ropes to the ground. The last warrior to leave the deck turned and threw something back upon the vessel, waiting an instant to note the outcome of his act. As a faint spurt of flame rose from the point where the missile struck he swung over the side and was quickly upon the ground. Scarcely had he alighted than the guy ropes were simultaneously released, and the great warship, lightened by the removal of the loot, soared majestically into the air, her decks and upper works a mass of roaring flames. Slowly she drifted to the southeast, rising higher and higher as the flames ate away her wooden parts and diminished the weight upon her. Ascending to the roof of the building I watched her for hours, until finally she was lost in the dim vistas of the distance. The sight was awe-inspiring in the extreme as one contemplated this mighty floating funeral pyre, drifting unguided and unmanned through the lonely wastes of the Martian heavens; a derelict of death and destruction, typifying the life story of these strange and ferocious creatures into whose unfriendly hands fate had carried it. Much depressed, and, to me, unaccountably so, I slowly descended to the street. The scene I had witnessed seemed to mark the defeat and annihilation of the forces of a kindred people, rather than the routing by our green warriors of a horde of similar, though unfriendly, creatures. I could not fathom the seeming hallucination, nor could I free myself from it; but somewhere in the innermost recesses of my soul I felt a strange yearning toward these unknown foemen, and a mighty hope surged through me that the fleet would return and demand a reckoning from the green warriors who had so ruthlessly and wantonly attacked it. Close at my heel, in his now accustomed place, followed Woola, the hound, and as I emerged upon the street Sola rushed up to me as though I had been the object of some search on her part. The cavalcade was returning to the plaza, the homeward march having been given up for that day; nor, in fact, was it recommenced for more than a week, owing to the fear of a return attack by the air craft. Lorquas Ptomel was too astute an old warrior to be caught upon the open plains with a caravan of chariots and children, and so we remained at the deserted city until the danger seemed passed. As Sola and I entered the plaza a sight met my eyes which filled my whole being with a great surge of mingled hope, fear, exultation, and depression, and yet most dominant was a subtle sense of relief and happiness; for just as we neared the throng of Martians I caught a glimpse of the prisoner from the battle craft who was being roughly dragged into a nearby building by a couple of green Martian females. And the sight which met my eyes was that of a slender, girlish figure, similar in every detail to the earthly women of my past life. She did not see me at first, but just as she was disappearing through the portal of the building which was to be her prison she turned, and her eyes met mine. Her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme, her every feature was finely chiseled and exquisite, her eyes large and lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black, waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure. Her skin was of a light reddish copper color, against which the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect. She was as destitute of clothes as the green Martians who accompanied her; indeed, save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked, nor could any apparel have enhanced the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure. As her gaze rested on me her eyes opened wide in astonishment, and she made a little sign with her free hand; a sign which I did not, of course, understand. Just a moment we gazed upon each other, and then the look of hope and renewed courage which had glorified her face as she discovered me, faded into one of utter dejection, mingled with loathing and contempt. I realized I had not answered her signal, and ignorant as I was of Martian customs, I intuitively felt that she had made an appeal for succor and protection which my unfortunate ignorance had prevented me from answering. And then she was dragged out of my sight into the depths of the deserted edifice. CHAPTER IX I LEARN THE LANGUAGE As I came back to myself I glanced at Sola, who had witnessed this encounter and I was surprised to note a strange expression upon her usually expressionless countenance. What her thoughts were I did not know, for as yet I had learned but little of the Martian tongue; enough only to suffice for my daily needs. As I reached the doorway of our building a strange surprise awaited me. A warrior approached bearing the arms, ornaments, and full accouterments of his kind. These he presented to me with a few unintelligible words, and a bearing at once respectful and menacing. Later, Sola, with the aid of several of the other women, remodeled the trappings to fit my lesser proportions, and after they completed the work I went about garbed in all the panoply of war. From then on Sola instructed me in the mysteries of the various weapons, and with the Martian young I spent several hours each day practicing upon the plaza. I was not yet proficient with all the weapons, but my great familiarity with similar earthly weapons made me an unusually apt pupil, and I progressed in a very satisfactory manner. The training of myself and the young Martians was conducted solely by the women, who not only attend to the education of the young in the arts of individual defense and offense, but are also the artisans who produce every manufactured article wrought by the green Martians. They make the powder, the cartridges, the firearms; in fact everything of value is produced by the females. In time of actual warfare they form a part of the reserves, and when the necessity arises fight with even greater intelligence and ferocity than the men. The men are trained in the higher branches of the art of war; in strategy and the maneuvering of large bodies of troops. They make the laws as they are needed; a new law for each emergency. They are unfettered by precedent in the administration of justice. Customs have been handed down by ages of repetition, but the punishment for ignoring a custom is a matter for individual treatment by a jury of the culprit's peers, and I may say that justice seldom misses fire, but seems rather to rule in inverse ratio to the ascendency of law. In one respect at least the Martians are a happy people; they have no lawyers. I did not see the prisoner again for several days subsequent to our first encounter, and then only to catch a fleeting glimpse of her as she was being conducted to the great audience chamber where I had had my first meeting with Lorquas Ptomel. I could not but note the unnecessary harshness and brutality with which her guards treated her; so different from the almost maternal kindliness which Sola manifested toward me, and the respectful attitude of the few green Martians who took the trouble to notice me at all. I had observed on the two occasions when I had seen her that the prisoner exchanged words with her guards, and this convinced me that they spoke, or at least could make themselves understood by a common language. With this added incentive I nearly drove Sola distracted by my importunities to hasten on my education and within a few more days I had mastered the Martian tongue sufficiently well to enable me to carry on a passable conversation and to fully understand practically all that I heard. At this time our sleeping quarters were occupied by three or four females and a couple of the recently hatched young, beside Sola and her youthful ward, myself, and Woola the hound. After they had retired for the night it was customary for the adults to carry on a desultory conversation for a short time before lapsing into sleep, and now that I could understand their language I was always a keen listener, although I never proffered any remarks myself. On the night following the prisoner's visit to the audience chamber the conversation finally fell upon this subject, and I was all ears on the instant. I had feared to question Sola relative to the beautiful captive, as I could not but recall the strange expression I had noted upon her face after my first encounter with the prisoner. That it denoted jealousy I could not say, and yet, judging all things by mundane standards as I still did, I felt it safer to affect indifference in the matter until I learned more surely Sola's attitude toward the object of my solicitude. Sarkoja, one of the older women who shared our domicile, had been present at the audience as one of the captive's guards, and it was toward her the question turned. "When," asked one of the women, "will we enjoy the death throes of the red one? or does Lorquas Ptomel, Jed, intend holding her for ransom?" "They have decided to carry her with us back to Thark, and exhibit her last agonies at the great games before Tal Hajus," replied Sarkoja. "What will be the manner of her going out?" inquired Sola. "She is very small and very beautiful; I had hoped that they would hold her for ransom." Sarkoja and the other women grunted angrily at this evidence of weakness on the part of Sola. "It is sad, Sola, that you were not born a million years ago," snapped Sarkoja, "when all the hollows of the land were filled with water, and the peoples were as soft as the stuff they sailed upon. In our day we have progressed to a point where such sentiments mark weakness and atavism. It will not be well for you to permit Tars Tarkas to learn that you hold such degenerate sentiments, as I doubt that he would care to entrust such as you with the grave responsibilities of maternity." "I see nothing wrong with my expression of interest in this red woman," retorted Sola. "She has never harmed us, nor would she should we have fallen into her hands. It is only the men of her kind who war upon us, and I have ever thought that their attitude toward us is but the reflection of ours toward them. They live at peace with all their fellows, except when duty calls upon them to make war, while we are at peace with none; forever warring among our own kind as well as upon the red men, and even in our own communities the individuals fight amongst themselves. Oh, it is one continual, awful period of bloodshed from the time we break the shell until we gladly embrace the bosom of the river of mystery, the dark and ancient Iss which carries us to an unknown, but at least no more frightful and terrible existence! Fortunate indeed is he who meets his end in an early death. Say what you please to Tars Tarkas, he can mete out no worse fate to me than a continuation of the horrible existence we are forced to lead in this life." This wild outbreak on the part of Sola so greatly surprised and shocked the other women, that, after a few words of general reprimand, they all lapsed into silence and were soon asleep. One thing the episode had accomplished was to assure me of Sola's friendliness toward the poor girl, and also to convince me that I had been extremely fortunate in falling into her hands rather than those of some of the other females. I knew that she was fond of me, and now that I had discovered that she hated cruelty and barbarity I was confident that I could depend upon her to aid me and the girl captive to escape, provided of course that such a thing was within the range of possibilities. I did not even know that there were any better conditions to escape to, but I was more than willing to take my chances among people fashioned after my own mold rather than to remain longer among the hideous and bloodthirsty green men of Mars. But where to go, and how, was as much of a puzzle to me as the age-old search for the spring of eternal life has been to earthly men since the beginning of time. I decided that at the first opportunity I would take Sola into my confidence and openly ask her to aid me, and with this resolution strong upon me I turned among my silks and furs and slept the dreamless and refreshing sleep of Mars. CHAPTER X CHAMPION AND CHIEF Early the next morning I was astir. Considerable freedom was allowed me, as Sola had informed me that so long as I did not attempt to leave the city I was free to go and come as I pleased. She had warned me, however, against venturing forth unarmed, as this city, like all other deserted metropolises of an ancient Martian civilization, was peopled by the great white apes of my second day's adventure. In advising me that I must not leave the boundaries of the city Sola had explained that Woola would prevent this anyway should I attempt it, and she warned me most urgently not to arouse his fierce nature by ignoring his warnings should I venture too close to the forbidden territory. His nature was such, she said, that he would bring me back into the city dead or alive should I persist in opposing him; "preferably dead," she added. On this morning I had chosen a new street to explore when suddenly I found myself at the limits of the city. Before me were low hills pierced by narrow and inviting ravines. I longed to explore the country before me, and, like the pioneer stock from which I sprang, to view what the landscape beyond the encircling hills might disclose from the summits which shut out my view. It also occurred to me that this would prove an excellent opportunity to test the qualities of Woola. I was convinced that the brute loved me; I had seen more evidences of affection in him than in any other Martian animal, man or beast, and I was sure that gratitude for the acts that had twice saved his life would more than outweigh his loyalty to the duty imposed upon him by cruel and loveless masters. As I approached the boundary line Woola ran anxiously before me, and thrust his body against my legs. His expression was pleading rather than ferocious, nor did he bare his great tusks or utter his fearful guttural warnings. Denied the friendship and companionship of my kind, I had developed considerable affection for Woola and Sola, for the normal earthly man must have some outlet for his natural affections, and so I decided upon an appeal to a like instinct in this great brute, sure that I would not be disappointed. I had never petted nor fondled him, but now I sat upon the ground and putting my arms around his heavy neck I stroked and coaxed him, talking in my newly acquired Martian tongue as I would have to my hound at home, as I would have talked to any other friend among the lower animals. His response to my manifestation of affection was remarkable to a degree; he stretched his great mouth to its full width, baring the entire expanse of his upper rows of tusks and wrinkling his snout until his great eyes were almost hidden by the folds of flesh. If you have ever seen a collie smile you may have some idea of Woola's facial distortion. He threw himself upon his back and fairly wallowed at my feet; jumped up and sprang upon me, rolling me upon the ground by his great weight; then wriggling and squirming around me like a playful puppy presenting its back for the petting it craves. I could not resist the ludicrousness of the spectacle, and holding my sides I rocked back and forth in the first laughter which had passed my lips in many days; the first, in fact, since the morning Powell had left camp when his horse, long unused, had precipitately and unexpectedly bucked him off headforemost into a pot of frijoles. My laughter frightened Woola, his antics ceased and he crawled pitifully toward me, poking his ugly head far into my lap; and then I remembered what laughter signified on Mars—torture, suffering, death. Quieting myself, I rubbed the poor old fellow's head and back, talked to him for a few minutes, and then in an authoritative tone commanded him to follow me, and arising started for the hills. There was no further question of authority between us; Woola was my devoted slave from that moment hence, and I his only and undisputed master. My walk to the hills occupied but a few minutes, and I found nothing of particular interest to reward me. Numerous brilliantly colored and strangely formed wild flowers dotted the ravines and from the summit of the first hill I saw still other hills stretching off toward the north, and rising, one range above another, until lost in mountains of quite respectable dimensions; though I afterward found that only a few peaks on all Mars exceed four thousand feet in height; the suggestion of magnitude was merely relative. My morning's walk had been large with importance to me for it had resulted in a perfect understanding with Woola, upon whom Tars Tarkas relied for my safe keeping. I now knew that while theoretically a prisoner I was virtually free, and I hastened to regain the city limits before the defection of Woola could be discovered by his erstwhile masters. The adventure decided me never again to leave the limits of my prescribed stamping grounds until I was ready to venture forth for good and all, as it would certainly result in a curtailment of my liberties, as well as the probable death of Woola, were we to be discovered. On regaining the plaza I had my third glimpse of the captive girl. She was standing with her guards before the entrance to the audience chamber, and as I approached she gave me one haughty glance and turned her back full upon me. The act was so womanly, so earthly womanly, that though it stung my pride it also warmed my heart with a feeling of companionship; it was good to know that someone else on Mars beside myself had human instincts of a civilized order, even though the manifestation of them was so painful and mortifying. Had a green Martian woman desired to show dislike or contempt she would, in all likelihood, have done it with a sword thrust or a movement of her trigger finger; but as their sentiments are mostly atrophied it would have required a serious injury to have aroused such passions in them. Sola, let me add, was an exception; I never saw her perform a cruel or uncouth act, or fail in uniform kindliness and good nature. She was indeed, as her fellow Martian had said of her, an atavism; a dear and precious reversion to a former type of loved and loving ancestor. Seeing that the prisoner seemed the center of attraction I halted to view the proceedings. I had not long to wait for presently Lorquas Ptomel and his retinue of chieftains approached the building and, signing the guards to follow with the prisoner entered the audience chamber. Realizing that I was a somewhat favored character, and also convinced that the warriors did not know of my proficiency in their language, as I had plead with Sola to keep this a secret on the grounds that I did not wish to be forced to talk with the men until I had perfectly mastered the Martian tongue, I chanced an attempt to enter the audience chamber and listen to the proceedings. The council squatted upon the steps of the rostrum, while below them stood the prisoner and her two guards. I saw that one of the women was Sarkoja, and thus understood how she had been present at the hearing of the preceding day, the results of which she had reported to the occupants of our dormitory last night. Her attitude toward the captive was most harsh and brutal. When she held her, she sunk her rudimentary nails into the poor girl's flesh, or twisted her arm in a most painful manner. When it was necessary to move from one spot to another she either jerked her roughly, or pushed her headlong before her. She seemed to be venting upon this poor defenseless creature all the hatred, cruelty, ferocity, and spite of her nine hundred years, backed by unguessable ages of fierce and brutal ancestors. The other woman was less cruel because she was entirely indifferent; if the prisoner had been left to her alone, and fortunately she was at night, she would have received no harsh treatment, nor, by the same token would she have received any attention at all. As Lorquas Ptomel raised his eyes to address the prisoner they fell on me and he turned to Tars Tarkas with a word, and gesture of impatience. Tars Tarkas made some reply which I could not catch, but which caused Lorquas Ptomel to smile; after which they paid no further attention to me. "What is your name?" asked Lorquas Ptomel, addressing the prisoner. "Dejah Thoris, daughter of Mors Kajak of Helium." "And the nature of your expedition?" he continued. "It was a purely scientific research party sent out by my father's father, the Jeddak of Helium, to rechart the air currents, and to take atmospheric density tests," replied the fair prisoner, in a low, well-modulated voice. "We were unprepared for battle," she continued, "as we were on a peaceful mission, as our banners and the colors of our craft denoted. The work we were doing was as much in your interests as in ours, for you know full well that were it not for our labors and the fruits of our scientific operations there would not be enough air or water on Mars to support a single human life. For ages we have maintained the air and water supply at practically the same point without an appreciable loss, and we have done this in the face of the brutal and ignorant interference of you green men. "Why, oh, why will you not learn to live in amity with your fellows. Must you ever go on down the ages to your final extinction but little above the plane of the dumb brutes that serve you! A people without written language, without art, without homes, without love; the victims of eons of the horrible community idea. Owning everything in common, even to your women and children, has resulted in your owning nothing in common. You hate each other as you hate all else except yourselves. Come back to the ways of our common ancestors, come back to the light of kindliness and fellowship. The way is open to you, you will find the hands of the red men stretched out to aid you. Together we may do still more to regenerate our dying planet. The granddaughter of the greatest and mightiest of the red jeddaks has asked you. Will you come?" Lorquas Ptomel and the warriors sat looking silently and intently at the young woman for several moments after she had ceased speaking. What was passing in their minds no man may know, but that they were moved I truly believe, and if one man high among them had been strong enough to rise above custom, that moment would have marked a new and mighty era for Mars. I saw Tars Tarkas rise to speak, and on his face was such an expression as I had never seen upon the countenance of a green Martian warrior. It bespoke an inward and mighty battle with self, with heredity, with age-old custom, and as he opened his mouth to speak, a look almost of benignity, of kindliness, momentarily lighted up his fierce and terrible countenance. What words of moment were to have fallen from his lips were never spoken, as just then a young warrior, evidently sensing the trend of thought among the older men, leaped down from the steps of the rostrum, and striking the frail captive a powerful blow across the face, which felled her to the floor, placed his foot upon her prostrate form and turning toward the assembled council broke into peals of horrid, mirthless laughter. For an instant I thought Tars Tarkas would strike him dead, nor did the aspect of Lorquas Ptomel augur any too favorably for the brute, but the mood passed, their old selves reasserted their ascendency, and they smiled. It was portentous however that they did not laugh aloud, for the brute's act constituted a side-splitting witticism according to the ethics which rule green Martian humor. That I have taken moments to write down a part of what occurred as that blow fell does not signify that I remained inactive for any such length of time. I think I must have sensed something of what was coming, for I realize now that I was crouched as for a spring as I saw the blow aimed at her beautiful, upturned, pleading face, and ere the hand descended I was halfway across the hall. Scarcely had his hideous laugh rang out but once, when I was upon him. The brute was twelve feet in height and armed to the teeth, but I believe that I could have accounted for the whole roomful in the terrific intensity of my rage. Springing upward, I struck him full in the face as he turned at my warning cry and then as he drew his short-sword I drew mine and sprang up again upon his breast, hooking one leg over the butt of his pistol and grasping one of his huge tusks with my left hand while I delivered blow after blow upon his enormous chest. He could not use his short-sword to advantage because I was too close to him, nor could he draw his pistol, which he attempted to do in direct opposition to Martian custom which says that you may not fight a fellow warrior in private combat with any other than the weapon with which you are attacked. In fact he could do nothing but make a wild and futile attempt to dislodge me. With all his immense bulk he was little if any stronger than I, and it was but the matter of a moment or two before he sank, bleeding and lifeless, to the floor. Dejah Thoris had raised herself upon one elbow and was watching the battle with wide, staring eyes. When I had regained my feet I raised her in my arms and bore her to one of the benches at the side of the room. Again no Martian interfered with me, and tearing a piece of silk from my cape I endeavored to staunch the flow of blood from her nostrils. I was soon successful as her injuries amounted to little more than an ordinary nosebleed, and when she could speak she placed her hand upon my arm and looking up into my eyes, said: "Why did you do it? You who refused me even friendly recognition in the first hour of my peril! And now you risk your life and kill one of your companions for my sake. I cannot understand. What strange manner of man are you, that you consort with the green men, though your form is that of my race, while your color is little darker than that of the white ape? Tell me, are you human, or are you more than human?" "It is a strange tale," I replied, "too long to attempt to tell you now, and one which I so much doubt the credibility of myself that I fear to hope that others will believe it. Suffice it, for the present, that I am your friend, and, so far as our captors will permit, your protector and your servant." "Then you too are a prisoner? But why, then, those arms and the regalia of a Tharkian chieftain? What is your name? Where your country?" "Yes, Dejah Thoris, I too am a prisoner; my name is John Carter, and I claim Virginia, one of the United States of America, Earth, as my home; but why I am permitted to wear arms I do not know, nor was I aware that my regalia was that of a chieftain." We were interrupted at this juncture by the approach of one of the warriors, bearing arms, accoutrements and ornaments, and in a flash one of her questions was answered and a puzzle cleared up for me. I saw that the body of my dead antagonist had been stripped, and I read in the menacing yet respectful attitude of the warrior who had brought me these trophies of the kill the same demeanor as that evinced by the other who had brought me my original equipment, and now for the first time I realized that my blow, on the occasion of my first battle in the audience chamber had resulted in the death of my adversary. The reason for the whole attitude displayed toward me was now apparent; I had won my spurs, so to speak, and in the crude justice, which always marks Martian dealings, and which, among other things, has caused me to call her the planet of paradoxes, I was accorded the honors due a conqueror; the trappings and the position of the man I killed. In truth, I was a Martian chieftain, and this I learned later was the cause of my great freedom and my toleration in the audience chamber. As I had turned to receive the dead warrior's chattels I had noticed that Tars Tarkas and several others had pushed forward toward us, and the eyes of the former rested upon me in a most quizzical manner. Finally he addressed me: "You speak the tongue of Barsoom quite readily for one who was deaf and dumb to us a few short days ago. Where did you learn it, John Carter?" "You, yourself, are responsible, Tars Tarkas," I replied, "in that you furnished me with an instructress of remarkable ability; I have to thank Sola for my learning." "She has done well," he answered, "but your education in other respects needs considerable polish. Do you know what your unprecedented temerity would have cost you had you failed to kill either of the two chieftains whose metal you now wear?" "I presume that that one whom I had failed to kill, would have killed me," I answered, smiling. "No, you are wrong. Only in the last extremity of self-defense would a Martian warrior kill a prisoner; we like to save them for other purposes," and his face bespoke possibilities that were not pleasant to dwell upon. "But one thing can save you now," he continued. "Should you, in recognition of your remarkable valor, ferocity, and prowess, be considered by Tal Hajus as worthy of his service you may be taken into the community and become a full-fledged Tharkian. Until we reach the headquarters of Tal Hajus it is the will of Lorquas Ptomel that you be accorded the respect your acts have earned you. You will be treated by us as a Tharkian chieftain, but you must not forget that every chief who ranks you is responsible for your safe delivery to our mighty and most ferocious ruler. I am done." "I hear you, Tars Tarkas," I answered. "As you know I am not of Barsoom; your ways are not my ways, and I can only act in the future as I have in the past, in accordance with the dictates of my conscience and guided by the standards of mine own people. If you will leave me alone I will go in peace, but if not, let the individual Barsoomians with whom I must deal either respect my rights as a stranger among you, or take whatever consequences may befall. Of one thing let us be sure, whatever may be your ultimate intentions toward this unfortunate young woman, whoever would offer her injury or insult in the future must figure on making a full accounting to me. I understand that you belittle all sentiments of generosity and kindliness, but I do not, and I can convince your most doughty warrior that these characteristics are not incompatible with an ability to fight." Ordinarily I am not given to long speeches, nor ever before had I descended to bombast, but I had guessed at the keynote which would strike an answering chord in the breasts of the green Martians, nor was I wrong, for my harangue evidently deeply impressed them, and their attitude toward me thereafter was still further respectful. Tars Tarkas himself seemed pleased with my reply, but his only comment was more or less enigmatical—"And I think I know Tal Hajus, Jeddak of Thark." I now turned my attention to Dejah Thoris, and assisting her to her feet I turned with her toward the exit, ignoring her hovering guardian harpies as well as the inquiring glances of the chieftains. Was I not now a chieftain also! Well, then, I would assume the responsibilities of one. They did not molest us, and so Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, and John Carter, gentleman of Virginia, followed by the faithful Woola, passed through utter silence from the audience chamber of Lorquas Ptomel, Jed among the Tharks of Barsoom. CHAPTER XI WITH DEJAH THORIS As we reached the open the two female guards who had been detailed to watch over Dejah Thoris hurried up and made as though to assume custody of her once more. The poor child shrank against me and I felt her two little hands fold tightly over my arm. Waving the women away, I informed them that Sola would attend the captive hereafter, and I further warned Sarkoja that any more of her cruel attentions bestowed upon Dejah Thoris would result in Sarkoja's sudden and painful demise. My threat was unfortunate and resulted in more harm than good to Dejah Thoris, for, as I learned later, men do not kill women upon Mars, nor women, men. So Sarkoja merely gave us an ugly look and departed to hatch up deviltries against us. I soon found Sola and explained to her that I wished her to guard Dejah Thoris as she had guarded me; that I wished her to find other quarters where they would not be molested by Sarkoja, and I finally informed her that I myself would take up my quarters among the men. Sola glanced at the accouterments which were carried in my hand and slung across my shoulder. "You are a great chieftain now, John Carter," she said, "and I must do your bidding, though indeed I am glad to do it under any circumstances. The man whose metal you carry was young, but he was a great warrior, and had by his promotions and kills won his way close to the rank of Tars Tarkas, who, as you know, is second to Lorquas Ptomel only. You are eleventh, there are but ten chieftains in this community who rank you in prowess." "And if I should kill Lorquas Ptomel?" I asked. "You would be first, John Carter; but you may only win that honor by the will of the entire council that Lorquas Ptomel meet you in combat, or should he attack you, you may kill him in self-defense, and thus win first place." I laughed, and changed the subject. I had no particular desire to kill Lorquas Ptomel, and less to be a jed among the Tharks. I accompanied Sola and Dejah Thoris in a search for new quarters, which we found in a building nearer the audience chamber and of far more pretentious architecture than our former habitation. We also found in this building real sleeping apartments with ancient beds of highly wrought metal swinging from enormous gold chains depending from the marble ceilings. The decoration of the walls was most elaborate, and, unlike the frescoes in the other buildings I had examined, portrayed many human figures in the compositions. These were of people like myself, and of a much lighter color than Dejah Thoris. They were clad in graceful, flowing robes, highly ornamented with metal and jewels, and their luxuriant hair was of a beautiful golden and reddish bronze. The men were beardless and only a few wore arms. The scenes depicted for the most part, a fair-skinned, fair-haired people at play. Dejah Thoris clasped her hands with an exclamation of rapture as she gazed upon these magnificent works of art, wrought by a people long extinct; while Sola, on the other hand, apparently did not see them. We decided to use this room, on the second floor and overlooking the plaza, for Dejah Thoris and Sola, and another room adjoining and in the rear for the cooking and supplies. I then dispatched Sola to bring the bedding and such food and utensils as she might need, telling her that I would guard Dejah Thoris until her return. As Sola departed Dejah Thoris turned to me with a faint smile. "And whereto, then, would your prisoner escape should you leave her, unless it was to follow you and crave your protection, and ask your pardon for the cruel thoughts she has harbored against you these past few days?" "You are right," I answered, "there is no escape for either of us unless we go together." "I heard your challenge to the creature you call Tars Tarkas, and I think I understand your position among these people, but what I cannot fathom is your statement that you are not of Barsoom." "In the name of my first ancestor, then," she continued, "where may you be from? You are like unto my people, and yet so unlike. You speak my language, and yet I heard you tell Tars Tarkas that you had but learned it recently. All Barsoomians speak the same tongue from the ice-clad south to the ice-clad north, though their written languages differ. Only in the valley Dor, where the river Iss empties into the lost sea of Korus, is there supposed to be a different language spoken, and, except in the legends of our ancestors, there is no record of a Barsoomian returning up the river Iss, from the shores of Korus in the valley of Dor. Do not tell me that you have thus returned! They would kill you horribly anywhere upon the surface of Barsoom if that were true; tell me it is not!" Her eyes were filled with a strange, weird light; her voice was pleading, and her little hands, reached up upon my breast, were pressed against me as though to wring a denial from my very heart. "I do not know your customs, Dejah Thoris, but in my own Virginia a gentleman does not lie to save himself; I am not of Dor; I have never seen the mysterious Iss; the lost sea of Korus is still lost, so far as I am concerned. Do you believe me?" And then it struck me suddenly that I was very anxious that she should believe me. It was not that I feared the results which would follow a general belief that I had returned from the Barsoomian heaven or hell, or whatever it was. Why was it, then! Why should I care what she thought? I looked down at her; her beautiful face upturned, and her wonderful eyes opening up the very depth of her soul; and as my eyes met hers I knew why, and—I shuddered. A similar wave of feeling seemed to stir her; she drew away from me with a sigh, and with her earnest, beautiful face turned up to mine, she whispered: "I believe you, John Carter; I do not know what a 'gentleman' is, nor have I ever heard before of Virginia; but on Barsoom no man lies; if he does not wish to speak the truth he is silent. Where is this Virginia, your country, John Carter?" she asked, and it seemed that this fair name of my fair land had never sounded more beautiful than as it fell from those perfect lips on that far-gone day. "I am of another world," I answered, "the great planet Earth, which revolves about our common sun and next within the orbit of your Barsoom, which we know as Mars. How I came here I cannot tell you, for I do not know; but here I am, and since my presence has permitted me to serve Dejah Thoris I am glad that I am here." She gazed at me with troubled eyes, long and questioningly. That it was difficult to believe my statement I well knew, nor could I hope that she would do so however much I craved her confidence and respect. I would much rather not have told her anything of my antecedents, but no man could look into the depth of those eyes and refuse her slightest behest. Finally she smiled, and, rising, said: "I shall have to believe even though I cannot understand. I can readily perceive that you are not of the Barsoom of today; you are like us, yet different—but why should I trouble my poor head with such a problem, when my heart tells me that I believe because I wish to believe!" It was good logic, good, earthly, feminine logic, and if it satisfied her I certainly could pick no flaws in it. As a matter of fact it was about the only kind of logic that could be brought to bear upon my problem. We fell into a general conversation then, asking and answering many questions on each side. She was curious to learn of the customs of my people and displayed a remarkable knowledge of events on Earth. When I questioned her closely on this seeming familiarity with earthly things she laughed, and cried out: "Why, every school boy on Barsoom knows the geography, and much concerning the fauna and flora, as well as the history of your planet fully as well as of his own. Can we not see everything which takes place upon Earth, as you call it; is it not hanging there in the heavens in plain sight?" This baffled me, I must confess, fully as much as my statements had confounded her; and I told her so. She then explained in general the instruments her people had used and been perfecting for ages, which permit them to throw upon a screen a perfect image of what is transpiring upon any planet and upon many of the stars. These pictures are so perfect in detail that, when photographed and enlarged, objects no greater than a blade of grass may be distinctly recognized. I afterward, in Helium, saw many of these pictures, as well as the instruments which produced them. "If, then, you are so familiar with earthly things," I asked, "why is it that you do not recognize me as identical with the inhabitants of that planet?" She smiled again as one might in bored indulgence of a questioning child. "Because, John Carter," she replied, "nearly every planet and star having atmospheric conditions at all approaching those of Barsoom, shows forms of animal life almost identical with you and me; and, further, Earth men, almost without exception, cover their bodies with strange, unsightly pieces of cloth, and their heads with hideous contraptions the purpose of which we have been unable to conceive; while you, when found by the Tharkian warriors, were entirely undisfigured and unadorned. "The fact that you wore no ornaments is a strong proof of your un-Barsoomian origin, while the absence of grotesque coverings might cause a doubt as to your earthliness." I then narrated the details of my departure from the Earth, explaining that my body there lay fully clothed in all the, to her, strange garments of mundane dwellers. At this point Sola returned with our meager belongings and her young Martian protege, who, of course, would have to share the quarters with them. Sola asked us if we had had a visitor during her absence, and seemed much surprised when we answered in the negative. It seemed that as she had mounted the approach to the upper floors where our quarters were located, she had met Sarkoja descending. We decided that she must have been eavesdropping, but as we could recall nothing of importance that had passed between us we dismissed the matter as of little consequence, merely promising ourselves to be warned to the utmost caution in the future. Dejah Thoris and I then fell to examining the architecture and decorations of the beautiful chambers of the building we were occupying. She told me that these people had presumably flourished over a hundred thousand years before. They were the early progenitors of her race, but had mixed with the other great race of early Martians, who were very dark, almost black, and also with the reddish yellow race which had flourished at the same time. These three great divisions of the higher Martians had been forced into a mighty alliance as the drying up of the Martian seas had compelled them to seek the comparatively few and always diminishing fertile areas, and to defend themselves, under new conditions of life, against the wild hordes of green men. Ages of close relationship and intermarrying had resulted in the race of red men, of which Dejah Thoris was a fair and beautiful daughter. During the ages of hardships and incessant warring between their own various races, as well as with the green men, and before they had fitted themselves to the changed conditions, much of the high civilization and many of the arts of the fair-haired Martians had become lost; but the red race of today has reached a point where it feels that it has made up in new discoveries and in a more practical civilization for all that lies irretrievably buried with the ancient Barsoomians, beneath the countless intervening ages. These ancient Martians had been a highly cultivated and literary race, but during the vicissitudes of those trying centuries of readjustment to new conditions, not only did their advancement and production cease entirely, but practically all their archives, records, and literature were lost. Dejah Thoris related many interesting facts and legends concerning this lost race of noble and kindly people. She said that the city in which we were camping was supposed to have been a center of commerce and culture known as Korad. It had been built upon a beautiful, natural harbor, landlocked by magnificent hills. The little valley on the west front of the city, she explained, was all that remained of the harbor, while the pass through the hills to the old sea bottom had been the channel through which the shipping passed up to the city's gates. The shores of the ancient seas were dotted with just such cities, and lesser ones, in diminishing numbers, were to be found converging toward the center of the oceans, as the people had found it necessary to follow the receding waters until necessity had forced upon them their ultimate salvation, the so-called Martian canals. We had been so engrossed in exploration of the building and in our conversation that it was late in the afternoon before we realized it. We were brought back to a realization of our present conditions by a messenger bearing a summons from Lorquas Ptomel directing me to appear before him forthwith. Bidding Dejah Thoris and Sola farewell, and commanding Woola to remain on guard, I hastened to the audience chamber, where I found Lorquas Ptomel and Tars Tarkas seated upon the rostrum. CHAPTER XII A PRISONER WITH POWER As I entered and saluted, Lorquas Ptomel signaled me to advance, and, fixing his great, hideous eyes upon me, addressed me thus: "You have been with us a few days, yet during that time you have by your prowess won a high position among us. Be that as it may, you are not one of us; you owe us no allegiance. "Your position is a peculiar one," he continued; "you are a prisoner and yet you give commands which must be obeyed; you are an alien and yet you are a Tharkian chieftain; you are a midget and yet you can kill a mighty warrior with one blow of your fist. And now you are reported to have been plotting to escape with another prisoner of another race; a prisoner who, from her own admission, half believes you are returned from the valley of Dor. Either one of these accusations, if proved, would be sufficient grounds for your execution, but we are a just people and you shall have a trial on our return to Thark, if Tal Hajus so commands. "But," he continued, in his fierce guttural tones, "if you run off with the red girl it is I who shall have to account to Tal Hajus; it is I who shall have to face Tars Tarkas, and either demonstrate my right to command, or the metal from my dead carcass will go to a better man, for such is the custom of the Tharks. "I have no quarrel with Tars Tarkas; together we rule supreme the greatest of the lesser communities among the green men; we do not wish to fight between ourselves; and so if you were dead, John Carter, I should be glad. Under two conditions only, however, may you be killed by us without orders from Tal Hajus; in personal combat in self-defense, should you attack one of us, or were you apprehended in an attempt to escape. "As a matter of justice I must warn you that we only await one of these two excuses for ridding ourselves of so great a responsibility. The safe delivery of the red girl to Tal Hajus is of the greatest importance. Not in a thousand years have the Tharks made such a capture; she is the granddaughter of the greatest of the red jeddaks, who is also our bitterest enemy. I have spoken. The red girl told us that we were without the softer sentiments of humanity, but we are a just and truthful race. You may go." Turning, I left the audience chamber. So this was the beginning of Sarkoja's persecution! I knew that none other could be responsible for this report which had reached the ears of Lorquas Ptomel so quickly, and now I recalled those portions of our conversation which had touched upon escape and upon my origin. Sarkoja was at this time Tars Tarkas' oldest and most trusted female. As such she was a mighty power behind the throne, for no warrior had the confidence of Lorquas Ptomel to such an extent as did his ablest lieutenant, Tars Tarkas. However, instead of putting thoughts of possible escape from my mind, my audience with Lorquas Ptomel only served to center my every faculty on this subject. Now, more than before, the absolute necessity for escape, in so far as Dejah Thoris was concerned, was impressed upon me, for I was convinced that some horrible fate awaited her at the headquarters of Tal Hajus. As described by Sola, this monster was the exaggerated personification of all the ages of cruelty, ferocity, and brutality from which he had descended. Cold, cunning, calculating; he was, also, in marked contrast to most of his fellows, a slave to that brute passion which the waning demands for procreation upon their dying planet has almost stilled in the Martian breast. The thought that the divine Dejah Thoris might fall into the clutches of such an abysmal atavism started the cold sweat upon me. Far better that we save friendly bullets for ourselves at the last moment, as did those brave frontier women of my lost land, who took their own lives rather than fall into the hands of the Indian braves. As I wandered about the plaza lost in my gloomy forebodings Tars Tarkas approached me on his way from the audience chamber. His demeanor toward me was unchanged, and he greeted me as though we had not just parted a few moments before. "Where are your quarters, John Carter?" he asked. "I have selected none," I replied. "It seemed best that I quartered either by myself or among the other warriors, and I was awaiting an opportunity to ask your advice. As you know," and I smiled, "I am not yet familiar with all the customs of the Tharks." "Come with me," he directed, and together we moved off across the plaza to a building which I was glad to see adjoined that occupied by Sola and her charges. "My quarters are on the first floor of this building," he said, "and the second floor also is fully occupied by warriors, but the third floor and the floors above are vacant; you may take your choice of these. "I understand," he continued, "that you have given up your woman to the red prisoner. Well, as you have said, your ways are not our ways, but you can fight well enough to do about as you please, and so, if you wish to give your woman to a captive, it is your own affair; but as a chieftain you should have those to serve you, and in accordance with our customs you may select any or all the females from the retinues of the chieftains whose metal you now wear." I thanked him, but assured him that I could get along very nicely without assistance except in the matter of preparing food, and so he promised to send women to me for this purpose and also for the care of my arms and the manufacture of my ammunition, which he said would be necessary. I suggested that they might also bring some of the sleeping silks and furs which belonged to me as spoils of combat, for the nights were cold and I had none of my own. He promised to do so, and departed. Left alone, I ascended the winding corridor to the upper floors in search of suitable quarters. The beauties of the other buildings were repeated in this, and, as usual, I was soon lost in a tour of investigation and discovery. I finally chose a front room on the third floor, because this brought me nearer to Dejah Thoris, whose apartment was on the second floor of the adjoining building, and it flashed upon me that I could rig up some means of communication whereby she might signal me in case she needed either my services or my protection. Adjoining my sleeping apartment were baths, dressing rooms, and other sleeping and living apartments, in all some ten rooms on this floor. The windows of the back rooms overlooked an enormous court, which formed the center of the square made by the buildings which faced the four contiguous streets, and which was now given over to the quartering of the various animals belonging to the warriors occupying the adjoining buildings. While the court was entirely overgrown with the yellow, moss-like vegetation which blankets practically the entire surface of Mars, yet numerous fountains, statuary, benches, and pergola-like contraptions bore witness to the beauty which the court must have presented in bygone times, when graced by the fair-haired, laughing people whom stern and unalterable cosmic laws had driven not only from their homes, but from all except the vague legends of their descendants. One could easily picture the gorgeous foliage of the luxuriant Martian vegetation which once filled this scene with life and color; the graceful figures of the beautiful women, the straight and handsome men; the happy frolicking children—all sunlight, happiness and peace. It was difficult to realize that they had gone; down through ages of darkness, cruelty, and ignorance, until their hereditary instincts of culture and humanitarianism had risen ascendant once more in the final composite race which now is dominant upon Mars. My thoughts were cut short by the advent of several young females bearing loads of weapons, silks, furs, jewels, cooking utensils, and casks of food and drink, including considerable loot from the air craft. All this, it seemed, had been the property of the two chieftains I had slain, and now, by the customs of the Tharks, it had become mine. At my direction they placed the stuff in one of the back rooms, and then departed, only to return with a second load, which they advised me constituted the balance of my goods. On the second trip they were accompanied by ten or fifteen other women and youths, who, it seemed, formed the retinues of the two chieftains. They were not their families, nor their wives, nor their servants; the relationship was peculiar, and so unlike anything known to us that it is most difficult to describe. All property among the green Martians is owned in common by the community, except the personal weapons, ornaments and sleeping silks and furs of the individuals. These alone can one claim undisputed right to, nor may he accumulate more of these than are required for his actual needs. The surplus he holds merely as custodian, and it is passed on to the younger members of the community as necessity demands. The women and children of a man's retinue may be likened to a military unit for which he is responsible in various ways, as in matters of instruction, discipline, sustenance, and the exigencies of their continual roamings and their unending strife with other communities and with the red Martians. His women are in no sense wives. The green Martians use no word corresponding in meaning with this earthly word. Their mating is a matter of community interest solely, and is directed without reference to natural selection. The council of chieftains of each community control the matter as surely as the owner of a Kentucky racing stud directs the scientific breeding of his stock for the improvement of the whole. In theory it may sound well, as is often the case with theories, but the results of ages of this unnatural practice, coupled with the community interest in the offspring being held paramount to that of the mother, is shown in the cold, cruel creatures, and their gloomy, loveless, mirthless existence. It is true that the green Martians are absolutely virtuous, both men and women, with the exception of such degenerates as Tal Hajus; but better far a finer balance of human characteristics even at the expense of a slight and occasional loss of chastity. Finding that I must assume responsibility for these creatures, whether I would or not, I made the best of it and directed them to find quarters on the upper floors, leaving the third floor to me. One of the girls I charged with the duties of my simple cuisine, and directed the others to take up the various activities which had formerly constituted their vocations. Thereafter I saw little of them, nor did I care to. CHAPTER XIII LOVE-MAKING ON MARS Following the battle with the air ships, the community remained within the city for several days, abandoning the homeward march until they could feel reasonably assured that the ships would not return; for to be caught on the open plains with a cavalcade of chariots and children was far from the desire of even so warlike a people as the green Martians. During our period of inactivity, Tars Tarkas had instructed me in many of the customs and arts of war familiar to the Tharks, including lessons in riding and guiding the great beasts which bore the warriors. These creatures, which are known as thoats, are as dangerous and vicious as their masters, but when once subdued are sufficiently tractable for the purposes of the green Martians. Two of these animals had fallen to me from the warriors whose metal I wore, and in a short time I could handle them quite as well as the native warriors. The method was not at all complicated. If the thoats did not respond with sufficient celerity to the telepathic instructions of their riders they were dealt a terrific blow between the ears with the butt of a pistol, and if they showed fight this treatment was continued until the brutes either were subdued, or had unseated their riders. In the latter case it became a life and death struggle between the man and the beast. If the former were quick enough with his pistol he might live to ride again, though upon some other beast; if not, his torn and mangled body was gathered up by his women and burned in accordance with Tharkian custom. My experience with Woola determined me to attempt the experiment of kindness in my treatment of my thoats. First I taught them that they could not unseat me, and even rapped them sharply between the ears to impress upon them my authority and mastery. Then, by degrees, I won their confidence in much the same manner as I had adopted countless times with my many mundane mounts. I was ever a good hand with animals, and by inclination, as well as because it brought more lasting and satisfactory results, I was always kind and humane in my dealings with the lower orders. I could take a human life, if necessary, with far less compunction than that of a poor, unreasoning, irresponsible brute. In the course of a few days my thoats were the wonder of the entire community. They would follow me like dogs, rubbing their great snouts against my body in awkward evidence of affection, and respond to my every command with an alacrity and docility which caused the Martian warriors to ascribe to me the possession of some earthly power unknown on Mars. "How have you bewitched them?" asked Tars Tarkas one afternoon, when he had seen me run my arm far between the great jaws of one of my thoats which had wedged a piece of stone between two of his teeth while feeding upon the moss-like vegetation within our court yard. "By kindness," I replied. "You see, Tars Tarkas, the softer sentiments have their value, even to a warrior. In the height of battle as well as upon the march I know that my thoats will obey my every command, and therefore my fighting efficiency is enhanced, and I am a better warrior for the reason that I am a kind master. Your other warriors would find it to the advantage of themselves as well as of the community to adopt my methods in this respect. Only a few days since you, yourself, told me that these great brutes, by the uncertainty of their tempers, often were the means of turning victory into defeat, since, at a crucial moment, they might elect to unseat and rend their riders." "Show me how you accomplish these results," was Tars Tarkas' only rejoinder. And so I explained as carefully as I could the entire method of training I had adopted with my beasts, and later he had me repeat it before Lorquas Ptomel and the assembled warriors. That moment marked the beginning of a new existence for the poor thoats, and before I left the community of Lorquas Ptomel I had the satisfaction of observing a regiment of as tractable and docile mounts as one might care to see. The effect on the precision and celerity of the military movements was so remarkable that Lorquas Ptomel presented me with a massive anklet of gold from his own leg, as a sign of his appreciation of my service to the horde. On the seventh day following the battle with the air craft we again took up the march toward Thark, all probability of another attack being deemed remote by Lorquas Ptomel. During the days just preceding our departure I had seen but little of Dejah Thoris, as I had been kept very busy by Tars Tarkas with my lessons in the art of Martian warfare, as well as in the training of my thoats. The few times I had visited her quarters she had been absent, walking upon the streets with Sola, or investigating the buildings in the near vicinity of the plaza. I had warned them against venturing far from the plaza for fear of the great white apes, whose ferocity I was only too well acquainted with. However, since Woola accompanied them on all their excursions, and as Sola was well armed, there was comparatively little cause for fear. On the evening before our departure I saw them approaching along one of the great avenues which lead into the plaza from the east. I advanced to meet them, and telling Sola that I would take the responsibility for Dejah Thoris' safekeeping, I directed her to return to her quarters on some trivial errand. I liked and trusted Sola, but for some reason I desired to be alone with Dejah Thoris, who represented to me all that I had left behind upon Earth in agreeable and congenial companionship. There seemed bonds of mutual interest between us as powerful as though we had been born under the same roof rather than upon different planets, hurtling through space some forty-eight million miles apart. That she shared my sentiments in this respect I was positive, for on my approach the look of pitiful hopelessness left her sweet countenance to be replaced by a smile of joyful welcome, as she placed her little right hand upon my left shoulder in true red Martian salute. "Sarkoja told Sola that you had become a true Thark," she said, "and that I would now see no more of you than of any of the other warriors." "Sarkoja is a liar of the first magnitude," I replied, "notwithstanding the proud claim of the Tharks to absolute verity." Dejah Thoris laughed. "I knew that even though you became a member of the community you would not cease to be my friend; 'A warrior may change his metal, but not his heart,' as the saying is upon Barsoom." "I think they have been trying to keep us apart," she continued, "for whenever you have been off duty one of the older women of Tars Tarkas' retinue has always arranged to trump up some excuse to get Sola and me out of sight. They have had me down in the pits below the buildings helping them mix their awful radium powder, and make their terrible projectiles. You know that these have to be manufactured by artificial light, as exposure to sunlight always results in an explosion. You have noticed that their bullets explode when they strike an object? Well, the opaque, outer coating is broken by the impact, exposing a glass cylinder, almost solid, in the forward end of which is a minute particle of radium powder. The moment the sunlight, even though diffused, strikes this powder it explodes with a violence which nothing can withstand. If you ever witness a night battle you will note the absence of these explosions, while the morning following the battle will be filled at sunrise with the sharp detonations of exploding missiles fired the preceding night. As a rule, however, non-exploding projectiles are used at night." [I have used the word radium in describing this powder because in the light of recent discoveries on Earth I believe it to be a mixture of which radium is the base. In Captain Carter's manuscript it is mentioned always by the name used in the written language of Helium and is spelled in hieroglyphics which it would be difficult and useless to reproduce.] While I was much interested in Dejah Thoris' explanation of this wonderful adjunct to Martian warfare, I was more concerned by the immediate problem of their treatment of her. That they were keeping her away from me was not a matter for surprise, but that they should subject her to dangerous and arduous labor filled me with rage. "Have they ever subjected you to cruelty and ignominy, Dejah Thoris?" I asked, feeling the hot blood of my fighting ancestors leap in my veins as I awaited her reply. "Only in little ways, John Carter," she answered. "Nothing that can harm me outside my pride. They know that I am the daughter of ten thousand jeddaks, that I trace my ancestry straight back without a break to the builder of the first great waterway, and they, who do not even know their own mothers, are jealous of me. At heart they hate their horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who stand for everything they have not, and for all they most crave and never can attain. Let us pity them, my chieftain, for even though we die at their hands we can afford them pity, since we are greater than they and they know it." Had I known the significance of those words "my chieftain," as applied by a red Martian woman to a man, I should have had the surprise of my life, but I did not know at that time, nor for many months thereafter. Yes, I still had much to learn upon Barsoom. "I presume it is the better part of wisdom that we bow to our fate with as good grace as possible, Dejah Thoris; but I hope, nevertheless, that I may be present the next time that any Martian, green, red, pink, or violet, has the temerity to even so much as frown on you, my princess." Dejah Thoris caught her breath at my last words, and gazed upon me with dilated eyes and quickening breath, and then, with an odd little laugh, which brought roguish dimples to the corners of her mouth, she shook her head and cried: "What a child! A great warrior and yet a stumbling little child." "What have I done now?" I asked, in sore perplexity. "Some day you shall know, John Carter, if we live; but I may not tell you. And I, the daughter of Mors Kajak, son of Tardos Mors, have listened without anger," she soliloquized in conclusion. Then she broke out again into one of her gay, happy, laughing moods; joking with me on my prowess as a Thark warrior as contrasted with my soft heart and natural kindliness. "I presume that should you accidentally wound an enemy you would take him home and nurse him back to health," she laughed. "That is precisely what we do on Earth," I answered. "At least among civilized men." This made her laugh again. She could not understand it, for, with all her tenderness and womanly sweetness, she was still a Martian, and to a Martian the only good enemy is a dead enemy; for every dead foeman means so much more to divide between those who live. I was very curious to know what I had said or done to cause her so much perturbation a moment before and so I continued to importune her to enlighten me. "No," she exclaimed, "it is enough that you have said it and that I have listened. And when you learn, John Carter, and if I be dead, as likely I shall be ere the further moon has circled Barsoom another twelve times, remember that I listened and that I—smiled." It was all Greek to me, but the more I begged her to explain the more positive became her denials of my request, and, so, in very hopelessness, I desisted. Day had now given away to night and as we wandered along the great avenue lighted by the two moons of Barsoom, and with Earth looking down upon us out of her luminous green eye, it seemed that we were alone in the universe, and I, at least, was content that it should be so. The chill of the Martian night was upon us, and removing my silks I threw them across the shoulders of Dejah Thoris. As my arm rested for an instant upon her I felt a thrill pass through every fiber of my being such as contact with no other mortal had even produced; and it seemed to me that she had leaned slightly toward me, but of that I was not sure. Only I knew that as my arm rested there across her shoulders longer than the act of adjusting the silk required she did not draw away, nor did she speak. And so, in silence, we walked the surface of a dying world, but in the breast of one of us at least had been born that which is ever oldest, yet ever new. I loved Dejah Thoris. The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder had spoken to me in words I would not mistake, and I knew that I had loved her since the first moment that my eyes had met hers that first time in the plaza of the dead city of Korad. CHAPTER XIV A DUEL TO THE DEATH My first impulse was to tell her of my love, and then I thought of the helplessness of her position wherein I alone could lighten the burdens of her captivity, and protect her in my poor way against the thousands of hereditary enemies she must face upon our arrival at Thark. I could not chance causing her additional pain or sorrow by declaring a love which, in all probability she did not return. Should I be so indiscreet, her position would be even more unbearable than now, and the thought that she might feel that I was taking advantage of her helplessness, to influence her decision was the final argument which sealed my lips. "Why are you so quiet, Dejah Thoris?" I asked. "Possibly you would rather return to Sola and your quarters." "No," she murmured, "I am happy here. I do not know why it is that I should always be happy and contented when you, John Carter, a stranger, are with me; yet at such times it seems that I am safe and that, with you, I shall soon return to my father's court and feel his strong arms about me and my mother's tears and kisses on my cheek." "Do people kiss, then, upon Barsoom?" I asked, when she had explained the word she used, in answer to my inquiry as to its meaning. "Parents, brothers, and sisters, yes; and," she added in a low, thoughtful tone, "lovers." "And you, Dejah Thoris, have parents and brothers and sisters?" "Yes." "And a—lover?" She was silent, nor could I venture to repeat the question. "The man of Barsoom," she finally ventured, "does not ask personal questions of women, except his mother, and the woman he has fought for and won." "But I have fought—" I started, and then I wished my tongue had been cut from my mouth; for she turned even as I caught myself and ceased, and drawing my silks from her shoulder she held them out to me, and without a word, and with head held high, she moved with the carriage of the queen she was toward the plaza and the doorway of her quarters. I did not attempt to follow her, other than to see that she reached the building in safety, but, directing Woola to accompany her, I turned disconsolately and entered my own house. I sat for hours cross-legged, and cross-tempered, upon my silks meditating upon the queer freaks chance plays upon us poor devils of mortals. So this was love! I had escaped it for all the years I had roamed the five continents and their encircling seas; in spite of beautiful women and urging opportunity; in spite of a half-desire for love and a constant search for my ideal, it had remained for me to fall furiously and hopelessly in love with a creature from another world, of a species similar possibly, yet not identical with mine. A woman who was hatched from an egg, and whose span of life might cover a thousand years; whose people had strange customs and ideas; a woman whose hopes, whose pleasures, whose standards of virtue and of right and wrong might vary as greatly from mine as did those of the green Martians. Yes, I was a fool, but I was in love, and though I was suffering the greatest misery I had ever known I would not have had it otherwise for all the riches of Barsoom. Such is love, and such are lovers wherever love is known. To me, Dejah Thoris was all that was perfect; all that was virtuous and beautiful and noble and good. I believed that from the bottom of my heart, from the depth of my soul on that night in Korad as I sat cross-legged upon my silks while the nearer moon of Barsoom raced through the western sky toward the horizon, and lighted up the gold and marble, and jeweled mosaics of my world-old chamber, and I believe it today as I sit at my desk in the little study overlooking the Hudson. Twenty years have intervened; for ten of them I lived and fought for Dejah Thoris and her people, and for ten I have lived upon her memory. The morning of our departure for Thark dawned clear and hot, as do all Martian mornings except for the six weeks when the snow melts at the poles. I sought out Dejah Thoris in the throng of departing chariots, but she turned her shoulder to me, and I could see the red blood mount to her cheek. With the foolish inconsistency of love I held my peace when I might have pled ignorance of the nature of my offense, or at least the gravity of it, and so have effected, at worst, a half conciliation. I sought out Dejah Thoris in the throng of departing chariots. I sought out Dejah Thoris in the throng of departing chariots. My duty dictated that I must see that she was comfortable, and so I glanced into her chariot and rearranged her silks and furs. In doing so I noted with horror that she was heavily chained by one ankle to the side of the vehicle. "What does this mean?" I cried, turning to Sola. "Sarkoja thought it best," she answered, her face betokening her disapproval of the procedure. Examining the manacles I saw that they fastened with a massive spring lock. "Where is the key, Sola? Let me have it." "Sarkoja wears it, John Carter," she answered. I turned without further word and sought out Tars Tarkas, to whom I vehemently objected to the unnecessary humiliations and cruelties, as they seemed to my lover's eyes, that were being heaped upon Dejah Thoris. "John Carter," he answered, "if ever you and Dejah Thoris escape the Tharks it will be upon this journey. We know that you will not go without her. You have shown yourself a mighty fighter, and we do not wish to manacle you, so we hold you both in the easiest way that will yet ensure security. I have spoken." I saw the strength of his reasoning at a flash, and knew that it was futile to appeal from his decision, but I asked that the key be taken from Sarkoja and that she be directed to leave the prisoner alone in future. "This much, Tars Tarkas, you may do for me in return for the friendship that, I must confess, I feel for you." "Friendship?" he replied. "There is no such thing, John Carter; but have your will. I shall direct that Sarkoja cease to annoy the girl, and I myself will take the custody of the key." "Unless you wish me to assume the responsibility," I said, smiling. He looked at me long and earnestly before he spoke. "Were you to give me your word that neither you nor Dejah Thoris would attempt to escape until after we have safely reached the court of Tal Hajus you might have the key and throw the chains into the river Iss." "It were better that you held the key, Tars Tarkas," I replied He smiled, and said no more, but that night as we were making camp I saw him unfasten Dejah Thoris' fetters himself. With all his cruel ferocity and coldness there was an undercurrent of something in Tars Tarkas which he seemed ever battling to subdue. Could it be a vestige of some human instinct come back from an ancient forbear to haunt him with the horror of his people's ways! As I was approaching Dejah Thoris' chariot I passed Sarkoja, and the black, venomous look she accorded me was the sweetest balm I had felt for many hours. Lord, how she hated me! It bristled from her so palpably that one might almost have cut it with a sword. A few moments later I saw her deep in conversation with a warrior named Zad; a big, hulking, powerful brute, but one who had never made a kill among his own chieftains, and so was still an o mad, or man with one name; he could win a second name only with the metal of some chieftain. It was this custom which entitled me to the names of either of the chieftains I had killed; in fact, some of the warriors addressed me as Dotar Sojat, a combination of the surnames of the two warrior chieftains whose metal I had taken, or, in other words, whom I had slain in fair fight. As Sarkoja talked with Zad he cast occasional glances in my direction, while she seemed to be urging him very strongly to some action. I paid little attention to it at the time, but the next day I had good reason to recall the circumstances, and at the same time gain a slight insight into the depths of Sarkoja's hatred and the lengths to which she was capable of going to wreak her horrid vengeance on me. Dejah Thoris would have none of me again on this evening, and though I spoke her name she neither replied, nor conceded by so much as the flutter of an eyelid that she realized my existence. In my extremity I did what most other lovers would have done; I sought word from her through an intimate. In this instance it was Sola whom I intercepted in another part of camp. "What is the matter with Dejah Thoris?" I blurted out at her. "Why will she not speak to me?" Sola seemed puzzled herself, as though such strange actions on the part of two humans were quite beyond her, as indeed they were, poor child. "She says you have angered her, and that is all she will say, except that she is the daughter of a jed and the granddaughter of a jeddak and she has been humiliated by a creature who could not polish the teeth of her grandmother's sorak." I pondered over this report for some time, finally asking, "What might a sorak be, Sola?" "A little animal about as big as my hand, which the red Martian women keep to play with," explained Sola. Not fit to polish the teeth of her grandmother's cat! I must rank pretty low in the consideration of Dejah Thoris, I thought; but I could not help laughing at the strange figure of speech, so homely and in this respect so earthly. It made me homesick, for it sounded very much like "not fit to polish her shoes." And then commenced a train of thought quite new to me. I began to wonder what my people at home were doing. I had not seen them for years. There was a family of Carters in Virginia who claimed close relationship with me; I was supposed to be a great uncle, or something of the kind equally foolish. I could pass anywhere for twenty-five to thirty years of age, and to be a great uncle always seemed the height of incongruity, for my thoughts and feelings were those of a boy. There were two little kiddies in the Carter family whom I had loved and who had thought there was no one on Earth like Uncle Jack; I could see them just as plainly, as I stood there under the moonlit skies of Barsoom, and I longed for them as I had never longed for any mortals before. By nature a wanderer, I had never known the true meaning of the word home, but the great hall of the Carters had always stood for all that the word did mean to me, and now my heart turned toward it from the cold and unfriendly peoples I had been thrown amongst. For did not even Dejah Thoris despise me! I was a low creature, so low in fact that I was not even fit to polish the teeth of her grandmother's cat; and then my saving sense of humor came to my rescue, and laughing I turned into my silks and furs and slept upon the moon-haunted ground the sleep of a tired and healthy fighting man. We broke camp the next day at an early hour and marched with only a single halt until just before dark. Two incidents broke the tediousness of the march. About noon we espied far to our right what was evidently an incubator, and Lorquas Ptomel directed Tars Tarkas to investigate it. The latter took a dozen warriors, including myself, and we raced across the velvety carpeting of moss to the little enclosure. It was indeed an incubator, but the eggs were very small in comparison with those I had seen hatching in ours at the time of my arrival on Mars. Tars Tarkas dismounted and examined the enclosure minutely, finally announcing that it belonged to the green men of Warhoon and that the cement was scarcely dry where it had been walled up. "They cannot be a day's march ahead of us," he exclaimed, the light of battle leaping to his fierce face. The work at the incubator was short indeed. The warriors tore open the entrance and a couple of them, crawling in, soon demolished all the eggs with their short-swords. Then remounting we dashed back to join the cavalcade. During the ride I took occasion to ask Tars Tarkas if these Warhoons whose eggs we had destroyed were a smaller people than his Tharks. "I noticed that their eggs were so much smaller than those I saw hatching in your incubator," I added. He explained that the eggs had just been placed there; but, like all green Martian eggs, they would grow during the five-year period of incubation until they obtained the size of those I had seen hatching on the day of my arrival on Barsoom. This was indeed an interesting piece of information, for it had always seemed remarkable to me that the green Martian women, large as they were, could bring forth such enormous eggs as I had seen the four-foot infants emerging from. As a matter of fact, the new-laid egg is but little larger than an ordinary goose egg, and as it does not commence to grow until subjected to the light of the sun the chieftains have little difficulty in transporting several hundreds of them at one time from the storage vaults to the incubators. Shortly after the incident of the Warhoon eggs we halted to rest the animals, and it was during this halt that the second of the day's interesting episodes occurred. I was engaged in changing my riding cloths from one of my thoats to the other, for I divided the day's work between them, when Zad approached me, and without a word struck my animal a terrific blow with his long-sword. I did not need a manual of green Martian etiquette to know what reply to make, for, in fact, I was so wild with anger that I could scarcely refrain from drawing my pistol and shooting him down for the brute he was; but he stood waiting with drawn long-sword, and my only choice was to draw my own and meet him in fair fight with his choice of weapons or a lesser one. This latter alternative is always permissible, therefore I could have used my short-sword, my dagger, my hatchet, or my fists had I wished, and been entirely within my rights, but I could not use firearms or a spear while he held only his long-sword. I chose the same weapon he had drawn because I knew he prided himself upon his ability with it, and I wished, if I worsted him at all, to do it with his own weapon. The fight that followed was a long one and delayed the resumption of the march for an hour. The entire community surrounded us, leaving a clear space about one hundred feet in diameter for our battle. Zad first attempted to rush me down as a bull might a wolf, but I was much too quick for him, and each time I side-stepped his rushes he would go lunging past me, only to receive a nick from my sword upon his arm or back. He was soon streaming blood from a half dozen minor wounds, but I could not obtain an opening to deliver an effective thrust. Then he changed his tactics, and fighting warily and with extreme dexterity, he tried to do by science what he was unable to do by brute strength. I must admit that he was a magnificent swordsman, and had it not been for my greater endurance and the remarkable agility the lesser gravitation of Mars lent me I might not have been able to put up the creditable fight I did against him. We circled for some time without doing much damage on either side; the long, straight, needle-like swords flashing in the sunlight, and ringing out upon the stillness as they crashed together with each effective parry. Finally Zad, realizing that he was tiring more than I, evidently decided to close in and end the battle in a final blaze of glory for himself; just as he rushed me a blinding flash of light struck full in my eyes, so that I could not see his approach and could only leap blindly to one side in an effort to escape the mighty blade that it seemed I could already feel in my vitals. I was only partially successful, as a sharp pain in my left shoulder attested, but in the sweep of my glance as I sought to again locate my adversary, a sight met my astonished gaze which paid me well for the wound the temporary blindness had caused me. There, upon Dejah Thoris' chariot stood three figures, for the purpose evidently of witnessing the encounter above the heads of the intervening Tharks. There were Dejah Thoris, Sola, and Sarkoja, and as my fleeting glance swept over them a little tableau was presented which will stand graven in my memory to the day of my death. As I looked, Dejah Thoris turned upon Sarkoja with the fury of a young tigress and struck something from her upraised hand; something which flashed in the sunlight as it spun to the ground. Then I knew what had blinded me at that crucial moment of the fight, and how Sarkoja had found a way to kill me without herself delivering the final thrust. Another thing I saw, too, which almost lost my life for me then and there, for it took my mind for the fraction of an instant entirely from my antagonist; for, as Dejah Thoris struck the tiny mirror from her hand, Sarkoja, her face livid with hatred and baffled rage, whipped out her dagger and aimed a terrific blow at Dejah Thoris; and then Sola, our dear and faithful Sola, sprang between them; the last I saw was the great knife descending upon her shielding breast. My enemy had recovered from his thrust and was making it extremely interesting for me, so I reluctantly gave my attention to the work in hand, but my mind was not upon the battle. We rushed each other furiously time after time, 'til suddenly, feeling the sharp point of his sword at my breast in a thrust I could neither parry nor escape, I threw myself upon him with outstretched sword and with all the weight of my body, determined that I would not die alone if I could prevent it. I felt the steel tear into my chest, all went black before me, my head whirled in dizziness, and I felt my knees giving beneath me. CHAPTER XV SOLA TELLS ME HER STORY When consciousness returned, and, as I soon learned, I was down but a moment, I sprang quickly to my feet searching for my sword, and there I found it, buried to the hilt in the green breast of Zad, who lay stone dead upon the ochre moss of the ancient sea bottom. As I regained my full senses I found his weapon piercing my left breast, but only through the flesh and muscles which cover my ribs, entering near the center of my chest and coming out below the shoulder. As I had lunged I had turned so that his sword merely passed beneath the muscles, inflicting a painful but not dangerous wound. Removing the blade from my body I also regained my own, and turning my back upon his ugly carcass, I moved, sick, sore, and disgusted, toward the chariots which bore my retinue and my belongings. A murmur of Martian applause greeted me, but I cared not for it. Bleeding and weak I reached my women, who, accustomed to such happenings, dressed my wounds, applying the wonderful healing and remedial agents which make only the most instantaneous of death blows fatal. Give a Martian woman a chance and death must take a back seat. They soon had me patched up so that, except for weakness from loss of blood and a little soreness around the wound, I suffered no great distress from this thrust which, under earthly treatment, undoubtedly would have put me flat on my back for days. As soon as they were through with me I hastened to the chariot of Dejah Thoris, where I found my poor Sola with her chest swathed in bandages, but apparently little the worse for her encounter with Sarkoja, whose dagger it seemed had struck the edge of one of Sola's metal breast ornaments and, thus deflected, had inflicted but a slight flesh wound. As I approached I found Dejah Thoris lying prone upon her silks and furs, her lithe form wracked with sobs. She did not notice my presence, nor did she hear me speaking with Sola, who was standing a short distance from the vehicle. "Is she injured?" I asked of Sola, indicating Dejah Thoris by an inclination of my head. "No," she answered, "she thinks that you are dead." "And that her grandmother's cat may now have no one to polish its teeth?" I queried, smiling. "I think you wrong her, John Carter," said Sola. "I do not understand either her ways or yours, but I am sure the granddaughter of ten thousand jeddaks would never grieve like this over any who held but the highest claim upon her affections. They are a proud race, but they are just, as are all Barsoomians, and you must have hurt or wronged her grievously that she will not admit your existence living, though she mourns you dead. "Tears are a strange sight upon Barsoom," she continued, "and so it is difficult for me to interpret them. I have seen but two people weep in all my life, other than Dejah Thoris; one wept from sorrow, the other from baffled rage. The first was my mother, years ago before they killed her; the other was Sarkoja, when they dragged her from me today." "Your mother!" I exclaimed, "but, Sola, you could not have known your mother, child." "But I did. And my father also," she added. "If you would like to hear the strange and un-Barsoomian story come to the chariot tonight, John Carter, and I will tell you that of which I have never spoken in all my life before. And now the signal has been given to resume the march, you must go." "I will come tonight, Sola," I promised. "Be sure to tell Dejah Thoris I am alive and well. I shall not force myself upon her, and be sure that you do not let her know I saw her tears. If she would speak with me I but await her command." Sola mounted the chariot, which was swinging into its place in line, and I hastened to my waiting thoat and galloped to my station beside Tars Tarkas at the rear of the column. We made a most imposing and awe-inspiring spectacle as we strung out across the yellow landscape; the two hundred and fifty ornate and brightly colored chariots, preceded by an advance guard of some two hundred mounted warriors and chieftains riding five abreast and one hundred yards apart, and followed by a like number in the same formation, with a score or more of flankers on either side; the fifty extra mastodons, or heavy draught animals, known as zitidars, and the five or six hundred extra thoats of the warriors running loose within the hollow square formed by the surrounding warriors. The gleaming metal and jewels of the gorgeous ornaments of the men and women, duplicated in the trappings of the zitidars and thoats, and interspersed with the flashing colors of magnificent silks and furs and feathers, lent a barbaric splendor to the caravan which would have turned an East Indian potentate green with envy. The enormous broad tires of the chariots and the padded feet of the animals brought forth no sound from the moss-covered sea bottom; and so we moved in utter silence, like some huge phantasmagoria, except when the stillness was broken by the guttural growling of a goaded zitidar, or the squealing of fighting thoats. The green Martians converse but little, and then usually in monosyllables, low and like the faint rumbling of distant thunder. We traversed a trackless waste of moss which, bending to the pressure of broad tire or padded foot, rose up again behind us, leaving no sign that we had passed. We might indeed have been the wraiths of the departed dead upon the dead sea of that dying planet for all the sound or sign we made in passing. It was the first march of a large body of men and animals I had ever witnessed which raised no dust and left no spoor; for there is no dust upon Mars except in the cultivated districts during the winter months, and even then the absence of high winds renders it almost unnoticeable. We camped that night at the foot of the hills we had been approaching for two days and which marked the southern boundary of this particular sea. Our animals had been two days without drink, nor had they had water for nearly two months, not since shortly after leaving Thark; but, as Tars Tarkas explained to me, they require but little and can live almost indefinitely upon the moss which covers Barsoom, and which, he told me, holds in its tiny stems sufficient moisture to meet the limited demands of the animals. After partaking of my evening meal of cheese-like food and vegetable milk I sought out Sola, whom I found working by the light of a torch upon some of Tars Tarkas' trappings. She looked up at my approach, her face lighting with pleasure and with welcome. "I am glad you came," she said; "Dejah Thoris sleeps and I am lonely. Mine own people do not care for me, John Carter; I am too unlike them. It is a sad fate, since I must live my life amongst them, and I often wish that I were a true green Martian woman, without love and without hope; but I have known love and so I am lost. "I promised to tell you my story, or rather the story of my parents. From what I have learned of you and the ways of your people I am sure that the tale will not seem strange to you, but among green Martians it has no parallel within the memory of the oldest living Thark, nor do our legends hold many similar tales. "My mother was rather small, in fact too small to be allowed the responsibilities of maternity, as our chieftains breed principally for size. She was also less cold and cruel than most green Martian women, and caring little for their society, she often roamed the deserted avenues of Thark alone, or went and sat among the wild flowers that deck the nearby hills, thinking thoughts and wishing wishes which I believe I alone among Tharkian women today may understand, for am I not the child of my mother? "And there among the hills she met a young warrior, whose duty it was to guard the feeding zitidars and thoats and see that they roamed not beyond the hills. They spoke at first only of such things as interest a community of Tharks, but gradually, as they came to meet more often, and, as was now quite evident to both, no longer by chance, they talked about themselves, their likes, their ambitions and their hopes. She trusted him and told him of the awful repugnance she felt for the cruelties of their kind, for the hideous, loveless lives they must ever lead, and then she waited for the storm of denunciation to break from his cold, hard lips; but instead he took her in his arms and kissed her. "They kept their love a secret for six long years. She, my mother, was of the retinue of the great Tal Hajus, while her lover was a simple warrior, wearing only his own metal. Had their defection from the traditions of the Tharks been discovered both would have paid the penalty in the great arena before Tal Hajus and the assembled hordes. "The egg from which I came was hidden beneath a great glass vessel upon the highest and most inaccessible of the partially ruined towers of ancient Thark. Once each year my mother visited it for the five long years it lay there in the process of incubation. She dared not come oftener, for in the mighty guilt of her conscience she feared that her every move was watched. During this period my father gained great distinction as a warrior and had taken the metal from several chieftains. His love for my mother had never diminished, and his own ambition in life was to reach a point where he might wrest the metal from Tal Hajus himself, and thus, as ruler of the Tharks, be free to claim her as his own, as well as, by the might of his power, protect the child which otherwise would be quickly dispatched should the truth become known. "It was a wild dream, that of wresting the metal from Tal Hajus in five short years, but his advance was rapid, and he soon stood high in the councils of Thark. But one day the chance was lost forever, in so far as it could come in time to save his loved ones, for he was ordered away upon a long expedition to the ice-clad south, to make war upon the natives there and despoil them of their furs, for such is the manner of the green Barsoomian; he does not labor for what he can wrest in battle from others. "He was gone for four years, and when he returned all had been over for three; for about a year after his departure, and shortly before the time for the return of an expedition which had gone forth to fetch the fruits of a community incubator, the egg had hatched. Thereafter my mother continued to keep me in the old tower, visiting me nightly and lavishing upon me the love the community life would have robbed us both of. She hoped, upon the return of the expedition from the incubator, to mix me with the other young assigned to the quarters of Tal Hajus, and thus escape the fate which would surely follow discovery of her sin against the ancient traditions of the green men. "She taught me rapidly the language and customs of my kind, and one night she told me the story I have told to you up to this point, impressing upon me the necessity for absolute secrecy and the great caution I must exercise after she had placed me with the other young Tharks to permit no one to guess that I was further advanced in education than they, nor by any sign to divulge in the presence of others my affection for her, or my knowledge of my parentage; and then drawing me close to her she whispered in my ear the name of my father. "And then a light flashed out upon the darkness of the tower chamber, and there stood Sarkoja, her gleaming, baleful eyes fixed in a frenzy of loathing and contempt upon my mother. The torrent of hatred and abuse she poured out upon her turned my young heart cold in terror. That she had heard the entire story was apparent, and that she had suspected something wrong from my mother's long nightly absences from her quarters accounted for her presence there on that fateful night. "One thing she had not heard, nor did she know, the whispered name of my father. This was apparent from her repeated demands upon my mother to disclose the name of her partner in sin, but no amount of abuse or threats could wring this from her, and to save me from needless torture she lied, for she told Sarkoja that she alone knew nor would she ever tell her child. "With final imprecations, Sarkoja hastened away to Tal Hajus to report her discovery, and while she was gone my mother, wrapping me in the silks and furs of her night coverings, so that I was scarcely noticeable, descended to the streets and ran wildly away toward the outskirts of the city, in the direction which led to the far south, out toward the man whose protection she might not claim, but on whose face she wished to look once more before she died. "As we neared the city's southern extremity a sound came to us from across the mossy flat, from the direction of the only pass through the hills which led to the gates, the pass by which caravans from either north or south or east or west would enter the city. The sounds we heard were the squealing of thoats and the grumbling of zitidars, with the occasional clank of arms which announced the approach of a body of warriors. The thought uppermost in her mind was that it was my father returned from his expedition, but the cunning of the Thark held her from headlong and precipitate flight to greet him. "Retreating into the shadows of a doorway she awaited the coming of the cavalcade which shortly entered the avenue, breaking its formation and thronging the thoroughfare from wall to wall. As the head of the procession passed us the lesser moon swung clear of the overhanging roofs and lit up the scene with all the brilliancy of her wondrous light. My mother shrank further back into the friendly shadows, and from her hiding place saw that the expedition was not that of my father, but the returning caravan bearing the young Tharks. Instantly her plan was formed, and as a great chariot swung close to our hiding place she slipped stealthily in upon the trailing tailboard, crouching low in the shadow of the high side, straining me to her bosom in a frenzy of love. "She knew, what I did not, that never again after that night would she hold me to her breast, nor was it likely we would ever look upon each other's face again. In the confusion of the plaza she mixed me with the other children, whose guardians during the journey were now free to relinquish their responsibility. We were herded together into a great room, fed by women who had not accompanied the expedition, and the next day we were parceled out among the retinues of the chieftains. "I never saw my mother after that night. She was imprisoned by Tal Hajus, and every effort, including the most horrible and shameful torture, was brought to bear upon her to wring from her lips the name of my father; but she remained steadfast and loyal, dying at last amidst the laughter of Tal Hajus and his chieftains during some awful torture she was undergoing. "I learned afterwards that she told them that she had killed me to save me from a like fate at their hands, and that she had thrown my body to the white apes. Sarkoja alone disbelieved her, and I feel to this day that she suspects my true origin, but does not dare expose me, at the present, at all events, because she also guesses, I am sure, the identity of my father. "When he returned from his expedition and learned the story of my mother's fate I was present as Tal Hajus told him; but never by the quiver of a muscle did he betray the slightest emotion; only he did not laugh as Tal Hajus gleefully described her death struggles. From that moment on he was the cruelest of the cruel, and I am awaiting the day when he shall win the goal of his ambition, and feel the carcass of Tal Hajus beneath his foot, for I am as sure that he but waits the opportunity to wreak a terrible vengeance, and that his great love is as strong in his breast as when it first transfigured him nearly forty years ago, as I am that we sit here upon the edge of a world-old ocean while sensible people sleep, John Carter." "And your father, Sola, is he with us now?" I asked. "Yes," she replied, "but he does not know me for what I am, nor does he know who betrayed my mother to Tal Hajus. I alone know my father's name, and only I and Tal Hajus and Sarkoja know that it was she who carried the tale that brought death and torture upon her he loved." We sat silent for a few moments, she wrapped in the gloomy thoughts of her terrible past, and I in pity for the poor creatures whom the heartless, senseless customs of their race had doomed to loveless lives of cruelty and of hate. Presently she spoke. "John Carter, if ever a real man walked the cold, dead bosom of Barsoom you are one. I know that I can trust you, and because the knowledge may someday help you or him or Dejah Thoris or myself, I am going to tell you the name of my father, nor place any restrictions or conditions upon your tongue. When the time comes, speak the truth if it seems best to you. I trust you because I know that you are not cursed with the terrible trait of absolute and unswerving truthfulness, that you could lie like one of your own Virginia gentlemen if a lie would save others from sorrow or suffering. My father's name is Tars Tarkas." CHAPTER XVI WE PLAN ESCAPE The remainder of our journey to Thark was uneventful. We were twenty days upon the road, crossing two sea bottoms and passing through or around a number of ruined cities, mostly smaller than Korad. Twice we crossed the famous Martian waterways, or canals, so-called by our earthly astronomers. When we approached these points a warrior would be sent far ahead with a powerful field glass, and if no great body of red Martian troops was in sight we would advance as close as possible without chance of being seen and then camp until dark, when we would slowly approach the cultivated tract, and, locating one of the numerous, broad highways which cross these areas at regular intervals, creep silently and stealthily across to the arid lands upon the other side. It required five hours to make one of these crossings without a single halt, and the other consumed the entire night, so that we were just leaving the confines of the high-walled fields when the sun broke out upon us. Crossing in the darkness, as we did, I was unable to see but little, except as the nearer moon, in her wild and ceaseless hurtling through the Barsoomian heavens, lit up little patches of the landscape from time to time, disclosing walled fields and low, rambling buildings, presenting much the appearance of earthly farms. There were many trees, methodically arranged, and some of them were of enormous height; there were animals in some of the enclosures, and they announced their presence by terrified squealings and snortings as they scented our queer, wild beasts and wilder human beings. Only once did I perceive a human being, and that was at the intersection of our crossroad with the wide, white turnpike which cuts each cultivated district longitudinally at its exact center. The fellow must have been sleeping beside the road, for, as I came abreast of him, he raised upon one elbow and after a single glance at the approaching caravan leaped shrieking to his feet and fled madly down the road, scaling a nearby wall with the agility of a scared cat. The Tharks paid him not the slightest attention; they were not out upon the warpath, and the only sign that I had that they had seen him was a quickening of the pace of the caravan as we hastened toward the bordering desert which marked our entrance into the realm of Tal Hajus. Not once did I have speech with Dejah Thoris, as she sent no word to me that I would be welcome at her chariot, and my foolish pride kept me from making any advances. I verily believe that a man's way with women is in inverse ratio to his prowess among men. The weakling and the saphead have often great ability to charm the fair sex, while the fighting man who can face a thousand real dangers unafraid, sits hiding in the shadows like some frightened child. Just thirty days after my advent upon Barsoom we entered the ancient city of Thark, from whose long-forgotten people this horde of green men have stolen even their name. The hordes of Thark number some thirty thousand souls, and are divided into twenty-five communities. Each community has its own jed and lesser chieftains, but all are under the rule of Tal Hajus, Jeddak of Thark. Five communities make their headquarters at the city of Thark, and the balance are scattered among other deserted cities of ancient Mars throughout the district claimed by Tal Hajus. We made our entry into the great central plaza early in the afternoon. There were no enthusiastic friendly greetings for the returned expedition. Those who chanced to be in sight spoke the names of warriors or women with whom they came in direct contact, in the formal greeting of their kind, but when it was discovered that they brought two captives a greater interest was aroused, and Dejah Thoris and I were the centers of inquiring groups. We were soon assigned to new quarters, and the balance of the day was devoted to settling ourselves to the changed conditions. My home now was upon an avenue leading into the plaza from the south, the main artery down which we had marched from the gates of the city. I was at the far end of the square and had an entire building to myself. The same grandeur of architecture which was so noticeable a characteristic of Korad was in evidence here, only, if that were possible, on a larger and richer scale. My quarters would have been suitable for housing the greatest of earthly emperors, but to these queer creatures nothing about a building appealed to them but its size and the enormity of its chambers; the larger the building, the more desirable; and so Tal Hajus occupied what must have been an enormous public building, the largest in the city, but entirely unfitted for residence purposes; the next largest was reserved for Lorquas Ptomel, the next for the jed of a lesser rank, and so on to the bottom of the list of five jeds. The warriors occupied the buildings with the chieftains to whose retinues they belonged; or, if they preferred, sought shelter among any of the thousands of untenanted buildings in their own quarter of town; each community being assigned a certain section of the city. The selection of building had to be made in accordance with these divisions, except in so far as the jeds were concerned, they all occupying edifices which fronted upon the plaza. When I had finally put my house in order, or rather seen that it had been done, it was nearing sunset, and I hastened out with the intention of locating Sola and her charges, as I had determined upon having speech with Dejah Thoris and trying to impress on her the necessity of our at least patching up a truce until I could find some way of aiding her to escape. I searched in vain until the upper rim of the great red sun was just disappearing behind the horizon and then I spied the ugly head of Woola peering from a second-story window on the opposite side of the very street where I was quartered, but nearer the plaza. Without waiting for a further invitation I bolted up the winding runway which led to the second floor, and entering a great chamber at the front of the building was greeted by the frenzied Woola, who threw his great carcass upon me, nearly hurling me to the floor; the poor old fellow was so glad to see me that I thought he would devour me, his head split from ear to ear, showing his three rows of tusks in his hobgoblin smile. Quieting him with a word of command and a caress, I looked hurriedly through the approaching gloom for a sign of Dejah Thoris, and then, not seeing her, I called her name. There was an answering murmur from the far corner of the apartment, and with a couple of quick strides I was standing beside her where she crouched among the furs and silks upon an ancient carved wooden seat. As I waited she rose to her full height and looking me straight in the eye said: "What would Dotar Sojat, Thark, of Dejah Thoris his captive?" "Dejah Thoris, I do not know how I have angered you. It was furtherest from my desire to hurt or offend you, whom I had hoped to protect and comfort. Have none of me if it is your will, but that you must aid me in effecting your escape, if such a thing be possible, is not my request, but my command. When you are safe once more at your father's court you may do with me as you please, but from now on until that day I am your master, and you must obey and aid me." She looked at me long and earnestly and I thought that she was softening toward me. "I understand your words, Dotar Sojat," she replied, "but you I do not understand. You are a queer mixture of child and man, of brute and noble. I only wish that I might read your heart." "Look down at your feet, Dejah Thoris; it lies there now where it has lain since that other night at Korad, and where it will ever lie beating alone for you until death stills it forever." She took a little step toward me, her beautiful hands outstretched in a strange, groping gesture. "What do you mean, John Carter?" she whispered. "What are you saying to me?" "I am saying what I had promised myself that I would not say to you, at least until you were no longer a captive among the green men; what from your attitude toward me for the past twenty days I had thought never to say to you; I am saying, Dejah Thoris, that I am yours, body and soul, to serve you, to fight for you, and to die for you. Only one thing I ask of you in return, and that is that you make no sign, either of condemnation or of approbation of my words until you are safe among your own people, and that whatever sentiments you harbor toward me they be not influenced or colored by gratitude; whatever I may do to serve you will be prompted solely from selfish motives, since it gives me more pleasure to serve you than not." "I will respect your wishes, John Carter, because I understand the motives which prompt them, and I accept your service no more willingly than I bow to your authority; your word shall be my law. I have twice wronged you in my thoughts and again I ask your forgiveness." Further conversation of a personal nature was prevented by the entrance of Sola, who was much agitated and wholly unlike her usual calm and possessed self. "That horrible Sarkoja has been before Tal Hajus," she cried, "and from what I heard upon the plaza there is little hope for either of you." "What do they say?" inquired Dejah Thoris. "That you will be thrown to the wild calots [dogs] in the great arena as soon as the hordes have assembled for the yearly games." "Sola," I said, "you are a Thark, but you hate and loathe the customs of your people as much as we do. Will you not accompany us in one supreme effort to escape? I am sure that Dejah Thoris can offer you a home and protection among her people, and your fate can be no worse among them than it must ever be here." "Yes," cried Dejah Thoris, "come with us, Sola, you will be better off among the red men of Helium than you are here, and I can promise you not only a home with us, but the love and affection your nature craves and which must always be denied you by the customs of your own race. Come with us, Sola; we might go without you, but your fate would be terrible if they thought you had connived to aid us. I know that even that fear would not tempt you to interfere in our escape, but we want you with us, we want you to come to a land of sunshine and happiness, amongst a people who know the meaning of love, of sympathy, and of gratitude. Say that you will, Sola; tell me that you will." "The great waterway which leads to Helium is but fifty miles to the south," murmured Sola, half to herself; "a swift thoat might make it in three hours; and then to Helium it is five hundred miles, most of the way through thinly settled districts. They would know and they would follow us. We might hide among the great trees for a time, but the chances are small indeed for escape. They would follow us to the very gates of Helium, and they would take toll of life at every step; you do not know them." "Is there no other way we might reach Helium?" I asked. "Can you not draw me a rough map of the country we must traverse, Dejah Thoris?" "Yes," she replied, and taking a great diamond from her hair she drew upon the marble floor the first map of Barsoomian territory I had ever seen. It was crisscrossed in every direction with long straight lines, sometimes running parallel and sometimes converging toward some great circle. The lines, she said, were waterways; the circles, cities; and one far to the northwest of us she pointed out as Helium. There were other cities closer, but she said she feared to enter many of them, as they were not all friendly toward Helium. she drew upon the marble floor the first map of Barsoomian territory I had ever seen. She drew upon the marble floor the first map of Barsoomian territory I had ever seen. Finally, after studying the map carefully in the moonlight which now flooded the room, I pointed out a waterway far to the north of us which also seemed to lead to Helium. "Does not this pierce your grandfather's territory?" I asked. "Yes," she answered, "but it is two hundred miles north of us; it is one of the waterways we crossed on the trip to Thark." "They would never suspect that we would try for that distant waterway," I answered, "and that is why I think that it is the best route for our escape." Sola agreed with me, and it was decided that we should leave Thark this same night; just as quickly, in fact, as I could find and saddle my thoats. Sola was to ride one and Dejah Thoris and I the other; each of us carrying sufficient food and drink to last us for two days, since the animals could not be urged too rapidly for so long a distance. I directed Sola to proceed with Dejah Thoris along one of the less frequented avenues to the southern boundary of the city, where I would overtake them with the thoats as quickly as possible; then, leaving them to gather what food, silks, and furs we were to need, I slipped quietly to the rear of the first floor, and entered the courtyard, where our animals were moving restlessly about, as was their habit, before settling down for the night. In the shadows of the buildings and out beneath the radiance of the Martian moons moved the great herd of thoats and zitidars, the latter grunting their low gutturals and the former occasionally emitting the sharp squeal which denotes the almost habitual state of rage in which these creatures passed their existence. They were quieter now, owing to the absence of man, but as they scented me they became more restless and their hideous noise increased. It was risky business, this entering a paddock of thoats alone and at night; first, because their increasing noisiness might warn the nearby warriors that something was amiss, and also because for the slightest cause, or for no cause at all some great bull thoat might take it upon himself to lead a charge upon me. Having no desire to awaken their nasty tempers upon such a night as this, where so much depended upon secrecy and dispatch, I hugged the shadows of the buildings, ready at an instant's warning to leap into the safety of a nearby door or window. Thus I moved silently to the great gates which opened upon the street at the back of the court, and as I neared the exit I called softly to my two animals. How I thanked the kind providence which had given me the foresight to win the love and confidence of these wild dumb brutes, for presently from the far side of the court I saw two huge bulks forcing their way toward me through the surging mountains of flesh. They came quite close to me, rubbing their muzzles against my body and nosing for the bits of food it was always my practice to reward them with. Opening the gates I ordered the two great beasts to pass out, and then slipping quietly after them I closed the portals behind me. I did not saddle or mount the animals there, but instead walked quietly in the shadows of the buildings toward an unfrequented avenue which led toward the point I had arranged to meet Dejah Thoris and Sola. With the noiselessness of disembodied spirits we moved stealthily along the deserted streets, but not until we were within sight of the plain beyond the city did I commence to breathe freely. I was sure that Sola and Dejah Thoris would find no difficulty in reaching our rendezvous undetected, but with my great thoats I was not so sure for myself, as it was quite unusual for warriors to leave the city after dark; in fact there was no place for them to go within any but a long ride. I reached the appointed meeting place safely, but as Dejah Thoris and Sola were not there I led my animals into the entrance hall of one of the large buildings. Presuming that one of the other women of the same household may have come in to speak to Sola, and so delayed their departure, I did not feel any undue apprehension until nearly an hour had passed without a sign of them, and by the time another half hour had crawled away I was becoming filled with grave anxiety. Then there broke upon the stillness of the night the sound of an approaching party, which, from the noise, I knew could be no fugitives creeping stealthily toward liberty. Soon the party was near me, and from the black shadows of my entranceway I perceived a score of mounted warriors, who, in passing, dropped a dozen words that fetched my heart clean into the top of my head. "He would likely have arranged to meet them just without the city, and so—" I heard no more, they had passed on; but it was enough. Our plan had been discovered, and the chances for escape from now on to the fearful end would be small indeed. My one hope now was to return undetected to the quarters of Dejah Thoris and learn what fate had overtaken her, but how to do it with these great monstrous thoats upon my hands, now that the city probably was aroused by the knowledge of my escape was a problem of no mean proportions. Suddenly an idea occurred to me, and acting on my knowledge of the construction of the buildings of these ancient Martian cities with a hollow court within the center of each square, I groped my way blindly through the dark chambers, calling the great thoats after me. They had difficulty in negotiating some of the doorways, but as the buildings fronting the city's principal exposures were all designed upon a magnificent scale, they were able to wriggle through without sticking fast; and thus we finally made the inner court where I found, as I had expected, the usual carpet of moss-like vegetation which would provide their food and drink until I could return them to their own enclosure. That they would be as quiet and contented here as elsewhere I was confident, nor was there but the remotest possibility that they would be discovered, as the green men had no great desire to enter these outlying buildings, which were frequented by the only thing, I believe, which caused them the sensation of fear—the great white apes of Barsoom. Removing the saddle trappings, I hid them just within the rear doorway of the building through which we had entered the court, and, turning the beasts loose, quickly made my way across the court to the rear of the buildings upon the further side, and thence to the avenue beyond. Waiting in the doorway of the building until I was assured that no one was approaching, I hurried across to the opposite side and through the first doorway to the court beyond; thus, crossing through court after court with only the slight chance of detection which the necessary crossing of the avenues entailed, I made my way in safety to the courtyard in the rear of Dejah Thoris' quarters. Here, of course, I found the beasts of the warriors who quartered in the adjacent buildings, and the warriors themselves I might expect to meet within if I entered; but, fortunately for me, I had another and safer method of reaching the upper story where Dejah Thoris should be found, and, after first determining as nearly as possible which of the buildings she occupied, for I had never observed them before from the court side, I took advantage of my relatively great strength and agility and sprang upward until I grasped the sill of a second-story window which I thought to be in the rear of her apartment. Drawing myself inside the room I moved stealthily toward the front of the building, and not until I had quite reached the doorway of her room was I made aware by voices that it was occupied. I did not rush headlong in, but listened without to assure myself that it was Dejah Thoris and that it was safe to venture within. It was well indeed that I took this precaution, for the conversation I heard was in the low gutturals of men, and the words which finally came to me proved a most timely warning. The speaker was a chieftain and he was giving orders to four of his warriors. "And when he returns to this chamber," he was saying, "as he surely will when he finds she does not meet him at the city's edge, you four are to spring upon him and disarm him. It will require the combined strength of all of you to do it if the reports they bring back from Korad are correct. When you have him fast bound bear him to the vaults beneath the jeddak's quarters and chain him securely where he may be found when Tal Hajus wishes him. Allow him to speak with none, nor permit any other to enter this apartment before he comes. There will be no danger of the girl returning, for by this time she is safe in the arms of Tal Hajus, and may all her ancestors have pity upon her, for Tal Hajus will have none; the great Sarkoja has done a noble night's work. I go, and if you fail to capture him when he comes, I commend your carcasses to the cold bosom of Iss." CHAPTER XVII A COSTLY RECAPTURE As the speaker ceased he turned to leave the apartment by the door where I was standing, but I needed to wait no longer; I had heard enough to fill my soul with dread, and stealing quietly away I returned to the courtyard by the way I had come. My plan of action was formed upon the instant, and crossing the square and the bordering avenue upon the opposite side I soon stood within the courtyard of Tal Hajus. The brilliantly lighted apartments of the first floor told me where first to seek, and advancing to the windows I peered within. I soon discovered that my approach was not to be the easy thing I had hoped, for the rear rooms bordering the court were filled with warriors and women. I then glanced up at the stories above, discovering that the third was apparently unlighted, and so decided to make my entrance to the building from that point. It was the work of but a moment for me to reach the windows above, and soon I had drawn myself within the sheltering shadows of the unlighted third floor. Fortunately the room I had selected was untenanted, and creeping noiselessly to the corridor beyond I discovered a light in the apartments ahead of me. Reaching what appeared to be a doorway I discovered that it was but an opening upon an immense inner chamber which towered from the first floor, two stories below me, to the dome-like roof of the building, high above my head. The floor of this great circular hall was thronged with chieftains, warriors and women, and at one end was a great raised platform upon which squatted the most hideous beast I had ever put my eyes upon. He had all the cold, hard, cruel, terrible features of the green warriors, but accentuated and debased by the animal passions to which he had given himself over for many years. There was not a mark of dignity or pride upon his bestial countenance, while his enormous bulk spread itself out upon the platform where he squatted like some huge devil fish, his six limbs accentuating the similarity in a horrible and startling manner. But the sight that froze me with apprehension was that of Dejah Thoris and Sola standing there before him, and the fiendish leer of him as he let his great protruding eyes gloat upon the lines of her beautiful figure. She was speaking, but I could not hear what she said, nor could I make out the low grumbling of his reply. She stood there erect before him, her head high held, and even at the distance I was from them I could read the scorn and disgust upon her face as she let her haughty glance rest without sign of fear upon him. She was indeed the proud daughter of a thousand jeddaks, every inch of her dear, precious little body; so small, so frail beside the towering warriors around her, but in her majesty dwarfing them into insignificance; she was the mightiest figure among them and I verily believe that they felt it. Presently Tal Hajus made a sign that the chamber be cleared, and that the prisoners be left alone before him. Slowly the chieftains, the warriors and the women melted away into the shadows of the surrounding chambers, and Dejah Thoris and Sola stood alone before the jeddak of the Tharks. One chieftain alone had hesitated before departing; I saw him standing in the shadows of a mighty column, his fingers nervously toying with the hilt of his great-sword and his cruel eyes bent in implacable hatred upon Tal Hajus. It was Tars Tarkas, and I could read his thoughts as they were an open book for the undisguised loathing upon his face. He was thinking of that other woman who, forty years ago, had stood before this beast, and could I have spoken a word into his ear at that moment the reign of Tal Hajus would have been over; but finally he also strode from the room, not knowing that he left his own daughter at the mercy of the creature he most loathed. Tal Hajus arose, and I, half fearing, half anticipating his intentions, hurried to the winding runway which led to the floors below. No one was near to intercept me, and I reached the main floor of the chamber unobserved, taking my station in the shadow of the same column that Tars Tarkas had but just deserted. As I reached the floor Tal Hajus was speaking. "Princess of Helium, I might wring a mighty ransom from your people would I but return you to them unharmed, but a thousand times rather would I watch that beautiful face writhe in the agony of torture; it shall be long drawn out, that I promise you; ten days of pleasure were all too short to show the love I harbor for your race. The terrors of your death shall haunt the slumbers of the red men through all the ages to come; they will shudder in the shadows of the night as their fathers tell them of the awful vengeance of the green men; of the power and might and hate and cruelty of Tal Hajus. But before the torture you shall be mine for one short hour, and word of that too shall go forth to Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, your grandfather, that he may grovel upon the ground in the agony of his sorrow. Tomorrow the torture will commence; tonight thou art Tal Hajus'; come!" He sprang down from the platform and grasped her roughly by the arm, but scarcely had he touched her than I leaped between them. My short-sword, sharp and gleaming was in my right hand; I could have plunged it into his putrid heart before he realized that I was upon him; but as I raised my arm to strike I thought of Tars Tarkas, and, with all my rage, with all my hatred, I could not rob him of that sweet moment for which he had lived and hoped all these long, weary years, and so, instead, I swung my good right fist full upon the point of his jaw. Without a sound he slipped to the floor as one dead. In the same deathly silence I grasped Dejah Thoris by the hand, and motioning Sola to follow we sped noiselessly from the chamber and to the floor above. Unseen we reached a rear window and with the straps and leather of my trappings I lowered, first Sola and then Dejah Thoris to the ground below. Dropping lightly after them I drew them rapidly around the court in the shadows of the buildings, and thus we returned over the same course I had so recently followed from the distant boundary of the city. We finally came upon my thoats in the courtyard where I had left them, and placing the trappings upon them we hastened through the building to the avenue beyond. Mounting, Sola upon one beast, and Dejah Thoris behind me upon the other, we rode from the city of Thark through the hills to the south. Instead of circling back around the city to the northwest and toward the nearest waterway which lay so short a distance from us, we turned to the northeast and struck out upon the mossy waste across which, for two hundred dangerous and weary miles, lay another main artery leading to Helium. No word was spoken until we had left the city far behind, but I could hear the quiet sobbing of Dejah Thoris as she clung to me with her dear head resting against my shoulder. "If we make it, my chieftain, the debt of Helium will be a mighty one; greater than she can ever pay you; and should we not make it," she continued, "the debt is no less, though Helium will never know, for you have saved the last of our line from worse than death." I did not answer, but instead reached to my side and pressed the little fingers of her I loved where they clung to me for support, and then, in unbroken silence, we sped over the yellow, moonlit moss; each of us occupied with his own thoughts. For my part I could not be other than joyful had I tried, with Dejah Thoris' warm body pressed close to mine, and with all our unpassed danger my heart was singing as gaily as though we were already entering the gates of Helium. Our earlier plans had been so sadly upset that we now found ourselves without food or drink, and I alone was armed. We therefore urged our beasts to a speed that must tell on them sorely before we could hope to sight the ending of the first stage of our journey. We rode all night and all the following day with only a few short rests. On the second night both we and our animals were completely fagged, and so we lay down upon the moss and slept for some five or six hours, taking up the journey once more before daylight. All the following day we rode, and when, late in the afternoon we had sighted no distant trees, the mark of the great waterways throughout all Barsoom, the terrible truth flashed upon us—we were lost. Evidently we had circled, but which way it was difficult to say, nor did it seem possible with the sun to guide us by day and the moons and stars by night. At any rate no waterway was in sight, and the entire party was almost ready to drop from hunger, thirst and fatigue. Far ahead of us and a trifle to the right we could distinguish the outlines of low mountains. These we decided to attempt to reach in the hope that from some ridge we might discern the missing waterway. Night fell upon us before we reached our goal, and, almost fainting from weariness and weakness, we lay down and slept. I was awakened early in the morning by some huge body pressing close to mine, and opening my eyes with a start I beheld my blessed old Woola snuggling close to me; the faithful brute had followed us across that trackless waste to share our fate, whatever it might be. Putting my arms about his neck I pressed my cheek close to his, nor am I ashamed that I did it, nor of the tears that came to my eyes as I thought of his love for me. Shortly after this Dejah Thoris and Sola awakened, and it was decided that we push on at once in an effort to gain the hills. We had gone scarcely a mile when I noticed that my thoat was commencing to stumble and stagger in a most pitiful manner, although we had not attempted to force them out of a walk since about noon of the preceding day. Suddenly he lurched wildly to one side and pitched violently to the ground. Dejah Thoris and I were thrown clear of him and fell upon the soft moss with scarcely a jar; but the poor beast was in a pitiable condition, not even being able to rise, although relieved of our weight. Sola told me that the coolness of the night, when it fell, together with the rest would doubtless revive him, and so I decided not to kill him, as was my first intention, as I had thought it cruel to leave him alone there to die of hunger and thirst. Relieving him of his trappings, which I flung down beside him, we left the poor fellow to his fate, and pushed on with the one thoat as best we could. Sola and I walked, making Dejah Thoris ride, much against her will. In this way we had progressed to within about a mile of the hills we were endeavoring to reach when Dejah Thoris, from her point of vantage upon the thoat, cried out that she saw a great party of mounted men filing down from a pass in the hills several miles away. Sola and I both looked in the direction she indicated, and there, plainly discernible, were several hundred mounted warriors. They seemed to be headed in a southwesterly direction, which would take them away from us. They doubtless were Thark warriors who had been sent out to capture us, and we breathed a great sigh of relief that they were traveling in the opposite direction. Quickly lifting Dejah Thoris from the thoat, I commanded the animal to lie down and we three did the same, presenting as small an object as possible for fear of attracting the attention of the warriors toward us. We could see them as they filed out of the pass, just for an instant, before they were lost to view behind a friendly ridge; to us a most providential ridge; since, had they been in view for any great length of time, they scarcely could have failed to discover us. As what proved to be the last warrior came into view from the pass, he halted and, to our consternation, threw his small but powerful fieldglass to his eye and scanned the sea bottom in all directions. Evidently he was a chieftain, for in certain marching formations among the green men a chieftain brings up the extreme rear of the column. As his glass swung toward us our hearts stopped in our breasts, and I could feel the cold sweat start from every pore in my body. Presently it swung full upon us and—stopped. The tension on our nerves was near the breaking point, and I doubt if any of us breathed for the few moments he held us covered by his glass; and then he lowered it and we could see him shout a command to the warriors who had passed from our sight behind the ridge. He did not wait for them to join him, however, instead he wheeled his thoat and came tearing madly in our direction. There was but one slight chance and that we must take quickly. Raising my strange Martian rifle to my shoulder I sighted and touched the button which controlled the trigger; there was a sharp explosion as the missile reached its goal, and the charging chieftain pitched backward from his flying mount. Springing to my feet I urged the thoat to rise, and directed Sola to take Dejah Thoris with her upon him and make a mighty effort to reach the hills before the green warriors were upon us. I knew that in the ravines and gullies they might find a temporary hiding place, and even though they died there of hunger and thirst it would be better so than that they fell into the hands of the Tharks. Forcing my two revolvers upon them as a slight means of protection, and, as a last resort, as an escape for themselves from the horrid death which recapture would surely mean, I lifted Dejah Thoris in my arms and placed her upon the thoat behind Sola, who had already mounted at my command. "Good-bye, my princess," I whispered, "we may meet in Helium yet. I have escaped from worse plights than this," and I tried to smile as I lied. "What," she cried, "are you not coming with us?" "How may I, Dejah Thoris? Someone must hold these fellows off for a while, and I can better escape them alone than could the three of us together." She sprang quickly from the thoat and, throwing her dear arms about my neck, turned to Sola, saying with quiet dignity: "Fly, Sola! Dejah Thoris remains to die with the man she loves." Those words are engraved upon my heart. Ah, gladly would I give up my life a thousand times could I only hear them once again; but I could not then give even a second to the rapture of her sweet embrace, and pressing my lips to hers for the first time, I picked her up bodily and tossed her to her seat behind Sola again, commanding the latter in peremptory tones to hold her there by force, and then, slapping the thoat upon the flank, I saw them borne away; Dejah Thoris struggling to the last to free herself from Sola's grasp. Turning, I beheld the green warriors mounting the ridge and looking for their chieftain. In a moment they saw him, and then me; but scarcely had they discovered me than I commenced firing, lying flat upon my belly in the moss. I had an even hundred rounds in the magazine of my rifle, and another hundred in the belt at my back, and I kept up a continuous stream of fire until I saw all of the warriors who had been first to return from behind the ridge either dead or scurrying to cover. My respite was short-lived however, for soon the entire party, numbering some thousand men, came charging into view, racing madly toward me. I fired until my rifle was empty and they were almost upon me, and then a glance showing me that Dejah Thoris and Sola had disappeared among the hills, I sprang up, throwing down my useless gun, and started away in the direction opposite to that taken by Sola and her charge. If ever Martians had an exhibition of jumping, it was granted those astonished warriors on that day long years ago, but while it led them away from Dejah Thoris it did not distract their attention from endeavoring to capture me. They raced wildly after me until, finally, my foot struck a projecting piece of quartz, and down I went sprawling upon the moss. As I looked up they were upon me, and although I drew my long-sword in an attempt to sell my life as dearly as possible, it was soon over. I reeled beneath their blows which fell upon me in perfect torrents; my head swam; all was black, and I went down beneath them to oblivion. CHAPTER XVIII CHAINED IN WARHOON It must have been several hours before I regained consciousness and I well remember the feeling of surprise which swept over me as I realized that I was not dead. I was lying among a pile of sleeping silks and furs in the corner of a small room in which were several green warriors, and bending over me was an ancient and ugly female. As I opened my eyes she turned to one of the warriors, saying, "He will live, O Jed." "'Tis well," replied the one so addressed, rising and approaching my couch, "he should render rare sport for the great games." And now as my eyes fell upon him, I saw that he was no Thark, for his ornaments and metal were not of that horde. He was a huge fellow, terribly scarred about the face and chest, and with one broken tusk and a missing ear. Strapped on either breast were human skulls and depending from these a number of dried human hands. His reference to the great games of which I had heard so much while among the Tharks convinced me that I had but jumped from purgatory into gehenna. After a few more words with the female, during which she assured him that I was now fully fit to travel, the jed ordered that we mount and ride after the main column. I was strapped securely to as wild and unmanageable a thoat as I had ever seen, and, with a mounted warrior on either side to prevent the beast from bolting, we rode forth at a furious pace in pursuit of the column. My wounds gave me but little pain, so wonderfully and rapidly had the applications and injections of the female exercised their therapeutic powers, and so deftly had she bound and plastered the injuries. Just before dark we reached the main body of troops shortly after they had made camp for the night. I was immediately taken before the leader, who proved to be the jeddak of the hordes of Warhoon. Like the jed who had brought me, he was frightfully scarred, and also decorated with the breastplate of human skulls and dried dead hands which seemed to mark all the greater warriors among the Warhoons, as well as to indicate their awful ferocity, which greatly transcends even that of the Tharks. The jeddak, Bar Comas, who was comparatively young, was the object of the fierce and jealous hatred of his old lieutenant, Dak Kova, the jed who had captured me, and I could not but note the almost studied efforts which the latter made to affront his superior. He entirely omitted the usual formal salutation as we entered the presence of the jeddak, and as he pushed me roughly before the ruler he exclaimed in a loud and menacing voice. "I have brought a strange creature wearing the metal of a Thark whom it is my pleasure to have battle with a wild thoat at the great games." "He will die as Bar Comas, your jeddak, sees fit, if at all," replied the young ruler, with emphasis and dignity. "If at all?" roared Dak Kova. "By the dead hands at my throat but he shall die, Bar Comas. No maudlin weakness on your part shall save him. O, would that Warhoon were ruled by a real jeddak rather than by a water-hearted weakling from whom even old Dak Kova could tear the metal with his bare hands!" Bar Comas eyed the defiant and insubordinate chieftain for an instant, his expression one of haughty, fearless contempt and hate, and then without drawing a weapon and without uttering a word he hurled himself at the throat of his defamer. I never before had seen two green Martian warriors battle with nature's weapons and the exhibition of animal ferocity which ensued was as fearful a thing as the most disordered imagination could picture. They tore at each others' eyes and ears with their hands and with their gleaming tusks repeatedly slashed and gored until both were cut fairly to ribbons from head to foot. Bar Comas had much the better of the battle as he was stronger, quicker and more intelligent. It soon seemed that the encounter was done saving only the final death thrust when Bar Comas slipped in breaking away from a clinch. It was the one little opening that Dak Kova needed, and hurling himself at the body of his adversary he buried his single mighty tusk in Bar Comas' groin and with a last powerful effort ripped the young jeddak wide open the full length of his body, the great tusk finally wedging in the bones of Bar Comas' jaw. Victor and vanquished rolled limp and lifeless upon the moss, a huge mass of torn and bloody flesh. Bar Comas was stone dead, and only the most herculean efforts on the part of Dak Kova's females saved him from the fate he deserved. Three days later he walked without assistance to the body of Bar Comas which, by custom, had not been moved from where it fell, and placing his foot upon the neck of his erstwhile ruler he assumed the title of Jeddak of Warhoon. The dead jeddak's hands and head were removed to be added to the ornaments of his conqueror, and then his women cremated what remained, amid wild and terrible laughter. The injuries to Dak Kova had delayed the march so greatly that it was decided to give up the expedition, which was a raid upon a small Thark community in retaliation for the destruction of the incubator, until after the great games, and the entire body of warriors, ten thousand in number, turned back toward Warhoon. My introduction to these cruel and bloodthirsty people was but an index to the scenes I witnessed almost daily while with them. They are a smaller horde than the Tharks but much more ferocious. Not a day passed but that some members of the various Warhoon communities met in deadly combat. I have seen as high as eight mortal duels within a single day. We reached the city of Warhoon after some three days march and I was immediately cast into a dungeon and heavily chained to the floor and walls. Food was brought me at intervals but owing to the utter darkness of the place I do not know whether I lay there days, or weeks, or months. It was the most horrible experience of all my life and that my mind did not give way to the terrors of that inky blackness has been a wonder to me ever since. The place was filled with creeping, crawling things; cold, sinuous bodies passed over me when I lay down, and in the darkness I occasionally caught glimpses of gleaming, fiery eyes, fixed in horrible intentness upon me. No sound reached me from the world above and no word would my jailer vouchsafe when my food was brought to me, although I at first bombarded him with questions. Finally all the hatred and maniacal loathing for these awful creatures who had placed me in this horrible place was centered by my tottering reason upon this single emissary who represented to me the entire horde of Warhoons. I had noticed that he always advanced with his dim torch to where he could place the food within my reach and as he stooped to place it upon the floor his head was about on a level with my breast. So, with the cunning of a madman, I backed into the far corner of my cell when next I heard him approaching and gathering a little slack of the great chain which held me in my hand I waited his coming, crouching like some beast of prey. As he stooped to place my food upon the ground I swung the chain above my head and crashed the links with all my strength upon his skull. Without a sound he slipped to the floor, stone dead. Laughing and chattering like the idiot I was fast becoming I fell upon his prostrate form my fingers feeling for his dead throat. Presently they came in contact with a small chain at the end of which dangled a number of keys. The touch of my fingers on these keys brought back my reason with the suddenness of thought. No longer was I a jibbering idiot, but a sane, reasoning man with the means of escape within my very hands. As I was groping to remove the chain from about my victim's neck I glanced up into the darkness to see six pairs of gleaming eyes fixed, unwinking, upon me. Slowly they approached and slowly I shrank back from the awful horror of them. Back into my corner I crouched holding my hands palms out, before me, and stealthily on came the awful eyes until they reached the dead body at my feet. Then slowly they retreated but this time with a strange grating sound and finally they disappeared in some black and distant recess of my dungeon. CHAPTER XIX BATTLING IN THE ARENA Slowly I regained my composure and finally essayed again to attempt to remove the keys from the dead body of my former jailer. But as I reached out into the darkness to locate it I found to my horror that it was gone. Then the truth flashed on me; the owners of those gleaming eyes had dragged my prize away from me to be devoured in their neighboring lair; as they had been waiting for days, for weeks, for months, through all this awful eternity of my imprisonment to drag my dead carcass to their feast. For two days no food was brought me, but then a new messenger appeared and my incarceration went on as before, but not again did I allow my reason to be submerged by the horror of my position. Shortly after this episode another prisoner was brought in and chained near me. By the dim torch light I saw that he was a red Martian and I could scarcely await the departure of his guards to address him. As their retreating footsteps died away in the distance, I called out softly the Martian word of greeting, kaor. "Who are you who speaks out of the darkness?" he answered "John Carter, a friend of the red men of Helium." "I am of Helium," he said, "but I do not recall your name." And then I told him my story as I have written it here, omitting only any reference to my love for Dejah Thoris. He was much excited by the news of Helium's princess and seemed quite positive that she and Sola could easily have reached a point of safety from where they left me. He said that he knew the place well because the defile through which the Warhoon warriors had passed when they discovered us was the only one ever used by them when marching to the south. "Dejah Thoris and Sola entered the hills not five miles from a great waterway and are now probably quite safe," he assured me. My fellow prisoner was Kantos Kan, a padwar (lieutenant) in the navy of Helium. He had been a member of the ill-fated expedition which had fallen into the hands of the Tharks at the time of Dejah Thoris' capture, and he briefly related the events which followed the defeat of the battleships. Badly injured and only partially manned they had limped slowly toward Helium, but while passing near the city of Zodanga, the capital of Helium's hereditary enemies among the red men of Barsoom, they had been attacked by a great body of war vessels and all but the craft to which Kantos Kan belonged were either destroyed or captured. His vessel was chased for days by three of the Zodangan war ships but finally escaped during the darkness of a moonless night. Thirty days after the capture of Dejah Thoris, or about the time of our coming to Thark, his vessel had reached Helium with about ten survivors of the original crew of seven hundred officers and men. Immediately seven great fleets, each of one hundred mighty war ships, had been dispatched to search for Dejah Thoris, and from these vessels two thousand smaller craft had been kept out continuously in futile search for the missing princess. Two green Martian communities had been wiped off the face of Barsoom by the avenging fleets, but no trace of Dejah Thoris had been found. They had been searching among the northern hordes, and only within the past few days had they extended their quest to the south. Kantos Kan had been detailed to one of the small one-man fliers and had had the misfortune to be discovered by the Warhoons while exploring their city. The bravery and daring of the man won my greatest respect and admiration. Alone he had landed at the city's boundary and on foot had penetrated to the buildings surrounding the plaza. For two days and nights he had explored their quarters and their dungeons in search of his beloved princess only to fall into the hands of a party of Warhoons as he was about to leave, after assuring himself that Dejah Thoris was not a captive there. During the period of our incarceration Kantos Kan and I became well acquainted, and formed a warm personal friendship. A few days only elapsed, however, before we were dragged forth from our dungeon for the great games. We were conducted early one morning to an enormous amphitheater, which instead of having been built upon the surface of the ground was excavated below the surface. It had partially filled with debris so that how large it had originally been was difficult to say. In its present condition it held the entire twenty thousand Warhoons of the assembled hordes. The arena was immense but extremely uneven and unkempt. Around it the Warhoons had piled building stone from some of the ruined edifices of the ancient city to prevent the animals and the captives from escaping into the audience, and at each end had been constructed cages to hold them until their turns came to meet some horrible death upon the arena. Kantos Kan and I were confined together in one of the cages. In the others were wild calots, thoats, mad zitidars, green warriors, and women of other hordes, and many strange and ferocious wild beasts of Barsoom which I had never before seen. The din of their roaring, growling and squealing was deafening and the formidable appearance of any one of them was enough to make the stoutest heart feel grave forebodings. Kantos Kan explained to me that at the end of the day one of these prisoners would gain freedom and the others would lie dead about the arena. The winners in the various contests of the day would be pitted against each other until only two remained alive; the victor in the last encounter being set free, whether animal or man. The following morning the cages would be filled with a new consignment of victims, and so on throughout the ten days of the games. Shortly after we had been caged the amphitheater began to fill and within an hour every available part of the seating space was occupied. Dak Kova, with his jeds and chieftains, sat at the center of one side of the arena upon a large raised platform. At a signal from Dak Kova the doors of two cages were thrown open and a dozen green Martian females were driven to the center of the arena. Each was given a dagger and then, at the far end, a pack of twelve calots, or wild dogs were loosed upon them. As the brutes, growling and foaming, rushed upon the almost defenseless women I turned my head that I might not see the horrid sight. The yells and laughter of the green horde bore witness to the excellent quality of the sport and when I turned back to the arena, as Kantos Kan told me it was over, I saw three victorious calots, snarling and growling over the bodies of their prey. The women had given a good account of themselves. Next a mad zitidar was loosed among the remaining dogs, and so it went throughout the long, hot, horrible day. During the day I was pitted against first men and then beasts, but as I was armed with a long-sword and always outclassed my adversary in agility and generally in strength as well, it proved but child's play to me. Time and time again I won the applause of the bloodthirsty multitude, and toward the end there were cries that I be taken from the arena and be made a member of the hordes of Warhoon. Finally there were but three of us left, a great green warrior of some far northern horde, Kantos Kan, and myself. The other two were to battle and then I to fight the conqueror for the liberty which was accorded the final winner. Kantos Kan had fought several times during the day and like myself had always proven victorious, but occasionally by the smallest of margins, especially when pitted against the green warriors. I had little hope that he could best his giant adversary who had mowed down all before him during the day. The fellow towered nearly sixteen feet in height, while Kantos Kan was some inches under six feet. As they advanced to meet one another I saw for the first time a trick of Martian swordsmanship which centered Kantos Kan's every hope of victory and life on one cast of the dice, for, as he came to within about twenty feet of the huge fellow he threw his sword arm far behind him over his shoulder and with a mighty sweep hurled his weapon point foremost at the green warrior. It flew true as an arrow and piercing the poor devil's heart laid him dead upon the arena. Kantos Kan and I were now pitted against each other but as we approached to the encounter I whispered to him to prolong the battle until nearly dark in the hope that we might find some means of escape. The horde evidently guessed that we had no hearts to fight each other and so they howled in rage as neither of us placed a fatal thrust. Just as I saw the sudden coming of dark I whispered to Kantos Kan to thrust his sword between my left arm and my body. As he did so I staggered back clasping the sword tightly with my arm and thus fell to the ground with his weapon apparently protruding from my chest. Kantos Kan perceived my coup and stepping quickly to my side he placed his foot upon my neck and withdrawing his sword from my body gave me the final death blow through the neck which is supposed to sever the jugular vein, but in this instance the cold blade slipped harmlessly into the sand of the arena. In the darkness which had now fallen none could tell but that he had really finished me. I whispered to him to go and claim his freedom and then look for me in the hills east of the city, and so he left me. When the amphitheater had cleared I crept stealthily to the top and as the great excavation lay far from the plaza and in an untenanted portion of the great dead city I had little trouble in reaching the hills beyond. CHAPTER XX IN THE ATMOSPHERE FACTORY For two days I waited there for Kantos Kan, but as he did not come I started off on foot in a northwesterly direction toward a point where he had told me lay the nearest waterway. My only food consisted of vegetable milk from the plants which gave so bounteously of this priceless fluid. Through two long weeks I wandered, stumbling through the nights guided only by the stars and hiding during the days behind some protruding rock or among the occasional hills I traversed. Several times I was attacked by wild beasts; strange, uncouth monstrosities that leaped upon me in the dark, so that I had ever to grasp my long-sword in my hand that I might be ready for them. Usually my strange, newly acquired telepathic power warned me in ample time, but once I was down with vicious fangs at my jugular and a hairy face pressed close to mine before I knew that I was even threatened. What manner of thing was upon me I did not know, but that it was large and heavy and many-legged I could feel. My hands were at its throat before the fangs had a chance to bury themselves in my neck, and slowly I forced the hairy face from me and closed my fingers, vise-like, upon its windpipe. Without sound we lay there, the beast exerting every effort to reach me with those awful fangs, and I straining to maintain my grip and choke the life from it as I kept it from my throat. Slowly my arms gave to the unequal struggle, and inch by inch the burning eyes and gleaming tusks of my antagonist crept toward me, until, as the hairy face touched mine again, I realized that all was over. And then a living mass of destruction sprang from the surrounding darkness full upon the creature that held me pinioned to the ground. The two rolled growling upon the moss, tearing and rending one another in a frightful manner, but it was soon over and my preserver stood with lowered head above the throat of the dead thing which would have killed me. The nearer moon, hurtling suddenly above the horizon and lighting up the Barsoomian scene, showed me that my preserver was Woola, but from whence he had come, or how found me, I was at a loss to know. That I was glad of his companionship it is needless to say, but my pleasure at seeing him was tempered by anxiety as to the reason of his leaving Dejah Thoris. Only her death I felt sure, could account for his absence from her, so faithful I knew him to be to my commands. By the light of the now brilliant moons I saw that he was but a shadow of his former self, and as he turned from my caress and commenced greedily to devour the dead carcass at my feet I realized that the poor fellow was more than half starved. I, myself, was in but little better plight but I could not bring myself to eat the uncooked flesh and I had no means of making a fire. When Woola had finished his meal I again took up my weary and seemingly endless wandering in quest of the elusive waterway. At daybreak of the fifteenth day of my search I was overjoyed to see the high trees that denoted the object of my search. About noon I dragged myself wearily to the portals of a huge building which covered perhaps four square miles and towered two hundred feet in the air. It showed no aperture in the mighty walls other than the tiny door at which I sank exhausted, nor was there any sign of life about it. I could find no bell or other method of making my presence known to the inmates of the place, unless a small round hole in the wall near the door was for that purpose. It was of about the bigness of a lead pencil and thinking that it might be in the nature of a speaking tube I put my mouth to it and was about to call into it when a voice issued from it asking me whom I might be, where from, and the nature of my errand. I explained that I had escaped from the Warhoons and was dying of starvation and exhaustion. "You wear the metal of a green warrior and are followed by a calot, yet you are of the figure of a red man. In color you are neither green nor red. In the name of the ninth ray, what manner of creature are you?" "I am a friend of the red men of Barsoom and I am starving. In the name of humanity open to us," I replied. Presently the door commenced to recede before me until it had sunk into the wall fifty feet, then it stopped and slid easily to the left, exposing a short, narrow corridor of concrete, at the further end of which was another door, similar in every respect to the one I had just passed. No one was in sight, yet immediately we passed the first door it slid gently into place behind us and receded rapidly to its original position in the front wall of the building. As the door had slipped aside I had noted its great thickness, fully twenty feet, and as it reached its place once more after closing behind us, great cylinders of steel had dropped from the ceiling behind it and fitted their lower ends into apertures countersunk in the floor. A second and third door receded before me and slipped to one side as the first, before I reached a large inner chamber where I found food and drink set out upon a great stone table. A voice directed me to satisfy my hunger and to feed my calot, and while I was thus engaged my invisible host put me through a severe and searching cross-examination. "Your statements are most remarkable," said the voice, on concluding its questioning, "but you are evidently speaking the truth, and it is equally evident that you are not of Barsoom. I can tell that by the conformation of your brain and the strange location of your internal organs and the shape and size of your heart." "Can you see through me?" I exclaimed. "Yes, I can see all but your thoughts, and were you a Barsoomian I could read those." Then a door opened at the far side of the chamber and a strange, dried up, little mummy of a man came toward me. He wore but a single article of clothing or adornment, a small collar of gold from which depended upon his chest a great ornament as large as a dinner plate set solid with huge diamonds, except for the exact center which was occupied by a strange stone, an inch in diameter, that scintillated nine different and distinct rays; the seven colors of our earthly prism and two beautiful rays which, to me, were new and nameless. I cannot describe them any more than you could describe red to a blind man. I only know that they were beautiful in the extreme. The old man sat and talked with me for hours, and the strangest part of our intercourse was that I could read his every thought while he could not fathom an iota from my mind unless I spoke. The old man sat and talked with me for hours. The old man sat and talked with me for hours. I did not apprise him of my ability to sense his mental operations, and thus I learned a great deal which proved of immense value to me later and which I would never have known had he suspected my strange power, for the Martians have such perfect control of their mental machinery that they are able to direct their thoughts with absolute precision. The building in which I found myself contained the machinery which produces that artificial atmosphere which sustains life on Mars. The secret of the entire process hinges on the use of the ninth ray, one of the beautiful scintillations which I had noted emanating from the great stone in my host's diadem. This ray is separated from the other rays of the sun by means of finely adjusted instruments placed upon the roof of the huge building, three-quarters of which is used for reservoirs in which the ninth ray is stored. This product is then treated electrically, or rather certain proportions of refined electric vibrations are incorporated with it, and the result is then pumped to the five principal air centers of the planet where, as it is released, contact with the ether of space transforms it into atmosphere. There is always sufficient reserve of the ninth ray stored in the great building to maintain the present Martian atmosphere for a thousand years, and the only fear, as my new friend told me, was that some accident might befall the pumping apparatus. He led me to an inner chamber where I beheld a battery of twenty radium pumps any one of which was equal to the task of furnishing all Mars with the atmosphere compound. For eight hundred years, he told me, he had watched these pumps which are used alternately a day each at a stretch, or a little over twenty-four and one-half Earth hours. He has one assistant who divides the watch with him. Half a Martian year, about three hundred and forty-four of our days, each of these men spend alone in this huge, isolated plant. Every red Martian is taught during earliest childhood the principles of the manufacture of atmosphere, but only two at one time ever hold the secret of ingress to the great building, which, built as it is with walls a hundred and fifty feet thick, is absolutely unassailable, even the roof being guarded from assault by air craft by a glass covering five feet thick. The only fear they entertain of attack is from the green Martians or some demented red man, as all Barsoomians realize that the very existence of every form of life of Mars is dependent upon the uninterrupted working of this plant. One curious fact I discovered as I watched his thoughts was that the outer doors are manipulated by telepathic means. The locks are so finely adjusted that the doors are released by the action of a certain combination of thought waves. To experiment with my new-found toy I thought to surprise him into revealing this combination and so I asked him in a casual manner how he had managed to unlock the massive doors for me from the inner chambers of the building. As quick as a flash there leaped to his mind nine Martian sounds, but as quickly faded as he answered that this was a secret he must not divulge. From then on his manner toward me changed as though he feared that he had been surprised into divulging his great secret, and I read suspicion and fear in his looks and thoughts, though his words were still fair. Before I retired for the night he promised to give me a letter to a nearby agricultural officer who would help me on my way to Zodanga, which he said, was the nearest Martian city. "But be sure that you do not let them know you are bound for Helium as they are at war with that country. My assistant and I are of no country, we belong to all Barsoom and this talisman which we wear protects us in all lands, even among the green men—though we do not trust ourselves to their hands if we can avoid it," he added. "And so good-night, my friend," he continued, "may you have a long and restful sleep—yes, a long sleep." And though he smiled pleasantly I saw in his thoughts the wish that he had never admitted me, and then a picture of him standing over me in the night, and the swift thrust of a long dagger and the half formed words, "I am sorry, but it is for the best good of Barsoom." As he closed the door of my chamber behind him his thoughts were cut off from me as was the sight of him, which seemed strange to me in my little knowledge of thought transference. What was I to do? How could I escape through these mighty walls? Easily could I kill him now that I was warned, but once he was dead I could no more escape, and with the stopping of the machinery of the great plant I should die with all the other inhabitants of the planet—all, even Dejah Thoris were she not already dead. For the others I did not give the snap of my finger, but the thought of Dejah Thoris drove from my mind all desire to kill my mistaken host. Cautiously I opened the door of my apartment and, followed by Woola, sought the inner of the great doors. A wild scheme had come to me; I would attempt to force the great locks by the nine thought waves I had read in my host's mind. Creeping stealthily through corridor after corridor and down winding runways which turned hither and thither I finally reached the great hall in which I had broken my long fast that morning. Nowhere had I seen my host, nor did I know where he kept himself by night. I was on the point of stepping boldly out into the room when a slight noise behind me warned me back into the shadows of a recess in the corridor. Dragging Woola after me I crouched low in the darkness. Presently the old man passed close by me, and as he entered the dimly lighted chamber which I had been about to pass through I saw that he held a long thin dagger in his hand and that he was sharpening it upon a stone. In his mind was the decision to inspect the radium pumps, which would take about thirty minutes, and then return to my bed chamber and finish me. As he passed through the great hall and disappeared down the runway which led to the pump-room, I stole stealthily from my hiding place and crossed to the great door, the inner of the three which stood between me and liberty. Concentrating my mind upon the massive lock I hurled the nine thought waves against it. In breathless expectancy I waited, when finally the great door moved softly toward me and slid quietly to one side. One after the other the remaining mighty portals opened at my command and Woola and I stepped forth into the darkness, free, but little better off than we had been before, other than that we had full stomachs. Hastening away from the shadows of the formidable pile I made for the first crossroad, intending to strike the central turnpike as quickly as possible. This I reached about morning and entering the first enclosure I came to I searched for some evidences of a habitation. There were low rambling buildings of concrete barred with heavy impassable doors, and no amount of hammering and hallooing brought any response. Weary and exhausted from sleeplessness I threw myself upon the ground commanding Woola to stand guard. Some time later I was awakened by his frightful growlings and opened my eyes to see three red Martians standing a short distance from us and covering me with their rifles. "I am unarmed and no enemy," I hastened to explain. "I have been a prisoner among the green men and am on my way to Zodanga. All I ask is food and rest for myself and my calot and the proper directions for reaching my destination." They lowered their rifles and advanced pleasantly toward me placing their right hands upon my left shoulder, after the manner of their custom of salute, and asking me many questions about myself and my wanderings. They then took me to the house of one of them which was only a short distance away. The buildings I had been hammering at in the early morning were occupied only by stock and farm produce, the house proper standing among a grove of enormous trees, and, like all red-Martian homes, had been raised at night some forty or fifty feet from the ground on a large round metal shaft which slid up or down within a sleeve sunk in the ground, and was operated by a tiny radium engine in the entrance hall of the building. Instead of bothering with bolts and bars for their dwellings, the red Martians simply run them up out of harm's way during the night. They also have private means for lowering or raising them from the ground without if they wish to go away and leave them. These brothers, with their wives and children, occupied three similar houses on this farm. They did no work themselves, being government officers in charge. The labor was performed by convicts, prisoners of war, delinquent debtors and confirmed bachelors who were too poor to pay the high celibate tax which all red-Martian governments impose. They were the personification of cordiality and hospitality and I spent several days with them, resting and recuperating from my long and arduous experiences. When they had heard my story—I omitted all reference to Dejah Thoris and the old man of the atmosphere plant—they advised me to color my body to more nearly resemble their own race and then attempt to find employment in Zodanga, either in the army or the navy. "The chances are small that your tale will be believed until after you have proven your trustworthiness and won friends among the higher nobles of the court. This you can most easily do through military service, as we are a warlike people on Barsoom," explained one of them, "and save our richest favors for the fighting man." When I was ready to depart they furnished me with a small domestic bull thoat, such as is used for saddle purposes by all red Martians. The animal is about the size of a horse and quite gentle, but in color and shape an exact replica of his huge and fierce cousin of the wilds. The brothers had supplied me with a reddish oil with which I anointed my entire body and one of them cut my hair, which had grown quite long, in the prevailing fashion of the time, square at the back and banged in front, so that I could have passed anywhere upon Barsoom as a full-fledged red Martian. My metal and ornaments were also renewed in the style of a Zodangan gentleman, attached to the house of Ptor, which was the family name of my benefactors. They filled a little sack at my side with Zodangan money. The medium of exchange upon Mars is not dissimilar from our own except that the coins are oval. Paper money is issued by individuals as they require it and redeemed twice yearly. If a man issues more than he can redeem, the government pays his creditors in full and the debtor works out the amount upon the farms or in mines, which are all owned by the government. This suits everybody except the debtor as it has been a difficult thing to obtain sufficient voluntary labor to work the great isolated farm lands of Mars, stretching as they do like narrow ribbons from pole to pole, through wild stretches peopled by wild animals and wilder men. When I mentioned my inability to repay them for their kindness to me they assured me that I would have ample opportunity if I lived long upon Barsoom, and bidding me farewell they watched me until I was out of sight upon the broad white turnpike. CHAPTER XXI AN AIR SCOUT FOR ZODANGA As I proceeded on my journey toward Zodanga many strange and interesting sights arrested my attention, and at the several farm houses where I stopped I learned a number of new and instructive things concerning the methods and manners of Barsoom. The water which supplies the farms of Mars is collected in immense underground reservoirs at either pole from the melting ice caps, and pumped through long conduits to the various populated centers. Along either side of these conduits, and extending their entire length, lie the cultivated districts. These are divided into tracts of about the same size, each tract being under the supervision of one or more government officers. Instead of flooding the surface of the fields, and thus wasting immense quantities of water by evaporation, the precious liquid is carried underground through a vast network of small pipes directly to the roots of the vegetation. The crops upon Mars are always uniform, for there are no droughts, no rains, no high winds, and no insects, or destroying birds. On this trip I tasted the first meat I had eaten since leaving Earth—large, juicy steaks and chops from the well-fed domestic animals of the farms. Also I enjoyed luscious fruits and vegetables, but not a single article of food which was exactly similar to anything on Earth. Every plant and flower and vegetable and animal has been so refined by ages of careful, scientific cultivation and breeding that the like of them on Earth dwindled into pale, gray, characterless nothingness by comparison. At a second stop I met some highly cultivated people of the noble class and while in conversation we chanced to speak of Helium. One of the older men had been there on a diplomatic mission several years before and spoke with regret of the conditions which seemed destined ever to keep these two countries at war. "Helium," he said, "rightly boasts the most beautiful women of Barsoom, and of all her treasures the wondrous daughter of Mors Kajak, Dejah Thoris, is the most exquisite flower. "Why," he added, "the people really worship the ground she walks upon and since her loss on that ill-starred expedition all Helium has been draped in mourning. "That our ruler should have attacked the disabled fleet as it was returning to Helium was but another of his awful blunders which I fear will sooner or later compel Zodanga to elevate a wiser man to his place." "Even now, though our victorious armies are surrounding Helium, the people of Zodanga are voicing their displeasure, for the war is not a popular one, since it is not based on right or justice. Our forces took advantage of the absence of the principal fleet of Helium on their search for the princess, and so we have been able easily to reduce the city to a sorry plight. It is said she will fall within the next few passages of the further moon." "And what, think you, may have been the fate of the princess, Dejah Thoris?" I asked as casually as possible. "She is dead," he answered. "This much was learned from a green warrior recently captured by our forces in the south. She escaped from the hordes of Thark with a strange creature of another world, only to fall into the hands of the Warhoons. Their thoats were found wandering upon the sea bottom and evidences of a bloody conflict were discovered nearby." While this information was in no way reassuring, neither was it at all conclusive proof of the death of Dejah Thoris, and so I determined to make every effort possible to reach Helium as quickly as I could and carry to Tardos Mors such news of his granddaughter's possible whereabouts as lay in my power. Ten days after leaving the three Ptor brothers I arrived at Zodanga. From the moment that I had come in contact with the red inhabitants of Mars I had noticed that Woola drew a great amount of unwelcome attention to me, since the huge brute belonged to a species which is never domesticated by the red men. Were one to stroll down Broadway with a Numidian lion at his heels the effect would be somewhat similar to that which I should have produced had I entered Zodanga with Woola. The very thought of parting with the faithful fellow caused me so great regret and genuine sorrow that I put it off until just before we arrived at the city's gates; but then, finally, it became imperative that we separate. Had nothing further than my own safety or pleasure been at stake no argument could have prevailed upon me to turn away the one creature upon Barsoom that had never failed in a demonstration of affection and loyalty; but as I would willingly have offered my life in the service of her in search of whom I was about to challenge the unknown dangers of this, to me, mysterious city, I could not permit even Woola's life to threaten the success of my venture, much less his momentary happiness, for I doubted not he soon would forget me. And so I bade the poor beast an affectionate farewell, promising him, however, that if I came through my adventure in safety that in some way I should find the means to search him out. He seemed to understand me fully, and when I pointed back in the direction of Thark he turned sorrowfully away, nor could I bear to watch him go; but resolutely set my face toward Zodanga and with a touch of heartsickness approached her frowning walls. The letter I bore from them gained me immediate entrance to the vast, walled city. It was still very early in the morning and the streets were practically deserted. The residences, raised high upon their metal columns, resembled huge rookeries, while the uprights themselves presented the appearance of steel tree trunks. The shops as a rule were not raised from the ground nor were their doors bolted or barred, since thievery is practically unknown upon Barsoom. Assassination is the ever-present fear of all Barsoomians, and for this reason alone their homes are raised high above the ground at night, or in times of danger. The Ptor brothers had given me explicit directions for reaching the point of the city where I could find living accommodations and be near the offices of the government agents to whom they had given me letters. My way led to the central square or plaza, which is a characteristic of all Martian cities. The plaza of Zodanga covers a square mile and is bounded by the palaces of the jeddak, the jeds, and other members of the royalty and nobility of Zodanga, as well as by the principal public buildings, cafes, and shops. As I was crossing the great square lost in wonder and admiration of the magnificent architecture and the gorgeous scarlet vegetation which carpeted the broad lawns I discovered a red Martian walking briskly toward me from one of the avenues. He paid not the slightest attention to me, but as he came abreast I recognized him, and turning I placed my hand upon his shoulder, calling out: "Kaor, Kantos Kan!" Like lightning he wheeled and before I could so much as lower my hand the point of his long-sword was at my breast. "Who are you?" he growled, and then as a backward leap carried me fifty feet from his sword he dropped the point to the ground and exclaimed, laughing, "I do not need a better reply, there is but one man upon all Barsoom who can bounce about like a rubber ball. By the mother of the further moon, John Carter, how came you here, and have you become a Darseen that you can change your color at will?" "You gave me a bad half minute my friend," he continued, after I had briefly outlined my adventures since parting with him in the arena at Warhoon. "Were my name and city known to the Zodangans I would shortly be sitting on the banks of the lost sea of Korus with my revered and departed ancestors. I am here in the interest of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, to discover the whereabouts of Dejah Thoris, our princess. Sab Than, prince of Zodanga, has her hidden in the city and has fallen madly in love with her. His father, Than Kosis, Jeddak of Zodanga, has made her voluntary marriage to his son the price of peace between our countries, but Tardos Mors will not accede to the demands and has sent word that he and his people would rather look upon the dead face of their princess than see her wed to any than her own choice, and that personally he would prefer being engulfed in the ashes of a lost and burning Helium to joining the metal of his house with that of Than Kosis. His reply was the deadliest affront he could have put upon Than Kosis and the Zodangans, but his people love him the more for it and his strength in Helium is greater today than ever. "I have been here three days," continued Kantos Kan, "but I have not yet found where Dejah Thoris is imprisoned. Today I join the Zodangan navy as an air scout and I hope in this way to win the confidence of Sab Than, the prince, who is commander of this division of the navy, and thus learn the whereabouts of Dejah Thoris. I am glad that you are here, John Carter, for I know your loyalty to my princess and two of us working together should be able to accomplish much." The plaza was now commencing to fill with people going and coming upon the daily activities of their duties. The shops were opening and the cafes filling with early morning patrons. Kantos Kan led me to one of these gorgeous eating places where we were served entirely by mechanical apparatus. No hand touched the food from the time it entered the building in its raw state until it emerged hot and delicious upon the tables before the guests, in response to the touching of tiny buttons to indicate their desires. After our meal, Kantos Kan took me with him to the headquarters of the air-scout squadron and introducing me to his superior asked that I be enrolled as a member of the corps. In accordance with custom an examination was necessary, but Kantos Kan had told me to have no fear on this score as he would attend to that part of the matter. He accomplished this by taking my order for examination to the examining officer and representing himself as John Carter. "This ruse will be discovered later," he cheerfully explained, "when they check up my weights, measurements, and other personal identification data, but it will be several months before this is done and our mission should be accomplished or have failed long before that time." The next few days were spent by Kantos Kan in teaching me the intricacies of flying and of repairing the dainty little contrivances which the Martians use for this purpose. The body of the one-man air craft is about sixteen feet long, two feet wide and three inches thick, tapering to a point at each end. The driver sits on top of this plane upon a seat constructed over the small, noiseless radium engine which propels it. The medium of buoyancy is contained within the thin metal walls of the body and consists of the eighth Barsoomian ray, or ray of propulsion, as it may be termed in view of its properties. This ray, like the ninth ray, is unknown on Earth, but the Martians have discovered that it is an inherent property of all light no matter from what source it emanates. They have learned that it is the solar eighth ray which propels the light of the sun to the various planets, and that it is the individual eighth ray of each planet which "reflects," or propels the light thus obtained out into space once more. The solar eighth ray would be absorbed by the surface of Barsoom, but the Barsoomian eighth ray, which tends to propel light from Mars into space, is constantly streaming out from the planet constituting a force of repulsion of gravity which when confined is able to lift enormous weights from the surface of the ground. It is this ray which has enabled them to so perfect aviation that battle ships far outweighing anything known upon Earth sail as gracefully and lightly through the thin air of Barsoom as a toy balloon in the heavy atmosphere of Earth. During the early years of the discovery of this ray many strange accidents occurred before the Martians learned to measure and control the wonderful power they had found. In one instance, some nine hundred years before, the first great battle ship to be built with eighth ray reservoirs was stored with too great a quantity of the rays and she had sailed up from Helium with five hundred officers and men, never to return. Her power of repulsion for the planet was so great that it had carried her far into space, where she can be seen today, by the aid of powerful telescopes, hurtling through the heavens ten thousand miles from Mars; a tiny satellite that will thus encircle Barsoom to the end of time. The fourth day after my arrival at Zodanga I made my first flight, and as a result of it I won a promotion which included quarters in the palace of Than Kosis. As I rose above the city I circled several times, as I had seen Kantos Kan do, and then throwing my engine into top speed I raced at terrific velocity toward the south, following one of the great waterways which enter Zodanga from that direction. I had traversed perhaps two hundred miles in a little less than an hour when I descried far below me a party of three green warriors racing madly toward a small figure on foot which seemed to be trying to reach the confines of one of the walled fields. Dropping my machine rapidly toward them, and circling to the rear of the warriors, I soon saw that the object of their pursuit was a red Martian wearing the metal of the scout squadron to which I was attached. A short distance away lay his tiny flier, surrounded by the tools with which he had evidently been occupied in repairing some damage when surprised by the green warriors. They were now almost upon him; their flying mounts charging down on the relatively puny figure at terrific speed, while the warriors leaned low to the right, with their great metal-shod spears. Each seemed striving to be the first to impale the poor Zodangan and in another moment his fate would have been sealed had it not been for my timely arrival. Driving my fleet air craft at high speed directly behind the warriors I soon overtook them and without diminishing my speed I rammed the prow of my little flier between the shoulders of the nearest. The impact sufficient to have torn through inches of solid steel, hurled the fellow's headless body into the air over the head of his thoat, where it fell sprawling upon the moss. The mounts of the other two warriors turned squealing in terror, and bolted in opposite directions. Reducing my speed I circled and came to the ground at the feet of the astonished Zodangan. He was warm in his thanks for my timely aid and promised that my day's work would bring the reward it merited, for it was none other than a cousin of the jeddak of Zodanga whose life I had saved. We wasted no time in talk as we knew that the warriors would surely return as soon as they had gained control of their mounts. Hastening to his damaged machine we were bending every effort to finish the needed repairs and had almost completed them when we saw the two green monsters returning at top speed from opposite sides of us. When they had approached within a hundred yards their thoats again became unmanageable and absolutely refused to advance further toward the air craft which had frightened them. The warriors finally dismounted and hobbling their animals advanced toward us on foot with drawn long-swords. I advanced to meet the larger, telling the Zodangan to do the best he could with the other. Finishing my man with almost no effort, as had now from much practice become habitual with me, I hastened to return to my new acquaintance whom I found indeed in desperate straits. He was wounded and down with the huge foot of his antagonist upon his throat and the great long-sword raised to deal the final thrust. With a bound I cleared the fifty feet intervening between us, and with outstretched point drove my sword completely through the body of the green warrior. His sword fell, harmless, to the ground and he sank limply upon the prostrate form of the Zodangan. A cursory examination of the latter revealed no mortal injuries and after a brief rest he asserted that he felt fit to attempt the return voyage. He would have to pilot his own craft, however, as these frail vessels are not intended to convey but a single person. Quickly completing the repairs we rose together into the still, cloudless Martian sky, and at great speed and without further mishap returned to Zodanga. As we neared the city we discovered a mighty concourse of civilians and troops assembled upon the plain before the city. The sky was black with naval vessels and private and public pleasure craft, flying long streamers of gay-colored silks, and banners and flags of odd and picturesque design. My companion signaled that I slow down, and running his machine close beside mine suggested that we approach and watch the ceremony, which, he said, was for the purpose of conferring honors on individual officers and men for bravery and other distinguished service. He then unfurled a little ensign which denoted that his craft bore a member of the royal family of Zodanga, and together we made our way through the maze of low-lying air vessels until we hung directly over the jeddak of Zodanga and his staff. All were mounted upon the small domestic bull thoats of the red Martians, and their trappings and ornamentation bore such a quantity of gorgeously colored feathers that I could not but be struck with the startling resemblance the concourse bore to a band of the red Indians of my own Earth. One of the staff called the attention of Than Kosis to the presence of my companion above them and the ruler motioned for him to descend. As they waited for the troops to move into position facing the jeddak the two talked earnestly together, the jeddak and his staff occasionally glancing up at me. I could not hear their conversation and presently it ceased and all dismounted, as the last body of troops had wheeled into position before their emperor. A member of the staff advanced toward the troops, and calling the name of a soldier commanded him to advance. The officer then recited the nature of the heroic act which had won the approval of the jeddak, and the latter advanced and placed a metal ornament upon the left arm of the lucky man. Ten men had been so decorated when the aide called out, "John Carter, air scout!" Never in my life had I been so surprised, but the habit of military discipline is strong within me, and I dropped my little machine lightly to the ground and advanced on foot as I had seen the others do. As I halted before the officer, he addressed me in a voice audible to the entire assemblage of troops and spectators. "In recognition, John Carter," he said, "of your remarkable courage and skill in defending the person of the cousin of the jeddak Than Kosis and, singlehanded, vanquishing three green warriors, it is the pleasure of our jeddak to confer on you the mark of his esteem." Than Kosis then advanced toward me and placing an ornament upon me, said: "My cousin has narrated the details of your wonderful achievement, which seems little short of miraculous, and if you can so well defend a cousin of the jeddak how much better could you defend the person of the jeddak himself. You are therefore appointed a padwar of The Guards and will be quartered in my palace hereafter." I thanked him, and at his direction joined the members of his staff. After the ceremony I returned my machine to its quarters on the roof of the barracks of the air-scout squadron, and with an orderly from the palace to guide me I reported to the officer in charge of the palace. CHAPTER XXII I FIND DEJAH The major-domo to whom I reported had been given instructions to station me near the person of the jeddak, who, in time of war, is always in great danger of assassination, as the rule that all is fair in war seems to constitute the entire ethics of Martian conflict. He therefore escorted me immediately to the apartment in which Than Kosis then was. The ruler was engaged in conversation with his son, Sab Than, and several courtiers of his household, and did not perceive my entrance. The walls of the apartment were completely hung with splendid tapestries which hid any windows or doors which may have pierced them. The room was lighted by imprisoned rays of sunshine held between the ceiling proper and what appeared to be a ground-glass false ceiling a few inches below. My guide drew aside one of the tapestries, disclosing a passage which encircled the room, between the hangings and the walls of the chamber. Within this passage I was to remain, he said, so long as Than Kosis was in the apartment. When he left I was to follow. My only duty was to guard the ruler and keep out of sight as much as possible. I would be relieved after a period of four hours. The major-domo then left me. The tapestries were of a strange weaving which gave the appearance of heavy solidity from one side, but from my hiding place I could perceive all that took place within the room as readily as though there had been no curtain intervening. Scarcely had I gained my post than the tapestry at the opposite end of the chamber separated and four soldiers of The Guard entered, surrounding a female figure. As they approached Than Kosis the soldiers fell to either side and there standing before the jeddak and not ten feet from me, her beautiful face radiant with smiles, was Dejah Thoris. Sab Than, Prince of Zodanga, advanced to meet her, and hand in hand they approached close to the jeddak. Than Kosis looked up in surprise, and, rising, saluted her. "To what strange freak do I owe this visit from the Princess of Helium, who, two days ago, with rare consideration for my pride, assured me that she would prefer Tal Hajus, the green Thark, to my son?" Dejah Thoris only smiled the more and with the roguish dimples playing at the corners of her mouth she made answer: "From the beginning of time upon Barsoom it has been the prerogative of woman to change her mind as she listed and to dissemble in matters concerning her heart. That you will forgive, Than Kosis, as has your son. Two days ago I was not sure of his love for me, but now I am, and I have come to beg of you to forget my rash words and to accept the assurance of the Princess of Helium that when the time comes she will wed Sab Than, Prince of Zodanga." "I am glad that you have so decided," replied Than Kosis. "It is far from my desire to push war further against the people of Helium, and, your promise shall be recorded and a proclamation to my people issued forthwith." "It were better, Than Kosis," interrupted Dejah Thoris, "that the proclamation wait the ending of this war. It would look strange indeed to my people and to yours were the Princess of Helium to give herself to her country's enemy in the midst of hostilities." "Cannot the war be ended at once?" spoke Sab Than. "It requires but the word of Than Kosis to bring peace. Say it, my father, say the word that will hasten my happiness, and end this unpopular strife." "We shall see," replied Than Kosis, "how the people of Helium take to peace. I shall at least offer it to them." Dejah Thoris, after a few words, turned and left the apartment, still followed by her guards. Thus was the edifice of my brief dream of happiness dashed, broken, to the ground of reality. The woman for whom I had offered my life, and from whose lips I had so recently heard a declaration of love for me, had lightly forgotten my very existence and smilingly given herself to the son of her people's most hated enemy. Although I had heard it with my own ears I could not believe it. I must search out her apartments and force her to repeat the cruel truth to me alone before I would be convinced, and so I deserted my post and hastened through the passage behind the tapestries toward the door by which she had left the chamber. Slipping quietly through this opening I discovered a maze of winding corridors, branching and turning in every direction. Running rapidly down first one and then another of them I soon became hopelessly lost and was standing panting against a side wall when I heard voices near me. Apparently they were coming from the opposite side of the partition against which I leaned and presently I made out the tones of Dejah Thoris. I could not hear the words but I knew that I could not possibly be mistaken in the voice. Moving on a few steps I discovered another passageway at the end of which lay a door. Walking boldly forward I pushed into the room only to find myself in a small antechamber in which were the four guards who had accompanied her. One of them instantly arose and accosted me, asking the nature of my business. "I am from Than Kosis," I replied, "and wish to speak privately with Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium." "And your order?" asked the fellow. I did not know what he meant, but replied that I was a member of The Guard, and without waiting for a reply from him I strode toward the opposite door of the antechamber, behind which I could hear Dejah Thoris conversing. But my entrance was not to be so easily accomplished. The guardsman stepped before me, saying, "No one comes from Than Kosis without carrying an order or the password. You must give me one or the other before you may pass." "The only order I require, my friend, to enter where I will, hangs at my side," I answered, tapping my long-sword; "will you let me pass in peace or no?" For reply he whipped out his own sword, calling to the others to join him, and thus the four stood, with drawn weapons, barring my further progress. "You are not here by the order of Than Kosis," cried the one who had first addressed me, "and not only shall you not enter the apartments of the Princess of Helium but you shall go back to Than Kosis under guard to explain this unwarranted temerity. Throw down your sword; you cannot hope to overcome four of us," he added with a grim smile. My reply was a quick thrust which left me but three antagonists and I can assure you that they were worthy of my metal. They had me backed against the wall in no time, fighting for my life. Slowly I worked my way to a corner of the room where I could force them to come at me only one at a time, and thus we fought upward of twenty minutes; the clanging of steel on steel producing a veritable bedlam in the little room. The noise had brought Dejah Thoris to the door of her apartment, and there she stood throughout the conflict with Sola at her back peering over her shoulder. Her face was set and emotionless and I knew that she did not recognize me, nor did Sola. Finally a lucky cut brought down a second guardsman and then, with only two opposing me, I changed my tactics and rushed them down after the fashion of my fighting that had won me many a victory. The third fell within ten seconds after the second, and the last lay dead upon the bloody floor a few moments later. They were brave men and noble fighters, and it grieved me that I had been forced to kill them, but I would have willingly depopulated all Barsoom could I have reached the side of my Dejah Thoris in no other way. Sheathing my bloody blade I advanced toward my Martian Princess, who still stood mutely gazing at me without sign of recognition. "Who are you, Zodangan?" she whispered. "Another enemy to harass me in my misery?" "I am a friend," I answered, "a once cherished friend." "No friend of Helium's princess wears that metal," she replied, "and yet the voice! I have heard it before; it is not—it cannot be—no, for he is dead." "It is, though, my Princess, none other than John Carter," I said. "Do you not recognize, even through paint and strange metal, the heart of your chieftain?" As I came close to her she swayed toward me with outstretched hands, but as I reached to take her in my arms she drew back with a shudder and a little moan of misery. "Too late, too late," she grieved. "O my chieftain that was, and whom I thought dead, had you but returned one little hour before—but now it is too late, too late." "What do you mean, Dejah Thoris?" I cried. "That you would not have promised yourself to the Zodangan prince had you known that I lived?" "Think you, John Carter, that I would give my heart to you yesterday and today to another? I thought that it lay buried with your ashes in the pits of Warhoon, and so today I have promised my body to another to save my people from the curse of a victorious Zodangan army." "But I am not dead, my princess. I have come to claim you, and all Zodanga cannot prevent it." "It is too late, John Carter, my promise is given, and on Barsoom that is final. The ceremonies which follow later are but meaningless formalities. They make the fact of marriage no more certain than does the funeral cortege of a jeddak again place the seal of death upon him. I am as good as married, John Carter. No longer may you call me your princess. No longer are you my chieftain." "I know but little of your customs here upon Barsoom, Dejah Thoris, but I do know that I love you, and if you meant the last words you spoke to me that day as the hordes of Warhoon were charging down upon us, no other man shall ever claim you as his bride. You meant them then, my princess, and you mean them still! Say that it is true." "I meant them, John Carter," she whispered. "I cannot repeat them now for I have given myself to another. Ah, if you had only known our ways, my friend," she continued, half to herself, "the promise would have been yours long months ago, and you could have claimed me before all others. It might have meant the fall of Helium, but I would have given my empire for my Tharkian chief." Then aloud she said: "Do you remember the night when you offended me? You called me your princess without having asked my hand of me, and then you boasted that you had fought for me. You did not know, and I should not have been offended; I see that now. But there was no one to tell you what I could not, that upon Barsoom there are two kinds of women in the cities of the red men. The one they fight for that they may ask them in marriage; the other kind they fight for also, but never ask their hands. When a man has won a woman he may address her as his princess, or in any of the several terms which signify possession. You had fought for me, but had never asked me in marriage, and so when you called me your princess, you see," she faltered, "I was hurt, but even then, John Carter, I did not repulse you, as I should have done, until you made it doubly worse by taunting me with having won me through combat." "I do not need ask your forgiveness now, Dejah Thoris," I cried. "You must know that my fault was of ignorance of your Barsoomian customs. What I failed to do, through implicit belief that my petition would be presumptuous and unwelcome, I do now, Dejah Thoris; I ask you to be my wife, and by all the Virginian fighting blood that flows in my veins you shall be." "No, John Carter, it is useless," she cried, hopelessly, "I may never be yours while Sab Than lives." "You have sealed his death warrant, my princess—Sab Than dies." "Nor that either," she hastened to explain. "I may not wed the man who slays my husband, even in self-defense. It is custom. We are ruled by custom upon Barsoom. It is useless, my friend. You must bear the sorrow with me. That at least we may share in common. That, and the memory of the brief days among the Tharks. You must go now, nor ever see me again. Good-bye, my chieftain that was." Disheartened and dejected, I withdrew from the room, but I was not entirely discouraged, nor would I admit that Dejah Thoris was lost to me until the ceremony had actually been performed. As I wandered along the corridors, I was as absolutely lost in the mazes of winding passageways as I had been before I discovered Dejah Thoris' apartments. I knew that my only hope lay in escape from the city of Zodanga, for the matter of the four dead guardsmen would have to be explained, and as I could never reach my original post without a guide, suspicion would surely rest on me so soon as I was discovered wandering aimlessly through the palace. Presently I came upon a spiral runway leading to a lower floor, and this I followed downward for several stories until I reached the doorway of a large apartment in which were a number of guardsmen. The walls of this room were hung with transparent tapestries behind which I secreted myself without being apprehended. The conversation of the guardsmen was general, and awakened no interest in me until an officer entered the room and ordered four of the men to relieve the detail who were guarding the Princess of Helium. Now, I knew, my troubles would commence in earnest and indeed they were upon me all too soon, for it seemed that the squad had scarcely left the guardroom before one of their number burst in again breathlessly, crying that they had found their four comrades butchered in the antechamber. In a moment the entire palace was alive with people. Guardsmen, officers, courtiers, servants, and slaves ran helter-skelter through the corridors and apartments carrying messages and orders, and searching for signs of the assassin. This was my opportunity and slim as it appeared I grasped it, for as a number of soldiers came hurrying past my hiding place I fell in behind them and followed through the mazes of the palace until, in passing through a great hall, I saw the blessed light of day coming in through a series of larger windows. Here I left my guides, and, slipping to the nearest window, sought for an avenue of escape. The windows opened upon a great balcony which overlooked one of the broad avenues of Zodanga. The ground was about thirty feet below, and at a like distance from the building was a wall fully twenty feet high, constructed of polished glass about a foot in thickness. To a red Martian escape by this path would have appeared impossible, but to me, with my earthly strength and agility, it seemed already accomplished. My only fear was in being detected before darkness fell, for I could not make the leap in broad daylight while the court below and the avenue beyond were crowded with Zodangans. Accordingly I searched for a hiding place and finally found one by accident, inside a huge hanging ornament which swung from the ceiling of the hall, and about ten feet from the floor. Into the capacious bowl-like vase I sprang with ease, and scarcely had I settled down within it than I heard a number of people enter the apartment. The group stopped beneath my hiding place and I could plainly overhear their every word. "It is the work of Heliumites," said one of the men. "Yes, O Jeddak, but how had they access to the palace? I could believe that even with the diligent care of your guardsmen a single enemy might reach the inner chambers, but how a force of six or eight fighting men could have done so unobserved is beyond me. We shall soon know, however, for here comes the royal psychologist." Another man now joined the group, and, after making his formal greetings to his ruler, said: "O mighty Jeddak, it is a strange tale I read in the dead minds of your faithful guardsmen. They were felled not by a number of fighting men, but by a single opponent." He paused to let the full weight of this announcement impress his hearers, and that his statement was scarcely credited was evidenced by the impatient exclamation of incredulity which escaped the lips of Than Kosis. "What manner of weird tale are you bringing me, Notan?" he cried. "It is the truth, my Jeddak," replied the psychologist. "In fact the impressions were strongly marked on the brain of each of the four guardsmen. Their antagonist was a very tall man, wearing the metal of one of your own guardsmen, and his fighting ability was little short of marvelous for he fought fair against the entire four and vanquished them by his surpassing skill and superhuman strength and endurance. Though he wore the metal of Zodanga, my Jeddak, such a man was never seen before in this or any other country upon Barsoom. "The mind of the Princess of Helium whom I have examined and questioned was a blank to me, she has perfect control, and I could not read one iota of it. She said that she witnessed a portion of the encounter, and that when she looked there was but one man engaged with the guardsmen; a man whom she did not recognize as ever having seen." "Where is my erstwhile savior?" spoke another of the party, and I recognized the voice of the cousin of Than Kosis, whom I had rescued from the green warriors. "By the metal of my first ancestor," he went on, "but the description fits him to perfection, especially as to his fighting ability." "Where is this man?" cried Than Kosis. "Have him brought to me at once. What know you of him, cousin? It seemed strange to me now that I think upon it that there should have been such a fighting man in Zodanga, of whose name, even, we were ignorant before today. And his name too, John Carter, who ever heard of such a name upon Barsoom!" Word was soon brought that I was nowhere to be found, either in the palace or at my former quarters in the barracks of the air-scout squadron. Kantos Kan, they had found and questioned, but he knew nothing of my whereabouts, and as to my past, he had told them he knew as little, since he had but recently met me during our captivity among the Warhoons. "Keep your eyes on this other one," commanded Than Kosis. "He also is a stranger and likely as not they both hail from Helium, and where one is we shall sooner or later find the other. Quadruple the air patrol, and let every man who leaves the city by air or ground be subjected to the closest scrutiny." Another messenger now entered with word that I was still within the palace walls. "The likeness of every person who has entered or left the palace grounds today has been carefully examined," concluded the fellow, "and not one approaches the likeness of this new padwar of the guards, other than that which was recorded of him at the time he entered." "Then we will have him shortly," commented Than Kosis contentedly, "and in the meanwhile we will repair to the apartments of the Princess of Helium and question her in regard to the affair. She may know more than she cared to divulge to you, Notan. Come." They left the hall, and, as darkness had fallen without, I slipped lightly from my hiding place and hastened to the balcony. Few were in sight, and choosing a moment when none seemed near I sprang quickly to the top of the glass wall and from there to the avenue beyond the palace grounds. CHAPTER XXIII LOST IN THE SKY Without effort at concealment I hastened to the vicinity of our quarters, where I felt sure I should find Kantos Kan. As I neared the building I became more careful, as I judged, and rightly, that the place would be guarded. Several men in civilian metal loitered near the front entrance and in the rear were others. My only means of reaching, unseen, the upper story where our apartments were situated was through an adjoining building, and after considerable maneuvering I managed to attain the roof of a shop several doors away. Leaping from roof to roof, I soon reached an open window in the building where I hoped to find the Heliumite, and in another moment I stood in the room before him. He was alone and showed no surprise at my coming, saying he had expected me much earlier, as my tour of duty must have ended some time since. I saw that he knew nothing of the events of the day at the palace, and when I had enlightened him he was all excitement. The news that Dejah Thoris had promised her hand to Sab Than filled him with dismay. "It cannot be," he exclaimed. "It is impossible! Why no man in all Helium but would prefer death to the selling of our loved princess to the ruling house of Zodanga. She must have lost her mind to have assented to such an atrocious bargain. You, who do not know how we of Helium love the members of our ruling house, cannot appreciate the horror with which I contemplate such an unholy alliance." "What can be done, John Carter?" he continued. "You are a resourceful man. Can you not think of some way to save Helium from this disgrace?" "If I can come within sword's reach of Sab Than," I answered, "I can solve the difficulty in so far as Helium is concerned, but for personal reasons I would prefer that another struck the blow that frees Dejah Thoris." Kantos Kan eyed me narrowly before he spoke. "You love her!" he said. "Does she know it?" "She knows it, Kantos Kan, and repulses me only because she is promised to Sab Than." The splendid fellow sprang to his feet, and grasping me by the shoulder raised his sword on high, exclaiming: "And had the choice been left to me I could not have chosen a more fitting mate for the first princess of Barsoom. Here is my hand upon your shoulder, John Carter, and my word that Sab Than shall go out at the point of my sword for the sake of my love for Helium, for Dejah Thoris, and for you. This very night I shall try to reach his quarters in the palace." "How?" I asked. "You are strongly guarded and a quadruple force patrols the sky." He bent his head in thought a moment, then raised it with an air of confidence. "I only need to pass these guards and I can do it," he said at last. "I know a secret entrance to the palace through the pinnacle of the highest tower. I fell upon it by chance one day as I was passing above the palace on patrol duty. In this work it is required that we investigate any unusual occurrence we may witness, and a face peering from the pinnacle of the high tower of the palace was, to me, most unusual. I therefore drew near and discovered that the possessor of the peering face was none other than Sab Than. He was slightly put out at being detected and commanded me to keep the matter to myself, explaining that the passage from the tower led directly to his apartments, and was known only to him. If I can reach the roof of the barracks and get my machine I can be in Sab Than's quarters in five minutes; but how am I to escape from this building, guarded as you say it is?" "How well are the machine sheds at the barracks guarded?" I asked. "There is usually but one man on duty there at night upon the roof." "Go to the roof of this building, Kantos Kan, and wait me there." Without stopping to explain my plans I retraced my way to the street and hastened to the barracks. I did not dare to enter the building, filled as it was with members of the air-scout squadron, who, in common with all Zodanga, were on the lookout for me. The building was an enormous one, rearing its lofty head fully a thousand feet into the air. But few buildings in Zodanga were higher than these barracks, though several topped it by a few hundred feet; the docks of the great battleships of the line standing some fifteen hundred feet from the ground, while the freight and passenger stations of the merchant squadrons rose nearly as high. It was a long climb up the face of the building, and one fraught with much danger, but there was no other way, and so I essayed the task. The fact that Barsoomian architecture is extremely ornate made the feat much simpler than I had anticipated, since I found ornamental ledges and projections which fairly formed a perfect ladder for me all the way to the eaves of the building. Here I met my first real obstacle. The eaves projected nearly twenty feet from the wall to which I clung, and though I encircled the great building I could find no opening through them. The top floor was alight, and filled with soldiers engaged in the pastimes of their kind; I could not, therefore, reach the roof through the building. There was one slight, desperate chance, and that I decided I must take—it was for Dejah Thoris, and no man has lived who would not risk a thousand deaths for such as she. Clinging to the wall with my feet and one hand, I unloosened one of the long leather straps of my trappings at the end of which dangled a great hook by which air sailors are hung to the sides and bottoms of their craft for various purposes of repair, and by means of which landing parties are lowered to the ground from the battleships. I swung this hook cautiously to the roof several times before it finally found lodgment; gently I pulled on it to strengthen its hold, but whether it would bear the weight of my body I did not know. It might be barely caught upon the very outer verge of the roof, so that as my body swung out at the end of the strap it would slip off and launch me to the pavement a thousand feet below. An instant I hesitated, and then, releasing my grasp upon the supporting ornament, I swung out into space at the end of the strap. Far below me lay the brilliantly lighted streets, the hard pavements, and death. There was a little jerk at the top of the supporting eaves, and a nasty slipping, grating sound which turned me cold with apprehension; then the hook caught and I was safe. Clambering quickly aloft I grasped the edge of the eaves and drew myself to the surface of the roof above. As I gained my feet I was confronted by the sentry on duty, into the muzzle of whose revolver I found myself looking. "Who are you and whence came you?" he cried. "I am an air scout, friend, and very near a dead one, for just by the merest chance I escaped falling to the avenue below," I replied. "But how came you upon the roof, man? No one has landed or come up from the building for the past hour. Quick, explain yourself, or I call the guard." "Look you here, sentry, and you shall see how I came and how close a shave I had to not coming at all," I answered, turning toward the edge of the roof, where, twenty feet below, at the end of my strap, hung all my weapons. The fellow, acting on impulse of curiosity, stepped to my side and to his undoing, for as he leaned to peer over the eaves I grasped him by his throat and his pistol arm and threw him heavily to the roof. The weapon dropped from his grasp, and my fingers choked off his attempted cry for assistance. I gagged and bound him and then hung him over the edge of the roof as I myself had hung a few moments before. I knew it would be morning before he would be discovered, and I needed all the time that I could gain. Donning my trappings and weapons I hastened to the sheds, and soon had out both my machine and Kantos Kan's. Making his fast behind mine I started my engine, and skimming over the edge of the roof I dove down into the streets of the city far below the plane usually occupied by the air patrol. In less than a minute I was settling safely upon the roof of our apartment beside the astonished Kantos Kan. I lost no time in explanation, but plunged immediately into a discussion of our plans for the immediate future. It was decided that I was to try to make Helium while Kantos Kan was to enter the palace and dispatch Sab Than. If successful he was then to follow me. He set my compass for me, a clever little device which will remain steadfastly fixed upon any given point on the surface of Barsoom, and bidding each other farewell we rose together and sped in the direction of the palace which lay in the route which I must take to reach Helium. As we neared the high tower a patrol shot down from above, throwing its piercing searchlight full upon my craft, and a voice roared out a command to halt, following with a shot as I paid no attention to his hail. Kantos Kan dropped quickly into the darkness, while I rose steadily and at terrific speed raced through the Martian sky followed by a dozen of the air-scout craft which had joined the pursuit, and later by a swift cruiser carrying a hundred men and a battery of rapid-fire guns. By twisting and turning my little machine, now rising and now falling, I managed to elude their search-lights most of the time, but I was also losing ground by these tactics, and so I decided to hazard everything on a straight-away course and leave the result to fate and the speed of my machine. Kantos Kan had shown me a trick of gearing, which is known only to the navy of Helium, that greatly increased the speed of our machines, so that I felt sure I could distance my pursuers if I could dodge their projectiles for a few moments. As I sped through the air the screeching of the bullets around me convinced me that only by a miracle could I escape, but the die was cast, and throwing on full speed I raced a straight course toward Helium. Gradually I left my pursuers further and further behind, and I was just congratulating myself on my lucky escape, when a well-directed shot from the cruiser exploded at the prow of my little craft. The concussion nearly capsized her, and with a sickening plunge she hurtled downward through the dark night. How far I fell before I regained control of the plane I do not know, but I must have been very close to the ground when I started to rise again, as I plainly heard the squealing of animals below me. Rising again I scanned the heavens for my pursuers, and finally making out their lights far behind me, saw that they were landing, evidently in search of me. Not until their lights were no longer discernible did I venture to flash my little lamp upon my compass, and then I found to my consternation that a fragment of the projectile had utterly destroyed my only guide, as well as my speedometer. It was true I could follow the stars in the general direction of Helium, but without knowing the exact location of the city or the speed at which I was traveling my chances for finding it were slim. Helium lies a thousand miles southwest of Zodanga, and with my compass intact I should have made the trip, barring accidents, in between four and five hours. As it turned out, however, morning found me speeding over a vast expanse of dead sea bottom after nearly six hours of continuous flight at high speed. Presently a great city showed below me, but it was not Helium, as that alone of all Barsoomian metropolises consists in two immense circular walled cities about seventy-five miles apart and would have been easily distinguishable from the altitude at which I was flying. Believing that I had come too far to the north and west, I turned back in a southeasterly direction, passing during the forenoon several other large cities, but none resembling the description which Kantos Kan had given me of Helium. In addition to the twin-city formation of Helium, another distinguishing feature is the two immense towers, one of vivid scarlet rising nearly a mile into the air from the center of one of the cities, while the other, of bright yellow and of the same height, marks her sister. CHAPTER XXIV TARS TARKAS FINDS A FRIEND About noon I passed low over a great dead city of ancient Mars, and as I skimmed out across the plain beyond I came full upon several thousand green warriors engaged in a terrific battle. Scarcely had I seen them than a volley of shots was directed at me, and with the almost unfailing accuracy of their aim my little craft was instantly a ruined wreck, sinking erratically to the ground. I fell almost directly in the center of the fierce combat, among warriors who had not seen my approach so busily were they engaged in life and death struggles. The men were fighting on foot with long-swords, while an occasional shot from a sharpshooter on the outskirts of the conflict would bring down a warrior who might for an instant separate himself from the entangled mass. As my machine sank among them I realized that it was fight or die, with good chances of dying in any event, and so I struck the ground with drawn long-sword ready to defend myself as I could. I fell beside a huge monster who was engaged with three antagonists, and as I glanced at his fierce face, filled with the light of battle, I recognized Tars Tarkas the Thark. He did not see me, as I was a trifle behind him, and just then the three warriors opposing him, and whom I recognized as Warhoons, charged simultaneously. The mighty fellow made quick work of one of them, but in stepping back for another thrust he fell over a dead body behind him and was down and at the mercy of his foes in an instant. Quick as lightning they were upon him, and Tars Tarkas would have been gathered to his fathers in short order had I not sprung before his prostrate form and engaged his adversaries. I had accounted for one of them when the mighty Thark regained his feet and quickly settled the other. He gave me one look, and a slight smile touched his grim lip as, touching my shoulder, he said, "I would scarcely recognize you, John Carter, but there is no other mortal upon Barsoom who would have done what you have for me. I think I have learned that there is such a thing as friendship, my friend." He said no more, nor was there opportunity, for the Warhoons were closing in about us, and together we fought, shoulder to shoulder, during all that long, hot afternoon, until the tide of battle turned and the remnant of the fierce Warhoon horde fell back upon their thoats, and fled into the gathering darkness. Ten thousand men had been engaged in that titanic struggle, and upon the field of battle lay three thousand dead. Neither side asked or gave quarter, nor did they attempt to take prisoners. On our return to the city after the battle we had gone directly to Tars Tarkas' quarters, where I was left alone while the chieftain attended the customary council which immediately follows an engagement. As I sat awaiting the return of the green warrior I heard something move in an adjoining apartment, and as I glanced up there rushed suddenly upon me a huge and hideous creature which bore me backward upon the pile of silks and furs upon which I had been reclining. It was Woola—faithful, loving Woola. He had found his way back to Thark and, as Tars Tarkas later told me, had gone immediately to my former quarters where he had taken up his pathetic and seemingly hopeless watch for my return. "Tal Hajus knows that you are here, John Carter," said Tars Tarkas, on his return from the jeddak's quarters; "Sarkoja saw and recognized you as we were returning. Tal Hajus has ordered me to bring you before him tonight. I have ten thoats, John Carter; you may take your choice from among them, and I will accompany you to the nearest waterway that leads to Helium. Tars Tarkas may be a cruel green warrior, but he can be a friend as well. Come, we must start." "And when you return, Tars Tarkas?" I asked. "The wild calots, possibly, or worse," he replied. "Unless I should chance to have the opportunity I have so long waited of battling with Tal Hajus." "We will stay, Tars Tarkas, and see Tal Hajus tonight. You shall not sacrifice yourself, and it may be that tonight you can have the chance you wait." He objected strenuously, saying that Tal Hajus often flew into wild fits of passion at the mere thought of the blow I had dealt him, and that if ever he laid his hands upon me I would be subjected to the most horrible tortures. While we were eating I repeated to Tars Tarkas the story which Sola had told me that night upon the sea bottom during the march to Thark. He said but little, but the great muscles of his face worked in passion and in agony at recollection of the horrors which had been heaped upon the only thing he had ever loved in all his cold, cruel, terrible existence. He no longer demurred when I suggested that we go before Tal Hajus, only saying that he would like to speak to Sarkoja first. At his request I accompanied him to her quarters, and the look of venomous hatred she cast upon me was almost adequate recompense for any future misfortunes this accidental return to Thark might bring me. "Sarkoja," said Tars Tarkas, "forty years ago you were instrumental in bringing about the torture and death of a woman named Gozava. I have just discovered that the warrior who loved that woman has learned of your part in the transaction. He may not kill you, Sarkoja, it is not our custom, but there is nothing to prevent him tying one end of a strap about your neck and the other end to a wild thoat, merely to test your fitness to survive and help perpetuate our race. Having heard that he would do this on the morrow, I thought it only right to warn you, for I am a just man. The river Iss is but a short pilgrimage, Sarkoja. Come, John Carter." The next morning Sarkoja was gone, nor was she ever seen after. In silence we hastened to the jeddak's palace, where we were immediately admitted to his presence; in fact, he could scarcely wait to see me and was standing erect upon his platform glowering at the entrance as I came in. "Strap him to that pillar," he shrieked. "We shall see who it is dares strike the mighty Tal Hajus. Heat the irons; with my own hands I shall burn the eyes from his head that he may not pollute my person with his vile gaze." "Chieftains of Thark," I cried, turning to the assembled council and ignoring Tal Hajus, "I have been a chief among you, and today I have fought for Thark shoulder to shoulder with her greatest warrior. You owe me, at least, a hearing. I have won that much today. You claim to be a just people—" "Silence," roared Tal Hajus. "Gag the creature and bind him as I command." "Justice, Tal Hajus," exclaimed Lorquas Ptomel. "Who are you to set aside the customs of ages among the Tharks." "Yes, justice!" echoed a dozen voices, and so, while Tal Hajus fumed and frothed, I continued. "You are a brave people and you love bravery, but where was your mighty jeddak during the fighting today? I did not see him in the thick of battle; he was not there. He rends defenseless women and little children in his lair, but how recently has one of you seen him fight with men? Why, even I, a midget beside him, felled him with a single blow of my fist. Is it of such that the Tharks fashion their jeddaks? There stands beside me now a great Thark, a mighty warrior and a noble man. Chieftains, how sounds, Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark?" A roar of deep-toned applause greeted this suggestion. "It but remains for this council to command, and Tal Hajus must prove his fitness to rule. Were he a brave man he would invite Tars Tarkas to combat, for he does not love him, but Tal Hajus is afraid; Tal Hajus, your jeddak, is a coward. With my bare hands I could kill him, and he knows it." After I ceased there was tense silence, as all eyes were riveted upon Tal Hajus. He did not speak or move, but the blotchy green of his countenance turned livid, and the froth froze upon his lips. "Tal Hajus," said Lorquas Ptomel in a cold, hard voice, "never in my long life have I seen a jeddak of the Tharks so humiliated. There could be but one answer to this arraignment. We wait it." And still Tal Hajus stood as though petrified. "Chieftains," continued Lorquas Ptomel, "shall the jeddak, Tal Hajus, prove his fitness to rule over Tars Tarkas?" There were twenty chieftains about the rostrum, and twenty swords flashed high in assent. There was no alternative. That decree was final, and so Tal Hajus drew his long-sword and advanced to meet Tars Tarkas. The combat was soon over, and, with his foot upon the neck of the dead monster, Tars Tarkas became jeddak among the Tharks. His first act was to make me a full-fledged chieftain with the rank I had won by my combats the first few weeks of my captivity among them. Seeing the favorable disposition of the warriors toward Tars Tarkas, as well as toward me, I grasped the opportunity to enlist them in my cause against Zodanga. I told Tars Tarkas the story of my adventures, and in a few words had explained to him the thought I had in mind. "John Carter has made a proposal," he said, addressing the council, "which meets with my sanction. I shall put it to you briefly. Dejah Thoris, the Princess of Helium, who was our prisoner, is now held by the jeddak of Zodanga, whose son she must wed to save her country from devastation at the hands of the Zodangan forces. "John Carter suggests that we rescue her and return her to Helium. The loot of Zodanga would be magnificent, and I have often thought that had we an alliance with the people of Helium we could obtain sufficient assurance of sustenance to permit us to increase the size and frequency of our hatchings, and thus become unquestionably supreme among the green men of all Barsoom. What say you?" It was a chance to fight, an opportunity to loot, and they rose to the bait as a speckled trout to a fly. For Tharks they were wildly enthusiastic, and before another half hour had passed twenty mounted messengers were speeding across dead sea bottoms to call the hordes together for the expedition. In three days we were on the march toward Zodanga, one hundred thousand strong, as Tars Tarkas had been able to enlist the services of three smaller hordes on the promise of the great loot of Zodanga. At the head of the column I rode beside the great Thark while at the heels of my mount trotted my beloved Woola. We traveled entirely by night, timing our marches so that we camped during the day at deserted cities where, even to the beasts, we were all kept indoors during the daylight hours. On the march Tars Tarkas, through his remarkable ability and statesmanship, enlisted fifty thousand more warriors from various hordes, so that, ten days after we set out we halted at midnight outside the great walled city of Zodanga, one hundred and fifty thousand strong. The fighting strength and efficiency of this horde of ferocious green monsters was equivalent to ten times their number of red men. Never in the history of Barsoom, Tars Tarkas told me, had such a force of green warriors marched to battle together. It was a monstrous task to keep even a semblance of harmony among them, and it was a marvel to me that he got them to the city without a mighty battle among themselves. But as we neared Zodanga their personal quarrels were submerged by their greater hatred for the red men, and especially for the Zodangans, who had for years waged a ruthless campaign of extermination against the green men, directing special attention toward despoiling their incubators. Now that we were before Zodanga the task of obtaining entry to the city devolved upon me, and directing Tars Tarkas to hold his forces in two divisions out of earshot of the city, with each division opposite a large gateway, I took twenty dismounted warriors and approached one of the small gates that pierced the walls at short intervals. These gates have no regular guard, but are covered by sentries, who patrol the avenue that encircles the city just within the walls as our metropolitan police patrol their beats. The walls of Zodanga are seventy-five feet in height and fifty feet thick. They are built of enormous blocks of carborundum, and the task of entering the city seemed, to my escort of green warriors, an impossibility. The fellows who had been detailed to accompany me were of one of the smaller hordes, and therefore did not know me. Placing three of them with their faces to the wall and arms locked, I commanded two more to mount to their shoulders, and a sixth I ordered to climb upon the shoulders of the upper two. The head of the topmost warrior towered over forty feet from the ground. In this way, with ten warriors, I built a series of three steps from the ground to the shoulders of the topmost man. Then starting from a short distance behind them I ran swiftly up from one tier to the next, and with a final bound from the broad shoulders of the highest I clutched the top of the great wall and quietly drew myself to its broad expanse. After me I dragged six lengths of leather from an equal number of my warriors. These lengths we had previously fastened together, and passing one end to the topmost warrior I lowered the other end cautiously over the opposite side of the wall toward the avenue below. No one was in sight, so, lowering myself to the end of my leather strap, I dropped the remaining thirty feet to the pavement below. I had learned from Kantos Kan the secret of opening these gates, and in another moment my twenty great fighting men stood within the doomed city of Zodanga. I found to my delight that I had entered at the lower boundary of the enormous palace grounds. The building itself showed in the distance a blaze of glorious light, and on the instant I determined to lead a detachment of warriors directly within the palace itself, while the balance of the great horde was attacking the barracks of the soldiery. Dispatching one of my men to Tars Tarkas for a detail of fifty Tharks, with word of my intentions, I ordered ten warriors to capture and open one of the great gates while with the nine remaining I took the other. We were to do our work quietly, no shots were to be fired and no general advance made until I had reached the palace with my fifty Tharks. Our plans worked to perfection. The two sentries we met were dispatched to their fathers upon the banks of the lost sea of Korus, and the guards at both gates followed them in silence. CHAPTER XXV THE LOOTING OF ZODANGA As the great gate where I stood swung open my fifty Tharks, headed by Tars Tarkas himself, rode in upon their mighty thoats. I led them to the palace walls, which I negotiated easily without assistance. Once inside, however, the gate gave me considerable trouble, but I finally was rewarded by seeing it swing upon its huge hinges, and soon my fierce escort was riding across the gardens of the jeddak of Zodanga. As we approached the palace I could see through the great windows of the first floor into the brilliantly illuminated audience chamber of Than Kosis. The immense hall was crowded with nobles and their women, as though some important function was in progress. There was not a guard in sight without the palace, due, I presume, to the fact that the city and palace walls were considered impregnable, and so I came close and peered within. At one end of the chamber, upon massive golden thrones encrusted with diamonds, sat Than Kosis and his consort, surrounded by officers and dignitaries of state. Before them stretched a broad aisle lined on either side with soldiery, and as I looked there entered this aisle at the far end of the hall, the head of a procession which advanced to the foot of the throne. First there marched four officers of the jeddak's Guard bearing a huge salver on which reposed, upon a cushion of scarlet silk, a great golden chain with a collar and padlock at each end. Directly behind these officers came four others carrying a similar salver which supported the magnificent ornaments of a prince and princess of the reigning house of Zodanga. At the foot of the throne these two parties separated and halted, facing each other at opposite sides of the aisle. Then came more dignitaries, and the officers of the palace and of the army, and finally two figures entirely muffled in scarlet silk, so that not a feature of either was discernible. These two stopped at the foot of the throne, facing Than Kosis. When the balance of the procession had entered and assumed their stations Than Kosis addressed the couple standing before him. I could not hear his words, but presently two officers advanced and removed the scarlet robe from one of the figures, and I saw that Kantos Kan had failed in his mission, for it was Sab Than, Prince of Zodanga, who stood revealed before me. Than Kosis now took a set of the ornaments from one of the salvers and placed one of the collars of gold about his son's neck, springing the padlock fast. After a few more words addressed to Sab Than he turned to the other figure, from which the officers now removed the enshrouding silks, disclosing to my now comprehending view Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium. The object of the ceremony was clear to me; in another moment Dejah Thoris would be joined forever to the Prince of Zodanga. It was an impressive and beautiful ceremony, I presume, but to me it seemed the most fiendish sight I had ever witnessed, and as the ornaments were adjusted upon her beautiful figure and her collar of gold swung open in the hands of Than Kosis I raised my long-sword above my head, and, with the heavy hilt, I shattered the glass of the great window and sprang into the midst of the astonished assemblage. With a bound I was on the steps of the platform beside Than Kosis, and as he stood riveted with surprise I brought my long-sword down upon the golden chain that would have bound Dejah Thoris to another. In an instant all was confusion; a thousand drawn swords menaced me from every quarter, and Sab Than sprang upon me with a jeweled dagger he had drawn from his nuptial ornaments. I could have killed him as easily as I might a fly, but the age-old custom of Barsoom stayed my hand, and grasping his wrist as the dagger flew toward my heart I held him as though in a vise and with my long-sword pointed to the far end of the hall. "Zodanga has fallen," I cried. "Look!" All eyes turned in the direction I had indicated, and there, forging through the portals of the entranceway rode Tars Tarkas and his fifty warriors on their great thoats. A cry of alarm and amazement broke from the assemblage, but no word of fear, and in a moment the soldiers and nobles of Zodanga were hurling themselves upon the advancing Tharks. Thrusting Sab Than headlong from the platform, I drew Dejah Thoris to my side. Behind the throne was a narrow doorway and in this Than Kosis now stood facing me, with drawn long-sword. In an instant we were engaged, and I found no mean antagonist. As we circled upon the broad platform I saw Sab Than rushing up the steps to aid his father, but, as he raised his hand to strike, Dejah Thoris sprang before him and then my sword found the spot that made Sab Than jeddak of Zodanga. As his father rolled dead upon the floor the new jeddak tore himself free from Dejah Thoris' grasp, and again we faced each other. He was soon joined by a quartet of officers, and, with my back against a golden throne, I fought once again for Dejah Thoris. I was hard pressed to defend myself and yet not strike down Sab Than and, with him, my last chance to win the woman I loved. My blade was swinging with the rapidity of lightning as I sought to parry the thrusts and cuts of my opponents. Two I had disarmed, and one was down, when several more rushed to the aid of their new ruler, and to avenge the death of the old. As they advanced there were cries of "The woman! The woman! Strike her down; it is her plot. Kill her! Kill her!" Calling to Dejah Thoris to get behind me I worked my way toward the little doorway back of the throne, but the officers realized my intentions, and three of them sprang in behind me and blocked my chances for gaining a position where I could have defended Dejah Thoris against an army of swordsmen. The Tharks were having their hands full in the center of the room, and I began to realize that nothing short of a miracle could save Dejah Thoris and myself, when I saw Tars Tarkas surging through the crowd of pygmies that swarmed about him. With one swing of his mighty longsword he laid a dozen corpses at his feet, and so he hewed a pathway before him until in another moment he stood upon the platform beside me, dealing death and destruction right and left. The bravery of the Zodangans was awe-inspiring, not one attempted to escape, and when the fighting ceased it was because only Tharks remained alive in the great hall, other than Dejah Thoris and myself. Sab Than lay dead beside his father, and the corpses of the flower of Zodangan nobility and chivalry covered the floor of the bloody shambles. My first thought when the battle was over was for Kantos Kan, and leaving Dejah Thoris in charge of Tars Tarkas I took a dozen warriors and hastened to the dungeons beneath the palace. The jailers had all left to join the fighters in the throne room, so we searched the labyrinthine prison without opposition. I called Kantos Kan's name aloud in each new corridor and compartment, and finally I was rewarded by hearing a faint response. Guided by the sound, we soon found him helpless in a dark recess. He was overjoyed at seeing me, and to know the meaning of the fight, faint echoes of which had reached his prison cell. He told me that the air patrol had captured him before he reached the high tower of the palace, so that he had not even seen Sab Than. We discovered that it would be futile to attempt to cut away the bars and chains which held him prisoner, so, at his suggestion I returned to search the bodies on the floor above for keys to open the padlocks of his cell and of his chains. Fortunately among the first I examined I found his jailer, and soon we had Kantos Kan with us in the throne room. The sounds of heavy firing, mingled with shouts and cries, came to us from the city's streets, and Tars Tarkas hastened away to direct the fighting without. Kantos Kan accompanied him to act as guide, the green warriors commencing a thorough search of the palace for other Zodangans and for loot, and Dejah Thoris and I were left alone. She had sunk into one of the golden thrones, and as I turned to her she greeted me with a wan smile. "Was there ever such a man!" she exclaimed. "I know that Barsoom has never before seen your like. Can it be that all Earth men are as you? Alone, a stranger, hunted, threatened, persecuted, you have done in a few short months what in all the past ages of Barsoom no man has ever done: joined together the wild hordes of the sea bottoms and brought them to fight as allies of a red Martian people." "The answer is easy, Dejah Thoris," I replied smiling. "It was not I who did it, it was love, love for Dejah Thoris, a power that would work greater miracles than this you have seen." A pretty flush overspread her face and she answered, "You may say that now, John Carter, and I may listen, for I am free." "And more still I have to say, ere it is again too late," I returned. "I have done many strange things in my life, many things that wiser men would not have dared, but never in my wildest fancies have I dreamed of winning a Dejah Thoris for myself—for never had I dreamed that in all the universe dwelt such a woman as the Princess of Helium. That you are a princess does not abash me, but that you are you is enough to make me doubt my sanity as I ask you, my princess, to be mine." "He does not need to be abashed who so well knew the answer to his plea before the plea were made," she replied, rising and placing her dear hands upon my shoulders, and so I took her in my arms and kissed her. And thus in the midst of a city of wild conflict, filled with the alarms of war; with death and destruction reaping their terrible harvest around her, did Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, true daughter of Mars, the God of War, promise herself in marriage to John Carter, Gentleman of Virginia. CHAPTER XXVI THROUGH CARNAGE TO JOY Sometime later Tars Tarkas and Kantos Kan returned to report that Zodanga had been completely reduced. Her forces were entirely destroyed or captured, and no further resistance was to be expected from within. Several battleships had escaped, but there were thousands of war and merchant vessels under guard of Thark warriors. The lesser hordes had commenced looting and quarreling among themselves, so it was decided that we collect what warriors we could, man as many vessels as possible with Zodangan prisoners and make for Helium without further loss of time. Five hours later we sailed from the roofs of the dock buildings with a fleet of two hundred and fifty battleships, carrying nearly one hundred thousand green warriors, followed by a fleet of transports with our thoats. Behind us we left the stricken city in the fierce and brutal clutches of some forty thousand green warriors of the lesser hordes. They were looting, murdering, and fighting amongst themselves. In a hundred places they had applied the torch, and columns of dense smoke were rising above the city as though to blot out from the eye of heaven the horrid sights beneath. In the middle of the afternoon we sighted the scarlet and yellow towers of Helium, and a short time later a great fleet of Zodangan battleships rose from the camps of the besiegers without the city, and advanced to meet us. The banners of Helium had been strung from stem to stern of each of our mighty craft, but the Zodangans did not need this sign to realize that we were enemies, for our green Martian warriors had opened fire upon them almost as they left the ground. With their uncanny marksmanship they raked the on-coming fleet with volley after volley. The twin cities of Helium, perceiving that we were friends, sent out hundreds of vessels to aid us, and then began the first real air battle I had ever witnessed. The vessels carrying our green warriors were kept circling above the contending fleets of Helium and Zodanga, since their batteries were useless in the hands of the Tharks who, having no navy, have no skill in naval gunnery. Their small-arm fire, however, was most effective, and the final outcome of the engagement was strongly influenced, if not wholly determined, by their presence. At first the two forces circled at the same altitude, pouring broadside after broadside into each other. Presently a great hole was torn in the hull of one of the immense battle craft from the Zodangan camp; with a lurch she turned completely over, the little figures of her crew plunging, turning and twisting toward the ground a thousand feet below; then with sickening velocity she tore after them, almost completely burying herself in the soft loam of the ancient sea bottom. A wild cry of exultation arose from the Heliumite squadron, and with redoubled ferocity they fell upon the Zodangan fleet. By a pretty maneuver two of the vessels of Helium gained a position above their adversaries, from which they poured upon them from their keel bomb batteries a perfect torrent of exploding bombs. Then, one by one, the battleships of Helium succeeded in rising above the Zodangans, and in a short time a number of the beleaguering battleships were drifting hopeless wrecks toward the high scarlet tower of greater Helium. Several others attempted to escape, but they were soon surrounded by thousands of tiny individual fliers, and above each hung a monster battleship of Helium ready to drop boarding parties upon their decks. Within but little more than an hour from the moment the victorious Zodangan squadron had risen to meet us from the camp of the besiegers the battle was over, and the remaining vessels of the conquered Zodangans were headed toward the cities of Helium under prize crews. There was an extremely pathetic side to the surrender of these mighty fliers, the result of an age-old custom which demanded that surrender should be signalized by the voluntary plunging to earth of the commander of the vanquished vessel. One after another the brave fellows, holding their colors high above their heads, leaped from the towering bows of their mighty craft to an awful death. Not until the commander of the entire fleet took the fearful plunge, thus indicating the surrender of the remaining vessels, did the fighting cease, and the useless sacrifice of brave men come to an end. We now signaled the flagship of Helium's navy to approach, and when she was within hailing distance I called out that we had the Princess Dejah Thoris on board, and that we wished to transfer her to the flagship that she might be taken immediately to the city. As the full import of my announcement bore in upon them a great cry arose from the decks of the flagship, and a moment later the colors of the Princess of Helium broke from a hundred points upon her upper works. When the other vessels of the squadron caught the meaning of the signals flashed them they took up the wild acclaim and unfurled her colors in the gleaming sunlight. The flagship bore down upon us, and as she swung gracefully to and touched our side a dozen officers sprang upon our decks. As their astonished gaze fell upon the hundreds of green warriors, who now came forth from the fighting shelters, they stopped aghast, but at sight of Kantos Kan, who advanced to meet them, they came forward, crowding about him. Dejah Thoris and I then advanced, and they had no eyes for other than her. She received them gracefully, calling each by name, for they were men high in the esteem and service of her grandfather, and she knew them well. "Lay your hands upon the shoulder of John Carter," she said to them, turning toward me, "the man to whom Helium owes her princess as well as her victory today." They were very courteous to me and said many kind and complimentary things, but what seemed to impress them most was that I had won the aid of the fierce Tharks in my campaign for the liberation of Dejah Thoris, and the relief of Helium. "You owe your thanks more to another man than to me," I said, "and here he is; meet one of Barsoom's greatest soldiers and statesmen, Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark." With the same polished courtesy that had marked their manner toward me they extended their greetings to the great Thark, nor, to my surprise, was he much behind them in ease of bearing or in courtly speech. Though not a garrulous race, the Tharks are extremely formal, and their ways lend themselves amazingly to dignified and courtly manners. Dejah Thoris went aboard the flagship, and was much put out that I would not follow, but, as I explained to her, the battle was but partly won; we still had the land forces of the besieging Zodangans to account for, and I would not leave Tars Tarkas until that had been accomplished. The commander of the naval forces of Helium promised to arrange to have the armies of Helium attack from the city in conjunction with our land attack, and so the vessels separated and Dejah Thoris was borne in triumph back to the court of her grandfather, Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. In the distance lay our fleet of transports, with the thoats of the green warriors, where they had remained during the battle. Without landing stages it was to be a difficult matter to unload these beasts upon the open plain, but there was nothing else for it, and so we put out for a point about ten miles from the city and began the task. It was necessary to lower the animals to the ground in slings and this work occupied the remainder of the day and half the night. Twice we were attacked by parties of Zodangan cavalry, but with little loss, however, and after darkness shut down they withdrew. As soon as the last thoat was unloaded Tars Tarkas gave the command to advance, and in three parties we crept upon the Zodangan camp from the north, the south and the east. About a mile from the main camp we encountered their outposts and, as had been prearranged, accepted this as the signal to charge. With wild, ferocious cries and amidst the nasty squealing of battle-enraged thoats we bore down upon the Zodangans. We did not catch them napping, but found a well-entrenched battle line confronting us. Time after time we were repulsed until, toward noon, I began to fear for the result of the battle. The Zodangans numbered nearly a million fighting men, gathered from pole to pole, wherever stretched their ribbon-like waterways, while pitted against them were less than a hundred thousand green warriors. The forces from Helium had not arrived, nor could we receive any word from them. Just at noon we heard heavy firing all along the line between the Zodangans and the cities, and we knew then that our much-needed reinforcements had come. Again Tars Tarkas ordered the charge, and once more the mighty thoats bore their terrible riders against the ramparts of the enemy. At the same moment the battle line of Helium surged over the opposite breastworks of the Zodangans and in another moment they were being crushed as between two millstones. Nobly they fought, but in vain. The plain before the city became a veritable shambles ere the last Zodangan surrendered, but finally the carnage ceased, the prisoners were marched back to Helium, and we entered the greater city's gates, a huge triumphal procession of conquering heroes. The broad avenues were lined with women and children, among which were the few men whose duties necessitated that they remain within the city during the battle. We were greeted with an endless round of applause and showered with ornaments of gold, platinum, silver, and precious jewels. The city had gone mad with joy. My fierce Tharks caused the wildest excitement and enthusiasm. Never before had an armed body of green warriors entered the gates of Helium, and that they came now as friends and allies filled the red men with rejoicing. That my poor services to Dejah Thoris had become known to the Heliumites was evidenced by the loud crying of my name, and by the loads of ornaments that were fastened upon me and my huge thoat as we passed up the avenues to the palace, for even in the face of the ferocious appearance of Woola the populace pressed close about me. As we approached this magnificent pile we were met by a party of officers who greeted us warmly and requested that Tars Tarkas and his jeds with the jeddaks and jeds of his wild allies, together with myself, dismount and accompany them to receive from Tardos Mors an expression of his gratitude for our services. At the top of the great steps leading up to the main portals of the palace stood the royal party, and as we reached the lower steps one of their number descended to meet us. He was an almost perfect specimen of manhood; tall, straight as an arrow, superbly muscled and with the carriage and bearing of a ruler of men. I did not need to be told that he was Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. The first member of our party he met was Tars Tarkas and his first words sealed forever the new friendship between the races. "That Tardos Mors," he said, earnestly, "may meet the greatest living warrior of Barsoom is a priceless honor, but that he may lay his hand on the shoulder of a friend and ally is a far greater boon." "Jeddak of Helium," returned Tars Tarkas, "it has remained for a man of another world to teach the green warriors of Barsoom the meaning of friendship; to him we owe the fact that the hordes of Thark can understand you; that they can appreciate and reciprocate the sentiments so graciously expressed." Tardos Mors then greeted each of the green jeddaks and jeds, and to each spoke words of friendship and appreciation. As he approached me he laid both hands upon my shoulders. "Welcome, my son," he said; "that you are granted, gladly, and without one word of opposition, the most precious jewel in all Helium, yes, on all Barsoom, is sufficient earnest of my esteem." We were then presented to Mors Kajak, Jed of lesser Helium, and father of Dejah Thoris. He had followed close behind Tardos Mors and seemed even more affected by the meeting than had his father. He tried a dozen times to express his gratitude to me, but his voice choked with emotion and he could not speak, and yet he had, as I was to later learn, a reputation for ferocity and fearlessness as a fighter that was remarkable even upon warlike Barsoom. In common with all Helium he worshiped his daughter, nor could he think of what she had escaped without deep emotion. CHAPTER XXVII FROM JOY TO DEATH For ten days the hordes of Thark and their wild allies were feasted and entertained, and, then, loaded with costly presents and escorted by ten thousand soldiers of Helium commanded by Mors Kajak, they started on the return journey to their own lands. The jed of lesser Helium with a small party of nobles accompanied them all the way to Thark to cement more closely the new bonds of peace and friendship. Sola also accompanied Tars Tarkas, her father, who before all his chieftains had acknowledged her as his daughter. Three weeks later, Mors Kajak and his officers, accompanied by Tars Tarkas and Sola, returned upon a battleship that had been dispatched to Thark to fetch them in time for the ceremony which made Dejah Thoris and John Carter one. For nine years I served in the councils and fought in the armies of Helium as a prince of the house of Tardos Mors. The people seemed never to tire of heaping honors upon me, and no day passed that did not bring some new proof of their love for my princess, the incomparable Dejah Thoris. In a golden incubator upon the roof of our palace lay a snow-white egg. For nearly five years ten soldiers of the jeddak's Guard had constantly stood over it, and not a day passed when I was in the city that Dejah Thoris and I did not stand hand in hand before our little shrine planning for the future, when the delicate shell should break. Vivid in my memory is the picture of the last night as we sat there talking in low tones of the strange romance which had woven our lives together and of this wonder which was coming to augment our happiness and fulfill our hopes. In the distance we saw the bright-white light of an approaching airship, but we attached no special significance to so common a sight. Like a bolt of lightning it raced toward Helium until its very speed bespoke the unusual. Flashing the signals which proclaimed it a dispatch bearer for the jeddak, it circled impatiently awaiting the tardy patrol boat which must convoy it to the palace docks. Ten minutes after it touched at the palace a message called me to the council chamber, which I found filling with the members of that body. On the raised platform of the throne was Tardos Mors, pacing back and forth with tense-drawn face. When all were in their seats he turned toward us. "This morning," he said, "word reached the several governments of Barsoom that the keeper of the atmosphere plant had made no wireless report for two days, nor had almost ceaseless calls upon him from a score of capitals elicited a sign of response. "The ambassadors of the other nations asked us to take the matter in hand and hasten the assistant keeper to the plant. All day a thousand cruisers have been searching for him until just now one of them returns bearing his dead body, which was found in the pits beneath his house horribly mutilated by some assassin. "I do not need to tell you what this means to Barsoom. It would take months to penetrate those mighty walls, in fact the work has already commenced, and there would be little to fear were the engine of the pumping plant to run as it should and as they all have for hundreds of years; but the worst, we fear, has happened. The instruments show a rapidly decreasing air pressure on all parts of Barsoom—the engine has stopped." "My gentlemen," he concluded, "we have at best three days to live." There was absolute silence for several minutes, and then a young noble arose, and with his drawn sword held high above his head addressed Tardos Mors. "The men of Helium have prided themselves that they have ever shown Barsoom how a nation of red men should live, now is our opportunity to show them how they should die. Let us go about our duties as though a thousand useful years still lay before us." The chamber rang with applause and as there was nothing better to do than to allay the fears of the people by our example we went our ways with smiles upon our faces and sorrow gnawing at our hearts. When I returned to my palace I found that the rumor already had reached Dejah Thoris, so I told her all that I had heard. "We have been very happy, John Carter," she said, "and I thank whatever fate overtakes us that it permits us to die together." The next two days brought no noticeable change in the supply of air, but on the morning of the third day breathing became difficult at the higher altitudes of the rooftops. The avenues and plazas of Helium were filled with people. All business had ceased. For the most part the people looked bravely into the face of their unalterable doom. Here and there, however, men and women gave way to quiet grief. Toward the middle of the day many of the weaker commenced to succumb and within an hour the people of Barsoom were sinking by thousands into the unconsciousness which precedes death by asphyxiation. Dejah Thoris and I with the other members of the royal family had collected in a sunken garden within an inner courtyard of the palace. We conversed in low tones, when we conversed at all, as the awe of the grim shadow of death crept over us. Even Woola seemed to feel the weight of the impending calamity, for he pressed close to Dejah Thoris and to me, whining pitifully. The little incubator had been brought from the roof of our palace at request of Dejah Thoris and she sat gazing longingly upon the unknown little life that now she would never know. As it was becoming perceptibly difficult to breathe Tardos Mors arose, saying, "Let us bid each other farewell. The days of the greatness of Barsoom are over. Tomorrow's sun will look down upon a dead world which through all eternity must go swinging through the heavens peopled not even by memories. It is the end." He stooped and kissed the women of his family, and laid his strong hand upon the shoulders of the men. As I turned sadly from him my eyes fell upon Dejah Thoris. Her head was drooping upon her breast, to all appearances she was lifeless. With a cry I sprang to her and raised her in my arms. Her eyes opened and looked into mine. "Kiss me, John Carter," she murmured. "I love you! I love you! It is cruel that we must be torn apart who were just starting upon a life of love and happiness." As I pressed her dear lips to mine the old feeling of unconquerable power and authority rose in me. The fighting blood of Virginia sprang to life in my veins. "It shall not be, my princess," I cried. "There is, there must be some way, and John Carter, who has fought his way through a strange world for love of you, will find it." And with my words there crept above the threshold of my conscious mind a series of nine long forgotten sounds. Like a flash of lightning in the darkness their full purport dawned upon me—the key to the three great doors of the atmosphere plant! Turning suddenly toward Tardos Mors as I still clasped my dying love to my breast I cried. "A flier, Jeddak! Quick! Order your swiftest flier to the palace top. I can save Barsoom yet." He did not wait to question, but in an instant a guard was racing to the nearest dock and though the air was thin and almost gone at the rooftop they managed to launch the fastest one-man, air-scout machine that the skill of Barsoom had ever produced. Kissing Dejah Thoris a dozen times and commanding Woola, who would have followed me, to remain and guard her, I bounded with my old agility and strength to the high ramparts of the palace, and in another moment I was headed toward the goal of the hopes of all Barsoom. I had to fly low to get sufficient air to breathe, but I took a straight course across an old sea bottom and so had to rise only a few feet above the ground. I traveled with awful velocity for my errand was a race against time with death. The face of Dejah Thoris hung always before me. As I turned for a last look as I left the palace garden I had seen her stagger and sink upon the ground beside the little incubator. That she had dropped into the last coma which would end in death, if the air supply remained unreplenished, I well knew, and so, throwing caution to the winds, I flung overboard everything but the engine and compass, even to my ornaments, and lying on my belly along the deck with one hand on the steering wheel and the other pushing the speed lever to its last notch I split the thin air of dying Mars with the speed of a meteor. An hour before dark the great walls of the atmosphere plant loomed suddenly before me, and with a sickening thud I plunged to the ground before the small door which was withholding the spark of life from the inhabitants of an entire planet. Beside the door a great crew of men had been laboring to pierce the wall, but they had scarcely scratched the flint-like surface, and now most of them lay in the last sleep from which not even air would awaken them. Conditions seemed much worse here than at Helium, and it was with difficulty that I breathed at all. There were a few men still conscious, and to one of these I spoke. "If I can open these doors is there a man who can start the engines?" I asked. "I can," he replied, "if you open quickly. I can last but a few moments more. But it is useless, they are both dead and no one else upon Barsoom knew the secret of these awful locks. For three days men crazed with fear have surged about this portal in vain attempts to solve its mystery." I had no time to talk, I was becoming very weak and it was with difficulty that I controlled my mind at all. But, with a final effort, as I sank weakly to my knees I hurled the nine thought waves at that awful thing before me. The Martian had crawled to my side and with staring eyes fixed on the single panel before us we waited in the silence of death. Slowly the mighty door receded before us. I attempted to rise and follow it but I was too weak. "After it," I cried to my companion, "and if you reach the pump room turn loose all the pumps. It is the only chance Barsoom has to exist tomorrow!" From where I lay I opened the second door, and then the third, and as I saw the hope of Barsoom crawling weakly on hands and knees through the last doorway I sank unconscious upon the ground. CHAPTER XXVIII AT THE ARIZONA CAVE It was dark when I opened my eyes again. Strange, stiff garments were upon my body; garments that cracked and powdered away from me as I rose to a sitting posture. I felt myself over from head to foot and from head to foot I was clothed, though when I fell unconscious at the little doorway I had been naked. Before me was a small patch of moonlit sky which showed through a ragged aperture. As my hands passed over my body they came in contact with pockets and in one of these a small parcel of matches wrapped in oiled paper. One of these matches I struck, and its dim flame lighted up what appeared to be a huge cave, toward the back of which I discovered a strange, still figure huddled over a tiny bench. As I approached it I saw that it was the dead and mummified remains of a little old woman with long black hair, and the thing it leaned over was a small charcoal burner upon which rested a round copper vessel containing a small quantity of greenish powder. Behind her, depending from the roof upon rawhide thongs, and stretching entirely across the cave, was a row of human skeletons. From the thong which held them stretched another to the dead hand of the little old woman; as I touched the cord the skeletons swung to the motion with a noise as of the rustling of dry leaves. It was a most grotesque and horrid tableau and I hastened out into the fresh air; glad to escape from so gruesome a place. The sight that met my eyes as I stepped out upon a small ledge which ran before the entrance of the cave filled me with consternation. A new heaven and a new landscape met my gaze. The silvered mountains in the distance, the almost stationary moon hanging in the sky, the cacti-studded valley below me were not of Mars. I could scarce believe my eyes, but the truth slowly forced itself upon me—I was looking upon Arizona from the same ledge from which ten years before I had gazed with longing upon Mars. Burying my head in my arms I turned, broken, and sorrowful, down the trail from the cave. Above me shone the red eye of Mars holding her awful secret, forty-eight million miles away. Did the Martian reach the pump room? Did the vitalizing air reach the people of that distant planet in time to save them? Was my Dejah Thoris alive, or did her beautiful body lie cold in death beside the tiny golden incubator in the sunken garden of the inner courtyard of the palace of Tardos Mors, the jeddak of Helium? For ten years I have waited and prayed for an answer to my questions. For ten years I have waited and prayed to be taken back to the world of my lost love. I would rather lie dead beside her there than live on Earth all those millions of terrible miles from her. The old mine, which I found untouched, has made me fabulously wealthy; but what care I for wealth! As I sit here tonight in my little study overlooking the Hudson, just twenty years have elapsed since I first opened my eyes upon Mars. I can see her shining in the sky through the little window by my desk, and tonight she seems calling to me again as she has not called before since that long dead night, and I think I can see, across that awful abyss of space, a beautiful black-haired woman standing in the garden of a palace, and at her side is a little boy who puts his arm around her as she points into the sky toward the planet Earth, while at their feet is a huge and hideous creature with a heart of gold. I believe that they are waiting there for me, and something tells me that I shall soon know.

AYN RAND 


THE FOUNTAINHEAD 

To Frank O'Connor 

Copyright (c) 1943 The Bobbs-Merrill Company 
Copyright (c) renewed 1971 by Ayn Rand. 

All rights reserved. For information address The Bobbs-Merrill Company, a division of 
Macmillan, Inc., 866 Third Avenue, New York, New York 1 0022. 


Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition 


Many people have asked me how I feel about the fact that The Fountainhead has been in print 
for twenty-five years. I cannot say that I feel anything in particular, except a kind of quiet 
satisfaction. In this respect, my attitude toward my writing is best expressed by a statement of 
Victor Hugo: "If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it 
away." 

Certain writers, of whom I am one, do not live, think or write on the range of the moment. 
Novels, in the proper sense of the word, are not written to vanish in a month or a year. That 
most of them do, today, that they are written and published as if they were magazines, to fade 
as rapidly, is one of the sorriest aspects of today's literature, and one of the clearest 
indictments of its dominant esthetic philosophy: concrete-bound, journalistic Naturalism which 
has now reached its dead end in the inarticulate sounds of panic. 

Longevity-predominantly, though not exclusively-is the prerogative of a literary school which is 
virtually non-existent today: Romanticism. This is not the place for a dissertation on the nature 
of Romantic fiction, so let me state-for the record and for the benefit of those college students 
who have never been allowed to discover it-only that Romanticism is the conceptual school of 
art. It deals, not with the random trivia of the day, but with the timeless, fundamental, universal 
problems and values of human existence. It does not record or photograph; it creates and 
projects. It is concerned-in the words of Aristotle-not with things as they are, but with things 
as they might be and ought to be. 

And for the benefit of those who consider relevance to one's own time as of crucial 
importance, I will add, in regard to our age, that never has there been a time when men have 
so desperately needed a projection of things as they ought to be. 

I do not mean to imply that I knew, when I wrote it, that The Fountainhead would remain in 
print for twenty-five years. I did not think of any specific time period. I knew only that it was a 
book that ought to live. It did. 

But that I knew it over twenty-five years ago-that I knew it while The Fountainhead was being 
rejected by twelve publishers, some of whom declared that it was "too intellectual," 

"too controversial" and would not sell because no audience existed for it-that was the difficult 
part of its history; difficult for me to bear. I mention it here for the sake of any other writer of 
my kind who might have to face the same battle-as a reminder of the fact that it can be done. 

It would be impossible for me to discuss The Fountainhead or any part of its history without 
mentioning the man who made it possible for me to write it: my husband, Frank O'Connor. 

In a play I wrote in my early thirties, Ideal, the heroine, a screen star, speaks for me when she 



says: "I want to see, real, living, and in the hours of my own days, that glory I create as an 
illusion. I want it real. I want to know that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it, too. Or 
else what is the use of seeing it, and working, and burning oneself for an impossible vision? A 
spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry." 

Frank was the fuel. He gave me, in the hours of my own days, the reality of that sense of life, 
which created The Fountainhead--and he helped me to maintain it over a long span of years 
when there was nothing around us but a gray desert of people and events that evoked nothing 
but contempt and revulsion. The essence of the bond between us is the fact that neither of us 
has ever wanted or been tempted to settle for anything less than the world presented in The 
Fountainhead. We never will. 

If there is in me any touch of the Naturalistic writer who records "real-life" dialogue for use in a 
novel, it has been exercised only in regard to Frank. For instance, one of the most effective 
lines in The Fountainhead comes at the end of Part II, when, in reply to Toohey's question: 
"Why don't you tell me what you think of me?" Roark answers: "But I don't think of you." That 
line was Frank's answer to a different type of person, in a somewhat similar context. "You're 
casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return," was said by Frank to me, in regard 
to my professional position. I gave that line to Dominique at Roark's trial. 

I did not feel discouragement very often, and when I did, it did not last longer than overnight. 
But there was one evening, during the writing of The Fountainhead, when I felt so profound an 
indignation at the state of "things as they are" that it seemed as if I would never regain the 
energy to move one step farther toward "things as they ought to be." Frank talked to me for 
hours, that night. He convinced me of why one cannot give up the world to those one 
despises. By the time he finished, my discouragement was gone; it never came back in so 
intense a form. 

I had been opposed to the practice of dedicating books; I had held that a book is addressed to 
any reader who proves worthy of it. But, that night, I told Frank that I would dedicate The 
Fountainhead to him because he had saved it. And one of my happiest moments, about two 
years later, was given to me by the look on his face when he came home, one day, and saw 
the page-proofs of the book, headed by the page that stated in cold, clear, objective print: To 
Frank O'Connor. 

I have been asked whether I have changed in these past twenty-five years. No, I am the 
same-only more so. Have my ideas changed? No, my fundamental convictions, my view of 
life and of man, have never changed, from as far back as I can remember, but my knowledge 
of their applications has grown, in scope and in precision. What is my present evaluation of 
The Fountainhead? I am as proud of it as I was on the day when I finished writing it. 

Was The Fountainhead written for the purpose of presenting my philosophy? Here, I shall 
quote from The Goal of My Writing, an address I gave at Lewis and Clark College, on October 
1 , 1 963: "This is the motive and purpose of my writing; the projection of an ideal man. The 
portrayal of a moral ideal, as my ultimate literary goal, as an end in itself-to which any 
didactic, intellectual or philosophical values contained in a novel are only the means. 

"Let me stress this: my purpose is not the philosophical enlightenment of my readers. ..My 
purpose, first cause and prime mover is the portrayal of Howard Roark [or the heroes of Atlas 
Shrugged} as an end in himself... 

"I write-and read-for the sake of the story.. .My basic test for any story is: ’Would I want to 
meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is this story an experience worth 
living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure of contemplating these characters an end in 
itself?'... 

"Since my purpose is the presentation of an ideal man, I had to define and present the 
conditions which make him possible and which his existence requires. Since man’s character 
is the product of his premises, I had to define and present the kinds of premises and values 
that create the character of an ideal man and motivate his actions; which means that I had to 
define and present a rational code of ethics. Since man acts among and deals with other men, 
I had to present the kind of social system that makes it possible for ideal men to exist and to 
function-a free, productive, rational system which demands and rewards the best in every 



man, and which is, obviously, laissez-faire capitalism. 


"But neither politics nor ethics nor philosophy is an end in itself, neither in life nor in literature. 
Only Man is an end in himself." 

Are there any substantial changes I would want to make in The Fountainhead? No-and, 
therefore, I have left its text untouched. I want it to stand as it was written. But there is one 
minor error and one possibly misleading sentence which I should like to clarify, so I shall 
mention them here. 

The error is semantic: the use of the word "egotist" in Roark's courtroom speech, while 
actually the word should have been "egoist." The error was caused by my reliance on a 
dictionary which gave such misleading definitions of these two words that "egotist" seemed 
closer to the meaning I intended (Webster's Daily Use Dictionary, 1933). (Modern 
philosophers, however, are guiltier than lexicographers in regard to these two terms.) 

The possibly misleading sentence is in Roark's speech: "From this simplest necessity to the 
highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and 
everything we have comes from a single attribute of man-the function of his reasoning mind." 

This could be misinterpreted to mean an endorsement of religion or religious ideas. I 
remember hesitating over that sentence, when I wrote it, and deciding that Roark's and my 
atheism, as well as the overall spirit of the book, were so clearly established that no one would 
misunderstand it, particularly since I said that religious abstractions are the product of man's 
mind, not of supernatural revelation. 

But an issue of this sort should not be left to implications. What I was referring to was not 
religion as such, but a special category of abstractions, the most exalted one, which, for 
centuries, had been the near-monopoly of religion: ethics-not the particular content of 
religious ethics, but the abstraction "ethics," the realm of values, man's code of good and evil, 
with the emotional connotations of height, uplift, nobility, reverence, grandeur, which pertain to 
the realm of man’s values, but which religion has arrogated to itself. 

The same meaning and considerations were intended and are applicable to another passage 
of the book, a brief dialogue between Roark and Hopton Stoddard, which may be 
misunderstood if taken out of context: 

’"You’re a profoundly religious man, Mr. Roark-in your own way. I can see that in your 
buildings.' 

'"That's true,' said Roark." 

In the context of that scene, however, the meaning is clear: it is Roark's profound dedication 
to values, to the highest and best, to the ideal, that Stoddard is referring to (see his 
explanation of the nature of the proposed temple). The erection of the Stoddard Temple and 
the subsequent trial state the issue explicitly. 

This leads me to a wider issue which is involved in every line of The Fountainhead and which 
has to be understood if one wants to understand the causes of its lasting appeal. 

Religion's monopoly in the field of ethics has made it extremely difficult to communicate the 
emotional meaning and connotations of a rational view of life. Just as religion has preempted 
the field of ethics, turning morality against man, so it has usurped the highest moral concepts 
of our language, placing them outside this earth and beyond man's reach. "Exaltation" is 
usually taken to mean an emotional state evoked by contemplating the supernatural. 

"Worship" means the emotional experience of loyalty and dedication to something higher than 
man. "Reverence" means the emotion of a sacred respect, to be experienced on one's knees. 
"Sacred" means superior to and not-to-be-touched-by any concerns of man or of this earth. 
Etc. 

But such concepts do name actual emotions, even though no supernatural dimension exists; 
and these emotions are experienced as uplifting or ennobling, without the self-abasement 
required by religious definitions. What, then, is their source or referent in reality? It is the entire 



emotional realm of man's dedication to a moral ideal. Yet apart from the man-degrading 
aspects introduced by religion, that emotional realm is left unidentified, without concepts, 
words or recognition. 

It is this highest level of man's emotions that has to be redeemed from the murk of mysticism 
and redirected at its proper object: man. 

It is in this sense, with this meaning and intention, that I would identify the sense of life 
dramatized in The Fountainhead as man-worship. 

It is an emotion that a few-a very few-men experience consistently; some men experience it 
in rare, single sparks that flash and die without consequences; some do not know what I am 
talking about; some do and spend their lives as frantically virulent spark-extinguishers. 

Do not confuse "man-worship" with the many attempts, not to emancipate morality from 
religion and bring it into the realm of reason, but to substitute a secular meaning for the worst, 
the most profoundly irrational elements of religion. For instance, there are all the variants of 
modern collectivism (communist, fascist, Nazi, etc.), which preserve the religious-altruist 
ethics in full and merely substitute "society" for God as the beneficiary of man's self- 
immolation. There are the various schools of modern philosophy which, rejecting the law of 
identity, proclaim that reality is an indeterminate flux ruled by miracles and shaped by whims- 
not God's whims, but man's or "society's." These neo-mystics are not man-worshipers; they 
are merely the secularizers of as profound a hatred for man as that of their avowedly mystic 
predecessors. 

A cruder variant of the same hatred is represented by those concrete-bound, "statistical" 
mentalities who-unable to grasp the meaning of man's volition-declare that man cannot be 
an object of worship, since they have never encountered any specimens of humanity who 
deserved it. 

The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man's highest potential and 
strive to actualize it. The man-haters are those who regard man as a helpless, depraved, 
contemptible creature-and struggle never to let him discover otherwise. It is important here to 
remember that the only direct, introspective knowledge of man anyone possesses is of 
himself. 

More specifically, the essential division between these two camps is: those dedicated to the 
exaltation of man's self-esteem and the sacredness of his happiness on earth-and those 
determined not to allow either to become possible. The majority of mankind spend their lives 
and psychological energy in the middle, swinging between these two, struggling not to allow 
the issue to be named. This does not change the nature of the issue. 

Perhaps the best way to communicate The Fountainhead's sense of life is by means of the 
quotation which had stood at the head of my manuscript, but which I removed from the final, 
published book. With this opportunity to explain it, I am glad to bring it back. 

I removed it, because of my profound disagreement with the philosophy of its author, Friedrich 
Nietzsche. Philosophically, Nietzsche is a mystic and an irrationalist. His metaphysics consists 
of a somewhat "Byronic" and mystically "malevolent" universe; his epistemology subordinates 
reason to "will," or feeling or instinct or blood or innate virtues of character. But, as a poet, he 
projects at times (not consistently) a magnificent feeling for man's greatness, expressed in 
emotional, not intellectual terms. 

This is especially true of the quotation I had chosen. I could not endorse its literal meaning: it 
proclaims an indefensible tenet-psychological determinism. But if one takes it as a poetic 
projection of an emotional experience (and if, intellectually, one substitutes the concept of an 
acquired "basic premise" for the concept of an innate "fundamental certainty"), then that 
quotation communicates the inner state of an exalted self-esteem-and sums up the emotional 
consequences for which The Fountainhead provides the rational, philosophical base: 

"It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank-to 
employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning, -it is some 
fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be 



sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost.--The noble soul has reverence 
for itself.-" (Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.) 


This view of man has rarely been expressed in human history. Today, it is virtually non- 
existent. Yet this is the view with which-in various degrees of longing, wistfulness, passion 
and agonized confusion-the best of mankind's youth start out in life. It is not even a view, for 
most of them, but a foggy, groping, undefined sense made of raw pain and incommunicable 
happiness. It is a sense of enormous expectation, the sense that one's life is important, that 
great achievements are within one's capacity, and that great things lie ahead. 

It is not in the nature of man-nor of any living entity-to start out by giving up, by spitting in 
one's own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity 
differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run 
down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. 
Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that 
maturity consists of abandoning one's mind; security, of abandoning one's values; practicality, 
of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be 
betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the 
dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential. 

There are very few guideposts to find. The Fountainhead is one of them. 

This is one of the cardinal reasons of The Fountainhead's lasting appeal: it is a confirmation of 
the spirit of youth, proclaiming man's glory, showing how much is possible. 

It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of 
man's proper stature-and that the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and 
give life its meaning-and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are no 
concern of mine; it is not me or The Fountainhead that they will betray: it is their own souls. 

AYN RAND New York, May 1968 


CONTENTS 
PART ONE 
Peter Keating 
PART TWO 
Ellsworth M. Toohey 
PART THREE 
Gail Wynand 
PART FOUR 
Howard Roark 


I offer my profound gratitude to the great profession of architecture and its heroes who have 
given us some of the highest expressions of man's genius, yet have remained unknown, 
undiscovered by the majority of men. And to the architects who gave me their generous 
assistance in the technical matters of this book. 

No person or event in this story is intended as a reference to any real person or event. The 
titles of the newspaper columns were invented and used by me in the first draft of this novel 
five years ago. They were not taken from and have no reference to any actual newspaper 
columns or features. 



-AYN RAND March 10, 1943 


Part One: PETER KEATING 


1. 

HOWARD ROARK laughed. 

He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite 
burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone- 
flowing. The stone had the stillness of one brief moment in battle when thrust meets thrust 
and the currents are held in a pause more dynamic than motion. The stone glowed, wet with 
sunrays. 

The lake below was only a thin steel ring that cut the rocks in half. The rocks went on into the 
depth, unchanged. They began and ended in the sky. So that the world seemed suspended in 
space, an island floating on nothing, anchored to the feet of the man on the cliff. 

His body leaned back against the sky. It was a body of long straight lines and angles, each 
curve broken into planes. He stood, rigid, his hands hanging at his sides, palms out. He felt 
his shoulder blades drawn tight together, the curve of his neck, and the weight of the blood in 
his hands. He felt the wind behind him, in the hollow of his spine. The wind waved his hair 
against the sky. His hair was neither blond nor red, but the exact color of ripe orange rind. 

He laughed at the thing which had happened to him that morning and at the things which now 
lay ahead. 

He knew that the days ahead would be difficult. There were questions to be faced and a plan 
of action to be prepared. He knew that he should think about it. He knew also that he would 
not think, because everything was clear to him already, because the plan had been set long 
ago, and because he wanted to laugh. 

He tried to consider it. But he forgot. He was looking at the granite. 

He did not laugh as his eyes stopped in awareness of the earth around him. His face was like 
a law of nature-a thing one could not question, alter or implore. It had high cheekbones 
over gaunt, hollow cheeks; gray eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the 
mouth of an executioner or a saint. 

He looked at the granite. To be cut, he thought, and made into walls. He looked at a tree. To 
be split and made into rafters. He looked at a streak of rust on the stone and thought of iron 
ore under the ground. To be melted and to emerge as girders against the sky. 

These rocks, he thought, are here for me; waiting for the drill, the dynamite and my voice; 
waiting to be split, ripped, pounded, reborn; waiting for the shape my hands will give them. 

Then he shook his head, because he remembered that morning and that there were many 
things to be done. He stepped to the edge, raised his arms, and dived down into the sky 
below. 

He cut straight across the lake to the shore ahead. He reached the rocks where he had left his 
clothes. He looked regretfully about him. For three years, ever since he had lived in Stanton, 
he had come here for his only relaxation, to swim, to rest, to think, to be alone and alive, 
whenever he could find one hour to spare, which had not been often. In his new freedom the 
first thing he had wanted to do was to come here, because he knew that he was coming for 
the last time. That morning he had been expelled from the Architectural School of the Stanton 
Institute of Technology. He pulled his clothes on: old denim trousers, sandals, a shirt with 
short sleeves and most of its buttons missing. He swung down a narrow trail among the 



boulders, to a path running through a green slope, to the road below. 


He walked swiftly, with a loose, lazy expertness of motion. He walked down the long road, in 
the sun. Far ahead Stanton lay sprawled on the coast of Massachusetts, a little town as a 
setting for the gem of its existence--the great institute rising on a hill beyond. 

The township of Stanton began with a dump. A gray mound of refuse rose in the grass. It 
smoked faintly. Tin cans glittered in the sun. The road led past the first houses to a church. 
The church was a Gothic monument of shingles painted pigeon blue. It had stout wooden 
buttresses supporting nothing. It had stained-glass windows with heavy traceries of imitation 
stone. It opened the way into long streets edged by tight, exhibitionist lawns. Behind the lawns 
stood wooden piles tortured out of all shape: twisted into gables, turrets, dormers; bulging with 
porches; crushed under huge, sloping roofs. White curtains floated at the windows. A garbage 
can stood at a side door, flowing over. An old Pekinese sat upon a cushion on a door step, its 
mouth drooling. A line of diapers fluttered in the wind between the columns of a porch. 

People turned to look at Howard Roark as he passed. Some remained staring after him with 
sudden resentment. They could give no reason for it: it was an instinct his presence 
awakened in most people. Howard Roark saw no one. For him, the streets were empty. He 
could have walked there naked without concern. He crossed the heart of Stanton, a broad 
green edged by shop windows. The windows displayed new placards announcing: 

WELCOME TO THE CLASS OF '22! GOOD LUCK, CLASS OF '22! The Class of '22 of the 
Stanton Institute of Technology was holding its commencement exercises that afternoon. 

Roark swung into a side street, where at the end of a long row, on a knoll over a green ravine, 
stood the house of Mrs. Keating. He had boarded at that house for three years. 

Mrs. Keating was out on the porch. She was feeding a couple of canaries in a cage 
suspended over the railing. Her pudgy little hand stopped in mid-air when she saw him. She 
watched him with curiosity. She tried to pull her mouth into a proper expression of sympathy; 
she succeeded only in betraying that the process was an effort. 

He was crossing the porch without noticing her. She stopped him. 

"Mr. Roark!" 

"Yes?" 

"Mr. Roark, I’m so sorry about-" she hesitated demurely, "-about what happened this 
morning." 

"What?" he asked. 

"Your being expelled from the Institute. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I only want you to know 
that I feel for you." 

He stood looking at her. She knew that he did not see her. No, she thought, it was not that 
exactly. He always looked straight at people and his damnable eyes never missed a thing, it 
was only that he made people feel as if they did not exist. He just stood looking. He would not 
answer. 

"But what I say," she continued, "is that if one suffers in this world, it's on account of error. Of 
course, you'll have to give up the architect profession now, won't you? But then a young man 
can always earn a decent living clerking or selling or something." 

He turned to go. 

"Oh, Mr. Roark!" she called. 

"Yes?" 

"The Dean phoned for you while you were out." 



For once, she expected some emotion from him; and an emotion would be the equivalent of 
seeing him broken. She did not know what it was about him that had always made her want to 
see him broken. 

"Yes?" he asked. 

"The Dean," she repeated uncertainly, trying to recapture her effect. "The Dean himself 
through his secretary." 

"Well?" 

"She said to tell you that the Dean wanted to see you immediately the moment you got back." 
"Thank you." 

"What do you suppose he can want now?" 

"I don't know." 

He had said: "I don't know." She had heard distinctly: "I don't give a damn." She stared at him 
incredulously. 

"By the way," she said, "Petey is graduating today." She said it without apparent relevance. 
"Today? Oh, yes." 

"It's a great day for me. When I think of how I skimped and slaved to put my boy through 
school. Not that I'm complaining. I'm not one to complain. Petey's a brilliant boy." 

She stood drawn up. Her stout little body was corseted so tightly under the starched folds of 
her cotton dress that it seemed to squeeze the fat out to her wrists and ankles. 

"But of course," she went on rapidly, with the eagerness of her favorite subject, "I'm not one to 
boast. Some mothers are lucky and others just aren't. We're all in our rightful place. You just 
watch Petey from now on. I'm not one to want my boy to kill himself with work and I'll thank the 
Lord for any small success that comes his way. But if that boy isn't the greatest architect of 
this U.S.A., his mother will want to know the reason why!" 

He moved to go. 

"But what am I doing, gabbing with you like that!" she said brightly. "You've got to hurry and 
change and run along. The Dean's waiting for you." 

She stood looking after him through the screen door, watching his gaunt figure move across 
the rigid neatness of her parlor. He always made her uncomfortable in the house, with a 
vague feeling of apprehension, as if she were waiting to see him swing out suddenly and 
smash her coffee tables, her Chinese vases, her framed photographs. He had never shown 
any inclination to do so. She kept expecting it, without knowing why. 

Roark went up the stairs to his room. It was a large, bare room, made luminous by the clean 
glow of whitewash. Mrs. Keating had never had the feeling that Roark really lived there. He 
had not added a single object to the bare necessities of furniture which she had provided; no 
pictures, no pennants, no cheering human touch. He had brought nothing to the room but his 
clothes and his drawings; there were few clothes and too many drawings; they were stacked 
high in one comer; sometimes she thought that the drawings lived there, not the man. 

Roark walked now to these drawings; they were the first things to be packed. He lifted one of 
them, then the next, then another. He stood looking at the broad sheets. 

They were sketches of buildings such as had never stood on the face of the earth. They were 
as the first houses built by the first man born, who had never heard of others building before 
him. There was nothing to be said of them, except that each structure was inevitably what it 



had to be. It was not as if the draftsman had sat over them, pondering laboriously, piecing 
together doors, windows and columns, as his whim dictated and as the books prescribed. It 
was as if the buildings had sprung from the earth and from some living force, complete, 
unalterably right. The hand that had made the sharp pencil lines still had much to learn. But 
not a line seemed superfluous, not a needed plane was missing. The structures were austere 
and simple, until one looked at them and realized what work, what complexity of method, what 
tension of thought had achieved the simplicity. No laws had dictated a single detail. The 
buildings were not Classical, they were not Gothic, they were not Renaissance. They were 
only Howard Roark. 

He stopped, looking at a sketch. It was one that had never satisfied him. He had designed it 
as an exercise he had given himself, apart from his schoolwork; he did that often when he 
found some particular site and stopped before it to think of what building it should bear. He 
had spent nights staring at this sketch, wondering what he had missed. Glancing at it now, 
unprepared, he saw the mistake he had made. 

He flung the sketch down on the table, he bent over it, he slashed lines straight through his 
neat drawing. He stopped once in a while and stood looking at it, his fingertips pressed to the 
paper; as if his hands held the building. His hands had long fingers, hard veins, prominent 
joints and wristbones. 

An hour later he heard a knock at his door. 

"Come in!" he snapped, without stopping. 

"Mr. Roark!" gasped Mrs. Keating, staring at him from the threshold. "What on earth are you 
doing?" 

He turned and looked at her, trying to remember who she was. 

"How about the Dean?" she moaned. "The Dean that's waiting for you?" 

"Oh," said Roark. "Oh, yes. I forgot." 

"You. ..forgot?" 

"Yes." There was a note of wonder in his voice, astonished by her astonishment. 

"Well, all I can say," she choked, "is that it serves you right! It just serves you right. And with 
the commencement beginning at four-thirty, how do you expect him to have time to see you?" 

"I'll go at once, Mrs. Keating." 

It was not her curiosity alone that prompted her to action; it was a secret fear that the 
sentence of the Board might be revoked. He went to the bathroom at the end of the hall; she 
watched him washing his hands, throwing his loose, straight hair back into a semblance of 
order. He came out again, he was on his way to the stairs before she realized that he was 
leaving. 

"Mr. Roark!" she gasped, pointing at his clothes. "You're not going like this?" 

"Why not?" 

"But it's your Dean!" 

"Not any more, Mrs. Keating." 

She thought, aghast, that he said it as if he were actually happy. 

The Stanton Institute of Technology stood on a hill, its crenelated walls raised as a crown over 
the city stretched below. It looked like a medieval fortress, with a Gothic cathedral grafted to 
its belly. The fortress was eminently suited to its purpose, with stout, brick walls, a few slits 
wide enough for sentries, ramparts behind which defending archers could hide, and corner 



turrets from which boiling oil could be poured upon the attacker-should such an emergency 
arise in an institute of learning. The cathedral rose over it in lace splendor, a fragile defense 
against two great enemies: light and air. 

The Dean's office looked like a chapel, a pool of dreamy twilight fed by one tall window of 
stained glass. The twilight flowed in through the garments of stiff saints, their arms contorted 
at the elbows. A red spot of light and a purple one rested respectively upon two genuine 
gargoyles squatting at the corners of a fireplace that had never been used. A green spot stood 
in the center of a picture of the Parthenon, suspended over the fireplace. 

When Roark entered the office, the outlines of the Dean's figure swam dimly behind his desk, 
which was carved like a confessional. He was a short, plumpish gentleman whose spreading 
flesh was held in check by an indomitable dignity. 

"Ah, yes, Roark," he smiled. "Do sit down, please." 

Roark sat down. The Dean entwined his fingers on his stomach and waited for the plea he 
expected. No plea came. The Dean cleared his throat. 

"It will be unnecessary for me to express my regret at the unfortunate event of this morning," 
he began, "since I take it for granted that you have always known my sincere interest in your 
welfare." 

"Quite unnecessary," said Roark. 

The Dean looked at him dubiously, but continued: 

"Needless to say, I did not vote against you. I abstained entirely. But you may be glad to know 
that you had quite a determined little group of defenders at the meeting. Small, but 
determined. Your professor of structural engineering acted quite the crusader on your behalf. 
So did your professor of mathematics. Unfortunately, those who felt it their duty to vote for 
your expulsion quite outnumbered the others. Professor Peterkin, your critic of design, made 
an issue of the matter. He went so far as to threaten us with his resignation unless you were 
expelled. You must realize that you have given Professor Peterkin great provocation." 

"I do," said Roark. 

"That, you see, was the trouble. I am speaking of your attitude towards the subject of 
architectural design. You have never given it the attention it deserves. And yet, you have been 
excellent in all the engineering sciences. Of course, no one denies the importance of 
structural engineering to a future architect, but why go to extremes? Why neglect what may be 
termed the artistic and inspirational side of your profession and concentrate on all those dry, 
technical, mathematical subjects? You intended to become an architect, not a civil engineer." 

"Isn't this superfluous?" Roark asked. "It's past. There's no point in discussing my choice of 
subjects now." 

"I am endeavoring to be helpful, Roark. You must be fair about this. You cannot say that you 
were not given many warnings before this happened." 

"I was." 

The Dean moved in his chair. Roark made him uncomfortable. Roark's eyes were fixed on 
him politely. The Dean thought, there's nothing wrong with the way he's looking at me, in fact 
it's quite correct, most properly attentive; only, it's as if I were not here. 

"Every problem you were given," the Dean went on, "every project you had to design-what did 
you do with it? Every one of them done in that-well, I cannot call it a style-in that incredible 
manner of yours. It is contrary to every principle we have tried to teach you, contrary to all 
established precedents and traditions of Art. You may think you are what is called a 
modernist, but it isn't even that. It is. ..it is sheer insanity, if you don't mind." 


I don't mind. 



"When you were given projects that left the choice of style up to you and you turned in one of 
your wild stunts-well, frankly, your teachers passed you because they did not know what to 
make of it. But, when you were given an exercise in the historical styles, a Tudor chapel or a 
French opera house to design-and you turned in something that looked like a lot of boxes 
piled together without rhyme or reason-would you say it was an answer to an assignment or 
plain insubordination?" 

"It was insubordination," said Roark. 

"We wanted to give you a chance-in view of your brilliant record in all other subjects. But 
when you turn in this-" the Dean slammed his fist down on a sheet spread before him-"this 
as a Renaissance villa for your final project of the year-really, my boy, it was too much!" 

The sheet bore a drawing-a house of glass and concrete. In the comer there was a sharp, 
angular signature: Howard Roark. 

"How do you expect us to pass you after this?" 

"I don't." 

"You left us no choice in the matter. Naturally, you would feel bitterness toward us at this 
moment, but..." 

"I feel nothing of the kind," said Roark quietly. "I owe you an apology. I don't usually let things 
happen to me. I made a mistake this time. I shouldn't have waited for you to throw me out. I 
should have left long ago." 

"Now, now, don't get discouraged. This is not the right attitude to take. Particularly in view of 
what I am going to tell you." 

The Dean smiled and leaned forward confidentially, enjoying the overture to a good deed. 

"Here is the real purpose of our interview. I was anxious to let you know as soon as possible. I 
did not wish to leave you disheartened. Oh, I did, personally, take a chance with the 
President's temper when I mentioned this to him, but.. .Mind you, he did not commit himself, 
but. ..Here is how things stand: now that you realize how serious it is, if you take a year off, to 
rest, to think it over-shall we say to grow up?-there might be a chance of our taking you 
back. Mind you, I cannot promise anything-this is strictly unofficial— it would be most unusual, 
but in view of the circumstances and of your brilliant record, there might be a very good 
chance." 

Roark smiled. It was not a happy smile, it was not a grateful one. It was a simple, easy smile 
and it was amused. 

"I don't think you understood me," said Roark. "What made you suppose that I want to come 
back?" 

"Eh?" 

"I won't be back. I have nothing further to learn here." 

"I don't understand you," said the Dean stiffly. 

"Is there any point in explaining? It's of no interest to you any longer." 

"You will kindly explain yourself." 

"If you wish. I want to be an architect, not an archeologist. I see no purpose in doing 
Renaissance villas. Why learn to design them, when I'll never build them?" 

"My dear boy, the great style of the Renaissance is far from dead. Houses of that style are 
being erected every day." 



"They are. And they will be. But not by me." 

"Come, come, now, this is childish." 

"I came here to learn about building. When I was given a project, its only value to me was to 
learn to solve it as I would solve I a real one in the future. I did them the way I'll build them. 
I've | learned all I could learn here--in the structural sciences of which you don't approve. 
One more year of drawing Italian post cards would give me nothing." 

An hour ago the Dean had wished that this interview would proceed as calmly as possible. 
Now he wished that Roark would display some emotion; it seemed unnatural for him to be so 
quietly natural in the circumstances. 

"Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are 
an architect?" 

"Yes." 

"My dear fellow, who will let you?" 

"That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?" 

"Look here, this is serious. I am sorry that I haven't had a long, earnest talk with you much 
earlier. ..I know, I know, I know, don't interrupt me, you've seen a modernistic building or two, 
and it gave you ideas. But do you realize what a passing fancy that whole so-called modern 
movement is? You must learn to understand-and it has been proved by all authorities-that 
everything beautiful in architecture has been done already. There is a treasure mine in every 
style of the past. We can only choose from the great masters. Who are we to improve upon 
them? We can only attempt, respectfully, to repeat." 

"Why?" asked Howard Roark. 

No, thought the Dean, no, he hasn't said anything else; it's a perfectly innocent word; he's not 
threatening me. 

"But it's self-evident!" said the Dean. 

"Look," said Roark evenly, and pointed at the window. "Can you see the campus and the 
town? Do you see how many men are walking and living down there? Well, I don't give a 
damn what any or all of them think about architecture-or about anything else, for that matter. 
Why should I consider what their grandfathers thought of it?" 

"That is our sacred tradition." 

"Why?" 

"For heaven's sake, can't you stop being so naive about it?" 

"But I don’t understand. Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture?" He 
pointed to the picture of the Parthenon. 

"That," said the Dean, "is the Parthenon." 

"So it is." 

"I haven't the time to waste on silly questions." 

"All right, then." Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked to the picture. 
"Shall I tell you what's rotten about it?" 

"It's the Parthenon!" said the Dean. 



'Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon! 


The ruler struck the glass over the picture. 

"Look," said Roark. "The famous flutings on the famous columns-what are they there for? To 
hide the joints in wood-when columns were made of wood, only these aren't, they're marble. 
The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people 
began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their 
wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the 
Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. 
Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble 
of copies in wood. Why?" 

The Dean sat watching him curiously. Something puzzled him, not in the words, but in Roark's 
manner of saying them. 

"Rules?" said Roark. "Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be 
done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two 
buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape. 
Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it's made by one central idea, and the idea sets 
every detail. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single 
theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doesn't borrow pieces of his body. A 
building doesn't borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window 
and stairway to express it." 

"But all the proper forms of expression have been discovered long ago." 

"Expression-of what? The Parthenon did not serve the same purpose as its wooden 
ancestor. An airline terminal does not serve the same purpose as the Parthenon. Every form 
has its own meaning. Every man creates his meaning and form and goal. Why is it so 
important--what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being 
your own? Why is anyone and everyone right-so long as it's not yourself? Why does the 
number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of 
arithmetic--and only of addition at that? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit 
everything else? There must be some reason. I don't know. I've never known it. I'd like to 
understand." 

"For heaven's sake," said the Dean. "Sit down. ...That's better.. ..Would you mind very much 
putting that ruler down?. ..Thank you. ...Now listen to me. No one has ever denied the 
importance of modern technique to an architect. We must learn to adapt the beauty of the 
past to the needs of the present. The voice of the past is the voice of the people. Nothing has 
ever been invented by one man in architecture. The proper creative process is a slow, 
gradual, anonymous, collective one, in which each man collaborates with all the others and 
subordinates himself to the standards of the majority." 

"But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let's say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be 
spent working. I've chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I'm only condemning 
myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way 
possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards--and I set my own standards. I inherit 
nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one." 

"How old are you?" asked the Dean. 

"Twenty-two," said Roark. 

"Quite excusable," said the Dean; he seemed relieved. "You'll outgrow all that." He smiled. 
"The old standards have lived for thousands of years and nobody has been able to improve 
upon them. What are your modernists? A transient mode, exhibitionists trying to attract 
attention. Have you observed the course of their careers? Can you name one who has 
achieved any permanent distinction? Look at Henry Cameron. A great man, a leading 
architect twenty years ago. What is he today? Lucky if he gets-once a year-a garage to 
remodel. A bum and a drunkard, who..." 



"We won't discuss Henry Cameron." 

"Oh? Is he a friend of yours?" 

"No. But I've seen his buildings." 

"And you found them..." 

"I said we won't discuss Henry Cameron." 

"Very well. You must realize that I am allowing you a great deal of. ..shall we say, latitude? I am 
not accustomed to hold a discussion with a student who behaves in your manner. However, I 
am anxious to forestall, if possible, what appears to be a tragedy, the spectacle of a young 
man of your obvious mental gifts setting out deliberately to make a mess of his life." 

The Dean wondered why he had promised the professor of mathematics to do all he could for 
this boy. Merely because the professor had said: "This," and pointed to Roark's project, "is a 
great man." A great man, thought the Dean, or a criminal. The Dean winced. He did not 
approve of either. 

He thought of what he had heard about Roark's past. Roark's father had been a steel puddler 
somewhere in Ohio and had died long ago. The boy's entrance papers showed no record of 
nearest relatives. When asked about it, Roark had said indifferently: "I don't think I have any 
relatives. I may have. I don't know." He had seemed astonished that he should be expected to 
have any interest in the matter. He had not made or sought a single friend on the campus. He 
had refused to join a fraternity. He had worked his way through high school and through the 
three years here at the Institute. He had worked as a common laborer in the building trades 
since childhood. He had done plastering, plumbing, steel work, anything he could get, going 
from one small town to another, working his way east, to the great cities. The Dean had seen 
him, last summer, on his vacation, catching rivets on a skyscraper in construction in Boston; 
his long body relaxed under greasy overalls, only his eyes intent, and his right arm swinging 
forward, once in a while, expertly, without effort, to catch the flying ball of fire at the last 
moment, when it seemed that the hot rivet would miss the bucket and strike him in the face. 

"Look here, Roark," said the Dean gently. "You have worked hard for your education. You had 
only one year left to go. There is something important to consider, particularly for a boy in your 
position. There's the practical side of an architect's career to think about. An architect is not an 
end in himself. He is only a small part of a great social whole. Co-operation is the key word to 
our modern world and to the profession of architecture in particular. Have you thought of your 
potential clients?" 

"Yes," said Roark. 

"The Client," said the Dean. "The Client. Think of that above all. He's the one to live in the 
house you build. Your only purpose is to serve him. You must aspire to give the proper artistic 
expression to his wishes. Isn't that all one can say on the subject?" 

"Well, I could say that I must aspire to build for my client the most comfortable, the most 
logical, the most beautiful house that can be built. I could say that I must try to sell him the 
best I have and also teach him to know the best. I could say it, but I won't. Because I don't 
intend to build in order to serve or help anyone. I don't intend to build in order to have clients. I 
intend to have clients in order to build." 

"How do you propose to force your ideas on them?" 

"I don't propose to force or be forced. Those who want me will come to me." 

Then the Dean understood what had puzzled him in Roark's manner. 

"You know," he said, "you would sound much more convincing if you spoke as if you cared 
whether I agreed with you or not." 


'That's true," said Roark. "I don't care whether you agree with me or not." He said it so simply 



that it did not sound offensive, it sounded like the statement of a fact which he noticed, 
puzzled, for the first time. 

"You don't care what others think-which might be understandable. But you don't care even to 
make them think as you do?" 

"No." 

"But that's. ..that's monstrous." 

"Is it? Probably. I couldn't say." 

"I'm glad of this interview," said the Dean, suddenly, too loudly. "It has relieved my conscience. 
I believe, as others stated at the meeting, that the profession of architecture is not for you. I 
have tried to help you. Now I agree with the Board. You are a man not to be encouraged. You 
are dangerous." 

"To whom?" asked Roark. 

But the Dean rose, indicating that the interview was over. 

Roark left the room. He walked slowly through the long halls, down the stairs, out to the lawn 
below. He had met many men such as the Dean; he had never understood them. He knew 
only that there was some important difference between his actions and theirs. It had ceased to 
disturb him long ago. But he always looked for a central theme in buildings and he looked for 
a central impulse in men. He knew the source of his actions; he could not discover theirs. He 
did not care. He had never learned the process of thinking about other people. But he 
wondered, at times, what made them such as they were. He wondered again, thinking of the 
Dean. There was an important secret involved somewhere in that question, he thought. There 
was a principle which he must discover. 

But he stopped. He saw the sunlight of late afternoon, held still in the moment before it was to 
fade, on the gray limestone of a stringcourse running along the brick wall of the Institute 
building. He forgot men, the Dean and the principle behind the Dean, which he wanted to 
discover. He thought only of how lovely the stone looked in the fragile light and of what he 
could have done with that stone. 

He thought of a broad sheet of paper, and he saw, rising on the paper, bare walls of gray 
limestone with long bands of glass, admitting the glow of the sky into the classrooms. In the 
comer of the sheet stood a sharp, angular signature--HOWARD ROARK. 


2 . 

"...ARCHITECTURE, my friends, is a great Art based on two cosmic principles: Beauty and 
Utility. In a broader sense, these are but part of the three eternal entities: Truth, Love and 
Beauty. Truth-to the traditions of our Art, Love-for our fellow men whom we are to serve, 
Beauty--ah, Beauty is a compelling goddess to all artists, be it in the shape of a lovely woman 
or a building. ...Hm.... Yes.. ..In conclusion, I should like to say to you, who are about to embark 
upon your careers in architecture, that you are now the custodians of a sacred 
heritage.. ..Hm... .Yes. ...So, go forth into the world, armed with the three eternal entities-armed 
with courage and vision, loyal to the standards this great school has represented for many 
years. May you all serve faithfully, neither as slaves to the past nor as those parvenus who 
preach originality for its own sake, which attitude is only ignorant vanity. May you all have 
many rich, active years before you and leave, as you depart from this world, your mark on the 
sands of time!" 

Guy Francon ended with a flourish, raising his right arm in a sweeping salute; informal, but 
with an air, that gay, swaggering air which Guy Francon could always permit himself. The 
huge hall before him came to life in applause and approval. 


A sea of faces, young, perspiring and eager, had been raised solemnly-for forty-five minutes- 



to the platform where Guy Francon had held forth as the speaker at the commencement 
exercises of the Stanton Institute of Technology, Guy Francon who had brought his own 
person from New York for the occasion; Guy Francon, of the illustrious firm of Francon & 
Heyer, vice-president of the Architects' Guild of America, member of the American Academy 
of Arts and Letters, member of the National Fine Arts Commission, Secretary of the Arts and 
Crafts League of New York, chairman of the Society for Architectural Enlightenment of the 
U.S.A.; Guy Francon, knight of the Legion of Honor of France, decorated by the governments 
of Great Britain, Belgium, Monaco and Siam; Guy Francon, Stanton's greatest alumnus, who 
had designed the famous Frink National Bank Building of New York City, on the top of which, 
twenty-five floors above the pavements, there burned in a miniature replica of the Hadrian 
Mausoleum a wind-blown torch made of glass and the best General Electric bulbs. 

Guy Francon descended from the platform, fully conscious of his timing and movements. He 
was of medium height and not too heavy, with just an unfortunate tendency to stoutness. 
Nobody, he knew, would give him his real age, which was fifty-one. His face bore not a wrinkle 
nor a single straight line; it was an artful composition in globes, circles, arcs and ellipses, with 
bright little eyes twinkling wittily. His clothes displayed an artist's infinite attention to details. He 
wished, as he descended the steps, that this were a co-educational school. 

The hall before him, he thought, was a splendid specimen of architecture, made a bit stuffy 
today by the crowd and by the neglected problem of ventilation. But it boasted green marble 
dadoes, Corinthian columns of cast iron painted gold, and garlands of gilded fruit on the walls; 
the pineapples particularly, thought Guy Francon, had stood the test of years very well. It is, 
thought Guy Francon, touching; it was I who built this annex and this very hall, twenty years 
ago; and here I am. 

The hall was packed with bodies and faces, so tightly that one could not distinguish at a 
glance which faces belonged to which bodies. It was like a soft, shivering aspic made of 
mixed arms, shoulders, chests and stomachs. One of the heads, pale, dark haired and 
beautiful, belonged to Peter Keating. 

He sat, well in front, trying to keep his eyes on the platform, because he knew that many 
people were looking at him and would look at him later. He did not glance back, but the 
consciousness of those centered glances never left him. His eyes were dark, alert, intelligent. 
His mouth, a small upturned crescent faultlessly traced, was gentle and generous, and warm 
with the faint promise of a smile. His head had a certain classical perfection in the shape of 
the skull, in the natural wave of black ringlets about finely hollowed temples. He held his head 
in the manner of one who takes his beauty for granted, but knows that others do not. He was 
Peter Keating, star student of Stanton, president of the student body, captain of the track 
team, member of the most important fraternity, voted the most popular man on the campus. 

The crowd was there, thought Peter Keating, to see him graduate, and he tried to estimate the 
capacity of the hall. They knew of his scholastic record and no one would beat his record 
today. Oh, well, there was Shlinker. Shlinker had given him stiff competition, but he had 
beaten Shlinker this last year. He had worked like a dog, because he had wanted to beat 
Shlinker. He had no rivals today. ...Then he felt suddenly as if something had fallen down, 
inside his throat, to his stomach, something cold and empty, a blank hole rolling down and 
leaving that feeling on its way: not a thought, just the hint of a question asking him whether he 
was really as great as this day would proclaim him to be. He looked for Shlinker in the crowd; 
he saw his yellow face and gold-rimmed glasses. He stared at Shlinker warmly, in relief, in 
reassurance, in gratitude. It was obvious that Shlinker could never hope to equal his own 
appearance or ability; he had nothing to doubt; he would always beat Shlinker and all the 
Shlinkers of the world; he would let no one achieve what he could not achieve. Let them all 
watch him. He would give them good reason to stare. He felt the hot breaths about him and 
the expectation, like a tonic. It was wonderful, thought Peter Keating, to be alive. 

His head was beginning to reel a little. It was a pleasant feeling. The feeling carried him, 
unresisting and unremembering, to the platform in front of all those faces. He stood-slender, 
trim, athletic-and let the deluge break upon his head. He gathered from its roar that he had 
graduated with honors, that the Architects' Guild of America had presented him with a gold 
medal and that he had been awarded the Prix de Paris by the Society for Architectural 
Enlightenment of the U.S.A.-a four-year scholarship at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. 



Then he was shaking hands, scratching the perspiration off his face with the end of a rolled 
parchment, nodding, smiling, suffocating in his black gown and hoping that people would not 
notice his mother sobbing with her arms about him. The President of the Institute shook his 
hand, booming: "Stanton will be proud of you, my boy." The Dean shook his hand, repeating: 
"...a glorious future. ..a glorious future. ..a glorious future..." Professor Peterkin shook his hand, 
and patted his shoulder, saying: "...and you'll find it absolutely essential; for example, I had the 
experience when I built the Peabody Post Office..." Keating did not listen to the rest, because 
he had heard the story of the Peabody Post Office many times. It was the only structure 
anyone had ever known Professor Peterkin to have erected, before he sacrificed his practice 
to the responsibilities of teaching. A great deal was said about Keating's final project--a Palace 
of Fine Arts. For the life of him, Keating could not remember at the moment what that project 
was. 

Through all this, his eyes held the vision of Guy Francon shaking his hand, and his ears held 
the sounds of Francon's mellow voice: "...as I have told you, it is still open, my boy. Of course, 
now that you have this scholarship. ..you will have to decide. ..a Beaux-Arts diploma is very 
important to a young man. ..but I should be delighted to have you in our office...." 

The banquet of the Class of '22 was long and solemn. Keating listened to the speeches with 
interest; when he heard the endless sentences about "young men as the hope of American 
Architecture" and "the future opening its golden gates," he knew that he was the hope and his 
was the future, and it was pleasant to hear this confirmation from so many eminent lips. He 
looked at the gray-haired orators and thought of how much younger he would be when he 
reached their positions, theirs and beyond them. 

Then he thought suddenly of Howard Roark. He was surprised to find that the flash of that 
name in his memory gave him a sharp little twinge of pleasure, before he could know why. 
Then he remembered: Howard Roark had been expelled this morning. He reproached himself 
silently; he made a determined effort to feel sorry. But the secret glow came back, whenever 
he thought of that expulsion. The event proved conclusively that he had been a fool to imagine 
Roark a dangerous rival; at one time, he had worried about Roark more than about Shlinker, 
even though Roark was two years younger and one class below him. If he had ever 
entertained any doubts on their respective gifts, hadn't this day settled it all? And, he 
remembered, Roark had been very nice to him, helping him whenever he was stuck on a 
problem. ..not stuck, really, just did not have the time to think it out, a plan or something. 

Christ! how Roark could untangle a plan, like pulling a string and it was open. ..well, what if he 
could? What did it get him? He was done for now. And knowing this, Peter Keating 
experienced at last a satisfying pang of sympathy for Howard Roark. 

When Keating was called upon to speak, he rose confidently. He could not show that he was 
terrified. He had nothing to say about architecture. But he spoke, his head high, as an equal 
among equals, just subtly diffident, so that no great name present could take offense. He 
remembered saying: "Architecture is a great art.. .with our eyes to the future and the reverence 
of the past in our hearts. ..of all the crafts, the most important one sociologically. ..and, as the 
man who is an inspiration to us all has said today, the three eternal entities are: Truth, Love 
and Beauty...." 

Then, in the corridors outside, in the noisy confusion of leave-taking, a boy had thrown an arm 
about Keating's shoulders and whispered: "Run on home and get out of the soup-and-fish, 
Pete, and it's Boston for us tonight, just our own gang; I'll pick you up in an hour." Ted Shlinker 
had urged: "Of course you're coming, Pete. No fun without you. And, by the way, 
congratulations and all that sort of thing. No hard feelings. May the best man win." Keating 
had thrown his arm about Shlinker's shoulders; Keating's eyes had glowed with an insistent 
kind of warmth, as if Shlinker were his most precious friend; Keating's eyes glowed like that on 
everybody. He had said: "Thanks, Ted, old man. I really do feel awful about the A.G.A. 
medal-1 think you were the one for it, but you never can tell what possesses those old 
fogies." And now Keating was on his way home through the soft darkness, wondering how to 
get away from his mother for the night. 

His mother, he thought, had done a great deal for him. As she pointed out frequently, she was 
a lady and had graduated from high school; yet she had worked hard, had taken boarders into 
their home, a concession unprecedented in her family. 



His father had owned a stationery store in Stanton. Changing times had ended the business 
and a hernia had ended Peter Keating, Sr., twelve years ago. Louisa Keating had been left 
with the home that stood at the end of a respectable street, an annuity from an insurance kept 
up accurately--she had seen to that--and her son. The annuity was a modest one, but with the 
help of the boarders and of a tenacious purpose Mrs. Keating had managed. In the summers 
her son helped, clerking in hotels or posing for hat advertisements. Her son, Mrs. Keating had 
decided, would assume his rightful place in the world, and she had clung to this as softly, as 
inexorably as a leech. ...It's funny, Keating remembered, at one time he had wanted to be an 
artist. It was his mother who had chosen a better field in which to exercise his talent for 
drawing. "Architecture," she had said, "is such a respectable profession. Besides, you meet 
the best people in it." She had pushed him into his career, he had never known when or how. 
It's funny, thought Keating, he had not remembered that youthful ambition of his for years. It's 
funny that it should hurt him now-to remember. Well, this was the night to remember it-and 
to forget it forever. 

Architects, he thought, always made brilliant careers. And once on top, did they ever fail? 
Suddenly, he recalled Henry Cameron; builder of skyscrapers twenty years ago; old drunkard 
with offices on some waterfront today. Keating shuddered and walked faster. 

He wondered, as he walked, whether people were looking at him. He watched the rectangles 
of lighted windows; when a curtain fluttered and a head leaned out, he tried to guess whether 
it had leaned to watch his passing; if it hadn't, some day it would; some day, they all would. 

Howard Roark was sitting on the porch steps when Keating approached the house. He was 
leaning back against the steps, propped up on his elbows, his long legs stretched out. A 
morning-glory climbed over the porch pillars, as a curtain between the house and the light of a 
lamppost on the corner. 

It was strange to see an electric globe in the air of a spring night. It made the street darker and 
softer; it hung alone, like a gap, and left nothing to be seen but a few branches heavy with 
leaves, standing still at the gap’s edges. The small hint became immense, as if the darkness 
held nothing but a flood of leaves. The mechanical ball of glass made the leaves seem more 
living; it took away their color and gave the promise that in daylight they would be a brighter 
green than had ever existed; it took away one’s sight and left a new sense instead, neither 
smell nor touch, yet both, a sense of spring and space. 

Keating stopped when he recognized the preposterous orange hair in the darkness of the 
porch. It was the one person whom he had wanted to see tonight. He was glad to find Roark 
alone, and a little afraid of it. 

"Congratulations, Peter," said Roark. 

"Oh. ..Oh, thanks...." Keating was surprised to find that he felt more pleasure than from any 
other compliment he had received today. He was timidly glad that Roark approved, and he 
called himself inwardly a fool for it. "...I mean. ..do you know or..." He added sharply: "Has 
mother been telling you?" 

"She has." 

"She shouldn't have!" 

"Why not?" 

"Look, Howard, you know that I'm terribly sorry about your being..." 

Roark threw his head back and looked up at him. 

"Forget it," said Roark. 

"I... there's something I want to speak to you about, Howard, to ask your advice. Mind if I sit 
down?" 


'What is it?’ 



Keating sat down on the steps beside him. There was no part that he could ever play in 
Roark's presence. Besides, he did not feel like playing a part now. He heard a leaf rustling in 
its fall to the earth; it was a thin, glassy, spring sound. 

He knew, for the moment, that he felt affection for Roark; an affection that held pain, 
astonishment and helplessness. 

"You won't think," said Keating gently, in complete sincerity, "that it's awful of me to be asking 
about my business, when you've just been...?" 

"I said forget about that. What is it?" 

"You know," said Keating honestly and unexpectedly even to himself, "I've often thought that 
you're crazy. But I know that you know many things about it-architecture, I mean-which those 
fools never knew. And I know that you love it as they never will." 

"Well?" 

"Well, I don't know why I should come to you, but-Howard, I've never said it before, but you 
see, I'd rather have your opinion on things than the Dean's--I'd probably follow the Dean's, but 
it's just that yours means more to me myself, I don't know why. I don't know why I'm saying 
this, either." 

Roark turned over on his side, looked at him, and laughed. It was a young, kind, friendly 
laughter, a thing so rare to hear from Roark that Keating felt as if someone had taken his hand 
in reassurance; and he forgot that he had a party in Boston waiting for him. 

"Come on," said Roark, "you're not being afraid of me, are you? What do you want to ask 
about?" 

"It's about my scholarship. The Paris prize I got." 

"Yes?" 

"It's for four years. But, on the other hand, Guy Francon offered me a job with him some time 
ago. Today he said it's still open. And I don't know which to take." 

Roark looked at him; Roark's fingers moved in slow rotation, beating against the steps. 

"If you want my advice, Peter," he said at last, "you've made a mistake already. By asking me. 
By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? 
How can you stand it, not to know?" 

"You see, that's what I admire about you, Howard. You always know." 

"Drop the compliments." 

"But I mean it. How do you always manage to decide?" 

"How can you let others decide for you?" 

"But you see, I'm not sure, Howard. I'm never sure of myself. I don't know whether I'm as good 
as they all tell me I am. I wouldn't admit that to anyone but you. I think it’s because you're 
always so sure that I...” 

"Petey!" Mrs. Keating's voice exploded behind them. "Petey, sweetheart! What are you doing 
there?" 

She stood in the doorway, in her best dress of burgundy taffeta, happy and angry. 

"And here I've been sitting all alone, waiting for you! What on earth are you doing on those 
filthy steps in your dress suit? Get up this minute! Come on in the house, boys. I’ve got hot 



chocolate and cookies ready for you. 


"But, Mother. I wanted to speak to Howard about something important," said Keating. But he 
rose to his feet. 

She seemed not to have heard. She walked into the house. Keating followed. 

Roark looked after them, shrugged, rose and went in also. 

Mrs. Keating settled down in an armchair, her stiff skirt crackling. 

"Well?" she asked. "What were you two discussing out there?" 

Keating fingered an ash tray, picked up a matchbox and dropped it, then, ignoring her, turned 
to Roark. 

"Look, Howard, drop the pose," he said, his voice high. "Shall I junk the scholarship and go to 
work, or let Francon wait and grab the Beaux-Arts to impress the yokels? What do you think?" 

Something was gone. The one moment was lost. 

"Now, Petey, let me get this straight..." began Mrs. Keating. 

"Oh, wait a minute, Mother!. ..Howard, I've got to weigh it carefully. It isn't everyone who can 
get a scholarship like that. You're pretty good when you rate that. A course at the Beaux-Arts- 
you know how important that is." 

"I don't," said Roark. 

"Oh, hell, I know your crazy ideas, but I'm speaking practically, for a man in my position. Ideals 
aside for a moment, it certainly is..." 

"You don't want my advice," said Roark. 

"Of course I do! I'm asking you!" 

But Keating could never be the same when he had an audience, any audience. Something 
was gone. He did not know it, but he felt that Roark knew; Roark's eyes made him 
uncomfortable and that made him angry. 

"I want to practice architecture," snapped Keating, "not talk about it! Gives you a great 
prestige-the old Ecole. Puts you above the rank and file of the ex-plumbers who think they 
can build. On the other hand, an opening with Francon-Guy Francon himself offering it!" 

Roark turned away. 

"How many boys will match that?" Keating went on blindly. "A year from now they'll be 
boasting they're working for Smith or Jones if they find work at all. While I'll be with Francon & 
Heyer!" 

"You're quite right, Peter," said Mrs. Keating, rising. "On a question like that you don't want to 
consult your mother. It's too important. I'll leave you to settle it with Mr. Roark." 

He looked at his mother. He did not want to hear what she thought of this; he knew that his 
only chance to decide was to make the decision before he heard her; she had stopped, 
looking at him, ready to turn and leave the room; he knew it was not a pose-she would leave 
if he wished it; he wanted her to go; he wanted it desperately. He said: 

"Why, Mother, how can you say that? Of course I want your opinion. What. ..what do you 
think?" 

She ignored the raw irritation in his voice. She smiled. 



"Petey, I never think anything. It's up to you. It's always been up to you." 

"Well..." he began hesitantly, watching her, "if I go to the Beaux-Arts..." 

"Fine," said Mrs. Keating, "go to the Beaux-Arts. It's a grand place. A whole ocean away from 
your home. Of course, if you go, Mr. Francon will take somebody else. People will talk about 
that. Everybody knows that Mr. Francon picks out the best boy from Stanton every year for his 
office. I wonder how it'll look if some other boy gets the job? But I guess that doesn't matter." 

"What. ..what will people say?" 

"Nothing much, I guess. Only that the other boy was the best man of his class. I guess he'll 
take Shlinker." 

"No!" he gulped furiously. "Not Shlinker!" 

"Yes," she said sweetly. "Shlinker." 

"But..." 

"But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself." 

"And you think that Francon..." 

"Why should I think of Mr. Francon? It's nothing to me." 

"Mother, you want me to take the job with Francon?" 

"I don't want anything, Petey. You're the boss." 

He wondered whether he really liked his mother. But she was his mother and this fact was 
recognized by everybody as meaning automatically that he loved her, and so he took for 
granted mat whatever he felt for her was love. He did not know whether there was any reason 
why he should respect her judgment. She was his mother; this was supposed to take the 
place of reasons. 

"Yes, of course, Mother. ...But.. .Yes, I know, but.. Howard?" 

It was a plea for help. Roark was there, on a davenport in the corner, half lying, sprawled 
limply like a kitten. It had often astonished Keating; he had seen Roark moving with the 
soundless tension, the control, the precision of a cat; he had seen him relaxed, like a cat, in 
shapeless ease, as if his body held no single solid bone. Roark glanced up at him. He said: 

"Peter, you know how I feel about either one of your opportunities. Take your choice of the 
lesser evil. What will you learn at the Beaux-Arts? Only more Renaissance palaces and 
operetta settings. They'll kill everything you might have in you. You do good work, once in a 
while, when somebody lets you. If you really want to learn, go to work. Francon is a bastard 
and a fool, but you will be building. It will prepare you for going on your own that much 
sooner." 

"Even Mr. Roark can talk sense sometimes," said Mrs. Keating, "even if he does talk like a 
truck driver." 

"Do you really think that I do good work?" Keating looked at him, as if his eyes still held the 
reflection of that one sentence-and nothing else mattered. 

"Occasionally," said Roark. "Not often." 

"Now that it's all settled..." began Mrs. Keating. 

"L.l'll have to think it over, Mother." 

"Now that it's all settled, how about the hot chocolate? I'll have it out to you in a jiffy!" 



She smiled at her son, an innocent smile that declared her obedience and gratitude, and she 
rustled out of the room. 

Keating paced nervously, stopped, lighted a cigarette, stood spitting the smoke out in short 
jerks, then looked at Roark. 

"What are you going to do now, Howard?" 

"I?" 

"Very thoughtless of me, I know, going on like that about myself. Mother means well, but she 
drives me crazy.. ..Well, to hell with that. What are you going to do?" 

"I'm going to New York." 

"Oh, swell. To get a job?" 

"To get a job." 

"In. ..in architecture?" 

"In architecture, Peter." 

"That's grand. I'm glad. Got any definite prospects? 

"I'm going to work for Henry Cameron." 

"Oh, no, Howard!" 

Roark smiled slowly, the corners of his mouth sharp, and said nothing. 

"Oh, no, Howard!" 

"Yes " 

"But he's nothing, nobody any more! Oh, I know he has a name but he's done for! He never 
gets any important buildings, hasn't had any for years! They say he’s got a dump for an office. 
What kind of future will you get out of him? What will you learn?" 

"Not much. Only how to build." 

"For God's sake, you can't go on like that, deliberately ruining yourself! I thought.. .well, yes, I 
thought you'd learned something today!" 

"I have." 

"Look, Howard, if it's because you think that no one else will have you now, no one better, 
why, I'll help you. I'll work old Francon and I'll get connections and..." 

"Thank you, Peter. But it won't be necessary. It's settled. 

"What did he say?" 

"Who?" 

"Cameron." 

"I've never met him." 

Then a horn screamed outside. Keating remembered, started off to change his clothes, 
collided with his mother at the door and knocked a cup off her loaded tray. 



Petey! 


"Never mind, Mother!" He seized her elbows. "I'm in a hurry, sweetheart. A little party with the 
boys-now, now, don't say anything--! won't be late and-look! We'll celebrate my going with 
Francon & Heyer!" 

He kissed her impulsively, with the gay exuberance that made him irresistible at times, and 
flew out of the room, up the stairs. Mrs. Keating shook her head, flustered, reproving and 
happy. 

In his room, while flinging his clothes in all directions, Keating thought suddenly of a wire he 
would send to New York. That particular subject had not been in his mind all day, but it came 
to him with a sense of desperate urgency; he wanted to send that wire now, at once. He 
scribbled it down on a piece of paper: 

"Katie dearest coming New York job Francon love ever 

"Peter" 

That night Keating raced toward Boston, wedged in between two boys, the wind and the road 
whistling past him. And he thought that the world was opening to him now, like the darkness 
fleeing before the bobbing headlights. He was free. He was ready. In a few years-so very 
soon, for time did not exist in the speed of that car-his name would ring like a horn, ripping 
people out of sleep. He was ready to do great things, magnificent things, things unsurpassed 
in. ..in.. .oh, hell. ..in architecture. 


3 . 

PETER KEATING looked at the streets of New York. The people, he observed, were 
extremely well dressed. 

He had stopped for a moment before the building on Fifth Avenue, where the office of 
Francon & Heyer and his first day of work awaited him. He looked at the men who hurried 
past. Smart, he thought, smart as hell. He glanced regretfully at his own clothes. He had a 
great deal to learn in New York. 

When he could delay it no longer, he turned to the door. It was a miniature Doric portico, every 
inch of it scaled down to the exact proportions decreed by the artists who had worn flowing 
Grecian tunics; between the marble perfection of the columns a revolving door sparkled with 
nickel plate, reflecting the streaks of automobiles flying past. Keating walked through the 
revolving door, through the lustrous marble lobby, to an elevator of gilt and red lacquer that 
brought him, thirty floors later, to a mahogany door. He saw a slender brass plate with delicate 
letters: 

FRANCON & HEYER, ARCHITECTS. 

The reception room of the office of Francon & Heyer, Architects, looked like a cool, intimate 
ballroom in a Colonial mansion. The silver white walls were paneled with flat pilasters; the 
pilasters were fluted and curved into Ionic snails; they supported little pediments broken in the 
middle to make room for half a Grecian urn plastered against the wall. Etchings of Greek 
temples adorned the panels, too small to be distinguished, but presenting the unmistakable 
columns, pediments and crumbling stone. 

Quite incongruously, Keating felt as if a conveyor belt was under his feet, from the moment he 
crossed the threshold. It carried him to the reception clerk who sat at a telephone switchboard 
behind the white balustrade of a Florentine balcony. It transferred him to the threshold of a 
huge drafting room. He saw long, flat tables, a forest of twisted rods descending from the 
ceiling to end in green-shaded lamps, enormous blueprint files, towers of yellow drawers, 
papers, tin boxes, sample bricks, pots of glue and calendars from construction companies, 
most of them bearing pictures of naked women. The chief draftsman snapped at Keating, 
without quite seeing him. He was bored and crackling with purpose simultaneously. He jerked 



his thumb in the direction of a locker room, thrust his chin out toward the door of a locker, and 
stood, rocking from heels to toes, while Keating pulled a pearl-gray smock over his stiff, 
uncertain body. Francon had insisted on that smock. The conveyor belt stopped at a table in a 
corner of the drafting room, where Keating found himself with a set of plans to expand, the 
scaggy back of the chief draftsman retreating from him in the unmistakable manner of having 
forgotten his existence. 

Keating bent over his task at once, his eyes fixed, his throat rigid. He saw nothing but the 
pearly shimmer of the paper before him. The steady lines he drew surprised him, for he felt 
certain that his hand was jerking an inch back and forth across the sheet. He followed the 
lines, not knowing where they led or why. He knew only that the plan was someone's 
tremendous achievement which he could neither question nor equal. He wondered why he 
had ever thought of himself as a potential architect. 

Much later, he noticed the wrinkles of a gray smock sticking to a pair of shoulder blades over 
the next table. He glanced about him, cautiously at first, then with curiosity, then with pleasure, 
then with contempt. When he reached this last, Peter Keating became himself again and felt 
love for mankind. He noticed sallow cheeks, a funny nose, a wart on a receding chin, a 
stomach squashed against the edge of a table. He loved these sights. What these could do, 
he could do better. He smiled. Peter Keating needed his fellow men. 

When he glanced at his plans again, he noticed the flaws glaring at him from the masterpiece. 
It was the floor of a private residence, and he noted the twisted hallways that sliced great 
hunks of space for no apparent reason, the long, rectangular sausages of rooms doomed to 
darkness. Jesus, he thought, they'd have flunked me for this in the first term. After which, he 
proceeded with his work swiftly, easily, expertly-and happily. 

Before lunchtime. Keating had made friends in the room, not any definite friends, but a vague 
soil spread and ready from which friendship would spring. He had smiled at his neighbors and 
winked in understanding over nothing at all. He had used each trip to the water cooler to 
caress those he passed with the soft, cheering glow of his eyes, the brilliant eyes that seemed 
to pick each man in turn out of the room, out of the universe, as the most important specimen 
of humanity and as Keating's dearest friend. There goes-there seemed to be left in his wake- 
a smart boy and a hell of a good fellow. 

Keating noticed that a tall blond youth at the next table was doing the elevation of an office 
building. Keating leaned with chummy respect against the boy’s shoulder and looked at the 
laurel garlands entwined about fluted columns three floors high. 

"Pretty good for the old man," said Keating with admiration. 

"Who?" asked the boy. 

"Why, Francon," said Keating. 

"Francon hell," said the boy placidly. "He hasn't designed a doghouse in eight years." He 
jerked his thumb over his shoulder, at a glass door behind them. "Him." 

"What?" asked Keating, turning. 

"Him," said the boy. "Stengel. He does all these things." 

Behind the glass door Keating saw a pair of bony shoulders above the edge of a desk, a 
small, triangular head bent intently, and two blank pools of light in the round frames of 
glasses. 

It was late in the afternoon when a presence seemed to have passed beyond the closed door, 
and Keating learned from the rustle of whispers around him that Guy Francon had arrived and 
had risen to his office on the floor above. Half an hour later the glass door opened and 
Stengel came out, a huge piece of cardboard dangling between his fingers. 

"Hey, you," he said, his glasses stopping on Keating's face. "You doing the plans for this?" He 
swung the cardboard forward. "Take this up to the boss for the okay. Try to listen to what he'll 



say and try to look intelligent. Neither of which matters anyway. 


He was short and his arms seemed to hang down to his ankles; arms swinging like ropes in 
the long sleeves, with big, efficient hands. Keating's eyes froze, darkening, for one-tenth of a 
second, gathered in a tight stare at the blank lenses. Then Keating smiled and said pleasantly: 

"Yes, sir." 

He carried the cardboard on the tips of his ten fingers, up the crimson-plushed stairway to Guy 
Francon's office. The cardboard displayed a water-color perspective of a gray granite mansion 
with three tiers of dormers, five balconies, four bays, twelve columns, one flagpole and two 
lions at the entrance. In the corner, neatly printed by hand, stood: "Residence of Mr. and Mrs. 
James S. Whattles. Francon & Heyer, Architects." Keating whistled softly: James S. Whattles 
was the multimillionaire manufacturer of shaving lotions. 

Guy Francon's office was polished. No, thought Keating, not polished, but shellacked; no, not 
shellacked, but liquid with mirrors melted and poured over every object. He saw splinters of 
his own reflection let loose like a swarm of butterflies, following him across the room, on the 
Chippendale cabinets, on the Jacobean chairs, on the Louis XV mantelpiece. He had time to 
note a genuine Roman statue in a corner, sepia photographs of the Parthenon, of Rheims 
Cathedral, of Versailles and of the Frink National Bank Building with the eternal torch. 

He saw his own legs approaching him in the side of the massive mahogany desk. Guy 
Francon sat behind the desk. Guy Francon's face was yellow and his cheeks sagged. He 
looked at Keating for an instant as if he had never seen him before, then remembered and 
smiled expansively. 

"Well, well, well, Kittredge, my boy, here we are, all set and at home! So glad to see you. Sit 
down, boy, sit down, what have you got there? Well, there's no hurry, no hurry at all. Sit down. 
How do you like it here?" 

"I'm afraid, sir, that I'm a little too happy," said Keating, with an expression of frank, boyish 
helplessness. "I thought I could be businesslike on my first job, but starting in a place like 
this...l guess it knocked me out a little. ...I'll get over it, sir," he promised. 

"Of course," said Guy Francon. "It might be a bit overwhelming for a boy, just a bit. But don't 
you worry. I’m sure you'll make good." 

"I'll do my best, sir." 

"Of course you will. What's this they sent me?" Francon extended his hand to the drawing, but 
his fingers came to rest limply on his forehead instead. "It's so annoying, this headache.. ..No, 
no, nothing serious-" he smiled at Keating's prompt concern-"just a little mal de tete. One 
works so hard." 

"Is there anything I can get for you, sir?" 

"No, no, thank you. It's not anything you can get for me, it's if only you could take something 
away from me." He winked. "The champagne. Entre nous, that champagne of theirs wasn't 
worth a damn last night. I've never cared for champagne anyway. Let me tell you, Kittredge, 
it’s very important to know about wines, for instance when you'll take a client out to dinner and 
will want to be sure of the proper thing to order. Now I'll tell you a professional secret. Take 
quail, for instance. Now most people would order Burgundy with it. What do you do? You call 
for Clos Vougeot 1904. See? Adds that certain touch. Correct, but original. One must always 
be original.. ..Who sent you up, by the way?" 

"Mr. Stengel, sir." 

"Oh, Stengel." The tone in which he pronounced the name clicked like a shutter in Keating's 
mind: it was a permission to be stored away for future use. "Too grand to bring his own stuff 
up, eh? Mind you, he's a great designer, the best designer in New York City, but he's just 
getting to be a bit too grand lately. He thinks he's the only one doing any work around here, 
just because he smudges at a board all day long. You'll learn, my boy, when you've been in 



the business longer, that the real work of an office is done beyond its walls. Take last night, for 
instance. Banquet of the Clarion Real Estate Association. Two hundred guests--dinner and 
champagne-oh, yes, champagne!" He wrinkled his nose fastidiously, in self-mockery. "A few 
words to say informally in a little after-dinner speech-you know, nothing blatant, no vulgar 
sales talk-only a few well-chosen thoughts on the responsibility of realtors to society, on the 
importance of selecting architects who are competent, respected and well established. You 
know, a few bright little slogans that will stick in the mind." 

"Yes, sir, like 'Choose the builder of your home as carefully as you choose the bride to inhabit 
it.'" 

"Not bad. Not bad at all, Kittredge. Mind if I jot it down?" 

"My name is Keating, sir," said Keating firmly. "You are very welcome to the idea. I'm happy if 
it appeals to you." 

"Keating, of course! Why, of course, Keating," said Francon with a disarming smile. "Dear me, 
one meets so many people. How did you say it? Choose the builder. ..it was very well put." 

He made Keating repeat it and wrote it down on a pad, picking a pencil from an array before 
him, new, many-colored pencils, sharpened to a professional needle point, ready, unused. 

Then he pushed he pad aside, sighed, patted the smooth waves of his hair and said wearily: 

"Well, all right, I suppose I'll have to look at the thing." 

Keating extended the drawing respectfully. Francon leaned back, held the cardboard out at 
arm's length and looked at it. He closed his left eye, then his right eye, then moved the 
cardboard an inch farther. Keating expected wildly to see him turn the drawing upside down. 
But Francon just held it and Keating knew suddenly that he had long since stopped seeing it. 
Francon was studying it for his, Keating's, benefit; and then Keating felt light, light as air, and 
he saw the road to his future, clear and open. 

"Hm...yes," Francon was saying, rubbing his chin with the tips of two soft fingers. "Hm...yes..." 
He turned to Keating. 

"Not bad," said Francon. "Not bad at all... .Well.. .perhaps. ..it would have been more 
distinguished, you know, but.. .well, the drawing is done so neatly.. ..What do you think, 
Keating?" 

Keating thought that four of the windows faced four mammoth granite columns. But he looked 
at Francon's fingers playing with a petunia-mauve necktie, and decided not to mention it. He 
said instead: 

"If I may make a suggestion, sir, it seems to me that the cartouches between the fourth and 
fifth floors are somewhat too modest for so imposing a building. It would appear that an 
ornamented stringcourse would be so much more appropriate." 

"That's it. I was just going to say it. An ornamented stringcourse.. ..But.. .but look, it would 
mean diminishing the fenestration, wouldn't it?" 

"Yes," said Keating, a faint coating of diffidence over the tone he had used in discussions with 
his classmates, "but windows are less important than the dignity of a building's facade." 

"That's right. Dignity. We must give our clients dignity above all. Yes, definitely, an 
ornamented stringcourse. ...Only.. .look, I've approved the preliminary drawings, and Stengel 
has had this done up so neatly." 

"Mr. Stengel will be delighted to change it if you advise him to." 

Francon's eyes held Keating's for a moment. Then Francon's lashes dropped and he picked a 
piece of lint off his sleeve. 



"Of course, of course..." he said vaguely. "But.. .do you think the stringcourse is really 
important?" 

"I think," said Keating slowly, "it is more important to make changes you find necessary than to 
okay every drawing just as Mr. Stengel designed it." 

Because Francon said nothing, but only looked straight at him, because Francon's eyes were 
focused and his hands limp, Keating knew that he had taken a terrible chance and won; he 
became frightened by the chance after he knew he had won. 

They looked silently across the desk, and both saw that they were two men who could 
understand each other. 

"We'll have an ornamented stringcourse," said Francon with calm, genuine authority. "Leave 
this here. Tell Stengel that I want to see him." 

He had turned to go. Francon stopped him. Francon's voice was gay and warm: 

"Oh, Keating, by the way, may I make a suggestion? Just between us, no offense intended, 
but a burgundy necktie would be so much better than blue with your gray smock, don't you 
think so?" 

"Yes, sir," said Keating easily. "Thank you. You'll see it tomorrow." 

He walked out and closed the door softly. 

On his way back through the reception room, Keating saw a distinguished, gray-haired 
gentleman escorting a lady to the door. The gentleman wore no hat and obviously belonged to 
the office; the lady wore a mink cape, and was obviously a client. 

The gentleman was not bowing to the ground, he was not unrolling a carpet, he was not 
waving a fan over her head; he was only holding the door for her. It merely seemed to Keating 
that the gentleman was doing all of that. 

The Frink National Bank Building rose over Lower Manhattan, and its long shadow moved, as 
the sun traveled over the sky, like a huge clock hand across grimy tenements, from the 
Aquarium to Manhattan Bridge. When the sun was gone, the torch of Hadrian's Mausoleum 
flared up in its stead, and made glowing red smears on the glass of windows for miles around, 
on the top stories of buildings high enough to reflect it. The Frink National Bank Building 
displayed the entire history of Roman art in well-chosen specimens; for a long time it had 
been considered the best building of the city, because no other structure could boast a single 
Classical item which it did not possess. It offered so many columns, pediments, friezes, 
tripods, gladiators, urns and volutes that it looked as if it had not been built of white marble, 
but squeezed out of a pastry tube. It was, however, built of white marble. No one knew that 
but the owners who had paid for it. It was now of a streaked, blotched, leprous color, neither 
brown nor green but the worst tones of both, the color of slow rot, the color of smoke, gas 
fumes and acids eating into a delicate stone intended for clean air and open country. The 
Frink National Bank Building, however, was a great success. It had been so great a success 
that it was the last structure Guy Francon ever designed; its prestige spared him the bother 
from then on. 

Three blocks east of the Frink National Bank stood the Dana Building. It was some stories 
lower and without any prestige whatever. Its lines were hard and simple, revealing, 
emphasizing the harmony of the steel skeleton within, as a body reveals the perfection of its 
bones. It had no other ornament to offer. It displayed nothing but the precision of its sharp 
angles, the modeling of its planes, the long streaks of its windows like streams of ice running 
down from the roof to the pavements. New Yorkers seldom looked at the Dana Building. 
Sometimes, a rare country visitor would come upon it unexpectedly in the moonlight and stop 
and wonder from what dream that vision had come. But such visitors were rare. The tenants 
of the Dana Building said that they would not exchange it for any structure on earth; they 
appreciated the light, the air, the beautiful logic of the plan in their halls and offices. But the 
tenants of the Dana Building were not numerous; no prominent man wished his business to be 



located in a building that looked "like a warehouse." 

The Dana Building had been designed by Henry Cameron. 

In the eighteen-eighties, the architects of New York fought one another for second place in 
their profession. No one aspired to the first. The first was held by Henry Cameron. Henry 
Cameron was hard to get in those days. He had a waiting list two years in advance; he 
designed personally every structure that left his office. He chose what he wished to build. 
When he built, a client kept his mouth shut. He demanded of all people the one thing he had 
never granted anybody: obedience. He went through the years of his fame like a projectile 
flying to a goal no one could guess. People called him crazy. But they took what he gave 
them, whether they understood it or not, because it was a building "by Henry Cameron." 

At first, his buildings were merely a little different, not enough to frighten anyone. He made 
startling experiments, once in a while, but people expected it and one did not argue with Henry 
Cameron. Something was growing in him with each new building, struggling, taking shape, 
rising dangerously to an explosion. The explosion came with the birth of the skyscraper. When 
structures began to rise not in tier on ponderous tier of masonry, but as arrows of steel 
shooting upward without weight or limit, Henry Cameron was among the first to understand 
this new miracle and to give it form. He was among the first and the few who accepted the 
truth that a tall building must look tall. While architects cursed, wondering how to make a 
twenty-story building look like an old brick mansion, while they used every horizontal device 
available in order to cheat it of its height, shrink it down to tradition, hide the shame of its steel, 
make it small, safe and ancient-Henry Cameron designed skyscrapers in straight, vertical 
lines, flaunting their steel and height. While architects drew friezes and pediments, Henry 
Cameron decided that the skyscraper must not copy the Greeks. Henry Cameron decided that 
no building must copy any other. 

He was thirty-nine years old then, short, stocky, unkempt; he worked like a dog, missed his 
sleep and meals, drank seldom but then brutally, called his clients unprintable names, laughed 
at hatred and fanned it deliberately, behaved like a feudal lord and a longshoreman, and lived 
in a passionate tension that stung men in any room he entered, a fire neither they nor he could 
endure much longer. It was the year 1892. 

The Columbian Exposition of Chicago opened in the year 1893. 

The Rome of two thousand years ago rose on the shores of Lake Michigan, a Rome improved 
by pieces of France, Spain, Athens and every style that followed it. It was a "Dream City" of 
columns, triumphal arches, blue lagoons, crystal fountains and popcorn. Its architects 
competed on who could steal best, from the oldest source and from the most sources at once. 
It spread before the eyes of a new country every structural crime ever committed in all the old 
ones. It was white as a plague, and it spread as such. 

People came, looked, were astounded, and carried away with them, to the cities of America, 
the seeds of what they had seen. The seeds sprouted into weeds; into shingled post offices 
with Doric porticos, brick mansions with iron pediments, lofts made of twelve Parthenons piled 
on top of one another. The weeds grew and choked everything else. 

Henry Cameron had refused to work for the Columbian Exposition, and had called it names 
that were unprintable, but repeatable, though not in mixed company. They were repeated. It 
was repeated also that he had thrown an inkstand at the face of a distinguished banker who 
had asked him to design a railroad station in the shape of the temple of Diana at Ephesus. 

The banker never came back. There were others who never came back. 

Just as he reached the goal of long, struggling years, just as he gave shape to the truth he 
had sought-the last barrier fell closed before him. A young country had watched him on his 
way, had wondered, had begun to accept the new grandeur of his work. A country flung two 
thousand years back in an orgy of Classicism could find no place for him and no use. 

It was not necessary to design buildings any longer, only to photograph them; the architect 
with the best library was the best architect Imitators copied imitations. To sanction it there was 
Culture; there were twenty centuries unrolling in moldering ruins; there was the great 
Exposition; there was every European post card in every family album. 



Henry Cameron had nothing to offer against this; nothing but a faith he held merely because it 
was his own. He had nobody to quote and nothing of importance to say. He said only that the 
form of a building must follow its function; that the structure of a building is the key to its 
beauty; that new methods of construction demand new forms; that he wished to build as he 
wished and for that reason only. But people could not listen to him when they were discussing 
Vitruvius, Michelangelo and Sir Christopher Wren. 

Men hate passion, any great passion. Henry Cameron made a mistake: he loved his work. 
That was why he fought. That was why he lost. 

People said he never knew that he had lost. If he did, he never let them see it. As his clients 
became rarer, his manner to them grew more overbearing. The less the prestige of his name, 
the more arrogant the sound of his voice pronouncing it. He had had an astute business 
manager, a mild, self-effacing little man of iron who, in the days of his glory, faced quietly the 
storms of Cameron's temper and brought him clients; Cameron insulted the clients, but the 
little man made them accept it and come back. The little man died. 

Cameron had never known how to face people. They did not matter to him, as his own life did 
not matter, as nothing mattered but buildings. He had never learned to give explanations, only 
orders. He had never been liked. He had been feared. No one feared him any longer. 

He was allowed to live. He lived to loathe the streets of the city he had dreamed of rebuilding. 
He lived to sit at the desk in his empty office, motionless, idle, waiting. He lived to read in a 
well-meaning newspaper account a reference to "the late Henry Cameron." He lived to begin 
drinking, quietly, steadily, terribly, for days and nights at a time; and to hear those who had 
driven him to it say, when his name was mentioned for a commission: "Cameron? I should say 
not. He drinks like a fish. That’s why he never gets any work." He lived to move from the 
offices that occupied three floors of a famous building to one floor on a less expensive street, 
then to a suite farther downtown, then to three rooms facing an air shaft, near the Battery. He 
chose these rooms because, by pressing his face to the window of his office, he could see, 
over a brick wall, the top of the Dana Building. 

Howard Roark looked at the Dana Building beyond the windows, stopping at each landing, as 
he mounted the six flights of stairs to Henry Cameron's office; the elevator was out of order. 
The stairs had been painted a dirty file-green a long time ago; a little of the paint remained to 
grate under shoe soles in crumbling patches. Roark went up swiftly, as if he had an 
appointment, a folder of his drawings under his arm, his eyes on the Dana Building. He 
collided once with a man descending the stairs; this had happened to him often in the last two 
days; he had walked through the streets of the city, his head thrown back, noticing nothing but 
the buildings of New York. 

In the dark cubbyhole of Cameron's anteroom stood a desk with a telephone and a typewriter. 
A gray-haired skeleton of a man sat at the desk, in his shirt sleeves, with a pair of limp 
suspenders over his shoulders. He was typing specifications intently, with two fingers and 
incredible speed. The light from a feeble bulb made a pool of yellow on his back, where the 
damp shirt stuck to his shoulder blades. 

The man raised his head slowly, when Roark entered. He looked at Roark, said nothing and 
waited, his old eyes weary, unquestioning, incurious. 

"I should like to see Mr. Cameron," said Roark. 

"Yeah?" said the man, without challenge, offense or meaning. "About what?" 

"About a job." 

"What job?" 

"Drafting." 

The man sat looking at him blankly. It was a request that had not confronted him for a long 
time. He rose at last, without a word, shuffled to a door behind him and went in. 



He left the door half open. Roark heard him drawling: 

"Mr. Cameron, there's a fellow outside says he's looking for a job here." 

Then a voice answered, a strong, clear voice that held no tones of age: 

"Why, the damn fool! Throw him out.. .Wait! Send him in!" 

The old man returned, held the door open and jerked his head at it silently. Roark went in. The 
door closed behind him. 

Henry Cameron sat at his desk at the end of a long, bare room. He sat bent forward, his 
forearms on the desk, his two hands closed before him. His hair and his beard were coal 
black, with coarse threads of white. The muscles of his short, thick neck bulged like ropes. He 
wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled above the elbows; the bare arms were hard, heavy 
and brown. The flesh of his broad face was rigid, as if it had aged by compression. The eyes 
were dark, young, living. 

Roark stood on the threshold and they looked at each other across the long room. 

The light from the air shaft was gray, and the dust on the drafting table, on the few green files, 
looked like fuzzy crystals deposited by the light. But on the wall, between the windows, Roark 
saw a picture. It was the only picture in the room. It was the drawing of a skyscraper that had 
never been erected. 

Roark's eyes moved first and they moved to the drawing. He walked across the office, 
stopped before it and stood looking at it. Cameron's eyes followed him, a heavy glance, like a 
long, thin needle held fast at one end, describing a slow circle, its point piercing Roark's body, 
keeping it pinned firmly. Cameron looked at the orange hair, at the hand hanging by his side, 
its palm to the drawing, the fingers bent slightly, forgotten not in a gesture but in the overture 
to a gesture of asking or seizing something. 

"Well?" said Cameron at last. "Did you come to see me or did you come to look at pictures?" 
Roark turned to him. 

"Both," said Roark. 

He walked to the desk. People had always lost their sense of existence in Roark's presence; 
but Cameron felt suddenly that he had never been as real as in the awareness of the eyes 
now looking at him. 

"What do you want?" snapped Cameron. "I should like to work for you," said Roark quietly. 

The voice said: "I should like to work for you." The tone of the voice said: "I'm going to work 
for you." 

"Are you?" said Cameron, not realizing that he answered the unpronounced sentence. "What's 
the matter? None of the bigger and better fellows will have you?" 

"I have not applied to anyone else." 

"Why not? Do you think this is the easiest place to begin? Think anybody can walk in here 
without trouble? Do you know who I am?" 

"Yes. That's why I'm here." 

"Who sent you?" 

"No one." 

"Why the hell should you pick me?" 



I think you know that. 


"What infernal impudence made you presume that I'd want you? Have you decided that I'm so 
hard up that I'd throw the gates open for any punk who'd do me the honor? 'Old Cameron,' 
you've said to yourself, 'is a has-been, a drunken..." come on, you've said it!. ..'a drunken 
failure who can't be particular!’ Is that it?. ..Come on, answer me! Answer me, damn you! What 
are you staring at? Is that it? Go on! Deny it!" 

"It's not necessary." 

"Where have you worked before?" 

"I'm just beginning." 

"What have you done?" 

"I've had three years at Stanton." 

"Oh? The gentleman was too lazy to finish?" 

"I have been expelled." 

"Great!" Cameron slapped the desk with his fist and laughed. "Splendid! You're not good 
enough for the lice nest at Stanton, but you'll work for Henry Cameron! You've decided this is 
the place for refuse! What did they kick you out for? Drink? Women? What?" 

"These," said Roark, and extended his drawings. Cameron looked at the first one, then at the 
next, then at every one of them to the bottom. Roark heard the paper rustling as Cameron 
slipped one sheet behind another. Then Cameron raised his head. "Sit down." 

Roark obeyed. Cameron stared at him, his thick fingers drumming against the pile of 
drawings. 

"So you think they're good?' said Cameron. "Well, they're awful. It's unspeakable. It's a crime. 
Look," he shoved a drawing at Roark's face, "look at that. What in Christ's name was your 
idea? What possessed you to indent that plan here? Did you just want to make it pretty, 
because you had to patch something together? Who do you think you are? Guy Francon, God 
help you?. ..Look at this building, you fool! You get an idea like this and you don't know what to 
do with it! You stumble on a magnificent thing and you have to ruin it! Do you know how much 
you've got to learn?" 

"Yes. That's why I'm here." 

"And look at that one! I wish I'd done that at your age! But why did you have to botch it? Do 
you know what I’d do with that? Look, to hell with your stairways and to hell with your furnace 
room! When you lay the foundations..." 

He spoke furiously for a long time. He cursed. He did not find one sketch to satisfy him. But 
Roark noticed that he spoke as of buildings that were in construction. 

He broke off abruptly, pushed the drawings aside, and put his fist over them. He asked: 

"When did you decide to become an architect?" 

"When I was ten years old." 

"Men don't know what they want so early in life, if ever. You're lying." 

"Am I?" 

"Don't stare at me like that! Can't you look at something else? Why did you decide to be an 
architect?" 



I didn't know it then. But it's because I've never believed in God. 


"Come on, talk sense." 

"Because I love this earth. That's all I love. I don't like the shape of things on this earth. I want 
to change them." 

"For whom?" 

"For myself." 

"How old are you?" 

"Twenty-two." 

"When did you hear all that?" 

"I didn't." 

"Men don't talk like that at twenty-two. You're abnormal." 

"Probably." 

"I didn't mean it as a compliment." 

"I didn't either." 

"Got any family?" 

"No." 

"Worked through school?" 

"Yes." 

"At what?" 

"In the building trades." 

"How much money have you got left?" 

"Seventeen dollars and thirty cents." 

"When did you come to New York?" 

"Yesterday." 

Cameron looked at the white pile under his fist. 

"God damn you," said Cameron softly. 

"God damn you!" roared Cameron suddenly, leaning forward. "I didn't ask you to come here! I 
don't need any draftsmen! There's nothing here to draft! I don't have enough work to keep 
myself and my men out of the Bowery Mission! I don't want any fool visionaries starving 
around here! I don't want the responsibility. I didn't ask for it. I never thought I'd see it again. 
I'm through with it. I was through with that many years ago. I'm perfectly happy with the 
drooling dolts I've got here, who never had anything and never will have and it makes no 
difference what becomes of them. That’s all I want Why did you have to come here? You're 
setting out to ruin yourself, you know that, don't you? And I'll help you to do it. I don't want to 
see you. I don't like you. I don't like your face. You look like an insufferable egotist. You're 
impertinent. You're too sure of yourself. Twenty years ago I'd have punched your face with the 
greatest of pleasure. You're coming to work here tomorrow at nine o'clock sharp." 



"Yes," said Roark, rising. 

"Fifteen dollars a week. That's all I can pay you." 

"Yes." 

"You're a damn fool. You should have gone to someone else. I'll kill you if you go to anyone 
else. What's your name?" 

"Howard Roark." 

"If you're late, I'll fire you." 

"Yes." 

Roark extended his hand for the drawings. 

"Leave these here!" bellowed Cameron. "Now get out!" 


4 . 

"TOOHEY," said Guy Francon, "Ellsworth Toohey. Pretty decent of him, don't you think? Read 
it, Peter." 

Francon leaned jovially across his desk and handed to Keating the August issue of New 
Frontiers. New Frontiers had a white cover with a black emblem that combined a palette, a 
lyre, a hammer, a screw driver and a rising sun; it had a circulation of thirty thousand and a 
following that described itself as the intellectual vanguard of the country; no one had ever 
risen to challenge the description. Keating read from an article entitled "Marble and Mortar," by 
Ellsworth M. Toohey: 

"...And now we come to another notable achievement of the metropolitan skyline. We call the 
attention of the discriminating to the new Melton Building by Francon & Heyer. It stands in 
white serenity as an eloquent witness to the triumph of Classical purity and common sense. 
The discipline of an immortal tradition has served here as a cohesive factor in evolving a 
structure whose beauty can reach, simply and lucidly, the heart of every man in the street. 
There is no freak exhibitionism here, no perverted striving for novelty, no orgy of unbridled 
egotism. Guy Francon, its designer, has known how to subordinate himself to the mandatory 
canons which generations of craftsmen behind him have proved inviolate, and at the same 
time how to display his own creative originality, not in spite of, but precisely because of the 
Classical dogma he has accepted with the humility of a true artist. It may be worth mentioning, 
in passing, that dogmatic discipline is the only thing which makes true originality possible.... 

"More important, however, is the symbolic significance of a building such as this rising in our 
imperial city. As one stands before its southern facade, one is stricken with the realization that 
the stringcourses, repeated with deliberate and gracious monotony from the third to the 
eighteenth story, these long, straight, horizontal lines are the moderating, leveling principle, 
the lines of equality. They seem to bring the towering structure down to the humble level of the 
observer. They are the lines of the earth, of the people, of the great masses. They seem to tell 
us that none may rise too high above the restraint of the common human level, that all is held 
and shall be checked, even as this proud edifice, by the stringcourses of men's 
brotherhood...." 

There was more. Keating read it all, then raised his head. "Gee!" he said, awed. 

Francon smiled happily. 

"Pretty good, eh? And from Toohey, no less. Not many people might have heard the name, 
but they will, mark my word, they will. I know the signs. ...So he doesn't think I'm so bad? And 
he's got a tongue like an icepick, when he feels like using it. You should see what he says 
about others, more often than not. You know Durkin's latest mousetrap? Well, I was at a party 
where Toohey said-" Francon chuckled-"he said: 'If Mr. Durkin suffers under the delusion 



that he is an architect, someone should mention to him the broad opportunities offered by the 
shortage of skilled plumbers.' That's what he said, imagine, in public!" 

"I wonder," said Keating wistfully, "what he'll say about me, when the times comes." 

"What on earth does he mean by the symbolic significance stuff and the stringcourses of 
men's brotherhood?. ..Oh, well, if that's what he praises us for, we should worry!" 

"It's the critic's job to interpret the artist, Mr. Francon, even to the artist himself. Mr. Toohey 
has merely stated the hidden significance that was subconsciously in your own mind." 

"Oh," said Francon vaguely. "Oh, do you think so?" he added brightly. "Quite possible. ...Yes, 
quite possible. ...You're a smart boy, Peter." 

"Thank you, Mr. Francon." Keating made a movement to rise. 

"Wait. Don't go. One more cigarette and then we'll both return to the drudgery." 

Francon was smiling over the article, reading it again. Keating had never seen him so 
pleased; no drawing in the office, no work accomplished had ever made him as happy as 
these words from another man on a printed page to be read by other eyes. 

Keating sat easily in a comfortable chair. His month with the firm had been well spent. He had 
said nothing and done nothing, but the impression had spread through the office that Guy 
Francon liked to see this particular boy sent to him whenever anyone had to be sent. Hardly a 
day passed without the pleasant interlude of sitting across the desk from Guy Francon, in a 
respectful, growing intimacy, listening to Francon's sighs about the necessity of being 
surrounded by men who understood him. 

Keating had learned all he could team about Guy Francon, from his fellow draftsmen. He had 
teamed that Guy Francon ate moderately and exquisitely, and prided himself on the title of 
gourmet; that he had graduated with distinction from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts; that he had 
married a great deal of money and that the marriage had not been a happy one; that he 
matched meticulously his socks with his handkerchiefs, but never with his neckties; that he 
had a great preference for designing buildings of gray granite; that he owned a quarry of gray 
granite in Connecticut, which did a thriving business; that he maintained a magnificent 
bachelor apartment done in plum-colored Louis XV; that his wife, of a distinguished old name, 
had died, leaving her fortune to their only daughter, that the daughter, now nineteen, was 
away at college. 

These last facts interested Keating a great deal. He mentioned to Francon, tentatively in 
passing, the subject of his daughter. "Oh, yes..." Francon said thinly. "Yes, indeed..." Keating 
abandoned all further research into the matter, for the time being; Francon's face had 
declared mat the thought of his daughter was painfully annoying to him, for some reason 
which Keating could not discover. 

Keating had met Lucius N. Heyer, Francon's partner, and had seen him come to the office 
twice in three weeks, but had been unable to learn what service Heyer rendered to the firm. 
Heyer did not have haemophilia, but looked as though he should have it He was a withered 
aristocrat, with a long, thin neck, pate, bulging eyes and a manner of frightened sweetness 
toward everyone. He was the relic of an ancient family, and it was suspected mat Francon had 
taken him into partnership for the sake of his social connections. People felt sorry for poor 
dear Lucius, admired him for the effort of undertaking a professional career, and thought it 
would be nice to let him build their homes. Francon built them and required no further service 
from Lucius. This satisfied everybody. 

The men in the drafting rooms loved Peter Keating. He made them feel as if he had been 
there for a long time; he had always known how to become part of any place he entered; he 
came soft and bright as a sponge to be filled, unresisting, with the air and the mood of the 
place. His warm smile, his gay voice, the easy shrug of his shoulders seemed to say that 
nothing weighed too much within his soul and so he was not one to blame, to demand, to 
accuse anything. 



As he sat now, watching Francon read the article, Francon raised his head to glance at him. 
Francon saw two eyes looking at him with immense approval-and two bright little points of 
contempt in the corners of Keating's mouth, like two musical notes of laughter visible the 
second before they were to be heard. Francon felt a great wave of comfort. The comfort came 
from the contempt. The approval, together with that wise half-smile, granted him a grandeur 
he did not have to earn; a blind admiration would have been precarious; a deserved 
admiration would have been a responsibility; an undeserved admiration was precious. 

"When you go, Peter, give this to Miss Jeffers to put in my scrapbook." 

On his way down the stairs, Keating flung the magazine high in the air and caught it smartly, 
his lips pursed to whistle without sound. 

In the drafting room he found Tim Davis, his best friend, slouched despondently over a 
drawing. Tim Davis was the tall, blond boy at the next table, whom Keating had noticed long 
ago, because he had known, with no tangible evidence, but with certainty, as Keating always 
knew such things, that this was the favored draftsman of the office. Keating managed to be 
assigned, as frequently as possible, to do parts of the projects on which Davis worked. Soon 
they were going out to lunch together, and to a quiet little speak-easy after the day's work, and 
Keating was listening with breathless attention to Davis' talk about his love for one Elaine 
Duffy, not a word of which Keating ever remembered afterward. 

He found Davis now in black gloom, his mouth chewing furiously a cigarette and a pencil at 
once. Keating did not have to question him. He merely bent his friendly face over Davis' 
shoulder. Davis spit out the cigarette and exploded. He had just been told that he would have 
to work overtime tonight, for the third time this week. 

"Got to stay late, God knows how late! Gotta finish this damn tripe tonight!" He slammed the 
sheets spread before him. "Look at it! Hours and hours and hours to finish it! What am I going 
to do?" 

"Well, it's because you're the best man here, Tim, and they need you." 

"To hell with that! I've got a date with Elaine tonight! How'm I going to break it? Third time! 

She won't believe me! She told me so last time! That's the end! I'm going up to Guy the Mighty 
and tell him where he can put his plans and his job! I'm through!" 

"Wait," said Keating, and leaned closer to him. "Wait! There's another way. I'll finish them for 
you." 

"Huh?" 

"I'll stay. I'll do them. Don't be afraid. No one'll tell the difference." 

"Pete! Would you?" 

"Sure. I've nothing to do tonight. You just stay till they all go home, then skip." 

"Oh, gee, Pete!" Davis sighed, tempted. "But look, if they find out, they'll can me. You're too 
new for this kind of job." 

"They won't find out." 

"I can't lose my job, Pete. You know I can’t. Elaine and I are going to be married soon. If 
anything happens..." 

"Nothing will happen." 

Shortly after six, Davis departed furtively from the empty drafting room, leaving Keating at his 
table. 


Bending under a solitary green lamp. Keating glanced at the desolate expanse of three long 
rooms, oddly silent after the day’s rush, and he felt that he owned them, that he would own 



them, as surely as the pencil moved in his hand. 


It was half past nine when he finished the plans, stacked them neatly on Davis' table, and left 
the office. He walked down the street, glowing with a comfortable, undignified feeling, as 
though after a good meal. Then the realization of his loneliness struck him suddenly. He had 
to share this with someone tonight. He had no one. For the first time he wished his mother 
were in New York. But she had remained in Stanton, awaiting the day when he would be able 
to send for her. He had nowhere to go tonight, save to the respectable little boardinghouse on 
West Twenty-Eighth Street, where he could climb three flights of stairs to his clean, airless 
little room. He had met people in New York, many people, many girls, with one of whom he 
remembered spending a pleasant night, though he could not remember her last name; but he 
wished to see none of them. And then he thought of Catherine Halsey. 

He had sent her a wire on the night of his graduation and forgotten her ever since. Now he 
wanted to see her; the desire was intense and immediate with the first sound of her name in 
his memory. He leaped into a bus for the long ride to Greenwich Village, climbed to the 
deserted top and, sitting alone on the front bench, cursed the traffic lights whenever they 
turned to red. It had always been like this where Catherine was concerned; and he wondered 
dimly what was the matter with him. 

He had met her a year ago in Boston, where she had lived with her widowed mother. He had 
found Catherine homely and dull, on that first meeting, with nothing to her credit but her lovely 
smile, not a sufficient reason ever to see her again. He had telephoned her the next evening. 
Of the countless girls he had known in his student years she was the only one with whom he 
had never progressed beyond a few kisses. He could have any girl he met and he knew it; he 
knew that he could have Catherine; he wanted her; she loved him and had admitted it simply, 
openly, without fear or shyness, asking nothing of him, expecting nothing; somehow, he had 
never taken advantage of it. He had felt proud of the girls whom he escorted in those days, 
the most beautiful girls, the most popular, the best dressed, and he had delighted in the envy 
of his schoolmates. He had been ashamed of Catherine's thoughtless sloppiness and of the 
fact that no other boy would look at her twice. But he had never been as happy as when he 
took her to fraternity dances. He had had many violent loves, when he swore he could not live 
without this girl or that; he forgot Catherine for weeks at a time and she never reminded him. 
He had always come back to her, suddenly, inexplicably, as he did tonight. 

Her mother, a gentle little schoolteacher, had died last winter. Catherine had gone to live with 
an uncle in New York. Keating had answered some of her letters immediately, others-months 
later. She had always replied at once, and never written during his long silences, waiting 
patiently. He had felt, when he thought of her, that nothing would ever replace her. Then, in 
New York, within reach of a bus or a telephone, he had forgotten her again for a month. 

He never thought, as he hurried to her now, that he should have announced his visit. He never 
wondered whether he would find her at home. He had always come back like this and she had 
always been there. She was there again tonight. 

She opened the door for him, on the top floor of a shabby, pretentious brownstone house. 
"Hello, Peter," she said, as if she had seen him yesterday. 

She stood before him, too small, too thin for her clothes. The short black skirt flared out from 
the slim band of her waist; the boyish shirt collar hung loosely, pulled to one side, revealing 
the knob of a thin collarbone; the sleeves were too long over the fragile hands. She looked at 
him, her head bent to one side; her chestnut hair was gathered carelessly at the back of her 
neck, but it looked as though it were bobbed, standing, light and fuzzy, as a shapeless halo 
about her face. Her eyes were gray, wide and nearsighted; her mouth smiled slowly, 
delicately, enchantingly, her lips glistening. "Hello, Katie," he said. 

He felt at peace. He felt he had nothing to fear, in this house or anywhere outside. He had 
prepared himself to explain how busy he'd been in New York; but explanations seemed 
irrelevant now. 

"Give me your hat," she said, "be careful of that chair, it's not very steady, we have better ones 
in the living room, come in." The living room, he noticed, was modest but somehow 
distinguished, and in surprisingly good taste. He noticed the books; cheap shelves rising to the 



ceiling, loaded with precious volumes; the volumes stacked carelessly, actually being used. 

He noticed, over a neat, shabby desk, a Rembrandt etching, stained and yellow, found, 
perhaps, in some junk shop by the eyes of a connoisseur who had never parted with it, though 
its price would have obviously been of help to him. He wondered what business her uncle 
could be in; he had never asked. 

He stood looking vaguely at the room, feeling her presence behind him, enjoying that sense of 
certainty which he found so rarely. Then he turned and took her in his arms and kissed her; 
her lips met his softly, eagerly; but she was neither frightened nor excited, too happy to accept 
this in any way save by taking it for granted. 

"God, I've missed you!" he said, and knew that he had, every day since he'd seen her last and 
most of all, perhaps, on the days when he had not thought of her. 

"You haven't changed much," she said. "You look a little thinner. It's becoming. You'll be very 
attractive when you're fifty, Peter." 

"That's not very complimentary-by implication." 

"Why? Oh, you mean I think you're not attractive now? Oh, but you are." 

"You shouldn't say that right out to me like that." 

"Why not? You know you are. But I've been thinking of what you’ll look like at fifty. You'll have 
gray temples and you'll wear a gray suit--l saw one in a window last week and I thought that 
would be the one--and you'll be a very great architect." 

"You really think so?" 

"Why, yes." She was not flattering him. She did not seem to realize that it could be flattery. 

She was merely stating a fact, too certain to need emphasis. 

He waited for the inevitable questions. But instead, they were talking suddenly of their old 
Stanton days together, and he was laughing, holding her across his knees, her thin shoulders 
leaning against the circle of his arm, her eyes soft, contented. He was speaking of their old 
bathing suits, of the runs in her stockings, of their favorite ice-cream parlor in Stanton, where 
they had spent so many summer evenings together-and he was thinking dimly that it made 
no sense at all; he had more pertinent things to tell and to ask her; people did not talk like that 
when they hadn't seen each other for months. But it seemed quite normal to her; she did not 
appear to know that they had been parted. 

He was first to ask finally: 

"Did you get my wire?" 

"Oh, yes. Thanks." 

"Don't you want to know how I’m getting along in the city?" 

"Sure. How are you getting along in the city?" 

"Look here, you're not terribly interested." 

"Oh, but I am! I want to know everything about you." 

"Why don't you ask?" 

"You'll tell me when you want to." 

"It doesn't matter much to you, does it?" 


What?' 



"What I've been doing." 

"Oh. ..Yes, it does, Peter. No, not too much." 

"That's sweet of you!" 

"But, you see, it's not what you do that matters really. It's only you." 

"Me what?" 

"Just you here. Or you in the city. Or you somewhere in the world. I don't know. Just that." 
"You know, you're a fool, Katie. Your technique is something awful." 

"My what?" 

"Your technique. You can't tell a man so shamelessly, like that, that you're practically crazy 
about him." 

"But I am." 

"But you can't say so. Men won't care for you." 

"But I don’t want men to care for me." 

"You want me to, don't you?" 

"But you do, don't you?" 

"I do," he said, his arms tightening about her. "Damnably. I'm a bigger fool than you are." 

"Well, then it's perfectly all right," she said, her fingers in his hair, "isn't it?" 

"It's always been perfectly all right, that's the strangest part about it.. ..But look, I want to tell 
you about what's happened to me, because it's important." 

"I'm really very interested, Peter." 

"Well, you know I'm working for Francon & Heyer and. ..Oh, hell, you don't even know what 
that means!" 

"Yes, I do. I've looked them up in Who's Who in Architecture. It said some very nice things 
about them. And I asked Uncle. He said they were tops in the business." 

"You bet they are. Francon-he’s the greatest designer in New York, in the whole country, in 
the world maybe. He’s put up seventeen skyscrapers, eight cathedrals, six railroad terminals 
and God knows what else. ...Of course, you know, he’s an old fool and a pompous fraud who 
oils his way into everything and..." He stopped, his mouth open, staring at her. He had not 
intended to say that. He had never allowed himself to think that before. 

She was looking at him serenely. "Yes?" she asked. "And...?" 

"Well. ..and..." he stammered, and he knew that he could not speak differently, not to her, "and 
that’s what I really think of him. And I have no respect for him at all. And I’m delighted to be 
working for him. See?" 

"Sure," she said quietly. "You’re ambitious, Peter." 

"Don’t you despise me for it?" 

"No. That’s what you wanted." 

"Sure, that's what I wanted. Well, actually, it's not as bad as that. It's a tremendous firm, the 



best in the city. I'm really doing good work, and Francon is very pleased with me. I'm getting 
ahead. I think I can have any job I want in the place eventually.. ..Why, only tonight I took over 
a man's work and he doesn't know that he'll be useless soon, because. ..Katie! What am I 
saying?" 

"It's all right, dear. I understand." 

"If you did, you'd call me the names I deserve and make me stop it." 

"No, Peter. I don't want to change you. I love you, Peter." 

"God help you!" 

"I know that." 

"You know that? And you say it like this? Like you'd say, 'Hello, it's a beautiful evening'?" 

"Well, why not? Why worry about it? I love you." 

"No, don't worry about it! Don't ever worry about it!. ..Katie.. ..I'll never love anyone else...." 

"I know that too." 

He held her close, anxiously, afraid that her weightless little body would vanish. He did not 
know why her presence made him confess things unconfessed in his own mind. He did not 
know why the victory he came here to share had faded. But it did not matter. He had a 
peculiar sense of freedom-her presence always lifted from him a pressure he could not 
define-he was alone-he was himself. All that mattered to him now was the feeling of her 
coarse cotton blouse against his wrist. 

Then he was asking her about her own life in New York and she was speaking happily about 
her uncle. 

"He’s wonderful, Peter. He’s really wonderful. He’s quite poor, but he took me in and he was 
so gracious about it he gave up his study to make a room for me and now he has to work 
here, in the living room. You must meet him, Peter. He’s away now, on a lecture tour, but you 
must meet him when he comes back." 

"Sure, I'd love to." 

"You know, I wanted to go to work, and be on my own, but he wouldn't let me. 'My dear child,' 
he said, 'not at seventeen. You don't want me to be ashamed of myself, do you? I don't 
believe in child labor.’ That was kind of a funny idea, don't you think? He has so many funny 
ideas--l don't understand them all, but they say he's a brilliant man. So he made it look as if I 
were doing him a favor by letting him keep me, and I think that was really very decent of him." 

"What do you do with yourself all day long?" 

"Nothing much of anything now. I read books. On architecture. Uncle has tons of books on 
architecture. But when he's here I type his lectures for him. I really don't think he likes me to 
do it, he prefers the typist he had, but I love it and he lets me. And he pays me her salary. I 
didn't want to take it, but he made me." 

"What does he do for a living?" 

"Oh, so many things, I don't know, I can’t keep track of them. He teaches art history, for one, 
he’s a kind of professor." 

"And when are you going to college, by the way?" 

"Oh. ..Well. ..well, you see, I don't think Uncle approves of the idea. I told him how I'd always 
planned to go and that I'd work my own way through, but he seems to think it's not for me. He 
doesn't say much, only: ’God made the elephant for toil and the mosquito for flitting about, and 



it's not advisable, as a rule, to experiment with the laws of nature, however, if you want to try it, 
my dear child...' But he’s not objecting really, it's up to me, only..." 

"Well, don't let him stop you." 

"Oh, he wouldn't want to stop me. Only, I was thinking, I was never any great shakes in high 
school, and, darling, I'm really quite utterly lousy at mathematics, and so I wonder. ..but then, 
there's no hurry, I've got plenty of time to decide." 

"Listen, Katie, I don't like that. You've always planned on college. If that uncle of yours..." 

"You shouldn't say it like this. You don't know him. He's the most amazing man. I've never met 
anyone quite like him. He’s so kind, so understanding. And he’s such fun, always joking, he’s 
so clever at it, nothing that you thought was serious ever seems to be when he's around, and 
yet he's a very serious man. You know, he spends hours talking to me, he's never too tired 
and he's not bored with my stupidity, he tells me all about strikes, and conditions in the slums, 
and the poor people in the sweatshops, always about others, never about himself. A friend of 
his told me that Uncle could be a very rich man if he tried, he's so clever, but he won't, he just 
isn't interested in money." 

"That's not human." 

"Wait till you see him. Oh, he wants to meet you, too. I've told him about you. He calls you 'the 
T-square Romeo.'" 

"Oh, he does, does he?" 

"But you don't understand. He means it kindly. It's the way he says things. You'll have a lot in 
common. Maybe he could help you. He knows something about architecture, too. You'll love 
Uncle Ellsworth." 

"Who?" said Keating. 

"My uncle." 

"Say," Keating asked, his voice a little husky, "what's your 
uncle's name?" 

"Ellsworth Toohey. Why?" His hands fell limply. He sat staring at her. "What's the matter, 
Peter?" 

He swallowed. She saw the jerking motion of his throat. Then he said, his voice hard: 

"Listen, Katie, I don't want to meet your uncle." 

"But why?" 

"I don't want to meet him. Not through you.. ..You see, Katie, you don't know me. I'm the kind 
that uses people. I don't want to use you. Ever. Don't let me. Not you." 

"Use me how? What’s the matter? Why?" 

"It's just this: I'd give my eyeteeth to meet Ellsworth Toohey, that's all." He laughed harshly. 

"So he knows something about architecture, does he? You little fool! He's the most important 
man in architecture. Not yet, maybe, but that's what he'll be in a couple of years-ask Francon, 
that old weasel knows. He's on his way to becoming the Napoleon of all architectural critics, 
your Uncle Ellsworth is, just watch him. In the first place, there aren't many to bother writing 
about our profession, so he's the smart boy who's going to comer the market. You should see 
the big shots in our office lapping up every comma he puts out in print! So you think maybe he 
could help me? Well, he could make me, and he will, and I'm going to meet him some day, 
when I’m ready for him, as I met Francon, but not here, not through you. Understand? Not 
from you!" 



But, Peter, why not?' 


"Because I don't want it that way! Because it's filthy and I hate it, all of it, ray work and my 
profession, and what I'm doing and what I'm going to do! It's something I want to keep you out 
of. You're all I really have. Just keep out of it, Katie!" 

"Out of what?" 

"I don't know!" 

She rose and stood in the circle of his arms, his face hidden against her hip; she stroked his 
hair, looking down at him. 

"All right, Peter. I think I know. You don't have to meet him until you want to. Just tell me when 
you want it. You can use me if you have to. It's all right. It won't change anything." 

When he raised his head, she was laughing softly. 

"You’ve worked too hard, Peter. You're a little unstrung. Suppose I make you some tea?" 

"Oh, I'd forgotten all about it, but I've had no dinner today. Had no time." 

"Well, of all things! Well, how perfectly disgusting! Come on to the kitchen, this minute, I'll see 
what I can fix up for you!" 

He left her two hours later, and he walked away feeling light, clean, happy, his fears forgotten, 
Toohey and Francon forgotten. He thought only that he had promised to come again tomorrow 
and that it was an unbearably long time to wait. She stood at the door, after he had gone, her 
hand on the knob he had touched, and she thought that he might come tomorrow-or three 
months later. 

# 

"When you finish tonight," said Henry Cameron, "I want to see you in my office." 

"Yes," said Roark. 

Cameron veered sharply on his heels and walked out of the drafting room. It had been the 
longest sentence he had addressed to Roark in a month. 

Roark had come to this room every morning, had done his task, and had heard no word of 
comment. Cameron would enter the drafting room and stand behind Roark for a long time, 
looking over his shoulder. It was as if his eyes concentrated deliberately on trying to throw the 
steady hand off its course on the paper. The two other draftsmen botched their work from the 
mere thought of such an apparition standing behind them. Roark did not seem to notice it. He 
went on, his hand unhurried, he took his time about discarding a blunted pencil and picking 
out another. "Uh-huh," Cameron would grunt suddenly. Roark would turn his head then, 
politely attentive. "What is it?" he would ask. Cameron would turn away without a word, his 
narrowed eyes underscoring contemptuously the fact that he considered an answer 
unnecessary, and would leave the drafting room. Roark would go on with his drawing. 

"Looks bad," Loomis, the young draftsman, confided to Simpson, his ancient colleague. "The 
old man doesn't like this guy. Can't say that I blame him, either. Here's one that won't last 
long." 

Simpson was old and helpless; he had survived from Cameron's three-floor office, had stuck 
and had never understood it Loomis was young, with the face of a drugstore-corner lout; he 
was here because he had been fired from too many other places. 

Both men disliked Roark. He was usually disliked, from the first sight of his face, anywhere he 
went His face was closed like the door of a safety vault; things locked in safety vaults are 
valuable; men did not care to feel that. He was a cold, disquieting presence in the room; his 
presence had a strange quality: it made itself felt and yet it made them feel that he was not 



there; or perhaps that he was and they weren't. 


After work he walked the long distance to his home, a tenement near the East River. He had 
chosen that tenement because he had been able to get, for two-fifty a week, its entire top 
floor, a huge room that had been used for storage: it had no ceiling and the roof leaked 
between its naked beams. But it had a long row of windows, along two of its walls, some 
panes filled with glass, others with cardboard, and the windows opened high over the river on 
one side and the city on the other. 

A week ago Cameron had come into the drafting room and had thrown down on Roark's table 
a violent sketch of a country residence. "See if you can make a house out of this!" he had 
snapped and gone without further explanation. He had not approached Roark's table during 
the days that followed. Roark had finished the drawings last night and left them on Cameron's 
desk. This morning, Cameron had come in, thrown some sketches of steel joints to Roark, 
ordered him to appear in his office later and had not entered the drafting room again for the 
rest of the day. The others were gone. Roark pulled an old piece of oilcloth over his table and 
went to Cameron's office. His drawings of the country house were spread on the desk. The 
light of the lamp fell on Cameron's cheek, on his beard, the white threads glistening, on his 
fist, on a corner of the drawing, its black lines bright and hard as if embossed on the paper. 
"You're fired," said Cameron. 

Roark stood, halfway across the long room, his weight on one leg, his arms hanging by his 
sides, one shoulder raised. "Am I?" he asked quietly, without moving. "Come here," said 
Cameron. "Sit down." Roark obeyed. 

"You're too good," said Cameron. "You're too good for what you want to do with yourself. It's 
no use, Roark. Better now than later." 

"What do you mean?' 

"It's no use wasting what you've got on an ideal that you'll never reach, that they'll never let 
you reach. It's no use, taking that marvelous thing you have and making a torture rack for 
yourself out of it. Sell it, Roark. Sell it now. It won't be the same, but you've got enough in you. 
You've got what they'll pay you for, and pay plenty, if you use it their way. Accept them, Roark. 
Compromise. Compromise now, because you'll have to later, anyway, only then you'll have 
gone through things you'll wish you hadn't. You don't know. I do. Save yourself from that. 
Leave me. Go to someone else." 

"Did you do that?" 

"You presumptuous bastard! How good do you think I said you were? Did I tell you to compare 
yourself to..." He stopped because he saw that Roark was smiling. 

He looked at Roark, and suddenly smiled in answer, and it was the most painful thing that 
Roark had ever seen. 

"No," said Cameron softly, "that won't work, huh? No, it won't.. .Well, you're right. You're as 
good as you think you are. But I want to speak to you. I don't know exactly how to go about it. 
I've lost the habit of speaking to men like you. Lost it? Maybe I've never had it. Maybe that's 
what frightens me now. Will you try to understand?" 

"I understand. I think you're wasting your time." 

"Don't be rude. Because I can't be rude to you now. I want you to listen. Will you listen and not 
answer me?" 

"Yes. I’m sorry. I didn't intend it as rudeness." 

"You see, of all men, I'm the last one to whom you should have come. I'll be committing a 
crime if I keep you here. Somebody should have warned you against me. I won't help you at 
all. I won't discourage you. I won’t teach you any common sense. Instead, I'll push you on. I'll 
drive you the way you're going now. I'll beat you into remaining what you are, and I'll make you 
worse.. ..Don't you see? In another month I won't be able to let you go. I'm not sure I can now. 



So don't argue with me and go. Get out while you can." 

"But can I? Don't you think it's too late for both of us? It was too late for me twelve years ago." 

"Try it, Roark. Try to be reasonable for once. There's plenty of big fellows who'll take you, 
expulsion or no expulsion, if I say so. They may laugh at me in their luncheon speeches, but 
they steal from me when it suits them, and they know that I know a good draftsman when I 
see one. I'll give you a letter to Guy Francon. He worked for me once, long ago. I think I fired 
him, but that wouldn't matter. Go to him. You won't like it at first, but you'll get used to it. And 
you'll thank me for it many years from now." 

"Why are you saying all this to me? That's not what you want to say. That's not what you did." 

"That's why I'm saying it! Because that's not what I did!. ..Look, Roark, there's one thing about 
you, the thing I'm afraid of. It's not just the kind of work you do; I wouldn't care, if you were an 
exhibitionist who's being different as a stunt, as a lark, just to attract attention to himself. It's a 
smart racket, to oppose the crowd and amuse it and collect admission to the side show. If you 
did that, I wouldn't worry. But it's not that. You love your work. God help you, you love it! And 
that's the curse. That's the brand on your forehead for all of them to see. You love it, and they 
know it, and they know they have you. Do you ever look at the people in the street? Aren't you 
afraid of them? I am. They move past you and they wear hats and they carry bundles. But 
that’s not the substance of them. The substance of them is hatred for any man who loves his 
work. That’s the only kind they fear. I don’t know why. You're opening yourself up, Roark, for 
each and every one of them." 

"But I never notice the people in the streets." 

"Do you notice what they've done to me?" 

"I notice only that you weren't afraid of them. Why do you ask me to be?" 

"That's just why I'm asking it!" He leaned forward, his fists closing on the desk before him. 
"Roark, do you want me to say it? You're cruel, aren't you? All right, I'll say it: do you want to 
end up like this? Do you want to be what I am?" Roark got up and stood against the edge of 
light on the desk. "If," said Roark, "at the end of my life, I'll be what you are today here, in this 
office, I shall consider it an honor that I could not have deserved." 

"Sit down!" roared Cameron. "I don't like demonstrations!" Roark looked down at himself, at 
the desk, astonished to find himself standing. He said: "I'm sorry. I didn't know I got up." 

"Well, sit down. Listen. I understand. And it's very nice of you. But you don't know. I thought a 
few days here would be enough to take the hero worship out of you. I see it wasn't. Here you 
are, saying to yourself how grand old Cameron is, a noble fighter, a martyr to a lost cause, 
and you'd just love to die on the barricades with me and to eat in dime lunch-wagons with me 
for the rest of your life. I know, it looks pure and beautiful to you now, at your great old age of 
twenty-two. But do you know what it means? Thirty years of a lost cause, that sounds 
beautiful, doesn't it? But do you know how many days there are in thirty years? Do you know 
what happens in those days? Roark! Do you know what happens?" 

"You don't want to speak of that." 

"No! I don't want to speak of that! But I'm going to. I want you to hear. I want you to know 
what's in store for you. There will be days when you'll look at your hands and you'll want to 
take something and smash every bone in them, because they'll be taunting you with what they 
could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can't find that chance, and you can't 
bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere. There will be days when 
a bus driver will snap at you as you enter a bus, and he'll be only asking for a dime, but that 
won't be what you'll hear; you'll hear that you're nothing, that he's laughing at you, that it's 
written on your forehead, that thing they hate you for. There will be days when you'll stand in 
the corner of a hall and listen to a creature on a platform talking about buildings, about that 
work which you love, and the things he'll say will make you wait for somebody to rise and 
crack him open between two thumbnails; and then you'll hear the people applauding him, and 
you'll want to scream, because you won't know whether they're real or you are, whether you're 



in a room full of gored skulls, or whether someone has just emptied your own head, and you'll 
say nothing, because the sounds you could make--they're not a language in that room any 
longer; but if you'd want to speak, you won't anyway, because you'll be brushed aside, you 
who have nothing to tell them about buildings! Is that what you want?" 

Roark sat still, the shadows sharp on his face, a black wedge on a sunken cheek, a long 
triangle of black cutting across his chin, his eyes on Cameron. 

"Not enough?" asked Cameron. "All right. Then, one day, you'll see on a piece of paper before 
you a building that will make you want to kneel; you won't believe that you've done it, but you 
will have done it; then you'll think that the earth is beautiful and the air smells of spring and 
you love your fellow men, because there is no evil in the world. And you'll set out from your 
house with this drawing, to have it erected, because you won't have any doubt that it will be 
erected by the first man to see it. But you won't get very far from your house. Because you'll 
be stopped at the door by the man who's come to turn off the gas. You hadn't had much food, 
because you saved money to finish your drawing, but still you had to cook something and you 
hadn't paid for it.. ..All right, that's nothing, you can laugh at that. But finally you'll get into a 
man's office with your drawing, and you'll curse yourself for taking so much space of his air 
with your body, and you'll try to squeeze yourself out of his sight, so that he won't see you, but 
only hear your voice begging him, pleading, your voice licking his knees; you'll loathe yourself 
for it, but you won't care, if only he'd let you put up that building, you won't care, you'll want to 
rip your insides open to show him, because if he saw what's there he'd have to let you put it 
up. But he'll say that he's very sorry, only the commission has just been given to Guy Francon. 
And you'll go home, and do you know what you'll do there? You'll cry. You'll cry like a woman, 
like a drunkard, like an animal. That's your future, Howard Roark. Now, do you want it?" 

"Yes," said Roark. 

Cameron's eyes dropped; then his head moved down a little, then a little farther; his head 
went on dropping slowly, in long, single jerks, then stopped; he sat still, his shoulders 
hunched, his arms huddled together in his lap. 

"Howard," whispered Cameron, "I've never told it to anyone...." 

"Thank you...." said Roark. 

After a long time, Cameron raised his head. 

"Go home now," said Cameron, his voice flat. "You've worked too much lately. And you have a 
hard day ahead." He 

pointed to the drawings of the country house. "This is all very well, and I wanted to see what 
you'd do, but it's not good enough to build. You'll have to do it over. I'll show you what I want 
tomorrow." 


5 . 

A YEAR with the firm of Francon & Heyer had given Keating the whispered title of crown 
prince without portfolio. Still only a draftsman, he was Francon's reigning favorite. Francon 
took him out to lunch-an unprecedented honor for an employee. Francon called him to be 
present at interviews with clients. The clients seemed to like seeing so decorative a young 
man in an architect's office. 

Lucius N. Heyer had the annoying habit of asking Francon suddenly: "When did you get the 
new man?" and pointing to an employee who had been there for three years. But Heyer 
surprised everybody by remembering Keating's name and by greeting him, whenever they 
met, with a smile of positive recognition. Keating had had a long conversation with him, one 
dreary November afternoon, on the subject of old porcelain. It was Heyer's hobby; he owned a 
famous collection, passionately gathered. Keating displayed an earnest knowledge of the 
subject, though he had never heard of old porcelain till the night before, which he had spent at 
the public library. Heyer was delighted; nobody in the office cared about his hobby, few ever 



noticed his presence. Heyer remarked to his partner: "You're certainly good at picking your 
men, Guy. There's one boy I wish we wouldn't lose, what's his name?--Keating." 

"Yes, indeed," Francon answered, smiling, "yes, indeed." 

In the drafting room, Keating concentrated on Tim Davis. Work and drawings were only 
unavoidable details on the surface of his days; Tim Davis was the substance and the shape of 
the first step in his career. 

Davis let him do most of his own work; only night work, at first, then parts of his daily 
assignments as well; secretly, at first, then openly. Davis had not wanted it to be known. 
Keating made it known, with an air of naive confidence which implied that he was only a tool, 
no more than Tim's pencil or T-square, that his help enhanced Tim's importance rather than 
diminished it and, therefore, he did not wish to conceal it. 

At first, Davis relayed instructions to Keating; then the chief draftsman took the arrangement 
for granted and began coming to Keating with orders intended for Davis. Keating was always 
there, smiling, saying: "I'll do it; don't bother Tim with those little things, I'll take care of it." 

Davis relaxed and let himself be carried along; he smoked a great deal, he lolled about, his 
legs twisted loosely over the rungs of a stool, his eyes closed, dreaming of Elaine; he uttered 
once in a while: "Is the stuff ready, Pete?" 

Davis had married Elaine that spring. He was frequently late for work. He had whispered to 
Keating: "You're in with the old man, Pete, slip a good word for me, once in a while, will you?- 
so they'll overlook a few things. God, do I hate to have to be working right now!" Keating would 
say to Francon: "I'm sorry, Mr. Francon, that the Murray job sub-basement plans were so late, 
but Tim Davis had a quarrel with his wife last night, and you know how newlyweds are, you 
don't want to be too hard on them," or "It's Tim Davis again, Mr. Francon, do forgive him, he 
can't help it, he hasn't got his mind on his work at all!" 

When Francon glanced at the list of his employees' salaries, he noticed that his most 
expensive draftsman was the man least needed in the office. 

When Tim Davis lost his job, no one in the drafting room was surprised but Tim Davis. He 
could not understand it. He set his lips defiantly in bitterness against a world he would hate 
forever. He felt he had no friend on earth save Peter Keating. 

Keating consoled him, cursed Francon, cursed the injustice of humanity, spent six dollars in a 
speak-easy, entertaining the secretary of an obscure architect of his acquaintance and 
arranged a new job for Tim Davis. 

Whenever he thought of Davis afterward, Keating felt a warm pleasure; he had influenced the 
course of a human being, had thrown him off one path and pushed him into another; a human 
being-it was not Tim Davis to him any longer, it was a living frame and a mind, a conscious 
mind-why had he always feared that mysterious entity of consciousness within others?-and 
he had twisted that frame and that mind to his own will. By a unanimous decision of Francon, 
Heyer and the chief draftsman, Tim's table, position and salary were given to Peter Keating. 
But this was only part of his satisfaction; there was another sense of it, warmer and less real- 
and more dangerous. He said brightly and often: 'Tim Davis? Oh yes, I got him his present 
job." 

He wrote to his mother about it. She said to her friends: "Petey is such an unselfish boy." 

He wrote to her dutifully each week; his letters were short and respectful; hers, long, detailed 
and full of advice which he seldom finished reading. 

He saw Catherine Halsey occasionally. He had not gone to her on that following evening, as 
he had promised. He had awakened in the morning and remembered the things he had said 
to her, and hated her for his having said them. But he had gone to her again, a week later; she 
had not reproached him and they had not mentioned her uncle. He saw her after that every 
month or two; he was happy when he saw her, but he never spoke to her of his career. 


He tried to speak of it to Howard Roark; the attempt failed. He called on Roark twice; he 



climbed, indignantly, the five flights of stairs to Roark's room. He greeted Roark eagerly; he 
waited for reassurance, not knowing what sort of reassurance he needed nor why it could 
come only from Roark. He spoke of his job and he questioned Roark, with sincere concern, 
about Cameron's office. Roark listened to him, answered all his questions willingly, but 
Keating felt that he was knocking against a sheet of iron in Roark's unmoving eyes, and that 
they were not speaking about the same things at all. Before the visit was over, Keating was 
taking notice of Roark's frayed cuffs, of his shoes, of the patch on the knee of his trousers, 
and he felt satisfied. He went away chuckling, but he went away miserably uneasy, and 
wondered why, and swore never to see Roark again, and wondered why he knew that he 
would have to see him. 

# 

"Well," said Keating, "I couldn't quite work it to ask her to lunch, but she's coming to Mawson's 
exhibition with me day after tomorrow. Now what?" 

He sat on the floor, his head resting against the edge of a couch, his bare feet stretched out, a 
pair of Guy Francon's chartreuse pyjamas floating loosely about his limbs. 

Through the open door of the bathroom he saw Francon standing at the washstand, his 
stomach pressed to its shining edge, brushing his teeth. 

"That's splendid," said Francon, munching through a thick foam of toothpaste. "That'll do just 
as well. Don't you see?" 

"No." 

"Lord, Pete, I explained it to you yesterday before we started. Mrs. Dunlop's husband's 
planning to build a home for her." 

"Oh, yeah," said Keating weakly, brushing the matted black curls off his face. "Oh, yeah. ..I 
remember now.. .Jesus, Guy, I got a head on me!..." 

He remembered vaguely the party to which Francon had taken him the night before, he 
remembered the caviar in a hollow iceberg, the black net evening gown and the pretty face of 
Mrs. Dunlop, but he could not remember how he had come to end up in Francon's apartment. 
He shrugged; he had attended many parties with Francon in the past year and had often been 
brought here like this. 

"It's not a very large house," Francon was saying, holding the toothbrush in his mouth; it made 
a lump on his cheek and its green handle stuck out. "Fifty thousand or so, I understand. 
They're small fry anyway. But Mrs. Dunlop's brother-in-law is Quimby-you know, the big real 
estate fellow. Won't hurt to get a little wedge into that family, won't hurt at all. You're to see 
where that commission ends up, Pete. Can I count on you, Pete?" 

"Sure," said Keating, his head drooping. "You can always count on me, Guy...." 

He sat still, watching his bare toes and thinking of Stengel, Francon's designer. He did not 
want to think, but his mind leaped to Stengel automatically, as it always did, because Stengel 
represented his next step. 

Stengel was impregnable to friendship. For two years, Keating's attempts had broken against 
the ice of Stengel's glasses. What Stengel thought of him was whispered in the drafting 
rooms, but few dared to repeat it save in quotes; Stengel said it aloud, even though he knew 
that the corrections his sketches bore, when they returned to him from Francon's office, were 
made by Keating's hand. But Stengel had a vulnerable point: he had been planning for some 
time to leave Francon and open an office of his own. He had selected a partner, a young 
architect of no talent but of great inherited wealth. Stengel was waiting only for a chance. 
Keating had thought about this a great deal He could think of nothing else. He thought of it 
again, sitting there on the floor of Francon's bedroom. 

Two days later, when he escorted Mrs. Dunlop through the gallery exhibiting the paintings of 
one Frederic Mawson, his course of action was set. He piloted her through the sparse crowd, 
his fingers closing over her elbow once in a while, letting her catch his eyes directed at her 



young face more often than at the paintings. 


"Yes," he said as she stared obediently at a landscape featuring an auto dump and tried to 
compose her face into the look of admiration expected of her; "magnificent work. Note the 
colors, Mrs. Dunlop. ...They say this fellow Mawson had a terribly hard time. It's an old story- 
trying to get recognition. Old and heartbreaking. It's the same in all the arts. My own 
profession included." 

"Oh, indeed?" said Mrs. Dunlop, who quite seemed to prefer architecture at the moment. 

"Now this," said Keating, stopping before the depiction of an old hag picking at her bare toes 
on a street curb, "this is art as a social document. It takes a person of courage to appreciate 
this." 

"It's simply wonderful," said Mrs. Dunlop. 

"Ah, yes, courage. It's a rare quality.. ..They say Mawson was starving in a garret when Mrs. 
Stuyvesant discovered him. It's glorious to be able to help young talent on its way." 

"It must be wonderful," agreed Mrs. Dunlop. 

"If I were rich," said Keating wistfully, "I'd make it my hobby: to arrange an exhibition for a new 
artist, to finance the concert of a new pianist, to have a house built by a new architect...." 

"Do you know, Mr. Keating?-my husband and I are planning to build a little home on Long 
Island." 

"Oh, are you? How very charming of you, Mrs. Dunlop, to confess such a thing to me. You're 
so young, if you'll forgive my saying this. Don't you know that you run the danger of my 
becoming a nuisance and trying to interest you in my firm? Or are you safe and have chosen 
an architect already?" 

"No, I'm not safe at all," said Mrs. Dunlop prettily, "and I wouldn't mind the danger really. I've 
thought a great deal about the firm of Francon & Heyer in these last few days. And I’ve heard 
they are so terribly good." 

"Why, thank you, Mrs. Dunlop." 

"Mr. Francon is a great architect." 

"Oh, yes." 

"What's the matter?" 

"Nothing. Nothing really." 

"No, what's the matter?" 

"Do you really want me to tell you?" 

"Why, certainly." 

"Well, you see, Guy Francon-it's only a name. He would have nothing to do with your house. 
It's one of those professional secrets that I shouldn't divulge, but I don't know what it is about 
you that makes me want to be honest. All the best buildings in our office are designed by Mr. 
Stengel." 

"Who?" 

"Claude Stengel. You've never heard the name, but you will, when someone has the courage 
to discover him. You see, he does all the work, he's the real genius behind the scenes, but 
Francon puts his signature on it and gets all the credit. That's the way it's done everywhere." 



"But why does Mr. Stengel stand for it?" 

"What can he do? No one will give him a start. You know how most people are, they stick to 
the beaten path, they pay three times the price for the same thing, just to have the trademark. 
Courage, Mrs. Dunlop, they lack courage. Stengel is a great artist, but there are so few 
discerning people to see it. He's ready to go on his own, if only he could find some outstanding 
person like Mrs. Stuyvesant to give him a chance." 

"Really?" said Mrs. Dunlop. "How very interesting! Tell me more about it." 

He told her a great deal more about it. By the time they had finished the inspection of the 
works of Frederic Mawson, Mrs. Dunlop was shaking Keating's hand and saying: 

"It's so kind, so very unusually kind of you. Are you sure that it won't embarrass you with your 
office if you arrange for me to meet Mr. Stengel? I didn't quite dare to suggest it and it was so 
kind of you not to be angry at me. It's so unselfish of you and more than anyone else would 
have done in your position." 

When Keating approached Stengel with the suggestion of a proposed luncheon, the man 
listened to him without a word. Then he jerked his head and snapped: 

"What's in it for you?" 

Before Keating could answer, Stengel threw his head back suddenly. 

"Oh," said Stengel. "Oh, I see." 

Then he leaned forward, his mouth drawn thin in contempt: 

"Okay. I'll go to that lunch." 

When Stengel left the firm of Francon & Heyer to open his own office and proceed with the 
construction of the Dunlop house, his first commission, Guy Francon smashed a ruler against 
the edge of his desk and roared to Keating: 

"The bastard! The abysmal bastard! After all I've done for him." 

"What did you expect?" said Keating, sprawled in a low armchair before him. "Such is life." 

"But what beats me is how did that little skunk ever hear of it? To snatch it right from under 
our nose!" 

"Well, I've never trusted him anyway." Keating shrugged. "Human nature..." 

The bitterness in his voice was sincere. He had received no gratitude from Stengel. Stengel's 
parting remark to him had been only: "You're a worse bastard than I thought you were. Good 
luck. You'll be a great architect some day." 

Thus Keating achieved the position of chief designer for Francon & Heyer. 

Francon celebrated the occasion with a modest little orgy at one of the quieter and costlier 
restaurants. "In a coupla years," he kept repeating, "in a coupla years you'll see things 
happenin'. Pete. ...You're a good boy and I like you and I'll do things for you.. ..Haven't I done 
things for you?. ..You're going places, Pete. ..in a coupla years...." 

"Your tie's crooked, Guy," said Keating dryly, "and you're spilling brandy all over your vest...." 

Facing his first task of designing, Keating thought of Tim Davis, of Stengel, of many others 
who had wanted it, had struggled for it, had tried, had been beaten-by him. It was a 
triumphant feeling. It was a tangible affirmation of his greatness. Then he found himself 
suddenly in his glass-enclosed office, looking down at a blank sheet of paper-alone. 
Something rolled in his throat down to his stomach, cold and empty, his old feeling of the 
dropping hole. He leaned against the table, closing his eyes. It had never been quite real to 



him before that this was the thing actually expected of him-to fill a sheet of paper, to create 
something on a sheet of paper. 

It was only a small residence. But instead of seeing it rise before him, he saw it sinking; he 
saw its shape as a pit in the ground; and as a pit within him; as emptiness, with only Davis and 
Stengel rattling uselessly within it. Francon had said to him about the building: "It must have 
dignity, you know, dignity.. .nothing freaky. ..a structure of elegance. ..and stay within the 
budget," which was Francon's conception of giving his designer ideas and letting him work 
them out. Through a cold stupor, Keating thought of the clients laughing in his face; he heard 
the thin, omnipotent voice of Ellsworth Toohey calling his attention to the opportunities open to 
him in the field of plumbing. He hated every piece of stone on the face of the earth. He hated 
himself for having chosen to be an architect. 

When he began to draw, he tried not to think of the job he was doing; he thought only that 
Francon had done it, and Stengel, even Heyer, and all the others, and that he could do it, if 
they could. 

He spent many days on his preliminary sketches. He spent long hours in the library of Francon 
& Heyer, selecting from Classic photographs the appearance of his house. He felt the tension 
melting in his mind. It was right and it was good, that house growing under his hand, because 
men were still worshipping the masters who had done it before him. He did not have to 
wonder, to fear or to take chances; it had been done for him. 

When the drawings were ready, he stood looking at them uncertainly. Were he to be told that 
this was the best or the ugliest house in the world, he would agree with either. He was not 
sure. He had to be sure. He thought of Stanton and of what he had relied upon when working 
on his assignments there. He telephoned Cameron's office and asked for Howard Roark. 

He came to Roark's room, that night, and spread before him the plans, the elevations, the 
perspective of his first building. Roark stood over it, his arms spread wide, his hands holding 
the edge of the table, and he said nothing for a long time. 

Keating waited anxiously; he felt anger growing with his anxiety-because he could see no 
reason for being so anxious. When he couldn't stand it, he spoke: 

"You know, Howard, everybody says Stengel's the best designer in town, and I don't think he 
was really ready to quit, but I made him and I took his place. I had to do some pretty fine 
thinking to work that, I..." 

He stopped. It did not sound bright and proud, as it would have sounded anywhere else. It 
sounded like begging. 

Roark turned and looked at him. Roark's eyes were not contemptuous; only a little wider than 
usual, attentive and puzzled. He said nothing and turned back to the drawings. 

Keating felt naked. Davis, Stengel, Francon meant nothing here. People were his protection 
against people. Roark had no sense of people. Others gave Keating a feeling of his own 
value. Roark gave him nothing. He thought that he should seize his drawings and run. The 
danger was not Roark. The danger was that he, Keating, remained. Roark turned to him. 

"Do you enjoy doing this sort of thing, Peter?" he asked. "Oh, I know," said Keating, his voice 
shrill, "I know you don't approve of it, but this is business, I just want to know what you think of 
this practically, not philosophically, not..." 

"No, I'm not going to preach to you. I was only wondering." 

"If you could help me, Howard, if you could just help me with it a little. It's my first house, and it 
means so much to me at the office, and I'm not sure. What do you think? Will you help me, 
Howard?" 

"All right." 

Roark threw aside the sketch of the graceful facade with the fluted pilasters, the broken 



pediments, the Roman fasces over the windows and the two eagles of Empire by the 
entrance. He picked up the plans. He took a sheet of tracing paper, threw it over the plan and 
began to draw. Keating stood watching the pencil in Roark's hand. He saw his imposing 
entrance foyer disappearing, his twisted corridors, his lightless corners; he saw an immense 
living room growing in the space he had thought too limited; a wall of giant windows facing the 
garden, a spacious kitchen. He watched for a long time. "And the facade?" he asked, when 
Roark threw the pencil down. "I can't help you with that. If you must have it Classic, have it 
good Classic at least. You don't need three pilasters where one will do. And take those ducks 
off the door, it's too much." 

Keating smiled at him gratefully, when he was leaving, his drawings under his arm; he 
descended the stairs, hurt and angry; he worked for three days making new plans from 
Roark's sketches, and a new, simpler elevation; and he presented his house to Francon with a 
proud gesture that looked like a flourish. "Well," said Francon, studying it, "well, I 
declare!. ..What an imagination you have, Peter. ..I wonder. ..It's a bit daring, but I wonder..." He 
coughed and added: "It's just what I had in mind." 

"Of course," said Keating. "I studied your buildings, and I tried to think of what you'd do, and if 
it's good, it's because I think I know how to catch your ideas." 

Francon smiled. And Keating thought suddenly that Francon did not really believe it and knew 
that Keating did not believe it, and yet they were both contented, bound tighter together by a 
common method and a common guilt. 

# 

The letter on Cameron's desk informed him regretfully that after earnest consideration, the 
board of directors of the Security Trust Company had not been able to accept his plans for the 
building to house the new Astoria branch of the Company and that the commission had been 
awarded to the firm of Gould & Pettingill. A check was attached to the letter, in payment for his 
preliminary drawings, as agreed; the amount was not enough to cover the expense of making 
those drawings. 

The letter lay spread out on the desk. Cameron sat before it, drawn back, not touching the 
desk, his hands gathered in his lap, the back of one in the palm of the other, the fingers tight. 

It was only a small piece of paper, but he sat huddled and still, because it seemed to be a 
supernatural thing, like radium, sending forth rays that would hurt him if he moved and 
exposed his skin to them. 

For three months, he had awaited the commission of the Security Trust Company. One after 
another, the chances that had loomed before him at rare intervals, in the last two years, had 
vanished, looming in vague promises, vanishing in firm refusals. One of his draftsmen had 
had to be discharged long ago. The landlord had asked questions, politely at first, then dryly, 
then rudely and openly. But no one in the office had minded that nor the usual arrears in 
salaries: there had been the commission of the Security Trust Company. The vice-president, 
who had asked Cameron to submit drawings, had said: "I know, some of the directors won't 
see it as I do. But go ahead, Mr. Cameron. Take the chance with me and I'll fight for you." 

Cameron had taken the chance. He and Roark had worked savagely-to have the plans ready 
on time, before time, before Gould & Pettingill could submit theirs. Pettingill was a cousin of 
the Bank president's wife and a famous authority on the ruins of Pompeii; the Bank president 
was an ardent admirer of Julius Caesar and had once, while in Rome, spent an hour and a 
quarter in reverent inspection of the Coliseum. 

Cameron and Roark and a pot of black coffee had lived in the office from dawn till frozen 
dawn for many days, and Cameron had thought involuntarily of the electric bill, but made 
himself forget it. The lights still burned in the drafting room in the early hours when he sent 
Roark out for sandwiches, and Roark found gray morning in the streets while it was still night 
in the office, in the windows facing a high brick wall. On the last day, it was Roark who had 
ordered Cameron home after midnight, because Cameron's hands were jerking and his knees 
kept seeking the tall drafting stool for support, leaning against it with a slow, cautious, 
sickening precision. Roark had taken him down to a taxi and in the light of a street lamp 
Cameron had seen Roark's face, drawn, the eyes kept wide artificially, the lips dry. The next 
morning Cameron had entered the drafting room, and found the coffee pot on the floor, on its 



side over a black puddle, and Roark's hand in the puddle, palm up, fingers half closed, 

Roark's body stretched out on the floor, his head thrown back, fast asleep. On the table, 
Cameron had found the plans, finished.... 

He sat looking at the letter on his desk. The degradation was that he could not think of those 
nights behind him, he could not think of the building that should have risen in Astoria and of 
the building that would now take its place; it was that he thought only of the bill unpaid to the 
electric company.... 

In these last two years Cameron had disappeared from his office for weeks at a time, and 
Roark had not found him at home, and had known what was happening, but could only wait, 
hoping for Cameron's safe return. Then, Cameron had lost even the shame of his agony, and 
had come to his office reeling, recognizing no one, openly drunk and flaunting it before the 
walls of the only place on earth he had respected. 

Roark learned to face his own landlord with the quiet statement that he could not pay him for 
another week; the landlord was afraid of him and did not insist. Peter Keating heard of it 
somehow, as he always heard everything he wanted to know. He came to Roark's unheated 
room, one evening, and sat down, keeping his overcoat on. He produced a wallet, pulled out 
five ten-dollar bills, and handed them to Roark. "You need it, Howard. I know you need it. 

Don't start protesting now. You can pay me back any time." Roark looked at him, astonished, 
took the money, saying: "Yes, I need it. Thank you, Peter." Then Keating said: "What in hell 
are you doing, wasting yourself on old Cameron? What do you want to live like this for? Chuck 
it, Howard, and come with us. All I have to do is say so. Francon'II be delighted. We'll start you 
at sixty a week." Roark took the money out of his pocket and handed it back to him. "Oh, for 
God's sake, Howard! I...I didn't mean to offend you." 

"I didn't either." 

"But please, Howard, keep it anyway." 

"Good night, Peter." 

Roark was thinking of that when Cameron entered the drafting room, the letter from the 
Security Trust Company in his hand. He gave the letter to Roark, said nothing, turned and 
walked back to his office. Roark read the letter and followed him. Whenever they lost another 
commission Roark knew that Cameron wanted to see him in the office, but not to speak of it; 
just to see him there, to talk of other things, to lean upon the reassurance of his presence. 

On Cameron's desk Roark saw a copy of the New York Banner. 

It was the leading newspaper of the great Wynand chain. It was a paper he would have 
expected to find in a kitchen, in a barbershop, in a third-rate drawing room, in the subway; 
anywhere but in Cameron's office. Cameron saw him looking at it and grinned. 

"Picked it up this morning, on my way here. Funny, isn't it? I didn't know we'd. ..get that letter 
today. And yet it seems appropriate together-this paper and that letter. Don't know what 
made me buy it. A sense of symbolism, I suppose. Look at it, Howard. It's interesting." 

Roark glanced through the paper. The front page carried the picture of an unwed mother with 
thick glistening lips, who had shot her lover; the picture headed the first installment of her 
autobiography and a detailed account of her trial. The other pages ran a crusade against utility 
companies; a daily horoscope; extracts from church sermons; recipes for young brides; 
pictures of girls with beautiful legs; advice on how to hold a husband; a baby contest; a poem 
proclaiming that to wash dishes was nobler than to write a symphony; an article proving that a 
woman who had borne a child was automatically a saint. 

"That's our answer, Howard. That's the answer given to you and to me. This paper. That it 
exists and that it's liked. Can you fight that? Have you any words to be heard and understood 
by that? They shouldn't have sent us the letter. They should have sent a copy of Wynand’s 
Banner. It would be simpler and clearer. Do you know that in a few years that incredible 
bastard, Gail Wynand, will rule the world? It will be a beautiful world. And perhaps he’s right." 



Cameron held the paper outstretched, weighing it on the palm of his hand. 


"To give them what they want, Howard, and to let them worship you for it, for licking their feet- 
or...or what? What's the use?. ..Only it doesn't matter, nothing matters, not even that it doesn't 
matter to me any more...." Then he looked at Roark. He added: 

"If only I could hold on until I've started you on your own, Howard...." 

"Don’t speak of that." 

"I want to speak of that.... It's funny, Howard, next spring it will be three years that you've been 
here. Seems so much longer, doesn't it? Well, have I taught you anything? I'll tell you: I've 
taught you a great deal and nothing. No one can teach you anything, not at the core, at the 
source of it. What you're doing-it's yours, not mine, I can only teach you to do it better. I can 
give you the means, but the aim-the aim's your own. You won't be a little disciple putting up 
anemic little things in early Jacobean or late Cameron. What you'll be. ..if only I could live to 
see it!" 

"You'll live to see it. And you know it now." Cameron stood looking at the bare walls of his 
office, at the white piles of bills on his desk, at the sooty rain trickling slowly down the 
windowpanes. 

"I have no answer to give them, Howard. I'm leaving you to face them. You'll answer them. All 
of them, the Wynand papers and what makes the Wynand papers possible and what lies 
behind that. It's a strange mission to give you. I don't know what our answer is to be. I know 
only that there is an answer and that you're holding it, that you're the answer, Howard, and 
some day you'll find the words for it." 


6 . 

SERMONS IN STONE by Ellsworth M. Toohey was published in January of the year 1925. 

It had a fastidious jacket of midnight blue with plain silver letters and a silver pyramid in one 
corner. It was subtitled "Architecture for Everybody" and its success was sensational. It 
presented the entire history of architecture, from mud hut to skyscraper, in the terms of the 
man in the street, but it made these terms appear scientific. Its author stated in his preface 
that it was an attempt "to bring architecture where it belongs--to the people." He stated further 
that he wished to see the average man "think and speak of architecture as he speaks of 
baseball." He did not bore his readers with the technicalities of the Five Orders, the post and 
lintel, the flying buttress or reinforced concrete. He filled his pages with homey accounts of the 
daily life of the Egyptian housekeeper, the Roman shoe-cobbler, the mistress of Louis XIV, 
what they ate, how they washed, where they shopped and what effect their buildings had upon 
their existence. But he gave his readers the impression that they were learning all they had to 
know about the Five Orders and the reinforced concrete. He gave his readers the impression 
that there were no problems, no achievements, no reaches of thought beyond the common 
daily routine of people nameless in the past as they were in the present; that science had no 
goal and no expression beyond its influence on this routine; that merely by living through their 
own obscure days his readers were representing and achieving all the highest objectives of 
any civilization. His scientific precision was impeccable and his erudition astounding; no one 
could refute him on the cooking utensils of Babylon or the doormats of Byzantium. He wrote 
with the flash and the color of a first-hand observer. He did not plod laboriously through the 
centuries; he danced, said the critics, down the road of the ages, as a jester, a friend and a 
prophet. 

He said that architecture was truly the greatest of the arts, because it was anonymous, as all 
greatness. He said that the world had many famous buildings, but few renowned builders, 
which was as it should be, since no one man had ever created anything of importance in 
architecture, or elsewhere, for that matter. The few whose names had lived were really 
impostors, expropriating the glory of the people as others expropriated its wealth. "When we 
gaze at the magnificence of an ancient monument and ascribe its achievement to one man, 
we are guilty of spiritual embezzlement. We forget the army of craftsmen, unknown and 



unsung, who preceded him in the darkness of the ages, who toiled humbly-all heroism is 
humble-each contributing his small share to the common treasure of his time. A great 
building is not the private invention of some genius or other. It is merely a condensation of the 
spirit of a people." 

He explained that the decadence of architecture had come when private property replaced the 
communal spirit of the Middle Ages, and that the selfishness of individual owners-who built 
for no purpose save to satisfy their own bad taste, "all claim to an individual taste is bad 
taste"-had ruined the planned effect of cities. He demonstrated that there was no such thing 
as free will, since men's creative impulses were determined, as all else, by the economic 
structure of the epoch in which they lived. He expressed admiration for all the great historical 
styles, but admonished against their wanton mixture. He dismissed modern architecture, 
stating that: "So far, it has represented nothing but the whim of isolated individuals, has borne 
no relation to any great, spontaneous mass movement, and as such is of no consequence." 
He predicted a better world to come, where all men would be brothers and their buildings 
would become harmonious and all alike, in the great tradition of Greece, "the Mother of 
Democracy." When he wrote this, he managed to convey-with no tangible break in the 
detached calm of his style-that the words now seen in ordered print had been blurred in 
manuscript by a hand unsteady with emotion. He called upon architects to abandon their 
selfish quest for individual glory and dedicate themselves to the embodiment of the mood of 
their people. "Architects are servants, not leaders. They are not to assert their little egos, but 
to express the soul of their country and the rhythm of their time. They are not to follow the 
delusions of their personal fancy, but to seek the common denominator, which will bring their 
work close to the heart of the masses. Architects-ah, my friends, theirs is not to reason why. 
Theirs is not to command, but to be commanded." 

The advertisements for Sermons in Stone carried quotations from critics: "Magnificent!" 

"A stupendous achievement!" 

"Unequaled in all art history!" 

"Your chance to get acquainted with a charming man and a profound thinker." 

"Mandatory reading for anyone aspiring to the title of intellectual." 

There seemed to be a great many aspiring to that title. Readers acquired erudition without 
study, authority without cost, judgment without effort. It was pleasant to look at buildings and 
criticize them with a professional manner and with the memory of page 439; to hold artistic 
discussions and exchange the same sentences from the same paragraphs. In distinguished 
drawing rooms one could soon hear it said: "Architecture? Oh, yes, Ellsworth Toohey." 

According to his principles, Ellsworth M. Toohey listed no architect by name in the text of his 
book-"the myth-building, hero-worshipping method of historical research has always been 
obnoxious to me." The names appeared only in footnotes. Several of these referred to Guy 
Francon, "who has a tendency to the overornate, but must be commended for his loyalty to 
the strict tradition of Classicism." One note referred to Henry Cameron, "prominent once as 
one of the fathers of the so-called modern school of architecture and relegated since to a well- 
deserved oblivion. Vox populi vox dei." 

In February of 1925 Henry Cameron retired from practice. 

For a year, he had known that the day would come. He had not spoken of it to Roark, but they 
both knew and went on, expecting nothing save to go on as long as it was still possible. A few 
commissions had dribbled into their office in the past year, country cottages, garages, 
remodeling of old buildings. They took anything. But the drops stopped. The pipes were dry. 
The water had been turned off by a society to whom Cameron had never paid his bill. 

Simpson and the old man in the reception room had been dismissed long ago. Only Roark 
remained, to sit still through the winter evenings and look at Cameron's body slumped over his 
desk, arms flung out, head on arms, a bottle glistening under the lamp. 


Then, one day in February, when Cameron had touched no alcohol for weeks, he reached for 



a book on a shelf and collapsed at Roark's feet, suddenly, simply, finally. Roark took him 
home and the doctor stated that an attempt to leave his bed would be all the death sentence 
Cameron needed. Cameron knew it. He lay still on his pillow, his hands dropped obediently 
one at each side of his body, his eyes unblinking and empty. Then he said: 

"You'll close the office for me, Howard, will you?" 

"Yes," said Roark. 

Cameron closed his eyes, and would say nothing else, and Roark sat all night by his bed, not 
knowing whether the old man slept or not. 

A sister of Cameron's appeared from somewhere in New Jersey. She was a meek little old 
lady with white hair, trembling hands and a face one could never remember, quiet, resigned 
and gently hopeless. She had a meager little income and she assumed the responsibility of 
taking her brother to her home in New Jersey; she had never been married and had no one 
else in the world; she was neither glad nor sorry of the burden; she had lost all capacity for 
emotion many years ago. 

On the day of his departure Cameron handed to Roark a letter he had written in the night, 
written painfully, an old drawing board on his knees, a pillow propping his back. The letter was 
addressed to a prominent architect; it was Roark's introduction to a job. Roark read it and, 
looking at Cameron, not at his own hands, tore the letter across, folded the pieces and tore it 
again. "No," said Roark. "You're not going to ask them for anything. Don't worry about me." 

Cameron nodded and kept silent for a long time. Then he said: 

"You'll close up the office, Howard. You'll let them keep the furniture for their rent. But you'll 
take the drawing that's on the wall in my room there and you'll ship it to me. Only that. You'll 
burn everything else. All the papers, the files, the drawings, the contracts, everything." 

"Yes," said Roark. 

Miss Cameron came with the orderlies and the stretcher, and they rode in an ambulance to 
the ferry. At the entrance to the ferry, Cameron said to Roark: 

"You're going back now." He added: "You'll come to see me, Howard.. ..Not too often..." 

Roark turned and walked away, while they were carrying Cameron to the pier. It was a gray 
morning and there was the cold, rotting smell of the sea in the air. A gull dipped low over the 
street, gray like a floating piece of newspaper, against a corner of damp, streaked stone. 

That evening, Roark went to Cameron's closed office. He did not turn on the lights. He made a 
fire in the Franklin heater in Cameron's room, and emptied drawer after drawer into the fire, 
not looking down at them. The papers rustled dryly in the silence, a thin odor of mold rose 
through the dark room, and the fire hissed, crackling, leaping in bright streaks. At times a 
white flake with charred edges would flutter out of the flames. He pushed it back with the end 
of a steel ruler. 

There were drawings of Cameron's famous buildings and of buildings unbuilt; there were 
blueprints with the thin white lines that were girders still standing somewhere; there were 
contracts with famous signatures; and at times, from out of the red glow, there flashed a sum 
of seven figures written on yellowed paper, flashed and went down, in a thin burst of sparks. 

From among the letters in an old folder, a newspaper clipping fluttered to the floor. Roark 
picked it up. It was dry, brittle and yellow, and it broke at the folds, in his fingers. It was an 
interview given by Henry Cameron, dated May 7, 1892. It said: "Architecture is not a business, 
not a career, but a crusade and a consecration to a joy that justifies the existence of the 
earth." He dropped the clipping into the fire and reached for another folder. 

He gathered every stub of pencil from Cameron's desk and threw them in also. 

He stood over the heater. He did not move, he did not look down; he felt the movement of the 



glow, a faint shudder at the edge of his vision. He looked at the drawing of the skyscraper that 
had never been built, hanging on the wall before him. 

# 

It was Peter Keating's third year with the firm of Francon & Heyer. He carried his head high, 
his body erect with studied uprightness; he looked like the picture of a successful young man 
in advertisements for high-priced razors or medium-priced cars. 

He dressed well and watched people noticing it. He had an apartment off Park Avenue, 
modest but fashionable, and he bought three valuable etchings as well as a first edition of a 
classic he had never read nor opened since. Occasionally, he escorted clients to the 
Metropolitan Opera. He appeared, once, at a fancy-dress Arts Ball and created a sensation by 
his costume of a medieval stonecutter, scarlet velvet and tights; he was mentioned in a 
society-page account of the event-the first mention of his name in print-and he saved the 
clipping. 

He had forgotten his first building, and the fear and doubt of its birth. He had learned that it 
was so simple. His clients would accept anything, so long as he gave them an imposing 
facade, a majestic entrance and a regal drawing room, with which to astound their guests. It 
worked out to everyone's satisfaction: Keating did not care so long as his clients were 
impressed, the clients did not care so long as their guests were impressed, and the guests did 
not care anyway. 

Mrs. Keating rented her house in Stanton and came to live with him in New York. He did not 
want her; he could not refuse-because she was his mother and he was not expected to 
refuse. He met her with some eagerness; he could at least impress her by his rise in the 
world. She was not impressed; she inspected his rooms, his clothes, his bank books and said 
only: "It'll do, Petey-for the time being." 

She made one visit to his office and departed within a half-hour. That evening he had to sit 
still, squeezing and cracking his knuckles, for an hour and a half, while she gave him advice. 
"That fellow Whithers had a much more expensive suit than yours, Petey. That won't do. 
You've got to watch your prestige before those boys. The little one who brought in those 
blueprints--! didn't like the way he spoke to you. ...Oh, nothing, nothing, only I'd keep my eye 
on him. ...The one with the long nose is no friend of yours. ...Never mind, I just know.. ..Watch 
out for the one they called Bennett. I'd get rid of him if I were you. He's ambitious. I know the 
signs...." 

Then she asked: 

"Guy Francon. ..has he any children?" 

"One daughter." 

"Oh..." said Mrs. Keating. "What is she like?" 

"I've never met her." 

"Really, Peter," she said, "it's downright rude to Mr. Francon if you've made no effort to meet 
his family." 

"She's been away at college, Mother. I'll meet her some day. It's getting late, Mother, and I've 
got a lot of work to do tomorrow...." 

But he thought of it that night and the following day. He had thought of it before and often. He 
knew that Francon’s daughter had graduated from college long ago and was now working on 
the Banner, where she wrote a small column on home decoration. He had been able to learn 
nothing else about her. No one in the office seemed to know her. Francon never spoke of her. 

On that following day, at luncheon, Keating decided to face the subject. 

"I hear such nice things about your daughter," he said to 



Francon. "Where did you hear nice things about her?" Francon asked ominously. 

"Oh, well, you know how it is, one hears things. And she writes brilliantly." 

"Yes, she writes brilliantly." Francon's mouth snapped shut. 

"Really, Guy, I'd love to meet her." 

Francon looked at him and sighed wearily. 

"You know she's not living with me," said Francon. "She has an apartment of her own-l'm not 
sure that I even remember the address. ...Oh, I suppose you'll meet her some day. You won't 
like her, Peter." 

"Now, why do you say that?" 

"It's one of those things, Peter. As a father I'm afraid I'm a total failure. ...Say, Peter, what did 
Mrs. Mannering say about that new stairway arrangement?" 

Keating felt angry, disappointed--and relieved. He looked at Francon's squat figure and 
wondered what appearance his daughter must have inherited to earn her father's so obvious 
disfavor. Rich and ugly as sin-like most of them, he decided. He thought that this need not 
stop him-some day. He was glad only that the day was postponed. He thought, with new 
eagerness, that he would go to see Catherine tonight. 

Mrs. Keating had met Catherine in Stanton. She had hoped that Peter would forget. Now she 
knew that he had not forgotten, even though he seldom spoke of Catherine and never brought 
her to his home. Mrs. Keating did not mention Catherine by name. But she chatted about 
penniless girls who hooked brilliant young men, about promising boys whose careers had 
been wrecked by marriage to the wrong woman; and she read to him every newspaper 
account of a celebrity divorcing his plebeian wife who could not live up to his eminent position. 

Keating thought, as he walked toward Catherine's house that night, of the few times he had 
seen her; they had been such unimportant occasions, but they were the only days he 
remembered of his whole life in New York. 

He found, in the middle of her uncle's living room, when she let him in, a mess of letters 
spread all over the carpet, a portable typewriter, newspapers, scissors, boxes and a pot of 
glue. 

"Oh dear!" said Catherine, flopping limply down on her knees in the midst of the litter. "Oh 
dear!" 

She looked up at him, smiling disarmingly, her hands raised and spread over the crinkling 
white piles. She was almost twenty now and looked no older than she had looked at 
seventeen. 

"Sit down, Peter. I thought I'd be through before you came, but I guess I'm not. It's Uncle's fan 
mail and his press clippings. I've got to sort it out, and answer it and file it and write notes of 
thanks and. ..Oh, you should see some of the things people write to him! It’s wonderful. Don't 
stand there. Sit down, will you? I'll be through in a minute." 

"You're through right now," he said, picking her up in his arms, carrying her to a chair. 

He held her and kissed her and she laughed happily, her head buried on his shoulder. He 
said: 

"Katie, you're an impossible little fool and your hair smells so nice!" 

She said: "Don't move, Peter. I'm comfortable." 

"Katie, I want to tell you, I had a wonderful time today. They opened the Bordman Building 
officially this afternoon. You know, down on Broadway, twenty-two floors and a Gothic spire. 



Francon had indigestion, so I went there as his representative. I designed that building anyway 
and. ..Oh, well, you know nothing about it." 

"But I do, Peter. I've seen all your buildings. I have pictures of them. I cut them out of the 
papers. And I'm making a scrap-book, just like Uncle's. Oh, Peter, it's so wonderful!" 

"What?" 

"Uncle's scrapbooks, and his letters. ..all this..." She stretched her hands out over the papers 
on the floor, as if she wanted to embrace them. "Think of it, all these letters coming from all 
over the country, perfect strangers and yet he means so much to them. And here I am, 
helping him, me, just nobody, and look what a responsibility I have! It's so touching and so big, 
what do they matter-all the little things that can happen to us?-when this concerns a whole 
nation!" 

"Yeah? Did he tell you that?" 

"He told me nothing at all. But you can't live with him for years without getting some of 
that. ..that wonderful selflessness of his." He wanted to be angry, but he saw her twinkling 
smile, her new kind of fire, and he had to smile in answer. 

"I'll say this, Katie: it's becoming to you, becoming as hell. You know, you could look stunning 
if you learned something about clothes. One of these days, I'll take you bodily and drag you 
down to a good dressmaker. I want you to meet Guy Francon some day. You'll like him." 

"Oh? I thought you said once that I wouldn't." 

"Did I say that? Well, I didn't really know him. He's a grand fellow. I want you to meet them all. 
You'd be. ..hey, where are you going?" She had noticed the watch on his wrist and was edging 
away from him. 

"L.lt's almost nine o'clock, Peter, and I've got to have this finished before Uncle Ellsworth gets 
home. He'll be back by eleven, he's making a speech at a labor meeting tonight. I can work 
while we're talking, do you mind?" 

"I certainly do! To hell with your dear uncle's fans! Let him untangle it all himself. You stay just 
where you are." 

She sighed, but put her head on his shoulder obediently. "You mustn't talk like that about 
Uncle Ellsworth. You don't understand him at all. Have you read his book?" 

"Yes! I've read his book and it's grand, it's stupendous, but I've heard nothing but talk of his 
damn book everywhere I go, so do you mind if we change the subject?" 

"You still don't want to meet Uncle Ellsworth?" 

"Why? What makes you say that? I'd love to meet him." 

"Oh..." 

"What's the matter?" 

"You said once that you didn't want to meet him through me." 

"Did I? How do you always remember all the nonsense I happen to say?" 

"Peter, I don't want you to meet Uncle Ellsworth." 

"Why not?" 

"I don't know. It's kind of silly of me. But now I just don't 
want you to. I don't know why." 



"Well, forget it then. I'll meet him when the time comes. Katie, listen, yesterday I was standing 
at the window in my room, and I thought of you, and I wanted so much to have you with me, I 
almost called you, only it was too late. I get so terribly lonely for you like that, I..." 

She listened, her arms about his neck. And then he saw her looking suddenly past him, her 
mouth opened in consternation; she jumped up, dashed across the room, and crawled on her 
hands and knees to reach a lavender envelope lying under a desk. 

"Now what on earth?" he demanded angrily. 

"It's a very important letter," she said, still kneeling, the envelope held tightly in her little fist, 

"it's a very important letter and there it was, practically in the wastebasket, I might have swept 
it out without noticing. It's from a poor widow who has five children and her eldest son wants to 
be an architect and Uncle Ellsworth is going to arrange a scholarship for him." 

"Well," said Keating, rising, "I've had just about enough of this. Let's get out of here, Katie. 

Let's go for a walk. It's beautiful out tonight. You don't seem to belong to yourself in here." 

"Oh, fine! Let’s go for a walk." 

Outside, there was a mist of snow, a dry, fine, weightless snow that hung still in the air, filling 
the narrow tanks of streets. They walked together, Catherine's arm pressed to his, their feet 
leaving long brown smears on the white sidewalks. 

They sat down on a bench in Washington Square. The snow enclosed the Square, cutting 
them off from the houses, from the city beyond. Through the shadow of the arch, little dots of 
light rolled past them, steel-white, green and smeared red. 

She sat huddled close to him. He looked at the city. He had always been afraid of it and he 
was afraid of it now; but he had two fragile protections: the snow and the girl beside him. 
"Katie," he whispered, "Katie..." 

"I love you, Peter...." 

"Katie," he said, without hesitation, without emphasis, because the certainty of his words 
allowed no excitement, "we're engaged, aren't we?" 

He saw her chin move faintly as it dropped and rose to form one word. 

"Yes," she said calmly, so solemnly that the word sounded indifferent. 

She had never allowed herself to question the future, for a question would have been an 
admission of doubt. But she knew, when she pronounced the "yes," that she had waited for 
this and that she would shatter it if she were too happy. 

"In a year or two," he said holding her hand tightly, "we'll be married. Just as soon as I'm on 
my feet and set with the firm for good. I have mother to take care of, but in another year it will 
be all right." He tried to speak as coldly, as practically as he could, not to spoil the wonder of 
what he felt. "I'll wait, Peter," she whispered. "We don't have to hurry." 

"We won't tell anyone, Katie. ...It's our secret, just ours until..." And suddenly a thought came to 
him, and he realized, aghast, that he could not prove it had never occurred to him before; yet 
he knew, in complete honesty, even though it did astonish him, that he had never thought of 
this before. He pushed her aside. He said angrily: "Katie! You won't think that it's because of 
that great, damnable uncle of yours?" 

She laughed; the sound was light and unconcerned, and he knew that he was vindicated. 
"Lord, no, Peter! He won't like it, of course, but what do we care?" 

"He won't like it? Why?" 



"Oh, I don't think he approves of marriage. Not that he preaches anything immoral, but he's 
always told me marriage is old-fashioned, an economic device to perpetuate the institution of 
private property, or something like that or anyway that he doesn't like it." 

"Well, that’s wonderful! We’ll show him." 

In all sincerity, he was glad of it. It removed, not from his mind which he knew to be innocent, 
but from all other minds where it could occur, the suspicion that there had been in his feeling 
for her any hint of such considerations as applied to. ..to Francon’s daughter, for instance. He 
thought it was strange that this should seem so important; that he should wish so desperately 
to keep his feeling for her free from ties to all other people. 

He let his head fall back, he felt the bite of snowflakes on his lips. Then he turned and kissed 
her. The touch of her mouth was soft and cold with the snow. 

Her hat had slipped to one side, her lips were half open, her eyes round, helpless, her lashes 
glistening. He held her hand, palm up, and looked at it: she wore a black woolen glove and her 
fingers were spread out clumsily like a child's; he saw beads of melted snow in the fuzz of the 
glove; they sparkled radiantly once in the light of a car flashing past. 


7 . 

THE BULLETIN of the Architects' Guild of America carried, in its Miscellaneous Department, a 
short item announcing Henry Cameron's retirement. Six lines summarized his achievements 
in architecture and misspelled the names of his two best buildings. 

Peter Keating walked into Francon's office and interrupted Francon's well-bred bargaining with 
an antique dealer over a snuffbox that had belonged to Madame Pompadour. Francon was 
precipitated into paying nine dollars and twenty-five cents more than he had intended to pay. 
He turned to Keating testily, after the dealer had left, and asked: 

"Well, what is it, Peter, what is it?" 

Keating threw the bulletin down on Francon's desk, his thumbnail underscoring the paragraph 
about Cameron. 

"I've got to have that man," said Keating. 

"What man?" 

"Howard Roark." 

"Who the hell," asked Francon, "is Howard Roark?" 

"I've told you about him. Cameron's designer." 

"Oh. ..oh, yes, I believe you did. Well, go and get him." 

"Do you give me a free hand on how I hire him?" 

"What the hell? What is there about hiring another draftsman? Incidentally, did you have to 
interrupt me for that?" 

"He might be difficult. And I want to get him before he decides on anyone else." 

"Really? He’s going to be difficult about it, is he? Do you intend to beg him to come here after 
Cameron's? Which is not great recommendation for a young man anyway." 


Come on, Guy. Isn’t it?’ 



"Oh well. ..well, speaking structurally, not esthetically, Cameron does give them a thorough 
grounding and. ..Of course, Cameron was pretty important in his day. As a matter of fact, I was 
one of his best draftsmen myself once, long ago. There's something to be said for old 
Cameron when you need that sort of thing. Go ahead. Get your Roark if you think you need 
him." 

"It's not that I really need him. But he's an old friend of mine, and out of a job, and I thought it 
would be a nice thing to do for him." 

"Well, do anything you wish. Only don't bother me about it. ...Say, Peter, don't you think this is 
as lovely a snuffbox as you've ever seen?" 

That evening, Keating climbed, unannounced, to Roark's room and knocked, nervously, and 
entered cheerfully. He found Roark sitting on the window sill, smoking. 

"Just passing by," said Keating, "with an evening to kill and happened to think that that's 
where you live, Howard, and thought I'd drop in to say hello, haven't seen you for such a long 
time." 

"I know what you want," said Roark. "All right. How much?" 

"What do you mean, Howard?" 

"You know what I mean." 

"Sixty-five a week," Keating blurted out. This was not the elaborate approach he had 
prepared, but he had not expected to find that no approach would be necessary. "Sixty-five to 
start with. If you think it's not enough, I could maybe..." 

"Sixty-five will do." 

"You. ..you'll come with us, Howard?" 

"When do you want me to start?" 

"Why. ..as soon as you can! Monday?" 

"ALL right." 

"Thanks, Howard!" 

"On one condition," said Roark. "I'm not going to do any designing. Not any. No details. No 
Louis XV skyscrapers. Just keep me off esthetics if you want to keep me at all. Put me in the 
engineering department. Send me on inspections, out in the field. Now, do you still want me?" 

"Certainly. Anything you say. You'll like the place, just wait and see. You'll like Francon. He's 
one of Cameron's men himself." 

"He shouldn't boast about it." 

"Well..." 

"No. Don't worry. I won't say it to his face. I won't say anything to anyone. Is that what you 
wanted to know?" 

"Why, no, I wasn't worried, I wasn't even thinking of that." 

"Then it's settled. Good night. See you Monday." 

"Well, yes. ..but I'm in no special hurry, really I came to see you and..." 

"What's the matter, Peter? Something bothering you?" 





"You want to know why I'm doing it?" Roark smiled, without resentment or interest. "Is that it? 
I'll tell you, if you want to know. I don't give a damn where I work next. There's no architect in 
town that I'd want to work for. But I have to work somewhere, so it might as well be your 
Francon-if I can get what I want from you. I'm selling myself, and I'll play the game that way- 
for the time being." 

"Really, Howard, you don't have to look at it like that. There's no limit to how far you can go 
with us, once you get used to it. You'll see, for a change, what a real office looks like. After 
Cameron's dump..." 

"We'll shut up about that, Peter, and we'll do it damn fast." 

"I didn't mean to criticize or...l didn't mean anything." He did not know what to say nor what he 
should feel. It was a victory, but it seemed hollow. Still, it was a victory and he felt that he 
wanted to feel affection for Roark. 

"Howard, let's go out and have a drink, just sort of to celebrate the occasion." 

"Sorry, Peter. That's not part of the job." 

Keating had come here prepared to exercise caution and tact to the limit of his ability; he had 
achieved a purpose he had not expected to achieve; he knew he should take no chances, say 
nothing else and leave. But something inexplicable, beyond all practical considerations, was 
pushing him on. He said unheedingly: 

"Can't you be human for once in your life?" 

"What?" 

"Human! Simple. Natural." 

"But I am." 

"Can't you ever relax?" 

Roark smiled, because he was sitting on the window sill, leaning sloppily against the wall, his 
long legs hanging loosely, the cigarette held without pressure between limp fingers. 

"That’s not what I mean!" said Keating. "Why can't you go out for a drink with me?" 

"What for?" 

"Do you always have to have a purpose? Do you always have to be so damn serious? Can't 
you ever do things without reason, just like everybody else? You're so serious, so old. 
Everything's important with you, everything's great, significant in some way, every minute, 
even when you keep still. Can't you ever be comfortable--and unimportant?" 

"No." 

"Don't you get tired of the heroic?" 

"What's heroic about me?" 

"Nothing. Everything. I don't know. It's not what you do. It's what you make people feel around 
you." 

"What?" 

"The un-normal. The strain. When I'm with you-it's always like a choice. Between you-and 
the rest of the world. I don't want that kind of a choice. I don't want to be an outsider. I want to 
belong. There’s so much in the world that’s simple and pleasant. It's not all fighting and 



renunciation. It is-with you." 

"What have I ever renounced?" 

"Oh, you'll never renounce anything! You'd walk over corpses for what you want. But it's what 
you've renounced by never wanting it." 

"That's because you can't want both." 

"Both what?" 

"Look, Peter. I've never told you any of those things about me. What makes you see them? 
I've never asked you to make a choice between me and anything else. What makes you feel 
that there is a choice involved? What makes you uncomfortable when you feel that-since 
you're so sure I'm wrong?" 

"I...I don't know." He added: "I don't know what you're talking about." And then he asked 
suddenly: 

"Howard, why do you hate me?" 

"I don't hate you." 

"Well, that's it! Why don't you hate me at least?" 

"Why should I?" 

"Just to give me something. I know you can't like me. You can't like anybody. So it would be 
kinder to acknowledge people's existence by hating them." 

"I'm not kind, Peter." 

And as Keating found nothing to say, Roark added: 

"Go home, Peter. You got what you wanted. Let it go at that. See you Monday." 

# 

Roark stood at a table in the drafting room of Francon & Heyer, a pencil in his hand, a strand 
of orange hair hanging down over his face, the prescribed pearl-gray smock like a prison 
uniform on his body. 

He had learned to accept his new job. The lines he drew were to be the clean lines of steel 
beams, and he tried not to think of what these beams would carry. It was difficult, at times. 
Between him and the plan of the building on which he was working stood the plan of that 
building as it should have been. He saw what he could make of it, how to change the lines he 
drew, where to lead them in order to achieve a thing of splendor. He had to choke the 
knowledge. He had to kill the vision. He had to obey and draw the lines as instructed. It hurt 
him so much that he shrugged at himself in cold anger. He thought: difficult? — well, learn it. 

But the pain remained-and a helpless wonder. The thing he saw was so much more real than 
the reality of paper, office and commission. He could not understand what made others blind 
to it, and what made their indifference possible. He looked at the paper before him. He 
wondered why ineptitude should exist and have its say. He had never known that. And the 
reality which permitted it could never become quite real to him. 

But he knew that this would not last-he had to wait-it was his only assignment, to wait-what 
he felt didn't matter-it had to be done-he had to wait. 

"Mr. Roark, are you ready with the steel cage for the Gothic lantern for the American Radio 
Corporation Building?" 

He had no friends in the drafting room. He was there like a piece of furniture, as useful, as 
impersonal and as silent. Only the chief of the engineering department, to which Roark was 



assigned, had said to Keating after the first two weeks: "You've got more sense than I gave 
you credit for, Keating. Thanks." 

"For what?" asked Keating. "For nothing that was intentional, I'm sure," said the chief. 

Once in a while, Keating stopped by Roark's table to say softly: "Will you drop in at my office 
when you're through tonight, Howard? Nothing important." 

When Roark came, Keating began by saying: "Well, how do you like it here, Howard? If 
there's anything you want, just say so and I'll..." Roark interrupted to ask: "Where is it, this 
time?" Keating produced sketches from a drawer and said: "I know it's perfectly right, just as it 
is, but what do you think of it, generally speaking?" Roark looked at the sketches, and even 
though he wanted to throw them at Keating's face and resign, one thought stopped him: the 
thought that it was a building and that he had to save it, as others could not pass a drowning 
man without leaping in to the rescue. 

Then he worked for hours, sometimes all night, while Keating sat and watched. He forgot 
Keating's presence. He saw only a building and his chance to shape it. He knew that the 
shape would be changed, torn, distorted. Still, some order and reason would remain in its 
plan. It would be a better building than it would have been if he refused. 

Sometimes, looking at the sketch of a structure simpler, cleaner, more honest than the others, 
Roark would say: "That's not so bad, Peter. You're improving." And Keating would feel an odd 
little jolt inside, something quiet, private and precious, such as he never felt from the 
compliments of Guy Francon, of his clients, of all others. Then he would forget it and feel 
much more substantially pleased when a wealthy lady murmured over a teacup: "You're the 
coming architect of America, Mr. Keating," though she had never seen his buildings. 

He found compensations for his submission to Roark. He would enter the drafting room in the 
morning, throw a tracing boy's assignment down on Roark's table and say: "Howard, do this 
up for me, will you?-and make it fast." In the middle of the day, he would send a boy to 
Roark's table to say loudly: "Mr. Keating wishes to see you in his office at once." He would 
come out of the office and walk in Roark's direction and say to the room at large: "Where the 
hell are those Twelfth Street plumbing specifications? Oh, Howard, will you look through the 
files and dig them up for me?" 

At first, he was afraid of Roark's reaction. When he saw no reaction, only a silent obedience, 
he could restrain himself no longer. He felt a sensual pleasure in giving orders to Roark; and 
he felt also a fury of resentment at Roark's passive compliance. He continued, knowing that 
he could continue only so long as Roark exhibited no anger, yet wishing desperately to break 
him down to an explosion. No explosion came. 

Roark liked the days when he was sent out to inspect buildings in construction. He walked 
through the steel hulks of buildings more naturally than on pavements. The workers observed 
with curiosity that he walked on narrow planks, on naked beams hanging over empty space, 
as easily as the best of them. 

It was a day in March, and the sky was a faint green with the first hint of spring. In Central 
Park, five hundred feet below, the earth caught the tone of the sky in a shade of brown that 
promised to become green, and the lakes lay like splinters of glass under the cobwebs of bare 
branches. Roark walked through the shell of what was to be a gigantic apartment hotel, and 
stopped before an electrician at work. 

The man was toiling assiduously, bending conduits around a beam. It was a task for hours of 
strain and patience, in a space overfilled against all calculations. Roark stood, his hands in his 
pockets, watching the man's slow, painful progress. 

The man raised his head and turned to him abruptly. He had a big head and a face so ugly 
that it became fascinating; it was neither old nor flabby, but it was creased in deep gashes and 
the powerful jowls drooped like a bulldog's; the eyes were startling-wide, round and china- 
blue. 


'Well?" the man asked angrily, "what's the matter, Brick-top?’ 



"You're wasting your time," said Roark. 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah." 

"You don't say!" 

"It will take you hours to get your pipes around that beam." 

"Know a better way to do it?" 

"Sure." 

"Run along, punk. We don't like college smarties around here." 

"Cut a hole in that beam and put your pipes through." 

"What?" 

"Cut a hole through the beam." 

"The hell I will!" 

"The hell you won't." 

"It ain't done that way." 

"I've done it." 

"You?" 

"It’s done everywhere." 

"It ain't gonna be done here. Not by me." 

"Then I'll do it for you." 

The man roared. "That’s rich! When did office boys learn to do a man’s work?" 

"Give me your torch." 

"Look out, boy! It'll burn your pretty pink toes!" 

Roark took the man's gloves and goggles, took the acetylene torch, knelt, and sent a thin jet 
of blue fire at the center of the beam. The man stood watching him. Roark's arm was steady, 
holding the tense, hissing streak of flame in leash, shuddering faintly with its violence, but 
holding it aimed straight. There was no strain, no effort in the easy posture of his body, only in 
his arm. And it seemed as if the blue tension eating slowly through metal came not from the 
flame but from the hand holding it. 

He finished, put the torch down, and rose. 

"Jesus!" said the electrician. "Do you know how to handle a torch!" 

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" He removed the gloves, the goggles, and handed them back. "Do it 
that way from now on. Tell the foreman I said so." 

The electrician was staring reverently at the neat hole cut through the beam. He muttered: 
"Where did you learn to handle it like that, Red?" 

Roark's slow, amused smile acknowledged this concession of victory. "Oh, I've been an 



electrician, and a plumber, and a rivet catcher, and many other things." 

"And went to school besides?" 

"Well, in a way." 

"Gonna be an architect?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, you'll be the first one that knows something besides pretty pictures and tea parties. You 
should see the teacher's pets they send us down from the office." 

"If you're apologizing, don't. I don't like them either. Go back to the pipes. So long." 

"So long, Red." 

The next time Roark appeared on that job, the blue-eyed electrician waved to him from afar, 
and called him over, and asked advice about his work which he did not need; he stated that 
his name was Mike and that he had missed Roark for several days. On the next visit the day 
shift was just leaving, and Mike waited outside for Roark to finish the inspection. "How about a 
glass of beer, Red?" he invited, when Roark came out. "Sure," said Roark, "thanks." 

They sat together at a table in the corner of a basement speakeasy, and they drank beer, and 
Mike related his favorite tale of how he had fallen five stories when a scaffolding gave way 
under him, how he had broken three ribs but lived to tell it, and Roark spoke of his days in the 
building trades. Mike did have a real name, which was Sean Xavier Donnigan, but everyone 
had forgotten it long ago; he owned a set of tools and an ancient Ford, and existed for the sole 
purpose of traveling around the country from one big construction job to another. People 
meant very little to Mike, but their performance a great deal. He worshipped expertness of any 
kind. He loved his work passionately and had no tolerance for anything save for other single- 
track devotions. He was a master in his own field and he felt no sympathy except for mastery. 
His view of the world was simple: there were the able and there were the incompetent; he was 
not concerned with the latter. He loved buildings. He despised, however, all architects. 

"There was one, Red," he said earnestly, over his fifth beer, "one only and you’d be too young 
to know about him, but that was the only man that knew building. I worked for him when I was 
your age." 

"Who was that?" 

"Henry Cameron was his name. He’s dead, I guess, these many years." 

Roark looked at him for a long time, then said: "He’s not dead, Mike," and added: "I’ve worked 
for him." 

"You did?" 

"For almost three years." 

They looked at each other silently, and that was the final seal on their friendship. 

Weeks later, Mike stopped Roark, one day, at the building, his ugly face puzzled, and asked: 

"Say, Red, I heard the super tell a guy from the contractor's that you're stuck-up and stubborn 
and the lousiest bastard he's ever been up against. What did you do to him?" 

"Nothing." 

"What the hell did he mean?" 

"I don't know," said Roark. "Do you?" 



Mike looked at him, shrugged and grinned. 
"No," said Mike. 


8 . 

EARLY IN May, Peter Keating departed for Washington, to supervise the construction of a 
museum donated to the city by a great philanthropist easing his conscience. The museum 
building, Keating pointed out proudly, was to be decidedly different: it was not a reproduction 
of the Parthenon, but of the Maison Carree at Nfmes. 

Keating had been away for some time when an office boy approached Roark's table and 
informed him that Mr. Francon wished to see him in his office. When Roark entered the 
sanctuary, Francon smiled from behind the desk and said cheerfully: "Sit down, my friend. Sit 
down...." but something in Roark's eyes, which he had never seen at close range before, 
made Francon's voice shrink and stop, and he added dryly: "Sit down." Roark obeyed. 

Francon studied him for a second, but could reach no conclusion beyond deciding that the 
man had a most unpleasant face, yet looked quite correctly attentive. 

"You're the one who's worked for Cameron, aren't you?" Francon asked. "Yes," said Roark. 

"Mr. Keating has been telling me very nice things about you," Francon tried pleasantly and 
stopped. It was wasted courtesy; Roark just sat looking at him, waiting. "Listen. ..what's your 
name?" 

"Roark." 

"Listen, Roark. We have a client who is a little. ..odd, but he's an important man, a very 
important man, and we have to satisfy him. He's given us a commission for an eight-million- 
dollar office building, but the trouble is that he has very definite ideas on what he wants it to 
look like. He wants it--" Francon shrugged apologetically, disclaiming all blame for the 
preposterous suggestion-"he wants it to look like this." He handed Roark a photograph. It was 
a photograph of the Dana Building. 

Roark sat quite still, the photograph hanging between his fingers. "Do you know that 
building?" asked Francon. 

"Yes." 

"Well, that's what he wants. And Mr. Keating's away. I've had Bennett and Cooper and 
Williams make sketches, but he’s turned them down. So I thought I'd give you a chance." 

Francon looked at him, impressed by the magnanimity of his own offer. There was no 
reaction. There was only a man who still looked as if he'd been struck on the head. 

"Of course," said Francon, "it's quite a jump for you, quite an assignment, but I thought I'd let 
you try. Don't be afraid. Mr. Keating and I will go over it afterward. Just draw up the plans and 
a good sketch of it. You must have an idea of what the man wants. You know Cameron's 
tricks. But of course, we can't let a crude thing like this come out of our office. We must 
please him, but we must also preserve our reputation and not frighten all our other clients 
away. The point is to make it simple and in the general mood of this, but also artistic. You 
know, the more severe kind of Greek. You don't have to use the Ionic order, use the Doric. 
Plain pediments and simple moldings, or something like that. Get the idea? Now take this 
along and show me what you can do. Bennett will give you all the particulars and. ..What's the 
mat-" 

Francon's voice cut itself off. 

"Mr. Francon, please let me design it the way the Dana Building was designed." 


Huh?’ 



"Let me do it. Not copy the Dana Building, but design it as Henry Cameron would have wanted 
it done, as I will." 

"You mean modernistic?" 

"L.well, call it that." 

"Are you crazy?" 

"Mr. Francon, please listen to me." Roark's words were like the steps of a man walking a 
tightwire, slow, strained, groping for the only right spot, quivering over an abyss, but precise. "I 
don't blame you for the things you're doing. I'm Working for you, I'm taking your money, I have 
no right to express objections. But this time. ..this time the client is asking for it. You're risking 
nothing. He wants it. Think of it, there's a man, one man who sees and understands and 
wants it and has the power to build it. Are you going to fight a client for the first time in your 
life-and fight for what? To cheat him and to give him the same old trash, when you have so 
many others asking for it, and one, only one, who comes with a request like this?" 

"Aren't you forgetting yourself?" asked Francon, coldly. "What difference would it make to 
you? Just let me do it my way and show it to him. Only show it to him. He's already turned 
down three sketches, what if he turns down a fourth? But if he doesn't. ..if he doesn't..." Roark 
had never known how to entreat and he was not doing it well; his voice was hard, toneless, 
revealing the effort, so that the plea became an insult to the man who was making him plead. 
Keating would have given a great deal to see Roark in that moment. But Francon could not 
appreciate the triumph he was the first ever to achieve; he recognized only the insult. 

"Am I correct in gathering," Francon asked, "that you are criticizing me and teaching me 
something about architecture?" 

"I'm begging you," said Roark, closing his eyes. "If you weren't a protege of Mr. Keating's, I 
wouldn't bother to discuss the matter with you any further. But since you are quite obviously 
naive and inexperienced, I shall point out to you that I am not in the habit of asking for the 
esthetic opinions of my draftsmen. You will kindly take this photograph-and I do not wish any 
building as Cameron might have designed it, I wish the scheme of this adapted to our site- 
and you will follow my instructions as to the Classic treatment of the facade." 

"I can't do it," said Roark, very quietly. "What? Are you speaking to me? Are you actually 
saying: 'Sorry, I can't do it'?" 

"I haven't said 'sorry,' Mr. Francon." 

"What did you say?" 

"That I can't do it." 

"Why?" 

"You don't want to know why. Don't ask me to do any designing. I'll do any other kind of job 
you wish. But not that. And not to Cameron's work." 

"What do you mean, no designing? You expect to be an architect some day--or do you?" 

"Not like this." 

"Oh. ..I see. ..So you can't do it? You mean you won't?" 

"If you prefer." 

"Listen, you impertinent fool, this is incredible!" Roark got up. "May I go, Mr. Francon?" 

"In all my life," roared Francon, "in all my experience, I've never seen anything like it! Are you 
here to tell me what you'll do and what you won't do? Are you here to give me lessons and 



criticize my taste and pass judgment?' 


"I'm not criticizing anything," said Roark quietly. "I'm not passing judgment. There are some 
things that I can't do. Let it go at that. May I leave now?" 

"You may leave this room and this firm now and from now on! You may go straight to the 
devil! Go and find yourself another employer! Try and find him! Go get your check and get 
out!" 

"Yes, Mr. Francon." 

That evening Roark walked to the basement speak-easy where he could always find Mike 
after the day's work. Mike was now employed on the construction of a factory by the same 
contractor who was awarded most of Francon's biggest jobs. Mike had expected to see Roark 
on an inspection visit to the factory that afternoon, and greeted him angrily: 

"What’s the matter, Red? Lying down on the job?" 

When he heard the news, Mike sat still and looked like a bulldog baring its teeth. Then he 
swore savagely. 

"The bastards," he gulped between stronger names, "the bastards..." 

"Keep still, Mike." 

"Well. ..what now, Red?" 

"Someone else of the same kind, until the same thing happens again." 

# 

When Keating returned from Washington he went straight up to Francon's office. He had not 
stopped in the drafting room and had heard no news. Francon greeted him expansively: 

"Boy, it's great to see you back! What'll you have? A whisky-and-soda or a little brandy?" 

"No, thanks. Just give me a cigarette." 

"Here.. ..Boy, you look fine! Better than ever. How do you do it, you lucky bastard? I have so 
many things to tell you! How did it go down in Washington? Everything all right?" And before 
Keating could answer, Francon rushed on: "Something dreadful's happened to me. Most 
disappointing. Do you remember Lili Landau? I thought I was all set with her, but last time I 
saw her, did I get the cold shoulder! Do you know who's got her? You'll be surprised. Gail 
Wynand, no less! The girl's flying high. You should see her pictures and her legs all over his 
newspapers. Will it help her show or won't it! What can I offer against that? And do you know 
what he's done? Remember how she always said that nobody could give her what she wanted 
most-her childhood home, the dear little Austrian village where she was born? Well, Wynand 
bought it, long ago, the whole damn village, and had it shipped here-every bit of it!-and had it 
assembled again down on the Hudson, and there it stands now, cobbles, church, apple trees, 
pigsties and all! Then he springs it on Lili, two weeks ago. Wouldn't you just know it? If the 
King of Babylon could get hanging gardens for his homesick lady, why not Gail Wynand? Lili's 
all smiles and gratitude-but the poor girl was really miserable. She'd have much preferred a 
mink coat. She never wanted the damn village. And Wynand knew it, too. But there it stands, 
on the Hudson. Last week, he gave a party for her, right there, in that village-a costume party, 
with Mr. Wynand dressed as Cesare Borgia-wouldn't he, though?-and what a party!-if you 
can believe what you hear, but you know how it is, you can never prove anything on Wynand. 
Then what does he do the next day but pose up there himself with little schoolchildren who’d 
never seen an Austrian village-the philanthropist!-and plasters the photos all over his papers 
with plenty of sob stuff about educational values, and gets mush notes from women's clubs! 

I'd like to know what he'll do with the village when he gets rid of Lili! He will, you know, they 
never last long with him. Do you think I'll have a chance with her then?" 

"Sure," said Keating. "Sure, you will. How's everything here in the office?" 



"Oh, fine. Same as usual. Lucius had a cold and drank up all of my best Bas Armagnac. It's 
bad for his heart, and a hundred dollars a case!. ..Besides, Lucius got himself caught in a 
nasty little mess. It's that phobia of his, his damn porcelain. Seems he went and bought a 
teapot from a fence. He knew it was stolen goods, too. Took me quite a bit of bother to save 
us from a scandal. ...Oh, by the way, I fired that friend of yours, what's his name?-Roark." 

"Oh," said Keating, and let a moment pass, then asked: 

"Why?" 

"The insolent bastard! Where did you ever pick him up?" 

"What happened?" 

"I thought I'd be nice to him, give him a real break. I asked him to make a sketch for the 
Farrell Building-you know, the one Brent finally managed to design and we got Farrell to 
accept, you know, the simplified Doric--and your friend just up and refused to do it. It seems 
he has ideals or something. So I showed him the gate.. ..What's the matter? What are you 
smiling at?" 

"Nothing. I can just see it." 

"Now don't you ask me to take him back!" 

"No, of course not." 

For several days, Keating thought that he should call on Roark. He did not know what he 
would say, but felt dimly that he should say something. He kept postponing it. He was gaining 
assurance in his work. He felt that he did not need Roark, after all. The days went by, and he 
did not call on Roark, and he felt relief in being free to forget him. 

Beyond the windows of his room Roark saw the roofs, the water tanks, the chimneys, the cars 
speeding far below. There was a threat in the silence of his room, in the empty days, in his 
hands hanging idly by his sides. And he felt another threat rising from the city below, as if each 
window, each strip of pavement, had set itself closed grimly, in wordless resistance. It did not 
disturb him. He had known and accepted it long ago. 

He made a list of the architects whose work he resented least, in the order of their lesser evil, 
and he set out upon the search for a job, coldly, systematically, without anger or hope. He 
never knew whether these days hurt him; he knew only that it was a thing which had to be 
done. 

The architects he saw differed from one another. Some looked at him across the desk, kindly 
and vaguely, and their manner seemed to say that it was touching, his ambition to be an 
architect, touching and laudable and strange and attractively sad as all the delusions of youth. 
Some smiled at him with thin, drawn lips and seemed to enjoy his presence in the room, 
because it made them conscious of their own accomplishment. Some spoke coldly, as if his 
ambition were a personal insult. Some were brusque, and the sharpness of their voices 
seemed to say that they needed good draftsmen, they always needed good draftsmen, but 
this qualification could not possibly apply to him, and would he please refrain from being rude 
enough to force them to express it more plainly. 

It was not malice. It was not a judgment passed upon his merit. They did not think he was 
worthless. They simply did not care to find out whether he was good. Sometimes, he was 
asked to show his sketches; he extended them across a desk, feeling a contraction of shame 
in the muscles of his hand; it was like having the clothes torn off his body, and the shame was 
not, that his body was exposed, but that it was exposed to indifferent eyes. Once in a while he 
made a trip to New Jersey, to see Cameron. They sat together on the porch of a house on a 
hill, Cameron in a wheel chair, his hands on an old blanket spread over his knees. "How is it, 
Howard? Pretty hard?" 


No. 



"Want me to give you a letter to one of the bastards?" 

"No." 

Then Cameron would not speak of it any more, he did not want to speak of it, he did not want 
the thought of Roark rejected by their city to become real. When Roark came to him, 

Cameron spoke of architecture with the simple confidence of a private possession. They sat 
together, looking at he city in the distance, on the edge of the sky, beyond the river. The sky 
was growing dark and luminous as blue-green glass; the buildings looked like clouds 
condensed on the glass, gray-blue clouds frozen for an instant in straight angles and vertical 
shafts, with the sunset caught in the spires.... 

As the summer months passed, as his list was exhausted and he returned again to the places 
that had refused him once, Roark found that a few things were known about him and he heard 
the same words-spoken bluntly or timidly or angrily or apologetically-"You were kicked out of 
Stanton. You were kicked out of Francon's office." All the different voices saying it had one 
note in common: a note of relief in the certainty that the decision had been made for them. 

He sat on the window sill, in the evening, smoking, his hand spread on the pane, the city 
under his fingers, the glass cold against his skin. 

In September, he read an article entitled "Make Way For Tomorrow" by Gordon L. Prescott, 
A.G.A. in the Architectural Tribune. The article stated that the tragedy of the profession was 
the hardships placed in the way of its talented beginners; that great gifts had been lost in the 
struggle, unnoticed; that architecture was perishing from a lack of new blood and new thought, 
a lack of originality, vision and courage; that the author of the article made it his aim to search 
for promising beginners, to encourage them, develop them and give them the chance they 
deserved. Roark had never heard of Gordon L. Prescott, but there was a tone of honest 
conviction in the article. He allowed himself to start for Prescott's office with the first hint of 
hope. 

The reception room of Gordon L. Prescott's office was done in gray, black and scarlet; it was 
correct, restrained and daring all at once. A young and very pretty secretary informed Roark 
that one could not see Mr. Prescott without an appointment, but that she would be very glad to 
make an appointment for next Wednesday at two-fifteen. On Wednesday at two-fifteen, the 
secretary smiled at Roark and asked him please to be seated for just a moment. At four forty- 
five he was admitted into Gordon L. Prescott's office. Gordon L. Prescott wore a brown 
checkered tweed jacket and a white turtle-neck sweater of angora wool. He was tall, athletic 
and thirty-five, but his face combined a crisp air of sophisticated wisdom with the soft skin, the 
button nose, the small, puffed mouth of a college hero. His face was sun-scorched, his blond 
hair clipped short, in a military Prussian haircut. He was frankly masculine, frankly 
unconcerned about elegance and frankly conscious of the effect. 

He listened to Roark silently, and his eyes were like a stop watch registering each separate 
second consumed by each separate word of Roark's. He let the first sentence go by; on the 
second he interrupted to say curtly: "Let me see your drawings," as if to make it clear that 
anything Roark might say was quite well known to him already. 

He held the drawings in his bronzed hands. Before he looked down at them, he said: "Ah, yes, 
so many young men come to me for advice, so many." He glanced at the first sketch, but 
raised his head before he had seen it. "Of course, it's the combination of the practical and the 
transcendental that is so hard for beginners to grasp." He slipped the sketch to the bottom of 
the pile. "Architecture is primarily a utilitarian conception, and the problem is to elevate the 
principle of pragmatism into the realm of esthetic abstraction. All else is nonsense." He 
glanced at two sketches and slipped them to the bottom. "I have no patience with visionaries 
who see a holy crusade in architecture for architecture's sake. The great dynamic principle is 
the common principle of the human equation." He glanced at a sketch and slipped it under. 
"The public taste and the public heart are the final criteria of the artist. The genius is the one 
who knows how to express the general. The exception is to tap the unexceptional." He 
weighed the pile of sketches in his hand, noted that he had gone through half of them and 
dropped them down on the desk. 

"Ah, yes," he said, "your work. Very interesting. But not practical. Not mature. Unfocused and 



undisciplined. Adolescent. Originality for originality's sake. Not at all in the spirit of the present 
day. If you want an idea of the sort of thing for which there is a crying need-here-let me show 
you." He took a sketch out of a drawer of the desk. "Here's a young man who came to me 
totally unrecommended, a beginner who had never worked before. When you can produce 
stuff like this, you won't find it necessary to look for a job. I saw this one sketch of his and I 
took him on at once, started him at twenty-five a week, too. There's no question but that he is 
a potential genius." He extended the sketch to Roark. The sketch represented a house in the 
shape of a grain silo incredibly merged with the simplified, emaciated shadow of the 
Parthenon. 

"That," said Gordon L. Prescott, "is originality, the new in the eternal. Try toward something 
like this. I can't really say that I predict a great deal for your future. We must be frank, I 
wouldn't want to give you illusions based on my authority. You have a great deal to learn. I 
couldn't venture a guess on what talent you might possess or develop later. But with hard 
work, perhaps. ..Architecture is a difficult profession, however, and the competition is stiff, you 
know, very stiff. ..And now, if you'll excuse me, my secretary has an appointment waiting for 
me...." 

# 

Roark walked home late on an evening in October. It had been another of the many days that 
stretched into months behind him, and he could not tell what had taken place in the hours of 
that day, whom he had seen, what form the words of refusal had taken. He concentrated 
fiercely on the few minutes at hand, when he was in an office, forgetting everything else; he 
forgot these minutes when he left the office; it had to be done, it had been done, it concerned 
him no longer. He was free once more on his way home. 

A long street stretched before him, its high banks, coming close together ahead, so narrow 
that he felt as if he could spread his arms, seize the spires and push them apart. He walked 
swiftly, the pavements as a springboard throwing his steps forward. 

He saw a lighted triangle of concrete suspended somewhere hundreds of feet above the 
ground. He could not see what stood below, supporting it; he was free to think of what he'd 
want to see there, what he would have made to be seen. Then he thought suddenly that now, 
in this moment, according to the city, according to everyone save that hard certainty within 
him, he would never build again, never-before he had begun. He shrugged. Those things 
happening to him, in those offices of strangers, were only a kind of sub-reality, unsubstantial 
incidents in the path of a substance they could not reach or touch. 

He turned into side streets leading to the East River. A lonely traffic light hung far ahead, a 
spot of red in a bleak darkness. The old houses crouched low to the ground, hunched under 
the weight of the sky. The street was empty and hollow, echoing to his footsteps. He went on, 
his collar raised, his hands in his pockets. His shadow rose from under his heels, when he 
passed a light, and brushed a wall in a long black arc, like the sweep of a windshield wiper. 


9 . 

JOHN ERIK SNYTE looked through Roark's sketches, flipped three of them aside, gathered 
the rest into an even pile, glanced again at the three, tossed them down one after another on 
top of the pile, with three sharp thuds, and said: 

"Remarkable. Radical, but remarkable. What are you doing tonight?" 

"Why?" asked Roark, stupefied. 

"Are you free? Mind starting in at once? Take your coat off, go to the drafting room, borrow 
tools from somebody and do me up a sketch for a department store we're remodeling. Just a 
quick sketch, just a general idea, but I must have it tomorrow. Mind staying late tonight? The 
heat's on and I'll have Joe send you up some dinner. Want black coffee or Scotch or what? 
Just tell Joe. Can you stay?" 


’Yes," said Roark, incredulously. "I can work all night. 



"Fine! Splendid! that's just what I've always needed--a Cameron man. I've got every other 
kind. Oh, yes, what did they pay you at Francon's?" 

"Sixty-five." 

"Well, I can’t splurge like Guy the Epicure. Fifty's tops. Okay? Fine. Go right in. I'll have 
Billings explain about the store to you. I want something modern. Understand? Modern, 
violent, crazy, to knock their eye out. Don’t restrain yourself. Go the limit. Pull any stunt you 
can think of, the goofier the better. Come on!" 

John Erik Snyte shot to his feet, flung a door open into a huge drafting room, flew in, skidded 
against a table, stopped, and said to a stout man with a grim moon-face: "Billings-Roark. He’s 
our modernist. Give him the Benton store. Get him some instruments. Leave him your keys 
and show him what to lock up tonight. Start him as of this morning. Fifty. What time was my 
appointment with Dolson Brothers? I’m late already. So long, I won't be back tonight." 

He skidded out, slamming the door. Billings evinced no surprise. He looked at Roark as if 
Roark had always been there. He spoke impassively, in a weary drawl. Within twenty minutes 
he left Roark at a drafting table with paper, pencils, instruments, a set of plans and 
photographs of the department store, a set of charts and a long list of instructions. 

Roark looked at the clean white sheet before him, his fist closed tightly about the thin stem of 
a pencil. He put the pencil down, and picked it up again, his thumb running softly up and down 
the smooth shaft; he saw that the pencil was trembling. He put it down quickly, and he felt 
anger at himself for the weakness of allowing this job to mean so much to him, for the sudden 
knowledge of what the months of idleness behind him had really meant. His fingertips were 
pressed to the paper, as if the paper held them, as a surface charged with electricity will hold 
the flesh of a man who has brushed against it, hold and hurt. He tore his fingers off the paper. 
Then he went to work.... 

John Erik Snyte was fifty years old; he wore an expression of quizzical amusement, shrewd 
and unwholesome, as if he shared with each man he contemplated a lewd secret which he 
would not mention because it was so obvious to them both. He was a prominent architect; his 
expression did not change when he spoke of this fact. He considered Guy Francon an 
impractical idealist; he was not restrained by an Classic dogma; he was much more skillful 
and liberal: he built anything. He had no distaste for modern architecture and built cheerfully, 
when a rare client asked for it, bare boxes with flat roofs, which he called progressive; he built 
Roman mansions which he called fastidious; he built Gothic churches which he called 
spiritual. He saw no difference among any of them. He never became angry, except when 
somebody called him eclectic. 

He had a system of his own. He employed five designers of various types and he staged a 
contest among them on each commission he received. He chose the winning design and 
improved it with bits of the four others. "Six minds," he said, "are better than one." 

When Roark saw the final drawing of the Benton Department Store, he understood why Snyte 
had not been afraid to hire him. He recognized his own planes of space, his windows, his 
system of circulation; he saw, added to it, Corinthian capitals, Gothic vaulting, Colonial 
chandeliers and incredible moldings, vaguely Moorish. The drawing was done in water-color, 
with miraculous delicacy, mounted on cardboard, covered with a veil of tissue paper. The men 
in the drafting room were not allowed to look at it, except from a safe distance; all hands had 
to be washed, all cigarettes discarded. John Erik Snyte attached a great importance to the 
proper appearance of a drawing for submission to clients, and kept a young Chinese student 
of architecture employed solely upon the execution of these masterpieces. 

Roark knew what to expect of his job. He would never see his work erected, only pieces of it, 
which he preferred not to see; but he would be free to design as he wished and he would have 
the experience of solving actual problems. It was less than he wanted and more than he could 
expect. He accepted it at that. He met his fellow designers, the four other contestants, and 
learned that they were unofficially nicknamed in the drafting room as "Classic," 


Gothic, 



"Renaissance" and "Miscellaneous." He winced a little when he was addressed as "Hey, 
Modernistic." 

# 

The strike of the building-trades unions infuriated Guy Francon. The strike had started against 
the contractors who were erecting the Noyes-Belmont Hotel, and had spread to all the new 
structures of the city. It had been mentioned in the press that the architects of the Noyes- 
Belmont were the firm of Francon & Heyer. 

Most of the press helped the fight along, urging the contractors not to surrender. The loudest 
attacks against the strikers came from the powerful papers of the great Wynand chain. 

"We have always stood," said the Wynand editorials, "for the rights of the common man 
against the yellow sharks of privilege, but we cannot give our support to the destruction of law 
and order." It had never been discovered whether the Wynand papers led the public or the 
public led the Wynand papers; it was known only that the two kept remarkably in step. It was 
not known to anyone, however, save to Guy Francon and a very few others, that Gail Wynand 
owned the corporation which owned the corporation which owned the Noyes-Belmont Hotel. 

This added greatly to Francon's discomfort. Gail Wynand's real-estate operations were 
rumored to be vaster than his journalistic empire. It was the first chance Francon had ever had 
at a Wynand commission and he grasped it avidly, thinking of the possibilities which it could 
open. He and Keating had put their best efforts into designing the most ornate of all Rococo 
palaces for future patrons who could pay twenty-five dollars per day per room and who were 
fond of plaster flowers, marble cupids and open elevator cages of bronze lace. The strike had 
shattered the future possibilities; Francon could not be blamed for it, but one could never tell 
whom Gail Wynand would blame and for what reason. The unpredictable, unaccountable 
shifts of Wynand's favor were famous, and it was well known that few architects he employed 
once were ever employed by him again. 

Francon's sullen mood led him to the unprecedented breach of snapping over nothing in 
particular at the one person who had always been immune from it-Peter Keating. Keating 
shrugged, and turned his back to him in silent insolence. Then Keating wandered aimlessly 
through the halls, snarling at young draftsmen without provocation. He bumped into Lucius N. 
Heyer in a doorway and snapped: "Look where you're going!" Heyer stared after him, 
bewildered, blinking. 

There was little to do in the office, nothing to say and everyone to avoid. Keating left early and 
walked home through a cold December twilight. 

At home, he cursed aloud the thick smell of paint from the overheated radiators. He cursed 
the chill, when his mother opened a window. He could find no reason for his restlessness, 
unless it was the sudden inactivity that left him alone. He could not bear to be left alone. 

He snatched up the telephone receiver and called Catherine Halsey. The sound of her clear 
voice was like a hand pressed soothingly against his hot forehead. He said: "Oh, nothing 
important, dear, I just wondered if you'd be home tonight. I thought I'd drop in after dinner." 

"Of course, Peter. I'll be home." 

"Swell. About eight-thirty?" 

"Yes. ..Oh, Peter, have you heard about Uncle Ellsworth?" 

"Yes, God damn it, I've heard about your Uncle Ellsworth!. ..I’m sorry, Katie. ..Forgive me, 
darling, I didn't mean to be rude, but I've been hearing about your uncle all day long. I know, 
it's wonderful and all that, only look, we're not going to talk about him again tonight!" 

"No, of course not. I'm sorry. I understand. I'll be waiting for you." 

"So long, Katie." 



He had heard the latest story about Ellsworth Toohey, but he did not want to think of it 
because it brought him back to the annoying subject of the strike. Six months ago, on the 
wave of his success with Sermons in Stone, Ellsworth Toohey had been signed to write "One 
Small Voice," a daily syndicated column for the Wynand papers. It appeared in the Banner 
and had started as a department of art criticism, but grown into an informal tribune from which 
Ellsworth M. Toohey pronounced verdicts on art, literature, New York restaurants, 
international crises and sociology-mainly sociology. It had been a great success. But the 
building strike had placed Ellsworth M. Toohey in a difficult position. He made no secret of his 
sympathy with the strikers, but he had said nothing in his column, for no one could say what 
he pleased on the papers owned by Gail Wynand save Gail Wynand. However, a mass 
meeting of strike sympathizers had been called for this evening. Many famous men were to 
speak, Ellsworth Toohey among them. At least, Toohey's name had been announced. 

The event caused a great deal of curious speculation and bets were made on whether Toohey 
would dare to appear. "He will," Keating had heard a draftsman insist vehemently, "he'll 
sacrifice himself. He's that kind. He's the only honest man in print." 

"He won't," another had said. "Do you realize what it means to pull a stunt like that on 
Wynand? Once Wynand gets it in for a man, he'll break the guy for sure as hell's fire. Nobody 
knows when he'll do it or how he'll do it, but he'll do it, and nobody'll prove a thing on him, and 
you're done for once you get Wynand after you." Keating did not care about the issue one way 
or another, and the whole matter annoyed him. 

He ate his dinner, that evening, in grim silence and when Mrs. Keating began, with an "Oh, by 
the way..." to lead the conversation in a direction he recognized, he snapped: "You're not 
going to talk about Catherine. Keep still." Mrs. Keating said nothing further and concentrated 
on forcing more food on his plate. 

He took a taxi to Greenwich Village. He hurried up the stairs. He jerked at the bell. He waited. 
There was no answer. He stood, leaning against the wall, ringing, for a long time. Catherine 
wouldn't be out when she knew he was coming; she couldn't be. He walked incredulously 
down the stairs, out to the street, and looked up at the windows of her apartment. The 
windows were dark. 

He stood, looking up at the windows as at a tremendous betrayal. Then came a sick feeling of 
loneliness, as if he were homeless in a great city; for the moment, he forgot his own address 
or its existence. Then he thought of the meeting, the great mass meeting where her uncle was 
publicly to make a martyr of himself tonight. That's where she went, he thought, the damn little 
fool! He said aloud: "To hell with her!". ..And he was walking rapidly in the direction of the 
meeting hall. 

There was one naked bulb of light over the square frame of the hall's entrance, a small, blue- 
white lump glowing ominously, too cold and too bright. It leaped out of the dark street, lighting 
one thin trickle of rain from some ledge above, a glistening needle of glass, so thin and 
smooth that Keating thought crazily of stories where men had been killed by being pierced 
with an icicle. A few curious loafers stood indifferently in the rain around the entrance, and a 
few policemen. The door was open. The dim lobby was crowded with people who could not 
get into the packed hall, they were listening to a loud-speaker installed there for the occasion. 
At the door three vague shadows were handing out pamphlets to passers-by. One of the 
shadows was a consumptive, unshaved young man with a long, bare neck; the other was a 
trim youth with a fur collar on an expensive coat; the third was Catherine Halsey. 

She stood in the rain, slumped, her stomach jutting forward in weariness, her nose shiny, her 
eyes bright with excitement. Keating stopped, staring at her. 

Her hand shot toward him mechanically with a pamphlet, then she raised her eyes and saw 
him. She smiled without astonishment and said happily: 

"Why, Peter! How sweet of you to come here!" 

"Katie..." He choked a little. "Katie, what the hell..." 

"But I had to, Peter." Her voice had no trace of apology. "You don't understand, but I...” 



Get out of the rain. Get inside. 


"But I can't! I have to..." 

"Get out of the rain at least, you fool!" He pushed her roughly through the door, into a corner 
of the lobby. 

"Peter darling, you're not angry, are you? You see, it was like this: I didn't think Uncle would let 
me come here tonight, but at the last minute he said I could if I wanted to, and that I could 
help with the pamphlets. I knew you'd understand, and I left you a note on the living room 
table, explaining, and..." 

"You left me a note? Inside?" 

"Yes. ..Oh. ..Oh, dear me, I never thought of that, you couldn't get in of course, how silly of me, 
but I was in such a rush! No, you're not going to be angry, you can't! Don’t you see what this 
means to him? Don't you know what he's sacrificing by coming here? And I knew he would. I 
told them so, those people who said not a chance, it'll be the end of him-and it might be, but 
he doesn't care. That's what he's like. I'm frightened and I'm terribly happy, because what he's 
done-it makes me believe in all human beings. But I'm frightened, because you see, Wynand 
will..." 

"Keep still! I know it all. I'm sick of it. I don't want to hear about your uncle or Wynand or the 
damn strike. Let's get out of here." 

"Oh, no, Peter! We can't! I want to hear him and..." 

"Shut up over there!" someone hissed at them from the crowd. 

"We're missing it all," she whispered. "That's Austen Heller speaking. Don't you want to hear 
Austen Heller?" 

Keating looked up at the loud-speaker with a certain respect, which he felt for all famous 
names. He had not read much of Austen Heller, but he knew that Heller was the star 
columnist of the Chronicle, a brilliant, independent newspaper, arch-enemy of the Wynand 
publications; that Heller came from an old, distinguished family and had graduated from 
Oxford; that he had started as a literary critic and ended by becoming a quiet fiend devoted to 
the destruction of all forms of compulsion, private or public, in heaven or on earth; that he had 
been cursed by preachers, bankers, club-women and labor organizers; that he had better 
manners than the social elite whom he usually mocked, and a tougher constitution than the 
laborers whom he usually defended; that he could discuss the latest play on Broadway, 
medieval poetry or international finance; that he never donated to charity, but spent more of 
his own money than he could afford, on defending political prisoners anywhere. 

The voice coming from the loud-speaker was dry, precise, with the faint trace of a British 
accent. 

"...and we must consider," Austen Heller was saying unemotionally, "that since- 
unfortunately-we are forced to live together, the most important thing for us to remember is 
that the only way in which we can have any law at all is to have as little of it as possible. I see 
no ethical standard to which to measure the whole unethical conception of a State, except in 
the amount of time, of thought, of money, of effort and of obedience, which a society extorts 
from its every member. Its value and its civilization are in inverse ratio to that extortion. There 
is no conceivable law by which a man can be forced to work on any terms except those he 
chooses to set. There is no conceivable law to prevent him from setting them-just as there is 
none to force his employer to accept them. The freedom to agree or disagree is the 
foundation of our kind of society-and the freedom to strike is a part of it. I am mentioning this 
as a reminder to a certain Petronius from Hell's Kitchen, an exquisite bastard who has been 
rather noisy lately about telling us that this strike represents a destruction of law and order." 

The loud-speaker coughed out a high, shrill sound of approval and a clatter of applause. 

There were gasps among the people in the lobby. Catherine grasped Keating's arm. "Oh, 



Peter!" she whispered. "He means Wynand! Wynand was born in Hell's Kitchen. He can 
afford to say that, but Wynand will take it out on Uncle Ellsworth!" 

Keating could not listen to the rest of Heller's speech, because his head was swimming in so 
violent an ache that the sounds hurt his eyes and he had to keep his eyelids shut tightly. He 
leaned against the wall. 

He opened his eyes with a jerk, when he became aware of the peculiar silence around him. 

He had not noticed the end of Heller's speech. He saw the people in the lobby standing in 
tense, solemn expectation, and the blank rasping of the loud-speaker pulled every glance into 
its dark funnel. Then a voice came through the silence, loudly and slowly: 

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have the great honor of presenting to you now Mr. Ellsworth 
Monkton Toohey!" 

Well, thought Keating, Bennett's won his six bits down at the office. There were a few seconds 
of silence. Then the thing which happened hit Keating on the back of the head; it was not a 
sound nor a blow, it was something that ripped time apart, that cut the moment from the 
normal one preceding it. He knew only the shock, at first; a distinct, conscious second was 
gone before he realized what it was and that it was applause. It was such a crash of applause 
that he waited for the loud-speaker to explode; it went on and on and on, pressing against the 
walls of the lobby, and he thought he could feel the walls buckling out to the street. 

The people around him were cheering. Catherine stood, her lips parted, and he felt certain 
that she was not breathing at all. 

It was a long time before silence came suddenly, as abrupt and shocking as the roar; the loud- 
speaker died, choking on a high note. Those in the lobby stood still. Then came the voice. 

"My friends," it said, simply and solemnly. "My brothers," it added softly, involuntarily, both full 
of emotion and smiling apologetically at the emotion. "I am more touched by this reception 
than I should allow myself to be. I hope I shall be forgiven for a trace of the vain child which is 
in all of us. But I realize-and in that spirit I accept it-that this tribute was paid not to my 
person, but to a principle which chance has granted me to represent in all humility tonight." 

It was not a voice, it was a miracle. It unrolled as a velvet banner. It spoke English words, but 
the resonant clarity of each syllable made it sound like a new language spoken for the first 
time. It was the voice of a giant. 

Keating stood, his mouth open. He did not hear what the voice was saying. He heard the 
beauty of the sounds without meaning. He felt no need to know the meaning; he could accept 
anything, he would be led blindly anywhere. 

"...and so, my friends," the voice was saying, "the lesson to be learned from our tragic struggle 
is the lesson of unity. We shall unite or we shall be defeated. Our will-the will of the 
disinherited, the forgotten, the oppressed-shall weld us into a solid bulwark, with a common 
faith and a common goal. This is the time for every man to renounce the thoughts of his petty 
little problems, of gain, of comfort, of self-gratification. This is the time to merge his self in a 
great current, in the rising tide which is approaching to sweep us all, willing or unwilling, into 
the future. History, my friends, does not ask questions or acquiescence. It is irrevocable, as 
the voice of the masses that determine it. Let us listen to the call. Let us organize, my 
brothers. Let us organize. Let us organize. Let us organize." 

Keating looked at Catherine. There was no Catherine; there was only a white face dissolving 
in the sounds of the loudspeaker. It was not that she heard her uncle; Keating could feel no 
jealousy of him; he wished he could. It was not affection. It was something cold and 
impersonal that left her empty, her will surrendered and no human will holding hers, but a 
nameless thing in which she was being swallowed. 

"Let's get out of here," he whispered. His voice was savage. He was afraid. 

She turned to him, as if she were emerging from unconsciousness. He knew that she was 
trying to recognize him and everything he implied. She whispered: "Yes. Let's get out." They 



walked through the streets, through the rain, without direction. It was cold, but they went on, to 
move, to feel the movement, to know the sensation of their own muscles moving. 

"We're getting drenched," Keating said at last, as bluntly and naturally as he could; their 
silence frightened him; it proved that they both knew the same thing and that the thing had 
been real. "Let's find some place where we can have a drink." 

"Yes," said Catherine, "let's. It's so cold. ...Isn't it stupid of me? Now I've missed Uncle's 
speech and I wanted so much to hear it." It was all right. She had mentioned it. She had 
mentioned it quite naturally, with a healthy amount of proper regret. The thing was gone. "But I 
wanted to be with you, Peter. ..I want to be with you always." The thing gave a last jerk, not in 
the meaning of what she said, but in the reason that had prompted her to say it. Then it was 
gone, and Keating smiled; his fingers sought her bare wrist between her sleeve and glove, 
and her skin was warm against his.... 

Many days later Keating heard the story that was being told all over town. It was said that on 
the day after the mass meeting Gail Wynand had given Ellsworth Toohey a raise in salary. 
Toohey had been furious and had tried to refuse it. "You cannot bribe me, Mr. Wynand," he 
said. "I'm not bribing you," Wynand had answered; "don't flatter yourself." 

# 

When the strike was settled, interrupted construction went forward with a spurt throughout the 
city, and Keating found himself spending days and nights at work, with new commissions 
pouring into the office. Francon smiled happily at everybody and gave a small party for his 
staff, to erase the memory of anything he might have said. The palatial residence of Mr. and 
Mrs. Dale Ainsworth on Riverside Drive, a pet project of Keating's, done in Late Renaissance 
and gray granite, was complete at last. Mr. and Mrs. Dale Ainsworth gave a formal reception 
as a housewarming, to which Guy Francon and Peter Keating were invited, but Lucius N. 
Heyer was ignored, quite accidentally, as always happened to him of late. Francon enjoyed 
the reception, because every square foot of granite in the house reminded him of the 
stupendous payment received by a certain granite quarry in Connecticut. Keating enjoyed the 
reception, because the stately Mrs. Ainsworth said to him with a disarming smile: "But I was 
certain that you were Mr. Francon's partner! It's Francon and Heyer, of course! How perfectly 
careless of me! All I can offer by way of excuse is that if you aren't his partner, one would 
certainly say you were entitled to be!" Life in the office rolled on smoothly, in one of those 
periods when everything seemed to go well. 

Keating was astonished, therefore, one morning shortly after the Ainsworth reception, to see 
Francon arrive at the office with a countenance of nervous irritation. "Oh, nothing," he waved 
his hand at Keating impatiently, "nothing at all." In the drafting room Keating noticed three 
draftsmen, their heads close together, bent over a section of the New York Banner, reading 
with a guilty kind of avid interest; he heard an unpleasant chuckle from one of them. When 
they saw him the paper disappeared, too quickly. He had no time to inquire into this; a 
contractor's job runner was waiting for him in his office, also a stack of mail and drawings to 
be approved. 

He had forgotten the incident three hours later in a rush of appointments. He felt light, clear- 
headed, exhilarated by his own energy. When he had to consult his library on a new drawing 
which he wished to compare with its best prototypes, he walked out of his office, whistling, 
swinging the drawing gaily. 

His motion had propelled him halfway across the reception room, when he stopped short; the 
drawing swung forward and flapped back against his knees. He forgot that it was quite 
improper for him to pause there like that in the circumstances. 

A young woman stood before the railing, speaking to the reception clerk. Her slender body 
seemed out of all scale in relation to a normal human body; its lines were so long, so fragile, 
so exaggerated that she looked like a stylized drawing of a woman and made the correct 
proportions of a normal being appear heavy and awkward beside her. She wore a plain gray 
suit; the contrast between its tailored severity and her appearance was deliberately 
exorbitant-and strangely elegant. She let the fingertips of one hand rest on the railing, a 
narrow hand ending the straight imperious line of her arm. She had gray eyes that were not 
ovals, but two long, rectangular cuts edged by parallel lines of lashes; she had an air of cold 



serenity and an exquisitely vicious mouth. Her face, her pale gold hair, her suit seemed to 
have no color, but only a hint, just on the verge of the reality of color, making the full reality 
seem vulgar. Keating stood still, because he understood for the first time what it was that 
artists spoke about when they spoke of beauty. 

"I'll see him now, if I see him at all," she was saying to the reception clerk. "He asked me to 
come and this is the only time I have." It was not a command; she spoke as if it were not 
necessary for her voice to assume the tones of commanding. 

"Yes, but..." A light buzzed on the clerk's switchboard; she plugged the connection through, 
hastily. "Yes, Mr. Francon..." She listened and nodded with relief. "Yes, Mr. Francon." She 
turned to the visitor: "Will you go right in, please?" 

The young woman turned and looked at Keating as she passed him on her way to the stairs. 
Her eyes went past him without stopping. Something ebbed from his stunned admiration. He 
had had time to see her eyes; they seemed weary and a little contemptuous, but they left him 
with a sense of cold cruelty. 

He heard her walking up the stairs, and the feeling vanished, but the admiration remained. He 
approached the reception clerk eagerly. 

"Who was that?" he asked. 

The clerk shrugged: 

"That's the boss's little girl." 

"Why, the lucky stiff!" said Keating. "He's been holding out on me." 

"You misunderstood me," the clerk said coldly. "It's his daughter. It's Dominique Francon." 
"Oh," said Keating. "Oh, Lord!" 

"Yeah?" the girl looked at him sarcastically. "Have you read this morning's Banner?" 

"No. Why?" 

"Read it." 

Her switchboard buzzed and she turned away from him. 

He sent a boy for a copy of the Banner, and turned anxiously to the column, "Your House," by 
Dominique Francon. He had heard that she'd been quite successful lately with descriptions of 
the homes of prominent New Yorkers. Her field was confined to home decoration, but she 
ventured occasionally into architectural criticism. Today her subject was the new residence of 
Mr. and Mrs. Dale Ainsworth on Riverside Drive. He read, among many other things, the 
following: 

"You enter a magnificent lobby of golden marble and you think that this is the City Hall or the 
Main Post Office, but it isn't. It has, however, everything: the mezzanine with the colonnade 
and the stairway with a goitre and the cartouches in the form of looped leather belts. Only it's 
not leather, it's marble. The dining room has a splendid bronze gate, placed by mistake on the 
ceiling, in the shape of a trellis entwined with fresh bronze grapes. There are dead ducks and 
rabbits hanging on the wall panels, in bouquets of carrots, petunias and string beans. I do not 
think these would have been very attractive if real, but since they are bad plaster imitations, it 
is all right. ...The bedroom windows face a brick wall, not a very neat wall, but nobody needs to 
see the bedrooms. ...The front windows are large enough and admit plenty of light, as well as 
the feet of the marble cupids that roost on the outside. The cupids are well fed and present a 
pretty picture to the street, against the severe granite of the fagade; they are quite 
commendable, unless you just can't stand to look at dimpled soles every time you glance out 
to see whether it's raining. If you get tired of it, you can always look out of the central windows 
of the third floor, and into the cast-iron rump of Mercury who sits on top of the pediment over 
the entrance. It's a very beautiful entrance. Tomorrow, we shall visit the home of Mr. and Mrs. 



Smythe-Pickering. 


Keating had designed the house. But he could not help chuckling through his fury when he 
thought of what Francon must have felt reading this, and of how Francon was going to face 
Mrs. Dale Ainsworth. Then he forgot the house and the article. He remembered only the girl 
who had written it. 

He picked three sketches at random from his table and started for Francon's office to ask his 
approval of the sketches, which he did not need. 

On the stair landing outside Francon's closed door he stopped. He heard Francon's voice 
behind the door, loud, angry and helpless, the voice he always heard when Francon was 
beaten. 

"...to expect such an outrage! From my own daughter! I'm used to anything from you, but this 
beats it all. What am I going to do? How am I going to explain? Do you have any kind of a 
vague idea of my position?" 

Then Keating heard her laughing; it was a sound so gay and so cold that he knew it was best 
not to go in. He knew he did not want to go in, because he was afraid again, as he had been 
when he'd seen her eyes. 

He turned and descended the stairs. When he had reached the floor below, he was thinking 
that he would meet her, that he would meet her soon and that Francon would not be able to 
prevent it now. He thought of it eagerly, laughing in relief at the picture of Francon's daughter 
as he had imagined her for years, revising his vision of his future; even though he felt dimly 
that it would be better if he never met her again. 


10 . 

RALSTON HOLCOMBE had no visible neck, but his chin took care of that. His chin and jaws 
formed an unbroken arc, resting on his chest. His cheeks were pink, soft to the touch, with the 
irresilient softness of age, like the skin of a peach that has been scalded. His rich white hair 
rose over his forehead and fell to his shoulders in the sweep of a medieval mane. It left 
dandruff on the back of his collar. 

He walked through the streets of New York, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, a dark business 
suit, a pale green satin shirt, a vest of white brocade, a huge black bow emerging from under 
his chin, and he carried a staff, not a cane, but a tall ebony staff surmounted by a bulb of solid 
gold. It was as if his huge body were resigned to the conventions of a prosaic civilization and 
to its drab garments, but the oval of his chest and stomach sallied forth, flying the colors of his 
inner soul. 

These things were permitted to him, because he was a genius. He was also president of the 
Architects' Guild of America. Ralston Holcombe did not subscribe to the views of his 
colleagues in the organization. He was not a grubbing builder nor a businessman. He was, he 
stated firmly, a man of ideals. 

He denounced the deplorable state of American architecture and the unprincipled eclecticism 
of its practitioners. In any period of history, he declared, architects built in the spirit of their 
own time, and did not pick designs from the past; we could be true to history only in heeding 
her law, which demanded that we plant the roots of our art firmly in the reality of our own life. 
He decried the stupidity of erecting buildings that were Greek, Gothic or Romanesque; let us, 
he begged, be modern and build in the style that belongs to our days. He had found that style. 
It was Renaissance. 

He stated his reasons clearly. Inasmuch, he pointed out, as nothing of great historical 
importance had happened in the world since the Renaissance, we should consider ourselves 
still living in that period; and all the outward forms of our existence should remain faithful to 
the examples of the great masters of the sixteenth century. 



He had no patience with the few who spoke of a modern architecture in terms quite different 
from his own; he ignored them; he stated only that men who wanted to break with all of the 
past were lazy ignoramuses, and that one could not put originality above Beauty. His voice 
trembled reverently on that last word. He accepted nothing but stupendous commissions. He 
specialized in the eternal and the monumental. He built a great many memorials and capitols. 
He designed for International Expositions. 

He built like a composer improvising under the spur of a mystic guidance. He had sudden 
inspirations. He would add an enormous dome to the flat roof of a finished structure, or 
encrust a long vault with gold-leaf mosaic, or rip off a facade of limestone to replace it with 
marble. His clients turned pale, stuttered-and paid. His imperial personality carried him to 
victory in any encounter with a client's thrift; behind him stood the stern, unspoken, 
overwhelming assertion that he was an Artist. His prestige was enormous. 

He came from a family listed in the Social Register. In his middle years he had married a 
young lady whose family had not made the Social Register, but made piles of money instead, 
in a chewing-gum empire left to an only daughter. 

Ralston Holcombe was now sixty-five, to which he added a few years, for the sake of his 
friends' compliments on his wonderful physique; Mrs. Ralston Holcombe was forty-two, from 
which she deducted considerably. 

Mrs. Ralston Holcombe maintained a salon that met informally every Sunday afternoon. 
"Everybody who is anybody in architecture drops in on us," she told her friends. "They'd 
better," she added. 

On a Sunday afternoon in March, Keating drove to the Holcombe mansion-a reproduction of 
a Florentine palazzo-dutifully, but a little reluctantly. He had been a frequent guest at these 
celebrated gatherings and he was beginning to be bored, for he knew everybody he could 
expect to find there. He felt, however, that he had to attend this time, because the occasion 
was to be in honor of the completion of one more capitol by Ralston Holcombe in some state 
or another. 

A substantial crowd was lost in the marble ballroom of the Holcombes, scattered in forlorn 
islets through an expanse intended for court receptions. The guests stood about, self- 
consciously informal, working at being brilliant. Steps rang against the marble with the echoing 
sound of a crypt. The flames of tall candles clashed desolately with the gray of the light from 
the street; the light made the candles seem dimmer, the candles gave to the day outside a 
premonitory tinge of dusk. A scale model of the new state capitol stood displayed on a 
pedestal in the middle of the room, ablaze with tiny electric bulbs. 

Mrs. Ralston Holcombe presided over the tea table. Each guest accepted a fragile cup of 
transparent porcelain, took two delicate sips and vanished in the direction of the bar. Two 
stately butlers went about collecting the abandoned cups. 

Mrs. Ralston Holcombe, as an enthusiastic girl friend had described her, was "petite, but 
intellectual." Her diminutive stature was her secret sorrow, but she had learned to find 
compensations. She could talk, and did, of wearing dresses size ten and of shopping in the 
junior departments. She wore high-school garments and short socks in summer, displaying 
spindly legs with hard blue veins. She adored celebrities. That was her mission in life. She 
hunted them grimly; she faced them with wide-eyed admiration and spoke of her own 
insignificance, of her humility before achievement; she shrugged, tight-lipped and rancorous, 
whenever one of them did not seem to take sufficient account of her own views on life after 
death, the theory of relativity, Aztec architecture, birth control and the movies. She had a great 
many poor friends and advertised the fact. If a friend happened to improve his financial 
position, she dropped him, feeling that he had committed an act of treason. She hated the 
wealthy in all sincerity: they shared her only badge of distinction. She considered architecture 
her private domain. She had been christened Constance and found it awfully clever to be 
known as "Kiki," a nickname she had forced on her friends when she was well past thirty. 

Keating had never felt comfortable in Mrs. Holcombe's presence, because she smiled at him 
too insistently and commented on his remarks by winking and saying: "Why, Peter, how 
naughty of you!" when no such intention had been in his mind at all. He bowed over her hand, 



however, this afternoon as usual, and she smiled from behind the silver teapot. She wore a 
regal gown of emerald velvet, and a magenta ribbon in her bobbed hair with a cute little bow in 
front. Her skin was tanned and dry, with enlarged pores showing on her nostrils. She handed 
a cup to Keating, a square-cut emerald glittering on her finger in the candlelight. 

Keating expressed his admiration for the capital and escaped to examine the model. He stood 
before it for a correct number of minutes, scalding his lips with the hot liquid that smelled of 
cloves. Holcombe, who never looked in the direction of the model and never missed a guest 
stopping before it, slapped Keating's shoulder and said something appropriate about young 
fellows learning the beauty of the style of the Renaissance. Then Keating wandered off, shook 
a few hands without enthusiasm, and glanced at his wrist watch, calculating the time when it 
would be permissible to leave. Then he stopped. 

Beyond a broad arch, in a small library, with three young men beside her, he saw Dominique 
Francon. 

She stood leaning against a column, a cocktail glass in her hand. She wore a suit of black 
velvet; the heavy cloth, which transmitted no light rays, held her anchored to reality by 
stopping the light that flowed too freely through the flesh of her hands, her neck, her face. A 
white spark of fire flashed like a cold metallic cross in the glass she held, as if it were a lens 
gathering the diffused radiance of her skin. 

Keating tore forward and found Francon in the crowd. "Well, Peter!" said Francon brightly. 
"Want me to get you a drink? Not so hot," he added, lowering his voice, "but the Manhattans 
aren't too bad." 

"No," said Keating, "thanks." 

"Entre nous," said Francon, winking at the model of the capitol, "it's a holy mess, isn't it?" 

"Yes," said Keating. "Miserable proportions. ...That dome looks like Holcombe's face imitating 
a sunrise on the roof...." They had stopped in full view of the library and Keating's eyes were 
fixed on the girl in black, inviting Francon to notice it; he enjoyed having Francon in a trap. 

"And the plan! The plan! Do you see that on the second floor. ..oh," said Francon, noticing. 

He looked at Keating, then at the library, then at Keating again. 

"Well," said Francon at last, "don't blame me afterward. You've asked for it. Come on." 

They entered the library together. Keating stopped, correctly, but allowing his eyes an 
improper intensity, while Francon beamed with unconvincing cheeriness: 

"Dominique, my dear! May I present?-this is Peter Keating, my own right hand. Peter-my 
daughter." 

"How do you do," said Keating, his voice soft. 

Dominique bowed gravely. 

"I have waited to meet you for such a long time, Miss Francon." 

"This will be interesting," said Dominique. "You will want to be nice to me, of course, and yet 
that won't be diplomatic." 

"What do you mean, Miss Francon?" 

"Father would prefer you to be horrible with me. Father and I don't get along at all." 

"Why, Miss Francon, I..." 

"I think it's only fair to tell you this at the beginning. You may want to redraw some 
conclusions." He was looking for Francon, but Francon had vanished. "No," she said softly, 



"Father doesn't do these things well at all. He's too obvious. You asked him for the 
introduction, but he shouldn't have let me notice that. However, it's quite all right, since we 
both admit it. Sit down." 

She slipped into a chair and he sat down obediently beside her. The young men whom he did 
not know stood about for a few minutes, trying to be included in the conversation by smiling 
blankly, then wandered off. Keating thought with relief that there was nothing frightening about 
her; there was only a disquieting contrast between her words and the candid innocence of the 
manner she used to utter them; he did not know which to trust. 

"I admit I asked for the introduction," he said. "That's obvious anyway, isn't it? Who wouldn't 
ask for it? But don't you think that the conclusions I'll draw may have nothing to do with your 
father?" 

"Don't say that I'm beautiful and exquisite and like no one you've ever met before and that 
you're very much afraid that you're going to fall in love with me. You'll say it eventually, but let's 
postpone it. Apart from that, I think we'll get along very nicely." 

"But you're trying to make it very difficult for me, aren't you?" 

"Yes. Father should have warned you." 

"He did." 

"You should have listened. Be very considerate of Father. I've met so many of his own right 
hands that I was beginning to be skeptical. But you're the first one who's lasted. And who 
looks like he's going to last. I've heard a great deal about you. My congratulations." 

"I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for years. And I’ve been reading your column with 
so much..." He stopped. He knew he shouldn't have mentioned that; and, above all, he 
shouldn't have stopped. 

"So much...?" she asked gently. 

"...so much pleasure," he finished, hoping that she would let it go at that. 

"Oh, yes," she said. "The Ainsworth house. You designed it. I'm sorry. You just happened to 
be the victim of one of my rare attacks of honesty. I don't have them often. As you know, if 
you're read my stuff yesterday." 

"I've read it. And-well, I'll follow your example and I'll be perfectly frank. Don't take it as a 
complaint--one must never complain against one's critics. But really that capitol of Holcombe's 
is much worse in all those very things that you blasted us for. Why did you give him such a 
glowing tribute yesterday? Or did you have to?" 

"Don't flatter me. Of course I didn't have to. Do you think anyone on the paper pays enough 
attention to a column on home decoration to care what I say in it? Besides, I'm not even 
supposed to write about capitols. Only I'm getting tired of home decorations." 

"Then why did you praise Holcombe?" 

"Because that capitol of his is so awful that to pan it would have been an anticlimax. So I 
thought it would be amusing to praise it to the sky. It was." 

"Is that the way you go about it?" 

"That's the way I go about it. But no one reads my column, except housewives who can never 
afford to decorate their homes, so it doesn't matter at all." 

"But what do you really like in architecture?" 

"I don't like anything in architecture." 



"Well, you know of course that I won't believe that. Why do you write if you have nothing you 
want to say?" 

"To have something to do. Something more disgusting than many other things I could do. And 
more amusing." 

"Come on, that's not a good reason." 

"I never have any good reasons." 

"But you must be enjoying your work." 

"I am. Don't you see that I am?" 

"You know, I've actually envied you. Working for a magnificent enterprise like the Wynand 
papers. The largest organization in the country, commanding the best writing talent and..." 

"Look," she said, leaning toward him confidentially, "let me help you. If you had just met 
Father, and he were working for the Wynand papers, that would be exactly the right thing to 
say. But not with me. That's what I'd expect you to say and I don't like to hear what I expect. It 
would be much more interesting if you said that the Wynand papers are a contemptible dump 
heap of yellow journalism and all their writers put together aren't worth two bits." 

"Is that what you really think of them?" 

"Not at all. But I don't like people who try to say only what they think I think." 

"Thanks. I'll need your help. I've never met anyone. ..oh, no, of course, that’s what you didn't 
want me to say. But I really meant it about your papers. I've always admired Gail Wynand. I've 
always wished I could meet him. What is he like?" 

"Just what Austen Heller called him-an exquisite bastard." He winced. He remembered where 
he had heard Austen Heller say that. The memory of Catherine seemed heavy and vulgar in 
the presence of the thin white hand he saw hanging over the arm of the chair before him. 

"But, I mean," he asked, "what’s he like in person?" 

"I don’t know. I've never met him." 

"You haven't?" 

"No." 

"Oh, I've heard he’s so interesting!" 

"Undoubtedly. When I'm in a mood for something decadent I'll probably meet him." 

"Do you know Toohey?" 

"Oh," she said. He saw what he had seen in her eyes before, and he did not like the sweet 
gaiety of her voice. "Oh, Ellsworth Toohey. Of course I know him. He's wonderful. He's a man 
I always enjoy talking to. He's such a perfect black-guard." 

"Why, Miss Francon! You're the first person who's ever..." 

"I'm not trying to shock you. I meant all of it. I admire him. He's so complete. You don't meet 
perfection often in this world one way or the other, do you? And he's just that. Sheer perfection 
in his own way. Everyone else is so unfinished, broken up into so many different pieces that 
don’t fit together. But not Toohey. He's a monolith. Sometimes, when I feel bitter against the 
world, I find consolation in thinking that it's all right, that I'll be avenged, that the world will get 
what's coming to it-because there's Ellsworth Toohey." 


What do you want to be avenged for?" She looked at him, her eyelids lifted for a moment, so 



that her eyes did not seem rectangular, but soft and clear. 

"That was very clever of you," she said. "That was the first clever thing you've said." 

"Why?" 

"Because you knew what to pick out of all the rubbish I uttered. So I'll have to answer you. I'd 
like to be avenged for the fact that I have nothing to be avenged for. Now let's go on about 
Ellsworth Toohey." 

"Well, I've always heard, from everybody, that he's a sort of saint, the one pure idealist, utterly 
incorruptible and..." 

"That's quite true. A plain grafter would be much safer. But Toohey is like a testing stone for 
people. You can learn about them by the way they take him." 

"Why? What do you actually mean?" She leaned back in her chair, and stretched her arms 
down to her knees, twisting her wrists, palms out, the fingers of her two hands entwined. She 
laughed easily. 

"Nothing that one should make a subject of discussion at a tea party. Kiki's right. She hates 
the sight of me, but she's got to invite me once in a while. And I can't resist coming, because 
she's so obvious about not wanting me. You know, I told Ralston tonight what I really thought 
of his capitol, but he wouldn't believe me. He only beamed and said that I was a very nice little 
girl." 

"Well, aren't you?" 

"What?" 

"A very nice little girl." 

"No. Not today. I've made you thoroughly uncomfortable. So I'll make up for it. I'll tell you what 
I think of you, because you'll be worrying about that. I think you're smart and safe and obvious 
and quite ambitious and you'll get away with it. And I like you. I'll tell Father that I approve of 
his right hand very much, so you see you have nothing to fear from the boss's daughter. 
Though it would be better if I didn't say anything to Father, because my recommendation 
would work the other way with him." 

"May I tell you only one thing that I think about you?" 

"Certainly. Any number of them." 

"I think it would have been better if you hadn't told me that you liked me. Then I would have 
had a better chance of its being true." 

She laughed. 

"If you understand that," she said, "then we'll get along beautifully. Then it might even be true." 

Gordon L. Prescott appeared in the arch of the ballroom, glass in hand. He wore a gray suit 
and a turtle-neck sweater of silver wool. His boyish face looked freshly scrubbed, and he had 
his usual air of soap, tooth paste and the outdoors. 

"Dominique, darling!" he cried, waving his glass. "Hello, Keating," he added curtly. 

"Dominique, where have you been hiding yourself? I heard you were here and I've had a hell 
of a time looking for you!" 

"Hello, Gordon," she said. She said it quite correctly; there was nothing offensive in the quiet 
politeness of her voice; but following his high note of enthusiasm, her voice struck a tone that 
seemed flat and deadly in its indifference-as if the two sounds mingled into an audible 
counterpoint around the melodic thread of her contempt. 



Prescott had not heard. "Darling," he said, "you look lovelier every time I see you. One 
wouldn't think it were possible." 

"Seventh time," said Dominique. 

"What?" 

"Seventh time that you've said it when meeting me, Gordon. I'm counting them." 

"You simply won't be serious, Dominique. You'll never be serious." 

"Oh, yes, Gordon. I was just having a very serious conversation here with my friend Peter 
Keating." 

A lady waved to Prescott and he accepted the opportunity, escaping, looking very foolish. And 
Keating delighted in the thought that she had dismissed another man for a conversation she 
wished to continue with her friend Peter Keating. 

But when he turned to her, she asked sweetly: "What was it we were talking about, Mr. 
Keating?" And then she was staring with too great an interest across the room, at the wizened 
figure of a little man coughing over a whisky glass. "Why," said Keating, "we were..." 

"Oh, there's Eugene Pettingill. My great favorite. I must say hello to Eugene." 

And she was up, moving across the room, her body leaning back as she walked, moving 
toward the most unattractive septuagenarian present. 

Keating did not know whether he had been made to join the brotherhood of Gordon L. 
Prescott, or whether it had been only an accident. 

He returned to the ballroom reluctantly. He forced himself to join groups of guests and to talk. 
He watched Dominique Francon as she moved through the crowd, as she stopped in 
conversation with others. She never glanced at him again. He could not decide whether he 
had succeeded with her or failed miserably. 

He managed to be at the door when she was leaving. 

She stopped and smiled at him enchantingly. 

"No," she said, before he could utter a word, "you can't take me home. I have a car waiting. 
Thank you just the same." 

She was gone and he stood at the door, helpless and thinking furiously that he believed he 
was blushing. 

He felt a soft hand on his shoulder and turned to find Francon beside him. 

"Going home, Peter? Let me give you a lift." 

"But I thought you had to be at the club by seven." 

"Oh, that's all right, I'll be a little late, doesn't matter, I'll drive you home, no trouble at all." 
There was a peculiar expression of purpose on Francon's face, quite unusual for him and 
unbecoming. 

Keating followed him silently, amused, and said nothing when they were alone in the 
comfortable twilight of Francon's car. 

"Well?" Francon asked ominously. 

Keating smiled. "You're a pig, Guy. You don't know how to appreciate what you've got. Why 
didn't you tell me? She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." 



"Oh, yes," said Francon darkly. "Maybe that's the trouble." 

"What trouble? Where do you see any trouble?" 

"What do you really think of her, Peter? Forget the looks. You'll see how quickly you'll forget 
that. What do you think?" 

"Well, I think she has a great deal of character." 

"Thanks for the understatement." 

Francon was gloomily silent, and then he said with an awkward little note of something like 
hope in his voice: 

"You know, Peter, I was surprised. I watched you, and you had quite a long chat with her. 
That's amazing. I fully expected her to chase you away with one nice, poisonous crack. Maybe 
you could get along with her, after all. I've concluded that you just can't tell anything about her. 
Maybe. ..You know, Peter, what I wanted to tell you is this: Don't pay any attention to what she 
said about my wanting you to be horrible with her." 

The heavy earnestness of that sentence was such a hint that Keating's lips moved to shape a 
soft whistle, but he caught himself in time. Francon added heavily: "I don't want you to be 
horrible with her at all." 

"You know, Guy," said Keating, in a tone of patronizing reproach, "you shouldn't have run 
away like that." 

"I never know how to speak to her." He sighed. "I've never learned to. I can't understand what 
in blazes is the matter with her, but something is. She just won't behave like a human being. 
You know, she’s been expelled from two finishing schools. How she ever got through college I 
can't imagine, but I can tell you that I dreaded to open my mail for four solid years, waiting for 
word of the inevitable. Then I thought, well, once she’s on her own I'm through and I don't 
have to worry about it, but she's worse than ever." 

"What do you find to worry about?" 

"I don't. I try not to. I'm glad when I don't have to think of her at all. I can't help it, I just wasn't 
cut out for a father. But sometimes I get to feel that it's my responsibility after all, though God 
knows I don't want it, but still there it is, I should do something about it, there's no one else to 
assume it." 

"You've let her frighten you, Guy, and really there's nothing to be afraid of." 

"You don't think so?" 

"No." 

"Maybe you're the man to handle her. I don't regret your meeting her now, and you know that I 
didn't want you to. Yes, I think you're the one man who could handle her. You. ..you're quite 
determined-aren't you, Peter?-when you're after something?" 

"Well," said Keating, throwing one hand up in a careless gesture, "I'm not afraid very often." 

Then he leaned back against the cushions, as if he were tired, as if he had heard nothing of 
importance, and he kept silent for the rest of the drive. Francon kept silent also. 

# 

"Boys," said John Erik Snyte, "don't spare yourselves on this. It's the most important thing 
we've had this year. Not much money, you understand, but the prestige, the connections! If 
we do land it, won't some of those great architects turn green! You see, Austen Heller has told 
me frankly that we’re the third firm he’s approached. He would have none of what those big 
fellows tried to sell him. So it's up to us, boys. You know, something different, unusual, but in 
good taste, and you know, different. Now do your best." 



His five designers sat in a semicircle before him. "Gothic" looked bored and "Miscellaneous" 
looked discouraged in advance; "Renaissance" was following the course of a fly on the ceiling. 
Roark asked: 

"What did he actually say, Mr. Snyte?" 

Snyte shrugged and looked at Roark with amusement, as if he and Roark shared a shameful 
secret about the new client, not worth mentioning. 

"Nothing that makes great sense--quite between us, boys," said Snyte. "He was somewhat 
inarticulate, considering his great command of the English language in print. He admitted he 
knew nothing about architecture. He didn't say whether he wanted it modernistic or period or 
what. He said something to the effect that he wanted a house of his own, but he's hesitated 
for a long time about building one because all houses look alike to him and they all look like 
hell and he doesn't see how anyone can become enthusiastic about any house, and yet he 
has the idea that he wants a building he could love. 'A building that would mean something' is 
what he said, though he added that he ’didn't know what or how.’ There. That's about all he 
said. Not much to go on, and I wouldn't have undertaken to submit sketches if it weren't 
Austen Heller. But I grant you that it doesn't make sense. ...What's the matter, Roark?" 

"Nothing," said Roark. 

This ended the first conference on the subject of a residence for Austen Heller. 

Later that day Snyte crowded his five designers into a train, and they went to Connecticut to 
see the site Heller had chosen. They stood on a lonely, rocky stretch of shore, three miles 
beyond an unfashionable little town; they munched sandwiches and peanuts, and they looked 
at a cliff rising in broken ledges from the ground to end in a straight, brutal, naked drop over 
the sea, a vertical shaft of rock forming a cross with the long, pale horizontal of the sea. 

"There," said Snyte. "That's it." He twirled a pencil in his hand. "Damnable, eh?" He sighed. "I 
tried to suggest a more respectable location, but he didn't take it so well so I had to shut up." 
He twirled the pencil. "That’s where he wants the house, right on top of that rock." He 
scratched the tip of his nose with the point of the pencil. "I tried to suggest setting it farther 
back from the shore and keeping the damn rock for a view, but that didn't go so well either." 

He bit the eraser between the tips of his teeth. "Just think of the blasting, the leveling one's got 
to do on that top." He cleaned his fingernail with the lead, leaving a black mark. "Well, that's 
that. ...Observe the grade, and the quality of the stone. The approach will be difficult....! have 
all the surveys and the photographs in the office. ...Well.. .Who's got a cigarette?. ..Well, I think 
that's about all.. ..I'll help you with suggestions anytime.. ..Well.. .What time is that damn train 
back?" 

Thus the five designers were started on their task. Four of them proceeded immediately at 
their drawing boards. Roark returned alone to the site, many times. 

Roark's five months with Snyte stretched behind him like a blank. Had he wished to ask 
himself what he had felt, he would have found no answer, save in the fact that he 
remembered nothing of these months. He could remember each sketch he had made. He 
could, if he tried, remember what had happened to those sketches; he did not try. 

But he had not loved any of them as he loved the house of Austen Heller. He stayed in the 
drafting room through evening after evening, alone with a sheet of paper and the thought of a 
cliff over the sea. No one saw his sketches until they were finished. 

When they were finished, late one night, he sat at his table, with the sheets spread before 
him, sat for many hours, one hand propping his forehead, the other hanging by his side, blood 
gathering in the fingers, numbing them, while the street beyond the window became deep 
blue, then pale gray. He did not look at the sketches. He felt empty and very tired. 

The house on the sketches had been designed not by Roark, but by the cliff on which it stood. 
It was as if the cliff had grown and completed itself and proclaimed the purpose for which it 
had been waiting. The house was broken into many levels, following the ledges of the rock, 



rising as it rose, in gradual masses, in planes flowing together up into one consummate 
harmony. The walls, of the same granite as the rock, continued its vertical lines upward; the 
wide, projecting terraces of concrete, silver as the sea, followed the line of the waves, of the 
straight horizon. 

Roark was still sitting at his table when the men returned to begin their day in the drafting 
room. Then the sketches were sent to Snyte's office. 

Two days later, the final version of the house to be submitted to Austen Heller, the version 
chosen and edited by John Erik Snyte, executed by the Chinese artist, lay swathed in tissue 
paper on a table. It was Roark's house. His competitors had been eliminated. It was Roark's 
house, but its walls were now of red brick, its windows were cut to conventional size and 
equipped with green shutters, two of its projecting wings were omitted, the great cantilevered 
terrace over the sea was replaced by a little wrought-iron balcony, and the house was 
provided with an entrance of Ionic columns supporting a broken pediment, and with a little 
spire supporting a weather vane. 

John Erik Snyte stood by the table, his two hands spread in the air over the sketch, without 
touching the virgin purity of its delicate colors. 

"That is what Mr. Heller had in mind, I'm sure," he said. "Pretty good. ..Yes, pretty 
good. ..Roark, how many times do I have to ask you not to smoke around a final sketch? 

Stand away. You'll get ashes on it." 

Austen Heller was expected at twelve o'clock. But at half past eleven Mrs. Symington arrived 
unannounced and demanded to see Mr. Snyte immediately. Mrs. Symington was an imposing 
dowager who had just moved into her new residence designed by Mr. Snyte; besides, Snyte 
expected a commission for an apartment house from her brother. He could not refuse to see 
her and he bowed her into his office, where she proceeded to state without reticence of 
expression that the ceiling of her library had cracked and the bay windows of her drawing 
room were hidden under a perpetual veil of moisture which she could not combat. Snyte 
summoned his chief engineer and they launched together into detailed explanations, 
apologies and damnations of contractors. Mrs. Symington showed no sign of relenting when a 
signal buzzed on Snyte's desk and the reception clerk's voice announced Austen Heller. 

It would have been impossible to ask Mrs. Symington to leave or Austen Heller to wait. Snyte 
solved the problem by abandoning her to the soothing speech of his engineer and excusing 
himself for a moment. Then he emerged into the reception room, shook Heller's hand and 
suggested: "Would you mind stepping into the drafting room, Mr. Heller? Better light in there, 
you know, and the sketch is all ready for you, and I didn't want to take the chance of moving 
it." 

Heller did not seem to mind. He followed Snyte obediently into the drafting room, a tall, broad- 
shouldered figure in English tweeds, with sandy hair and a square face drawn in countless 
creases around the ironical calm of the eyes. 

The sketch lay on the Chinese artist's table, and the artist stepped aside diffidently, in silence. 
The next table was Roark's. He stood with his back to Heller; he went on with his drawing, and 
did not turn. The employees had been trained not to intrude on the occasions when Snyte 
brought a client into the drafting room. 

Snyte's fingertips lifted the tissue paper, as if raising the veil of a bride. Then he stepped back 
and watched Heller's face. Heller bent down and stood hunched, drawn, intent, saying nothing 
for a long time. 

"Listen, Mr. Snyte," he began at last. "Listen, I think..." and stopped. 

Snyte waited patiently, pleased, sensing the approach of something he didn't want to disturb. 

"This," said Heller suddenly, loudly, slamming his fist down on the drawing, and Snyte winced, 
"this is the nearest anyone's ever come to it!" 


I knew you'd like it, Mr. Heller," said Snyte. 



I don't," said Heller. 


Snyte blinked and waited. 

"It’s so near somehow," said Heller regretfully, "but it's not right. I don't know where, but it's 
not. Do forgive me, if this sounds vague, but I like things at once or I don't. I know that I 
wouldn't be comfortable, for instance, with that entrance. It’s a lovely entrance, but you won't 
even notice it because you've seen it so often." 

"Ah, but allow me to point out a few considerations, Mr. Heller. One wants to be modern, of 
course, but one wants to preserve the appearance of a home. A combination of stateliness 
and coziness, you understand, a very austere house like this must have a few softening 
touches. It is strictly correct architecturally." 

"No doubt," said Heller. "I wouldn't know about that. I've never been strictly correct in my life." 
"Just let me explain this scheme and you'll see that it's..." 

"I know," said Heller wearily. "I know. I'm sure you're right. Only..." His voice had a sound of 
the eagerness he wished he could feel. "Only, if it had some unity, some. ..some central 
idea. ..which is there and isn't.. .if it seemed to live. ..which it doesn't.. .It lacks something and it 
has too much. ...If it were cleaner, more clear-cut. ..what's the word I've heard used?-if it were 
integrated...." 

Roark turned. He was at the other side of the table. He seized the sketch, his hand flashed 
forward and a pencil ripped across the drawing, slashing raw black lines over the untouchable 
water-color. The lines blasted off the Ionic columns, the pediment, the entrance, the spire, the 
blinds, the bricks; they flung up two wings of stone; they rent the windows wide; they splintered 
the balcony and hurled a terrace over the sea. 

It was being done before the others had grasped the moment when it began. Then Snyte 
jumped forward, but Heller seized his wrist and stopped him. Roark's hand went on razing 
walls, splitting, rebuilding in furious strokes. 

Roark threw his head up once, for a flash of a second, to look at Heller across the table. It 
was all the introduction they needed; it was like a handshake. Roark went on, and when he 
threw the pencil down, the house-as he had designed it-stood completed in an ordered 
pattern of black streaks. The performance had not lasted five minutes. 

Snyte made an attempt at a sound. As Heller said nothing, Snyte felt free to whirl on Roark 
and scream: "You're fired, God damn you! Get out of here! You're fired!" 

"We're both fired," said Austen Heller, winking to Roark. "Come on. Have you had any lunch? 
Let's go some place. I want to talk to you." 

Roark went to his locker to get his hat and coat. The drafting room witnessed a stupefying act 
and all work stopped to watch it: Austen Heller picked up the sketch, folded it over four times, 
cracking the sacred cardboard, and slipped it into his pocket. 

"But, Mr. Heller..." Snyte stammered, "let me explain. ..It's perfectly all right if that's what you 
want, we'll do the sketch over. ..let me explain..." 

"Not now," said Heller. "Not now." He added at the door: "I'll send you a check." 

Then Heller was gone, and Roark with him; and the door, as Heller swung it shut behind them, 
sounded like the closing paragraph in one of Heller's articles. Roark had not said a word. 

In the softly lighted booth of the most expensive restaurant that Roark had ever entered, 
across the crystal and silver glittering between them, Heller was saying: 

"...because that's the house I want, because that's the house I've always wanted. Can you 
build it for me, draw up the plans and supervise the construction?" 



’Yes," said Roark. 


"How long will it take if we start at once?" 

"About eight months." 

"I'll have the house by late fall?" 

"Yes." 

"Just like that sketch?" 

"Just like that." 

"Look, I have no idea what kind of a contract one makes with an architect and you must know, 
so draw up one and let my lawyer okay it this afternoon, will you?" 

"Yes." 

Heller studied the man who sat facing him. He saw the hand lying on the table before him. 
Heller's awareness became focused on that hand. He saw the long fingers, the sharp joints, 
the prominent veins. He had the feeling that he was not hiring this man, but surrendering 
himself into his employment. "How old are you," asked Heller, "whoever you are?" 

"Twenty-six. Do you want any references?" 

"Hell, no. I have them, here in my pocket. What's your name?" 

"Howard Roark." 

Heller produced a checkbook, spread it open on the table and reached for his fountain pen. 

"Look," he said, writing, "I'll give you five hundred dollars on account. Get yourself an office or 
whatever you have to get, and go ahead." 

He tore off the check and handed it to Roark, between the tips of two straight fingers, leaning 
forward on his elbow, swinging his wrist in a sweeping curve. His eyes were narrowed, 
amused, watching Roark quizzically. But the gesture had the air of a salute. 

The check was made out to "Howard Roark, Architect." 


11 . 

HOWARD ROARK opened his own office. 

It was one large room on the top of an old building, with a broad window high over the roofs. 
He could see the distant band of the Hudson at his window sill, with the small streaks of ships 
moving under his fingertips when he pressed them to the glass. He had a desk, two chairs, 
and a huge drafting table. The glass entrance door bore the words: "Howard Roark, 
Architect." He stood in the hall for a long time, looking at the words. Then he went in, and 
slammed his door, he picked up a T-square from the table and flung it down again, as if 
throwing an anchor. 

John Erik Snyte had objected. When Roark came to the office for his drawing instruments 
Snyte emerged into the reception room, shook his hand warmly and said: "Well, Roark! Well, 
how are you? Come in, come right in, I want to speak to you!" 

And with Roark seated before his desk Snyte proceeded loudly: 

"Look, fellow, I hope you've got sense enough not to hold it against me, anything that I 



might've said yesterday. You know how it is, I lost my head a little, and it wasn't what you did, 
but that you had to go and do it on that sketch, that sketch. ..well, never mind. No hard 
feelings?" 

"No," said Roark. "None at all." 

"Of course, you're not fired. You didn't take me seriously, did you? You can go right back to 
work here this very minute." 

"What for, Mr. Snyte?" 

"What do you mean, what for? Oh, you're thinking of the Heller house? But you're not taking 
Heller seriously, are you? You saw how he is, that madman can change his mind sixty times a 
minute. He won't really give you that commission, you know, it isn't as simple as that, it isn't 
being done that way." 

"We’ve signed the contract yesterday." 

"Oh, you have? Well, that’s splendid! Well, look, Roark, I'll tell you what we'll do: you bring the 
commission back to us and I'll let you put your name on it with mine-'John Erik Snyte & 
Howard Roark.’ And we'll split the fee. That’s in addition to your salary-and you're getting a 
raise, incidentally. Then we'll have the same arrangement on any other commission you bring 
in. And. ..Lord, man, what are you laughing at?" 

"Excuse me, Mr. Snyte. I'm sorry." 

"I don't believe you understand," said Snyte, bewildered. "Don't you see? It’s your insurance. 
You don't want to break loose just yet. Commissions won't fall into your lap like this. Then 
what will you do? This way, you'll have a steady job and you'll be building toward independent 
practice, if that's what you're after. In four or five years, you'll be ready to take the leap. That's 
the way everybody does it. You see?" 

"Yes." 

"Then you agree?" 

"No." 

"But, good Lord, man, you've lost your mind! To set up alone now! Without experience, 
without connections, without.. .well, without anything at all! I never heard of such a thing. Ask 
anybody in the profession. See what they'll tell you. It's preposterous!" 

"Probably." 

"Listen. Roark, won't you please listen?" 

"I'll listen if you want me to, Mr. Snyte. But I think I should tell you now that nothing you can 
say will make any difference. If you don't mind that, I don't mind listening." 

Snyte went on speaking for a long time and Roark listened, without objecting, explaining or 
answering. 

"Well, if that's how you are, don't expect me to take you back when you find yourself on the 
pavement." 

"I don't expect it, Mr. Snyte." 

"Don't expect anyone else in the profession to take you in, after they hear what you've done to 
me." 

"I don't expect that either." 

For a few days Snyte thought of suing Roark and Heller. But he decided against it, because 



there was no precedent to follow under the circumstances: because Heller had paid him for 
his efforts, and the house had been actually designed by Roark; and because no one ever 
sued Austen Heller. The first visitor to Roark's office was Peter Keating. He walked in, without 
warning, one noon, walked straight across the room and sat down on Roark's desk, smiling 
gaily, spreading his arms wide in a sweeping gesture: "Well, Howard!" he said. "Well, fancy 
that!" He had not seen Roark for a year. "Hello, Peter," said Roark. 

"Your own office, your own name and everything! Already! Just imagine!" 

"Who told you, Peter?" 

"Oh, one hears things. You wouldn't expect me not to keep track of your career, now would 
you? You know what I've always thought of you. And I don't have to tell you that I congratulate 
you and wish you the very best." 

"No, you don't have to." 

"Nice place you got here. Light and roomy. Not quite as imposing as it should be, perhaps, but 
what can one expect at the beginning? And then, the prospects are uncertain, aren't they, 
Howard?" 

"Quite." 

"It's an awful chance that you've taken." 

"Probably." 

"Are you really going to go through with it? I mean, on your 
own?" 

"Looks that way, doesn't it?" 

"Well, it's not too late, you know. I thought, when I heard the story, that you'd surely turn it over 
to Snyte and make a smart deal with him." 

"I didn't." 

"Aren't you really going to?" 

"No." 

Keating wondered why he should experience that sickening feeling of resentment; why he had 
come here hoping to find the story untrue, hoping to find Roark uncertain and willing to 
surrender. That feeling had haunted him ever since he’d heard the news about Roark; the 
sensation of something unpleasant that remained after he'd forgotten the cause. The feeling 
would come back to him, without reason, a blank wave of anger, and he would ask himself: 
now what the hell?-what was it I heard today? Then he would remember: Oh, yes, Roark- 
Roark's opened his own office. He would ask himself impatiently: So what?-and know at the 
same time that the words were painful to face, and humiliating like an insult. 

"You know, Howard, I admire your courage. Really, you know, I've had much more experience 
and I've got more of a standing in the profession, don't mind my saying it— I’m only speaking 
objectively--but I wouldn't dare take such a step." 

"No, you wouldn't." 

"So you've made the jump first. Well, well. Who would have thought it?. ..I wish you all the luck 
in the world." 

"Thank you, Peter." 

"I know you'll succeed. I'm sure of it." 



"Are you?" 

"Of course! Of course, I am. Aren't you?" 

"I haven't thought of it." 

"You haven't thought of it?" 

"Not much." 

"Then you're not sure, Howard? You aren't?" 

"Why do you ask that so eagerly?" 

"What? Why.. .no, not eagerly, but of course, I'm concerned, Howard, it's bad psychology not 
to be certain now, in your position. So you have doubts?" 

"None at all." 

"But you said..." 

"I'm quite sure of things, Peter." 

"Have you thought about getting your registration?" 

"I've applied for it." 

"You've got no college degree, you know. They'll make it difficult for you at the examination." 
"Probably." 

"What are you going to do if you don't get the license?" 

"I'll get it." 

"Well, I guess I'll be seeing you now at the A.G.A., if you don’t go high hat on me, because 
you'll be a full-fledged member and I'm only a junior." 

"I'm not joining the A.G.A." 

"What do you mean, you're not joining? You're eligible now." 

"Possibly." 

"You'll be invited to join." 

"Tell them not to bother." 

"What!" 

"You know, Peter, we had a conversation just like this seven years ago, when you tried to talk 
me into joining your fraternity at Stanton. Don't start it again." 

"You won't join the A.G.A. when you have a chance to?" 

"I won't join anything, Peter, at any time." 

"But don't you realize how it helps?" 

"In what?" 


In being an architect. 



"I don't like to be helped in being an architect." 

"You're just making things harder for yourself." 

"I am." 

"And it will be plenty hard, you know." 

"I know." 

"You'll make enemies of them if you refuse such an invitation." 

"I'll make enemies of them anyway." 

The first person to whom Roark had told the news was Henry Cameron. Roark went to New 
Jersey the day after he signed the contract with Heller. It had rained and he found Cameron in 
the garden, shuffling slowly down the damp paths, leaning heavily on a cane. In the past 
winter, Cameron had improved enough to walk a few hours each day. He walked with effort, 
his body bent. 

He looked at the first shoots of green on the earth under his feet. He lifted his cane, once in a 
while, bracing his legs to stand firm for a moment; with the tip of the cane, he touched a folded 
green cup and watched it spill a glistening drop in the twilight. He saw Roark coming up the 
hill, and frowned. He had seen Roark only a week ago, and because these visits meant too 
much to both of them, neither wished the occasion to be too frequent. 

"Well?" Cameron asked gruffly. "What do you want here again?" 

"I have something to tell you." 

"It can wait." 

"I don't think so." 

"Well?" 

"I’m opening my own office. I've just signed for my first building." 

Cameron rotated his cane, the tip pressed into the earth, the shaft describing a wide circle, his 
two hands bearing down on the handle, the palm of one on the back of the other. His head 
nodded slowly, in rhythm with the motion, for a long time, his eyes closed. Then he looked at 
Roark and said: 

"Well, don't brag about it." 

He added: "Help me to sit down." It was the first time Cameron had ever pronounced this 
sentence; his sister and Roark had long since learned that the one outrage forbidden in his 
presence was any intention of helping him to move. 

Roark took his elbow and led him to a bench. Cameron asked harshly, staring ahead at the 
sunset: 

"What? For whom? How much?" 

He listened silently to Roark's story. He looked for a long time at the sketch on cracked 
cardboard with the pencil lines over the watercolor. Then he asked many questions about the 
stone, the steel, the roads, the contractors, the costs. He offered no congratulations. He made 
no comment. 

Only when Roark was leaving, Cameron said suddenly: 

"Howard, when you open your office, take snapshots of it-and show them to me." 



Then he shook his head, looked away guiltily, and swore. 


"I'm being senile. Forget it." 

Roark said nothing. 

Three days later he came back. "You're getting to be a nuisance," said Cameron. Roark 
handed him an envelope, without a word. Cameron looked at the snapshots, at the one of the 
broad, bare office, of the wide window, of the entrance door. He dropped the others, and held 
the one of the entrance door for a long time. 

"Well," he said at last, "I did live to see it." 

He dropped the snapshot. 

"Not quite exactly," he added. "Not in the way I had wanted to, but I did. It's like the shadows 
some say we'll see of the earth in that other world. Maybe that’s how I'll see the rest of it. I'm 
learning." 

He picked up the snapshot. 

"Howard," he said. "Look at it." 

He held it between them. 

"It doesn't say much. Only 'Howard Roark, Architect.' But it's like those mottoes men carved 
over the entrance of a castle and died for. It's a challenge in the face of something so vast and 
so dark, that all the pain on earth-and do you know how much suffering there is on earth?-all 
the pain comes from that thing you are going to face. I don't know what it is, I don't know why 
it should be unleashed against you. I know only that it will be. And I know that if you carry 
these words through to the end, it will be a victory, Howard, not just for you, but for something 
that should win, that moves the world-and never wins acknowledgment. It will vindicate so 
many who have fallen before you, who have suffered as you will suffer. May God bless you-or 
whoever it is that is alone to see the best, the highest possible to human hearts. You're on 
your way into hell, Howard." 

# 

Roark walked up the path to the top of the cliff where the steel hulk of the Heller house rose 
into a blue sky. The skeleton was up and the concrete was being poured; the great mats of 
the terraces hung over the silver sheet of water quivering far below; plumbers and electricians 
had started laying their conduits. 

He looked at the squares of sky delimited by the slender lines of girders and columns, the 
empty cubes of space he had torn out of the sky. His hands moved involuntarily, filling in the 
planes of walls to come, enfolding the future rooms. A stone clattered from under his feet and 
went bouncing down the hill, resonant drops of sound rolling in the sunny clarity of the 
summer air. 

He stood on the summit, his legs planted wide apart, leaning back against space. He looked 
at the materials before him, the knobs of rivets in steel, the sparks in blocks of stone, the 
weaving spirals in fresh, yellow planks. 

Then he saw a husky figure enmeshed in electric wires, a bulldog face spreading into a huge 
grin and china-blue eyes gloating in a kind of unholy triumph. 

"Mike!" he said incredulously. 

Mike had left for a big job in Philadelphia months ago, long before the appearance of Heller in 
Snyte's office, and Mike had never heard the news-or so he supposed. 

"Hello, Red," said Mike, much too casually, and added: "Hello, boss." 



Mike, how did you...?' 


"You're a hell of an architect. Neglecting the job like that. It's my third day here, waiting for you 
to show up." 

"Mike, how did you get here? Why such a come-down?" He had never known Mike to bother 
with small private residences. 

"Don't play the sap. You know how I got here. You didn't think I'd miss it, your first house, did 
you? And you think it's a come-down? Well, maybe it is. And maybe it's the other way around." 

Roark extended his hand and Mike's grimy fingers closed about it ferociously, as if the 
smudges he left implanted in Roark's skin said everything he wanted to say. And because he 
was afraid that he might say it, Mike growled: 

"Run along, boss, run along. Don't clog up the works like that." 

Roark walked through the house. There were moments when he could be precise, 
impersonal, and stop to give instructions as if this were not his house but only a mathematical 
problem; when he felt the existence of pipes and rivets, while his own person vanished. 

There were moments when something rose within him, not a thought nor a feeling, but a wave 
of some physical violence, and then he wanted to stop, to lean back, to feel the reality of his 
person heightened by the frame of steel that rose dimly about the bright, outstanding 
existence of his body as its center. He did not stop. He went on calmly. But his hands 
betrayed what he wanted to hide. His hands reached out, ran slowly down the beams and 
joints. The workers in the house had noticed it. They said: "That guy’s in love with the thing. 

He can't keep his hands off." 

The workers liked him. The contractor's superintendents did not. He had had trouble in finding 
a contractor to erect the house. Several of the better firms had refused the commission. "We 
don't do that kinda stuff." 

"Nan, we won't bother. Too complicated for a small job like that." 

"Who the hell wants that kind of house? Most likely we'll never collect from the crank 
afterwards. To hell with it." 

"Never did anything like it. Wouldn't know how to go about it. I'll stick to construction that is 
construction." One contractor had looked at the plans briefly and thrown them aside, declaring 
with finality: "It won't stand." 

"It will," said Roark. The contractor drawled indifferently. "Yeah? And who are you to tell me, 
Mister?" 

He had found a small firm that needed the work and undertook it, charging more than the job 
warranted-on the ground of the chance they were taking with a queer experiment. The 
construction went on, and the foremen obeyed sullenly, in disapproving silence, as if they 
were waiting for their predictions to come true and would be glad when the house collapsed 
about their heads. Roark had bought an old Ford and drove down to the job more often than 
was necessary. It was difficult to sit at a desk in his office, to stand at a table, forcing himself 
to stay away from the construction site. At the site there were moments when he wished to 
forget his office and his drawing board, to seize the men's tools and go to work on the actual 
erection of the house, as he had worked in his childhood, to build that house with his own 
hands. 

He walked through the structure, stepping lightly over piles of planks and coils of wire, he 
made notes, he gave brief orders in a harsh voice. He avoided looking in Mike's direction. But 
Mike was watching him, following his progress through the house. Mike winked at him in 
understanding, whenever he passed by. Mike said once: 

"Control yourself, Red. You're open like a book. God, it's indecent to be so happy!" 



Roark stood on the cliff, by the structure, and looked at the countryside, at the long, gray 
ribbon of the road twisting past along the shore. An open car drove by, fleeing into the country. 
The car was overfilled with people bound for a picnic. There was a jumble of bright sweaters, 
and scarves fluttering in the wind; a jumble of voices shrieking without purpose over the roar 
of the motor, and overstressed hiccoughs of laughter; a girl sat sidewise, her legs flung over 
the side of the car; she wore a man's straw hat slipping down to her nose and she yanked 
savagely at the strings of a ukulele, ejecting raucous sounds, yelling "Hey!" These people 
were enjoying a day of their existence; they were shrieking to the sky their release from the 
work and the burdens of the days behind them; they had worked and carried the burdens in 
order to reach a goal--and this was the goal. 

He looked at the car as it streaked past. He thought that there was a difference, some 
important difference, between the consciousness of this day in him and in them. He thought 
that he should try to grasp it. But he forgot. He was looking at a truck panting up the hill, 
loaded with a glittering mound of cut granite. 

# 

Austen Heller came to look at the house frequently, and watched it grow, curious, still a little 
astonished. He studied Roark and the house with the same meticulous scrutiny; he felt as if 
he could not quite tell them apart. 

Heller, the fighter against compulsion, was baffled by Roark, a man so impervious to 
compulsion that he became a kind of compulsion himself, an ultimatum against things Heller 
could not define. Within a week, Heller knew that he had found the best friend he would ever 
have; and he knew that the friendship came from Roark's fundamental indifference. In the 
deeper reality of Roark's existence there was no consciousness of Heller, no need for Heller, 
no appeal, no demand. Heller felt a line drawn, which he could not touch; beyond that line, 
Roark asked nothing of him and granted him nothing. But when Roark looked at him with 
approval, when Roark smiled, when Roark praised one of his articles, Heller felt the strangely 
clean joy of a sanction that was neither a bribe nor alms. 

In the summer evenings they sat together on a ledge halfway up the hill, and talked while 
darkness mounted slowly up the beams of the house above them, the last sunrays retreating 
to the tips of the steel uprights. 

"What is it that I like so much about the house you're building for me, Howard?" 

"A house can have integrity, just like a person," said Roark, "and just as seldom." 

"In what way?" 

"Well, look at it. Every piece of it is there because the house needs it--and for no other reason. 
You see it from here as it is inside. The rooms in which you'll live made the shape. The 
relation of masses was determined by the distribution of space within. The ornament was 
determined by the method of construction, an emphasis of the principle that makes it stand. 
You can see each stress, each support that meets it. Your own eyes go through a structural 
process when you look at the house, you can follow each step, you see it rise, you know what 
made it and why it stands. But you've seen buildings with columns that support nothing, with 
purposeless cornices, with pilasters, moldings, false arches, false windows. You've seen 
buildings that look as if they contained a single large hall, they have solid columns and single, 
solid windows six floors high. But you enter and find six stories inside. Or buildings that 
contain a single hall, but with a facade cut up into floor lines, band courses, tiers of windows. 
Do you understand the difference? Your house is made by its own needs. Those others are 
made by the need to impress. The determining motive of your house is in the house. The 
determining motive of the others is in the audience." 

"Do you know that that's what I've felt in a way? I've felt that when I move into this house, I'll 
have a new sort of existence, and even my simple daily routine will have a kind of honesty or 
dignity that I can't quite define. Don't be astonished if I tell you that I feel as if I'll have to live up 
to that house." 


I intended that," said Roark. 



"And, incidentally, thank you for all the thought you seem to have taken about my comfort. 
There are so many things I notice that had never occurred to me before, but you've planned 
them as if you knew all my needs. For instance, my study is the room I'll need most and 
you've given it the dominant spot-and, incidentally, I see where you've made it the dominant 
mass from the outside, too. And then the way it connects with the library, and the living room 
well out of my way, and the guest rooms where I won't hear too much of them-and all that. 
You were very considerate of me." 

"You know," said Roark. "I haven't thought of you at all. I thought of the house." He added: 
"Perhaps that’s why I knew how to be considerate of you." 

# 

The Heller house was completed in November of 1926. 

In January of 1 927 the Architectural Tribune published a survey of the best American homes 
erected during the past year. It devoted twelve large, glossy pages to photographs of the 
twenty-four houses its editors had selected as the worthiest architectural achievements. The 
Heller house was not mentioned. 

The real-estate sections of the New York papers presented, each Sunday, brief accounts of 
the notable new residences in the vicinity. There was no account of the Heller house. 

The year book of the Architects' Guild of America, which presented magnificent reproductions 
of what it chose as the best buildings of the country, under the title "Looking Forward," gave 
no reference to the Heller house. 

There were many occasions when lecturers rose to platforms and addressed trim audiences 
on the subject of the progress of American architecture. No one spoke of the Heller house. 

In the club rooms of the A.G.A. some opinions were expressed. 

"It's a disgrace to the country," said Ralston Holcombe, "that a thing like that Heller house is 
allowed to be erected. It's a blot on the profession. There ought to be a law." 

"That's what drives clients away," said John Erik Snyte. "They see a house like that and they 
think all architects are crazy." 

"I see no cause for indignation," said Gordon L. Prescott. "I think it's screamingly funny. It 
looks like a cross between a filling station and a comic-strip idea of a rocket ship to the moon." 

"You watch it in a couple of years," said Eugene Pettingill, "and see what happens. The thing'll 
collapse like a house of cards." 

"Why speak in terms of years?" said Guy Francon. "Those modernistic stunts never last more 
than a season. The owner will get good and sick of it and he'll come running home to a good 
old early Colonial." 

The Heller house acquired fame throughout the countryside surrounding it. People drove out 
of their way to park on the road before it, to stare, point and giggle. Gas-station attendants 
snickered when Heller's car drove past. Heller's cook had to endure the derisive glances of 
shopkeepers when she went on her errands. The Heller house was known in the 
neighborhood as "The Booby Hatch." 

Peter Keating told his friends in the profession, with an indulgent smile: "Now, now, you 
shouldn't say that about him. I've known Howard Roark for a long time, and he’s got quite a 
talent, quite. He’s even worked for me once. He’s just gone haywire on that house. He'll learn. 
He has a future. ...Oh, you don't think he has? You really don't think he has?" 

Ellsworth M. Toohey, who let no stone spring from the ground of America without his 
comment, did not know that the Heller house had been erected, as far as his column was 
concerned. He did not consider it necessary to inform his readers about it, if only to damn it. 

He said nothing. 



12 . 


A COLUMN entitled "Observations and Meditations" by Alvah Scarret appeared daily on the 
front page of the New York Banner. It was a trusted guide, a source of inspiration and a 
molder of public philosophy in small towns throughout the country. In this column there had 
appeared, years ago, the famous statement: "We'd all be a heap sight better off if we'd forget 
the highfalutin notions of our fancy civilization and mind more what the savages knew long 
before us: to honor our mother." Alvah Scarret was a bachelor, had made two millions dollars, 
played golf expertly and was editor-in-chief of the Wynand papers. 

It was Alvah Scarret who conceived the idea of the campaign against living conditions in the 
slums and "Landlord Sharks," which ran in the Banner for three weeks. This was material 
such as Alvah Scarret relished. It had human appeal and social implications. It lent itself to 
Sunday-supplement illustrations of girls leaping into rivers, their skirts flaring well above their 
knees. It boosted circulation. It embarrassed the sharks who owned a stretch of blocks by the 
East River, selected as the dire example of the campaign. The sharks had refused to sell 
these blocks to an obscure real-estate company; at the end of the campaign they surrendered 
and sold. No one could prove that the real-estate company was owned by a company owned 
by Gail Wynand. 

The Wynand papers could not be left without a campaign for long. They had just concluded 
one on the subject of modern aviation. They had run scientific accounts of the history of 
aviation in the Sunday Family Magazine supplement, with pictures ranging from Leonardo da 
Vinci's drawings of flying machines to the latest bomber; with the added attraction of Icarus 
writhing in scarlet flames, his nude body blue-green, his wax wings yellow and the smoke 
purple; also of a leprous hag with flaming eyes and a crystal ball, who had predicted in the 
Xlth century that man would fly; also of bats, vampires and werewolves. 

They had run a model plane construction contest; it was open to all boys under the age of ten 
who wished to send in three new subscriptions to the Banner. Gail Wynand, who was a 
licensed pilot, had made a solo flight from Los Angeles to New York, establishing a 
transcontinental speed record, in a small, specially built craft costing one hundred thousand 
dollars. He had made a slight miscalculation on reaching New York and had been forced to 
land in a rocky pasture; it had been a hair-raising landing, faultlessly executed; it had just so 
happened that a battery of photographers from the Banner were present in the neighborhood. 
Gail Wynand had stepped out of the plane. An ace pilot would have been shaken by the 
experience. Gail Wynand had stood before the cameras, an immaculate gardenia in the lapel 
of his flying jacket, his hand raised with a cigarette held between two fingers that did not 
tremble. When questioned about his first wish on returning to earth, he had expressed the 
desire to kiss the most attractive woman present, had chosen the dowdiest old hag from the 
crowd and bent to kiss her gravely on the forehead, explaining that she reminded him of his 
mother. 

Later, at the start of the slum campaign, Gail Wynand had said to Alvah Scarret; "Go ahead. 
Squeeze all you can out of the thing," and had departed on his yacht for a world cruise, 
accompanied by an enchanting aviatrix of twenty-four to whom he had made a present of his 
transcontinental plane. 

Alvah Scarret went ahead. Among many other steps of his campaign he assigned Dominique 
Francon to investigate the condition of homes in the slums and to gather human material. 
Dominique Francon had just returned from a summer in Biarritz; she always took a whole 
summer's vacation and Alvah Scarret granted it, because she was one of his favorite 
employees, because he was baffled by her and because he knew that she could quit her job 
whenever she pleased. 

Dominique Francon went to live for two weeks in the hall bedroom of an East-Side tenement. 
The room had a skylight, but no windows; there were five flights of stairs to climb and no 
running water. She cooked her own meals in the kitchen of a numerous family on the floor 
below; she visited neighbors, she sat on the landings of fire escapes in the evenings and went 
to dime movies with the girls of the neighborhood. 



She wore frayed skirts and blouses. The abnormal fragility of her normal appearance made 
her look exhausted with privation in these surroundings; the neighbors felt certain that she had 
TB. But she moved as she had moved in the drawing room of Kiki Holcombe-with the same 
cold poise and confidence. She scrubbed the floor of her room, she peeled potatoes, she 
bathed in a tin pan of cold water. She had never done these things before; she did them 
expertly. She had a capacity for action, a competence that clashed incongruously with her 
appearance. She did not mind this new background; she was indifferent to the slums as she 
had been indifferent to the drawing rooms. 

At the end of two weeks she returned to her penthouse apartment on the roof of a hotel over 
Central Park, and her articles on life in the slums appeared in the Banner. They were a 
merciless, brilliant account. 

She heard baffled questions at a dinner party. "My dear, you didn't actually write those 
things?" 

"Dominique, you didn't really live in that place?" 

"Oh, yes," she answered. "The house you own on East Twelfth Street, Mrs. Palmer," she said, 
her hand circling lazily from under the cuff of an emerald bracelet too broad and heavy for her 
thin wrist, "has a sewer that gets clogged every other day and runs over, all through the 
courtyard. It looks blue and purple in the sun, like a rainbow." 

"The block you control for the Claridge estate, Mr. Brooks, has the most attractive stalactites 
growing on all the ceilings," she said, her golden head leaning to her corsage of white 
gardenias with drops of water sparkling on the lusterless petals. 

She was asked to speak at a meeting of social workers. It was an important meeting, with a 
militant, radical mood, led by some of the most prominent women in the field. Alvah Scarret 
was pleased and gave her his blessing. "Go to it, kid," he said, "lay it on thick. We want the 
social workers." She stood in the speaker's pulpit of an unaired hall and looked at a flat sheet 
of faces, faces lecherously eager with the sense of their own virtue. She spoke evenly, without 
inflection. She said, among many other things: "The family on the first floor rear do not bother 
to pay their rent, and the children cannot go to school for lack of clothes. The father has a 
charge account at a corner speak-easy. He is in good health and has a good job. ...The couple 
on the second floor have just purchased a radio for sixty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents 
cash. In the fourth floor front, the father of the family has not done a whole day's work in his 
life, and does not intend to. There are nine children, supported by the local parish. There is a 
tenth one on its way..." When she finished there were a few claps of angry applause. She 
raised her hand and said: "You don't have to applaud. I don't expect it." She asked politely: 
"Are there any questions?" There were no questions. 

When she returned home she found Alvah Scarret waiting for her. He looked incongruous in 
the drawing room of her penthouse, his huge bulk perched on the edge of a delicate chair, a 
hunched gargoyle against the glowing spread of the city beyond a solid wall of glass. The city 
was like a mural designed to illuminate and complete the room: the fragile lines of spires on a 
black sky continued the fragile lines of the furniture; the lights glittering in distant windows 
threw reflections on the bare, lustrous floor; the cold precision of the angular structures 
outside answered the cold, inflexible grace of every object within. Alvah Scarret broke the 
harmony. He looked like a kindly country doctor and like a cardsharp. His heavy face bore the 
benevolent, paternal smile that had always been his passkey and his trademark. He had the 
knack of making the kindliness of his smile add to, not detract from his solemn appearance of 
dignity; his long, thin, hooked nose did detract from the kindliness, but it added to the dignity; 
his stomach, cantilevered over his legs, did detract from the dignity, but it added to the 
kindliness. He rose, beamed and held Dominique's hand. "Thought I'd drop in on my way 
home," he said. "I've got something to tell you. How did it go, kid?" 

"As I expected it." 

She tore her hat off and threw it down on the first chair in sight. Her hair slanted in a flat curve 
across her forehead and fell in a straight line to her shoulders; it looked smooth and tight, like 
a bathing cap of pale, polished metal. She walked to the window and stood looking out over 
the city. She asked without turning: "What did you want to tell me?" 



Alvah Scarret watched her pleasurably. He had long since given up any attempts beyond 
holding her hand when not necessary or patting her shoulder; he had stopped thinking of the 
subject, but he had a dim, half-conscious feeling which he summed up to himself in the words: 
You never can tell. 

"I've got good news for you, child," he said. "I've been working out a little scheme, just a bit of 
reorganization, and I've figured where I'll consolidate a few things together into a Women's 
Welfare Department. You know, the schools, the home economics, the care of babies, the 
juvenile delinquents and all the rest of it— all to be under one head. And I see no better woman 
for the job than my little girl." 

"Do you mean me?" she asked, without turning. 

"No one else but. Just as soon as Gail comes back, I'll get his okay." 

She turned and looked at him, her arms crossed, her hands holding her elbows. She said: 

"Thank you, Alvah. But I don't want it." 

"What do you mean, you don't want it?" 

"I mean that I don't want it." 

"For heaven's sake, do you realize what an advance that would be?" 

"Toward what?" 

"Your career." 

"I never said I was planning a career." 

"But you don't want to be running a dinky back-page column forever!" 

"Not forever. Until I get bored with it." 

"But think of what you could do in the real game! Think of what Gail could do for you once you 
come to his attention!" 

"I have no desire to come to his attention." 

"But, Dominique, we need you. The women will be for you solid after tonight." 

"I don't think so." 

"Why, I've ordered two columns held for a yarn on the meeting and your speech." 

She reached for the telephone and handed the receiver to him. She said: 

"You'd better tell them to kill it." 

"Why?" 

She searched through a litter of papers on a desk, found some typewritten sheets and handed 
them to him. "Here's the speech I made tonight," she said. 

He glanced through it. He said nothing, but clasped his forehead once. Then he seized the 
telephone and gave orders to run as brief an account of the meeting as possible, and not to 
mention the speaker by name. 

"All right," said Dominique, when he dropped the receiver. "Am I fired?" 

He shook his head dolefully. "Do you want to be?" 



"Not necessarily." 

"I'll squash the business," he muttered. "I'll keep it from Gail." 

"If you wish. I don't really care one way or the other." 

"Listen, Dominique-oh I know, I'm not to ask any questions-only why on earth are you always 
doing things like that?" 

"For no reason on earth." 

"Look, you know, I've heard about that swank dinner where you made certain remarks on this 
same subject. And then you go and say things like these at a radical meeting." 

"They're true, though, both sides of it, aren't they?" 

"Oh, sure, but couldn't you have reversed the occasions when you chose to express them?" 
"There wouldn't have been any point in that." 

"Was there any in what you've done?" 

"No. None at all. But it amused me." 

"I can't figure you out, Dominique. You've done it before. You go along so beautifully, you do 
brilliant work and just when you're about to make a real step forward--you spoil it by pulling 
something like this. Why?" 

"Perhaps that is precisely why." 

"Will you tell me--as a friend, because I like you and I'm interested in you--what are you really 
after?" 

"I should think that's obvious. I'm after nothing at all." 

He spread his hands open, shrugging helplessly. 

She smiled gaily. 

"What is there to look so mournful about? I like you, too, Alvah, and I'm interested in you. I 
even like to talk to you, which is better. Now sit still and relax and I'll get you a drink. You need 
a drink, Alvah." 

She brought him a frosted glass with ice cubes ringing in the silence. "You're just a nice child, 
Dominique," he said. 

"Of course. That's what I am." 

She sat down on the edge of a table, her hands flat behind her, leaning back on two straight 
arms, swinging her legs slowly. She said: 

"You know, Alvah, it would be terrible if I had a job I really wanted." 

"Well, of all things! Well, of all fool things to say! What do you mean?" 

"Just that. That it would be terrible to have a job I enjoyed and did not want to lose." 

"Why?" 

"Because I would have to depend on you--you're a wonderful person, Alvah, but not exactly 
inspiring and I don't think it would be beautiful to cringe before a whip in your hand-oh, don't 
protest, it would be such a polite little whip, and that's what would make it uglier. I would have 



to depend on our boss Gail--he's a great man, I'm sure, only I'd just as soon never set eyes on 
him." 

"Whatever gives you such a crazy attitude? When you know that Gail and I would do anything 
for you, and I personally..." 

"It's not only that, Alvah. It's not you alone. If I found a job, a project, an idea or a person I 
wanted-l'd have to depend on the whole world. Everything has strings leading to everything 
else. We're all so tied together. We're all in a net, the net is waiting, and we're pushed into it 
by one single desire. You want a thing and it's precious to you. Do you know who is standing 
ready to tear it out of your hands? You can't know, it may be so involved and so far away, but 
someone is ready, and you're afraid of them all. And you cringe and you crawl and you beg 
and you accept them-just so they'll let you keep it. And look at whom you come to accept." 

"If I'm correct in gathering that you're criticizing mankind in general..." 

"You know, it's such a peculiar thing-our idea of mankind in general. We all have a sort of 
vague, glowing picture when we say that, something solemn, big and important. But actually 
all we know of it is the people we meet in our lifetime. Look at them. Do you know any you'd 
feel big and solemn about? There's nothing but housewives haggling at pushcarts, drooling 
brats who write dirty words on the sidewalks, and drunken debutantes. Or their spiritual 
equivalent. As a matter of fact, one can feel some respect for people when they suffer. They 
have a certain dignity. But have you ever looked at them when they're enjoying themselves? 
That's when you see the truth. Look at those who spend the money they've slaved for-at 
amusement parks and side shows. Look at those who're rich and have the whole world open 
to them. Observe what they pick out for enjoyment. Watch them in the smarter speak-easies. 
That's your mankind in general. I don't want to touch it." 

"But hell! That's not the way to look at it. That's not the whole picture. There's some good in 
the worst of us. There's always a redeeming feature." 

"So much the worse. Is it an inspiring sight to see a man commit a heroic gesture, and then 
learn that he goes to vaudeville shows for relaxation? Or see a man who's painted a 
magnificent canvas--and learn that he spends his time sleeping with every slut he meets?" 

"What do you want? Perfection?" 

"-or nothing. So, you see, I take the nothing." 

"That doesn't make sense." 

"I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom." 

"You call that freedom?" 

"To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing." 

"What if you found something you wanted?" 

"I won't find it. I won't choose to see it. It would be part of that lovely world of yours. I'd have to 
share it with all the rest of you-and I wouldn't. You know, I never open again any great book 
I've read and loved. It hurts me to think of the other eyes that have read it and of what they 
were. Things like that can't be shared. Not with people like that." 

"Dominique, it's abnormal to feel so strongly about anything." 

"That's the only way I can feel. Or not at all." 

"Dominique, my dear," he said, with earnest, sincere concern, "I wish I'd been your father. 
What kind of a tragedy did you have in your childhood?" 

"Why, none at all. I had a wonderful childhood. Free and peaceful and not bothered too much 
by anybody. Well, yes, I did feel bored very often. But I'm used to that." 



"I suppose you're just an unfortunate product of our times. That's what I've always said. We're 
too cynical, too decadent. If we went back in all humility to the simple virtues..." 

"Alvah, how can you start on that stuff? That's only for your editorials and..." She stopped, 
seeing his eyes; they looked puzzled and a little hurt. Then she laughed. "I'm wrong. You 
really do believe all that. If it's actually believing, or whatever it is you do that takes its place. 
Oh, Alvah! That's why I love you. That's why I'm doing again right now what I did tonight at the 
meeting." 

"What?" he asked, bewildered. 

"Talking as I am talking-to you as you are. It's nice, talking to you about such things. Do you 
know, Alvah, that primitive people made statues of their gods in man's likeness? Just think of 
what a statue of you would look like--of you nude, your stomach and all." 

"Now what's that in relation to?" 

"To nothing at all, darling. Forgive me." She added: "You know, I love statues of naked men. 
Don't look so silly. I said statues. I had one in particular. It was supposed to be Helios. I got it 
out of a museum in Europe. I had a terrible time getting it--it wasn't for sale, of course. I think I 
was in love with it, Alvah. I brought it home with me." 

"Where is it? I’d like to see something you like, for a change." 

"It's broken." 

"Broken? A museum piece? How did that happen?" 

"I broke it." 

"How?" 

"I threw it down the air shaft. There’s a concrete floor below." 

"Are you totally crazy? Why?" 

"So that no one else would ever see it." 

"Dominique!" 

She jerked her head, as if to shake off the subject; the straight mass of her hair stirred in a 
heavy ripple, like a wave through a half-liquid pool of mercury. She said: 

"I'm sorry, darling. I didn't want to shock you. I thought I could speak to you because you're the 
one person who's impervious to any sort of shock. I shouldn't have. It's no use, I guess." 

She jumped lightly off the table. 

"Run on home, Alvah," she said. "It's getting late. I'm tired. See you tomorrow." 

# 

Guy Francon read his daughter's articles; he heard of the remarks she had made at the 
reception and at the meeting of social workers. He understood nothing of it, but he understood 
that it had been precisely the sequence of events to expect from his daughter. It preyed on his 
mind, with the bewildered feeling of apprehension which the thought of her always brought 
him. He asked himself whether he actually hated his daughter. 

But one picture came back to his mind, irrelevantly, whenever he asked himself that question. 
It was a picture of her childhood, of a day from some forgotten summer on his country estate 
in Connecticut long ago. He had forgotten the rest of that day and what had led to the one 
moment he remembered. But he remembered how he stood on the terrace and saw her 
leaping over a high green hedge at the end of the lawn. The hedge seemed too high for her 



little body; he had time to think that she could not make it, in the very moment when he saw 
her flying triumphantly over the green barrier. He could not remember the beginning nor the 
end of that leap; but he still saw, clearly and sharply, as on a square of movie film cut out and 
held motionless forever, the one instant when her body hung in space, her long legs flung 
wide, her thin arms thrown up, hands braced against the air, her white dress and blond hair 
spread in two broad, flat mats on the wind, a single moment, the flash of a small body in the 
greatest burst of ecstatic freedom he had ever witnessed in his life. 

He did not know why that moment remained with him, what significance, unheeded at the 
time, had preserved it for him when so much else of greater import had been lost. He did not 
know why he had to see that moment again whenever he felt bitterness for his daughter, nor 
why, seeing it, he felt that unbearable twinge of tenderness. He told himself merely that his 
paternal affection was asserting itself quite against his will. But in an awkward, unthinking way 
he wanted to help her, not knowing, not wanting to know what she had to be helped against. 

So he began to look more frequently at Peter Keating. He began to accept the solution which 
he never quite admitted to himself. He found comfort in the person of Peter Keating, and he 
felt that Keating's simple, stable wholesomeness was just the support needed by the 
unhealthy inconstancy of his daughter. 

Keating would not admit that he had tried to see Dominique again, persistently and without 
results. He had obtained her telephone number from Francon long ago, and he had called her 
often. She had answered, and laughed gaily, and told him that of course she'd see him, she 
knew she wouldn't be able to escape it, but she was so busy for weeks to come and would he 
give her a ring by the first of next month? 

Francon guessed it. He told Keating he would ask Dominique to lunch and bring them 
together again. "That is," he added, "I'll try to ask her. She'll refuse, of course." Dominique 
surprised him again: she accepted, promptly and cheerfully. 

She met them at a restaurant, and she smiled as if this were a reunion she welcomed. She 
talked gaily, and Keating felt enchanted, at ease, wondering why he had ever feared her. At 
the end of a half hour she looked at Francon and said: 

"It was wonderful of you to take time off to see me, Father. Particularly when you're so busy 
and have so many appointments." 

Francon's face assumed a look of consternation. "My God, Dominique, that reminds me!" 

"You have an appointment you forgot?" she asked gently. "Confound it, yes! It slipped my 
mind entirely. Old Andrew Colson phoned this morning and I forgot to make a note of it and he 
insisted on seeing me at two o'clock, you know how it is, I just simply can't refuse to see 
Andrew Colson, confound itl-today of all..." He added, suspiciously: "How did you know it?" 

"Why, I didn't know it at all. It's perfectly all right, Father. Mr. Keating and I will excuse you, 
and we'll have a lovely luncheon together, and I have no appointments at all for the day, so 
you don't have to be afraid that I'll escape from him." 

Francon wondered whether she knew that that had been the excuse he'd prepared in advance 
in order to leave her alone with Keating. He could not be sure. She was looking straight at 
him; her eyes seemed just a bit too candid. He was glad to escape. 

Dominique turned to Keating with a glance so gentle that it could mean nothing but contempt. 

"Now let's relax," she said. "We both know what Father is after, so it's perfectly all right. Don't 
let it embarrass you. It doesn't embarrass me. It's nice that you've got Father on a leash. But I 
know it's not helpful to you to have him pulling ahead of the leash. So let's forget it and eat our 
lunch." 

He wanted to rise and walk out; and knew, in furious helplessness, that he wouldn't. She said: 

"Don't frown, Peter. You might as well call me Dominique, because we'll come to that anyway, 
sooner or later. I'll probably see a great deal of you, I see so many people, and if it will please 



Father to have you as one of them-why not?' 


For the rest of the luncheon she spoke to him as to an old friend, gaily and openly; with a 
disquieting candor which seemed to show that there was nothing to conceal, but showed that 
it was best to attempt no probe. The exquisite kindliness of her manner suggested that their 
relationship was of no possible consequence, that she could not pay him the tribute of 
hostility. He knew that he disliked her violently. But he watched the shape of her mouth, the 
movements of her lips framing words; he watched the way she crossed her legs, a gesture 
smooth and exact, like an expensive instrument being folded; and he could not escape the 
feeling of incredulous admiration he had experienced when he had seen her for the first time. 
When they were leaving, she said: 

"Will you take me to the theater tonight, Peter? I don't care what play, any one of them. Call 
for me after dinner. Tell Father about it. It will please him." 

"Though, of course, he should know better than to be pleased," said Keating, "and so should I, 
but I'll be delighted just the same, Dominique." 

"Why should you know better?" 

"Because you have no desire to go to a theater or to see me tonight." 

"None whatever. I'm beginning to like you, Peter. Call for me at half past eight." 

When Keating returned to the office, Francon called him upstairs at once. 

"Well?" Francon asked anxiously. 

"What's the matter, Guy?" said Keating, his voice innocent. "Why are you so concerned?" 

"Well, I. J'm just. ..frankly, I'm interested to see whether you two could get together at all. I 
think you'd be a good influence for her. What happened?" 

"Nothing at all. We had a lovely time. You know your restaurants--the food was 
wonderful. ..Oh, yes, I'm taking your daughter to a show tonight." 

"No!" 

"Why, yes." 

"How did you ever manage that?" 

Keating shrugged. "I told you one mustn't be afraid of Dominique." 

"I'm not afraid, but. ..Oh, is it 'Dominique' already? My congratulations, Peter.. ..I'm not afraid, 
it's only that I can't figure her out. No one can approach her. She’s never had a single girl 
friend, not even in kindergarten. There’s always a mob around her, but never a friend. I don’t 
know what to think. There she is now, living all alone, always with a crowd of men around 
and..." 

"Now, Guy, you mustn't think anything dishonorable about your own daughter." 

"I don't! That's just the trouble--that I don’t. I wish I could. But she's twenty-four, Peter, and 
she's a virgin-1 know, I'm sure of it. Can't you tell just by looking at a woman? I'm no moralist, 
Peter, and I think that's abnormal. It's unnatural at her age, with her looks, with the kind of 
utterly unrestricted existence that she leads. I wish to God she'd get married. I honestly 
do. ...Well, now, don’t repeat that, of course, and don’t misinterpret it, I didn't mean it as an 
invitation." 

"Of course not." 

"By the way, Peter, the hospital called while you were out. They said poor Lucius is much 
better. They think he'll pull through." Lucius N. Heyer had had a stroke, and Keating had 



exhibited a great deal of concern for his progress, but had not gone to visit him at the hospital. 


"I'm so glad," said Keating. 

"But I don't think he'll ever be able to come back to work. He's getting old, Peter.. ..Yes, he's 
getting old. ...One reaches an age when one can't be burdened with business any longer." He 
let a paper knife hang between two fingers and tapped it pensively against the edge of a desk 
calendar. "It happens to all of us, Peter, sooner or later. ...One must look ahead...." 

# 

Keating sat on the floor by the imitation logs in the fireplace of his living room, his hands 
clasped about his knees, and listened to his mother's questions on what did Dominique look 
like, what did she wear, what had she said to him and how much money did he suppose her 
mother had actually left her. 

He was meeting Dominique frequently now. He had just returned from an evening spent with 
her on a round of night clubs. She always accepted his invitations. He wondered whether her 
attitude was a deliberate proof that she could ignore him more completely by seeing him often 
than by refusing to see him. But each time he met her, he planned eagerly for the next 
meeting. He had not seen Catherine for a month. She was busy with research work which her 
uncle had entrusted to her, in preparation for a series of his lectures. 

Mrs. Keating sat under a lamp, mending a slight tear in the lining of Peter's dinner jacket, 
reproaching him, between questions, for sitting on the floor in his dress trousers and best 
formal shirt. He paid no attention to the reproaches or the questions. But under his bored 
annoyance he felt an odd sense of relief; as if the stubborn stream of her words were pushing 
him on and justifying him. He answered once in a while: "Yes. ...No. ...I don't know.. ..Oh, yes, 
she's lovely. She's very lovely.. ..It's awfully late, Mother. I'm tired. I think I'll go to bed...." The 
doorbell rang. 

"Well," said Mrs. Keating. "What can that be, at this hour?" Keating rose, shrugging, and 
ambled to the door. It was Catherine. She stood, her two hands clasped on a large, old, 
shapeless pocketbook. She looked determined and hesitant at once. She drew back a little. 
She said: "Good evening, Peter. Can I come in? I've got to speak to you." 

"Katie! Of course! How nice of you! Come right in. Mother, it's Katie." 

Mrs. Keating looked at the girl's feet which stepped as if moving on the rolling deck of a ship; 
she looked at her son, and she knew that something had happened, to be handled with great 
caution. 

"Good evening, Catherine," she said softly. 

Keating was conscious of nothing save the sudden stab of joy he had felt on seeing her; the 
joy told him that nothing had changed, that he was safe in certainty, that her presence 
resolved all doubts. He forgot to wonder about the lateness of the hour, about her first, 
uninvited appearance in his apartment. 

"Good evening, Mrs. Keating," she said, her voice bright and hollow. "I hope I'm not disturbing 
you, it's late probably, is it?" 

"Why, not at all, child," said Mrs. Keating. 

Catherine hurried to speak, senselessly, hanging on to the sound of words: 

"I'll just take my hat off. ...Where can I put it, Mrs. Keating? Here on the table? Would that be 
all right?. ..No, maybe I'd better put it on this bureau, though it's a little damp from the street, 
the hat is, it might hurt the varnish, it's a nice bureau, I hope it doesn't hurt the varnish...." 

"What's the matter, Katie?" Keating asked, noticing at last. 

She looked at him and he saw that her eyes were terrified. Her lips parted; she was trying to 
smile. "Katie!" he gasped. She said nothing. "Take your coat off. Come here, get yourself 



warm by the fire. 


He pushed a low bench to the fireplace, he made her sit down. She was wearing a black 
sweater and an old black skirt, school-girlish house garments which she had not changed for 
her visit. She sat hunched, her knees drawn tight together. She said, her voice lower and 
more natural, with the first released sound of pain in it: 

"You have such a nice place. ...So warm and roomy.. ..Can you open the windows any time you 
want to?" 

"Katie darling," he said gently, "what happened?" 

"Nothing. It's not that anything really happened. Only I had to speak to you. Now. Tonight." 

He looked at Mrs. Keating. "If you'd rather..." 

"No. It's perfectly all right. Mrs. Keating can hear it. Maybe it's better if she hears it." She 
turned to his mother and said very simply: "You see, Mrs. Keating, Peter and I are engaged." 
She turned to him and added, her voice breaking: "Peter, I want to be married now, tomorrow, 
as soon as possible." 

Mrs. Keating's hand descended slowly to her lap. She looked at Catherine, her eyes 
expressionless. She said quietly, with a dignity Keating had never expected of her: 

"I didn't know it, I am very happy, my dear." 

"You don't mind? You really don't mind at all?" Catherine asked desperately. 

"Why, child, such things are to be decided only by you and my son." 

"Katie!" he gasped, regaining his voice. "What happened? Why as soon as possible?" 

"Oh! oh, it did sound as if.. .as if I were in the kind of trouble girls are supposed to..." She 
blushed furiously. "Oh, my God! No! It’s not that! You know it couldn't be! Oh, you couldn't 
think, Peter, that L.that..." 

"No, of course not," he laughed, sitting down on the floor by her side, slipping an arm around 
her. "But pull yourself together. What is it? You know I'd marry you tonight if you wanted me 
to. Only what happened?" 

"Nothing. I'm all right now. I'll tell you. You'll think I'm crazy. I just suddenly had the feeling that 
I’d never marry you, that something dreadful was happening to me and I had to escape from 
it." 

"What was happening to you?" 

"I don't know. Not a thing. I was working on my research notes all day, and nothing had 
happened at all. No calls or visitors. And then suddenly tonight, I had that feeling, it was like a 
nightmare, you know, the kind of horror that you can't describe, that's not like anything normal 
at all. Just the feeling that I was in mortal danger, that something was closing in on me, that I'd 
never escape it, because it wouldn't let me and it was too late." 

"That you'd never escape what?" 

"I don't know exactly. Everything. My whole life. You know, like quicksand. Smooth and 
natural. With not a thing that you can notice about it or suspect. And you walk on it easily. 
When you've noticed, it's too late.. ..And I felt that it would get me, that I'd never marry you, 
that I had to run, now, now or never. Haven't you ever had a feeling like that, just fear that you 
couldn't explain?" 

"Yes," he whispered. 

"You don't think I'm crazy?" 



"No, Katie. Only what was it exactly that started it? Anything in particular?" 

"Well. ..it seems so silly now." She giggled apologetically. "It was like this: I was sitting in my 
room and it was a little chilly, so I didn't open the window. I had so many papers and books on 
the table, I hardly had room to write and every time I made a note my elbow'd push something 
off. There were piles of things on the floor all around me, all paper, and it rustled a little, 
because I had the door to the living room half open and there was a little draft, I guess. Uncle 
was working too, in the living room. I was getting along fine, I'd been at it for hours, didn't even 
know what time it was. And then suddenly it got me. I don't know why. Maybe the room was 
stuffy, or maybe it was the silence, I couldn't hear a thing, not a sound in the living room, and 
there was that paper rustling, so softly, like somebody being choked to death. And then I 
looked around and. ..and I couldn't see Uncle in the living room, but I saw his shadow on the 
wall, a huge shadow, all hunched, and it didn't move, only it was so huge!" 

She shuddered. The thing did not seem silly to her any longer. She whispered: 

"That's when it got me. It wouldn't move, that shadow, but I thought all that paper was moving, 

I thought it was rising very slowly off the floor, and it was going to come to my throat and I was 
going to drown. That’s when I screamed. And, Peter, he didn't hear. He didn't hear it! Because 
the shadow didn't move. Then I seized my hat and coat and I ran. When I was running 
through the living room, I think he said: 'Why, Catherine, what time is it?-Where are you 
going?' Something like that, I'm not sure. But I didn't look back and I didn't answer-1 couldn't. I 
was afraid of him. Afraid of Uncle Ellsworth who's never said a harsh word to me in his 
life!. ..That was all, Peter. I can't understand it, but I'm afraid. Not so much any more, not here 
with you, but I'm afraid...." Mrs. Keating spoke, her voice dry and crisp: "Why, it's plain what 
happened to you, my dear. You worked too hard and overdid it, and you just got a mite 
hysterical." 

"Yes. ..probably..." 

"No," said Keating dully, "no, it wasn't that...." He was thinking of the loud-speaker in the lobby 
of the strike meeting. Then he added quickly: "Yes, Mother's right. You're killing yourself with 
work, Katie. That uncle of yours-l'll wring his neck one of these days." 

"Oh, but it's not his fault! He doesn't want me to work. He often takes the books away from me 
and tells me to go to the movies. He's said that himself, that I work too hard. But I like it. I think 
that every note I make, every little bit of information-it's going to be taught to hundreds of 
young students, all over the country, and I think it's me who's helping to educate people, just 
my own little bit in such a big cause-and I feel proud and I don't want to stop. You see? I’ve 
really got nothing to complain about. And then. ..then, like tonight... I don’t know what’s the 
matter with me." 

"Look, Katie, well get the license tomorrow morning and then we'll be married at once, 
anywhere you wish." 

"Let's, Peter," she whispered. "You really don't mind? I have no real reasons, but I want it. I 
want it so much. Then I'll know that everything's all right. We'll manage. I can get a job if 
you. ..if you're not quite ready or..." 

"Oh, nonsense. Don't talk about that. Well manage. It doesn't matter. Only let's get married 
and everything else will take care of itself." 

"Darling, you understand? You do understand?" 

"Yes, Katie." 

"Now that it's all settled," said Mrs. Keating, "I'll fix you a cup of hot tea, Catherine. You'll need 
it before you go home." She prepared the tea, and Catherine drank it gratefully and said, 
smiling: 


I... I've often been afraid that you wouldn't approve, Mrs. Keating. 



"Whatever gave you that idea," Mrs. Keating drawled, her voice not in the tone of a question. 
"Now you run on home like a good girl and get a good night's sleep." 

"Mother, couldn't Katie stay here tonight? She could sleep with you." 

"Well, now, Peter, don't get hysterical. What would her uncle think?" 

"Oh, no, of course not. I'll be perfectly all right, Peter. I'll go home." 

"Not if you..." 

"I'm not afraid. Not now. I'm fine. You don't think that I'm really scared of Uncle Ellsworth?" 
"Well, all right. But don't go yet." 

"Now, Peter," said Mrs. Keating, "you don’t want her to be running around the streets later 
than she has to." 

"I'll take her home." 

"No," said Catherine. "I don't want to be sillier than I am. No, I won't let you." 

He kissed her at the door and he said: "I'll come for you at ten o'clock tomorrow morning and 
well go for the license." 

"Yes, Peter," she whispered. 

He closed the door after her and he stood for a moment, not noticing that he was clenching 
his fists. Then he walked defiantly back to the living room, and he stopped, his hands in his 
pockets, facing his mother. He looked at her, his glance a silent demand. Mrs. Keating sat 
looking at him quietly, without pretending to ignore the glance and without answering it. 

Then she asked: 

"Do you want to go to bed, Peter?" 

He had expected anything but that. He felt a violent impulse to seize the chance, to turn, leave 
the room and escape. But he had to learn what she thought; he had to justify himself. 

"Now, Mother, I'm not going to listen to any objections." 

"I've made no objections," said Mrs. Keating. 

"Mother, I want you to understand that I love Katie, that nothing can stop me now, and that's 
that." 

"Very well, Peter." 

"I don't see what it is that you dislike about her." 

"What I like or dislike is of no importance to you any more." 

"Oh yes, Mother, of course it is! You know it is. How can you say that?" 

"Peter, I have no likes or dislikes as far as I’m concerned. I have no thought for myself at all, 
because nothing in the world matters to me, except you. It might be old-fashioned, but that’s 
the way I am. I know I shouldn't be, because children don’t appreciate it nowadays, but I can’t 
help it." 

"Oh, Mother, you know that I appreciate it! You know that I wouldn't want to hurt you." 

"You can't hurt me, Peter, except by hurting yourself. And that. ..that's hard to bear." 



"How am I hurting myself?" 

"Well, if you won't refuse to listen to me..." 

"I've never refused to listen to you!" 

"If you do want to hear my opinion, I'll say that this is the funeral of twenty-nine years of my 
life, of all the hopes I've had for you." 

"But why? Why?" 

"It's not that I dislike, Catherine, Peter. I like her very much. She's a nice girl-if she doesn't let 
herself go to pieces often and pick things out of thin air like that. But she's a respectable girl 
and I'd say she'd make a good wife for anybody. For any nice, plodding, respectable boy. But 
to think of it for you, Peter! For you!" 

"But..." 

"You're modest, Peter. You're too modest. That's always been your trouble. You don't 
appreciate yourself. You think you're just like anybody else." 

"I certainly don't! and I won't have anyone think that!" 

"Then use your head! Don't you know what's ahead of you? Don't you see how far you've 
come already and how far you're going? You have a chance to become-well, not the very 
best, but pretty near the top in the architectural profession, and..." 

"Pretty near the top? Is that what you think? If I can't be the very best, if I can't be the one 
architect of this country in my day-1 don't want any damn part of it!" 

"Ah, but one doesn't get to that, Peter, by falling down on the job. One doesn't get to be first in 
anything without the strength to make some sacrifices." 

"But..." 

"Your life doesn't belong to you, Peter, if you're really aiming high. You can't allow yourself to 
indulge every whim, as ordinary people can, because with them it doesn't matter anyway. It's 
not you or me or what we feel. Peter. It's your career. It takes strength to deny yourself in 
order to win other people's respect." 

"You just dislike Katie and you let your own prejudice..." 

"Whatever would I dislike about her? Well, of course, I can't say that I approve of a girl who 
has so little consideration for her man that she'll run to him and upset him over nothing at all, 
and ask him to chuck his future out the window just because she gets some crazy notion. That 
shows what help you can expect from a wife like that. But as far as I'm concerned, if you think 
that I'm worried about myself-well, you're just blind, Peter. Don't you see that for me 
personally it would be a perfect match? Because I'd have no trouble with Catherine, I could 
get along with her beautifully, she'd be respectful and obedient to her mother-in-law. While, on 
the other hand, Miss Francon..." 

He winced. He had known that this would come. It was the one subject he had been afraid to 
hear mentioned. 

"Oh yes, Peter," said Mrs. Keating quietly, firmly, "we've got to speak of that. Now, I'm sure I 
could never manage Miss Francon, and an elegant society girl like that wouldn't even stand 
for a dowdy, uneducated mother like me. She'd probably edge me out of the house. Oh, yes, 
Peter. But you see, it's not me that I'm thinking of." 

"Mother," he said harshly, "that part of it is pure drivel-about my having a chance with 
Dominique. That hell-cat-l'm not sure she'd ever look at me." 


'You're slipping, Peter. There was a time when you wouldn't have admitted that there was 



anything you couldn't get." 

"But I don’t want her, Mother." 

"Oh, you don't, don't you? Well, there you are. Isn't that what I've been saying? Look at 
yourself! There you've got Francon, the best architect in town, just where you want him! He's 
practically begging you to take a partnership-at your age, over how many other, older men's 
heads? He's not permitting, he's asking you to marry his daughter! And you'll walk in tomorrow 
and you'll present to him the little nobody you've gone and married! Just stop thinking of 
yourself for a moment and think of others a bit. How do you suppose he'll like that? How will 
he like it when you show him the little guttersnipe that you've preferred to his daughter?" 

"He won't like it," Keating whispered. 

"You bet your life he won't! You bet your life he'll kick you right out on the street! He'll find 
plenty who'll jump at the chance to take your place. How about that Bennett fellow?" 

"Oh, no!" Keating gasped so furiously that she knew she had struck right. "Not Bennett!" 

"Yes," she said triumphantly. "Bennett! That's what it'll be-Francon & Bennett, while you'll be 
pounding the pavements looking for a job! But you'll have a wife! Oh, yes, you'll have a wife!" 

"Mother, please..." he whispered, so desperately that she could allow herself to go on without 
restraint. 

"This is the kind of a wife you'll have. A clumsy little girl who won't know where to put her 
hands or feet. A sheepish little thing who'll run and hide from any important person that you'll 
want to bring to the house. So you think you're so good? Don't kid yourself, Peter Keating! No 
great man ever got there alone. Don’t you shrug it off, how much the right woman's helped the 
best of them. Your Francon didn't marry a chambermaid, you bet your life he didn't! Just try to 
see things through other people's eyes for a bit. What will they think of your wife? What will 
they think of you? You don't make your living building chicken coops for soda jerkers, don't 
you forget that! You've got to play the game as the big men of this world see it. You've got to 
live up to them. What will they think of a man who's married to a common little piece of 
baggage like that? Will they admire you? Will they trust you? Will they respect you?" 

"Shut up!" he cried. 

But she went on. She spoke for a long time, while he sat, cracking his knuckles savagely, 
moaning once in a while: "But I love her. ...I can't, Mother! I can't. ...I love her...." 

She released him when the streets outside were gray with the light of morning. She let him 
stumble off to his room, to the accompaniment of the last, gentle, weary sounds of her voice: 

"At least, Peter, you can do that much. Just a few months. Ask her to wait just a few months. 
Heyer might die any moment and then, once you're a partner, you can marry her and you 
might get away with it. She won't mind waiting just that little bit longer, if she loves you. ...Think 
it over, Peter.. ..And while you're thinking it over, think just a bit that if you do this now, you'll be 
breaking your mother's heart. It's not important, but take just a tiny notice of that. Think of 
yourself for an hour, but give one minute to the thought of others...." 

He did not try to sleep. He did not undress, but sat on his bed for hours, and the thing clearest 
in his mind was the wish to find himself transported a year ahead when everything would have 
been settled, he did not care how. 

He had decided nothing when he rang the doorbell of Catherine's apartment at ten o'clock. He 
felt dimly that she would take his hand, that she would lead him, that she would insist-and 
thus the decision would be made. 

Catherine opened the door and smiled, happily and confidently, as if nothing had happened. 
She led him to her room, where broad shafts of sunlight flooded the columns of books and 
papers stacked neatly on her desk. The room was clean, orderly, the pile of the rug still striped 
in bands left by a carpet sweeper. Catherine wore a crisp organdy blouse, with sleeves 



standing stiffly, cheerfully about her shoulders; little fluffy needles glittered through her hair in 
the sunlight. He felt a brief wrench of disappointment that no menace met him in her house; a 
wrench of relief also, and of disappointment. 

"I'm ready, Peter," she said. "Get me my coat." 

"Did you tell your uncle?" he asked. 

"Oh, yes. I told him last night. He was still working when I got back." 

"What did he say?" 

"Nothing. He just laughed and asked me what I wanted for a wedding present. But he laughed 
so much!" 

"Where is he? Didn't he want to meet me at least?" 

"He had to go to his newspaper office. He said he'd have plenty of time to see more than 
enough of you. But he said it so nicely!" 

"Listen, Katie, I... there's one thing I wanted to tell you." He hesitated, not looking at her. His 
voice was flat. "You see, it's like this: Lucius Heyer, Francon's partner, is very ill and they don't 
expect him to live. Francon's been hinting quite openly mat I'm to take Heyer's place. But 
Francon has the crazy idea that he wants me to marry his daughter. Now don't misunderstand 
me, you know there's not a chance, but I can't tell him so. And I thought...! thought that if we 
waited. ..for just a few weeks. ..I'd be set with the firm and then Francon could do nothing to me 
when I come and tell him that I'm married. ...But, of course it's up to you." He looked at her and 
his voice was eager. "If you want to do it now, we'll go at once." 

"But, Peter," she said calmly, serene and astonished. "But of course. We'll wait." 

He smiled in approval and relief. But he closed his eyes. 

"Of course, we'll wait," she said firmly. "I didn't know this and it's very important. There's really 
no reason to hurry at all." 

"You're not afraid that Francon's daughter might get me?" 

She laughed. "Oh, Peter! I know you too well." 

"But if you'd rather..." 

"No, it's much better. You see, to tell you the truth, I thought this morning that it would be 
better if we waited, but I didn't want to say anything if you had made up your mind. Since you'd 
rather wait, I'd much rather too, because, you see, we got word this morning that Uncle's 
invited to repeat this same course of lectures at a terribly important university on the West 
Coast this summer. I felt horrible about leaving him flat, with the work unfinished. And then I 
thought also that perhaps we were being foolish, we're both so young. And Uncle Ellsworth 
laughed so much. You see, it's really wiser to wait a little." 

"Yes. Well, that's fine. But, Katie, if you feel as you did last night..." 

"But I don't! I'm so ashamed of myself. I can't imagine what ever happened to me last night. I 
try to remember it and I can't understand. You know how it is, you feel so silly afterward. 
Everything's so clear and simple the next day. Did I say a lot of awful nonsense last night?" 

"Well, forget it. You're a sensible little girl. We're both sensible. And we'll wait just a while, it 
won't be long." 

"Yes, Peter." 

He said suddenly, fiercely: 



Insist on it now, Katie. 


And then he laughed stupidly, as if he had not been quite serious. 

She smiled gaily in answer. "You see?" she said, spreading her hands out. 

"Well..." he muttered. "Well, all right, Katie. We'll wait. It's better, of course. L.l'll run along 
then. I'll be late at the office." He felt he had to escape her room for the moment, for that day. 
"I'll give you a ring. Let's have dinner together tomorrow." 

"Yes, Peter. That will be nice." 

He went away, relieved and desolate, cursing himself for the dull, persistent feeling that told 
him he had missed a chance which would never return; that something was closing in on them 
both and they had surrendered. He cursed, because he could not say what it was that they 
should have fought. He hurried on to his office where he was being late for an appointment 
with Mrs. Moorehead. 

Catherine stood in the middle of the room, after he had left, and wondered why she suddenly 
felt empty and cold; why she hadn't known until this moment that she had hoped he would 
force her to follow him. Then she shrugged, and smiled reproachfully at herself, and went 
back to the work on her desk. 


13 . 

ON A DAY in October, when the Heller house was nearing completion, a lanky young man in 
overalls stepped out of a small group that stood watching the house from the road and 
approached Roark. 

"You the fellow who built the Booby Hatch?" he asked, quite diffidently. 

"If you mean this house, yes," Roark answered. 

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. It's only that that's what they call the place around here. It's not 
what I'd call it. You see, I've got a building job. ..well, not exactly, but I'm going to build a filling 
station of my own about ten miles from here, down on the Post Road. I'd like to talk to you." 

Later, on a bench in front of the garage where he worked, Jimmy Gowan explained in detail. 
He added: "And how I happened to think of you, Mr. Roark, is that I like it, that funny house of 
yours. Can't say why, but I like it. It makes sense to me. And then again I figured everybody's 
gaping at it and talking about it, well, that's no use to a house, but that'd be plenty smart for a 
business, let them giggle, but let them talk about it. So I thought I'd get you to build it, and then 
they'll all say I'm crazy, but do you care? I don't." 

Jimmy Gowan had worked like a mule for fifteen years, saving money for a business of his 
own. People voiced indignant objections to his choice of architect; Jimmy uttered no word of 
explanation or self-defense; he said politely: "Maybe so, folks, maybe so," and proceeded to 
have Roark build his station. 

The station opened on a day in late December. It stood on the edge of the Boston Post Road, 
two small structures of glass and concrete forming a semicircle among the trees: the cylinder 
of the office and the long, low oval of the diner, with the gasoline pumps as the colonnade of a 
forecourt between them. It was a study in circles; there were no angles and no straight lines; it 
looked like shapes caught in a flow, held still at the moment of being poured, at the precise 
moment when they formed a harmony that seemed too perfect to be intentional. It looked like 
a cluster of bubbles hanging low over the ground, not quite touching it, to be swept aside in an 
instant on a wind of speed; it looked gay, with the hard, bracing gaiety of efficiency, like a 
powerful airplane engine. 

Roark stayed at the station on the day of its opening. He drank coffee in a clean, white mug, 
at the counter of the diner, and he watched the cars stopping at the door. He left late at night. 



He looked back once, driving down the long, empty road. The lights of the station winked, 
flowing away from him. There it stood, at the crossing of two roads, and cars would be 
streaming past it day and night, cars coming from cities in which there was no room for 
buildings such as this, going to cities in which there would be no buildings such as this. He 
turned his face to the road before him, and he kept his eyes off the mirror which still held, 
glittering softly, dots of light that moved away far behind him.... 

He drove back to months of idleness. He sat in his office each morning, because he knew that 
he had to sit there, looking at a door that never opened, his fingers forgotten on a telephone 
that never rang. The ash trays he emptied each day, before leaving, contained nothing but the 
stubs of his own cigarettes. 

"What are you doing about it, Howard?" Austen Heller asked him at dinner one evening. 
"Nothing." 

"But you must." 

"There's nothing I can do." 

"You must learn how to handle people." 

"I can't." 

"Why?" 

"I don't know how. I was born without some one particular sense." 

"It's something one acquires." 

"I have no organ to acquire it with. I don't know whether it's something I lack, or something 
extra I have that stops me. Besides, I don't like people who have to be handled." 

"But you can't sit still and do nothing now. You've got to go after commissions." 

"What can I tell people in order to get commissions? I can only show my work. If they don't 
hear that, they won't hear anything I say. I'm nothing to them, but my work-my work is all we 
have in common. And I have no desire to tell them anything else." 

"Then what are you going to do? You're not worried?" 

"No. I expected it. I'm waiting." 

"For what?" 

"My kind of people." 

"What kind is that?" 

"I don't know. Yes, I do know, but I can't explain it. I've often wished I could. There must be 
some one principle to cover it, but I don’t know what it is." 

"Honesty?" 

"Yes. ..no, only partly. Guy Francon is an honest man, but it isn't that. Courage? Ralston 
Holcombe has courage, in his own manner. ...I don't know. I'm not that vague on other things. 
But I can tell my kind of people by their faces. By something in their faces. There will be 
thousands passing by your house and by the gas station. If out of those thousands, one stops 
and sees it--that's all I need." 

"Then you do need other people, after all, don't you, Howard?" 

"Of course. What are you laughing at?" 



"I've always thought that you were the most anti-social animal I've ever had the pleasure of 
meeting." 

"I need people to give me work. I'm not building mausoleums. Do you suppose I should need 
them in some other way? In a closer, more personal way?" 

"You don't need anyone in a very personal way." 

"No." 

"You're not even boasting about it." 

"Should I?" 

You can't. You're too arrogant to boast." 

"Is that what I am?" 

"Don't you know what you are?" 

"No. Not as far as you're seeing me, or anyone else." 

Heller sat silently, his wrist describing circles with a cigarette. Then Heller laughed, and said: 
"That was typical." 

"What?" 

"That you didn't ask me to tell you what you are as I see you. Anybody else would have." 

"I'm sorry. It wasn't indifference. You're one of the few friends I want to keep. I just didn't think 
of asking." 

"I know you didn't. That's the point. You're a self-centered monster, Howard. The more 
monstrous because you're utterly innocent about it." 

"That's true." 

"You should show a little concern when you admit that." 

"Why?" 

"You know, there’s a thing that stumps me. You're the coldest man I know. And I can't 
understand why-knowing that you're actually a fiend in your quiet sort of way-why I always 
feel, when I see you, that you're the most life-giving person I've ever met." 

"What do you mean?" 

"I don't know. Just that." 

The weeks went by, and Roark walked to his office each day, sat at his desk for eight hours, 
and read a great deal. At five o'clock, he walked home. He had moved to a better room, near 
the office; he spent little; he had enough money for a long time to come. 

On a morning in February the telephone rang in his office. A brisk, emphatic feminine voice 
asked for an appointment with Mr. Roark, the architect. That afternoon, a brisk, small, dark- 
skinned woman entered the office; she wore a mink coat and exotic earrings that tinkled when 
she moved her head. She moved her head a great deal, in sharp little birdlike jerks. She was 
Mrs. Wayne Wilmot of Long Island and she wished to build a country house. She had selected 
Mr. Roark to build it, she explained, because he had designed the home of Austen Heller. She 
adored Austen Heller; he was, she stated, an oracle to all those pretending just the tiniest bit 
to the title of progressive intellectual, she thought-"don't you?"-and she followed Heller like a 



zealot, "yes, literally, like a zealot." Mr. Roark was very young, wasn't he?-but she didn't mind 
that, she was very liberal and glad to help youth. She wanted a large house, she had two 
children, she believed in expressing their individuality- "don't you?"-and each had to have a 
separate nursery, she had to have a library-"! read to distraction"-a music room, a 
conservatory-"we grow lilies-of-the-valley, my friends tell me it's my flower"-a den for her 
husband, who trusted her implicitly and let her plan the house-"because I'm so good at it, if I 
weren't a woman I'm sure I'd be an architect"-servants' rooms and all that, and a three-car 
garage. After an hour and a half of details and explanations, she said: 

"And of course, as to the style of the house, it will be English Tudor. I adore English Tudor." 

He looked at her. He asked slowly: 

"Have you seen Austen Heller's house?" 

"No, though I did want to see it, but how could I?— I've never met Mr. Heller, I'm only his fan, 
just that, a plain, ordinary fan, what is he like in person?-you must tell me, I'm dying to hear 
it— no, I haven't seen his house, it's somewhere up in Maine, isn't it?" 

Roark took photographs out of the desk drawer and handed them to her. 

"This," he said, "is the Heller house." 

She looked at the photographs, her glance like water skimming off their glossy surfaces, and 
threw them down on the desk. 

"Very interesting," she said. "Most unusual. Quite stunning. But, of course, that's not what I 
want. That kind of a house wouldn't express my personality. My friends tell me I have the 
Elizabethan personality." 

Quietly, patiently, he tried to explain to her why she should not build a Tudor house. She 
interrupted him in the middle of a sentence. 

"Look here, Mr. Roark, you're not trying to teach me something, are you? I'm quite sure that I 
have good taste, and I know a great deal about architecture, I've taken a special course at the 
club. My friends tell me that I know more than many architects. I’ve quite made up my mind 
that I shall have an English Tudor house. I do not care to argue about it." 

"You'll have to go to some other architect, Mrs. Wilmot." 

She stared at him incredulously. 

"You mean, you're refusing the commission?" 

"Yes." 

"You don't want my commission?" 

"No." 

"But why?" 

"I don't do this sort of thing." 

"But I thought architects..." 

"Yes. Architects will build you anything you ask for. Any other architect in town will." 

"But I gave you first chance." 

"Will you do me a favor, Mrs. Wilmot? Will you tell me why you came to me if all you wanted 
was a Tudor house?" 



"Well, I certainly thought you'd appreciate the opportunity. And then, I thought I could tell my 
friends that I had Austen Heller's architect." 


He tried to explain and to convince. He knew, while he spoke, that it was useless, because his 
words sounded as if they were hitting a vacuum. There was no such person as Mrs. Wayne 
Wilmot; there was only a shell containing the opinions of her friends, the picture post cards 
she had seen, the novels of country squires she had read; it was this that he had to address, 
this immateriality which could not hear him or answer, deaf and impersonal like a wad of 
cotton. 

"I'm sorry," said Mrs. Wayne Wilmot, "but I'm not accustomed to dealing with a person utterly 
incapable of reason. I'm quite sure I shall find plenty of bigger men who'll be glad to work for 
me. My husband was opposed to my idea of having you, in the first place, and I'm sorry to see 
that he was right. Good day, Mr. Roark." 

She walked out with dignity, but she slammed the door. He slipped the photographs back into 
the drawer of his desk. 

Mr. Robert L. Mundy, who came to Roark's office in March, had been sent by Austin Heller. 

Mr. Mundy's voice and hair were gray as steel, but his eyes were blue, gentle and wistful. He 
wanted to build a house in Connecticut, and he spoke of it tremulously, like a young 
bridegroom and like a man groping for his last, secret goal. 

"It's not just a house, Mr. Roark," he said with timid diffidence, as if he were speaking to a 
man older and more prominent than himself, "it's like. ..like a symbol to me. It's what I've been 
waiting and working for all these years. It’s so many years now....l must tell you this, so you'll 
understand. I have a great deal of money now, more than I care to think about. I didn't always 
have it. Maybe it came too late. I don't know. Young people think that you forget what happens 
on the way when you get there. But you don't. Something stays. I'll always remember how I 
was a boy--in a little place down in Georgia, that was--and how I ran errands for the harness 
maker, and the kids laughed when carriages drove by and splashed mud all over my pants. 
That's how long ago I decided that some day I'd have a house of my own, the kind of house 
that carriages stop before. After that, no matter how hard it got to be at times, I'd always think 
of that house, and it helped. Afterward, there were years when I was afraid of it--l could have 
built it, but I was afraid. Well, now the time has come. Do you understand, Mr. Roark? Austen 
said you'd be just the man who'd understand." 

"Yes," said Roark eagerly, "I do." 

"There was a place," said Mr. Mundy, "down there, near my home town. The mansion of the 
whole county. The Randolph place. An old plantation house, as they don't build them any 
more. I used to deliver things there sometimes, at the back door. That's the house I want, Mr. 
Roark. Just like it. But not back there in Georgia. I don't want to go back. Right here, near the 
city. I've bought the land. You must help me to have it landscaped just like the Randolph 
place. We'll plant trees and shrubs, the kind they have in Georgia, the flowers and everything. 
We'll find a way to make them grow. I don't care how much it costs. Of course, we'll have 
electric lights and garages now, not carriages. But I want the electric lights made like candles 
and I want the garages to look like the stables. Everything, just as it was. I have photographs 
of the Randolph place. And I've bought some of their old furniture." 

When Roark began to speak Mr. Mundy listened, in polite astonishment. He did not seem to 
resent the words. They did not penetrate. 

"Don’t you see?" Roark was saying. "It's a monument you want to build, but not to yourself. 

Not to your own life or your own achievement. To other people. To their supremacy over you. 
You're not challenging that supremacy. You're immortalizing it. You haven't thrown it off— 
you're putting it up forever. Will you be happy if you seal yourself for the rest of your life in that 
borrowed shape? Or if you strike free, for once, and build a new house, your own? You don't 
want the Randolph place. You want what it stood for. But what it stood for is what you've 
fought all your life." 

Mr. Mundy listened blankly. And Roark felt again a bewildered helplessness before unreality: 
there was no such person as Mr. Mundy; there were only the remnants, long dead, of the 



people who had inhabited the Randolph place; one could not plead with remnants or convince 
them. 

"No," said Mr. Mundy, at last. "No. You may be right, but that's not what I want at all. I don't 
say you haven't got your reasons, and they sound like good reasons, but I like the Randolph 
place." 

"Why?" 

"Just because I like it. Just because that's what I like." 

When Roark told him that he would have to select another architect, Mr. Mundy said 
unexpectedly: 

"But I like you. Why can't you build it for me? What difference would it make to you?" 

Roark did not explain. 

Later, Austen Heller said to him: "I expected it. I was afraid you'd turn him down. I'm not 
blaming you, Howard. Only he's so rich. It could have helped you so much. And, after all, 
you've got to live." 

"Not that way," said Roark. 

# 

In April Mr. Nathaniel Janss, of the Janss-Stuart Real Estate Company, called Roark to his 
office. Mr. Janss was frank and blunt. He stated that his company was planning the erection of 
a small office building-thirty stories-on lower Broadway, and that he was not sold on Roark 
as the architect, in fact he was more or less opposed to him, but his friend Austen Heller had 
insisted that he should meet Roark and talk to him about it; Mr. Janss did not think very much 
of Roark's stuff, but Heller had simply bullied him and he would listen to Roark before deciding 
on anyone, and what did Roark have to say on the subject? 

Roark had a great deal to say. He said it calmly, and this was difficult, at first, because he 
wanted that building, because what he felt was the desire to wrench that building out of Mr. 
Janss at the point of a gun, if he'd had one. But after a few minutes, it became simple and 
easy, the thought of the gun vanished, and even his desire for the building; it was not a 
commission to get and he was not there to get it; he was only speaking of buildings. 

"Mr. Janss, when you buy an automobile, you don't want it to have rose garlands about the 
windows, a lion on each fender and an angel sitting on the roof. Why don’t you?" 

"That would be silly," stated Mr. Janss. 

"Why would it be silly? Now I think it would be beautiful. Besides, Louis the Fourteenth had a 
carriage like that and what was good enough for Louis is good enough for us. We shouldn't go 
in for rash innovations and we shouldn't break with tradition." 

"Now you know damn well you don't believe anything of the sort!" 

"I know I don't. But that's what you believe, isn't it? Now take a human body. Why wouldn't you 
like to see a human body with a curling tail with a crest of ostrich feathers at the end? And with 
ears shaped like acanthus leaves? It would be ornamental, you know, instead of the stark, 
bare ugliness we have now. Well, why don't you like the idea? Because it would be useless 
and pointless. Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which 
doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the 
idea of a man and the life of a man. Will you tell me why, when it comes to a building, you 
don't want it to look as if it had any sense or purpose, you want to choke it with trimmings, you 
want to sacrifice its purpose to its envelope-not knowing even why you want that kind of an 
envelope? You want it to look like a hybrid beast produced by crossing the bastards of ten 
different species until you get a creature without guts, without heart or brain, a creature all 
pelt, tail, claws and feathers? Why? You must tell me, because I’ve never been able to 
understand it." 



"Well," said Mr. Janss, "I've never thought of it that way." He added, without great conviction: 
"But we want our building to have dignity, you know, and beauty, what they call real beauty." 

"What who calls what beauty?" 

"Well-I-I..." 

"Tell me, Mr. Janss, do you really think that Greek columns and fruit baskets are beautiful on 
a modern, steel office building?" 

"I don't know that I’ve ever thought anything about why a building was beautiful, one way or 
another," Mr. Janss confessed, "but I guess that’s what the public wants." 

"Why do you suppose they want it?" 

"I don't know." 

"Then why should you care what they want?" 

"You’ve got to consider the public." 

"Don't you know that most people take most things because that's what's given them, and 
they have no opinion whatever? Do you wish to be guided by what they expect you to think 
they think or by your own judgment?" 

"You can't force it down their throats." 

"You don't have to. You must only be patient. Because on your side you have reason-oh, I 
know, it's something no one really wants to have on his side--and against you, you have just a 
vague, fat, blind inertia." 

"Why do you think that I don't want reason on my side?" 

"It's not you, Mr. Janss. It's the way most people feel. They have to take a chance, everything 
they do is taking a chance, but they feel so much safer when they take it on something they 
know to be ugly, vain and stupid." 

"That's true, you know," said Mr. Janss. 

At the conclusion of the interview, Mr. Janss said thoughtfully: "I can't say that it doesn't make 
sense, Mr. Roark. Let me think it over. You'll hear from me shortly." 

Mr. Janss called him a week later. "It's the board of directors that will have to decide. Are you 
willing to try, Roark? Draw up the plans and some preliminary sketches. I'll submit them to the 
board. I can't promise anything. But I'm for you and I'll fight them on it." 

Roark worked on the plans for two weeks of days and nights. The plans were submitted. Then 
he was called before the board of directors of the Janss-Stuart Real Estate Company. He 
stood at the side of a long table and he spoke, his eyes moving slowly from face to face. He 
tried not to look down at the table, but on the lower rim of his vision there remained the white 
spot of his drawings spread before the twelve men. He was asked a great many questions. 

Mr. Janss jumped up at times to answer instead, to pound the table with his fist, to snarl: 

"Don't you see? Isn't it clear?. ..What of it, Mr. Grant? What if no one has ever built anything 
like it?. ..Gothic, Mr. Hubbard? Why must we have Gothic?. ..I've a jolly good mind to resign if 
you turn this down!" 

Roark spoke quietly. He was the only man in the room who felt certain of his own words. He 
felt also that he had no hope. The twelve faces before him had a variety of countenances, but 
there was something, neither color nor feature, upon all of them, as a common denominator, 
something that dissolved their expressions, so that they were not faces any longer but only 
empty ovals of flesh. He was addressing everyone. He was addressing no one. He felt no 
answer, not even the echo of his own words striking against the membrane of an eardrum. His 



words were falling down a well, hitting stone salients on their way, and each salient refused to 
stop them, threw them farther, tossed them from one another, sent them to seek a bottom that 
did not exist. 

He was told that he would be informed of the board's decision. He knew that decision in 
advance. When he received the letter, he read it without feeling. The letter was from Mr. 

Janss and it began: "Dear Mr. Roark, I am sorry to inform you that our board of directors find 
themselves unable to grant you the commission for..." There was a plea in the letter's brutal, 
offensive formality: the plea of a man who could not face him. 

# 

John Fargo had started in life as a pushcart peddler. At fifty he owned a modest fortune and a 
prosperous department store on lower Sixth Avenue. For years he had fought successfully 
against a large store across the street, one of many inherited by a numerous family. In the fall 
of last year the family had moved that particular branch to new quarters, farther uptown. They 
were convinced that the center of the city's retail business was shifting north and they had 
decided to hasten the downfall of their former neighborhood by leaving their old store vacant, 
a grim reminder and embarrassment to their competitor across the street. John Fargo had 
answered by announcing that he would build a new store of his own, on the very same spot, 
next door to his old one; a store newer and smarter than any the city had seen; he would, he 
declared, keep the prestige of his old neighborhood. 

When he called Roark to his office he did not say that he would have to decide later or think 
things over. He said: "You're the architect." He sat, his feet on his desk, smoking a pipe, 
snapping out words and puffs of smoke together. "I'll tell you what space I need and how 
much I want to spend. If you need more-say so. The rest is up to you. I don't know much 
about buildings. But I know a man who knows when I see him. Go ahead." 

Fargo had chosen Roark because Fargo had driven, one day, past Gowan's Service Station, 
and stopped, and gone in, and asked a few questions. After that, he bribed Heller's cook to 
show him through the house in Heller's absence. Fargo needed no further argument. 

# 

Late in May, when the drafting table in Roark's office was buried deep in sketches for the 
Fargo store, he received another commission. 

Mr. Whitford Sanborn, the client, owned an office building that had been built for him many 
years ago by Henry Cameron. When Mr. Sanborn decided that he needed a new country 
residence he rejected his wife's suggestions of other architects; he wrote to Henry Cameron. 
Cameron wrote a ten-page letter in answer; the first three lines of the letter stated that he had 
retired from practice; the rest of it was about Howard Roark. Roark never learned what had 
been said in that letter; Sanborn would not show it to him and Cameron would not tell him. But 
Sanborn signed him to build the country residence, in spite of Mrs. Sanborn's violent 
objections. 

Mrs. Sanborn was the president of many charity organizations and this had given her an 
addiction to autocracy such as no other avocation could develop. Mrs. Sanborn wished a 
French chateau built upon their new estate on the Hudson. She wished it to look stately and 
ancient, as if it had always belonged to the family; of course, she admitted, people would know 
that it hadn't, but it would appear as if it had. 

Mr. Sanborn signed the contract after Roark had explained to him in detail the kind of a house 
he was to expect; Mr. Sanborn had agreed to it readily, had not wished even to wait for 
sketches. "But of course, Fanny," Mr. Sanborn said wearily, "I want a modern house. I told you 
that long ago. That’s what Cameron would have designed." 

"What in heaven's name does Cameron mean now?" she asked. "I don't know, Fanny. I know 
only that there's no building in New York like the one he did for me." 

The arguments continued for many long evenings in the dark, cluttered, polished mahogany 
splendor of the Sanborns' Victorian drawing room. Mr. Sanborn wavered. Roark asked, his 
arm sweeping out at the room around them: "Is this what you want?" 



"Well, if you're going to be impertinent..." Mrs. Sanborn began, but Mr. Sanborn exploded: 
"Christ, Fanny! He's right! That's just what I don't want! That's just what I'm sick of!" 

Roark saw no one until his sketches were ready. The house-of plain fieldstone, with great 
windows and many terraces--stood in the gardens over the river, as spacious as the spread of 
water, as open as the gardens, and one had to follow its lines attentively to find the exact 
steps by which it was tied to the sweep of the gardens, so gradual was the rise of the terraces, 
the approach to and the full reality of the walls; it seemed only that the trees flowed into the 
house and through it; it seemed that the house was not a barrier against the sunlight, but a 
bowl to gather it, to concentrate it into brighter radiance than that of the air outside. 

Mr. Sanborn was first to see the sketches. He studied them, and then he said: "I...I don't know 
quite how to say it, Mr. Roark. It's great. Cameron was right about you." 

After others had seen the sketches Mr. Sanborn was not certain of this any longer. Mrs. 
Sanborn said that the house was awful. And the long evening arguments were resumed. "Now 
why, why can't we add turrets there, on the corners?" Mrs. Sanborn asked. "There's plenty of 
room on those flat roofs." When she had been talked out of the turrets, she inquired: "Why 
can't we have mullioned windows? What difference would that make? God knows, the 
windows are large enough-though why they have to be so large I fail to see, it gives one no 
privacy at all— but I'm willing to accept your windows, Mr. Roark, if you're so stubborn about it, 
but why can't you put mullions on the panes? It will soften things, and it gives a regal air, you 
know, a feudal sort of mood." 

The friends and relatives to whom Mrs. Sanborn hurried with the sketches did not like the 
house at all. Mrs. Walling called it preposterous, and Mrs. Hooper-crude. Mr. Melander said 
he wouldn't have it as a present. Mrs. Applebee stated that it looked like a shoe factory. Miss 
Davitt glanced at the sketches and said with approval: "Oh, how very artistic, my dear! Who 
designed it?. ..Roark?. ..Roark?. ..Never heard of him. ...Well, frankly, Fanny, it looks like 
something phony." 

The two children of the family were divided on the question. June Sanborn, aged nineteen, 
had always thought that all architects were romantic, and she had been delighted to learn that 
they would have a very young architect; but she did not like Roark's appearance and his 
indifference to her hints, so she declared that the house was hideous and she, for one, would 
refuse to live in it. Richard Sanborn, aged twenty-four, who had been a brilliant student in 
college and was now slowly drinking himself to death, startled his family by emerging from his 
usual lethargy and declaring that the house was magnificent. No one could tell whether it was 
esthetic appreciation or hatred of his mother or both. 

Whitford Sanborn swayed with every new current. He would mutter: "Well, now, not mullions, 
of course, that's utter rubbish, but couldn't you give her a cornice, Mr. Roark, to keep peace in 
the family? Just a kind of a crenelated cornice, it wouldn't spoil anything. Or would it?" 

The arguments ended when Roark declared that he would not build the house unless Mr. 
Sanborn approved the sketches just as they were and signed his approval on every sheet of 
the drawings. Mr. Sanborn signed. 

Mrs. Sanborn was pleased to learn, shortly afterward, that no reputable contractor would 
undertake the erection of the house. "You see?" she stated triumphantly. Mr. Sanborn refused 
to see. He found an obscure firm that accepted the commission, grudgingly and as a special 
favor to him. Mrs. Sanborn learned that she had an ally in the contractor, and she broke social 
precedent to the extent of inviting him for tea. She had long since lost all coherent ideas about 
the house; she merely hated Roark. Her contractor hated all architects on principle. 

The construction of the Sanborn house proceeded through the months of summer and fall, 
each day bringing new battles. "But, of course, Mr. Roark, I told you I wanted three closets in 
my bedroom, I remember distinctly, it was on a Friday and we were sitting in the drawing room 
and Mr. Sanborn was sitting in the big chair by the window and I was. ..What about the plans? 
What plans? How do you expect me to understand plans?" 

"Aunt Rosalie says she can't possibly climb a circular stairway, Mr. Roark. What are we going 
to do? Select our guests to fit your house?" 



"Mr. Hulburt says that kind of ceiling won't hold. ...Oh yes, Mr. Hulburt knows a lot about 
architecture. He's spent two summers in Venice." 


"June, poor darling, says her room will be dark as a cellar. ...Well, that's the way she feels, Mr. 
Roark. Even if it isn't dark, but if it makes her feel dark, it's the same thing." Roark stayed up 
nights, redrafting the plans for the alterations which he could not avoid. It meant days of 
tearing down floors, stairways, partitions already erected; it meant extras piling up on the 
contractor's budget. The contractor shrugged and said: "I told you so. That's what always 
happens when you get one of those fancy architects. You wait and see what this thing will cost 
you before he gets through." 

Then, as the house took shape, it was Roark who found that he wanted to make a change. 
The eastern wing had never quite satisfied him. Watching it rise, he saw the mistake he had 
made and the way to correct it; he knew it would bring the house into a more logical whole. He 
was making his first steps in building and they were his first experiments. He could admit it 
openly. But Mr. Sanborn refused to allow the change; it was his turn. Roark pleaded with him; 
once the picture of that new wing had become clear in Roark's mind he could not bear to look 
at the house as it stood. "It's not that I disagree with you," Mr. Sanborn said coldly, "in fact, I 
do think you're right. But we cannot afford it. Sorry." 

"It will cost you less than the senseless changes Mrs. Sanborn has forced me to make." 

"Don't bring that up again." 

"Mr. Sanborn," Roark asked slowly, "will you sign a paper that you authorize this change 
provided it costs you nothing?" 

"Certainly. If you can conjure up a miracle to work that." 

He signed. The eastern wing was rebuilt. Roark paid for it himself. It cost him more than the 
fee he received. Mr. Sanborn hesitated: he wanted to repay it. Mrs. Sanborn stopped him. "It's 
just a low trick," she said, "just a form of high-pressure. He's blackmailing you on your better 
feelings. He expects you to pay. Wait and see. He'll ask for it. Don't let him get away with 
that." Roark did not ask for it. Mr. Sanborn never paid him. 

When the house was completed, Mrs. Sanborn refused to live in it. Mr. Sanborn looked at it 
wistfully, too tired to admit that he loved it, that he had always wanted a house just like it. He 
surrendered. The house was not furnished. Mrs. Sanborn took herself, her husband and her 
daughter off to Florida for the winter, "where," she said, "we have a house that's a decent 
Spanish, thank Godl-because we bought it ready-made. This is what happens when you 
venture to build for yourself, with some half-baked idiot of an architect!" Her son, to 
everybody's amazement, exhibited a sudden burst of savage will power: he refused to go to 
Florida; he liked the new house, he would live nowhere else. So three of the rooms were 
furnished for him. The family left and he moved alone into the house on the Hudson. At night, 
one could see from the river a single rectangle of yellow, small and lost, among the windows 
of the huge, dead house. 

The bulletin of the Architects' Guild of America carried a small item: 

"A curious incident, which would be amusing if it were not deplorable, is reported to us about a 
home recently built by Mr. Whitford Sanborn, noted industrialist. Designed by one Howard 
Roark and erected at a cost of well over $1 00,000, this house was found by the family to be 
uninhabitable. It stands now, abandoned, as an eloquent witness to professional 
incompetence." 


14. 

LUCIUS N. Heyer stubbornly refused to die. He had recovered from the stroke and returned to 
his office, ignoring the objections of his doctor and the solicitous protests of Guy Francon. 
Francon offered to buy him out. Heyer refused, his pale, watering eyes staring obstinately at 



nothing at all. He came to his office every two or three days; he read the copies of 
correspondence left in his letter basket according to custom; he sat at his desk and drew 
flowers on a clean pad; then he went home. He walked, dragging his feet slowly; he held his 
elbows pressed to his sides and his forearms thrust forward, with the fingers half closed, like 
claws; the fingers shook; he could not use his left hand at all. He would not retire. He liked to 
see his name on the firm's stationery. 

He wondered dimly why he was no longer introduced to prominent clients, why he never saw 
the sketches of their new buildings, until they were half erected. If he mentioned this, Francon 
protested: "But, Lucius, I couldn't think of bothering you in your condition. Any other man 
would have retired, long ago." 

Francon puzzled him mildly. Peter Keating baffled him. Keating barely bothered to greet him 
when they met, and then as an afterthought; Keating walked off in the middle of a sentence 
addressed to him; when Heyer issued some minor order to one of the draftsmen, it was not 
carried out and the draftsman informed him that the order had been countermanded by Mr. 
Keating. Heyer could not understand it; he always remembered Keating as the diffident boy 
who had talked to him so nicely about old porcelain. He excused Keating at first; then he tried 
to mollify him, humbly and clumsily; then he conceived an unreasoning fear of Keating. He 
complained to Francon. He said, petulantly, assuming the tone of an authority he could never 
have exercised: "That boy of yours, Guy, that Keating fellow, he's getting to be impossible. 

He's rude to me. You ought to get rid of him." 

"Now you see, Lucius," Francon answered dryly, "why I say that you should retire. You're 
overstraining your nerves and you're beginning to imagine things." 

Then came the competition for the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. 

Cosmo-Slotnick Pictures of Hollywood, California, had decided to erect a stupendous home 
office in New York, a skyscraper to house a motion-picture theater and forty floors of offices. A 
world-wide competition for the selection of the architect had been announced a year in 
advance. It was stated that Cosmo-Slotnick were not merely the leaders in the art of the 
motion picture, but embraced all the arts, since all contributed to the creation of the films; and 
architecture being a lofty, though neglected, branch of esthetics, Cosmo-Slotnick were ready 
to put it on the map. 

With the latest news of the casting of I'll Take a Sailor and the shooting of Wives for Sale, 
came stories about the Parthenon and the Pantheon. Miss Sally O'Dawn was photographed 
on the steps of the Rheims Cathedral-in a bathing suit, and Mr. Pratt ("Pardner") Purcell gave 
an interview, stating that he had always dreamed of being a master builder, if he hadn't been a 
movie actor. Ralston Holcombe, Guy Francon and Gordon L. Prescott were quoted on the 
future of American architecture-in an article written by Miss Dimples Williams, and an 
imaginary interview quoted what Sir Christopher Wren would have said about the motion 
picture. In the Sunday supplements there were photographs of Cosmo-Slotnick starlets in 
shorts and sweaters, holding T-squares and slide-rules, standing before drawing boards that 
bore the legend: "Cosmo-Slotnick Building" over a huge question mark. 

The competition was open to all architects of all countries; the building was to rise on 
Broadway and to cost ten million dollars; it was to symbolize the genius of modern technology 
and the spirit of the American people; it was announced in advance as "the most beautiful 
building in the world." The jury of award consisted of Mr. Shupe, representing Cosmo, Mr. 
Slotnick, representing Slotnick. Professor Peterkin of the Stanton Institute of Technology, the 
Mayor of the City of New York, Ralston Holcombe, president of the A.G.A., and Ellsworth M. 
Toohey. 

"Go to it, Peter!" Francon told Keating enthusiastically. "Do your best. Give me all you've got. 
This is your great chance. You'll be known the world over if you win. And here's what we'll do: 
we'll put your name on our entry, along with the firm's. If we win, you'll get one fifth of the prize. 
The grand prize is sixty thousand dollars, you know." 

"Heyer will object" said Keating cautiously. 

"Let him object. That's why I'm doing it. He might get it through his head what's the decent 



thing for him to do. And I. ..well, you know how I feel, Peter. I think of you as my partner 
already. I owe it to you. You've earned it. This might be your key to it." 

Keating redrew his project five times. He hated it. He hated every girder of that building before 
it was born. He worked, his hand trembling. He did not think of the drawing under his hand. He 
thought of all the other contestants, of the man who might win and be proclaimed publicly as 
his superior. He wondered what that other one would do, how the other would solve the 
problem and surpass him. He had to beat that man; nothing else mattered; there was no Peter 
Keating, there was only a suction chamber, like the kind of tropical plant he'd heard about, a 
plant that drew an insect into its vacuum and sucked it dry and thus acquired its own 
substance. 

He felt nothing but immense uncertainty when his sketches were ready and the delicate 
perspective of a white marble edifice lay, neatly finished, before him. It looked like a 
Renaissance palace made of rubber and stretched to the height of forty stories. He had 
chosen the style of the Renaissance because he knew the unwritten law that all architectural 
juries liked columns, and because he remembered Ralston Holcombe was on the jury. He had 
borrowed from all of Holcombe's favorite Italian palaces. It looked good. ..it might be good. ..he 
was not sure. He had no one to ask. 

He heard these words in his own mind and he felt a wave of blind fury. He felt it before he 
knew the reason, but he knew the reason almost in the same instant: there was someone 
whom he could ask. He did not want to think of that name; he would not go to him; the anger 
rose to his face and he felt the hot, tight patches under his eyes. He knew that he would go. 

He pushed the thought out of his mind. He was not going anywhere. When the time came, he 
slipped his drawings into a folder and went to Roark's office. 

He found Roark alone, sitting at the desk in the large room that bore no signs of activity. 

"Hello, Howard!" he said brightly. "How are you? I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" 

"Hello, Peter," said Roark. "You aren't." 

"Not awfully busy, are you?" 

"No." 

"Mind if I sit down for a few minutes?" 

"Sit down." 

"Well, Howard, you've been doing great work. I've seen the Fargo Store. It's splendid. My 
congratulations." 

"Thank you." 

"You've been forging straight ahead, haven't you? Had three commissions already?" 

"Four." 

"Oh, yes, of course, four. Pretty good. I hear you've been having a little trouble with the 
Sanborns." 

"I have." 

"Well, it's not all smooth sailing, not all of it, you know. No new commissions since? Nothing?" 
"No. Nothing." 

"Well, it will come. I've always said that architects don't have to cut one another's throat, 
there's plenty of work for all of us, we must develop a spirit of professional unity and co- 
operation. For instance, take that competition-have you sent your entry in already?" 



"What competition?" 

"Why, the competition. The Cosmo-Slotnick competition." 

"I'm not sending any entry." 

"You're. ..not? Not at all?" 

"No." 

"Why?" 

"I don't enter competitions." 

"Why, for heaven's sake?" 

"Come on, Peter. You didn't come here to discuss that." 

"As a matter of fact I did think I'd show you my own entry, you understand I'm not asking you 
to help me, I just want your reaction, just a general opinion." 

He hastened to open the folder. 

Roark studied the sketches. Keating snapped: "Well? Is it all right?" 

"No. It's rotten. And you know it." 

Then, for hours, while Keating watched and the sky darkened and lights flared up in the 
windows of the city, Roark talked, explained, slashed lines through the plans, untangled the 
labyrinth of the theater's exits out windows, unraveled halls, smashed useless arches, 
straightened stairways. Keating stammered once: "Jesus, Howard! Why don't you enter the 
competition, if you can do it like this?" Roark answered: "Because I can’t. I couldn't if I tried. I 
dry up. I go blank. I can't give them what they want. But I can straighten someone else’s damn 
mess when I see it:" 

It was morning when he pushed the plans aside. Keating whispered: 

"And the elevation?" 

"Oh, to hell with your elevation! I don't want to look at your damn Renaissance elevations!" But 
he looked. He could not prevent his hand from cutting lines across the perspective. "All right, 
damn you, give them good Renaissance if you must and if there is such a thing! Only I can't 
do that for you. Figure it out yourself. Something like this. Simpler. Peter, simpler, more direct, 
as honest as you can make of a dishonest thing. Now go home and try to work out something 
on this order." 

Keating went home. He copied Roark's plans. He worked out Roark's hasty sketch of the 
elevation into a neat, finished perspective. Then the drawings were mailed, properly 
addressed to: 

# 

"The Most Beautiful Building in the World" Competition 

Cosmo-Slotnick Pictures, Inc. 

New York City. 

# 

The envelope, accompanying the entry, contained the names: "Francon & Heyer, architects, 
Peter Keating, associated designer." 

# 



Through the months of that winter Roark found no other chances, no offers, no prospects of 
commissions. He sat at his desk and forgot, at times, to turn on the lights in the early dusk. It 
was as if the heavy immobility of all the hours that had flowed through the office, of its door, of 
its air were beginning to seep into his muscles. He would rise and fling a book at the wall, to 
feel his arm move, to hear the burst of sound. He smiled, amused, picked up the book, and 
laid it neatly back on the desk. He turned on the desk lamp. Then he stopped, before he had 
withdrawn his hands from the cone of light under the lamp, and he looked at his hands; he 
spread his fingers out slowly. Then he remembered what Cameron had said to him long ago. 
He jerked his hands away. He reached for his coat, turned the lights off, locked the door and 
went home. 

As spring approached he knew that his money would not last much longer. He paid the rent 
on his office promptly on the first of each month. He wanted the feeling of thirty days ahead, 
during which he would still own the office. He entered it calmly each morning. He found only 
that he did not want to look at the calendar when it began to grow dark and he knew that 
another day of the thirty had gone. When he noticed this, he made himself look at the 
calendar. It was a race he was running now, a race between his rent money and. ..he did not 
know the name of the other contestant. Perhaps it was every man whom he passed on the 
street. 

When he went up to his office, the elevator operators looked at him in a queer, lazy, curious 
sort of way; when he spoke, they answered, not insolently, but in an indifferent drawl that 
seemed to say it would become insolent in a moment. They did not know what he was doing 
or why; they knew only that he was a man to whom no clients ever came. He attended, 
because Austen Heller asked him to attend, the few parties Heller gave occasionally; he was 
asked by guests: "Oh, you're an architect? You'll forgive me, I haven't kept up with 
architecture-what have you built?" When he answered, he heard them say: "Oh, yes, 
indeed," and he saw the conscious politeness of their manner tell him that he was an architect 
by presumption. They had never seen his buildings; they did not know whether his buildings 
were good or worthless; they knew only that they had never heard of these buildings. 

It was a war in which he was invited to fight nothing, yet he was pushed forward to fight, he 
had to fight, he had no choice--and no adversary. 

He passed by buildings under construction. He stopped to look at the steel cages. He felt at 
times as if the beams and girders were shaping themselves not into a house, but into a 
barricade to stop him; and the few steps on the sidewalk that separated him from the wooden 
fence enclosing the construction were the steps he would never be able to take. It was pain, 
but it was a blunted, unpenetrating pain. It's true, he would tell himself; it's not, his body would 
answer, the strange, untouchable healthiness of his body. 

The Fargo Store had opened. But one building could not save a neighborhood; Fargo's 
competitors had been right, the tide had turned, was flowing uptown, his customers were 
deserting him. Remarks were made openly on the decline of John Fargo, who had topped his 
poor business judgment by an investment in a preposterous kind of a building; which proved, 
it was stated, that the public would not accept these architectural innovations. It was not stated 
that the store was the cleanest and brightest in the city; that the skill of its plan made its 
operation easier than had ever been possible; that the neighborhood had been doomed 
before its erection. The building took the blame. 

Athelstan Beasely, the wit of the architectural profession, the court jester of the A.G.A., who 
never seemed to be building anything, but organized all the charity balls, wrote in his column 
entitled "Quips and Quirks" in the A.G.A. Bulletin: 

"Well, lads and lassies, here's a fairy tale with a moral: seems there was, once upon a time, a 
little boy with hair the color of a Hallowe'en pumpkin, who thought that he was better than all 
you common boys and girls. So to prove it, he up and built a house, which is a very nice 
house, except that nobody can live in it, and a store, which is a very lovely store, except that 
it's going bankrupt. He also erected a very eminent structure, to wit: a dogcart on a mud road. 
This last is reported to be doing very well indeed, which, perhaps, is the right field of endeavor 
for that little boy." 


At the end of March Roark read in the papers about Roger Enright. Roger Enright possessed 



millions, an oil concern and no sense of restraint. This made his name appear in the papers 
frequently. He aroused a half-admiring, half-derisive awe by the incoherent variety of his 
sudden ventures. The latest was a project for a new type of residential development-an 
apartment building, with each unit complete and isolated like an expensive private home. It 
was to be known as the Enright House. Enright had declared that he did not want it to look like 
anything anywhere else. He had approached and rejected several of the best architects in 
town. 

Roark felt as if this newspaper item were a personal invitation; the kind of chance created 
expressly for him. For the first time he attempted to go after a commission. He requested an 
interview with Roger Enright. He got an interview with a secretary. The secretary, a young 
man who looked bored, asked him several questions about his experience; he asked them 
slowly, as if it required an effort to decide just what it would be appropriate to ask under the 
circumstances, since the answers would make no difference whatever; he glanced at some 
photographs of Roark's buildings, and declared that Mr. Enright would not be interested. 

In the first week of April, when Roark had paid his last rental for one more month at the office, 
he was asked to submit drawings for the new building of the Manhattan Bank Company. He 
was asked by Mr. Weidler, a member of the board of directors, who was a friend of young 
Richard Sanborn. Weidler told him: "I've had a stiff fight, Mr. Roark, but I think I've won. I’ve 
taken them personally through the Sanborn house, and Dick and I explained a few things. 
However, the board must see the drawings before they make a decision. So it's not quite 
certain as yet, I must tell you frankly, but it's almost certain. They've turned down two other 
architects. They're very much interested in you. Go ahead. Good luck!" 

Henry Cameron had had a relapse and the doctor warned his sister that no recovery could be 
expected. She did not believe it. She felt a new hope, because she saw that Cameron, lying 
still in bed, looked serene and-almost happy, a word she had never found it possible to 
associate with her brother. 

But she was frightened, one evening, when he said suddenly: "Call Howard. Ask him to come 
here." In the three years since his retirement he had never called for Roark, he had merely 
waited for Roark's visits. 

Roark arrived within an hour. He sat by the side of Cameron's bed, and Cameron talked to 
him as usual. He did not mention the special invitation and did not explain. The night was 
warm and the window of Cameron's bedroom stood open to the dark garden. When he 
noticed, in a pause between sentences, the silence of the trees outside, the unmoving silence 
of late hours, Cameron called his sister and said: "Fix the couch in the living room for Howard. 
He's staying here." Roark looked at him and understood. Roark inclined his head in 
agreement; he could acknowledge what Cameron had just declared to him only by a quiet 
glance as solemn as Cameron's. 

Roark remained at the house for three days. No reference was made to his staying here-nor 
to how long he would have to stay. His presence was accepted as a natural fact requiring no 
comment. Miss Cameron understood-and knew that she must say nothing. She moved about 
silently, with the meek courage of resignation. 

Cameron did not want Roark's continuous presence in his room. He would say: "Go out, take 
a walk through the garden, Howard. It's beautiful, the grass is coming up." He would lie in bed 
and watch, with contentment, through the open window, Roark's figure moving among the 
bare trees that stood against a pale blue sky. 

He asked only that Roark eat his meals with him. Miss Cameron would put a tray on 
Cameron's knees, and serve Roark's meal on a small table by the bed. Cameron seemed to 
take pleasure in what he had never had nor sought: a sense of warmth in performing a daily 
routine, the sense of family. 

On the evening of the third day Cameron lay back on his pillow, talking as usual, but the words 
came slowly and he did not move his head. Roark listened and concentrated on not showing 
that he knew what went on in the terrible pauses between Cameron's words. The words 
sounded natural, and the strain they cost was to remain Cameron's last secret, as he wished. 



Cameron spoke about the future of building materials. "Watch the light metals industry, 
Howard.. ..In a few. ..years. ..you'll see them do some astounding things.. ..Watch the plastics, 
there's a whole new era. ..coming from that. ...You'll find new tools, new means, new 
forms.. ..You'll have to show. ..the damn fools. ..what wealth the human brain has made for 
them. ..what possibilities.. ..Last week I read about a new kind of composition tile. ..and I've 
thought of a way to use it where nothing. ..else would do. ..take, for instance, a small 
house. ..about five thousand dollars..." 

After a while he stopped and remained silent, his eyes closed. Then Roark heard him whisper 
suddenly: 

"Gail Wynand..." 

Roark leaned closer to him, bewildered. 

"I don't.. .hate anybody any more. ..only Gail Wynand. ..No, I've never laid eyes on him.. ..But he 
represents. ..everything that’s wrong with the world. ..the triumph. ..of overbearing vulgarity.. ..It’s 
Gail Wynand that you'll have to fight, Howard...." 

Then he did not speak for a long time. When he opened his eyes again, he smiled. He said: 

"I know. ..what you're going through at your office just now...." Roark had never spoken to him 
of that. "No. ..don't deny and. ..don't say anything....! know.. ..But.. .it's all right.. ..Don't be 
afraid. ...Do you remember the day when I tried to fire you?. ..Forget what I said to you then.. ..It 
was not the whole story.. ..This is. ..Don't be afraid.. ..It was worth it...." 

His voice failed and he could not use it any longer. But the faculty of sight remained 
untouched and he could lie silently and look at Roark without effort. He died half an hour later. 
# 

Keating saw Catherine often. He had not announced their engagement, but his mother knew, 
and it was not a precious secret of his own any longer. Catherine thought, at times, that he 
had dropped the sense of significance in their meetings. She was spared the loneliness of 
waiting for him; but she had lost the reassurance of his inevitable returns. 

Keating had told her: "Let's wait for the results of that movie competition, Katie. It won't be 
long, they’ll announce the decision in May. If I win— I’ll be set for life. Then we’ll be married. 

And that's when I'll meet your uncle-and he'll want to meet me. And I've got to win." 

"I know you'll win." 

"Besides, old Heyer won't last another month. The doctor told us that we can expect a second 
stroke at any time and that will be that. If it doesn't get him to the graveyard, it’ll certainly get 
him out of the office." 

"Oh, Peter, I don't like to hear you talk like that. You mustn't be so. ..so terribly selfish." 

"I'm sorry, dear. Well. ..yes, I guess I'm selfish. Everybody is." 

He spent more time with Dominique. Dominique watched him complacently, as if he 
presented no further problem to her. She seemed to find him suitable as an inconsequential 
companion for an occasional, inconsequential evening. He thought that she liked him. He 
knew that this was not an encouraging sign. 

He forgot at times that she was Francon's daughter; he forgot all the reasons that prompted 
him to want her. He felt no need to be prompted. He wanted her. He needed no reasons now 
but the excitement of her presence. 

Yet he felt helpless before her. He refused to accept the thought that a woman could remain 
indifferent to him. But he was not certain even of her indifference. He waited and tried to 
guess her moods, to respond as he supposed she wished him to respond. He received no 
answer. 



On a spring night they attended a ball together. They danced, and he drew her close, he 
stressed the touch of his fingers on her body. He knew that she noticed and understood. She 
did not withdraw; she looked at him with an unmoving glance that was almost expectation. 
When they were leaving, he held her wrap and let his fingers rest on her shoulders; she did 
not move or draw the wrap closed; she waited; she let him lift his hands. Then they walked 
together down to the cab. 

She sat silently in a corner of the cab; she had never before considered his presence 
important enough to require silence. She sat, her legs crossed, her wrap gathered tightly, her 
fingertips beating in slow rotation against her knee. He closed his hand softly about her 
forearm. She did not resist; she did not answer; only her fingers stopped beating. His lips 
touched her hair; it was not a kiss, he merely let his lips rest against her hair for a long time. 

When the cab stopped, he whispered: "Dominique. ..let me come up. ..for just a moment..." 

"Yes," she answered. The word was flat, impersonal, with no sound of invitation. But she had 
never allowed it before. He followed her, his heart pounding. 

There was one fragment of a second, as she entered her apartment, when she stopped, 
waiting. He stared at her helplessly, bewildered, too happy. He noticed the pause only when 
she was moving again, walking away from him, into the drawing room. She sat down, and her 
hands fell limply one at each side, her arms away from her body, leaving her unprotected. Her 
eyes were half closed, rectangular, empty. 

"Dominique..." he whispered, "Dominique. ..how lovely you are!..." 

Then he was beside her, whispering incoherently: 

"Dominique. ..Dominique, I love you. ..Don't laugh at me, please don't laugh!. ..My whole 
life. ..anything you wish. ..Don't you know how beautiful you are?.. .Dominique.. .1 love you..." 

He stopped with his arms around her and his face over hers, to catch some hint of response 
or resistance; he saw nothing. He jerked her violently against him and kissed her lips. 

His arms fell open. He let her body fall back against the seat, and he stared at her, aghast. It 
had not been a kiss; he had not held a woman in his arms; what he had held and kissed had 
not been alive. Her lips had not moved in answer against his; her arms had not moved to 
embrace him; it was not revulsion-he could have understood revulsion. It was as if he could 
hold her forever or drop her, kiss her again or go further to satisfy his desire--and her body 
would not know it, would not notice it. She was looking at him, past him. She saw a cigarette 
stub that had fallen off a tray on a table beside her, she moved her hand and slipped the 
cigarette back into the tray. 

"Dominique," he whispered stupidly, "didn't you want me to kiss you?" 

"Yes." She was not laughing at him; she was answering simply and helplessly. 

"Haven't you ever been kissed before?" 

"Yes. Many times." 

"Do you always act like that?" 

"Always. Just like that." 

"Why did you want me to kiss you?" 

"I wanted to try it." 

"You're not human, Dominique." 

She lifted her head, she got up and the sharp precision of the movement was her own again. 
He knew he would hear no simple, confessing helplessness in her voice; he knew the intimacy 



was ended, even though her words, when she spoke, were more intimate and revealing than 
anything she had said; but she spoke as if she did not care what she revealed or to whom: 

"I suppose I'm one of those freaks you hear about, an utterly frigid woman. I'm sorry, Peter. 
You see? You have no rivals, but that includes you also. A disappointment, darling?" 

"You. ..you'll outgrow it.. .some day..." 

"I'm really not so young, Peter. Twenty-five. It must be an interesting experience to sleep with 
a man. I've wanted to want it. I should think it would be exciting to become a dissolute woman. 
I am, you know, in everything but in fact.... Peter, you look as if you were going to blush in a 
moment, and that's very amusing." 

"Dominique! Haven't you ever been in love at all? Not even a little?" 

"I haven't. I really wanted to fall in love with you. I thought it would be convenient. I'd have no 
trouble with you at all. But you see? I can't feel anything. I can't feel any difference, whether 
it's you or Alvah Scarret or Lucius Heyer." 

He got up. He did not want to look at her. He walked to a window and stood, staring out, his 
hands clasped behind his back. He had forgotten his desire and her beauty, but he 
remembered now that she was Francon's daughter. 

"Dominique, will you marry me?" 

He knew he had to say it now; if he let himself think of her, he would never say it; what he felt 
for her did not matter any longer; he could not let it stand between him and his future; and 
what lie felt for her was growing into hatred. 

"You're not serious?" she asked. 

He turned to her. He spoke rapidly, easily; he was lying now, and so he was sure of himself 
and it was not difficult: 

"I love you, Dominique. I'm crazy about you. Give me a chance. If there's no one else, why 
not? You'll learn to love me-because I understand you. I'll be patient. I'll make you happy." 

She shuddered suddenly, and then she laughed. She laughed simply, completely; he saw the 
pale form of her dress trembling; she stood straight, her head thrown back, like a string 
shaking with the vibrations of a blinding insult to him; an insult, because her laughter was not 
bitter or mocking, but quite simply gay. 

Then it stopped. She stood looking at him. She said earnestly: 

"Peter, if I ever want to punish myself for something terrible, if I ever want to punish myself 
disgustingly-l'll marry you." She added: "Consider it a promise." 

"I'll wait-no matter what reason you choose for it." 

Then she smiled gaily, the cold, gay smile he dreaded. 

"Really, Peter, you don't have to do it, you know. You'll get that partnership anyway. And we'll 
always be good friends. Now its time for you to go home. Don't forget, you're taking me to the 
horse show Wednesday. Oh, yes, we're going to the horse show Wednesday. I adore horse 
shows. Good night, Peter." 

He left and walked home through the warm spring night. He walked savagely. If, at that 
moment, someone had offered him sole ownership of the firm of Francon & Heyer at the price 
of marrying Dominique, he would have refused it. He knew also, hating himself, that he would 
not refuse, if it were offered to him on the following morning. 



15 . 


THIS was fear. This was what one feels in nightmares, thought Peter Keating, only then one 
awakens when it becomes unbearable, but he could neither awaken nor bear it any longer. It 
had been growing, for days, for weeks, and now it had caught him: this lewd, unspeakable 
dread of defeat. He would lose the competition, he was certain that he would lose it, and the 
certainty grew as each day of waiting passed. He could not work; he jerked when people 
spoke to him; he had not slept for nights. 

He walked toward the house of Lucius Heyer. He tried not to notice the faces of the people he 
passed, but he had to notice; he had always looked at people; and people looked at him, as 
they always did. He wanted to shout at them and tell them to turn away, to leave him alone. 
They were staring at him, he thought, because he was to fail and they knew it. 

He was going to Heyer's house to save himself from the coming disaster in the only way he 
saw left to him. If he failed in that competition-and he knew he was to fail-Francon would be 
shocked and disillusioned; then if Heyer died, as he could die at any moment, Francon would 
hesitate--in the bitter aftermath of a public humiliation-to accept Keating as his partner; if 
Francon hesitated, the game was lost. There were others waiting for the opportunity: Bennett, 
whom he had been unable to get out of the office; Claude Stengel, who had been doing very 
well on his own, and had approached Francon with an offer to buy Heyer's place. Keating had 
nothing to count on, except Francon's uncertain faith in him. Once another partner replaced 
Heyer, it would be the end of Keating's future. He had come too close and had missed. That 
was never forgiven. 

Through the sleepless nights the decision had become clear and hard in his mind: he had to 
close the issue at once; he had to take advantage of Francon's deluded hopes before the 
winner of the competition was announced; he had to force Heyer out and take his place; he 
had only a few days left. 

He remembered Francon's gossip about Heyer's character. He looked through the files in 
Heyer's office and found what he had hoped to find. It was a letter from a contractor, written 
fifteen years ago; it stated merely that the contractor was enclosing a check for twenty 
thousand dollars due Mr. Heyer. Keating looked up the records for that particular building; it 
did seem that the structure had cost more than it should have cost. That was the year when 
Heyer had started his collection of porcelain. 

He found Heyer alone in his study. It was a small, dim room and the air in it seemed heavy, as 
if it had not been disturbed for years. The dark mahogany paneling, the tapestries, the 
priceless pieces of old furniture were kept faultlessly clean, but the room smelt, somehow, of 
indigence and of decay. There was a single lamp burning on a small table in a corner, and five 
delicate, precious cups of ancient porcelain on the table. Heyer sat hunched, examining the 
cups in the dim light, with a vague, pointless enjoyment. He shuddered a little when his old 
valet admitted Keating, and he blinked in vapid bewilderment, but he asked Keating to sit 
down. 

When he heard the first sounds of his own voice, Keating knew he had lost the fear that had 
followed him on his way through the streets; his voice was cold and steady. Tim Davis, he 
thought, Claude Stengel, and now just one more to be removed. 

He explained what he wanted, spreading upon the still air of the room one short, concise, 
complete paragraph of thought, perfect as a gem with clean edges. 

"And so, unless you inform Francon of your retirement tomorrow morning," he concluded, 
holding the letter by a corner between two fingers, "this goes to the A.G.A." 

He waited. Heyer sat still, with his pale, bulging eyes blank and his mouth open in a perfect 
circle. Keating shuddered and wondered whether he was speaking to an idiot. 

Then Heyer's mouth moved and his pale pink tongue showed, flickering against his lower 
teeth. 

"But I don't want to retire." He said it simply, guilelessly, in a little petulant whine. 



'You will have to retire. 


"I don't want to. I'm not going to. I'm a famous architect. I've always been a famous architect. I 
wish people would stop bothering me. They all want me to retire. I'll tell you a secret." He 
leaned forward; he whispered slyly: "You may not know it, but I know, he can't deceive me; 
Guy wants me to retire. He thinks he's outwitting me, but I can see through him. That's a good 
one on Guy." He giggled softly. 

"I don't think you understood me. Do you understand this?" Keating pushed the letter into 
Heyer’s half-closed fingers. 

He watched the thin sheet trembling as Heyer held it. Then it dropped to the table and Heyer’s 
left hand with the paralyzed fingers jabbed at it blindly, purposelessly, like a hook. He said, 
gulping: 

"You can't send this to the A.G.A. They'll have my license taken away." 

"Certainly," said Keating, "they will." 

"And it will be in the papers." 

"In all of them." 

"You can't do that." 

"I'm going to-unless you retire." 

Heyer's shoulders drew down to the edge of the table. His head remained above the edge, 
timidly, as if he were ready to draw it also out of sight. 

"You won't do that please you won't," Heyer mumbled in one long whine without pauses. 
"You're a nice boy you're a very nice boy you won't do it will you?" 

The yellow square of paper lay on the table. Heyer's useless left hand reached for it, crawling 
slowly over the edge. Keating leaned forward and snatched the letter from under his hand. 

Heyer looked at him, his head bent to one side, his mouth open. He looked as if he expected 
Keating to strike him; with a sickening, pleading glance that said he would allow Keating to 
strike him. 

"Please," whispered Heyer, "you won't do that, will you? I don't feel very well. I've never hurt 
you. I seem to remember, I did something very nice for you once." 

"What?" snapped Keating. "What did you do for me?" 

"Your name's Peter Keating. ..Peter Keating.. .1 remember.. .1 did something nice for 
you.. ..You're the boy Guy has so much faith in. Don't trust Guy. I don't trust him. But I like you. 
We'll make you a designer one of these days." His mouth remained hanging open on the 
word. A thin strand of saliva trickled down from the corner of his mouth. "Please. ..don't..." 

Keating's eyes were bright with disgust; aversion goaded him on; he had to make it worse 
because he couldn't stand it. 

"You'll be exposed publicly," said Keating, the sounds of his voice glittering. "You'll be 
denounced as a grafter. People will point at you. They'll print your picture in the papers. The 
owners of that building will sue you. They'll throw you in jail." 

Heyer said nothing. He did not move. Keating heard the cups on the table tinkling suddenly. 
He could not see the shaking of Heyer's body. He heard a thin, glassy ringing in the silence of 
the room, as if the cups were trembling of themselves. 

"Get out!" said Keating, raising his voice, not to hear that sound. "Get out of the firm! What do 



you want to stay for? You're no good. You've never been any good. 


The yellow face at the edge of the table opened its mouth and made a wet, gurgling sound like 
a moan. 

Keating sat easily, leaning forward, his knees spread apart, one elbow resting on his knee, the 
hand hanging down, swinging the letter. 

"I..." Heyer choked. "I..." 

"Shut up! You've got nothing to say, except yes or no. Think fast now. I'm not here to argue 
with you." 

Heyer stopped trembling. A shadow cut diagonally across his face. Keating saw one eye that 
did not blink, and half a mouth, open, the darkness flowing in through the hole, into the face, 
as if it were drowning. 

"Answer me!" Keating screamed, frightened suddenly. "Why don't you answer me?" 

The half-face swayed and he saw the head lurch forward; it fell down on the table, and went 
on, and rolled to the floor, as it cut off; two of the cups fell after it, cracking softly to pieces on 
the carpet. The first thing Keating felt was relief to see that the body had followed the head 
and lay crumpled in a heap on the floor, intact. There had been no sound; only the muffled, 
musical bursting of porcelain. 

He'll be furious, thought Keating, looking down at the cups. He had jumped to his feet, he was 
kneeling, gathering the pieces pointlessly; he saw that they were broken beyond repair. He 
knew he was thinking also, at the same time, that it had come, that second stroke they had 
been expecting, and that he would have to do something about it in a moment, but that it was 
all right, because Heyer would have to retire now. 

Then he moved on his knees closer to Heyer's body. He wondered why he did not want to 
touch it. "Mr. Heyer," he called. His voice was soft, almost respectful. He lifted Heyer's head, 
cautiously. He let it drop. He heard no sound of its falling. He heard the hiccough in his own 
throat. Heyer was dead. 

He sat beside the body, his buttocks against his heels, his hands spread on his knees. He 
looked straight ahead; his glance stopped on the folds of the hangings by the door; he 
wondered whether the gray sheen was dust or the nap of velvet and was it velvet and how old- 
fashioned it was to have hangings by a door. Then he felt himself shaking. He wanted to 
vomit. He rose, walked across the room and threw the door open, because he remembered 
that there was the rest of the apartment somewhere and a valet in it, and he called, trying to 
scream for help. 

# 

Keating came to the office as usual. He answered questions, he explained that Heyer had 
asked him, that day, to come to his house after dinner; Heyer had wanted to discuss the 
matter of his retirement. No one doubted the story and Keating knew that no one ever would. 
Heyer's end had come as everybody had expected it to come. Francon felt nothing but relief. 
"We knew he would, sooner or later," said Francon. "Why regret that he spared himself and all 
of us a prolonged agony?" 

Keating's manner was calmer than it had been for weeks. It was the calm of blank stupor. The 
thought followed him, gentle, unstressed, monotonous, at his work, at home, at night: he was 
a murderer. ..no, but almost a murderer. ..almost a murderer. ..He knew that it had not been an 
accident; he knew he had counted on the shock and the terror; he had counted on that second 
stroke which would send Heyer to the hospital for the rest of his days. But was that all he had 
expected? Hadn't he known what else a second stroke could mean? Had he counted on that? 
He tried to remember. He tried, wringing his mind dry. He felt nothing. He expected to feel 
nothing, one way or another. Only he wanted to know. He did not notice what went on in the 
office around him. He forgot that he had but a short time left to close the deal with Francon 
about the partnership. 



A few days after Heyer's death Francon called him to his office. 


"Sit down, Peter," he said with a brighter smile than usual. "Well, I have some good news for 
you, kid. They read Lucius's will this morning. He had no relatives left, you know. Well, I was 
surprised, I didn't give him enough credit, I guess, but it seems he could make a nice gesture 
on occasion. He’s left everything to you.. ..Pretty grand, isn't it? Now you won't have to worry 
about investment when we make arrangements for. ..What's the matter, Peter?. ..Peter, my 
boy, are you sick?" 

Keating's face fell upon his arm on the corner of the desk. He could not let Francon see his 
face. He was going to be sick; sick, because through the horror, he had caught himself 
wondering how much Heyer had actually left.... 

The will had been made out five years ago; perhaps in a senseless spurt of affection for the 
only person who had shown Heyer consideration in the office; perhaps as a gesture against 
his partner; it had been made and forgotten. The estate amounted to two hundred thousand 
dollars, plus Heyer's interest in the firm and his porcelain collection. 

Keating left the office early, that day, not hearing the congratulations. He went home, told the 
news to his mother, left her gasping in the middle of the living room, and locked himself in his 
bedroom. He went out, saying nothing, before dinner. He had no dinner that night, but he 
drank himself into a ferocious lucidity, at his favorite speak-easy. And in that heightened state 
of luminous vision, his head nodding over a glass but his mind steady, he told himself that he 
had nothing to regret; he had done what anyone would have done; Catherine had said it, he 
was selfish; everybody was selfish; it was not a pretty thing, to be selfish, but he was not alone 
in it; he had merely been luckier than most; he had been, because he was better than most; 
he felt fine; he hoped the useless questions would never come back to him again; every man 
for himself, he muttered, falling asleep on the table. 

The useless questions never came back to him again. He had no time for them in the days 
that followed. He had won the Cosmo-Slotnick competition. 

# 

Peter Keating had known it would be a triumph, but he had not expected the thing that 
happened. He had dreamed of a sound of trumpets; he had not foreseen a symphonic 
explosion. 

It began with the thin ringing of a telephone, announcing the names of the winners. Then 
every phone in the office joined in, screaming, bursting from under the fingers of the operator 
who could barely control the switchboard; calls from every paper in town, from famous 
architects, questions, demands for interviews, congratulations. Then the flood rushed out of 
the elevators, poured through the office doors, the messages, the telegrams, the people 
Keating knew, the people he had never seen before, the reception clerk losing all sense, not 
knowing whom to admit or refuse, and Keating shaking hands, an endless stream of hands 
like a wheel with soft moist cogs flapping against his fingers. He did not know what he said at 
that first interview, with Francon's office full of people and cameras; Francon had thrown the 
doors of his liquor cabinet wide-open. Francon gulped to all these people that the Cosmo- 
Slotnick building had been created by Peter Keating alone; Francon did not care; he was 
magnanimous in a spurt of enthusiasm; besides, it made a good story. 

It made a better story than Francon had expected. From the pages of newspapers the face of 
Peter Keating looked upon the country, the handsome, wholesome, smiling face with the 
brilliant eyes and the dark curls; it headed columns of print about poverty, struggle, aspiration 
and unremitting toil that had won their reward; about the faith of a mother who had sacrificed 
everything to her boy's success; about the "Cinderella of Architecture." 

Cosmo-Slotnick were pleased; they had not thought that prize-winning architects could also be 
young, handsome and poor-well, so recently poor. They had discovered a boy genius; 
Cosmo-Slotnick adored boy geniuses; Mr. Slotnick was one himself, being only forty-three. 

Keating's drawings of the "most beautiful skyscraper on earth" were reproduced in the papers, 
with the words of the award underneath: "...for the brilliant skill and simplicity of its plan. ..for its 
clean, ruthless efficiency. ..for its ingenious economy of space. ..for the masterful blending of 



the modern with the traditional in Art. ..to Francon & Heyer and Peter Keating... 


Keating appeared in newsreels, shaking hands with Mr. Shupe and Mr. Slotnick, and the 
subtitle announced what these two gentlemen thought of his building. Keating appeared in 
newsreels, shaking hands with Miss Dimples Williams, and the subtitle announced what he 
thought of her current picture. He appeared at architectural banquets and at film banquets, in 
the place of honor, and he had to make speeches, forgetting whether he was to speak of 
buildings or of movies. He appeared at architectural clubs and at fan clubs. Cosmo-Slotnick 
put out a composite picture of Keating and of his building, which could be had for a self- 
addressed, stamped envelope, and two bits. He made a personal appearance each evening, 
for a week, on the stage of the Cosmo Theater, with the first run of the latest Cosmo-Slotnick 
special; he bowed over the footlights, slim and graceful in a black tuxedo, and he spoke for 
two minutes on the significance of architecture. He presided as judge at a beauty contest in 
Atlantic City, the winner to be awarded a screen test by Cosmo-Slotnick. He was 
photographed with a famous prize-fighter, under the caption: "Champions." A scale model of 
his building was made and sent on tour, together with the photographs of the best among the 
other entries, to be exhibited in the foyers of Cosmo-Slotnick theaters throughout the country. 

Mrs. Keating had sobbed at first, clasped Peter in her arms and gulped that she could not 
believe it. She had stammered, answering questions about Petey, and she had posed for 
pictures, embarrassed, eager to please. Then she became used to it. She told Peter, 
shrugging, that of course he had won, it was nothing to gape at, no one else could have won. 
She acquired a brisk little tone of condescension for the reporters. She was distinctly annoyed 
when she was not included in the photographs taken of Petey. She acquired a mink coat. 

Keating let himself be carried by the torrent. He needed the people and the clamor around 
him. There were no questions and no doubts when he stood on a platform over a sea of 
faces; the air was heavy, compact, saturated with a single solvent-admiration; there was no 
room for anything else. He was great; great as the number of people who told him so. He was 
right; right at the number of people who believed it. He looked at the faces, at the eyes; he 
saw himself born in them, he saw himself being granted the gift of life. That was Peter 
Keating, that, the reflection in those staring pupils, and his body was only its reflection. 

He found time to spend two hours with Catherine, one evening. He held her in his arms and 
she whispered radiant plans for their future; he glanced at her with contentment; he did not 
hear her words; he was thinking of how it would look if they were photographed like this 
together and in how many papers it would be syndicated. 

He saw Dominique once. She was leaving the city for the summer. Dominique was 
disappointing. She congratulated him, quite correctly; but she looked at him as she had 
always looked, as if nothing had happened. Of all architectural publications, her column had 
been the only one that had never mentioned the Cosmo-Slotnick competition or its winner. 

"I'm going to Connecticut," she told him. "I'm taking over Father's place down there for the 
summer. He's letting me have it all to myself. No, Peter, you can't come to visit me. Not even 
once. I'm going there so I won't have to see anybody." He was disappointed, but it did not spoil 
the triumph of his days. He was not afraid of Dominique any longer. He felt confident that he 
could bring her to change her attitude, that he would see the change when she came back in 
the fall. 

But there was one thing which did spoil his triumph; not often and not too loudly. He never 
tired of hearing what was said about him; but he did not like to hear too much about his 
building. And when he had to hear it, he did not mind the comments on "the masterful 
blending of the modern with the traditional" in its facade; but when they spoke of the plan-and 
they spoke so much of the plan-when he heard about "the brilliant skill and simplicity.. .the 
clean, ruthless efficiency. ..the ingenious economy of space..." when he heard it and thought 
of. ..He did not think it. There were no words in his brain. He would not allow them. There was 
only a heavy, dark feeling-and a name. 

For two weeks after the award he pushed this thing out of his mind, as a thing unworthy of his 
concern, to be buried as his doubting, humble past was buried. All winter long he had kept his 
own sketches of the building with the pencil lines cut across them by another's hands; on the 
evening of the award he had burned them; it was the first thing he had done. 



But the thing would not leave him. Then he grasped suddenly that it was not a vague threat, 
but a practical danger; and he lost all fear of it. He could deal with a practical danger, he could 
dispose of it quite simply. He chuckled with relief, he telephoned Roark's office, and made an 
appointment to see him. 

He went to that appointment confidently. For the first time in his life he felt free of the strange 
uneasiness which he had never been able to explain or escape in Roark's presence. He felt 
safe now. He was through with Howard Roark. 

# 

Roark sat at the desk in his office, waiting. The telephone had rung once, that morning, but it 
had been only Peter Keating asking for an appointment. He had forgotten now that Keating 
was coming. He was waiting for the telephone. He had become dependent on that telephone 
in the last few weeks. He was to hear at any moment about his drawings for the Manhattan 
Bank Company. 

His rent on the office was long since overdue. So was the rent on the room where he lived. He 
did not care about the room; he could tell the landlord to wait; the landlord waited; it would not 
have mattered greatly if he had stopped waiting. But it mattered at the office. He told the rental 
agent that he would have to wait; he did not ask for the delay; he only said flatly, quietly, that 
there would be a delay, which was all he knew how to do. But his knowledge that he needed 
his alms from the rental agent, that too much depended on it, and made it sound like begging 
in his own mind. That was torture. All right, he thought, it's torture. What of it? 

The telephone bill was overdue for two months. He had received the final warning. The 
telephone was to be disconnected in a few days. He had to wait. So much could happen in a 
few days. 

The answer of the bank board, which Weidler had promised him long ago, had been 
postponed from week to week. The board could reach no decision; there had been objectors 
and there had been violent supporters; there had been conferences; Weidler told him 
eloquently little, but he could guess much; there had been days of silence, of silence in the 
office, of silence in the whole city, of silence within him. He waited. 

He sat, slumped across the desk, his face on his arm, his fingers on the stand of the 
telephone. He thought dimly that he should not sit like that; but he felt very tired today. He 
thought that he should take his hand off that phone; but he did not move it. Well, yes, he 
depended on that phone, he could smash it, but he would still depend on it; he and every 
breath in him and every bit of him. His fingers rested on the stand without moving. It was this 
and the mail; he had lied to himself also about the mail; he had lied when he had forced 
himself not to leap, as a rare letter fell through the slot in the door, not to run forward, but to 
wait, to stand looking at me white envelope on the floor, then to walk to it slowly and pick it up. 
The slot in the door and the telephone-there was nothing else left to him of the world. 

He raised his head, as he thought of it, to look down at the door, at the foot of the door. There 
was nothing. It was late in the afternoon, probably past the time of the last delivery. He raised 
his wrist to glance at his watch; he saw his bare wrist; the watch had been pawned. He turned 
to the window; there was a clock he could distinguish on a distant tower; it was half past four; 
there would be no other delivery today. 

He saw that his hand was lifting the telephone receiver. His fingers were dialing the number. 

"No, not yet," Weidler's voice told him over the wire. "We had that meeting scheduled for 
yesterday, but it had to be called off. ...I'm keeping after them like a bulldog.. ..I can promise 
you that well have a definite answer tomorrow. I can almost promise you. If not tomorrow, 
then it will have to wait over the week end, but by Monday I promise it for certain.. ..You've 
been wonderfully patient with us, Mr. Roark. We appreciate it." Roark dropped the receiver. 

He closed his eyes. He thought he would allow himself to rest, just to rest blankly like this for a 
few minutes, before he would begin to think of what the date on the telephone notice had been 
and in what way he could manage to last until Monday. 


Hello, Howard," said Peter Keating. 



He opened his eyes. Keating had entered and stood before him, smiling. He wore a light tan 
spring coat, thrown open, the loops of its belt like handles at his sides, a blue cornflower in his 
buttonhole. He stood, his legs apart, his fists on his hips, his hat on the back of his head, his 
black curls so bright and crisp over his pale forehead that one expected to see drops of spring 
dew glistening on them as on the cornflower. 

"Hello, Peter," said Roark. 

Keating sat down comfortably, took his hat off, dropped it in the middle of the desk, and 
clasped one hand over each knee with a brisk little slap. 

"Well, Howard, things are happening, aren't they?" 

"Congratulations." 

"Thanks. What’s the matter, Howard? You look like hell. Surely, you're not overworking 
yourself, from what I hear?" 

This was not the manner he had intended to assume. He had planned the interview to be 
smooth and friendly. Well, he decided, he'd switch back to that later. But first he had to show 
that he was not afraid of Roark, that he'd never be afraid again. 

"No, I'm not overworking." 

"Look, Howard, why don't you drop it?" 

That was something he had not intended saying at all. His mouth remained open a little, in 
astonishment. 

"Drop what?" 

"The pose. Oh, the ideals, if you prefer. Why don't you come down to earth? Why don't you 
start working like everybody else? Why don't you stop being a damn fool?" He felt himself 
rolling down a hill, without brakes. He could not stop. 

"What's the matter, Peter?" 

"How do you expect to get along in the world? You have to live with people, you know. There 
are only two ways. You can join them or you can fight them. But you don't seem to be doing 
either." 

"No. Not either." 

"And people don't want you. They don't want you! Aren't you afraid?" 

"No." 

"You haven't worked for a year. And you won't. Who'll ever give you work? You might have a 
few hundreds left-and then it's the end." 

"That's wrong, Peter. I have fourteen dollars left, and fifty-seven cents." 

"Well? And look at me! I don't care if it's crude to say that myself. That's not the point. I'm not 
boasting. It doesn't matter who says it. But look at me! Remember how we started? Then look 
at us now. And then think that it's up to you. Just drop that fool delusion that you're better than 
everybody else-and go to work. In a year, you'll have an office that'll make you blush to think 
of this dump. You'll have people running after you, you'll have clients, you'll have friends, you'll 
have an army of draftsmen to order around!. ..Hell! Howard, it's nothing to me-what can it 
mean to me?-but this time I'm not fishing for anything for myself, in fact I know that you'd 
make a dangerous competitor, but I've got to say this to you. Just think, Howard, think of it! 
You'll be rich, you'll be famous, you'll be respected, you'll be praised, you'll be admired-you'll 
be one of us!.. .Well?. ..Say something! Why don't you say something?" 



He saw that Roark's eyes were not empty and scornful, but attentive and wondering. It was 
close to some sort of surrender for Roark, because he had not dropped the iron sheet in his 
eyes, because he allowed his eyes to be puzzled and curious--and almost helpless. 

"Look, Peter. I believe you. I know that you have nothing to gain by saying this. I know more 
than that. I know that you don't want me to succeed--it's all right, I'm not reproaching you, I've 
always known it-you don't want me ever to reach these things you're offering me. And yet 
you're pushing me on to reach them, quite sincerely. And you know that if I take your advice, 

I'll reach them. And it's not love for me, because that wouldn't make you so angry-and so 
frightened.. ..Peter, what is it that disturbs you about me as I am?" 

"I don't know..." whispered Rearing. 

He understood that it was a confession, that answer of his, and a terrifying one. He did not 
know the nature of what he had confessed and he felt certain that Roark did not know it either. 
But the thing had been bared; they could not grasp it, but they felt its shape. And it made them 
sit silently, facing each other, in astonishment, in resignation. 

"Pull yourself together, Peter," said Roark gently, as to a comrade. "We'll never speak of that 
again." 

Then Keating said suddenly, his voice clinging in relief to the bright vulgarity of its new tone: 

"Aw hell, Howard, I was only talking good plain horse sense. Now if you wanted to work like a 
normal person-" 

"Shut up!" snapped Roark. 

Keating leaned back, exhausted. He had nothing else to say. He had forgotten what he had 
come here to discuss. 

"Now," said Roark, "what did you want to tell me about the competition?" 

Keating jerked forward. He wondered what had made Roark guess that. And then it became 
easier, because he forgot the rest in a sweeping surge of resentment. 

"Oh, yes!" said Keating crisply, a bright edge of irritation in the sound of his voice. "Yes, I did 
want to speak to you about that. Thanks for reminding me. Of course, you'd guess it, because 
you know that I'm not an ungrateful swine. I really came here to thank you, Howard. I haven't 
forgotten that you had a share in that building, you did give me some advice on it. I'd be the 
first one to give you part of the credit." 

"That's not necessary." 

"Oh, it's not that I'd mind, but I'm sure you wouldn't want me to say anything about it. And I'm 
sure you don't want to say anything yourself, because you know how it is, people are so funny, 
they misinterpret everything in such a stupid way.. ..But since I'm getting part of the award 
money, I thought it's only fair to let you have some of it. I'm glad that it comes at a time when 
you need it so badly." 

He produced his billfold, pulled from it a check he had made out in advance and put it down 
on the desk. It read: "Pay to the order of Howard Roark-the sum of five hundred dollars." 

"Thank you, Peter," said Roark, taking the check. 

Then he turned it over, took his fountain pen, wrote on the back: "Pay to the order of Peter 
Keating," signed and handed the check to Keating. 

"And here's my bribe to you, Peter," he said. "For the same purpose. To keep your mouth 
shut." 


Keating stared at him blankly. 



"That's all I can offer you now," said Roark. "You can't extort anything from me at present, but 
later, when I’ll have money, I'd like to ask you please not to blackmail me. I'm telling you 
frankly that you could. Because I don't want anyone to know that I had anything to do with that 
building." 

He laughed at the slow look of comprehension on Keating's face. 

"No?" said Roark. "You don't want to blackmail me on that?. ..Go home, Peter. You're perfectly 
safe. I'll never say a word about it. It's yours, the building and every girder of it and every foot 
of plumbing and every picture of your face in the papers." 

Then Keating jumped to his feet. He was shaking. 

"God damn you!" he screamed. "God damn you! Who do you think you are? Who told you that 
you could do this to people? So you're too good for that building? You want to make me 
ashamed of it? You rotten, lousy, conceited bastard! Who are you? You don't even have the 
wits to know that you're a flop, an incompetent, a beggar, a failure, a failure, a failure! And you 
stand there pronouncing judgment! You, against the whole country! You against everybody! 
Why should I listen to you? You can't frighten me. You can't touch me. I have the whole world 
with me!. ..Don't stare at me like that! I've always hated you! You didn't know that, did you? I've 
always hated you! I always will! I'll break you some day, I swear I will, if it's the last thing I do!" 

"Peter," said Roark, "why betray so much?" 

Keating's breath failed on a choked moan. He slumped down on a chair, he sat still, his hands 
clasping the sides of the seat under him. 

After a while he raised his head. He asked woodenly: 

"Oh God, Howard, what have I been saying?" 

"Are you all right now? Can you go?" 

"Howard, I'm sorry. I apologize, if you want me to." His voice was raw and dull, without 
conviction. "I lost my head. Guess I'm just unstrung. I didn't mean any of it. I don't know why I 
said it. Honestly, I don't." 

"Fix your collar. It's unfastened." 

"I guess I was angry about what you did with that check. But I suppose you were insulted, too. 
I'm sorry. I'm stupid like that sometimes. I didn't mean to offend you. We'll just destroy the 
damn thing." 

He picked up the check, struck a match, cautiously watched the paper burn till he had to drop 
the last scrap. 

"Howard, well forget it?" 

"Don't you think you'd better go now?" 

Keating rose heavily, his hands poked about in a few useless gestures, and he mumbled: 

"Well. ..well, good night, Howard. I... I'll see you soon. ...It's because so much's happened to me 
lately.. ..Guess I need a rest. ...So long, Howard...." 

When he stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him, Keating felt an icy sense of 
relief. He felt heavy and very tired, but drearily sure of himself. He had acquired the 
knowledge of one thing: he hated Roark. It was not necessary to doubt and wonder and 
squirm in uneasiness any longer. It was simple. He hated Roark. The reasons? It was not 
necessary to wonder about the reasons. It was necessary only to hate, to hate blindly, to hate 
patiently, to hate without anger; only to hate, and let nothing intervene, and not let oneself 
forget, ever. 



# 

The telephone rang late on Monday afternoon. 

"Mr. Roark?" said Weidler. "Can you come right over? I don't want to say anything over the 
phone, but get here at once." The voice sounded clear, gay, radiantly premonitory. 

Roark looked at the window, at the clock on the distant tower. He sat laughing at that clock, as 
at a friendly old enemy; he would not need it any longer, he would have a watch of his own 
again. He threw his head back in defiance to that pale gray dial hanging high over the city. 

He rose and reached for his coat. He threw his shoulders back, slipping the coat on; he felt 
pleasure in the jolt of his muscles. 

In the street outside, he took a taxi which he could not afford. 

The chairman of the board was waiting for him in his office, with Weidler and with the vice- 
president of the Manhattan Bank Company. There was a long conference table in the room, 
and Roark's drawings were spread upon it. Weidler rose when he entered and walked to meet 
him, his hand outstretched. It was in the air of the room, like an overture to the words Weidler 
uttered, and Roark was not certain of the moment when he heard them, because he thought 
he had heard them the instant he entered. 

"Well, Mr. Roark, the commission's yours," said Weidler. 

Roark bowed. It was best not to trust his voice for a few minutes. 

The chairman smiled amiably, inviting him to sit down. Roark sat down by the side of the table 
that supported his drawings. His hand rested on the table. The polished mahogany felt warm 
and living under his fingers; it was almost as if he were pressing his hand against the 
foundations of his building; his greatest building, fifty stories to rise in the center of Manhattan. 

"I must tell you," the chairman was saying, "that we've had a hell of a fight over that building of 
yours. Thank God it's over. Some of our members just couldn't swallow your radical 
innovations. You know how stupidly conservative some people are. But we've found a way to 
please them, and we got their consent. Mr. Weidler here was really magnificently convincing 
on your behalf." 

A great deal more was said by the three men. Roark barely heard it. He was thinking of the 
first bite of machine into earth that begins an excavation. Then he heard the chairman saying: 
"...and so it's yours, on one minor condition." He heard that and looked at the chairman. 

"It's a small compromise, and when you agree to it we can sign the contract. It's only an 
inconsequential matter of the building's appearance. I understand that you modernists attach 
no great importance to a mere facade, it's the plan that counts with you, quite rightly, and we 
wouldn't think of altering your plan in any way, it's the logic of the plan that sold us on the 
building. So I'm sure you won't mind." 

"What do you want?" 

"It's only a matter of a slight alteration in the facade. I'll show you. Our Mr. Parker's son is 
studying architecture and we had him draw us up a sketch, just a rough sketch to illustrate 
what we had in mind and to show the members of the board, because they couldn't have 
visualized the compromise we offered. Here it is." 

He pulled a sketch from under the drawings on the table and handed it to Roark. 

It was Roark's building on the sketch, very neatly drawn. It was his building, but it had a 
simplified Doric portico in front, a cornice on top, and his ornament was replaced by a stylized 
Greek ornament. 


Roark got up. He had to stand. He concentrated on the effort of standing. It made the rest 
easier. He leaned on one straight arm, his hand closed over the edge of the table, the tendons 



showing under the skin of his wrist. 


"You see the point?" said the chairman soothingly. "Our conservatives simply refused to 
accept a queer stark building like yours. And they claim that the public won't accept it either. 

So we hit upon the middle course. In this way, though it's not traditional architecture of course, 
it will give the public the impression of what they're accustomed to. It adds a certain air of 
sound, stable dignity--and that's what we want in a bank, isn't it? It does seem to be an 
unwritten law that a bank must have a Classic portico--and a bank is not exactly the right 
institution to parade law-breaking and rebellion. Undermines that intangible feeling of 
confidence, you know. People don't trust novelty. But this is the scheme that pleased 
everybody. Personally, I wouldn't insist on it, but I really don't see that it spoils anything. And 
that's what the board has decided. Of course, we don't mean that we want you to follow this 
sketch. But it gives you our general idea and you'll work it out yourself, make your own 
adaptation of the Classic motive to the facade." 

Then Roark answered. The men could not classify the tone of his voice; they could not decide 
whether it was too great a calm or too great an emotion. They concluded that it was calm, 
because the voice moved forward evenly, without stress, without color, each syllable spaced 
as by a machine; only the air in the room was not the air that vibrates to a calm voice. 

They concluded that there was nothing abnormal in the manner of the man who was 
speaking, except the fact that his right hand would not leave the edge of the table, and when 
he had to move the drawings, he did it with his left hand, like a man with one arm paralyzed. 

He spoke for a long time. He explained why this structure could not have a Classic motive on 
its facade. He explained why an honest building, like an honest man, had to be of one piece 
and one faith; what constituted the life source, the idea in any existing thing or creature, and 
why-if one smallest part committed treason to that idea-the thing of the creature was dead; 
and why the good, the high and the noble on earth was only that which kept its integrity. 

The chairman interrupted him: 

"Mr. Roark, I agree with you. There's no answer to what you're saying. But unfortunately, in 
practical life, one can't always be so flawlessly consistent. There's always the incalculable 
human element of emotion. We can't fight that with cold logic. This discussion is actually 
superfluous. I can agree with you, but I can't help you. The matter is closed. It was the board's 
final decision-after more than usually prolonged consideration, as you know." 

"Will you let me appear before the board and speak to them?" 

"I'm sorry, Mr. Roark, but the board will not re-open the question for further debate. It was 
final. I can only ask you to state whether you agree to accept the commission on our terms or 
not. I must admit that the board has considered the possibility of your refusal. In which case, 
the name of another architect, one Gordon L. Prescott, has been mentioned most favorably as 
an alternative. But I told the board that I felt certain you would accept." 

He waited. Roark said nothing. 

"You understand the situation, Mr. Roark?" 

"Yes," said Roark. His eyes were lowered. He was looking down at the drawings. 

"Well?" 

Roark did not answer. 

"Yes or no, Mr. Roark?" 

Roark's head leaned back. He closed his eyes. 

"No," said Roark. 

After a while the chairman asked: 



"Do you realize what you're doing?" 

"Quite," said Roark. 

"Good God!" Weidler cried suddenly. "Don't you know how big a commission this is? You're a 
young man, you won't get another chance like this. And. ..all right, damn it, I'll say it! You need 
this! I know how badly you need it!" 

Roark gathered the drawings from the table, rolled them together and put them under his arm. 

"It's sheer insanity!" Weidler moaned. "I want you. We want your building. You need the 
commission. Do you have to be quite so fanatical and selfless about it?" 

"What?" Roark asked incredulously. 

"Fanatical and selfless." 

Roark smiled. He looked down at his drawings. His elbow moved a little, pressing them to his 
body. He said: 

"That was the most selfish thing you've ever seen a man do." 

He walked back to his office. He gathered his drawing instruments and the few things he had 
there. It made one package and he carried it under his arm. He locked the door and gave the 
key to the rental agent. He told the agent that he was closing his office. He walked home and 
left the package there. Then he went to Mike Donnigan's house. 

"No?" Mike asked, after one look at him. 

"No," said Roark. 

"What happened?" 

"I'll tell you some other time." 

"The bastards!" 

"Never mind that, Mike." 

"How about the office now?" 

"I've closed the office." 

"For good?" 

"For the time being." 

"God damn them all, Red! God damn them!" 

"Shut up. I need a job, Mike. Can you help me?" 

"Me?" 

"I don't know anyone in those trades here. Not anyone that would want me. You know them 
all." 

"In what trades? What are you talking about?" 

"In the building trades. Structural work. As I've done before." 

"You mean-a plain workman's job?" 



"I mean a plain workman's job." 

"You're crazy, you God-damn fool!" 

"Cut it, Mike. Will you get me a job?" 

"But why in hell? You can get a decent job in an architect's office. You know you can." 

"I won't, Mike. Not ever again." 

"Why?" 

"I don't want to touch it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to help them do what they're doing." 
"You can get a nice clean job in some other line." 

"I would have to think on a nice clean job. I don't want to think. Not their way. It will have to be 
their way, no matter where I go. I want a job where I won't have to think." 

"Architects don't take workmen's jobs." 

"That's all this architect can do." 

"You can learn something in no time." 

"I don't want to learn anything." 

"You mean you want me to get you into a construction gang, here, in town?" 

"That's what I mean." 

"No, God damn you! I can’t! I won't! I won't do it!" 

"Why?" 

"Red, to be putting yourself up like a show for all the bastards in this town to see? For all the 
sons of bitches to know they brought you down like this? For all of them to gloat?" 

Roark laughed. 

"I don't give a damn about that, Mike. Why should you?" 

"Well, I'm not letting you. I'm not giving the sons of bitches that kinda treat." 

"Mike," Roark said softly, "there's nothing else for me to do." 

"Hell, yes, there is. I told you before. You'll be listening to reason now. I got all the dough you 
need until..." 

"I'll tell you what I've told Austen Heller: If you ever offer me money again, that'll be the end 
between us." 

"But why?" 

"Don't argue, Mike." 

"But..." 

"I'm asking you to do me a bigger favor. I want that job. You don't have to feel sorry for me. I 
don't." 

"But. ..but what'll happen to you, Red?" 



'Where?' 


"I mean. ..your future?" 

"I'll save enough money and I'll come back. Or maybe someone will send for me before then." 

Mike looked at him. He saw something in Roark's eyes which he knew Roark did not want to 
be there. 

"Okay, Red," said Mike softly. 

He thought it over for a long time. He said: 

"Listen, Red, I won't get you a job in town. I just can't. It turns my stomach to think of it. But I'll 
get you something in the same line." 

"All right. Anything. It doesn't make any difference to me." 

"I've worked for all of that bastard Francon's pet contractors for so long I know everybody ever 
worked for him. He’s got a granite quarry down in Connecticut. One of the foremen's a great 
pal of mine. He’s in town right now. Ever worked in a quarry before?" 

"Once. Long ago." 

"Think you'll like that?" 

"Sure." 

"I'll go see him. We won't be telling him who you are, just a friend of mine, that's all." 

"Thanks, Mike." 

Mike reached for his coat, and then his hands fell back, and he looked at the floor. 

"Red..." 

"It will be all right, Mike." 

Roark walked home. It was dark and the street was deserted. There was a strong wind. He 
could feel the cold, whistling pressure strike his cheeks. It was the only evidence of the flow 
ripping the air. Nothing moved in the stone corridor about him. There was not a tree to stir, no 
curtains, no awnings; only naked masses of stone, glass, asphalt and sharp corners. It was 
strange to feel that fierce movement against his face. But in a trash basket on a corner a 
crumpled sheet of newspaper was rustling, beating convulsively against the wire mesh. It 
made the wind real. 

# 

In the evening, two days later, Roark left for Connecticut. 

From the train, he looked back once at the skyline of the city as it flashed into sight and was 
held for some moments beyond the windows. The twilight had washed off the details of the 
buildings. They rose in thin shafts of a soft, porcelain blue, a color not of real things, but of 
evening and distance. They rose in bare outlines, like empty molds waiting to be filled. The 
distance had flattened the city. The single shafts stood immeasurably tall, out of scale to the 
rest of the earth. They were of their own world, and they held up to the sky the statement of 
what man had conceived and made possible. They were empty molds. But man had come so 
far; he could go farther. The city on the edge of the sky held a question-and a promise. 

# 

Little pinheads of light flared up about the peak of one famous tower, in the windows of the 
Star Roof Restaurant. Then the train swerved around a bend and the city vanished. 

That evening, in the banquet hall of the Star Roof Restaurant, a dinner was held to celebrate 



the admittance of Peter Keating to partnership in the firm to be known henceforward as 
Francon & Keating. 

At the long table that seemed covered, not with a tablecloth, but with a sheet of light, sat Guy 
Francon. Somehow, tonight, he did not mind the streaks of silver that appeared on his 
temples; they sparkled crisply against the black of his hair and they gave him an air of 
cleanliness and elegance, like the rigid white of his shirt against his black evening clothes. In 
the place of honor sat Peter Keating. He leaned back, his shoulders straight, his hand closed 
about the stem of a glass. His black curls glistened against his white forehead. In that one 
moment of silence, the guests felt no envy, no resentment, no malice. There was a grave 
feeling of brotherhood in the room, in the presence of the pale, handsome boy who looked 
solemn as at his first communion. Ralston Holcombe had risen to speak. He stood, his glass 
in hand. He had prepared his speech, but he was astonished to hear himself saying 
something quite different, in a voice of complete sincerity. He said: 

"We are the guardians of a great human function. Perhaps of the greatest function among the 
endeavors of man. We have achieved much and we have erred often. But we are willing in all 
humility to make way for our heirs. We are only men and we are only seekers. But we seek for 
truth with the best there is in our hearts. We seek with what there is of the sublime granted to 
the race of men. It is a great quest. To the future of American Architecture!" 


Part Two: ELLSWORTH M. TOOHEY 

D R A C U L A

---

CHAPTER I

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

(Kept in shorthand.)

3 May. Bistritz.—Left Munich at 8:35 P. M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule.

We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called “paprika hendl,” and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians. I found my smattering of German very useful here; indeed, I don’t know how I should be able to get on without it.

Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country. I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina.

In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it. I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.)

I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was “mamaliga,” and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata.” (Mem., get recipe for this also.) I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move. It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China?

All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject to great floods. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets and round hats and home-made trousers; but others were very picturesque. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them. The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion.

It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontier—for the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina—it has had a very stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease.

Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country. I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress—white undergarment with long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, “The Herr Englishman?” “Yes,” I said, “Jonathan Harker.” She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirt-sleeves, who had followed her to the door. He went, but immediately returned with a letter:--

4 May.—I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count, directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me; but on making inquiries as to details he seemed somewhat reticent, and pretended that he could not understand my German. This could not be true, because up to then he had understood it perfectly; at least, he answered my questions exactly as if he did. He and his wife, the old lady who had received me, looked at each other in a frightened sort of way. He mumbled out that the money had been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew. When I asked him if he knew Count Dracula, and could tell me anything of his castle, both he and his wife crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing at all, simply refused to speak further. It was so near the time of starting that I had no time to ask any one else, for it was all very mysterious and not by any means comforting.

Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in a very hysterical way:

“Must you go? Oh! young Herr, must you go?” She was in such an excited state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what German she knew, and mixed it all up with some other language which I did not know at all. I was just able to follow her by asking many questions. When I told her that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important business, she asked again:

“Do you know what day it is?” I answered that it was the fourth of May. She shook her head as she said again:

“Oh, yes! I know that! I know that, but do you know what day it is?” On my saying that I did not understand, she went on:

“It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?” She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but without effect. Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it. I therefore tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go. She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind. She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck, and said, “For your mother’s sake,” and went out of the room. I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still round my neck. Whether it is the old lady’s fear, or the many ghostly traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual. If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my good-bye. Here comes the coach!

 

5 May. The Castle.—The grey of the morning has passed, and the sun is high over the distant horizon, which seems jagged, whether with trees or hills I know not, for it is so far off that big things and little are mixed. I am not sleepy, and, as I am not to be called till I awake, naturally I write till sleep comes. There are many odd things to put down, and, lest who reads them may fancy that I dined too well before I left Bistritz, let me put down my dinner exactly. I dined on what they called “robber steak”—bits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire, in the simple style of the London cat’s meat! The wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a queer sting on the tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable. I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else.

When I got on the coach the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw him talking with the landlady. They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the door—which they call by a name meaning “word-bearer”—came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly. I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd; so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were “Ordog”—Satan, “pokol”—hell, “stregoica”—witch, “vrolok” and “vlkoslak”—both of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either were-wolf or vampire. (Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions)

When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty I got a fellow-passenger to tell me what they meant; he would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man; but every one seemed so kind-hearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched. I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn-yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard. Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the box-seat—“gotza” they call them—cracked his big whip over his four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey.

I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road. There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the “Mittel Land” ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after the winter snows. In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point.

Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water. One of my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us:--

“Look! Isten szek!”—“God’s seat!”—and he crossed himself reverently.

As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. Here and there we passed Cszeks and Slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent. By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves. Here and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling before a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in the self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world. There were many things new to me: for instance, hay-ricks in the trees, and here and there very beautiful masses of weeping birch, their white stems shining like silver through the delicate green of the leaves. Now and again we passed a leiter-wagon—the ordinary peasant’s cart—with its long, snake-like vertebra, calculated to suit the inequalities of the road. On this were sure to be seated quite a group of home-coming peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks with their coloured, sheepskins, the latter carrying lance-fashion their long staves, with axe at end. As the evening fell it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there against the background of late-lying snow. Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys. Sometimes the hills were so steep that, despite our driver’s haste, the horses could only go slowly. I wished to get down and walk up them, as we do at home, but the driver would not hear of it. “No, no,” he said; “you must not walk here; the dogs are too fierce”; and then he added, with what he evidently meant for grim pleasantry—for he looked round to catch the approving smile of the rest—“and you may have enough of such matters before you go to sleep.” The only stop he would make was a moment’s pause to light his lamps.

When it grew dark there seemed to be some excitement amongst the passengers, and they kept speaking to him, one after the other, as though urging him to further speed. He lashed the horses unmercifully with his long whip, and with wild cries of encouragement urged them on to further exertions. Then through the darkness I could see a sort of patch of grey light ahead of us, as though there were a cleft in the hills. The excitement of the passengers grew greater; the crazy coach rocked on its great leather springs, and swayed like a boat tossed on a stormy sea. I had to hold on. The road grew more level, and we appeared to fly along. Then the mountains seemed to come nearer to us on each side and to frown down upon us; we were entering on the Borgo Pass. One by one several of the passengers offered me gifts, which they pressed upon me with an earnestness which would take no denial; these were certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each was given in simple good faith, with a kindly word, and a blessing, and that strange mixture of fear-meaning movements which I had seen outside the hotel at Bistritz—the sign of the cross and the guard against the evil eye. Then, as we flew along, the driver leaned forward, and on each side the passengers, craning over the edge of the coach, peered eagerly into the darkness. It was evident that something very exciting was either happening or expected, but though I asked each passenger, no one would give me the slightest explanation. This state of excitement kept on for some little time; and at last we saw before us the Pass opening out on the eastern side. There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder. It seemed as though the mountain range had separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous one. I was now myself looking out for the conveyance which was to take me to the Count. Each moment I expected to see the glare of lamps through the blackness; but all was dark. The only light was the flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from our hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud. We could see now the sandy road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle. The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to mock my own disappointment. I was already thinking what I had best do, when the driver, looking at his watch, said to the others something which I could hardly hear, it was spoken so quietly and in so low a tone; I thought it was “An hour less than the time.” Then turning to me, he said in German worse than my own:--

“There is no carriage here. The Herr is not expected after all. He will now come on to Bukovina, and return to-morrow or the next day; better the next day.” Whilst he was speaking the horses began to neigh and snort and plunge wildly, so that the driver had to hold them up. Then, amongst a chorus of screams from the peasants and a universal crossing of themselves, a calèche, with four horses, drove up behind us, overtook us, and drew up beside the coach. I could see from the flash of our lamps, as the rays fell on them, that the horses were coal-black and splendid animals. They were driven by a tall man, with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from us. I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight, as he turned to us. He said to the driver:--

“You are early to-night, my friend.” The man stammered in reply:--

“The English Herr was in a hurry,” to which the stranger replied:--

“That is why, I suppose, you wished him to go on to Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my friend; I know too much, and my horses are swift.” As he spoke he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hard-looking mouth, with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory. One of my companions whispered to another the line from Burger’s “Lenore”:--

The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a gleaming smile. The passenger turned his face away, at the same time putting out his two fingers and crossing himself. “Give me the Herr’s luggage,” said the driver; and with exceeding alacrity my bags were handed out and put in the calèche. Then I descended from the side of the coach, as the calèche was close alongside, the driver helping me with a hand which caught my arm in a grip of steel; his strength must have been prodigious. Without a word he shook his reins, the horses turned, and we swept into the darkness of the Pass. As I looked back I saw the steam from the horses of the coach by the light of the lamps, and projected against it the figures of my late companions crossing themselves. Then the driver cracked his whip and called to his horses, and off they swept on their way to Bukovina. As they sank into the darkness I felt a strange chill, and a lonely feeling came over me; but a cloak was thrown over my shoulders, and a rug across my knees, and the driver said in excellent German:--

“The night is chill, mein Herr, and my master the Count bade me take all care of you. There is a flask of slivovitz (the plum brandy of the country) underneath the seat, if you should require it.” I did not take any, but it was a comfort to know it was there all the same. I felt a little strangely, and not a little frightened. I think had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead of prosecuting that unknown night journey. The carriage went at a hard pace straight along, then we made a complete turn and went along another straight road. It seemed to me that we were simply going over and over the same ground again; and so I took note of some salient point, and found that this was so. I would have liked to have asked the driver what this all meant, but I really feared to do so, for I thought that, placed as I was, any protest would have had no effect in case there had been an intention to delay. By-and-by, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch; it was within a few minutes of midnight. This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent experiences. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense.

Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road—a long, agonised wailing, as if from fear. The sound was taken up by another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind which now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which seemed to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night. At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright. Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder and a sharper howling—that of wolves—which affected both the horses and myself in the same way—for I was minded to jump from the calèche and run, whilst they reared again and plunged madly, so that the driver had to use all his great strength to keep them from bolting. In a few minutes, however, my own ears got accustomed to the sound, and the horses so far became quiet that the driver was able to descend and to stand before them. He petted and soothed them, and whispered something in their ears, as I have heard of horse-tamers doing, and with extraordinary effect, for under his caresses they became quite manageable again, though they still trembled. The driver again took his seat, and shaking his reins, started off at a great pace. This time, after going to the far side of the Pass, he suddenly turned down a narrow roadway which ran sharply to the right.

Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway till we passed as through a tunnel; and again great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side. Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along. It grew colder and colder still, and fine, powdery snow began to fall, so that soon we and all around us were covered with a white blanket. The keen wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though this grew fainter as we went on our way. The baying of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer, as though they were closing round on us from every side. I grew dreadfully afraid, and the horses shared my fear. The driver, however, was not in the least disturbed; he kept turning his head to left and right, but I could not see anything through the darkness.

Suddenly, away on our left, I saw a faint flickering blue flame. The driver saw it at the same moment; he at once checked the horses, and, jumping to the ground, disappeared into the darkness. I did not know what to do, the less as the howling of the wolves grew closer; but while I wondered the driver suddenly appeared again, and without a word took his seat, and we resumed our journey. I think I must have fallen asleep and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated endlessly, and now looking back, it is like a sort of awful nightmare. Once the flame appeared so near the road, that even in the darkness around us I could watch the driver’s motions. He went rapidly to where the blue flame arose—it must have been very faint, for it did not seem to illumine the place around it at all—and gathering a few stones, formed them into some device. Once there appeared a strange optical effect: when he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly flicker all the same. This startled me, but as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the darkness. Then for a time there were no blue flames, and we sped onwards through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us, as though they were following in a moving circle.

At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright. I could not see any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether; but just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled. For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import.

All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see; but the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side; and they had perforce to remain within it. I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid his approach. I shouted and beat the side of the calèche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him a chance of reaching the trap. How he came there, I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway. As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness.

When I could see again the driver was climbing into the calèche, and the wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon. We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascending. Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky.

CHAPTER II

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL--continued

5 May.—I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place. In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight.

When the calèche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took out my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the reins; the horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings.

I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign; through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor’s clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor’s clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor—for just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful; and I am now a full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of the morning.

Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back.

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation:--

“Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!” He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice—more like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said:--

“Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring!” The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking; so to make sure, I said interrogatively:--

“Count Dracula?” He bowed in a courtly way as he replied:--

“I am Dracula; and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in; the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest.” As he was speaking, he put the lamp on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out, took my luggage; he had carried it in before I could forestall him. I protested but he insisted:--

“Nay, sir, you are my guest. It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself.” He insisted on carrying my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and along another great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang heavily. At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, flamed and flared.

The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort. Passing through this, he opened another door, and motioned me to enter. It was a welcome sight; for here was a great bedroom well lighted and warmed with another log fire,—also added to but lately, for the top logs were fresh—which sent a hollow roar up the wide chimney. The Count himself left my luggage inside and withdrew, saying, before he closed the door:--

“You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your toilet. I trust you will find all you wish. When you are ready, come into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared.”

The light and warmth and the Count’s courteous welcome seemed to have dissipated all my doubts and fears. Having then reached my normal state, I discovered that I was half famished with hunger; so making a hasty toilet, I went into the other room.

I found supper already laid out. My host, who stood on one side of the great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful wave of his hand to the table, and said:--

“I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will, I trust, excuse me that I do not join you; but I have dined already, and I do not sup.”

I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to me. He opened it and read it gravely; then, with a charming smile, he handed it to me to read. One passage of it, at least, gave me a thrill of pleasure.

“I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for some time to come; but I am happy to say I can send a sufficient substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence. He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all matters.”

The Count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some cheese and a salad and a bottle of old Tokay, of which I had two glasses, was my supper. During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many questions as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had experienced.

By this time I had finished my supper, and by my host’s desire had drawn up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke. I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked physiognomy.

His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse—broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back; and with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protuberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while; and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything; but as I listened I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count’s eyes gleamed, and he said:--

“Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!” Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added:--

“Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter.” Then he rose and said:--

“But you must be tired. Your bedroom is all ready, and to-morrow you shall sleep as late as you will. I have to be away till the afternoon; so sleep well and dream well!” With a courteous bow, he opened for me himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my bedroom....

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!

 

7 May.—It is again early morning, but I have rested and enjoyed the last twenty-four hours. I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my own accord. When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we had supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot by the pot being placed on the hearth. There was a card on the table, on which was written:--

“I have to be absent for a while. Do not wait for me.—D.” I set to and enjoyed a hearty meal. When I had done, I looked for a bell, so that I might let the servants know I had finished; but I could not find one. There are certainly odd deficiencies in the house, considering the extraordinary evidences of wealth which are round me. The table service is of gold, and so beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value. The curtains and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but there they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten. But still in none of the rooms is there a mirror. There is not even a toilet glass on my table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I could either shave or brush my hair. I have not yet seen a servant anywhere, or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of wolves. Some time after I had finished my meal—I do not know whether to call it breakfast or dinner, for it was between five and six o’clock when I had it—I looked about for something to read, for I did not like to go about the castle until I had asked the Count’s permission. There was absolutely nothing in the room, book, newspaper, or even writing materials; so I opened another door in the room and found a sort of library. The door opposite mine I tried, but found it locked.

In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and newspapers. A table in the centre was littered with English magazines and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date. The books were of the most varied kind—history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law—all relating to England and English life and customs and manners. There were even such books of reference as the London Directory, the “Red” and “Blue” books, Whitaker’s Almanac, the Army and Navy Lists, and—it somehow gladdened my heart to see it—the Law List.

Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened, and the Count entered. He saluted me in a hearty way, and hoped that I had had a good night’s rest. Then he went on:--

“I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much that will interest you. These companions”—and he laid his hand on some of the books—“have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England; and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is. But alas! as yet I only know your tongue through books. To you, my friend, I look that I know it to speak.”

“But, Count,” I said, “you know and speak English thoroughly!” He bowed gravely.

“I thank you, my friend, for your all too-flattering estimate, but yet I fear that I am but a little way on the road I would travel. True, I know the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them.”

“Indeed,” I said, “you speak excellently.”

“Not so,” he answered. “Well, I know that, did I move and speak in your London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not enough for me. Here I am noble; I am boyar; the common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men know him not—and to know not is to care not for. I am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he see me, or pause in his speaking if he hear my words, ‘Ha, ha! a stranger!’ I have been so long master that I would be master still—or at least that none other should be master of me. You come to me not alone as agent of my friend Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London. You shall, I trust, rest here with me awhile, so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation; and I would that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest, in my speaking. I am sorry that I had to be away so long to-day; but you will, I know, forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand.”

Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might come into that room when I chose. He answered: “Yes, certainly,” and added:--

“You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand.” I said I was sure of this, and then he went on:--

“We are in Transylvania; and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be.”

This led to much conversation; and as it was evident that he wanted to talk, if only for talking’s sake, I asked him many questions regarding things that had already happened to me or come within my notice. Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by pretending not to understand; but generally he answered all I asked most frankly. Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as, for instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue flames. He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a certain night of the year—last night, in fact, when all evil spirits are supposed to have unchecked sway—a blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been concealed. “That treasure has been hidden,” he went on, “in the region through which you came last night, there can be but little doubt; for it was the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and the Turk. Why, there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders. In old days there were stirring times, when the Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them—men and women, the aged and the children too—and waited their coming on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on them with their artificial avalanches. When the invader was triumphant he found but little, for whatever there was had been sheltered in the friendly soil.”

“But how,” said I, “can it have remained so long undiscovered, when there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look?” The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long, sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely; he answered:--

“Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool! Those flames only appear on one night; and on that night no man of this land will, if he can help it, stir without his doors. And, dear sir, even if he did he would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in daylight even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find these places again?”

“There you are right,” I said. “I know no more than the dead where even to look for them.” Then we drifted into other matters.

“Come,” he said at last, “tell me of London and of the house which you have procured for me.” With an apology for my remissness, I went into my own room to get the papers from my bag. Whilst I was placing them in order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and as I passed through, noticed that the table had been cleared and the lamp lit, for it was by this time deep into the dark. The lamps were also lit in the study or library, and I found the Count lying on the sofa, reading, of all things in the world, an English Bradshaw’s Guide. When I came in he cleared the books and papers from the table; and with him I went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts. He was interested in everything, and asked me a myriad questions about the place and its surroundings. He clearly had studied beforehand all he could get on the subject of the neighbourhood, for he evidently at the end knew very much more than I did. When I remarked this, he answered:--

“Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I should? When I go there I shall be all alone, and my friend Harker Jonathan—nay, pardon me, I fall into my country’s habit of putting your patronymic first—my friend Jonathan Harker will not be by my side to correct and aid me. He will be in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of the law with my other friend, Peter Hawkins. So!”

We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at Purfleet. When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the necessary papers, and had written a letter with them ready to post to Mr. Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a place. I read to him the notes which I had made at the time, and which I inscribe here:--

“At Purfleet, on a by-road, I came across just such a place as seemed to be required, and where was displayed a dilapidated notice that the place was for sale. It is surrounded by a high wall, of ancient structure, built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a large number of years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with rust.

“The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Quatre Face, as the house is four-sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass. It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by the solid stone wall above mentioned. There are many trees on it, which make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or small lake, evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and flows away in a fair-sized stream. The house is very large and of all periods back, I should say, to mediæval times, for one part is of stone immensely thick, with only a few windows high up and heavily barred with iron. It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or church. I could not enter it, as I had not the key of the door leading to it from the house, but I have taken with my kodak views of it from various points. The house has been added to, but in a very straggling way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must be very great. There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very large house only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic asylum. It is not, however, visible from the grounds.”

When I had finished, he said:--

“I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young; and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may.” Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord, or else it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and saturnine.

Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to put all my papers together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of the books around me. One was an atlas, which I found opened naturally at England, as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found in certain places little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly where his new estate was situated; the other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.

It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned. “Aha!” he said; “still at your books? Good! But you must not work always. Come; I am informed that your supper is ready.” He took my arm, and we went into the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on the table. The Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on his being away from home. But he sat as on the previous night, and chatted whilst I ate. After supper I smoked, as on the last evening, and the Count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every conceivable subject, hour after hour. I felt that it was getting very late indeed, but I did not say anything, for I felt under obligation to meet my host’s wishes in every way. I was not sleepy, as the long sleep yesterday had fortified me; but I could not help experiencing that chill which comes over one at the coming of the dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that people who are near death die generally at the change to the dawn or at the turn of the tide; any one who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it. All at once we heard the crow of a cock coming up with preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air; Count Dracula, jumping to his feet, said:--

“Why, there is the morning again! How remiss I am to let you stay up so long. You must make your conversation regarding my dear new country of England less interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by us,” and, with a courtly bow, he quickly left me.

I went into my own room and drew the curtains, but there was little to notice; my window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the warm grey of quickening sky. So I pulled the curtains again, and have written of this day.

 

8 May.—I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too diffuse; but now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for there is something so strange about this place and all in it that I cannot but feel uneasy. I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had never come. It may be that this strange night-existence is telling on me; but would that that were all! If there were any one to talk to I could bear it, but there is no one. I have only the Count to speak with, and he!—I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place. Let me be prosaic so far as facts can be; it will help me to bear up, and imagination must not run riot with me. If it does I am lost. Let me say at once how I stand—or seem to.

I only slept a few hours when I went to bed, and feeling that I could not sleep any more, got up. I had hung my shaving glass by the window, and was just beginning to shave. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard the Count’s voice saying to me, “Good-morning.” I started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the Count’s salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror! The whole room behind me was displayed; but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself. This was startling, and, coming on the top of so many strange things, was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near; but at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.

“Take care,” he said, “take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous than you think in this country.” Then seizing the shaving glass, he went on: “And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bauble of man’s vanity. Away with it!” and opening the heavy window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving-pot, which is fortunately of metal.

When I went into the dining-room, breakfast was prepared; but I could not find the Count anywhere. So I breakfasted alone. It is strange that as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink. He must be a very peculiar man! After breakfast I did a little exploring in the castle. I went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards the South. The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every opportunity of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.

But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I explored further; doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit.

The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!

CHAPTER III

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL--continued

WHEN I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling came over me. I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering out of every window I could find; but after a little the conviction of my helplessness overpowered all other feelings. When I look back after a few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I behaved much as a rat does in a trap. When, however, the conviction had come to me that I was helpless I sat down quietly—as quietly as I have ever done anything in my life—and began to think over what was best to be done. I am thinking still, and as yet have come to no definite conclusion. Of one thing only am I certain; that it is no use making my ideas known to the Count. He knows well that I am imprisoned; and as he has done it himself, and has doubtless his own motives for it, he would only deceive me if I trusted him fully with the facts. So far as I can see, my only plan will be to keep my knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes open. I am, I know, either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or else I am in desperate straits; and if the latter be so, I need, and shall need, all my brains to get through.

I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below shut, and knew that the Count had returned. He did not come at once into the library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found him making the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed what I had all along thought—that there were no servants in the house. When later I saw him through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in the dining-room, I was assured of it; for if he does himself all these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else to do them. This gave me a fright, for if there is no one else in the castle, it must have been the Count himself who was the driver of the coach that brought me here. This is a terrible thought; for if so, what does it mean that he could control the wolves, as he did, by only holding up his hand in silence. How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain ash? Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck! for it is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it. It is odd that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour and as idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help. Is it that there is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that it is a medium, a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and comfort? Some time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try to make up my mind about it. In the meantime I must find out all I can about Count Dracula, as it may help me to understand. To-night he may talk of himself, if I turn the conversation that way. I must be very careful, however, not to awake his suspicion.

 

Midnight.—I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a few questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the subject wonderfully. In his speaking of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all. This he afterwards explained by saying that to a boyar the pride of his house and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their fate is his fate. Whenever he spoke of his house he always said “we,” and spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could put down all he said exactly as he said it, for to me it was most fascinating. It seemed to have in it a whole history of the country. He grew excited as he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his great white moustache and grasping anything on which he laid his hands as though he would crush it by main strength. One thing he said which I shall put down as nearly as I can; for it tells in its way the story of his race:--

“We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the were-wolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?” He held up his arms. “Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier; that the Honfoglalas was completed there? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkey-land; ay, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, ‘water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.’ Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the ‘bloody sword,’ or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent? Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! what good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohács, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys—and the Dracula as their heart’s blood, their brains, and their swords—can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told.”

It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed. (Mem., this diary seems horribly like the beginning of the “Arabian Nights,” for everything has to break off at cockcrow—or like the ghost of Hamlet’s father.)

 

12 May.—Let me begin with facts—bare, meagre facts, verified by books and figures, and of which there can be no doubt. I must not confuse them with experiences which will have to rest on my own observation, or my memory of them. Last evening when the Count came from his room he began by asking me questions on legal matters and on the doing of certain kinds of business. I had spent the day wearily over books, and, simply to keep my mind occupied, went over some of the matters I had been examined in at Lincoln’s Inn. There was a certain method in the Count’s inquiries, so I shall try to put them down in sequence; the knowledge may somehow or some time be useful to me.

First, he asked if a man in England might have two solicitors or more. I told him he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not be wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate against his interest. He seemed thoroughly to understand, and went on to ask if there would be any practical difficulty in having one man to attend, say, to banking, and another to look after shipping, in case local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking solicitor. I asked him to explain more fully, so that I might not by any chance mislead him, so he said:--

“I shall illustrate. Your friend and mine, Mr. Peter Hawkins, from under the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far from London, buys for me through your good self my place at London. Good! Now here let me say frankly, lest you should think it strange that I have sought the services of one so far off from London instead of some one resident there, that my motive was that no local interest might be served save my wish only; and as one of London residence might, perhaps, have some purpose of himself or friend to serve, I went thus afield to seek my agent, whose labours should be only to my interest. Now, suppose I, who have much of affairs, wish to ship goods, say, to Newcastle, or Durham, or Harwich, or Dover, might it not be that it could with more ease be done by consigning to one in these ports?” I answered that certainly it would be most easy, but that we solicitors had a system of agency one for the other, so that local work could be done locally on instruction from any solicitor, so that the client, simply placing himself in the hands of one man, could have his wishes carried out by him without further trouble.

“But,” said he, “I could be at liberty to direct myself. Is it not so?”

“Of course,” I replied; and “such is often done by men of business, who do not like the whole of their affairs to be known by any one person.”

“Good!” he said, and then went on to ask about the means of making consignments and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of difficulties which might arise, but by forethought could be guarded against. I explained all these things to him to the best of my ability, and he certainly left me under the impression that he would have made a wonderful solicitor, for there was nothing that he did not think of or foresee. For a man who was never in the country, and who did not evidently do much in the way of business, his knowledge and acumen were wonderful. When he had satisfied himself on these points of which he had spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could by the books available, he suddenly stood up and said:--

“Have you written since your first letter to our friend Mr. Peter Hawkins, or to any other?” It was with some bitterness in my heart that I answered that I had not, that as yet I had not seen any opportunity of sending letters to anybody.

“Then write now, my young friend,” he said, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder: “write to our friend and to any other; and say, if it will please you, that you shall stay with me until a month from now.”

“Do you wish me to stay so long?” I asked, for my heart grew cold at the thought.

“I desire it much; nay, I will take no refusal. When your master, employer, what you will, engaged that someone should come on his behalf, it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted. I have not stinted. Is it not so?”

What could I do but bow acceptance? It was Mr. Hawkins’s interest, not mine, and I had to think of him, not myself; and besides, while Count Dracula was speaking, there was that in his eyes and in his bearing which made me remember that I was a prisoner, and that if I wished it I could have no choice. The Count saw his victory in my bow, and his mastery in the trouble of my face, for he began at once to use them, but in his own smooth, resistless way:--

“I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not discourse of things other than business in your letters. It will doubtless please your friends to know that you are well, and that you look forward to getting home to them. Is it not so?” As he spoke he handed me three sheets of note-paper and three envelopes. They were all of the thinnest foreign post, and looking at them, then at him, and noticing his quiet smile, with the sharp, canine teeth lying over the red underlip, I understood as well as if he had spoken that I should be careful what I wrote, for he would be able to read it. So I determined to write only formal notes now, but to write fully to Mr. Hawkins in secret, and also to Mina, for to her I could write in shorthand, which would puzzle the Count, if he did see it. When I had written my two letters I sat quiet, reading a book whilst the Count wrote several notes, referring as he wrote them to some books on his table. Then he took up my two and placed them with his own, and put by his writing materials, after which, the instant the door had closed behind him, I leaned over and looked at the letters, which were face down on the table. I felt no compunction in doing so, for under the circumstances I felt that I should protect myself in every way I could.

One of the letters was directed to Samuel F. Billington, No. 7, The Crescent, Whitby, another to Herr Leutner, Varna; the third was to Coutts & Co., London, and the fourth to Herren Klopstock & Billreuth, bankers, Buda-Pesth. The second and fourth were unsealed. I was just about to look at them when I saw the door-handle move. I sank back in my seat, having just had time to replace the letters as they had been and to resume my book before the Count, holding still another letter in his hand, entered the room. He took up the letters on the table and stamped them carefully, and then turning to me, said:--

“I trust you will forgive me, but I have much work to do in private this evening. You will, I hope, find all things as you wish.” At the door he turned, and after a moment’s pause said:--

“Let me advise you, my dear young friend—nay, let me warn you with all seriousness, that should you leave these rooms you will not by any chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be warned! Should sleep now or ever overcome you, or be like to do, then haste to your own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then be safe. But if you be not careful in this respect, then”—He finished his speech in a gruesome way, for he motioned with his hands as if he were washing them. I quite understood; my only doubt was as to whether any dream could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing around me.

 

Later.—I endorse the last words written, but this time there is no doubt in question. I shall not fear to sleep in any place where he is not. I have placed the crucifix over the head of my bed—I imagine that my rest is thus freer from dreams; and there it shall remain.

When he left me I went to my room. After a little while, not hearing any sound, I came out and went up the stone stair to where I could look out towards the South. There was some sense of freedom in the vast expanse, inaccessible though it was to me, as compared with the narrow darkness of the courtyard. Looking out on this, I felt that I was indeed in prison, and I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, though it were of the night. I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me. It is destroying my nerve. I start at my own shadow, and am full of all sorts of horrible imaginings. God knows that there is ground for my terrible fear in this accursed place! I looked out over the beautiful expanse, bathed in soft yellow moonlight till it was almost as light as day. In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows in the valleys and gorges of velvety blackness. The mere beauty seemed to cheer me; there was peace and comfort in every breath I drew. As I leaned from the window my eye was caught by something moving a storey below me, and somewhat to my left, where I imagined, from the order of the rooms, that the windows of the Count’s own room would look out. The window at which I stood was tall and deep, stone-mullioned, and though weatherworn, was still complete; but it was evidently many a day since the case had been there. I drew back behind the stonework, and looked carefully out.

What I saw was the Count’s head coming out from the window. I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his back and arms. In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had so many opportunities of studying. I was at first interested and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow; but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall.

What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me; I am in fear—in awful fear—and there is no escape for me; I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of....

 

15 May.—Once more have I seen the Count go out in his lizard fashion. He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down, and a good deal to the left. He vanished into some hole or window. When his head had disappeared, I leaned out to try and see more, but without avail—the distance was too great to allow a proper angle of sight. I knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use the opportunity to explore more than I had dared to do as yet. I went back to the room, and taking a lamp, tried all the doors. They were all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were comparatively new; but I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had entered originally. I found I could pull back the bolts easily enough and unhook the great chains; but the door was locked, and the key was gone! That key must be in the Count’s room; I must watch should his door be unlocked, so that I may get it and escape. I went on to make a thorough examination of the various stairs and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them. One or two small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing to see in them except old furniture, dusty with age and moth-eaten. At last, however, I found one door at the top of the stairway which, though it seemed to be locked, gave a little under pressure. I tried it harder, and found that it was not really locked, but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges had fallen somewhat, and the heavy door rested on the floor. Here was an opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted myself, and with many efforts forced it back so that I could enter. I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew and a storey lower down. From the windows I could see that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end room looking out both west and south. On the latter side, as well as to the former, there was a great precipice. The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow, or culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort, impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured. To the west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged mountain fastnesses, rising peak on peak, the sheer rock studded with mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and crannies of the stone. This was evidently the portion of the castle occupied by the ladies in bygone days, for the furniture had more air of comfort than any I had seen. The windows were curtainless, and the yellow moonlight, flooding in through the diamond panes, enabled one to see even colours, whilst it softened the wealth of dust which lay over all and disguised in some measure the ravages of time and the moth. My lamp seemed to be of little effect in the brilliant moonlight, but I was glad to have it with me, for there was a dread loneliness in the place which chilled my heart and made my nerves tremble. Still, it was better than living alone in the rooms which I had come to hate from the presence of the Count, and after trying a little to school my nerves, I found a soft quietude come over me. Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love-letter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. It is nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere “modernity” cannot kill.

 

Later: the Morning of 16 May.—God preserve my sanity, for to this I am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. If I be sane, then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me; that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose. Great God! merciful God! Let me be calm, for out of that way lies madness indeed. I begin to get new lights on certain things which have puzzled me. Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say:--

for now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me.

The Count’s mysterious warning frightened me at the time; it frightens me more now when I think of it, for in future he has a fearful hold upon me. I shall fear to doubt what he may say!

When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book and pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count’s warning came into my mind, but I took a pleasure in disobeying it. The sense of sleep was upon me, and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom which refreshed me. I determined not to return to-night to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I could look at the lovely view to east and south, and unthinking of and uncaring for the dust, composed myself for sleep. I suppose I must have fallen asleep; I hope so, but I fear, for all that followed was startlingly real—so real that now sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep.

I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it; I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I saw them, for, though the moonlight was behind them, they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth. They whispered together, and then they all three laughed—such a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of water-glasses when played on by a cunning hand. The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her on. One said:--

“Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to begin.” The other added:--

“He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.” I lay quiet, looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood.

I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one’s flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer—nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited—waited with beating heart.

But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with giant’s power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with passion. But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was lurid, as if the flames of hell-fire blazed behind them. His face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires; the thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating them back; it was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to cut through the air and then ring round the room he said:--

“How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you’ll have to deal with me.” The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:--

“You yourself never loved; you never love!” On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper:--

“Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done.”

“Are we to have nothing to-night?” said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half-smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror; but as I looked they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag. There was no door near them, and they could not have passed me without my noticing. They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away.

Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious.

CHAPTER IV

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL--continued

I AWOKE in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must have carried me here. I tried to satisfy myself on the subject, but could not arrive at any unquestionable result. To be sure, there were certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid by in a manner which was not my habit. My watch was still unwound, and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and many such details. But these things are no proof, for they may have been evidences that my mind was not as usual, and, from some cause or another, I had certainly been much upset. I must watch for proof. Of one thing I am glad: if it was that the Count carried me here and undressed me, he must have been hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact. I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him which he would not have brooked. He would have taken or destroyed it. As I look round this room, although it has been to me so full of fear, it is now a sort of sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who were—who are—waiting to suck my blood.

 

18 May.—I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for I must know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was no dream, and must act on this surmise.

 

19 May.—I am surely in the toils. Last night the Count asked me in the suavest tones to write three letters, one saying that my work here was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days, another that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the letter, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I would fain have rebelled, but felt that in the present state of things it would be madness to quarrel openly with the Count whilst I am so absolutely in his power; and to refuse would be to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him; my only chance is to prolong my opportunities. Something may occur which will give me a chance to escape. I saw in his eyes something of that gathering wrath which was manifest when he hurled that fair woman from him. He explained to me that posts were few and uncertain, and that my writing now would ensure ease of mind to my friends; and he assured me with so much impressiveness that he would countermand the later letters, which would be held over at Bistritz until due time in case chance would admit of my prolonging my stay, that to oppose him would have been to create new suspicion. I therefore pretended to fall in with his views, and asked him what dates I should put on the letters. He calculated a minute, and then said:--

“The first should be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June 29.”

I know now the span of my life. God help me!

 

28 May.—There is a chance of escape, or at any rate of being able to send word home. A band of Szgany have come to the castle, and are encamped in the courtyard. These Szgany are gipsies; I have notes of them in my book. They are peculiar to this part of the world, though allied to the ordinary gipsies all the world over. There are thousands of them in Hungary and Transylvania, who are almost outside all law. They attach themselves as a rule to some great noble or boyar, and call themselves by his name. They are fearless and without religion, save superstition, and they talk only their own varieties of the Romany tongue.

I shall write some letters home, and shall try to get them to have them posted. I have already spoken them through my window to begin acquaintanceship. They took their hats off and made obeisance and many signs, which, however, I could not understand any more than I could their spoken language....

 

I have written the letters. Mina’s is in shorthand, and I simply ask Mr. Hawkins to communicate with her. To her I have explained my situation, but without the horrors which I may only surmise. It would shock and frighten her to death were I to expose my heart to her. Should the letters not carry, then the Count shall not yet know my secret or the extent of my knowledge....

 

I have given the letters; I threw them through the bars of my window with a gold piece, and made what signs I could to have them posted. The man who took them pressed them to his heart and bowed, and then put them in his cap. I could do no more. I stole back to the study, and began to read. As the Count did not come in, I have written here....

 

The Count has come. He sat down beside me, and said in his smoothest voice as he opened two letters:--

“The Szgany has given me these, of which, though I know not whence they come, I shall, of course, take care. See!”—he must have looked at it—“one is from you, and to my friend Peter Hawkins; the other”—here he caught sight of the strange symbols as he opened the envelope, and the dark look came into his face, and his eyes blazed wickedly—“the other is a vile thing, an outrage upon friendship and hospitality! It is not signed. Well! so it cannot matter to us.” And he calmly held letter and envelope in the flame of the lamp till they were consumed. Then he went on:--

“The letter to Hawkins—that I shall, of course, send on, since it is yours. Your letters are sacred to me. Your pardon, my friend, that unknowingly I did break the seal. Will you not cover it again?” He held out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow handed me a clean envelope. I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence. When he went out of the room I could hear the key turn softly. A minute later I went over and tried it, and the door was locked.

When, an hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room, his coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa. He was very courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been sleeping, he said:--

“So, my friend, you are tired? Get to bed. There is the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure to talk to-night, since there are many labours to me; but you will sleep, I pray.” I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept without dreaming. Despair has its own calms.

 

31 May.—This morning when I woke I thought I would provide myself with some paper and envelopes from my bag and keep them in my pocket, so that I might write in case I should get an opportunity, but again a surprise, again a shock!

Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda, relating to railways and travel, my letter of credit, in fact all that might be useful to me were I once outside the castle. I sat and pondered awhile, and then some thought occurred to me, and I made search of my portmanteau and in the wardrobe where I had placed my clothes.

The suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and rug; I could find no trace of them anywhere. This looked like some new scheme of villainy....

 

17 June.—This morning, as I was sitting on the edge of my bed cudgelling my brains, I heard without a cracking of whips and pounding and scraping of horses’ feet up the rocky path beyond the courtyard. With joy I hurried to the window, and saw drive into the yard two great leiter-wagons, each drawn by eight sturdy horses, and at the head of each pair a Slovak, with his wide hat, great nail-studded belt, dirty sheepskin, and high boots. They had also their long staves in hand. I ran to the door, intending to descend and try and join them through the main hall, as I thought that way might be opened for them. Again a shock: my door was fastened on the outside.

Then I ran to the window and cried to them. They looked up at me stupidly and pointed, but just then the “hetman” of the Szgany came out, and seeing them pointing to my window, said something, at which they laughed. Henceforth no effort of mine, no piteous cry or agonised entreaty, would make them even look at me. They resolutely turned away. The leiter-wagons contained great, square boxes, with handles of thick rope; these were evidently empty by the ease with which the Slovaks handled them, and by their resonance as they were roughly moved. When they were all unloaded and packed in a great heap in one corner of the yard, the Slovaks were given some money by the Szgany, and spitting on it for luck, lazily went each to his horse’s head. Shortly afterwards, I heard the cracking of their whips die away in the distance.

 

24 June, before morning.—Last night the Count left me early, and locked himself into his own room. As soon as I dared I ran up the winding stair, and looked out of the window, which opened south. I thought I would watch for the Count, for there is something going on. The Szgany are quartered somewhere in the castle and are doing work of some kind. I know it, for now and then I hear a far-away muffled sound as of mattock and spade, and, whatever it is, it must be the end of some ruthless villainy.

I had been at the window somewhat less than half an hour, when I saw something coming out of the Count’s window. I drew back and watched carefully, and saw the whole man emerge. It was a new shock to me to find that he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn whilst travelling here, and slung over his shoulder the terrible bag which I had seen the women take away. There could be no doubt as to his quest, and in my garb, too! This, then, is his new scheme of evil: that he will allow others to see me, as they think, so that he may both leave evidence that I have been seen in the towns or villages posting my own letters, and that any wickedness which he may do shall by the local people be attributed to me.

It makes me rage to think that this can go on, and whilst I am shut up here, a veritable prisoner, but without that protection of the law which is even a criminal’s right and consolation.

I thought I would watch for the Count’s return, and for a long time sat doggedly at the window. Then I began to notice that there were some quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight. They were like the tiniest grains of dust, and they whirled round and gathered in clusters in a nebulous sort of way. I watched them with a sense of soothing, and a sort of calm stole over me. I leaned back in the embrasure in a more comfortable position, so that I could enjoy more fully the aërial gambolling.

Something made me start up, a low, piteous howling of dogs somewhere far below in the valley, which was hidden from my sight. Louder it seemed to ring in my ears, and the floating motes of dust to take new shapes to the sound as they danced in the moonlight. I felt myself struggling to awake to some call of my instincts; nay, my very soul was struggling, and my half-remembered sensibilities were striving to answer the call. I was becoming hypnotised! Quicker and quicker danced the dust; the moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went by me into the mass of gloom beyond. More and more they gathered till they seemed to take dim phantom shapes. And then I started, broad awake and in full possession of my senses, and ran screaming from the place. The phantom shapes, which were becoming gradually materialised from the moonbeams, were those of the three ghostly women to whom I was doomed. I fled, and felt somewhat safer in my own room, where there was no moonlight and where the lamp was burning brightly.

When a couple of hours had passed I heard something stirring in the Count’s room, something like a sharp wail quickly suppressed; and then there was silence, deep, awful silence, which chilled me. With a beating heart, I tried the door; but I was locked in my prison, and could do nothing. I sat down and simply cried.

As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without—the agonised cry of a woman. I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered out between the bars. There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding her hands over her heart as one distressed with running. She was leaning against a corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at the window she threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace:--

“Monster, give me my child!”

She threw herself on her knees, and raising up her hands, cried the same words in tones which wrung my heart. Then she tore her hair and beat her breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of extravagant emotion. Finally, she threw herself forward, and, though I could not see her, I could hear the beating of her naked hands against the door.

Somewhere high overhead, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of the Count calling in his harsh, metallic whisper. His call seemed to be answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves. Before many minutes had passed a pack of them poured, like a pent-up dam when liberated, through the wide entrance into the courtyard.

There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was but short. Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips.

I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and she was better dead.

What shall I do? what can I do? How can I escape from this dreadful thing of night and gloom and fear?

 

25 June, morning.—No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and how dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. When the sun grew so high this morning that it struck the top of the great gateway opposite my window, the high spot which it touched seemed to me as if the dove from the ark had lighted there. My fear fell from me as if it had been a vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth. I must take action of some sort whilst the courage of the day is upon me. Last night one of my post-dated letters went to post, the first of that fatal series which is to blot out the very traces of my existence from the earth.

Let me not think of it. Action!

It has always been at night-time that I have been molested or threatened, or in some way in danger or in fear. I have not yet seen the Count in the daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when others wake, that he may be awake whilst they sleep? If I could only get into his room! But there is no possible way. The door is always locked, no way for me.

Yes, there is a way, if one dares to take it. Where his body has gone why may not another body go? I have seen him myself crawl from his window. Why should not I imitate him, and go in by his window? The chances are desperate, but my need is more desperate still. I shall risk it. At the worst it can only be death; and a man’s death is not a calf’s, and the dreaded Hereafter may still be open to me. God help me in my task! Good-bye, Mina, if I fail; good-bye, my faithful friend and second father; good-bye, all, and last of all Mina!

 

Same day, later.—I have made the effort, and God, helping me, have come safely back to this room. I must put down every detail in order. I went whilst my courage was fresh straight to the window on the south side, and at once got outside on the narrow ledge of stone which runs around the building on this side. The stones are big and roughly cut, and the mortar has by process of time been washed away between them. I took off my boots, and ventured out on the desperate way. I looked down once, so as to make sure that a sudden glimpse of the awful depth would not overcome me, but after that kept my eyes away from it. I knew pretty well the direction and distance of the Count’s window, and made for it as well as I could, having regard to the opportunities available. I did not feel dizzy—I suppose I was too excited—and the time seemed ridiculously short till I found myself standing on the window-sill and trying to raise up the sash. I was filled with agitation, however, when I bent down and slid feet foremost in through the window. Then I looked around for the Count, but, with surprise and gladness, made a discovery. The room was empty! It was barely furnished with odd things, which seemed to have never been used; the furniture was something the same style as that in the south rooms, and was covered with dust. I looked for the key, but it was not in the lock, and I could not find it anywhere. The only thing I found was a great heap of gold in one corner—gold of all kinds, Roman, and British, and Austrian, and Hungarian, and Greek and Turkish money, covered with a film of dust, as though it had lain long in the ground. None of it that I noticed was less than three hundred years old. There were also chains and ornaments, some jewelled, but all of them old and stained.

At one corner of the room was a heavy door. I tried it, for, since I could not find the key of the room or the key of the outer door, which was the main object of my search, I must make further examination, or all my efforts would be in vain. It was open, and led through a stone passage to a circular stairway, which went steeply down. I descended, minding carefully where I went, for the stairs were dark, being only lit by loopholes in the heavy masonry. At the bottom there was a dark, tunnel-like passage, through which came a deathly, sickly odour, the odour of old earth newly turned. As I went through the passage the smell grew closer and heavier. At last I pulled open a heavy door which stood ajar, and found myself in an old, ruined chapel, which had evidently been used as a graveyard. The roof was broken, and in two places were steps leading to vaults, but the ground had recently been dug over, and the earth placed in great wooden boxes, manifestly those which had been brought by the Slovaks. There was nobody about, and I made search for any further outlet, but there was none. Then I went over every inch of the ground, so as not to lose a chance. I went down even into the vaults, where the dim light struggled, although to do so was a dread to my very soul. Into two of these I went, but saw nothing except fragments of old coffins and piles of dust; in the third, however, I made a discovery.

There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep, I could not say which—for the eyes were open and stony, but without the glassiness of death—and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor; the lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart. I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain. He could not have lain there long, for the earthy smell would have passed away in a few hours. By the side of the box was its cover, pierced with holes here and there. I thought he might have the keys on him, but when I went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them, dead though they were, such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my presence, that I fled from the place, and leaving the Count’s room by the window, crawled again up the castle wall. Regaining my room, I threw myself panting upon the bed and tried to think....

 

29 June.—To-day is the date of my last letter, and the Count has taken steps to prove that it was genuine, for again I saw him leave the castle by the same window, and in my clothes. As he went down the wall, lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that I might destroy him; but I fear that no weapon wrought alone by man’s hand would have any effect on him. I dared not wait to see him return, for I feared to see those weird sisters. I came back to the library, and read there till I fell asleep.

I was awakened by the Count, who looked at me as grimly as a man can look as he said:--

“To-morrow, my friend, we must part. You return to your beautiful England, I to some work which may have such an end that we may never meet. Your letter home has been despatched; to-morrow I shall not be here, but all shall be ready for your journey. In the morning come the Szgany, who have some labours of their own here, and also come some Slovaks. When they have gone, my carriage shall come for you, and shall bear you to the Borgo Pass to meet the diligence from Bukovina to Bistritz. But I am in hopes that I shall see more of you at Castle Dracula.” I suspected him, and determined to test his sincerity. Sincerity! It seems like a profanation of the word to write it in connection with such a monster, so asked him point-blank:--

“Why may I not go to-night?”

“Because, dear sir, my coachman and horses are away on a mission.”

“But I would walk with pleasure. I want to get away at once.” He smiled, such a soft, smooth, diabolical smile that I knew there was some trick behind his smoothness. He said:--

“And your baggage?”

“I do not care about it. I can send for it some other time.”

The Count stood up, and said, with a sweet courtesy which made me rub my eyes, it seemed so real:--

“You English have a saying which is close to my heart, for its spirit is that which rules our boyars: ‘Welcome the coming; speed the parting guest.’ Come with me, my dear young friend. Not an hour shall you wait in my house against your will, though sad am I at your going, and that you so suddenly desire it. Come!” With a stately gravity, he, with the lamp, preceded me down the stairs and along the hall. Suddenly he stopped.

“Hark!”

Close at hand came the howling of many wolves. It was almost as if the sound sprang up at the rising of his hand, just as the music of a great orchestra seems to leap under the bâton of the conductor. After a pause of a moment, he proceeded, in his stately way, to the door, drew back the ponderous bolts, unhooked the heavy chains, and began to draw it open.

To my intense astonishment I saw that it was unlocked. Suspiciously, I looked all round, but could see no key of any kind.

As the door began to open, the howling of the wolves without grew louder and angrier; their red jaws, with champing teeth, and their blunt-clawed feet as they leaped, came in through the opening door. I knew then that to struggle at the moment against the Count was useless. With such allies as these at his command, I could do nothing. But still the door continued slowly to open, and only the Count’s body stood in the gap. Suddenly it struck me that this might be the moment and means of my doom; I was to be given to the wolves, and at my own instigation. There was a diabolical wickedness in the idea great enough for the Count, and as a last chance I cried out:--

“Shut the door; I shall wait till morning!” and covered my face with my hands to hide my tears of bitter disappointment. With one sweep of his powerful arm, the Count threw the door shut, and the great bolts clanged and echoed through the hall as they shot back into their places.

In silence we returned to the library, and after a minute or two I went to my own room. The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me; with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of.

When I was in my room and about to lie down, I thought I heard a whispering at my door. I went to it softly and listened. Unless my ears deceived me, I heard the voice of the Count:--

“Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! To-night is mine. To-morrow night is yours!” There was a low, sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the door, and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips. As I appeared they all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away.

I came back to my room and threw myself on my knees. It is then so near the end? To-morrow! to-morrow! Lord, help me, and those to whom I am dear!

 

30 June, morning.—These may be the last words I ever write in this diary. I slept till just before the dawn, and when I woke threw myself on my knees, for I determined that if Death came he should find me ready.

At last I felt that subtle change in the air, and knew that the morning had come. Then came the welcome cock-crow, and I felt that I was safe. With a glad heart, I opened my door and ran down to the hall. I had seen that the door was unlocked, and now escape was before me. With hands that trembled with eagerness, I unhooked the chains and drew back the massive bolts.

But the door would not move. Despair seized me. I pulled, and pulled, at the door, and shook it till, massive as it was, it rattled in its casement. I could see the bolt shot. It had been locked after I left the Count.

Then a wild desire took me to obtain that key at any risk, and I determined then and there to scale the wall again and gain the Count’s room. He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier choice of evils. Without a pause I rushed up to the east window, and scrambled down the wall, as before, into the Count’s room. It was empty, but that was as I expected. I could not see a key anywhere, but the heap of gold remained. I went through the door in the corner and down the winding stair and along the dark passage to the old chapel. I knew now well enough where to find the monster I sought.

The great box was in the same place, close against the wall, but the lid was laid on it, not fastened down, but with the nails ready in their places to be hammered home. I knew I must reach the body for the key, so I raised the lid, and laid it back against the wall; and then I saw something which filled my very soul with horror. There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion. I shuddered as I bent over to touch him, and every sense in me revolted at the contact; but I had to search, or I was lost. The coming night might see my own body a banquet in a similar way to those horrid three. I felt all over the body, but no sign could I find of the key. Then I stopped and looked at the Count. There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad. A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell full upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyse me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead. The shovel fell from my hand across the box, and as I pulled it away the flange of the blade caught the edge of the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid thing from my sight. The last glimpse I had was of the bloated face, blood-stained and fixed with a grin of malice which would have held its own in the nethermost hell.

I thought and thought what should be my next move, but my brain seemed on fire, and I waited with a despairing feeling growing over me. As I waited I heard in the distance a gipsy song sung by merry voices coming closer, and through their song the rolling of heavy wheels and the cracking of whips; the Szgany and the Slovaks of whom the Count had spoken were coming. With a last look around and at the box which contained the vile body, I ran from the place and gained the Count’s room, determined to rush out at the moment the door should be opened. With strained ears, I listened, and heard downstairs the grinding of the key in the great lock and the falling back of the heavy door. There must have been some other means of entry, or some one had a key for one of the locked doors. Then there came the sound of many feet tramping and dying away in some passage which sent up a clanging echo. I turned to run down again towards the vault, where I might find the new entrance; but at the moment there seemed to come a violent puff of wind, and the door to the winding stair blew to with a shock that set the dust from the lintels flying. When I ran to push it open, I found that it was hopelessly fast. I was again a prisoner, and the net of doom was closing round me more closely.

As I write there is in the passage below a sound of many tramping feet and the crash of weights being set down heavily, doubtless the boxes, with their freight of earth. There is a sound of hammering; it is the box being nailed down. Now I can hear the heavy feet tramping again along the hall, with many other idle feet coming behind them.

The door is shut, and the chains rattle; there is a grinding of the key in the lock; I can hear the key withdraw: then another door opens and shuts; I hear the creaking of lock and bolt.

Hark! in the courtyard and down the rocky way the roll of heavy wheels, the crack of whips, and the chorus of the Szgany as they pass into the distance.

I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit!

I shall not remain alone with them; I shall try to scale the castle wall farther than I have yet attempted. I shall take some of the gold with me, lest I want it later. I may find a way from this dreadful place.

And then away for home! away to the quickest and nearest train! away from this cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his children still walk with earthly feet!

At least God’s mercy is better than that of these monsters, and the precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep—as a man. Good-bye, all! Mina!

CHAPTER V

Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra.

“9 May.

“My dearest Lucy,--

“Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies, and I have been practising shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practising very hard. He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don’t mean one of those two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people; but it is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do: interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day. However, we shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I am longing to hear all his news. It must be so nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we—I mean Jonathan and I—shall ever see them together. There is the ten o’clock bell ringing. Good-bye.

“Your loving
“Mina.

“Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, curly-haired man???”

Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.

“17, Chatham Street,
“Wednesday.

“My dearest Mina,--

“I must say you tax me very unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I wrote to you twice since we parted, and your last letter was only your second. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing to interest you. Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a good deal to picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park. As to the tall, curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the last Pop. Some one has evidently been telling tales. That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and mamma get on very well together; they have so many things to talk about in common. We met some time ago a man that would just do for you, if you were not already engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellent parti, being handsome, well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He is only nine-and-twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read one’s thoughts. He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my glass. Do you ever try to read your own face? I do, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it. He says that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly think I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore. That is slang again, but never mind; Arthur says that every day. There, it is all out. Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since we were children; we have slept together and eaten together, and laughed and cried together; and now, though I have spoken, I would like to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn’t you guess? I love him. I am blushing as I write, for although I think he loves me, he has not told me so in words. But oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him! There, that does me good. I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we used to sit; and I would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I should tear up the letter, and I don’t want to stop, for I do so want to tell you all. Let me hear from you at once, and tell me all that you think about it. Mina, I must stop. Good-night. Bless me in your prayers; and, Mina, pray for my happiness.

“LUCY.

“P.S.—I need not tell you this is a secret. Good-night again.

“L.”

Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.

“24 May.

“My dearest Mina,--

“Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy.

“My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had three. Just fancy! THREE proposals in one day! Isn’t it awful! I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don’t know what to do with myself. And three proposals! But, for goodness’ sake, don’t tell any of the girls, or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas and imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep it a secret, dear, from every one, except, of course, Jonathan. You will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything—don’t you think so, dear?—and I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are; and women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them; but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don’t generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said that he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time; and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman’s heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can’t help crying: and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn’t at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken-hearted, and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing quite out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy.

“Evening.

“Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left off, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has had such adventures. I sympathise with poor Desdemona when she had such a dangerous stream poured in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I don’t, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and yet—— My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincey P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn’t, for Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him all I could; I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn’t always speak slang—that is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well educated and has exquisite manners—but he found out that it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang; I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly:--

“ ‘Miss Lucy, I know I ain’t good enough to regulate the fixin’s of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won’t you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?’

“Well, he did look so good-humoured and so jolly that it didn’t seem half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward; so I said, as lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I wasn’t broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so on so grave, so momentous, an occasion for him, I would forgive him. He really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn’t help feeling a bit serious too—I know, Mina, you will think me a horrid flirt—though I couldn’t help feeling a sort of exultation that he was number two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free:--

“ ‘Lucy, you are an honest-hearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is I’ll never trouble you a hair’s breadth again, but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend.’

“My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great-hearted, true gentleman. I burst into tears—I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one—and I really felt very badly. Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morris’s brave eyes, and I told him out straight:--

“ ‘Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he even loves me.’ I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mine—I think I put them into his—and said in a hearty way:--

“ ‘That’s my brave girl. It’s better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don’t cry, my dear. If it’s for me, I’m a hard nut to crack; and I take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn’t know his happiness, well, he’d better look for it soon, or he’ll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that’s rarer than a lover; it’s more unselfish anyhow. My dear, I’m going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won’t you give me one kiss? It’ll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellow—he must be a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not love him—hasn’t spoken yet.’ That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble, too, to a rival—wasn’t it?—and he so sad; so I leant over and kissed him. He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down into my face—I am afraid I was blushing very much—he said:--

“ ‘Little girl, I hold your hand, and you’ve kissed me, and if these things don’t make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and good-bye.’ He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause; and I am crying like a baby. Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I were free—only I don’t want to be free. My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it; and I don’t wish to tell of the number three until it can be all happy.

“Ever your loving
“Lucy.

“P.S.—Oh, about number Three—I needn’t tell you of number Three, need I? Besides, it was all so confused; it seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don’t know what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend.

“Good-bye.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

(Kept in phonograph)

25 May.—Ebb tide in appetite to-day. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling; nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing.... As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went down amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can. To-day I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery.

I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness—a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell.

(Mem., under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?) Omnia Romæ venalia sunt. Hell has its price! verb. sap. If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards accurately, so I had better commence to do so, therefore--

R. M. Renfield, ætat 59.—Sanguine temperament; great physical strength; morbidly excitable; periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish; a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal; when duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it.

Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Hon. Arthur Holmwood.

“25 May.

“My dear Art,--

“We’ve told yarns by the camp-fire in the prairies; and dressed one another’s wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas; and drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told, and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won’t you let this be at my camp-fire to-morrow night? I have no hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner-party, and that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack Seward. He’s coming, too, and we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine-cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart that God has made and the best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come!

“Yours, as ever and always,
“Quincey P. Morris.”

Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey P. Morris.

“26 May.

“Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle.

“Art.”

CHAPTER VI

MINA MURRAY’S JOURNAL

24 July. Whitby.—Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old town—the side away from us—are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of “Marmion,” where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit up here and talk.

The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs along outside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens.

It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; he is coming this way....

He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely:--

“I wouldn’t fash masel’ about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. Mind, I don’t say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn’t in my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an’ the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and Leeds that be always eatin’ cured herrin’s an’ drinkin’ tea an’ lookin’ out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel’ who’d be bothered tellin’ lies to them—even the newspapers, which is full of fool-talk.” I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said:--

“I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand-daughter doesn’t like to be kept waitin’ when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of ’em; an’, miss, I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock.”

He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from the town up to the church, there are hundreds of them—I do not know how many—and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must originally have had something to do with the abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy went out visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I did not go. They will be home by this.

 

1 August.—I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think must have been in his time a most dictatorial person. He will not admit anything, and downfaces everybody. If he can’t out-argue them he bullies them, and then takes their silence for agreement with his views. Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has got a beautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down. She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, but gave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to remember it and put it down:--

“It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that’s what it be, an’ nowt else. These bans an’ wafts an’ boh-ghosts an’ barguests an’ bogles an’ all anent them is only fit to set bairns an’ dizzy women a-belderin’. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, an’ all grims an’ signs an’ warnin’s, be all invented by parsons an’ illsome beuk-bodies an’ railway touters to skeer an’ scunner hafflin’s, an’ to get folks to do somethin’ that they don’t other incline to. It makes me ireful to think o’ them. Why, it’s them that, not content with printin’ lies on paper an’ preachin’ them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin’ them on the tombstones. Look here all around you in what airt ye will; all them steans, holdin’ up their heads as well as they can out of their pride, is acant—simply tumblin’ down with the weight o’ the lies wrote on them, ‘Here lies the body’ or ‘Sacred to the memory’ wrote on all of them, an’ yet in nigh half of them there bean’t no bodies at all; an’ the memories of them bean’t cared a pinch of snuff about, much less sacred. Lies all of them, nothin’ but lies of one kind or another! My gog, but it’ll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when they come tumblin’ up in their death-sarks, all jouped together an’ tryin’ to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was; some of them trimmlin’ and ditherin’, with their hands that dozzened an’ slippy from lyin’ in the sea that they can’t even keep their grup o’ them.”

I could see from the old fellow’s self-satisfied air and the way in which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was “showing off,” so I put in a word to keep him going:--

“Oh, Mr. Swales, you can’t be serious. Surely these tombstones are not all wrong?”

“Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin’ where they make out the people too good; for there be folk that do think a balm-bowl be like the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Now look you here; you come here a stranger, an’ you see this kirk-garth.” I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church. He went on: “And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that be happed here, snod an’ snog?” I assented again. “Then that be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these lay-beds that be toom as old Dun’s ’bacca-box on Friday night.” He nudged one of his companions, and they all laughed. “And my gog! how could they be otherwise? Look at that one, the aftest abaft the bier-bank: read it!” I went over and read:--

“Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, æt. 30.” When I came back Mr. Swales went on:--

“Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the coast of Andres! an’ you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above”—he pointed northwards—“or where the currents may have drifted them. There be the steans around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the small-print of the lies from here. This Braithwaite Lowrey—I knew his father, lost in the Lively off Greenland in ’20; or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the same seas in 1777; or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year later; or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drowned in the Gulf of Finland in ’50. Do ye think that all these men will have to make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have me antherums aboot it! I tell ye that when they got here they’d be jommlin’ an’ jostlin’ one another that way that it ’ud be like a fight up on the ice in the old days, when we’d be at one another from daylight to dark, an’ tryin’ to tie up our cuts by the light of the aurora borealis.” This was evidently local pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and his cronies joined in with gusto.

“But,” I said, “surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will be really necessary?”

“Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!”

“To please their relatives, I suppose.”

“To please their relatives, you suppose!” This he said with intense scorn. “How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?” He pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, on which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. “Read the lies on that thruff-stean,” he said. The letters were upside down to me from where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over and read:--

“Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July, 29, 1873, falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son. ‘He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’ Really, Mr. Swales, I don’t see anything very funny in that!” She spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely.

“Ye don’t see aught funny! Ha! ha! But that’s because ye don’t gawm the sorrowin’ mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he was acrewk’d—a regular lamiter he was—an’ he hated her so that he committed suicide in order that she mightn’t get an insurance she put on his life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that they had for scarin’ the crows with. ’Twarn’t for crows then, for it brought the clegs and the dowps to him. That’s the way he fell off the rocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I’ve often heard him say masel’ that he hoped he’d go to hell, for his mother was so pious that she’d be sure to go to heaven, an’ he didn’t want to addle where she was. Now isn’t that stean at any rate”—he hammered it with his stick as he spoke—“a pack of lies? and won’t it make Gabriel keckle when Geordie comes pantin’ up the grees with the tombstean balanced on his hump, and asks it to be took as evidence!”

I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she said, rising up:--

“Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannot leave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a suicide.”

“That won’t harm ye, my pretty; an’ it may make poor Geordie gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin’ on his lap. That won’t hurt ye. Why, I’ve sat here off an’ on for nigh twenty years past, an’ it hasn’t done me no harm. Don’t ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn’ lie there either! It’ll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubble-field. There’s the clock, an’ I must gang. My service to ye, ladies!” And off he hobbled.

Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we took hands as we sat; and she told me all over again about Arthur and their coming marriage. That made me just a little heart-sick, for I haven’t heard from Jonathan for a whole month.

 

The same day. I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan. The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly; they run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next the abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me, and there is a clatter of a donkey’s hoofs up the paved road below. The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and further along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he were here.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

5 June.—The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed; selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not yet know. His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said: “May I have three days? I shall clear them away.” Of course, I said that would do. I must watch him.

 

18 June.—He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room.

 

1 July.—His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies, and to-day I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same time as before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blow-fly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He has evidently some deep problem in his mind, for he keeps a little note-book in which he is always jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses of figures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though he were “focussing” some account, as the auditors put it.

 

8 July.—There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary idea in my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh, unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to your conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that I might notice if there were any change. Things remain as they were except that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one. He has managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies by tempting them with his food.

 

19 July.—We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favour—a very, very great favour; and as he spoke he fawned on me like a dog. I asked him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his voice and bearing:--

“A kitten, a nice little, sleek playful kitten, that I can play with, and teach, and feed—and feed—and feed!” I was not unprepared for this request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders; so I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he answered:--

“Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they?” I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, but that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning of danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong look which meant killing. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know more.

 

10 p. m.—I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and implored me to let him have a cat; that his salvation depended upon it. I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the corner where I had found him. I shall see him in the morning early.

 

20 July.—Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went his rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his fly-catching again; and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if there were anything odd about him during the day.

 

11 a. m.—The attendant has just been to me to say that Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. “My belief is, doctor,” he said, “that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!”

 

11 p. m.—I gave Renfield a strong opiate to-night, enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocket-book to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoöphagous (life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results to-day! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect—the knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such mind—did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic—I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which Burdon-Sanderson’s physiology or Ferrier’s brain-knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally?

How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives?

To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! work!

If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there—a good, unselfish cause to make me work—that would be indeed happiness.

Mina Murray’s Journal.

26 July.—I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here; it is like whispering to one’s self and listening at the same time. And there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned; but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed had just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan; I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy, although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucy’s father, had the same habit; that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood—he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming—is coming up here very shortly—as soon as he can leave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right when he arrives.

 

27 July.—No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him, though why I should I do not know; but I do wish that he would write, if it were only a single line. Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so hot that she cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and the perpetually being wakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy’s health keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has been suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has been taken seriously ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost that anæmic look which she had. I pray it will all last.

 

3 August.—Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan, not even to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is his writing. There is no mistake of that. Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her which I do not understand; even in her sleep she seems to be watching me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room searching for the key.

6 August.—Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs. To-day is a grey day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey—except the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock; grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the grey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers. The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a “brool” over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem “men like trees walking.” The fishing-boats are racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that he wants to talk....

I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way:--

“I want to say something to you, miss.” I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:--

“I’m afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked things I’ve been sayin’ about the dead, and such like, for weeks past; but I didn’t mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I’m gone. We aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don’t altogether like to think of it, and we don’t want to feel scart of it; an’ that’s why I’ve took to makin’ light of it, so that I’d cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain’t afraid of dyin’, not a bit; only I don’t want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect; and I’m so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin’ his scythe. Ye see, I can’t get out o’ the habit of caffin’ about it all at once; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don’t ye dooal an’ greet, my deary!”—for he saw that I was crying—“if he should come this very night I’d not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else than what we’re doin’; and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I’m content, for it’s comin’ to me, my deary, and comin’ quick. It may be comin’ while we be lookin’ and wonderin’. Maybe it’s in that wind out over the sea that’s bringin’ with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look!” he cried suddenly. “There’s something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It’s in the air; I feel it comin’. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call comes!” He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes’ silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said good-bye, and hobbled off. It all touched me, and upset me very much.

I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship.

“I can’t make her out,” he said; “she’s a Russian, by the look of her; but she’s knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn’t know her mind a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can’t decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn’t mind the hand on the wheel; changes about with every puff of wind. We’ll hear more of her before this time to-morrow.”

CHAPTER VII

CUTTING FROM “THE DAILYGRAPH,” 8 AUGUST

(Pasted in Mina Murray’s Journal.)

From a Correspondent.

Whitby.

ONE greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August. Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood’s Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in the neighbourhood of Whitby. The steamers Emma and Scarborough made trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of “tripping” both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till the afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from that commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of “mares’-tails” high in the sky to the north-west. The wind was then blowing from the south-west in the mild degree which in barometrical language is ranked “No. 2: light breeze.” The coastguard on duty at once made report, and one old fisherman, who for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm. The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidly-coloured clouds, that there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old churchyard to enjoy the beauty. Before the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset-colour—flame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold; with here and there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless some of the sketches of the “Prelude to the Great Storm” will grace the R. A. and R. I. walls in May next. More than one captain made up his mind then and there that his “cobble” or his “mule,” as they term the different classes of boats, would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed. The wind fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature. There were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers, which usually “hug” the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but few fishing-boats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal her to reduce sail in face of her danger. Before the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of the sea,

Shortly before ten o’clock the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord in the great harmony of nature’s silence. A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming.

Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in growing fury, each overtopping its fellow, till in a very few minutes the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. White-crested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the shelving cliffs; others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbour. The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, or clung with grim clasp to the iron stanchions. It was found necessary to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities of the night would have been increased manifold. To add to the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of sea-fog came drifting inland—white, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and many a one shuddered as the wreaths of sea-mist swept by. At times the mist cleared, and the sea for some distance could be seen in the glare of the lightning, which now came thick and fast, followed by such sudden peals of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed trembling under the shock of the footsteps of the storm.

Some of the scenes thus revealed were of immeasurable grandeur and of absorbing interest—the sea, running mountains high, threw skywards with each wave mighty masses of white foam, which the tempest seemed to snatch at and whirl away into space; here and there a fishing-boat, with a rag of sail, running madly for shelter before the blast; now and again the white wings of a storm-tossed sea-bird. On the summit of the East Cliff the new searchlight was ready for experiment, but had not yet been tried. The officers in charge of it got it into working order, and in the pauses of the inrushing mist swept with it the surface of the sea. Once or twice its service was most effective, as when a fishing-boat, with gunwale under water, rushed into the harbour, able, by the guidance of the sheltering light, to avoid the danger of dashing against the piers. As each boat achieved the safety of the port there was a shout of joy from the mass of people on shore, a shout which for a moment seemed to cleave the gale and was then swept away in its rush.

Before long the searchlight discovered some distance away a schooner with all sails set, apparently the same vessel which had been noticed earlier in the evening. The wind had by this time backed to the east, and there was a shudder amongst the watchers on the cliff as they realized the terrible danger in which she now was. Between her and the port lay the great flat reef on which so many good ships have from time to time suffered, and, with the wind blowing from its present quarter, it would be quite impossible that she should fetch the entrance of the harbour. It was now nearly the hour of high tide, but the waves were so great that in their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost visible, and the schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such speed that, in the words of one old salt, “she must fetch up somewhere, if it was only in hell.” Then came another rush of sea-fog, greater than any hitherto—a mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things like a grey pall, and left available to men only the organ of hearing, for the roar of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder, and the booming of the mighty billows came through the damp oblivion even louder than before. The rays of the searchlight were kept fixed on the harbour mouth across the East Pier, where the shock was expected, and men waited breathless. The wind suddenly shifted to the north-east, and the remnant of the sea-fog melted in the blast; and then, mirabile dictu, between the piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained the safety of the harbour. The searchlight followed her, and a shudder ran through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the ship. No other form could be seen on deck at all. A great awe came on all as they realised that the ship, as if by a miracle, had found the harbour, unsteered save by the hand of a dead man! However, all took place more quickly than it takes to write these words. The schooner paused not, but rushing across the harbour, pitched herself on that accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and many storms into the south-east corner of the pier jutting under the East Cliff, known locally as Tate Hill Pier.

There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up on the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay was strained, and some of the “top-hammer” came crashing down. But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat tombstones—“thruff-steans” or “through-stones,” as they call them in the Whitby vernacular—actually project over where the sustaining cliff has fallen away, it disappeared in the darkness, which seemed intensified just beyond the focus of the searchlight.

It so happened that there was no one at the moment on Tate Hill Pier, as all those whose houses are in close proximity were either in bed or were out on the heights above. Thus the coastguard on duty on the eastern side of the harbour, who at once ran down to the little pier, was the first to climb on board. The men working the searchlight, after scouring the entrance of the harbour without seeing anything, then turned the light on the derelict and kept it there. The coastguard ran aft, and when he came beside the wheel, bent over to examine it, and recoiled at once as though under some sudden emotion. This seemed to pique general curiosity, and quite a number of people began to run. It is a good way round from the West Cliff by the Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well ahead of the crowd. When I arrived, however, I found already assembled on the pier a crowd, whom the coastguard and police refused to allow to come on board. By the courtesy of the chief boatman, I was, as your correspondent, permitted to climb on deck, and was one of a small group who saw the dead seaman whilst actually lashed to the wheel.

It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed, for not often can such a sight have been seen. The man was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by the binding cords. The poor fellow may have been seated at one time, but the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through the rudder of the wheel and dragged him to and fro, so that the cords with which he was tied had cut the flesh to the bone. Accurate note was made of the state of things, and a doctor—Surgeon J. M. Caffyn, of 33, East Elliot Place—who came immediately after me, declared, after making examination, that the man must have been dead for quite two days. In his pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for a little roll of paper, which proved to be the addendum to the log. The coastguard said the man must have tied up his own hands, fastening the knots with his teeth. The fact that a coastguard was the first on board may save some complications, later on, in the Admiralty Court; for coastguards cannot claim the salvage which is the right of the first civilian entering on a derelict. Already, however, the legal tongues are wagging, and one young law student is loudly asserting that the rights of the owner are already completely sacrificed, his property being held in contravention of the statutes of mortmain, since the tiller, as emblemship, if not proof, of delegated possession, is held in a dead hand. It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death—a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca—and placed in the mortuary to await inquest.

Already the sudden storm is passing, and its fierceness is abating; crowds are scattering homeward, and the sky is beginning to redden over the Yorkshire wolds. I shall send, in time for your next issue, further details of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously into harbour in the storm.

Whitby

9 August.—The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It turns out that the schooner is a Russian from Varna, and is called the Demeter. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargo—a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould. This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington, of 7, The Crescent, who this morning went aboard and formally took possession of the goods consigned to him. The Russian consul, too, acting for the charter-party, took formal possession of the ship, and paid all harbour dues, etc. Nothing is talked about here to-day except the strange coincidence; the officials of the Board of Trade have been most exacting in seeing that every compliance has been made with existing regulations. As the matter is to be a “nine days’ wonder,” they are evidently determined that there shall be no cause of after complaint. A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S. P. C. A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found; it seems to have disappeared entirely from the town. It may be that it was frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it is still hiding in terror. There are some who look with dread on such a possibility, lest later on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce brute. Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred mastiff belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway opposite to its master’s yard. It had been fighting, and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit open as if with a savage claw.

 

Later.—By the kindness of the Board of Trade inspector, I have been permitted to look over the log-book of the Demeter, which was in order up to within three days, but contained nothing of special interest except as to facts of missing men. The greatest interest, however, is with regard to the paper found in the bottle, which was to-day produced at the inquest; and a more strange narrative than the two between them unfold it has not been my lot to come across. As there is no motive for concealment, I am permitted to use them, and accordingly send you a rescript, simply omitting technical details of seamanship and supercargo. It almost seems as though the captain had been seized with some kind of mania before he had got well into blue water, and that this had developed persistently throughout the voyage. Of course my statement must be taken cum grano, since I am writing from the dictation of a clerk of the Russian consul, who kindly translated for me, time being short.

LOG OF THE “DEMETER.”

Varna to Whitby.

Written 18 July, things so strange happening, that I shall keep accurate note henceforth till we land.

 

On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth. At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands ... two mates, cook, and myself (captain).

 

On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p. m.

 

On 12 July through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago.

 

On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. Seemed scared, but would not speak out.

 

On 14 July was somewhat anxious about crew. Men all steady fellows, who sailed with me before. Mate could not make out what was wrong; they only told him there was something, and crossed themselves. Mate lost temper with one of them that day and struck him. Expected fierce quarrel, but all was quiet.

 

On 16 July mate reported in the morning that one of crew, Petrofsky, was missing. Could not account for it. Took larboard watch eight bells last night; was relieved by Abramoff, but did not go to bunk. Men more downcast than ever. All said they expected something of the kind, but would not say more than there was something aboard. Mate getting very impatient with them; feared some trouble ahead.

 

On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man aboard the ship. He said that in his watch he had been sheltering behind the deck-house, as there was a rain-storm, when he saw a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companion-way, and go along the deck forward, and disappear. He followed cautiously, but when he got to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. He was in a panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread. To allay it, I shall to-day search entire ship carefully from stem to stern.

 

Later in the day I got together the whole crew, and told them, as they evidently thought there was some one in the ship, we would search from stem to stern. First mate angry; said it was folly, and to yield to such foolish ideas would demoralise the men; said he would engage to keep them out of trouble with a handspike. I let him take the helm, while the rest began thorough search, all keeping abreast, with lanterns: we left no corner unsearched. As there were only the big wooden boxes, there were no odd corners where a man could hide. Men much relieved when search over, and went back to work cheerfully. First mate scowled, but said nothing.

 

22 July.—Rough weather last three days, and all hands busy with sails—no time to be frightened. Men seem to have forgotten their dread. Mate cheerful again, and all on good terms. Praised men for work in bad weather. Passed Gibralter and out through Straits. All well.

 

24 July.—There seems some doom over this ship. Already a hand short, and entering on the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and yet last night another man lost—disappeared. Like the first, he came off his watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear; sent a round robin, asking to have double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate angry. Fear there will be some trouble, as either he or the men will do some violence.

 

28 July.—Four days in hell, knocking about in a sort of maelstrom, and the wind a tempest. No sleep for any one. Men all worn out. Hardly know how to set a watch, since no one fit to go on. Second mate volunteered to steer and watch, and let men snatch a few hours’ sleep. Wind abating; seas still terrific, but feel them less, as ship is steadier.

 

29 July.—Another tragedy. Had single watch to-night, as crew too tired to double. When morning watch came on deck could find no one except steersman. Raised outcry, and all came on deck. Thorough search, but no one found. Are now without second mate, and crew in a panic. Mate and I agreed to go armed henceforth and wait for any sign of cause.

 

30 July.—Last night. Rejoiced we are nearing England. Weather fine, all sails set. Retired worn out; slept soundly; awaked by mate telling me that both man of watch and steersman missing. Only self and mate and two hands left to work ship.

 

1 August.—Two days of fog, and not a sail sighted. Had hoped when in the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get in somewhere. Not having power to work sails, have to run before wind. Dare not lower, as could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting to some terrible doom. Mate now more demoralised than either of men. His stronger nature seems to have worked inwardly against himself. Men are beyond fear, working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to worst. They are Russian, he Roumanian.

 

2 August, midnight.—Woke up from few minutes’ sleep by hearing a cry, seemingly outside my port. Could see nothing in fog. Rushed on deck, and ran against mate. Tells me heard cry and ran, but no sign of man on watch. One more gone. Lord, help us! Mate says we must be past Straits of Dover, as in a moment of fog lifting he saw North Foreland, just as he heard the man cry out. If so we are now off in the North Sea, and only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us; and God seems to have deserted us.

 

3 August.—At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel, and when I got to it found no one there. The wind was steady, and as we ran before it there was no yawing. I dared not leave it, so shouted for the mate. After a few seconds he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He looked wild-eyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has given way. He came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth to my ear, as though fearing the very air might hear: “It is here; I know it, now. On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale. It was in the bows, and looking out. I crept behind It, and gave It my knife; but the knife went through It, empty as the air.” And as he spoke he took his knife and drove it savagely into space. Then he went on: “But It is here, and I’ll find It. It is in the hold, perhaps in one of those boxes. I’ll unscrew them one by one and see. You work the helm.” And, with a warning look and his finger on his lip, he went below. There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could not leave the helm. I saw him come out on deck again with a tool-chest and a lantern, and go down the forward hatchway. He is mad, stark, raving mad, and it’s no use my trying to stop him. He can’t hurt those big boxes: they are invoiced as “clay,” and to pull them about is as harmless a thing as he can do. So here I stay, and mind the helm, and write these notes. I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears. Then, if I can’t steer to any harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut down sails and lie by, and signal for help....

 

It is nearly all over now. Just as I was beginning to hope that the mate would come out calmer—for I heard him knocking away at something in the hold, and work is good for him—there came up the hatchway a sudden, startled scream, which made my blood run cold, and up on the deck he came as if shot from a gun—a raging madman, with his eyes rolling and his face convulsed with fear. “Save me! save me!” he cried, and then looked round on the blanket of fog. His horror turned to despair, and in a steady voice he said: “You had better come too, captain, before it is too late. He is there. I know the secret now. The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left!” Before I could say a word, or move forward to seize him, he sprang on the bulwark and deliberately threw himself into the sea. I suppose I know the secret too, now. It was this madman who had got rid of the men one by one, and now he has followed them himself. God help me! How am I to account for all these horrors when I get to port? When I get to port! Will that ever be?

 

4 August.—Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce. I know there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I dared not go below, I dared not leave the helm; so here all night I stayed, and in the dimness of the night I saw It—Him! God forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard. It was better to die like a man; to die like a sailor in blue water no man can object. But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship. But I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which He—It!—dare not touch; and then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act.... If we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand; if not, ... well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my trust. God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his duty....

 

Of course the verdict was an open one. There is no evidence to adduce; and whether or not the man himself committed the murders there is now none to say. The folk here hold almost universally that the captain is simply a hero, and he is to be given a public funeral. Already it is arranged that his body is to be taken with a train of boats up the Esk for a piece and then brought back to Tate Hill Pier and up the abbey steps; for he is to be buried in the churchyard on the cliff. The owners of more than a hundred boats have already given in their names as wishing to follow him to the grave.

No trace has ever been found of the great dog; at which there is much mourning, for, with public opinion in its present state, he would, I believe, be adopted by the town. To-morrow will see the funeral; and so will end this one more “mystery of the sea.”

Mina Murray’s Journal.

8 August.—Lucy was very restless all night, and I, too, could not sleep. The storm was fearful, and as it boomed loudly among the chimney-pots, it made me shudder. When a sharp puff came it seemed to be like a distant gun. Strangely enough, Lucy did not wake; but she got up twice and dressed herself. Fortunately, each time I awoke in time and managed to undress her without waking her, and got her back to bed. It is a very strange thing, this sleep-walking, for as soon as her will is thwarted in any physical way, her intention, if there be any, disappears, and she yields herself almost exactly to the routine of her life.

Early in the morning we both got up and went down to the harbour to see if anything had happened in the night. There were very few people about, and though the sun was bright, and the air clear and fresh, the big, grim-looking waves, that seemed dark themselves because the foam that topped them was like snow, forced themselves in through the narrow mouth of the harbour—like a bullying man going through a crowd. Somehow I felt glad that Jonathan was not on the sea last night, but on land. But, oh, is he on land or sea? Where is he, and how? I am getting fearfully anxious about him. If I only knew what to do, and could do anything!

 

10 August.—The funeral of the poor sea-captain to-day was most touching. Every boat in the harbour seemed to be there, and the coffin was carried by captains all the way from Tate Hill Pier up to the churchyard. Lucy came with me, and we went early to our old seat, whilst the cortège of boats went up the river to the Viaduct and came down again. We had a lovely view, and saw the procession nearly all the way. The poor fellow was laid to rest quite near our seat so that we stood on it when the time came and saw everything. Poor Lucy seemed much upset. She was restless and uneasy all the time, and I cannot but think that her dreaming at night is telling on her. She is quite odd in one thing: she will not admit to me that there is any cause for restlessness; or if there be, she does not understand it herself. There is an additional cause in that poor old Mr. Swales was found dead this morning on our seat, his neck being broken. He had evidently, as the doctor said, fallen back in the seat in some sort of fright, for there was a look of fear and horror on his face that the men said made them shudder. Poor dear old man! Perhaps he had seen Death with his dying eyes! Lucy is so sweet and sensitive that she feels influences more acutely than other people do. Just now she was quite upset by a little thing which I did not much heed, though I am myself very fond of animals. One of the men who came up here often to look for the boats was followed by his dog. The dog is always with him. They are both quiet persons, and I never saw the man angry, nor heard the dog bark. During the service the dog would not come to its master, who was on the seat with us, but kept a few yards off, barking and howling. Its master spoke to it gently, and then harshly, and then angrily; but it would neither come nor cease to make a noise. It was in a sort of fury, with its eyes savage, and all its hairs bristling out like a cat’s tail when puss is on the war-path. Finally the man, too, got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog, and then took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and half threw it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The moment it touched the stone the poor thing became quiet and fell all into a tremble. It did not try to get away, but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was in such a pitiable state of terror that I tried, though without effect, to comfort it. Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to touch the dog, but looked at it in an agonised sort of way. I greatly fear that she is of too super-sensitive a nature to go through the world without trouble. She will be dreaming of this to-night, I am sure. The whole agglomeration of things—the ship steered into port by a dead man; his attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads; the touching funeral; the dog, now furious and now in terror—will all afford material for her dreams.

I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs to Robin Hood’s Bay and back. She ought not to have much inclination for sleep-walking then.

CHAPTER VIII

MINA MURRAY’S JOURNAL

Same day, 11 o’clock p. m.—Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I had made my diary a duty I should not open it to-night. We had a lovely walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, and frightened the wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything except, of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start. We had a capital “severe tea” at Robin Hood’s Bay in a sweet little old-fashioned inn, with a bow-window right over the seaweed-covered rocks of the strand. I believe we should have shocked the “New Woman” with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them! Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls. Lucy was really tired, and we intended to creep off to bed as soon as we could. The young curate came in, however, and Mrs. Westenra asked him to stay for supper. Lucy and I had both a fight for it with the dusty miller; I know it was a hard fight on my part, and I am quite heroic. I think that some day the bishops must get together and see about breeding up a new class of curates, who don’t take supper, no matter how they may be pressed to, and who will know when girls are tired. Lucy is asleep and breathing softly. She has more colour in her cheeks than usual, and looks, oh, so sweet. If Mr. Holmwood fell in love with her seeing her only in the drawing-room, I wonder what he would say if he saw her now. Some of the “New Women” writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won’t condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it, too! There’s some consolation in that. I am so happy to-night, because dear Lucy seems better. I really believe she has turned the corner, and that we are over her troubles with dreaming. I should be quite happy if I only knew if Jonathan.... God bless and keep him.

 

11 August, 3 a. m.—Diary again. No sleep now, so I may as well write. I am too agitated to sleep. We have had such an adventure, such an agonising experience. I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my diary.... Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible sense of fear upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me. The room was dark, so I could not see Lucy’s bed; I stole across and felt for her. The bed was empty. I lit a match and found that she was not in the room. The door was shut, but not locked, as I had left it. I feared to wake her mother, who has been more than usually ill lately, so threw on some clothes and got ready to look for her. As I was leaving the room it struck me that the clothes she wore might give me some clue to her dreaming intention. Dressing-gown would mean house; dress, outside. Dressing-gown and dress were both in their places. “Thank God,” I said to myself, “she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress.” I ran downstairs and looked in the sitting-room. Not there! Then I looked in all the other open rooms of the house, with an ever-growing fear chilling my heart. Finally I came to the hall door and found it open. It was not wide open, but the catch of the lock had not caught. The people of the house are careful to lock the door every night, so I feared that Lucy must have gone out as she was. There was no time to think of what might happen; a vague, overmastering fear obscured all details. I took a big, heavy shawl and ran out. The clock was striking one as I was in the Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight. I ran along the North Terrace, but could see no sign of the white figure which I expected. At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I looked across the harbour to the East Cliff, in the hope or fear—I don’t know which—of seeing Lucy in our favourite seat. There was a bright full moon, with heavy black, driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of light and shade as they sailed across. For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary’s Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and the churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately; but it seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell; I did not wait to catch another glance, but flew down the steep steps to the pier and along by the fish-market to the bridge, which was the only way to reach the East Cliff. The town seemed as dead, for not a soul did I see; I rejoiced that it was so, for I wanted no witness of poor Lucy’s condition. The time and distance seemed endless, and my knees trembled and my breath came laboured as I toiled up the endless steps to the abbey. I must have gone fast, and yet it seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in my body were rusty. When I got almost to the top I could see the seat and the white figure, for I was now close enough to distinguish it even through the spells of shadow. There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure. I called in fright, “Lucy! Lucy!” and something raised a head, and from where I was I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes. Lucy did not answer, and I ran on to the entrance of the churchyard. As I entered, the church was between me and the seat, and for a minute or so I lost sight of her. When I came in view again the cloud had passed, and the moonlight struck so brilliantly that I could see Lucy half reclining with her head lying over the back of the seat. She was quite alone, and there was not a sign of any living thing about.

When I bent over her I could see that she was still asleep. Her lips were parted, and she was breathing—not softly as usual with her, but in long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every breath. As I came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled the collar of her nightdress close around her throat. Whilst she did so there came a little shudder through her, as though she felt the cold. I flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight round her neck, for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air, unclad as she was. I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to have my hands free that I might help her, I fastened the shawl at her throat with a big safety-pin; but I must have been clumsy in my anxiety and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-and-by, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet and then began very gently to wake her. At first she did not respond; but gradually she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally. At last, as time was passing fast, and, for many other reasons, I wished to get her home at once, I shook her more forcibly, till finally she opened her eyes and awoke. She did not seem surprised to see me, as, of course, she did not realise all at once where she was. Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking unclad in a churchyard at night, she did not lose her grace. She trembled a little, and clung to me; when I told her to come at once with me home she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child. As we passed along, the gravel hurt my feet, and Lucy noticed me wince. She stopped and wanted to insist upon my taking my shoes; but I would not. However, when we got to the pathway outside the churchyard, where there was a puddle of water, remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet with mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went home, no one, in case we should meet any one, should notice my bare feet.

Fortune favoured us, and we got home without meeting a soul. Once we saw a man, who seemed not quite sober, passing along a street in front of us; but we hid in a door till he had disappeared up an opening such as there are here, steep little closes, or “wynds,” as they call them in Scotland. My heart beat so loud all the time that sometimes I thought I should faint. I was filled with anxiety about Lucy, not only for her health, lest she should suffer from the exposure, but for her reputation in case the story should get wind. When we got in, and had washed our feet, and had said a prayer of thankfulness together, I tucked her into bed. Before falling asleep she asked—even implored—me not to say a word to any one, even her mother, about her sleep-walking adventure. I hesitated at first to promise; but on thinking of the state of her mother’s health, and how the knowledge of such a thing would fret her, and thinking, too, of how such a story might become distorted—nay, infallibly would—in case it should leak out, I thought it wiser to do so. I hope I did right. I have locked the door, and the key is tied to my wrist, so perhaps I shall not be again disturbed. Lucy is sleeping soundly; the reflex of the dawn is high and far over the sea....

 

Same day, noon.—All goes well. Lucy slept till I woke her and seemed not to have even changed her side. The adventure of the night does not seem to have harmed her; on the contrary, it has benefited her, for she looks better this morning than she has done for weeks. I was sorry to notice that my clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her. Indeed, it might have been serious, for the skin of her throat was pierced. I must have pinched up a piece of loose skin and have transfixed it, for there are two little red points like pin-pricks, and on the band of her nightdress was a drop of blood. When I apologised and was concerned about it, she laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it. Fortunately it cannot leave a scar, as it is so tiny.

 

Same day, night.—We passed a happy day. The air was clear, and the sun bright, and there was a cool breeze. We took our lunch to Mulgrave Woods, Mrs. Westenra driving by the road and Lucy and I walking by the cliff-path and joining her at the gate. I felt a little sad myself, for I could not but feel how absolutely happy it would have been had Jonathan been with me. But there! I must only be patient. In the evening we strolled in the Casino Terrace, and heard some good music by Spohr and Mackenzie, and went to bed early. Lucy seems more restful than she has been for some time, and fell asleep at once. I shall lock the door and secure the key the same as before, though I do not expect any trouble to-night.

 

12 August.—My expectations were wrong, for twice during the night I was wakened by Lucy trying to get out. She seemed, even in her sleep, to be a little impatient at finding the door shut, and went back to bed under a sort of protest. I woke with the dawn, and heard the birds chirping outside of the window. Lucy woke, too, and, I was glad to see, was even better than on the previous morning. All her old gaiety of manner seemed to have come back, and she came and snuggled in beside me and told me all about Arthur. I told her how anxious I was about Jonathan, and then she tried to comfort me. Well, she succeeded somewhat, for, though sympathy can’t alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.

 

13 August.—Another quiet day, and to bed with the key on my wrist as before. Again I awoke in the night, and found Lucy sitting up in bed, still asleep, pointing to the window. I got up quietly, and pulling aside the blind, looked out. It was brilliant moonlight, and the soft effect of the light over the sea and sky—merged together in one great, silent mystery—was beautiful beyond words. Between me and the moonlight flitted a great bat, coming and going in great whirling circles. Once or twice it came quite close, but was, I suppose, frightened at seeing me, and flitted away across the harbour towards the abbey. When I came back from the window Lucy had lain down again, and was sleeping peacefully. She did not stir again all night.

 

14 August.—On the East Cliff, reading and writing all day. Lucy seems to have become as much in love with the spot as I am, and it is hard to get her away from it when it is time to come home for lunch or tea or dinner. This afternoon she made a funny remark. We were coming home for dinner, and had come to the top of the steps up from the West Pier and stopped to look at the view, as we generally do. The setting sun, low down in the sky, was just dropping behind Kettleness; the red light was thrown over on the East Cliff and the old abbey, and seemed to bathe everything in a beautiful rosy glow. We were silent for a while, and suddenly Lucy murmured as if to herself:--

“His red eyes again! They are just the same.” It was such an odd expression, coming apropos of nothing, that it quite startled me. I slewed round a little, so as to see Lucy well without seeming to stare at her, and saw that she was in a half-dreamy state, with an odd look on her face that I could not quite make out; so I said nothing, but followed her eyes. She appeared to be looking over at our own seat, whereon was a dark figure seated alone. I was a little startled myself, for it seemed for an instant as if the stranger had great eyes like burning flames; but a second look dispelled the illusion. The red sunlight was shining on the windows of St. Mary’s Church behind our seat, and as the sun dipped there was just sufficient change in the refraction and reflection to make it appear as if the light moved. I called Lucy’s attention to the peculiar effect, and she became herself with a start, but she looked sad all the same; it may have been that she was thinking of that terrible night up there. We never refer to it; so I said nothing, and we went home to dinner. Lucy had a headache and went early to bed. I saw her asleep, and went out for a little stroll myself; I walked along the cliffs to the westward, and was full of sweet sadness, for I was thinking of Jonathan. When coming home—it was then bright moonlight, so bright that, though the front of our part of the Crescent was in shadow, everything could be well seen—I threw a glance up at our window, and saw Lucy’s head leaning out. I thought that perhaps she was looking out for me, so I opened my handkerchief and waved it. She did not notice or make any movement whatever. Just then, the moonlight crept round an angle of the building, and the light fell on the window. There distinctly was Lucy with her head lying up against the side of the window-sill and her eyes shut. She was fast asleep, and by her, seated on the window-sill, was something that looked like a good-sized bird. I was afraid she might get a chill, so I ran upstairs, but as I came into the room she was moving back to her bed, fast asleep, and breathing heavily; she was holding her hand to her throat, as though to protect it from cold.

I did not wake her, but tucked her up warmly; I have taken care that the door is locked and the window securely fastened.

She looks so sweet as she sleeps; but she is paler than is her wont, and there is a drawn, haggard look under her eyes which I do not like. I fear she is fretting about something. I wish I could find out what it is.

 

15 August.—Rose later than usual. Lucy was languid and tired, and slept on after we had been called. We had a happy surprise at breakfast. Arthur’s father is better, and wants the marriage to come off soon. Lucy is full of quiet joy, and her mother is glad and sorry at once. Later on in the day she told me the cause. She is grieved to lose Lucy as her very own, but she is rejoiced that she is soon to have some one to protect her. Poor dear, sweet lady! She confided to me that she has got her death-warrant. She has not told Lucy, and made me promise secrecy; her doctor told her that within a few months, at most, she must die, for her heart is weakening. At any time, even now, a sudden shock would be almost sure to kill her. Ah, we were wise to keep from her the affair of the dreadful night of Lucy’s sleep-walking.

 

17 August.—No diary for two whole days. I have not had the heart to write. Some sort of shadowy pall seems to be coming over our happiness. No news from Jonathan, and Lucy seems to be growing weaker, whilst her mother’s hours are numbering to a close. I do not understand Lucy’s fading away as she is doing. She eats well and sleeps well, and enjoys the fresh air; but all the time the roses in her cheeks are fading, and she gets weaker and more languid day by day; at night I hear her gasping as if for air. I keep the key of our door always fastened to my wrist at night, but she gets up and walks about the room, and sits at the open window. Last night I found her leaning out when I woke up, and when I tried to wake her I could not; she was in a faint. When I managed to restore her she was as weak as water, and cried silently between long, painful struggles for breath. When I asked her how she came to be at the window she shook her head and turned away. I trust her feeling ill may not be from that unlucky prick of the safety-pin. I looked at her throat just now as she lay asleep, and the tiny wounds seem not to have healed. They are still open, and, if anything, larger than before, and the edges of them are faintly white. They are like little white dots with red centres. Unless they heal within a day or two, I shall insist on the doctor seeing about them.

Letter, Samuel F. Billington & Son, Solicitors, Whitby, to Messrs. Carter, Paterson & Co., London.

“17 August.

“Dear Sirs,--

“Herewith please receive invoice of goods sent by Great Northern Railway. Same are to be delivered at Carfax, near Purfleet, immediately on receipt at goods station King’s Cross. The house is at present empty, but enclosed please find keys, all of which are labelled.

“You will please deposit the boxes, fifty in number, which form the consignment, in the partially ruined building forming part of the house and marked ‘A’ on rough diagram enclosed. Your agent will easily recognise the locality, as it is the ancient chapel of the mansion. The goods leave by the train at 9:30 to-night, and will be due at King’s Cross at 4:30 to-morrow afternoon. As our client wishes the delivery made as soon as possible, we shall be obliged by your having teams ready at King’s Cross at the time named and forthwith conveying the goods to destination. In order to obviate any delays possible through any routine requirements as to payment in your departments, we enclose cheque herewith for ten pounds (£10), receipt of which please acknowledge. Should the charge be less than this amount, you can return balance; if greater, we shall at once send cheque for difference on hearing from you. You are to leave the keys on coming away in the main hall of the house, where the proprietor may get them on his entering the house by means of his duplicate key.

“Pray do not take us as exceeding the bounds of business courtesy in pressing you in all ways to use the utmost expedition.

“We are, dear Sirs,
“Faithfully yours,
“Samuel F. Billington & Son.”

Letter, Messrs. Carter, Paterson & Co., London, to Messrs. Billington & Son, Whitby.

“21 August.

“Dear Sirs,--

“We beg to acknowledge £10 received and to return cheque £1 17s. 9d, amount of overplus, as shown in receipted account herewith. Goods are delivered in exact accordance with instructions, and keys left in parcel in main hall, as directed.

“We are, dear Sirs,
“Yours respectfully.
“Pro Carter, Paterson & Co.”

Mina Murray’s Journal.

18 August.—I am happy to-day, and write sitting on the seat in the churchyard. Lucy is ever so much better. Last night she slept well all night, and did not disturb me once. The roses seem coming back already to her cheeks, though she is still sadly pale and wan-looking. If she were in any way anæmic I could understand it, but she is not. She is in gay spirits and full of life and cheerfulness. All the morbid reticence seems to have passed from her, and she has just reminded me, as if I needed any reminding, of that night, and that it was here, on this very seat, I found her asleep. As she told me she tapped playfully with the heel of her boot on the stone slab and said:--

“My poor little feet didn’t make much noise then! I daresay poor old Mr. Swales would have told me that it was because I didn’t want to wake up Geordie.” As she was in such a communicative humour, I asked her if she had dreamed at all that night. Before she answered, that sweet, puckered look came into her forehead, which Arthur—I call him Arthur from her habit—says he loves; and, indeed, I don’t wonder that he does. Then she went on in a half-dreaming kind of way, as if trying to recall it to herself:--

“I didn’t quite dream; but it all seemed to be real. I only wanted to be here in this spot—I don’t know why, for I was afraid of something—I don’t know what. I remember, though I suppose I was asleep, passing through the streets and over the bridge. A fish leaped as I went by, and I leaned over to look at it, and I heard a lot of dogs howling—the whole town seemed as if it must be full of dogs all howling at once—as I went up the steps. Then I had a vague memory of something long and dark with red eyes, just as we saw in the sunset, and something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once; and then I seemed sinking into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have heard there is to drowning men; and then everything seemed passing away from me; my soul seemed to go out from my body and float about the air. I seem to remember that once the West Lighthouse was right under me, and then there was a sort of agonising feeling, as if I were in an earthquake, and I came back and found you shaking my body. I saw you do it before I felt you.”

Then she began to laugh. It seemed a little uncanny to me, and I listened to her breathlessly. I did not quite like it, and thought it better not to keep her mind on the subject, so we drifted on to other subjects, and Lucy was like her old self again. When we got home the fresh breeze had braced her up, and her pale cheeks were really more rosy. Her mother rejoiced when she saw her, and we all spent a very happy evening together.

 

19 August.—Joy, joy, joy! although not all joy. At last, news of Jonathan. The dear fellow has been ill; that is why he did not write. I am not afraid to think it or say it, now that I know. Mr. Hawkins sent me on the letter, and wrote himself, oh, so kindly. I am to leave in the morning and go over to Jonathan, and to help to nurse him if necessary, and to bring him home. Mr. Hawkins says it would not be a bad thing if we were to be married out there. I have cried over the good Sister’s letter till I can feel it wet against my bosom, where it lies. It is of Jonathan, and must be next my heart, for he is in my heart. My journey is all mapped out, and my luggage ready. I am only taking one change of dress; Lucy will bring my trunk to London and keep it till I send for it, for it may be that ... I must write no more; I must keep it to say to Jonathan, my husband. The letter that he has seen and touched must comfort me till we meet.

Letter, Sister Agatha, Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, Buda-Pesth, to Miss Wilhelmina Murray.

“12 August.

“Dear Madam,--

“I write by desire of Mr. Jonathan Harker, who is himself not strong enough to write, though progressing well, thanks to God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary. He has been under our care for nearly six weeks, suffering from a violent brain fever. He wishes me to convey his love, and to say that by this post I write for him to Mr. Peter Hawkins, Exeter, to say, with his dutiful respects, that he is sorry for his delay, and that all of his work is completed. He will require some few weeks’ rest in our sanatorium in the hills, but will then return. He wishes me to say that he has not sufficient money with him, and that he would like to pay for his staying here, so that others who need shall not be wanting for help.

“Believe me,
“Yours, with sympathy and all blessings,
“Sister Agatha.

“P. S.—My patient being asleep, I open this to let you know something more. He has told me all about you, and that you are shortly to be his wife. All blessings to you both! He has had some fearful shock—so says our doctor—and in his delirium his ravings have been dreadful; of wolves and poison and blood; of ghosts and demons; and I fear to say of what. Be careful with him always that there may be nothing to excite him of this kind for a long time to come; the traces of such an illness as his do not lightly die away. We should have written long ago, but we knew nothing of his friends, and there was on him nothing that any one could understand. He came in the train from Klausenburg, and the guard was told by the station-master there that he rushed into the station shouting for a ticket for home. Seeing from his violent demeanour that he was English, they gave him a ticket for the furthest station on the way thither that the train reached.

“Be assured that he is well cared for. He has won all hearts by his sweetness and gentleness. He is truly getting on well, and I have no doubt will in a few weeks be all himself. But be careful of him for safety’s sake. There are, I pray God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, many, many, happy years for you both.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

19 August.—Strange and sudden change in Renfield last night. About eight o’clock he began to get excited and sniff about as a dog does when setting. The attendant was struck by his manner, and knowing my interest in him, encouraged him to talk. He is usually respectful to the attendant and at times servile; but to-night, the man tells me, he was quite haughty. Would not condescend to talk with him at all. All he would say was:--

The attendant thinks it is some sudden form of religious mania which has seized him. If so, we must look out for squalls, for a strong man with homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous. The combination is a dreadful one. At nine o’clock I visited him myself. His attitude to me was the same as that to the attendant; in his sublime self-feeling the difference between myself and attendant seemed to him as nothing. It looks like religious mania, and he will soon think that he himself is God. These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for an Omnipotent Being. How these madmen give themselves away! The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall; but the God created from human vanity sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow. Oh, if men only knew!

For half an hour or more Renfield kept getting excited in greater and greater degree. I did not pretend to be watching him, but I kept strict observation all the same. All at once that shifty look came into his eyes which we always see when a madman has seized an idea, and with it the shifty movement of the head and back which asylum attendants come to know so well. He became quite quiet, and went and sat on the edge of his bed resignedly, and looked into space with lack-lustre eyes. I thought I would find out if his apathy were real or only assumed, and tried to lead him to talk of his pets, a theme which had never failed to excite his attention. At first he made no reply, but at length said testily:--

“Bother them all! I don’t care a pin about them.”

“What?” I said. “You don’t mean to tell me you don’t care about spiders?” (Spiders at present are his hobby and the note-book is filling up with columns of small figures.) To this he answered enigmatically:--

“The bride-maidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the bride; but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine not to the eyes that are filled.”

He would not explain himself, but remained obstinately seated on his bed all the time I remained with him.

I am weary to-night and low in spirits. I cannot but think of Lucy, and how different things might have been. If I don’t sleep at once, chloral, the modern Morpheus—C₂HCl₃O. H₂O! I must be careful not to let it grow into a habit. No, I shall take none to-night! I have thought of Lucy, and I shall not dishonour her by mixing the two. If need be, to-night shall be sleepless....

 

Later.—Glad I made the resolution; gladder that I kept to it. I had lain tossing about, and had heard the clock strike only twice, when the night-watchman came to me, sent up from the ward, to say that Renfield had escaped. I threw on my clothes and ran down at once; my patient is too dangerous a person to be roaming about. Those ideas of his might work out dangerously with strangers. The attendant was waiting for me. He said he had seen him not ten minutes before, seemingly asleep in his bed, when he had looked through the observation-trap in the door. His attention was called by the sound of the window being wrenched out. He ran back and saw his feet disappear through the window, and had at once sent up for me. He was only in his night-gear, and cannot be far off. The attendant thought it would be more useful to watch where he should go than to follow him, as he might lose sight of him whilst getting out of the building by the door. He is a bulky man, and couldn’t get through the window. I am thin, so, with his aid, I got out, but feet foremost, and, as we were only a few feet above ground, landed unhurt. The attendant told me the patient had gone to the left, and had taken a straight line, so I ran as quickly as I could. As I got through the belt of trees I saw a white figure scale the high wall which separates our grounds from those of the deserted house.

I ran back at once, told the watchman to get three or four men immediately and follow me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our friend might be dangerous. I got a ladder myself, and crossing the wall, dropped down on the other side. I could see Renfield’s figure just disappearing behind the angle of the house, so I ran after him. On the far side of the house I found him pressed close against the old ironbound oak door of the chapel. He was talking, apparently to some one, but I was afraid to go near enough to hear what he was saying, lest I might frighten him, and he should run off. Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of escaping is upon him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not take note of anything around him, and so ventured to draw nearer to him—the more so as my men had now crossed the wall and were closing him in. I heard him say:--

“I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You long and afar off. Now that You are near, I await Your commands, and You will not pass me by, will You, dear Master, in Your distribution of good things?”

He is a selfish old beggar anyhow. He thinks of the loaves and fishes even when he believes he is in a Real Presence. His manias make a startling combination. When we closed in on him he fought like a tiger. He is immensely strong, for he was more like a wild beast than a man. I never saw a lunatic in such a paroxysm of rage before; and I hope I shall not again. It is a mercy that we have found out his strength and his danger in good time. With strength and determination like his, he might have done wild work before he was caged. He is safe now at any rate. Jack Sheppard himself couldn’t get free from the strait-waistcoat that keeps him restrained, and he’s chained to the wall in the padded room. His cries are at times awful, but the silences that follow are more deadly still, for he means murder in every turn and movement.

Just now he spoke coherent words for the first time:--

“I shall be patient, Master. It is coming—coming—coming!”

So I took the hint, and came too. I was too excited to sleep, but this diary has quieted me, and I feel I shall get some sleep to-night.

CHAPTER IX

Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra.

“Buda-Pesth, 24 August.

“My dearest Lucy,--

“I know you will be anxious to hear all that has happened since we parted at the railway station at Whitby. Well, my dear, I got to Hull all right, and caught the boat to Hamburg, and then the train on here. I feel that I can hardly recall anything of the journey, except that I knew I was coming to Jonathan, and, that as I should have to do some nursing, I had better get all the sleep I could.... I found my dear one, oh, so thin and pale and weak-looking. All the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his face has vanished. He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not remember anything that has happened to him for a long time past. At least, he wants me to believe so, and I shall never ask. He has had some terrible shock, and I fear it might tax his poor brain if he were to try to recall it. Sister Agatha, who is a good creature and a born nurse, tells me that he raved of dreadful things whilst he was off his head. I wanted her to tell me what they were; but she would only cross herself, and say she would never tell; that the ravings of the sick were the secrets of God, and that if a nurse through her vocation should hear them, she should respect her trust. She is a sweet, good soul, and the next day, when she saw I was troubled, she opened up the subject again, and after saying that she could never mention what my poor dear raved about, added: ‘I can tell you this much, my dear: that it was not about anything which he has done wrong himself; and you, as his wife to be, have no cause to be concerned. He has not forgotten you or what he owes to you. His fear was of great and terrible things, which no mortal can treat of.’ I do believe the dear soul thought I might be jealous lest my poor dear should have fallen in love with any other girl. The idea of my being jealous about Jonathan! And yet, my dear, let me whisper, I felt a thrill of joy through me when I knew that no other woman was a cause of trouble. I am now sitting by his bedside, where I can see his face while he sleeps. He is waking!...

“When he woke he asked me for his coat, as he wanted to get something from the pocket; I asked Sister Agatha, and she brought all his things. I saw that amongst them was his note-book, and was going to ask him to let me look at it—for I knew then that I might find some clue to his trouble—but I suppose he must have seen my wish in my eyes, for he sent me over to the window, saying he wanted to be quite alone for a moment. Then he called me back, and when I came he had his hand over the note-book, and he said to me very solemnly:--

“ ‘Wilhelmina’—I knew then that he was in deadly earnest, for he has never called me by that name since he asked me to marry him—‘you know, dear, my ideas of the trust between husband and wife: there should be no secret, no concealment. I have had a great shock, and when I try to think of what it is I feel my head spin round, and I do not know if it was all real or the dreaming of a madman. You know I have had brain fever, and that is to be mad. The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage.’ For, my dear, we had decided to be married as soon as the formalities are complete. ‘Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to share my ignorance? Here is the book. Take it and keep it, read it if you will, but never let me know; unless, indeed, some solemn duty should come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, recorded here.’ He fell back exhausted, and I put the book under his pillow, and kissed him. I have asked Sister Agatha to beg the Superior to let our wedding be this afternoon, and am waiting her reply....

 

“She has come and told me that the chaplain of the English mission church has been sent for. We are to be married in an hour, or as soon after as Jonathan awakes....

 

“Lucy, the time has come and gone. I feel very solemn, but very, very happy. Jonathan woke a little after the hour, and all was ready, and he sat up in bed, propped up with pillows. He answered his ‘I will’ firmly and strongly. I could hardly speak; my heart was so full that even those words seemed to choke me. The dear sisters were so kind. Please God, I shall never, never forget them, nor the grave and sweet responsibilities I have taken upon me. I must tell you of my wedding present. When the chaplain and the sisters had left me alone with my husband—oh, Lucy, it is the first time I have written the words ‘my husband’—left me alone with my husband, I took the book from under his pillow, and wrapped it up in white paper, and tied it with a little bit of pale blue ribbon which was round my neck, and sealed it over the knot with sealing-wax, and for my seal I used my wedding ring. Then I kissed it and showed it to my husband, and told him that I would keep it so, and then it would be an outward and visible sign for us all our lives that we trusted each other; that I would never open it unless it were for his own dear sake or for the sake of some stern duty. Then he took my hand in his, and oh, Lucy, it was the first time he took his wife’s hand, and said that it was the dearest thing in all the wide world, and that he would go through all the past again to win it, if need be. The poor dear meant to have said a part of the past, but he cannot think of time yet, and I shall not wonder if at first he mixes up not only the month, but the year.

“Well, my dear, what could I say? I could only tell him that I was the happiest woman in all the wide world, and that I had nothing to give him except myself, my life, and my trust, and that with these went my love and duty for all the days of my life. And, my dear, when he kissed me, and drew me to him with his poor weak hands, it was like a very solemn pledge between us....

“Lucy dear, do you know why I tell you all this? It is not only because it is all sweet to me, but because you have been, and are, very dear to me. It was my privilege to be your friend and guide when you came from the schoolroom to prepare for the world of life. I want you to see now, and with the eyes of a very happy wife, whither duty has led me; so that in your own married life you too may be all happy as I am. My dear, please Almighty God, your life may be all it promises: a long day of sunshine, with no harsh wind, no forgetting duty, no distrust. I must not wish you no pain, for that can never be; but I do hope you will be always as happy as I am now. Good-bye, my dear. I shall post this at once, and, perhaps, write you very soon again. I must stop, for Jonathan is waking—I must attend to my husband!

“Your ever-loving
“Mina Harker.”

Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Harker.

“Whitby, 30 August.

“My dearest Mina,--

“Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and may you soon be in your own home with your husband. I wish you could be coming home soon enough to stay with us here. The strong air would soon restore Jonathan; it has quite restored me. I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of life, and sleep well. You will be glad to know that I have quite given up walking in my sleep. I think I have not stirred out of my bed for a week, that is when I once got into it at night. Arthur says I am getting fat. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Arthur is here. We have such walks and drives, and rides, and rowing, and tennis, and fishing together; and I love him more than ever. He tells me that he loves me more, but I doubt that, for at first he told me that he couldn’t love me more than he did then. But this is nonsense. There he is, calling to me. So no more just at present from your loving

“Lucy.

“P. S.—Mother sends her love. She seems better, poor dear.

“P. P. S.—We are to be married on 28 September.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

20 August.—The case of Renfield grows even more interesting. He has now so far quieted that there are spells of cessation from his passion. For the first week after his attack he was perpetually violent. Then one night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet, and kept murmuring to himself: “Now I can wait; now I can wait.” The attendant came to tell me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him. He was still in the strait-waistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleading—I might almost say, “cringing”—softness. I was satisfied with his present condition, and directed him to be relieved. The attendants hesitated, but finally carried out my wishes without protest. It was a strange thing that the patient had humour enough to see their distrust, for, coming close to me, he said in a whisper, all the while looking furtively at them:--

“They think I could hurt you! Fancy me hurting you! The fools!”

It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself dissociated even in the mind of this poor madman from the others; but all the same I do not follow his thought. Am I to take it that I have anything in common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together; or has he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my well-being is needful to him? I must find out later on. To-night he will not speak. Even the offer of a kitten or even a full-grown cat will not tempt him. He will only say: “I don’t take any stock in cats. I have more to think of now, and I can wait; I can wait.”

After a while I left him. The attendant tells me that he was quiet until just before dawn, and that then he began to get uneasy, and at length violent, until at last he fell into a paroxysm which exhausted him so that he swooned into a sort of coma.

 

... Three nights has the same thing happened—violent all day then quiet from moonrise to sunrise. I wish I could get some clue to the cause. It would almost seem as if there was some influence which came and went. Happy thought! We shall to-night play sane wits against mad ones. He escaped before without our help; to-night he shall escape with it. We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they are required....

 

23 August.—“The unexpected always happens.” How well Disraeli knew life. Our bird when he found the cage open would not fly, so all our subtle arrangements were for nought. At any rate, we have proved one thing; that the spells of quietness last a reasonable time. We shall in future be able to ease his bonds for a few hours each day. I have given orders to the night attendant merely to shut him in the padded room, when once he is quiet, until an hour before sunrise. The poor soul’s body will enjoy the relief even if his mind cannot appreciate it. Hark! The unexpected again! I am called; the patient has once more escaped.

 

Later.—Another night adventure. Renfield artfully waited until the attendant was entering the room to inspect. Then he dashed out past him and flew down the passage. I sent word for the attendants to follow. Again he went into the grounds of the deserted house, and we found him in the same place, pressed against the old chapel door. When he saw me he became furious, and had not the attendants seized him in time, he would have tried to kill me. As we were holding him a strange thing happened. He suddenly redoubled his efforts, and then as suddenly grew calm. I looked round instinctively, but could see nothing. Then I caught the patient’s eye and followed it, but could trace nothing as it looked into the moonlit sky except a big bat, which was flapping its silent and ghostly way to the west. Bats usually wheel and flit about, but this one seemed to go straight on, as if it knew where it was bound for or had some intention of its own. The patient grew calmer every instant, and presently said:--

“You needn’t tie me; I shall go quietly!” Without trouble we came back to the house. I feel there is something ominous in his calm, and shall not forget this night....

Lucy Westenra’s Diary

Hillingham, 24 August.—I must imitate Mina, and keep writing things down. Then we can have long talks when we do meet. I wonder when it will be. I wish she were with me again, for I feel so unhappy. Last night I seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby. Perhaps it is the change of air, or getting home again. It is all dark and horrid to me, for I can remember nothing; but I am full of vague fear, and I feel so weak and worn out. When Arthur came to lunch he looked quite grieved when he saw me, and I hadn’t the spirit to try to be cheerful. I wonder if I could sleep in mother’s room to-night. I shall make an excuse and try.

 

25 August.—Another bad night. Mother did not seem to take to my proposal. She seems not too well herself, and doubtless she fears to worry me. I tried to keep awake, and succeeded for a while; but when the clock struck twelve it waked me from a doze, so I must have been falling asleep. There was a sort of scratching or flapping at the window, but I did not mind it, and as I remember no more, I suppose I must then have fallen asleep. More bad dreams. I wish I could remember them. This morning I am horribly weak. My face is ghastly pale, and my throat pains me. It must be something wrong with my lungs, for I don’t seem ever to get air enough. I shall try to cheer up when Arthur comes, or else I know he will be miserable to see me so.

Letter, Arthur Holmwood to Dr. Seward.

“Albemarle Hotel, 31 August.

“My dear Jack,--

“I want you to do me a favour. Lucy is ill; that is, she has no special disease, but she looks awful, and is getting worse every day. I have asked her if there is any cause; I do not dare to ask her mother, for to disturb the poor lady’s mind about her daughter in her present state of health would be fatal. Mrs. Westenra has confided to me that her doom is spoken—disease of the heart—though poor Lucy does not know it yet. I am sure that there is something preying on my dear girl’s mind. I am almost distracted when I think of her; to look at her gives me a pang. I told her I should ask you to see her, and though she demurred at first—I know why, old fellow—she finally consented. It will be a painful task for you, I know, old friend, but it is for her sake, and I must not hesitate to ask, or you to act. You are to come to lunch at Hillingham to-morrow, two o’clock, so as not to arouse any suspicion in Mrs. Westenra, and after lunch Lucy will take an opportunity of being alone with you. I shall come in for tea, and we can go away together; I am filled with anxiety, and want to consult with you alone as soon as I can after you have seen her. Do not fail!

“Arthur.”

Telegram, Arthur Holmwood to Seward.

“1 September.

“Am summoned to see my father, who is worse. Am writing. Write me fully by to-night’s post to Ring. Wire me if necessary.”

Letter from Dr. Seward to Arthur Holmwood.

“2 September.

“My dear old fellow,--

“With regard to Miss Westenra’s health I hasten to let you know at once that in my opinion there is not any functional disturbance or any malady that I know of. At the same time, I am not by any means satisfied with her appearance; she is woefully different from what she was when I saw her last. Of course you must bear in mind that I did not have full opportunity of examination such as I should wish; our very friendship makes a little difficulty which not even medical science or custom can bridge over. I had better tell you exactly what happened, leaving you to draw, in a measure, your own conclusions. I shall then say what I have done and propose doing.

“I found Miss Westenra in seemingly gay spirits. Her mother was present, and in a few seconds I made up my mind that she was trying all she knew to mislead her mother and prevent her from being anxious. I have no doubt she guesses, if she does not know, what need of caution there is. We lunched alone, and as we all exerted ourselves to be cheerful, we got, as some kind of reward for our labours, some real cheerfulness amongst us. Then Mrs. Westenra went to lie down, and Lucy was left with me. We went into her boudoir, and till we got there her gaiety remained, for the servants were coming and going. As soon as the door was closed, however, the mask fell from her face, and she sank down into a chair with a great sigh, and hid her eyes with her hand. When I saw that her high spirits had failed, I at once took advantage of her reaction to make a diagnosis. She said to me very sweetly:--

“ ‘I cannot tell you how I loathe talking about myself.’ I reminded her that a doctor’s confidence was sacred, but that you were grievously anxious about her. She caught on to my meaning at once, and settled that matter in a word. ‘Tell Arthur everything you choose. I do not care for myself, but all for him!’ So I am quite free.

“I could easily see that she is somewhat bloodless, but I could not see the usual anæmic signs, and by a chance I was actually able to test the quality of her blood, for in opening a window which was stiff a cord gave way, and she cut her hand slightly with broken glass. It was a slight matter in itself, but it gave me an evident chance, and I secured a few drops of the blood and have analysed them. The qualitative analysis gives a quite normal condition, and shows, I should infer, in itself a vigorous state of health. In other physical matters I was quite satisfied that there is no need for anxiety; but as there must be a cause somewhere, I have come to the conclusion that it must be something mental. She complains of difficulty in breathing satisfactorily at times, and of heavy, lethargic sleep, with dreams that frighten her, but regarding which she can remember nothing. She says that as a child she used to walk in her sleep, and that when in Whitby the habit came back, and that once she walked out in the night and went to East Cliff, where Miss Murray found her; but she assures me that of late the habit has not returned. I am in doubt, and so have done the best thing I know of; I have written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in the world. I have asked him to come over, and as you told me that all things were to be at your charge, I have mentioned to him who you are and your relations to Miss Westenra. This, my dear fellow, is in obedience to your wishes, for I am only too proud and happy to do anything I can for her. Van Helsing would, I know, do anything for me for a personal reason, so, no matter on what ground he comes, we must accept his wishes. He is a seemingly arbitrary man, but this is because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day; and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, an indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats—these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind—work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy. I tell you these facts that you may know why I have such confidence in him. I have asked him to come at once. I shall see Miss Westenra to-morrow again. She is to meet me at the Stores, so that I may not alarm her mother by too early a repetition of my call.

“Yours always,
“John Seward.”

Letter, Abraham Van Helsing, M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc., to Dr. Seward.

“2 September.

“My good Friend,--

“When I have received your letter I am already coming to you. By good fortune I can leave just at once, without wrong to any of those who have trusted me. Were fortune other, then it were bad for those who have trusted, for I come to my friend when he call me to aid those he holds dear. Tell your friend that when that time you suck from my wound so swiftly the poison of the gangrene from that knife that our other friend, too nervous, let slip, you did more for him when he wants my aids and you call for them than all his great fortune could do. But it is pleasure added to do for him, your friend; it is to you that I come. Have then rooms for me at the Great Eastern Hotel, so that I may be near to hand, and please it so arrange that we may see the young lady not too late on to-morrow, for it is likely that I may have to return here that night. But if need be I shall come again in three days, and stay longer if it must. Till then good-bye, my friend John.

“Van Helsing.”

Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood.

“3 September.

“My dear Art,--

“Van Helsing has come and gone. He came on with me to Hillingham, and found that, by Lucy’s discretion, her mother was lunching out, so that we were alone with her. Van Helsing made a very careful examination of the patient. He is to report to me, and I shall advise you, for of course I was not present all the time. He is, I fear, much concerned, but says he must think. When I told him of our friendship and how you trust to me in the matter, he said: ‘You must tell him all you think. Tell him what I think, if you can guess it, if you will. Nay, I am not jesting. This is no jest, but life and death, perhaps more.’ I asked what he meant by that, for he was very serious. This was when we had come back to town, and he was having a cup of tea before starting on his return to Amsterdam. He would not give me any further clue. You must not be angry with me, Art, because his very reticence means that all his brains are working for her good. He will speak plainly enough when the time comes, be sure. So I told him I would simply write an account of our visit, just as if I were doing a descriptive special article for The Daily Telegraph. He seemed not to notice, but remarked that the smuts in London were not quite so bad as they used to be when he was a student here. I am to get his report to-morrow if he can possibly make it. In any case I am to have a letter.

“Well, as to the visit. Lucy was more cheerful than on the day I first saw her, and certainly looked better. She had lost something of the ghastly look that so upset you, and her breathing was normal. She was very sweet to the professor (as she always is), and tried to make him feel at ease; though I could see that the poor girl was making a hard struggle for it. I believe Van Helsing saw it, too, for I saw the quick look under his bushy brows that I knew of old. Then he began to chat of all things except ourselves and diseases and with such an infinite geniality that I could see poor Lucy’s pretense of animation merge into reality. Then, without any seeming change, he brought the conversation gently round to his visit, and suavely said:--

“ ‘My dear young miss, I have the so great pleasure because you are so much beloved. That is much, my dear, ever were there that which I do not see. They told me you were down in the spirit, and that you were of a ghastly pale. To them I say: “Pouf!” ’ And he snapped his fingers at me and went on: ‘But you and I shall show them how wrong they are. How can he’—and he pointed at me with the same look and gesture as that with which once he pointed me out to his class, on, or rather after, a particular occasion which he never fails to remind me of—‘know anything of a young ladies? He has his madams to play with, and to bring them back to happiness, and to those that love them. It is much to do, and, oh, but there are rewards, in that we can bestow such happiness. But the young ladies! He has no wife nor daughter, and the young do not tell themselves to the young, but to the old, like me, who have known so many sorrows and the causes of them. So, my dear, we will send him away to smoke the cigarette in the garden, whiles you and I have little talk all to ourselves.’ I took the hint, and strolled about, and presently the professor came to the window and called me in. He looked grave, but said: ‘I have made careful examination, but there is no functional cause. With you I agree that there has been much blood lost; it has been, but is not. But the conditions of her are in no way anæmic. I have asked her to send me her maid, that I may ask just one or two question, that so I may not chance to miss nothing. I know well what she will say. And yet there is cause; there is always cause for everything. I must go back home and think. You must send to me the telegram every day; and if there be cause I shall come again. The disease—for not to be all well is a disease—interest me, and the sweet young dear, she interest me too. She charm me, and for her, if not for you or disease, I come.’

“As I tell you, he would not say a word more, even when we were alone. And so now, Art, you know all I know. I shall keep stern watch. I trust your poor father is rallying. It must be a terrible thing to you, my dear old fellow, to be placed in such a position between two people who are both so dear to you. I know your idea of duty to your father, and you are right to stick to it; but, if need be, I shall send you word to come at once to Lucy; so do not be over-anxious unless you hear from me.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

4 September.—Zoöphagous patient still keeps up our interest in him. He had only one outburst and that was yesterday at an unusual time. Just before the stroke of noon he began to grow restless. The attendant knew the symptoms, and at once summoned aid. Fortunately the men came at a run, and were just in time, for at the stroke of noon he became so violent that it took all their strength to hold him. In about five minutes, however, he began to get more and more quiet, and finally sank into a sort of melancholy, in which state he has remained up to now. The attendant tells me that his screams whilst in the paroxysm were really appalling; I found my hands full when I got in, attending to some of the other patients who were frightened by him. Indeed, I can quite understand the effect, for the sounds disturbed even me, though I was some distance away. It is now after the dinner-hour of the asylum, and as yet my patient sits in a corner brooding, with a dull, sullen, woe-begone look in his face, which seems rather to indicate than to show something directly. I cannot quite understand it.

 

Later.—Another change in my patient. At five o’clock I looked in on him, and found him seemingly as happy and contented as he used to be. He was catching flies and eating them, and was keeping note of his capture by making nail-marks on the edge of the door between the ridges of padding. When he saw me, he came over and apologised for his bad conduct, and asked me in a very humble, cringing way to be led back to his own room and to have his note-book again. I thought it well to humour him: so he is back in his room with the window open. He has the sugar of his tea spread out on the window-sill, and is reaping quite a harvest of flies. He is not now eating them, but putting them into a box, as of old, and is already examining the corners of his room to find a spider. I tried to get him to talk about the past few days, for any clue to his thoughts would be of immense help to me; but he would not rise. For a moment or two he looked very sad, and said in a sort of far-away voice, as though saying it rather to himself than to me:--

“All over! all over! He has deserted me. No hope for me now unless I do it for myself!” Then suddenly turning to me in a resolute way, he said: “Doctor, won’t you be very good to me and let me have a little more sugar? I think it would be good for me.”

“And the flies?” I said.

“Yes! The flies like it, too, and I like the flies; therefore I like it.” And there are people who know so little as to think that madmen do not argue. I procured him a double supply, and left him as happy a man as, I suppose, any in the world. I wish I could fathom his mind.

 

Midnight.—Another change in him. I had been to see Miss Westenra, whom I found much better, and had just returned, and was standing at our own gate looking at the sunset, when once more I heard him yelling. As his room is on this side of the house, I could hear it better than in the morning. It was a shock to me to turn from the wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights and inky shadows and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul water, and to realise all the grim sternness of my own cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart to endure it all. I reached him just as the sun was going down, and from his window saw the red disc sink. As it sank he became less and less frenzied; and just as it dipped he slid from the hands that held him, an inert mass, on the floor. It is wonderful, however, what intellectual recuperative power lunatics have, for within a few minutes he stood up quite calmly and looked around him. I signalled to the attendants not to hold him, for I was anxious to see what he would do. He went straight over to the window and brushed out the crumbs of sugar; then he took his fly-box, and emptied it outside, and threw away the box; then he shut the window, and crossing over, sat down on his bed. All this surprised me, so I asked him: “Are you not going to keep flies any more?”

“No,” said he; “I am sick of all that rubbish!” He certainly is a wonderfully interesting study. I wish I could get some glimpse of his mind or of the cause of his sudden passion. Stop; there may be a clue after all, if we can find why to-day his paroxysms came on at high noon and at sunset. Can it be that there is a malign influence of the sun at periods which affects certain natures—as at times the moon does others? We shall see.

Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam.

“4 September.—Patient still better to-day.”

Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam.

“5 September.—Patient greatly improved. Good appetite; sleeps naturally; good spirits; colour coming back.”

Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam.

“6 September.—Terrible change for the worse. Come at once; do not lose an hour. I hold over telegram to Holmwood till have seen you.”

CHAPTER X

Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood.

“6 September.

“My dear Art,--

“My news to-day 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 old 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 the 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 shall 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 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 stopped and 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 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, and very gravely:--

“You were always a careful student, and your case-book was ever more full than the rest. You were only student then; now you are master, 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 practise, 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 peoples 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!”

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 beneficent 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 laid 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 to-day. 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. Then Van Helsing beckoned to me, and we went gently out of the room. The instant we had closed the door he stepped quickly along the passage to the next door, which was open. Then he pulled me quickly in with him and closed the door. “My God!” he said; “this is dreadful. There is no time to be lost. She will die for sheer want of blood to keep the heart’s action as it should be. There must be transfusion of blood at once. Is it you or me?”

“I am younger and stronger, Professor. It must be me.”

“Then get ready at once. I will bring up my bag. I am prepared.”

I went downstairs with him, and as we were going there was a knock at the hall-door. When we reached the hall the maid had just opened the door, and Arthur was stepping quickly in. He rushed up to me, saying in an eager whisper:--

“Jack, I was so anxious. I read between the lines of your letter, and have been in an agony. The dad was better, so I ran down here to see for myself. Is not that gentleman Dr. Van Helsing? I am so thankful to you, sir, for coming.” When first the Professor’s eye had lit upon him he had been angry at his interruption at such a time; but now, as he took in his stalwart proportions and recognised the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed. Without a pause he said to him gravely as he held out his hand:--

“Sir, you have come in time. You are the lover of our dear miss. She is bad, very, very bad. Nay, my child, do not go like that.” For he suddenly grew pale and sat down in a chair almost fainting. “You are to help her. You can do more than any that live, and your courage is your best help.”

“What can I do?” asked Arthur hoarsely. “Tell me, and I shall do it. My life is hers, and I would give the last drop of blood in my body for her.” The Professor has a strongly humorous side, and I could from old knowledge detect a trace of its origin in his answer:--

“My young sir, I do not ask so much as that—not the last!”

“What shall I do?” There was fire in his eyes, and his open nostril quivered with intent. Van Helsing slapped him on the shoulder. “Come!” he said. “You are a man, and it is a man we want. You are better than me, better than my friend John.” Arthur looked bewildered, and the Professor went on by explaining in a kindly way:--

“Young miss is bad, very bad. She wants blood, and blood she must have or die. My friend John and I have consulted; and we are about to perform what we call transfusion of blood—to transfer from full veins of one to the empty veins which pine for him. John was to give his blood, as he is the more young and strong than me”—here Arthur took my hand and wrung it hard in silence—“but, now you are here, you are more good than us, old or young, who toil much in the world of thought. Our nerves are not so calm and our blood not so bright than yours!” Arthur turned to him and said:--

“If you only knew how gladly I would die for her you would understand——”

He stopped, with a sort of choke in his voice.

“Good boy!” said Van Helsing. “In the not-so-far-off you will be happy that you have done all for her you love. Come now and be silent. You shall kiss her once before it is done, but then you must go; and you must leave at my sign. Say no word to Madame; you know how it is with her! There must be no shock; any knowledge of this would be one. Come!”

We all went up to Lucy’s room. Arthur by direction remained outside. Lucy turned her head and looked at us, but said nothing. She was not asleep, but she was simply too weak to make the effort. Her eyes spoke to us; that was all. Van Helsing took some things from his bag and laid them on a little table out of sight. Then he mixed a narcotic, and coming over to the bed, said cheerily:--

“Now, little miss, here is your medicine. Drink it off, like a good child. See, I lift you so that to swallow is easy. Yes.” She had made the effort with success.

It astonished me how long the drug took to act. This, in fact, marked the extent of her weakness. The time seemed endless until sleep began to flicker in her eyelids. At last, however, the narcotic began to manifest its potency; and she fell into a deep sleep. When the Professor was satisfied he called Arthur into the room, and bade him strip off his coat. Then he added: “You may take that one little kiss whiles I bring over the table. Friend John, help to me!” So neither of us looked whilst he bent over her.

Van Helsing turning to me, said:

“He is so young and strong and of blood so pure that we need not defibrinate it.”

Then with swiftness, but with absolute method, Van Helsing performed the operation. As the transfusion went on something like life seemed to come back to poor Lucy’s cheeks, and through Arthur’s growing pallor the joy of his face seemed absolutely to shine. After a bit I began to grow anxious, for the loss of blood was telling on Arthur, strong man as he was. It gave me an idea of what a terrible strain Lucy’s system must have undergone that what weakened Arthur only partially restored her. But the Professor’s face was set, and he stood watch in hand and with his eyes fixed now on the patient and now on Arthur. I could hear my own heart beat. Presently he said in a soft voice: “Do not stir an instant. It is enough. You attend him; I will look to her.” When all was over I could see how much Arthur was weakened. I dressed the wound and took his arm to bring him away, when Van Helsing spoke without turning round—the man seems to have eyes in the back of his head:--

“The brave lover, I think, deserve another kiss, which he shall have presently.” And as he had now finished his operation, he adjusted the pillow to the patient’s head. As he did so the narrow black velvet band which she seems always to wear round her throat, buckled with an old diamond buckle which her lover had given her, was dragged a little up, and showed a red mark on her throat. Arthur did not notice it, but I could hear the deep hiss of indrawn breath which is one of Van Helsing’s ways of betraying emotion. He said nothing at the moment, but turned to me, saying: “Now take down our brave young lover, give him of the port wine, and let him lie down a while. He must then go home and rest, sleep much and eat much, that he may be recruited of what he has so given to his love. He must not stay here. Hold! a moment. I may take it, sir, that you are anxious of result. Then bring it with you that in all ways the operation is successful. You have saved her life this time, and you can go home and rest easy in mind that all that can be is. I shall tell her all when she is well; she shall love you none the less for what you have done. Good-bye.”

When Arthur had gone I went back to the room. Lucy was sleeping gently, but her breathing was stronger; I could see the counterpane move as her breast heaved. By the bedside sat Van Helsing, looking at her intently. The velvet band again covered the red mark. I asked the Professor in a whisper:--

“What do you make of that mark on her throat?”

“What do you make of it?”

“I have not examined it yet,” I answered, and then and there proceeded to loose the band. Just over the external jugular vein there were two punctures, not large, but not wholesome-looking. There was no sign of disease, but the edges were white and worn-looking, as if by some trituration. It at once occurred to me that this wound, or whatever it was, might be the means of that manifest loss of blood; but I abandoned the idea as soon as formed, for such a thing could not be. The whole bed would have been drenched to a scarlet with the blood which the girl must have lost to leave such a pallor as she had before the transfusion.

“Well?” said Van Helsing.

“Well,” said I, “I can make nothing of it.” The Professor stood up. “I must go back to Amsterdam to-night,” he said. “There are books and things there which I want. You must remain here all the night, and you must not let your sight pass from her.”

“Shall I have a nurse?” I asked.

“We are the best nurses, you and I. You keep watch all night; see that she is well fed, and that nothing disturbs her. You must not sleep all the night. Later on we can sleep, you and I. I shall be back as soon as possible. And then we may begin.”

“May begin?” I said. “What on earth do you mean?”

“We shall see!” he answered, as he hurried out. He came back a moment later and put his head inside the door and said with warning finger held up:--

“Remember, she is your charge. If you leave her, and harm befall, you shall not sleep easy hereafter!”

Dr. Seward’s Diary—continued.

8 September.—I sat up all night with Lucy. The opiate worked itself off towards dusk, and she waked naturally; she looked a different being from what she had been before the operation. Her spirits even were good, and she was full of a happy vivacity, but I could see evidences of the absolute prostration which she had undergone. When I told Mrs. Westenra that Dr. Van Helsing had directed that I should sit up with her she almost pooh-poohed the idea, pointing out her daughter’s renewed strength and excellent spirits. I was firm, however, and made preparations for my long vigil. When her maid had prepared her for the night I came in, having in the meantime had supper, and took a seat by the bedside. She did not in any way make objection, but looked at me gratefully whenever I caught her eye. After a long spell she seemed sinking off to sleep, but with an effort seemed to pull herself together and shook it off. This was repeated several times, with greater effort and with shorter pauses as the time moved on. It was apparent that she did not want to sleep, so I tackled the subject at once:--

“You do not want to go to sleep?”

“No; I am afraid.”

“Afraid to go to sleep! Why so? It is the boon we all crave for.”

“Ah, not if you were like me—if sleep was to you a presage of horror!”

“A presage of horror! What on earth do you mean?”

“I don’t know; oh, I don’t know. And that is what is so terrible. All this weakness comes to me in sleep; until I dread the very thought.”

“But, my dear girl, you may sleep to-night. I am here watching you, and I can promise that nothing will happen.”

“Ah, I can trust you!” I seized the opportunity, and said: “I promise you that if I see any evidence of bad dreams I will wake you at once.”

“You will? Oh, will you really? How good you are to me. Then I will sleep!” And almost at the word she gave a deep sigh of relief, and sank back, asleep.

All night long I watched by her. She never stirred, but slept on and on in a deep, tranquil, life-giving, health-giving sleep. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breast rose and fell with the regularity of a pendulum. There was a smile on her face, and it was evident that no bad dreams had come to disturb her peace of mind.

In the early morning her maid came, and I left her in her care and took myself back home, for I was anxious about many things. I sent a short wire to Van Helsing and to Arthur, telling them of the excellent result of the operation. My own work, with its manifold arrears, took me all day to clear off; it was dark when I was able to inquire about my zoöphagous patient. The report was good; he had been quite quiet for the past day and night. A telegram came from Van Helsing at Amsterdam whilst I was at dinner, suggesting that I should be at Hillingham to-night, as it might be well to be at hand, and stating that he was leaving by the night mail and would join me early in the morning.

 

9 September.—I was pretty tired and worn out when I got to Hillingham. For two nights I had hardly had a wink of sleep, and my brain was beginning to feel that numbness which marks cerebral exhaustion. Lucy was up and in cheerful spirits. When she shook hands with me she looked sharply in my face and said:--

“No sitting up to-night for you. You are worn out. I am quite well again; indeed, I am; and if there is to be any sitting up, it is I who will sit up with you.” I would not argue the point, but went and had my supper. Lucy came with me, and, enlivened by her charming presence, I made an excellent meal, and had a couple of glasses of the more than excellent port. Then Lucy took me upstairs, and showed me a room next her own, where a cozy fire was burning. “Now,” she said, “you must stay here. I shall leave this door open and my door too. You can lie on the sofa for I know that nothing would induce any of you doctors to go to bed whilst there is a patient above the horizon. If I want anything I shall call out, and you can come to me at once.” I could not but acquiesce, for I was “dog-tired,” and could not have sat up had I tried. So, on her renewing her promise to call me if she should want anything, I lay on the sofa, and forgot all about everything.

Lucy Westenra’s Diary.

9 September.—I feel so happy to-night. I have been so miserably weak, that to be able to think and move about is like feeling sunshine after a long spell of east wind out of a steel sky. Somehow Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me. I suppose it is that sickness and weakness are selfish things and turn our inner eyes and sympathy on ourselves, whilst health and strength give Love rein, and in thought and feeling he can wander where he wills. I know where my thoughts are. If Arthur only knew! My dear, my dear, your ears must tingle as you sleep, as mine do waking. Oh, the blissful rest of last night! How I slept, with that dear, good Dr. Seward watching me. And to-night I shall not fear to sleep, since he is close at hand and within call. Thank everybody for being so good to me! Thank God! Good-night, Arthur.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

10 September.—I was conscious of the Professor’s hand on my head, and started awake all in a second. That is one of the things that we learn in an asylum, at any rate.

“And how is our patient?”

“Well, when I left her, or rather when she left me,” I answered.

“Come, let us see,” he said. And together we went into the room.

The blind was down, and I went over to raise it gently, whilst Van Helsing stepped, with his soft, cat-like tread, over to the bed.

As I raised the blind, and the morning sunlight flooded the room, I heard the Professor’s low hiss of inspiration, and knowing its rarity, a deadly fear shot through my heart. As I passed over he moved back, and his exclamation of horror, “Gott in Himmel!” needed no enforcement from his agonised face. He raised his hand and pointed to the bed, and his iron face was drawn and ashen white. I felt my knees begin to tremble.

There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy, more horribly white and wan-looking than ever. Even the lips were white, and the gums seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see in a corpse after a prolonged illness. Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp in anger, but the instinct of his life and all the long years of habit stood to him, and he put it down again softly. “Quick!” he said. “Bring the brandy.” I flew to the dining-room, and returned with the decanter. He wetted the poor white lips with it, and together we rubbed palm and wrist and heart. He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonising suspense said:--

“It is not too late. It beats, though but feebly. All our work is undone; we must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now; I have to call on you yourself this time, friend John.” As he spoke, he was dipping into his bag and producing the instruments for transfusion; I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirt-sleeve. There was no possibility of an opiate just at present, and no need of one; and so, without a moment’s delay, we began the operation. After a time—it did not seem a short time either, for the draining away of one’s blood, no matter how willingly it be given, is a terrible feeling—Van Helsing held up a warning finger. “Do not stir,” he said, “but I fear that with growing strength she may wake; and that would make danger, oh, so much danger. But I shall precaution take. I shall give hypodermic injection of morphia.” He proceeded then, swiftly and deftly, to carry out his intent. The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed to merge subtly into the narcotic sleep. It was with a feeling of personal pride that I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks and lips. No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves.

The Professor watched me critically. “That will do,” he said. “Already?” I remonstrated. “You took a great deal more from Art.” To which he smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied:--

“He is her lover, her fiancé. You have work, much work, to do for her and for others; and the present will suffice.”

When we stopped the operation, he attended to Lucy, whilst I applied digital pressure to my own incision. I laid down, whilst I waited his leisure to attend to me, for I felt faint and a little sick. By-and-by he bound up my wound, and sent me downstairs to get a glass of wine for myself. As I was leaving the room, he came after me, and half whispered:--

“Mind, nothing must be said of this. If our young lover should turn up unexpected, as before, no word to him. It would at once frighten him and enjealous him, too. There must be none. So!”

When I came back he looked at me carefully, and then said:--

“You are not much the worse. Go into the room, and lie on your sofa, and rest awhile; then have much breakfast, and come here to me.”

I followed out his orders, for I knew how right and wise they were. I had done my part, and now my next duty was to keep up my strength. I felt very weak, and in the weakness lost something of the amazement at what had occurred. I fell asleep on the sofa, however, wondering over and over again how Lucy had made such a retrograde movement, and how she could have been drained of so much blood with no sign anywhere to show for it. I think I must have continued my wonder in my dreams, for, sleeping and waking, my thoughts always came back to the little punctures in her throat and the ragged, exhausted appearance of their edges—tiny though they were.

Lucy slept well into the day, and when she woke she was fairly well and strong, though not nearly so much so as the day before. When Van Helsing had seen her, he went out for a walk, leaving me in charge, with strict injunctions that I was not to leave her for a moment. I could hear his voice in the hall, asking the way to the nearest telegraph office.

Lucy chatted with me freely, and seemed quite unconscious that anything had happened. I tried to keep her amused and interested. When her mother came up to see her, she did not seem to notice any change whatever, but said to me gratefully:--

“We owe you so much, Dr. Seward, for all you have done, but you really must now take care not to overwork yourself. You are looking pale yourself. You want a wife to nurse and look after you a bit; that you do!” As she spoke, Lucy turned crimson, though it was only momentarily, for her poor wasted veins could not stand for long such an unwonted drain to the head. The reaction came in excessive pallor as she turned imploring eyes on me. I smiled and nodded, and laid my finger on my lips; with a sigh, she sank back amid her pillows.

Van Helsing returned in a couple of hours, and presently said to me: “Now you go home, and eat much and drink enough. Make yourself strong. I stay here to-night, and I shall sit up with little miss myself. You and I must watch the case, and we must have none other to know. I have grave reasons. No, do not ask them; think what you will. Do not fear to think even the most not-probable. Good-night.”

In the hall two of the maids came to me, and asked if they or either of them might not sit up with Miss Lucy. They implored me to let them; and when I said it was Dr. Van Helsing’s wish that either he or I should sit up, they asked me quite piteously to intercede with the “foreign gentleman.” I was much touched by their kindness. Perhaps it is because I am weak at present, and perhaps because it was on Lucy’s account, that their devotion was manifested; for over and over again have I seen similar instances of woman’s kindness. I got back here in time for a late dinner; went my rounds—all well; and set this down whilst waiting for sleep. It is coming.

 

11 September.—This afternoon I went over to Hillingham. Found Van Helsing in excellent spirits, and Lucy much better. Shortly after I had arrived, a big parcel from abroad came for the Professor. He opened it with much impressment—assumed, of course—and showed a great bundle of white flowers.

“These are for you, Miss Lucy,” he said.

“For me? Oh, Dr. Van Helsing!”

“Yes, my dear, but not for you to play with. These are medicines.” Here Lucy made a wry face. “Nay, but they are not to take in a decoction or in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming nose, or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have to endure in seeing so much beauty that he so loves so much distort. Aha, my pretty miss, that bring the so nice nose all straight again. This is medicinal, but you do not know how. I put him in your window, I make pretty wreath, and hang him round your neck, so that you sleep well. Oh yes! they, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. It smell so like the waters of Lethe, and of that fountain of youth that the Conquistadores sought for in the Floridas, and find him all too late.”

Whilst he was speaking, Lucy had been examining the flowers and smelling them. Now she threw them down, saying, with half-laughter, and half-disgust:--

“Oh, Professor, I believe you are only putting up a joke on me. Why, these flowers are only common garlic.”

To my surprise, Van Helsing rose up and said with all his sternness, his iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting:--

“No trifling with me! I never jest! There is grim purpose in all I do; and I warn you that you do not thwart me. Take care, for the sake of others if not for your own.” Then seeing poor Lucy scared, as she might well be, he went on more gently: “Oh, little miss, my dear, do not fear me. I only do for your good; but there is much virtue to you in those so common flowers. See, I place them myself in your room. I make myself the wreath that you are to wear. But hush! no telling to others that make so inquisitive questions. We must obey, and silence is a part of obedience; and obedience is to bring you strong and well into loving arms that wait for you. Now sit still awhile. Come with me, friend John, and you shall help me deck the room with my garlic, which is all the way from Haarlem, where my friend Vanderpool raise herb in his glass-houses all the year. I had to telegraph yesterday, or they would not have been here.”

We went into the room, taking the flowers with us. The Professor’s actions were certainly odd and not to be found in any pharmacopœia that I ever heard of. First he fastened up the windows and latched them securely; next, taking a handful of the flowers, he rubbed them all over the sashes, as though to ensure that every whiff of air that might get in would be laden with the garlic smell. Then with the wisp he rubbed all over the jamb of the door, above, below, and at each side, and round the fireplace in the same way. It all seemed grotesque to me, and presently I said:--

“Well, Professor, I know you always have a reason for what you do, but this certainly puzzles me. It is well we have no sceptic here, or he would say that you were working some spell to keep out an evil spirit.”

“Perhaps I am!” he answered quietly as he began to make the wreath which Lucy was to wear round her neck.

We then waited whilst Lucy made her toilet for the night, and when she was in bed he came and himself fixed the wreath of garlic round her neck. The last words he said to her were:--

“Take care you do not disturb it; and even if the room feel close, do not to-night open the window or the door.”

“I promise,” said Lucy, “and thank you both a thousand times for all your kindness to me! Oh, what have I done to be blessed with such friends?”

As we left the house in my fly, which was waiting, Van Helsing said:--

“To-night I can sleep in peace, and sleep I want—two nights of travel, much reading in the day between, and much anxiety on the day to follow, and a night to sit up, without to wink. To-morrow in the morning early you call for me, and we come together to see our pretty miss, so much more strong for my ‘spell’ which I have work. Ho! ho!”

He seemed so confident that I, remembering my own confidence two nights before and with the baneful result, felt awe and vague terror. It must have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell it to my friend, but I felt it all the more, like unshed tears.

CHAPTER XI

Lucy Westenra’s Diary.

12 September.—How good they all are to me. I quite love that dear Dr. Van Helsing. I wonder why he was so anxious about these flowers. He positively frightened me, he was so fierce. And yet he must have been right, for I feel comfort from them already. Somehow, I do not dread being alone to-night, and I can go to sleep without fear. I shall not mind any flapping outside the window. Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, with such unknown horrors as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams. Well, here I am to-night, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with “virgin crants and maiden strewments.” I never liked garlic before, but to-night it is delightful! There is peace in its smell; I feel sleep coming already. Good-night, everybody.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

13 September.—Called at the Berkeley and found Van Helsing, as usual, up to time. The carriage ordered from the hotel was waiting. The Professor took his bag, which he always brings with him now.

Let all be put down exactly. Van Helsing and I arrived at Hillingham at eight o’clock. It was a lovely morning; the bright sunshine and all the fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of nature’s annual work. The leaves were turning to all kinds of beautiful colours, but had not yet begun to drop from the trees. When we entered we met Mrs. Westenra coming out of the morning room. She is always an early riser. She greeted us warmly and said:--

“You will be glad to know that Lucy is better. The dear child is still asleep. I looked into her room and saw her, but did not go in, lest I should disturb her.” The Professor smiled, and looked quite jubilant. He rubbed his hands together, and said:--

“Aha! I thought I had diagnosed the case. My treatment is working,” to which she answered:--

“You must not take all the credit to yourself, doctor. Lucy’s state this morning is due in part to me.”

“How you do mean, ma’am?” asked the Professor.

“Well, I was anxious about the dear child in the night, and went into her room. She was sleeping soundly—so soundly that even my coming did not wake her. But the room was awfully stuffy. There were a lot of those horrible, strong-smelling flowers about everywhere, and she had actually a bunch of them round her neck. I feared that the heavy odour would be too much for the dear child in her weak state, so I took them all away and opened a bit of the window to let in a little fresh air. You will be pleased with her, I am sure.”

She moved off into her boudoir, where she usually breakfasted early. As she had spoken, I watched the Professor’s face, and saw it turn ashen grey. He had been able to retain his self-command whilst the poor lady was present, for he knew her state and how mischievous a shock would be; he actually smiled on her as he held open the door for her to pass into her room. But the instant she had disappeared he pulled me, suddenly and forcibly, into the dining-room and closed the door.

Then, for the first time in my life, I saw Van Helsing break down. He raised his hands over his head in a sort of mute despair, and then beat his palms together in a helpless way; finally he sat down on a chair, and putting his hands before his face, began to sob, with loud, dry sobs that seemed to come from the very racking of his heart. Then he raised his arms again, as though appealing to the whole universe. “God! God! God!” he said. “What have we done, what has this poor thing done, that we are so sore beset? Is there fate amongst us still, sent down from the pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such way? This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul; and we must not tell her, we must not even warn her, or she die, and then both die. Oh, how we are beset! How are all the powers of the devils against us!” Suddenly he jumped to his feet. “Come,” he said, “come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him all the same.” He went to the hall-door for his bag; and together we went up to Lucy’s room.

Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the bed. This time he did not start as he looked on the poor face with the same awful, waxen pallor as before. He wore a look of stern sadness and infinite pity.

“As I expected,” he murmured, with that hissing inspiration of his which meant so much. Without a word he went and locked the door, and then began to set out on the little table the instruments for yet another operation of transfusion of blood. I had long ago recognised the necessity, and begun to take off my coat, but he stopped me with a warning hand. “No!” he said. “To-day you must operate. I shall provide. You are weakened already.” As he spoke he took off his coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeve.

Again the operation; again the narcotic; again some return of colour to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep. This time I watched whilst Van Helsing recruited himself and rested.

Presently he took an opportunity of telling Mrs. Westenra that she must not remove anything from Lucy’s room without consulting him; that the flowers were of medicinal value, and that the breathing of their odour was a part of the system of cure. Then he took over the care of the case himself, saying that he would watch this night and the next and would send me word when to come.

After another hour Lucy waked from her sleep, fresh and bright and seemingly not much the worse for her terrible ordeal.

What does it all mean? I am beginning to wonder if my long habit of life amongst the insane is beginning to tell upon my own brain.

Lucy Westenra’s Diary.

17 September.—Four days and nights of peace. I am getting so strong again that I hardly know myself. It is as if I had passed through some long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful sunshine and feel the fresh air of the morning around me. I have a dim half-remembrance of long, anxious times of waiting and fearing; darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present distress more poignant: and then long spells of oblivion, and the rising back to life as a diver coming up through a great press of water. Since, however, Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad dreaming seems to have passed away; the noises that used to frighten me out of my wits—the flapping against the windows, the distant voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I know not where and commanded me to do I know not what--have all ceased. I go to bed now without any fear of sleep. I do not even try to keep awake. I have grown quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful arrives for me every day from Haarlem. To-night Dr. Van Helsing is going away, as he has to be for a day in Amsterdam. But I need not be watched; I am well enough to be left alone. Thank God for mother’s sake, and dear Arthur’s, and for all our friends who have been so kind! I shall not even feel the change, for last night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time. I found him asleep twice when I awoke; but I did not fear to go to sleep again, although the boughs or bats or something napped almost angrily against the window-panes.

“The Pall Mall Gazette,” 18 September.

THE ESCAPED WOLF.

PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF OUR INTERVIEWER.

Interview with the Keeper in the Zoölogical Gardens.

After many inquiries and almost as many refusals, and perpetually using the words “Pall Mall Gazette” as a sort of talisman, I managed to find the keeper of the section of the Zoölogical Gardens in which the wolf department is included. Thomas Bilder lives in one of the cottages in the enclosure behind the elephant-house, and was just sitting down to his tea when I found him. Thomas and his wife are hospitable folk, elderly, and without children, and if the specimen I enjoyed of their hospitality be of the average kind, their lives must be pretty comfortable. The keeper would not enter on what he called “business” until the supper was over, and we were all satisfied. Then when the table was cleared, and he had lit his pipe, he said:--

“Now, sir, you can go on and arsk me what you want. You’ll excoose me refoosin’ to talk of perfeshunal subjects afore meals. I gives the wolves and the jackals and the hyenas in all our section their tea afore I begins to arsk them questions.”

“How do you mean, ask them questions?” I queried, wishful to get him into a talkative humour.

“ ’Ittin’ of them over the ’ead with a pole is one way; scratchin’ of their hears is another, when gents as is flush wants a bit of a show-orf to their gals. I don’t so much mind the fust—the ’ittin’ with a pole afore I chucks in their dinner; but I waits till they’ve ’ad their sherry and kawffee, so to speak, afore I tries on with the ear-scratchin’. Mind you,” he added philosophically, “there’s a deal of the same nature in us as in them theer animiles. Here’s you a-comin’ and arskin’ of me questions about my business, and I that grumpy-like that only for your bloomin’ ’arf-quid I’d ’a’ seen you blowed fust ’fore I’d answer. Not even when you arsked me sarcastic-like if I’d like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence did I tell yer to go to ’ell?”

“You did.”

“An’ when you said you’d report me for usin’ of obscene language that was ’ittin’ me over the ’ead; but the ’arf-quid made that all right. I weren’t a-goin’ to fight, so I waited for the food, and did with my ’owl as the wolves, and lions, and tigers does. But, Lor’ love yer ’art, now that the old ’ooman has stuck a chunk of her tea-cake in me, an’ rinsed me out with her bloomin’ old teapot, and I’ve lit hup, you may scratch my ears for all you’re worth, and won’t git even a growl out of me. Drive along with your questions. I know what yer a-comin’ at, that ’ere escaped wolf.”

“Exactly. I want you to give me your view of it. Just tell me how it happened; and when I know the facts I’ll get you to say what you consider was the cause of it, and how you think the whole affair will end.”

“All right, guv’nor. This ’ere is about the ’ole story. That ’ere wolf what we called Bersicker was one of three grey ones that came from Norway to Jamrach’s, which we bought off him four years ago. He was a nice well-behaved wolf, that never gave no trouble to talk of. I’m more surprised at ’im for wantin’ to get out nor any other animile in the place. But, there, you can’t trust wolves no more nor women.”

“Don’t you mind him, sir!” broke in Mrs. Tom, with a cheery laugh. “ ’E’s got mindin’ the animiles so long that blest if he ain’t like a old wolf ’isself! But there ain’t no ’arm in ’im.”

“Well, sir, it was about two hours after feedin’ yesterday when I first hear my disturbance. I was makin’ up a litter in the monkey-house for a young puma which is ill; but when I heard the yelpin’ and ’owlin’ I kem away straight. There was Bersicker a-tearin’ like a mad thing at the bars as if he wanted to get out. There wasn’t much people about that day, and close at hand was only one man, a tall, thin chap, with a ’ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin’ through it. He had a ’ard, cold look and red eyes, and I took a sort of mislike to him, for it seemed as if it was ’im as they was hirritated at. He ’ad white kid gloves on ’is ’ands, and he pointed out the animiles to me and says: ‘Keeper, these wolves seem upset at something.’

“ ‘Maybe it’s you,’ says I, for I did not like the airs as he give ’isself. He didn’t git angry, as I ’oped he would, but he smiled a kind of insolent smile, with a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. ‘Oh no, they wouldn’t like me,’ ’e says.

“ ‘Ow yes, they would,’ says I, a-imitatin’ of him. ‘They always likes a bone or two to clean their teeth on about tea-time, which you ’as a bagful.’

“Well, it was a odd thing, but when the animiles see us a-talkin’ they lay down, and when I went over to Bersicker he let me stroke his ears same as ever. That there man kem over, and blessed but if he didn’t put in his hand and stroke the old wolf’s ears too!

“ ‘Tyke care,’ says I. ‘Bersicker is quick.’

“ ‘Never mind,’ he says. ‘I’m used to ’em!’

“ ‘Are you in the business yourself?’ I says, tyking off my ’at, for a man what trades in wolves, anceterer, is a good friend to keepers.

“ ‘No’ says he, ‘not exactly in the business, but I ’ave made pets of several.’ And with that he lifts his ’at as perlite as a lord, and walks away. Old Bersicker kep’ a-lookin’ arter ’im till ’e was out of sight, and then went and lay down in a corner and wouldn’t come hout the ’ole hevening. Well, larst night, so soon as the moon was hup, the wolves here all began a-’owling. There warn’t nothing for them to ’owl at. There warn’t no one near, except some one that was evidently a-callin’ a dog somewheres out back of the gardings in the Park road. Once or twice I went out to see that all was right, and it was, and then the ’owling stopped. Just before twelve o’clock I just took a look round afore turnin’ in, an’, bust me, but when I kem opposite to old Bersicker’s cage I see the rails broken and twisted about and the cage empty. And that’s all I know for certing.”

“Did any one else see anything?”

“One of our gard’ners was a-comin’ ’ome about that time from a ’armony, when he sees a big grey dog comin’ out through the garding ’edges. At least, so he says, but I don’t give much for it myself, for if he did ’e never said a word about it to his missis when ’e got ’ome, and it was only after the escape of the wolf was made known, and we had been up all night-a-huntin’ of the Park for Bersicker, that he remembered seein’ anything. My own belief was that the ’armony ’ad got into his ’ead.”

“Now, Mr. Bilder, can you account in any way for the escape of the wolf?”

“Well, sir,” he said, with a suspicious sort of modesty, “I think I can; but I don’t know as ’ow you’d be satisfied with the theory.”

“Certainly I shall. If a man like you, who knows the animals from experience, can’t hazard a good guess at any rate, who is even to try?”

“Well then, sir, I accounts for it this way; it seems to me that ’ere wolf escaped—simply because he wanted to get out.”

From the hearty way that both Thomas and his wife laughed at the joke I could see that it had done service before, and that the whole explanation was simply an elaborate sell. I couldn’t cope in badinage with the worthy Thomas, but I thought I knew a surer way to his heart, so I said:--

“Now, Mr. Bilder, we’ll consider that first half-sovereign worked off, and this brother of his is waiting to be claimed when you’ve told me what you think will happen.”

“Right y’are, sir,” he said briskly. “Ye’ll excoose me, I know, for a-chaffin’ of ye, but the old woman here winked at me, which was as much as telling me to go on.”

“Well, I never!” said the old lady.

“My opinion is this: that ’ere wolf is a-’idin’ of, somewheres. The gard’ner wot didn’t remember said he was a-gallopin’ northward faster than a horse could go; but I don’t believe him, for, yer see, sir, wolves don’t gallop no more nor dogs does, they not bein’ built that way. Wolves is fine things in a storybook, and I dessay when they gets in packs and does be chivyin’ somethin’ that’s more afeared than they is they can make a devil of a noise and chop it up, whatever it is. But, Lor’ bless you, in real life a wolf is only a low creature, not half so clever or bold as a good dog; and not half a quarter so much fight in ’im. This one ain’t been used to fightin’ or even to providin’ for hisself, and more like he’s somewhere round the Park a-’idin’ an’ a-shiverin’ of, and, if he thinks at all, wonderin’ where he is to get his breakfast from; or maybe he’s got down some area and is in a coal-cellar. My eye, won’t some cook get a rum start when she sees his green eyes a-shining at her out of the dark! If he can’t get food he’s bound to look for it, and mayhap he may chance to light on a butcher’s shop in time. If he doesn’t, and some nursemaid goes a-walkin’ orf with a soldier, leavin’ of the hinfant in the perambulator—well, then I shouldn’t be surprised if the census is one babby the less. That’s all.”

I was handing him the half-sovereign, when something came bobbing up against the window, and Mr. Bilder’s face doubled its natural length with surprise.

“God bless me!” he said. “If there ain’t old Bersicker come back by ’isself!”

He went to the door and opened it; a most unnecessary proceeding it seemed to me. I have always thought that a wild animal never looks so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us; a personal experience has intensified rather than diminished that idea.

After all, however, there is nothing like custom, for neither Bilder nor his wife thought any more of the wolf than I should of a dog. The animal itself was as peaceful and well-behaved as that father of all picture-wolves—Red Riding Hood’s quondam friend, whilst moving her confidence in masquerade.

The whole scene was an unutterable mixture of comedy and pathos. The wicked wolf that for half a day had paralysed London and set all the children in the town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood, and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal son. Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent said:--

“There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of trouble; didn’t I say it all along? Here’s his head all cut and full of broken glass. ’E’s been a-gettin’ over some bloomin’ wall or other. It’s a shyme that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. This ’ere’s what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker.”

He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece of meat that satisfied, in quantity at any rate, the elementary conditions of the fatted calf, and went off to report.

I came off, too, to report the only exclusive information that is given to-day regarding the strange escapade at the Zoo.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

17 September.—I was engaged after dinner in my study posting up my books, which, through press of other work and the many visits to Lucy, had fallen sadly into arrear. Suddenly the door was burst open, and in rushed my patient, with his face distorted with passion. I was thunderstruck, for such a thing as a patient getting of his own accord into the Superintendent’s study is almost unknown. Without an instant’s pause he made straight at me. He had a dinner-knife in his hand, and, as I saw he was dangerous, I tried to keep the table between us. He was too quick and too strong for me, however; for before I could get my balance he had struck at me and cut my left wrist rather severely. Before he could strike again, however, I got in my right and he was sprawling on his back on the floor. My wrist bled freely, and quite a little pool trickled on to the carpet. I saw that my friend was not intent on further effort, and occupied myself binding up my wrist, keeping a wary eye on the prostrate figure all the time. When the attendants rushed in, and we turned our attention to him, his employment positively sickened me. He was lying on his belly on the floor licking up, like a dog, the blood which had fallen from my wounded wrist. He was easily secured, and, to my surprise, went with the attendants quite placidly, simply repeating over and over again: “The blood is the life! The blood is the life!”

I cannot afford to lose blood just at present; I have lost too much of late for my physical good, and then the prolonged strain of Lucy’s illness and its horrible phases is telling on me. I am over-excited and weary, and I need rest, rest, rest. Happily Van Helsing has not summoned me, so I need not forego my sleep; to-night I could not well do without it.

Telegram, Van Helsing, Antwerp, to Seward, Carfax.

(Sent to Carfax, Sussex, as no county given; delivered late by twenty-two hours.)

“17 September.—Do not fail to be at Hillingham to-night. If not watching all the time frequently, visit and see that flowers are as placed; very important; do not fail. Shall be with you as soon as possible after arrival.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

18 September.—Just off for train to London. The arrival of Van Helsing’s telegram filled me with dismay. A whole night lost, and I know by bitter experience what may happen in a night. Of course it is possible that all may be well, but what may have happened? Surely there is some horrible doom hanging over us that every possible accident should thwart us in all we try to do. I shall take this cylinder with me, and then I can complete my entry on Lucy’s phonograph.

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 to-night. 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 go to sleep, but 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, 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 low 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 grey 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 seemed 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 neighbourhood 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 have each 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. Good-bye, dear Arthur, if I should not survive this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me!

CHAPTER XII

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

18 September.—I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early. Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door. After a while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again; still no answer. I cursed the laziness of the servants that they should lie abed at such an hour—for it was now ten o’clock—and so rang and knocked again, but more impatiently, but still without response. Hitherto I had blamed only the servants, but now a terrible fear began to assail me. Was this desolation but another link in the chain of doom which seemed drawing tight around us? Was it indeed a house of death to which I had come, too late? I knew that minutes, even seconds of delay, might mean hours of danger to Lucy, if she had had again one of those frightful relapses; and I went round the house to try if I could find by chance an entry anywhere.

I could find no means of ingress. Every window and door was fastened and locked, and I returned baffled to the porch. As I did so, I heard the rapid pit-pat of a swiftly driven horse’s feet. They stopped at the gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing running up the avenue. When he saw me, he gasped out:--

“Then it was you, and just arrived. How is she? Are we too late? Did you not get my telegram?”

I answered as quickly and coherently as I could that I had only got his telegram early in the morning, and had not lost a minute in coming here, and that I could not make any one in the house hear me. He paused and raised his hat as he said solemnly:--

“Then I fear we are too late. God’s will be done!” With his usual recuperative energy, he went on: “Come. If there be no way open to get in, we must make one. Time is all in all to us now.”

We went round to the back of the house, where there was a kitchen window. The Professor took a small surgical saw from his case, and handing it to me, pointed to the iron bars which guarded the window. I attacked them at once and had very soon cut through three of them. Then with a long, thin knife we pushed back the fastening of the sashes and opened the window. I helped the Professor in, and followed him. There was no one in the kitchen or in the servants’ rooms, which were close at hand. We tried all the rooms as we went along, and in the dining-room, dimly lit by rays of light through the shutters, found four servant-women lying on the floor. There was no need to think them dead, for their stertorous breathing and the acrid smell of laudanum in the room left no doubt as to their condition. Van Helsing and I looked at each other, and as we moved away he said: “We can attend to them later.” Then we ascended to Lucy’s room. For an instant or two we paused at the door to listen, but there was no sound that we could hear. With white faces and trembling hands, we opened the door gently, and entered the room.

How shall I describe what we saw? On the bed lay two women, Lucy and her mother. The latter lay farthest in, and she was covered with a white sheet, the edge of which had been blown back by the draught through the broken window, showing the drawn, white face, with a look of terror fixed upon it. By her side lay Lucy, with face white and still more drawn. The flowers which had been round her neck we found upon her mother’s bosom, and her throat was bare, showing the two little wounds which we had noticed before, but looking horribly white and mangled. Without a word the Professor bent over the bed, his head almost touching poor Lucy’s breast; then he gave a quick turn of his head, as of one who listens, and leaping to his feet, he cried out to me:--

“It is not yet too late! Quick! quick! Bring the brandy!”

I flew downstairs and returned with it, taking care to smell and taste it, lest it, too, were drugged like the decanter of sherry which I found on the table. The maids were still breathing, but more restlessly, and I fancied that the narcotic was wearing off. I did not stay to make sure, but returned to Van Helsing. He rubbed the brandy, as on another occasion, on her lips and gums and on her wrists and the palms of her hands. He said to me:--

“I can do this, all that can be at the present. You go wake those maids. Flick them in the face with a wet towel, and flick them hard. Make them get heat and fire and a warm bath. This poor soul is nearly as cold as that beside her. She will need be heated before we can do anything more.”

I went at once, and found little difficulty in waking three of the women. The fourth was only a young girl, and the drug had evidently affected her more strongly, so I lifted her on the sofa and let her sleep. The others were dazed at first, but as remembrance came back to them they cried and sobbed in a hysterical manner. I was stern with them, however, and would not let them talk. I told them that one life was bad enough to lose, and that if they delayed they would sacrifice Miss Lucy. So, sobbing and crying, they went about their way, half clad as they were, and prepared fire and water. Fortunately, the kitchen and boiler fires were still alive, and there was no lack of hot water. We got a bath and carried Lucy out as she was and placed her in it. Whilst we were busy chafing her limbs there was a knock at the hall door. One of the maids ran off, hurried on some more clothes, and opened it. Then she returned and whispered to us that there was a gentleman who had come with a message from Mr. Holmwood. I bade her simply tell him that he must wait, for we could see no one now. She went away with the message, and, engrossed with our work, I clean forgot all about him.

I never saw in all my experience the Professor work in such deadly earnest. I knew—as he knew—that it was a stand-up fight with death, and in a pause told him so. He answered me in a way that I did not understand, but with the sternest look that his face could wear:--

“If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her fade away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon.” He went on with his work with, if possible, renewed and more frenzied vigour.

Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat was beginning to be of some effect. Lucy’s heart beat a trifle more audibly to the stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement. Van Helsing’s face almost beamed, and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her in a hot sheet to dry her he said to me:--

“The first gain is ours! Check to the King!”

We took Lucy into another room, which had by now been prepared, and laid her in bed and forced a few drops of brandy down her throat. I noticed that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her throat. She was still unconscious, and was quite as bad as, if not worse than, we had ever seen her.

Van Helsing called in one of the women, and told her to stay with her and not to take her eyes off her till we returned, and then beckoned me out of the room.

“We must consult as to what is to be done,” he said as we descended the stairs. In the hall he opened the dining-room door, and we passed in, he closing the door carefully behind him. The shutters had been opened, but the blinds were already down, with that obedience to the etiquette of death which the British woman of the lower classes always rigidly observes. The room was, therefore, dimly dark. It was, however, light enough for our purposes. Van Helsing’s sternness was somewhat relieved by a look of perplexity. He was evidently torturing his mind about something, so I waited for an instant, and he spoke:--

“What are we to do now? Where are we to turn for help? We must have another transfusion of blood, and that soon, or that poor girl’s life won’t be worth an hour’s purchase. You are exhausted already; I am exhausted too. I fear to trust those women, even if they would have courage to submit. What are we to do for some one who will open his veins for her?”

“What’s the matter with me, anyhow?”

The voice came from the sofa across the room, and its tones brought relief and joy to my heart, for they were those of Quincey Morris. Van Helsing started angrily at the first sound, but his face softened and a glad look came into his eyes as I cried out: “Quincey Morris!” and rushed towards him with outstretched hands.

“What brought you here?” I cried as our hands met.

“I guess Art is the cause.”

He handed me a telegram:--

“Have not heard from Seward for three days, and am terribly anxious. Cannot leave. Father still in same condition. Send me word how Lucy is. Do not delay.--Holmwood.”

“I think I came just in the nick of time. You know you have only to tell me what to do.”

Van Helsing strode forward, and took his hand, looking him straight in the eyes as he said:--

“A brave man’s blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble. You’re a man and no mistake. Well, the devil may work against us for all he’s worth, but God sends us men when we want them.”

Once again we went through that ghastly operation. I have not the heart to go through with the details. Lucy had got a terrible shock and it told on her more than before, for though plenty of blood went into her veins, her body did not respond to the treatment as well as on the other occasions. Her struggle back into life was something frightful to see and hear. However, the action of both heart and lungs improved, and Van Helsing made a subcutaneous injection of morphia, as before, and with good effect. Her faint became a profound slumber. The Professor watched whilst I went downstairs with Quincey Morris, and sent one of the maids to pay off one of the cabmen who were waiting. I left Quincey lying down after having a glass of wine, and told the cook to get ready a good breakfast. Then a thought struck me, and I went back to the room where Lucy now was. When I came softly in, I found Van Helsing with a sheet or two of note-paper in his hand. He had evidently read it, and was thinking it over as he sat with his hand to his brow. There was a look of grim satisfaction in his face, as of one who has had a doubt solved. He handed me the paper saying only: “It dropped from Lucy’s breast when we carried her to the bath.”

When I had read it, I stood looking at the Professor, and after a pause asked him: “In God’s name, what does it all mean? Was she, or is she, mad; or what sort of horrible danger is it?” I was so bewildered that I did not know what to say more. Van Helsing put out his hand and took the paper, saying:--

“Do not trouble about it now. Forget it for the present. You shall know and understand it all in good time; but it will be later. And now what is it that you came to me to say?” This brought me back to fact, and I was all myself again.

“I came to speak about the certificate of death. If we do not act properly and wisely, there may be an inquest, and that paper would have to be produced. I am in hopes that we need have no inquest, for if we had it would surely kill poor Lucy, if nothing else did. I know, and you know, and the other doctor who attended her knows, that Mrs. Westenra had disease of the heart, and we can certify that she died of it. Let us fill up the certificate at once, and I shall take it myself to the registrar and go on to the undertaker.”

“Good, oh my friend John! Well thought of! Truly Miss Lucy, if she be sad in the foes that beset her, is at least happy in the friends that love her. One, two, three, all open their veins for her, besides one old man. Ah yes, I know, friend John; I am not blind! I love you all the more for it! Now go.”

In the hall I met Quincey Morris, with a telegram for Arthur telling him that Mrs. Westenra was dead; that Lucy also had been ill, but was now going on better; and that Van Helsing and I were with her. I told him where I was going, and he hurried me out, but as I was going said:--

“When you come back, Jack, may I have two words with you all to ourselves?” I nodded in reply and went out. I found no difficulty about the registration, and arranged with the local undertaker to come up in the evening to measure for the coffin and to make arrangements.

When I got back Quincey was waiting for me. I told him I would see him as soon as I knew about Lucy, and went up to her room. She was still sleeping, and the Professor seemingly had not moved from his seat at her side. From his putting his finger to his lips, I gathered that he expected her to wake before long and was afraid of forestalling nature. So I went down to Quincey and took him into the breakfast-room, where the blinds were not drawn down, and which was a little more cheerful, or rather less cheerless, than the other rooms. When we were alone, he said to me:--

“Jack Seward, I don’t want to shove myself in anywhere where I’ve no right to be; but this is no ordinary case. You know I loved that girl and wanted to marry her; but, although that’s all past and gone, I can’t help feeling anxious about her all the same. What is it that’s wrong with her? The Dutchman—and a fine old fellow he is; I can see that—said, that time you two came into the room, that you must have another transfusion of blood, and that both you and he were exhausted. Now I know well that you medical men speak in camera, and that a man must not expect to know what they consult about in private. But this is no common matter, and, whatever it is, I have done my part. Is not that so?”

“That’s so,” I said, and he went on:--

“I take it that both you and Van Helsing had done already what I did to-day. Is not that so?”

“That’s so.”

“And I guess Art was in it too. When I saw him four days ago down at his own place he looked queer. I have not seen anything pulled down so quick since I was on the Pampas and had a mare that I was fond of go to grass all in a night. One of those big bats that they call vampires had got at her in the night, and what with his gorge and the vein left open, there wasn’t enough blood in her to let her stand up, and I had to put a bullet through her as she lay. Jack, if you may tell me without betraying confidence, Arthur was the first, is not that so?” As he spoke the poor fellow looked terribly anxious. He was in a torture of suspense regarding the woman he loved, and his utter ignorance of the terrible mystery which seemed to surround her intensified his pain. His very heart was bleeding, and it took all the manhood of him—and there was a royal lot of it, too—to keep him from breaking down. I paused before answering, for I felt that I must not betray anything which the Professor wished kept secret; but already he knew so much, and guessed so much, that there could be no reason for not answering, so I answered in the same phrase: “That’s so.”

“And how long has this been going on?”

“About ten days.”

“Ten days! Then I guess, Jack Seward, that that poor pretty creature that we all love has had put into her veins within that time the blood of four strong men. Man alive, her whole body wouldn’t hold it.” Then, coming close to me, he spoke in a fierce half-whisper: “What took it out?”

I shook my head. “That,” I said, “is the crux. Van Helsing is simply frantic about it, and I am at my wits’ end. I can’t even hazard a guess. There has been a series of little circumstances which have thrown out all our calculations as to Lucy being properly watched. But these shall not occur again. Here we stay until all be well—or ill.” Quincey held out his hand. “Count me in,” he said. “You and the Dutchman will tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

When she woke late in the afternoon, Lucy’s first movement was to feel in her breast, and, to my surprise, produced the paper which Van Helsing had given me to read. The careful Professor had replaced it where it had come from, lest on waking she should be alarmed. Her eye then lit on Van Helsing and on me too, and gladdened. Then she looked around the room, and seeing where she was, shuddered; she gave a loud cry, and put her poor thin hands before her pale face. We both understood what that meant—that she had realised to the full her mother’s death; so we tried what we could to comfort her. Doubtless sympathy eased her somewhat, but she was very low in thought and spirit, and wept silently and weakly for a long time. We told her that either or both of us would now remain with her all the time, and that seemed to comfort her. Towards dusk she fell into a doze. Here a very odd thing occurred. Whilst still asleep she took the paper from her breast and tore it in two. Van Helsing stepped over and took the pieces from her. All the same, however, she went on with the action of tearing, as though the material were still in her hands; finally she lifted her hands and opened them as though scattering the fragments. Van Helsing seemed surprised, and his brows gathered as if in thought, but he said nothing.

 

19 September.—All last night she slept fitfully, being always afraid to sleep, and something weaker when she woke from it. The Professor and I took it in turns to watch, and we never left her for a moment unattended. Quincey Morris said nothing about his intention, but I knew that all night long he patrolled round and round the house.

When the day came, its searching light showed the ravages in poor Lucy’s strength. She was hardly able to turn her head, and the little nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good. At times she slept, and both Van Helsing and I noticed the difference in her, between sleeping and waking. Whilst asleep she looked stronger, although more haggard, and her breathing was softer; her open mouth showed the pale gums drawn back from the teeth, which thus looked positively longer and sharper than usual; when she woke the softness of her eyes evidently changed the expression, for she looked her own self, although a dying one. In the afternoon she asked for Arthur, and we telegraphed for him. Quincey went off to meet him at the station.

When he arrived it was nearly six o’clock, and the sun was setting full and warm, and the red light streamed in through the window and gave more colour to the pale cheeks. When he saw her, Arthur was simply choking with emotion, and none of us could speak. In the hours that had passed, the fits of sleep, or the comatose condition that passed for it, had grown more frequent, so that the pauses when conversation was possible were shortened. Arthur’s presence, however, seemed to act as a stimulant; she rallied a little, and spoke to him more brightly than she had done since we arrived. He too pulled himself together, and spoke as cheerily as he could, so that the best was made of everything.

It was now nearly one o’clock, and he and Van Helsing are sitting with her. I am to relieve them in a quarter of an hour, and I am entering this on Lucy’s phonograph. Until six o’clock they are to try to rest. I fear that to-morrow will end our watching, for the shock has been too great; the poor child cannot rally. God help us all.

Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra.
(Unopened by her.)

“17 September.

“My dearest Lucy,--

“It seems an age since I heard from you, or indeed since I wrote. You will pardon me, I know, for all my faults when you have read all my budget of news. Well, I got my husband back all right; when we arrived at Exeter there was a carriage waiting for us, and in it, though he had an attack of gout, Mr. Hawkins. He took us to his house, where there were rooms for us all nice and comfortable, and we dined together. After dinner Mr. Hawkins said:--

“ ‘My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity; and may every blessing attend you both. I know you both from children, and have, with love and pride, seen you grow up. Now I want you to make your home here with me. I have left to me neither chick nor child; all are gone, and in my will I have left you everything.’ I cried, Lucy dear, as Jonathan and the old man clasped hands. Our evening was a very, very happy one.

“So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and from both my bedroom and the drawing-room I can see the great elms of the cathedral close, with their great black stems standing out against the old yellow stone of the cathedral and I can hear the rooks overhead cawing and cawing and chattering and gossiping all day, after the manner of rooks—and humans. I am busy, I need not tell you, arranging things and housekeeping. Jonathan and Mr. Hawkins are busy all day; for, now that Jonathan is a partner, Mr. Hawkins wants to tell him all about the clients.

“How is your dear mother getting on? I wish I could run up to town for a day or two to see you, dear, but I dare not go yet, with so much on my shoulders; and Jonathan wants looking after still. He is beginning to put some flesh on his bones again, but he was terribly weakened by the long illness; even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him back to his usual placidity. However, thank God, these occasions grow less frequent as the days go on, and they will in time pass away altogether, I trust. And now I have told you my news, let me ask yours. When are you to be married, and where, and who is to perform the ceremony, and what are you to wear, and is it to be a public or a private wedding? Tell me all about it, dear; tell me all about everything, for there is nothing which interests you which will not be dear to me. Jonathan asks me to send his ‘respectful duty,’ but I do not think that is good enough from the junior partner of the important firm Hawkins & Harker; and so, as you love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb, I send you simply his ‘love’ instead. Good-bye, my dearest Lucy, and all blessings on you.

“Yours,
“Mina Harker.”

Report from Patrick Hennessey, M. D., M. R. C. S. L. K. Q. C. P. I., etc., etc., to John Seward, M. D.

“20 September.

“My dear Sir,--

“In accordance with your wishes, I enclose report of the conditions of everything left in my charge.... With regard to patient, Renfield, there is more to say. He has had another outbreak, which might have had a dreadful ending, but which, as it fortunately happened, was unattended with any unhappy results. This afternoon a carrier’s cart with two men made a call at the empty house whose grounds abut on ours—the house to which, you will remember, the patient twice ran away. The men stopped at our gate to ask the porter their way, as they were strangers. I was myself looking out of the study window, having a smoke after dinner, and saw one of them come up to the house. As he passed the window of Renfield’s room, the patient began to rate him from within, and called him all the foul names he could lay his tongue to. The man, who seemed a decent fellow enough, contented himself by telling him to “shut up for a foul-mouthed beggar,” whereon our man accused him of robbing him and wanting to murder him and said that he would hinder him if he were to swing for it. I opened the window and signed to the man not to notice, so he contented himself after looking the place over and making up his mind as to what kind of a place he had got to by saying: ‘Lor’ bless yer, sir, I wouldn’t mind what was said to me in a bloomin’ madhouse. I pity ye and the guv’nor for havin’ to live in the house with a wild beast like that.’ Then he asked his way civilly enough, and I told him where the gate of the empty house was; he went away, followed by threats and curses and revilings from our man. I went down to see if I could make out any cause for his anger, since he is usually such a well-behaved man, and except his violent fits nothing of the kind had ever occurred. I found him, to my astonishment, quite composed and most genial in his manner. I tried to get him to talk of the incident, but he blandly asked me questions as to what I meant, and led me to believe that he was completely oblivious of the affair. It was, I am sorry to say, however, only another instance of his cunning, for within half an hour I heard of him again. This time he had broken out through the window of his room, and was running down the avenue. I called to the attendants to follow me, and ran after him, for I feared he was intent on some mischief. My fear was justified when I saw the same cart which had passed before coming down the road, having on it some great wooden boxes. The men were wiping their foreheads, and were flushed in the face, as if with violent exercise. Before I could get up to him the patient rushed at them, and pulling one of them off the cart, began to knock his head against the ground. If I had not seized him just at the moment I believe he would have killed the man there and then. The other fellow jumped down and struck him over the head with the butt-end of his heavy whip. It was a terrible blow; but he did not seem to mind it, but seized him also, and struggled with the three of us, pulling us to and fro as if we were kittens. You know I am no light weight, and the others were both burly men. At first he was silent in his fighting; but as we began to master him, and the attendants were putting a strait-waistcoat on him, he began to shout: ‘I’ll frustrate them! They shan’t rob me! they shan’t murder me by inches! I’ll fight for my Lord and Master!’ and all sorts of similar incoherent ravings. It was with very considerable difficulty that they got him back to the house and put him in the padded room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken. However, I set it all right; and he is going on well.

“The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of actions for damages, and promised to rain all the penalties of the law on us. Their threats were, however, mingled with some sort of indirect apology for the defeat of the two of them by a feeble madman. They said that if it had not been for the way their strength had been spent in carrying and raising the heavy boxes to the cart they would have made short work of him. They gave as another reason for their defeat the extraordinary state of drouth to which they had been reduced by the dusty nature of their occupation and the reprehensible distance from the scene of their labours of any place of public entertainment. I quite understood their drift, and after a stiff glass of grog, or rather more of the same, and with each a sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore that they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure of meeting so ‘bloomin’ good a bloke’ as your correspondent. I took their names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They are as follows:—Jack Smollet, of Dudding’s Rents, King George’s Road, Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley’s Row, Guide Court, Bethnal Green. They are both in the employment of Harris & Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange Master’s Yard, Soho.

“I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here, and shall wire you at once if there is anything of importance.

“Believe me, dear Sir,
“Yours faithfully,
“Patrick Hennessey.”

Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra.
(Unopened by her.)

“18 September.

“My dearest Lucy,--

“Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very suddenly. Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come to so love him that it really seems as though we had lost a father. I never knew either father or mother, so that the dear old man’s death is a real blow to me. Jonathan is greatly distressed. It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account. He says the amount of responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. He begins to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and my belief in him helps him to have a belief in himself. But it is here that the grave shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too hard that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his—a nature which enabled him by our dear, good friend’s aid to rise from clerk to master in a few years—should be so injured that the very essence of its strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my troubles in the midst of your own happiness; but, Lucy dear, I must tell some one, for the strain of keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here that I can confide in. I dread coming up to London, as we must do the day after to-morrow; for poor Mr. Hawkins left in his will that he was to be buried in the grave with his father. As there are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner. I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few minutes. Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings,

“Your loving
“Mina Harker.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

20 September.—Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry to-night. I am too miserable, too low-spirited, too sick of the world and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the angel of death. And he has been flapping those grim wings to some purpose of late—Lucy’s mother and Arthur’s father, and now.... Let me get on with my work.

I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy. We wanted Arthur to go to rest also, but he refused at first. It was only when I told him that we should want him to help us during the day, and that we must not all break down for want of rest, lest Lucy should suffer, that he agreed to go. Van Helsing was very kind to him. “Come, my child,” he said; “come with me. You are sick and weak, and have had much sorrow and much mental pain, as well as that tax on your strength that we know of. You must not be alone; for to be alone is to be full of fears and alarms. Come to the drawing-room, where there is a big fire, and there are two sofas. You shall lie on one, and I on the other, and our sympathy will be comfort to each other, even though we do not speak, and even if we sleep.” Arthur went off with him, casting back a longing look on Lucy’s face, which lay in her pillow, almost whiter than the lawn. She lay quite still, and I looked round the room to see that all was as it should be. I could see that the Professor had carried out in this room, as in the other, his purpose of using the garlic; the whole of the window-sashes reeked with it, and round Lucy’s neck, over the silk handkerchief which Van Helsing made her keep on, was a rough chaplet of the same odorous flowers. Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and her face was at its worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums. Her teeth, in the dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had been in the morning. In particular, by some trick of the light, the canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest. I sat down by her, and presently she moved uneasily. At the same moment there came a sort of dull flapping or buffeting at the window. I went over to it softly, and peeped out by the corner of the blind. There was a full moonlight, and I could see that the noise was made by a great bat, which wheeled round—doubtless attracted by the light, although so dim—and every now and again struck the window with its wings. When I came back to my seat, I found that Lucy had moved slightly, and had torn away the garlic flowers from her throat. I replaced them as well as I could, and sat watching her.

Presently she woke, and I gave her food, as Van Helsing had prescribed. She took but a little, and that languidly. There did not seem to be with her now the unconscious struggle for life and strength that had hitherto so marked her illness. It struck me as curious that the moment she became conscious she pressed the garlic flowers close to her. It was certainly odd that whenever she got into that lethargic state, with the stertorous breathing, she put the flowers from her; but that when she waked she clutched them close. There was no possibility of making any mistake about this, for in the long hours that followed, she had many spells of sleeping and waking and repeated both actions many times.

At six o’clock Van Helsing came to relieve me. Arthur had then fallen into a doze, and he mercifully let him sleep on. When he saw Lucy’s face I could hear the sissing indraw of his breath, and he said to me in a sharp whisper: “Draw up the blind; I want light!” Then he bent down, and, with his face almost touching Lucy’s, examined her carefully. He removed the flowers and lifted the silk handkerchief from her throat. As he did so he started back, and I could hear his ejaculation, “Mein Gott!” as it was smothered in his throat. I bent over and looked, too, and as I noticed some queer chill came over me.

The wounds on the throat had absolutely disappeared.

For fully five minutes Van Helsing stood looking at her, with his face at its sternest. Then he turned to me and said calmly:--

“She is dying. It will not be long now. It will be much difference, mark me, whether she dies conscious or in her sleep. Wake that poor boy, and let him come and see the last; he trusts us, and we have promised him.”

I went to the dining-room and waked him. He was dazed for a moment, but when he saw the sunlight streaming in through the edges of the shutters he thought he was late, and expressed his fear. I assured him that Lucy was still asleep, but told him as gently as I could that both Van Helsing and I feared that the end was near. He covered his face with his hands, and slid down on his knees by the sofa, where he remained, perhaps a minute, with his head buried, praying, whilst his shoulders shook with grief. I took him by the hand and raised him up. “Come,” I said, “my dear old fellow, summon all your fortitude: it will be best and easiest for her.”

When we came into Lucy’s room I could see that Van Helsing had, with his usual forethought, been putting matters straight and making everything look as pleasing as possible. He had even brushed Lucy’s hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny ripples. When we came into the room she opened her eyes, and seeing him, whispered softly:--

“Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come!” He was stooping to kiss her, when Van Helsing motioned him back. “No,” he whispered, “not yet! Hold her hand; it will comfort her more.”

So Arthur took her hand and knelt beside her, and she looked her best, with all the soft lines matching the angelic beauty of her eyes. Then gradually her eyes closed, and she sank to sleep. For a little bit her breast heaved softly, and her breath came and went like a tired child’s.

And then insensibly there came the strange change which I had noticed in the night. Her breathing grew stertorous, the mouth opened, and the pale gums, drawn back, made the teeth look longer and sharper than ever. In a sort of sleep-waking, vague, unconscious way she opened her eyes, which were now dull and hard at once, and said in a soft, voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips:--

“Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!” Arthur bent eagerly over to kiss her; but at that instant Van Helsing, who, like me, had been startled by her voice, swooped upon him, and catching him by the neck with both hands, dragged him back with a fury of strength which I never thought he could have possessed, and actually hurled him almost across the room.

“Not for your life!” he said; “not for your living soul and hers!” And he stood between them like a lion at bay.

Arthur was so taken aback that he did not for a moment know what to do or say; and before any impulse of violence could seize him he realised the place and the occasion, and stood silent, waiting.

I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face; the sharp teeth champed together. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily.

Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness, and putting out her poor, pale, thin hand, took Van Helsing’s great brown one; drawing it to her, she kissed it. “My true friend,” she said, in a faint voice, but with untellable pathos, “My true friend, and his! Oh, guard him, and give me peace!”

“I swear it!” he said solemnly, kneeling beside her and holding up his hand, as one who registers an oath. Then he turned to Arthur, and said to him: “Come, my child, take her hand in yours, and kiss her on the forehead, and only once.”

Their eyes met instead of their lips; and so they parted.

Lucy’s eyes closed; and Van Helsing, who had been watching closely, took Arthur’s arm, and drew him away.

And then Lucy’s breathing became stertorous again, and all at once it ceased.

“It is all over,” said Van Helsing. “She is dead!”

I took Arthur by the arm, and led him away to the drawing-room, where he sat down, and covered his face with his hands, sobbing in a way that nearly broke me down to see.

I went back to the room, and found Van Helsing looking at poor Lucy, and his face was sterner than ever. Some change had come over her body. Death had given back part of her beauty, for her brow and cheeks had recovered some of their flowing lines; even the lips had lost their deadly pallor. It was as if the blood, no longer needed for the working of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of death as little rude as might be.

I stood beside Van Helsing, and said:--

“Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end!”

He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity:--

“Not so; alas! not so. It is only the beginning!”

When I asked him what he meant, he only shook his head and answered:--

“We can do nothing as yet. Wait and see.”

CHAPTER XIII

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY--continued.

THE funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day, so that Lucy and her mother might be buried together. I attended to all the ghastly formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his staff were afflicted—or blessed—with something of his own obsequious suavity. Even the woman who performed the last offices for the dead remarked to me, in a confidential, brother-professional way, when she had come out from the death-chamber:--

“She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. It’s quite a privilege to attend on her. It’s not too much to say that she will do credit to our establishment!”

I noticed that Van Helsing never kept far away. This was possible from the disordered state of things in the household. There were no relatives at hand; and as Arthur had to be back the next day to attend at his father’s funeral, we were unable to notify any one who should have been bidden. Under the circumstances, Van Helsing and I took it upon ourselves to examine papers, etc. He insisted upon looking over Lucy’s papers himself. I asked him why, for I feared that he, being a foreigner, might not be quite aware of English legal requirements, and so might in ignorance make some unnecessary trouble. He answered me:--

“I know; I know. You forget that I am a lawyer as well as a doctor. But this is not altogether for the law. You knew that, when you avoided the coroner. I have more than him to avoid. There may be papers more—such as this.”

As he spoke he took from his pocket-book the memorandum which had been in Lucy’s breast, and which she had torn in her sleep.

“When you find anything of the solicitor who is for the late Mrs. Westenra, seal all her papers, and write him to-night. For me, I watch here in the room and in Miss Lucy’s old room all night, and I myself search for what may be. It is not well that her very thoughts go into the hands of strangers.”

I went on with my part of the work, and in another half hour had found the name and address of Mrs. Westenra’s solicitor and had written to him. All the poor lady’s papers were in order; explicit directions regarding the place of burial were given. I had hardly sealed the letter, when, to my surprise, Van Helsing walked into the room, saying:--

“Can I help you, friend John? I am free, and if I may, my service is to you.”

“Have you got what you looked for?” I asked, to which he replied:--

“I did not look for any specific thing. I only hoped to find, and find I have, all that there was—only some letters and a few memoranda, and a diary new begun. But I have them here, and we shall for the present say nothing of them. I shall see that poor lad to-morrow evening, and, with his sanction, I shall use some.”

When we had finished the work in hand, he said to me:--

“And now, friend John, I think we may to bed. We want sleep, both you and I, and rest to recuperate. To-morrow we shall have much to do, but for the to-night there is no need of us. Alas!”

Before turning in we went to look at poor Lucy. The undertaker had certainly done his work well, for the room was turned into a small chapelle ardente. There was a wilderness of beautiful white flowers, and death was made as little repulsive as might be. The end of the winding-sheet was laid over the face; when the Professor bent over and turned it gently back, we both started at the beauty before us, the tall wax candles showing a sufficient light to note it well. All Lucy’s loveliness had come back to her in death, and the hours that had passed, instead of leaving traces of “decay’s effacing fingers,” had but restored the beauty of life, till positively I could not believe my eyes that I was looking at a corpse.

The Professor looked sternly grave. He had not loved her as I had, and there was no need for tears in his eyes. He said to me: “Remain till I return,” and left the room. He came back with a handful of wild garlic from the box waiting in the hall, but which had not been opened, and placed the flowers amongst the others on and around the bed. Then he took from his neck, inside his collar, a little gold crucifix, and placed it over the mouth. He restored the sheet to its place, and we came away.

I was undressing in my own room, when, with a premonitory tap at the door, he entered, and at once began to speak:--

“To-morrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of post-mortem knives.”

“Must we make an autopsy?” I asked.

“Yes and no. I want to operate, but not as you think. Let me tell you now, but not a word to another. I want to cut off her head and take out her heart. Ah! you a surgeon, and so shocked! You, whom I have seen with no tremble of hand or heart, do operations of life and death that make the rest shudder. Oh, but I must not forget, my dear friend John, that you loved her; and I have not forgotten it, for it is I that shall operate, and you must only help. I would like to do it to-night, but for Arthur I must not; he will be free after his father’s funeral to-morrow, and he will want to see her—to see it. Then, when she is coffined ready for the next day, you and I shall come when all sleep. We shall unscrew the coffin-lid, and shall do our operation: and then replace all, so that none know, save we alone.”

“But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor body without need? And if there is no necessity for a post-mortem and nothing to gain by it—no good to her, to us, to science, to human knowledge—why do it? Without such it is monstrous.”

For answer he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, with infinite tenderness:--

“Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart; and I love you the more because it does so bleed. If I could, I would take on myself the burden that you do bear. But there are things that you know not, but that you shall know, and bless me for knowing, though they are not pleasant things. John, my child, you have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever know me to do any without good cause? I may err—I am but man; but I believe in all I do. Was it not for these causes that you send for me when the great trouble came? Yes! Were you not amazed, nay horrified, when I would not let Arthur kiss his love—though she was dying—and snatched him away by all my strength? Yes! And yet you saw how she thanked me, with her so beautiful dying eyes, her voice, too, so weak, and she kiss my rough old hand and bless me? Yes! And did you not hear me swear promise to her, that so she closed her eyes grateful? Yes!

“Well, I have good reason now for all I want to do. You have for many years trust me; you have believe me weeks past, when there be things so strange that you might have well doubt. Believe me yet a little, friend John. If you trust me not, then I must tell what I think; and that is not perhaps well. And if I work—as work I shall, no matter trust or no trust—without my friend trust in me, I work with heavy heart and feel, oh! so lonely when I want all help and courage that may be!” He paused a moment and went on solemnly: “Friend John, there are strange and terrible days before us. Let us not be two, but one, that so we work to a good end. Will you not have faith in me?”

I took his hand, and promised him. I held my door open as he went away, and watched him go into his room and close the door. As I stood without moving, I saw one of the maids pass silently along the passage—she had her back towards me, so did not see me—and go into the room where Lucy lay. The sight touched me. Devotion is so rare, and we are so grateful to those who show it unasked to those we love. Here was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she naturally had of death to go watch alone by the bier of the mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay might not be lonely till laid to eternal rest....

 

I must have slept long and soundly, for it was broad daylight when Van Helsing waked me by coming into my room. He came over to my bedside and said:--

“You need not trouble about the knives; we shall not do it.”

“Why not?” I asked. For his solemnity of the night before had greatly impressed me.

“Because,” he said sternly, “it is too late—or too early. See!” Here he held up the little golden crucifix. “This was stolen in the night.”

“How, stolen,” I asked in wonder, “since you have it now?”

“Because I get it back from the worthless wretch who stole it, from the woman who robbed the dead and the living. Her punishment will surely come, but not through me; she knew not altogether what she did and thus unknowing, she only stole. Now we must wait.”

He went away on the word, leaving me with a new mystery to think of, a new puzzle to grapple with.

The forenoon was a dreary time, but at noon the solicitor came: Mr. Marquand, of Wholeman, Sons, Marquand & Lidderdale. He was very genial and very appreciative of what we had done, and took off our hands all cares as to details. During lunch he told us that Mrs. Westenra had for some time expected sudden death from her heart, and had put her affairs in absolute order; he informed us that, with the exception of a certain entailed property of Lucy’s father’s which now, in default of direct issue, went back to a distant branch of the family, the whole estate, real and personal, was left absolutely to Arthur Holmwood. When he had told us so much he went on:--

“Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary disposition, and pointed out certain contingencies that might leave her daughter either penniless or not so free as she should be to act regarding a matrimonial alliance. Indeed, we pressed the matter so far that we almost came into collision, for she asked us if we were or were not prepared to carry out her wishes. Of course, we had then no alternative but to accept. We were right in principle, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred we should have proved, by the logic of events, the accuracy of our judgment. Frankly, however, I must admit that in this case any other form of disposition would have rendered impossible the carrying out of her wishes. For by her predeceasing her daughter the latter would have come into possession of the property, and, even had she only survived her mother by five minutes, her property would, in case there were no will—and a will was a practical impossibility in such a case—have been treated at her decease as under intestacy. In which case Lord Godalming, though so dear a friend, would have had no claim in the world; and the inheritors, being remote, would not be likely to abandon their just rights, for sentimental reasons regarding an entire stranger. I assure you, my dear sirs, I am rejoiced at the result, perfectly rejoiced.”

He was a good fellow, but his rejoicing at the one little part—in which he was officially interested—of so great a tragedy, was an object-lesson in the limitations of sympathetic understanding.

He did not remain long, but said he would look in later in the day and see Lord Godalming. His coming, however, had been a certain comfort to us, since it assured us that we should not have to dread hostile criticism as to any of our acts. Arthur was expected at five o’clock, so a little before that time we visited the death-chamber. It was so in very truth, for now both mother and daughter lay in it. The undertaker, true to his craft, had made the best display he could of his goods, and there was a mortuary air about the place that lowered our spirits at once. Van Helsing ordered the former arrangement to be adhered to, explaining that, as Lord Godalming was coming very soon, it would be less harrowing to his feelings to see all that was left of his fiancée quite alone. The undertaker seemed shocked at his own stupidity and exerted himself to restore things to the condition in which we left them the night before, so that when Arthur came such shocks to his feelings as we could avoid were saved.

Poor fellow! He looked desperately sad and broken; even his stalwart manhood seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the strain of his much-tried emotions. He had, I knew, been very genuinely and devotedly attached to his father; and to lose him, and at such a time, was a bitter blow to him. With me he was warm as ever, and to Van Helsing he was sweetly courteous; but I could not help seeing that there was some constraint with him. The Professor noticed it, too, and motioned me to bring him upstairs. I did so, and left him at the door of the room, as I felt he would like to be quite alone with her, but he took my arm and led me in, saying huskily:--

“You loved her too, old fellow; she told me all about it, and there was no friend had a closer place in her heart than you. I don’t know how to thank you for all you have done for her. I can’t think yet....”

Here he suddenly broke down, and threw his arms round my shoulders and laid his head on my breast, crying:--

“Oh, Jack! Jack! What shall I do! The whole of life seems gone from me all at once, and there is nothing in the wide world for me to live for.”

I comforted him as well as I could. In such cases men do not need much expression. A grip of the hand, the tightening of an arm over the shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of sympathy dear to a man’s heart. I stood still and silent till his sobs died away, and then I said softly to him:--

“Come and look at her.”

Together we moved over to the bed, and I lifted the lawn from her face. God! how beautiful she was. Every hour seemed to be enhancing her loveliness. It frightened and amazed me somewhat; and as for Arthur, he fell a-trembling, and finally was shaken with doubt as with an ague. At last, after a long pause, he said to me in a faint whisper:--

“Jack, is she really dead?”

I assured him sadly that it was so, and went on to suggest—for I felt that such a horrible doubt should not have life for a moment longer than I could help—that it often happened that after death faces became softened and even resolved into their youthful beauty; that this was especially so when death had been preceded by any acute or prolonged suffering. It seemed to quite do away with any doubt, and, after kneeling beside the couch for a while and looking at her lovingly and long, he turned aside. I told him that that must be good-bye, as the coffin had to be prepared; so he went back and took her dead hand in his and kissed it, and bent over and kissed her forehead. He came away, fondly looking back over his shoulder at her as he came.

I left him in the drawing-room, and told Van Helsing that he had said good-bye; so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the undertaker’s men to proceed with the preparations and to screw up the coffin. When he came out of the room again I told him of Arthur’s question, and he replied:--

“I am not surprised. Just now I doubted for a moment myself!”

We all dined together, and I could see that poor Art was trying to make the best of things. Van Helsing had been silent all dinner-time; but when we had lit our cigars he said--

“Lord——”; but Arthur interrupted him:--

“No, no, not that, for God’s sake! not yet at any rate. Forgive me, sir: I did not mean to speak offensively; it is only because my loss is so recent.”

The Professor answered very sweetly:--

“I only used that name because I was in doubt. I must not call you ‘Mr.,’ and I have grown to love you—yes, my dear boy, to love you—as Arthur.”

Arthur held out his hand, and took the old man’s warmly.

“Call me what you will,” he said. “I hope I may always have the title of a friend. And let me say that I am at a loss for words to thank you for your goodness to my poor dear.” He paused a moment, and went on: “I know that she understood your goodness even better than I do; and if I was rude or in any way wanting at that time you acted so—you remember”—the Professor nodded—“you must forgive me.”

He answered with a grave kindness:--

“I know it was hard for you to quite trust me then, for to trust such violence needs to understand; and I take it that you do not—that you cannot—trust me now, for you do not yet understand. And there may be more times when I shall want you to trust when you cannot—and may not—and must not yet understand. But the time will come when your trust shall be whole and complete in me, and when you shall understand as though the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless me from first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of others and for her dear sake to whom I swore to protect.”

“And, indeed, indeed, sir,” said Arthur warmly, “I shall in all ways trust you. I know and believe you have a very noble heart, and you are Jack’s friend, and you were hers. You shall do what you like.”

The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as though about to speak, and finally said:--

“May I ask you something now?”

“Certainly.”

“You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property?”

“No, poor dear; I never thought of it.”

“And as it is all yours, you have a right to deal with it as you will. I want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy’s papers and letters. Believe me, it is no idle curiosity. I have a motive of which, be sure, she would have approved. I have them all here. I took them before we knew that all was yours, so that no strange hand might touch them—no strange eye look through words into her soul. I shall keep them, if I may; even you may not see them yet, but I shall keep them safe. No word shall be lost; and in the good time I shall give them back to you. It’s a hard thing I ask, but you will do it, will you not, for Lucy’s sake?”

Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self:--

“Dr. Van Helsing, you may do what you will. I feel that in saying this I am doing what my dear one would have approved. I shall not trouble you with questions till the time comes.”

The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly:--

“And you are right. There will be pain for us all; but it will not be all pain, nor will this pain be the last. We and you too—you most of all, my dear boy—will have to pass through the bitter water before we reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our duty, and all will be well!”

I slept on a sofa in Arthur’s room that night. Van Helsing did not go to bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patrolling the house, and was never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn with the wild garlic flowers, which sent, through the odour of lily and rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the night.

Mina Harker’s Journal.

22 September.—In the train to Exeter. Jonathan sleeping.

It seems only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much between then, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away and no news of him; and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a partner, rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and Jonathan with another attack that may harm him. Some day he may ask me about it. Down it all goes. I am rusty in my shorthand—see what unexpected prosperity does for us—so it may be as well to freshen it up again with an exercise anyhow....

The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only ourselves and the servants there, one or two old friends of his from Exeter, his London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir John Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society. Jonathan and I stood hand in hand, and we felt that our best and dearest friend was gone from us....

We came back to town quietly, taking a ’bus to Hyde Park Corner. Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while, so we sat down; but there were very few people there, and it was sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made us think of the empty chair at home; so we got up and walked down Piccadilly. Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in old days before I went to school. I felt it very improper, for you can’t go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit; but it was Jonathan, and he was my husband, and we didn’t know anybody who saw us—and we didn’t care if they did—so on we walked. I was looking at a very beautiful girl, in a big cart-wheel hat, sitting in a victoria outside Guiliano’s, when I felt Jonathan clutch my arm so tight that he hurt me, and he said under his breath: “My God!” I am always anxious about Jonathan, for I fear that some nervous fit may upset him again; so I turned to him quickly, and asked him what it was that disturbed him.

He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror and half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty girl. He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either of us, and so I had a good view of him. His face was not a good face; it was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal’s. Jonathan kept staring at him, till I was afraid he would notice. I feared he might take it ill, he looked so fierce and nasty. I asked Jonathan why he was disturbed, and he answered, evidently thinking that I knew as much about it as he did: “Do you see who it is?”

“No, dear,” I said; “I don’t know him; who is it?” His answer seemed to shock and thrill me, for it was said as if he did not know that it was to me, Mina, to whom he was speaking:--

“It is the man himself!”

The poor dear was evidently terrified at something—very greatly terrified; I do believe that if he had not had me to lean on and to support him he would have sunk down. He kept staring; a man came out of the shop with a small parcel, and gave it to the lady, who then drove off. The dark man kept his eyes fixed on her, and when the carriage moved up Piccadilly he followed in the same direction, and hailed a hansom. Jonathan kept looking after him, and said, as if to himself:--

“I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young. My God, if this be so! Oh, my God! my God! If I only knew! if I only knew!” He was distressing himself so much that I feared to keep his mind on the subject by asking him any questions, so I remained silent. I drew him away quietly, and he, holding my arm, came easily. We walked a little further, and then went in and sat for a while in the Green Park. It was a hot day for autumn, and there was a comfortable seat in a shady place. After a few minutes’ staring at nothing, Jonathan’s eyes closed, and he went quietly into a sleep, with his head on my shoulder. I thought it was the best thing for him, so did not disturb him. In about twenty minutes he woke up, and said to me quite cheerfully:--

“Why, Mina, have I been asleep! Oh, do forgive me for being so rude. Come, and we’ll have a cup of tea somewhere.” He had evidently forgotten all about the dark stranger, as in his illness he had forgotten all that this episode had reminded him of. I don’t like this lapsing into forgetfulness; it may make or continue some injury to the brain. I must not ask him, for fear I shall do more harm than good; but I must somehow learn the facts of his journey abroad. The time is come, I fear, when I must open that parcel, and know what is written. Oh, Jonathan, you will, I know, forgive me if I do wrong, but it is for your own dear sake.

 

Later.—A sad home-coming in every way—the house empty of the dear soul who was so good to us; Jonathan still pale and dizzy under a slight relapse of his malady; and now a telegram from Van 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 to-day.”

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 sweetness out of his life! God help us all to bear our troubles.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

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 over to Amsterdam to-night, but says he returns to-morrow 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 humour 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 the 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 so 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 to you, friend John, for we are more level in experiences than father and son—yet even at such 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 labour, 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 explanation 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.”

“Just so. Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins had made her truly his bride?”

“Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him.”

“Quite so. But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so that, then what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church’s law, though no wits, all gone—even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist.”

“I don’t see where the joke comes in there either!” I said; and I did not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such things. He laid his hand on my arm, and said:--

“Friend John, forgive me if I pain. I showed not my feeling to others when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust. If you could have looked into my very heart then when I want to laugh; if you could have done so when the laugh arrived; if you could do so now, when King Laugh have pack up his crown, and all that is to him—for he go far, far away from me, and for a long, long time—maybe you would perhaps pity me the most of all.”

I was touched by the tenderness of his tone, and asked why.

“Because I know!”

And now we are all scattered; and for many a long day loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings. Lucy lies in the tomb of her kin, a lordly death-house in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming London; where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own accord.

So I can finish this diary; and God only knows if I shall ever begin another. If I do, or if I even open this again, it will be to deal with different people and different themes; for here at the end, where the romance of my life is told, ere I go back to take up the thread of my life-work, I say sadly and without hope,

“FINIS.”

“The Westminster Gazette,” 25 September.

A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY.

The neighbourhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines as “The Kensington Horror,” or “The Stabbing Woman,” or “The Woman in Black.” During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a “bloofer lady.” It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighbourhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a “bloofer lady” had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favourite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the “bloofer lady” is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the “bloofer lady” should be the popular rôle at these al fresco performances. Our correspondent naïvely says that even Ellen Terry could not be so winningly attractive as some of these grubby-faced little children pretend—and even imagine themselves—to be.

There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not much importance individually, would tend to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or method of its own. The police of the division have been instructed to keep a sharp look-out for straying children, especially when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog which may be about.

“The Westminster Gazette,” 25 September.

Extra Special.

THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR.

ANOTHER CHILD INJURED.

The “Bloofer Lady.”

We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the Shooter’s Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is, perhaps, less frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the “bloofer lady.”

CHAPTER XIV

MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL

23 September.—Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so glad that he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the terrible things; and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down with the responsibility of his new position. I knew he would be true to himself, and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the height of his advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come upon him. He will be away all day till late, for he said he could not lunch at home. My household work is done, so I shall take his foreign journal, and lock myself up in my room and read it....

24 September.—I hadn’t the heart to write last night; that terrible record of Jonathan’s upset me so. Poor dear! How he must have suffered, whether it be true or only imagination. I wonder if there is any truth in it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and then write all those terrible things, or had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject to him.... And yet that man we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain of him.... Poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back on some train of thought.... He believes it all himself. I remember how on our wedding-day he said: “Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane.” There seems to be through it all some thread of continuity.... That fearful Count was coming to London.... If it should be, and he came to London, with his teeming millions.... There may be a solemn duty; and if it come we must not shrink from it.... I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other eyes if required. And if it be wanted; then, perhaps, if I am ready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him and never let him be troubled or worried with it at all. If ever Jonathan quite gets over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort him.

Letter, Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker.

“24 September.
(Confidence)

“Dear Madam,--

“I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far friend as that I sent to you sad news of Miss Lucy Westenra’s death. By the kindness of Lord Godalming, I am empowered to read her letters and papers, for I am deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important. In them I find some letters from you, which show how great friends you were and how you love her. Oh, Madam Mina, by that love, I implore you, help me. It is for others’ good that I ask—to redress great wrong, and to lift much and terrible troubles—that may be more great than you can know. May it be that I see you? You can trust me. I am friend of Dr. John Seward and of Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy). I must keep it private for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see you at once if you tell me I am privilege to come, and where and when. I implore your pardon, madam. I have read your letters to poor Lucy, and know how good you are and how your husband suffer; so I pray you, if it may be, enlighten him not, lest it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me.

“Van Helsing.”

Telegram, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing.

“25 September.—Come to-day by quarter-past ten train if you can catch it. Can see you any time you call.

“Wilhelmina Harker.”

MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL.

25 September.—I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect that it will throw some light upon Jonathan’s sad experience; and as he attended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me all about her. That is the reason of his coming; it is concerning Lucy and her sleep-walking, and not about Jonathan. Then I shall never know the real truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal gets hold of my imagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour. Of course it is about Lucy. That habit came back to the poor dear, and that awful night on the cliff must have made her ill. I had almost forgotten in my own affairs how ill she was afterwards. She must have told him of her sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about it; and now he wants me to tell him what she knows, so that he may understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to Mrs. Westenra; I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucy. I hope, too, Dr. Van Helsing will not blame me; I have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that I feel I cannot bear more just at present.

I suppose a cry does us all good at times—clears the air as other rain does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me, and then Jonathan went away this morning to stay away from me a whole day and night, the first time we have been parted since our marriage. I do hope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and that nothing will occur to upset him. It is two o’clock, and the doctor will be here soon now. I shall say nothing of Jonathan’s journal unless he asks me. I am so glad I have type-written out my own journal, so that, in case he asks about Lucy, I can hand it to him; it will save much questioning.

 

Later.—He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it all makes my head whirl round! I feel like one in a dream. Can it be all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathan’s journal first, I should never have accepted even a possibility. Poor, poor, dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered. Please the good God, all this may not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it; but it may be even a consolation and a help to him—terrible though it be and awful in its consequences—to know for certain that his eyes and ears and brain did not deceive him, and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt which haunts him; that when the doubt is removed, no matter which—waking or dreaming—may prove the truth, he will be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must be a good man as well as a clever one if he is Arthur’s friend and Dr. Seward’s, and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look after Lucy. I feel from having seen him that he is good and kind and of a noble nature. When he comes to-morrow I shall ask him about Jonathan; and then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practise interviewing; Jonathan’s friend on “The Exeter News” told him that memory was everything in such work—that you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview; I shall try to record it verbatim.

It was half-past two o’clock when the knock came. I took my courage à deux mains and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and announced “Dr. Van Helsing.”

I rose and bowed, and he came towards me; a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power; the head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large, resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart; such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man’s moods. He said to me:--

“Mrs. Harker, is it not?” I bowed assent.

“That was Miss Mina Murray?” Again I assented.

“It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of the dead I come.”

“Sir,” I said, “you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra.” And I held out my hand. He took it and said tenderly:--

“Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must be good, but I had yet to learn——” He finished his speech with a courtly bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at once began:--

“I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary—you need not look surprised, Madam Mina; it was begun after you had left, and was in imitation of you—and in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember.”

“I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it.”

“Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies.”

“No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you if you like.”

“Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful; you will do me much favour.” I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit—I suppose it is some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths—so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow, and said:--

“May I read it?”

“If you wish,” I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it, and for an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed.

“Oh, you so clever woman!” he said. “I knew long that Mr. Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness; but see, his wife have all the good things. And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand.” By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed; so I took the typewritten copy from my workbasket and handed it to him.

“Forgive me,” I said: “I could not help it; but I had been thinking that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you might not have time to wait—not on my account, but because I know your time must be precious—I have written it out on the typewriter for you.”

He took it and his eyes glistened. “You are so good,” he said. “And may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read.”

“By all means,” I said, “read it over whilst I order lunch; and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat.” He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light, and became absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed. When I came back, I found him walking hurriedly up and down the room, his face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me and took me by both hands.

“Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, “how can I say what I owe to you? This paper is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am daze, I am dazzle, with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that you do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madam”—he said this very solemnly—“if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and delight if I may serve you as a friend; as a friend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights. You will have happy life and good life, and your husband will be blessed in you.”

“But, doctor, you praise me too much, and—and you do not know me.”

“Not know you—I, who am old, and who have studied all my life men and women; I, who have made my specialty the brain and all that belongs to him and all that follow from him! And I have read your diary that you have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read; and we men who wish to know have in us something of angels’ eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your husband—tell me of him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and hearty?” I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said:--

“He was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins’s death.” He interrupted:--

“Oh, yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two letters.” I went on:--

“I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on Thursday last he had a sort of shock.”

“A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That was not good. What kind of a shock was it?”

“He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, something which led to his brain fever.” And here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Jonathan, the horror which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me; he held my hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness:--

“My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships; but since I have been summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever—and it has grown with my advancing years—the loneliness of my life. Believe, me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope—hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happy—good women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you; for if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do all for him that I can—all to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale; and what he like not where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me all about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter to-night, for I want to think much over what you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan’s trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now; afterwards you shall tell me all.”

After lunch, when we went back to the drawing-room, he said to me:--

“And now tell me all about him.” When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman—that journal is all so strange—and I hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said:--

“Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt; you must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things.” He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said:--

“Oh, my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one’s belief, no matter how strange it be. I have tried to keep an open mind; and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane.”

“Thank you, thank you, a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathan’s. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it; you will read for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tell me what you think.”

“I promise,” he said as I gave him the papers; “I shall in the morning, so soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may.”

“Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to lunch with us and see him then; you could catch the quick 3:34 train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight.” He was surprised at my knowledge of the trains off-hand, but he does not know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry.

So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here thinking—thinking I don’t know what.

Letter (by hand), Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker.

“25 September, 6 o’clock.

“Dear Madam Mina,--

“I have read your husband’s so wonderful diary. You may sleep without doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is true! I will pledge my life on it. It may be worse for others; but for him and you there is no dread. He is a noble fellow; and let me tell you from experience of men, that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and to that room—ay, and going a second time—is not one to be injured in permanence by a shock. His brain and his heart are all right; this I swear, before I have even seen him; so be at rest. I shall have much to ask him of other things. I am blessed that to-day I come to see you, for I have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzle—dazzle more than ever, and I must think.

“Yours the most faithful,
“Abraham Van Helsing.”

Letter, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing.

“25 September, 6:30 p. m.

“My dear Dr. Van Helsing,--

“A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a great weight off my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things there are in the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that monster, be really in London! I fear to think. I have this moment, whilst writing, had a wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the 6:25 to-night from Launceston and will be here at 10:18, so that I shall have no fear to-night. Will you, therefore, instead of lunching with us, please come to breakfast at eight o’clock, if this be not too early for you? You can get away, if you are in a hurry, by the 10:30 train, which will bring you to Paddington by 2:35. Do not answer this, as I shall take it that, if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast.

“Believe me,
“Your faithful and grateful friend,
“Mina Harker.”

Jonathan Harker’s Journal.

26 September.—I thought never to write in this diary again, but the time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, and when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing’s visit, and of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she has been about me. She showed me in the doctor’s letter that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I know, I am not afraid, even of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what Mina says. We sat late, and talked it all over. Mina is dressing, and I shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over....

He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room where he was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder, and turned my face round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny:--

“But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock.” It was so funny to hear my wife called “Madam Mina” by this kindly, strong-faced old man. I smiled, and said:--

“I was ill, I have had a shock; but you have cured me already.”

“And how?”

“By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do; and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you don’t know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don’t; you couldn’t with eyebrows like yours.” He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said:--

“So! You are physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast; and, oh, sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife.” I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply nodded and stood silent.

“She is one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist—and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish. And you, sir—I have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from the knowing of others; but I have seen your true self since last night. You will give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all our lives.”

We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite choky.

“And now,” he said, “may I ask you for some more help? I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help me here. Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind; but at first this will do.”

“Look here, sir,” I said, “does what you have to do concern the Count?”

“It does,” he said solemnly.

“Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the 10:30 train, you will not have time to read them; but I shall get the bundle of papers. You can take them with you and read them in the train.”

After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were parting he said:--

“Perhaps you will come to town if I send to you, and take Madam Mina too.”

“We shall both come when you will,” I said.

I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, he was turning them over. His eyes suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them, “The Westminster Gazette”—I knew it by the colour—and he grew quite white. He read something intently, groaning to himself: “Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! so soon!” I do not think he remembered me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off. This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out: “Love to Madam Mina; I shall write so soon as ever I can.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

26 September.—Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a week since I said “Finis,” and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rather going on with the same record. Until this afternoon I had no cause to think of what is done. Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as he ever was. He was already well ahead with his fly business; and he had just started in the spider line also; so he had not been of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincey Morris is with him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling well of good spirits. Quincey wrote me a line too, and from him I hear that Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy; so as to them all my mind is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming cicatrised. Everything is, however, now reopened; and what is to be the end God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows, too, but he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity. He went to Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. To-day he came back, and almost bounded into the room at about half-past five o’clock, and thrust last night’s “Westminster Gazette” into my hand.

“What do you think of that?” he asked as he stood back and folded his arms.

I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he meant; but he took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being decoyed away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reached a passage where it described small punctured wounds on their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up. “Well?” he said.

“It is like poor Lucy’s.”

“And what do you make of it?”

“Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it was that injured her has injured them.” I did not quite understand his answer:--

“That is true indirectly, but not directly.”

“How do you mean, Professor?” I asked. I was a little inclined to take his seriousness lightly—for, after all, four days of rest and freedom from burning, harrowing anxiety does help to restore one’s spirits—but when I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern.

“Tell me!” I said. “I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what to think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture.”

“Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion as to what poor Lucy died of; not after all the hints given, not only by events, but by me?”

“Of nervous prostration following on great loss or waste of blood.”

“And how the blood lost or waste?” I shook my head. He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on:--

“You are clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men’s eyes, because they know—or think they know—some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young—like the fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialisation. No? Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism——”

“Yes,” I said. “Charcot has proved that pretty well.” He smiled as he went on: “Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcot—alas that he is no more!—into the very soul of the patient that he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell me—for I am student of the brain—how you accept the hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done to-day in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered electricity—who would themselves not so long before have been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and ‘Old Parr’ one hundred and sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men’s blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day? For, had she live one more day, we could have save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that come at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins; how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them, and then—and then in the morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was?”

“Good God, Professor!” I said, starting up. “Do you mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat; and that such a thing is here in London in the nineteenth century?” He waved his hand for silence, and went on:--

“Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of men; why the elephant goes on and on till he have seen dynasties; and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or other complaint? Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are some few who live on always if they be permit; that there are men and women who cannot die? We all know—because science has vouched for the fact—that there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before?” Here I interrupted him. I was getting bewildered; he so crowded on my mind his list of nature’s eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired. I had a dim idea that he was teaching me some lesson, as long ago he used to do in his study at Amsterdam; but he used then to tell me the thing, so that I could have the object of thought in mind all the time. But now I was without this help, yet I wanted to follow him, so I said:--

“Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the thesis, so that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present I am going in my mind from point to point as a mad man, and not a sane one, follows an idea. I feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a mist, jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without knowing where I am going.”

“That is good image,” he said. “Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is this: I want you to believe.”

“To believe what?”

“To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith: ‘that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.’ For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him; but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe.”

“Then you want me not to let some previous conviction injure the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson aright?”

“Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth to teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in the children’s throats were made by the same that made the hole in Miss Lucy?”

“I suppose so.” He stood up and said solemnly:--

“Then you are wrong. Oh, would it were so! but alas! no. It is worse, far, far worse.”

“In God’s name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean?” I cried.

He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke:--

“They were made by Miss Lucy!”

CHAPTER XV

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY--continued.

FOR a while sheer anger mastered me; it was as if he had during her life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose up as I said to him:--

“Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?” He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness of his face calmed me at once. “Would I were!” he said. “Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my friend, why, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell you so simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted, now so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a fearful death? Ah no!”

“Forgive me,” said I. He went on:--

“My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in the breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady. But even yet I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always believed the ‘no’ of it; it is more hard still to accept so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss Lucy. To-night I go to prove it. Dare you come with me?”

This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a truth; Byron excepted from the category, jealousy.

He saw my hesitation, and spoke:--

“The logic is simple, no madman’s logic this time, jumping from tussock to tussock in a misty bog. If it be not true, then proof will be relief; at worst it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread; yet very dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief. Come, I tell you what I propose: first, that we go off now and see that child in the hospital. Dr. Vincent, of the North Hospital, where the papers say the child is, is friend of mine, and I think of yours since you were in class at Amsterdam. He will let two scientists see his case, if he will not let two friends. We shall tell him nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then--—”

“And then?” He took a key from his pocket and held it up. “And then we spend the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is the key that lock the tomb. I had it from the coffin-man to give to Arthur.” My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon was passing....

We found the child awake. It had had a sleep and taken some food, and altogether was going on well. Dr. Vincent took the bandage from its throat, and showed us the punctures. There was no mistaking the similarity to those which had been on Lucy’s throat. They were smaller, and the edges looked fresher; that was all. We asked Vincent to what he attributed them, and he replied that it must have been a bite of some animal, perhaps a rat; but, for his own part, he was inclined to think that it was one of the bats which are so numerous on the northern heights of London. “Out of so many harmless ones,” he said, “there may be some wild specimen from the South of a more malignant species. Some sailor may have brought one home, and it managed to escape; or even from the Zoölogical Gardens a young one may have got loose, or one be bred there from a vampire. These things do occur, you know. Only ten days ago a wolf got out, and was, I believe, traced up in this direction. For a week after, the children were playing nothing but Red Riding Hood on the Heath and in every alley in the place until this ‘bloofer lady’ scare came along, since when it has been quite a gala-time with them. Even this poor little mite, when he woke up to-day, asked the nurse if he might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted to play with the ‘bloofer lady.’ ”

“I hope,” said Van Helsing, “that when you are sending the child home you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it. These fancies to stray are most dangerous; and if the child were to remain out another night, it would probably be fatal. But in any case I suppose you will not let it away for some days?”

“Certainly not, not for a week at least; longer if the wound is not healed.”

Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned on, and the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw how dark it was, he said:--

“There is no hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let us seek somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our way.”

We dined at “Jack Straw’s Castle” along with a little crowd of bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About ten o’clock we started from the inn. It was then very dark, and the scattered lamps made the darkness greater when we were once outside their individual radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to go, for he went on unhesitatingly; but, as for me, I was in quite a mixup as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people, till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With some little difficulty—for it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so strange to us—we found the Westenra tomb. The Professor took the key, opened the creaky door, and standing back, politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to precede him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the courtliness of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My companion followed me quickly, and cautiously drew the door to, after carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a spring, one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight. Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle, proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that life—animal life—was not the only thing which could pass away.

Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his candle so that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucy’s coffin. Another search in his bag, and he took out a turnscrew.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced.” Straightway he began taking out the screws, and finally lifted off the lid, showing the casing of lead beneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed to be as much an affront to the dead as it would have been to have stripped off her clothing in her sleep whilst living; I actually took hold of his hand to stop him. He only said: “You shall see,” and again fumbling in his bag, took out a tiny fret-saw. Striking the turnscrew through the lead with a swift downward stab, which made me wince, he made a small hole, which was, however, big enough to admit the point of the saw. I had expected a rush of gas from the week-old corpse. We doctors, who have had to study our dangers, have to become accustomed to such things, and I drew back towards the door. But the Professor never stopped for a moment; he sawed down a couple of feet along one side of the lead coffin, and then across, and down the other side. Taking the edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the foot of the coffin, and holding up the candle into the aperture, motioned to me to look.

I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty.

It was certainly a surprise to me, and gave me a considerable shock, but Van Helsing was unmoved. He was now more sure than ever of his ground, and so emboldened to proceed in his task. “Are you satisfied now, friend John?” he asked.

I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature awake within me as I answered him:--

“I am satisfied that Lucy’s body is not in that coffin; but that only proves one thing.”

“And what is that, friend John?”

“That it is not there.”

“That is good logic,” he said, “so far as it goes. But how do you—how can you—account for it not being there?”

“Perhaps a body-snatcher,” I suggested. “Some of the undertaker’s people may have stolen it.” I felt that I was speaking folly, and yet it was the only real cause which I could suggest. The Professor sighed. “Ah well!” he said, “we must have more proof. Come with me.”

He put on the coffin-lid again, gathered up all his things and placed them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle also in the bag. We opened the door, and went out. Behind us he closed the door and locked it. He handed me the key, saying: “Will you keep it? You had better be assured.” I laughed—it was not a very cheerful laugh, I am bound to say—as I motioned him to keep it. “A key is nothing,” I said; “there may be duplicates; and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock of that kind.” He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he told me to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at the other. I took up my place behind a yew-tree, and I saw his dark figure move until the intervening headstones and trees hid it from my sight.

It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place I heard a distant clock strike twelve, and in time came one and two. I was chilled and unnerved, and angry with the Professor for taking me on such an errand and with myself for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to be keenly observant, and not sleepy enough to betray my trust so altogether I had a dreary, miserable time.

Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white streak, moving between two dark yew-trees at the side of the churchyard farthest from the tomb; at the same time a dark mass moved from the Professor’s side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I too moved; but I had to go round headstones and railed-off tombs, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast, and somewhere far off an early cock crew. A little way off, beyond a line of scattered juniper-trees, which marked the pathway to the church, a white, dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden by trees, and I could not see where the figure disappeared. I heard the rustle of actual movement where I had first seen the white figure, and coming over, found the Professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When he saw me he held it out to me, and said:--

“Are you satisfied now?”

“No,” I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive.

“Do you not see the child?”

“Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded?” I asked.

“We shall see,” said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our way out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child.

When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child’s throat. It was without a scratch or scar of any kind.

“Was I right?” I asked triumphantly.

“We were just in time,” said the Professor thankfully.

We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so consulted about it. If we were to take it to a police-station we should have to give some account of our movements during the night; at least, we should have had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child. So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath, and when we heard a policeman coming, would leave it where he could not fail to find it; we would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell out well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman’s heavy tramp, and laying the child on the pathway, we waited and watched until he saw it as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation of astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got a cab near the “Spaniards,” and drove to town.

I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours’ sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I shall go with him on another expedition.

 

27 September.—It was two o’clock before we found a suitable opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed, and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of alder-trees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safe till morning did we desire it; but the Professor told me that we should not want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrid sense of the reality of things, in which any effort of imagination seemed out of place; and I realised distinctly the perils of the law which we were incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless. Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if a woman dead nearly a week were really dead, it now seemed the height of folly to open the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our own eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however, and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road, no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, and again courteously motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesome as last night, but oh, how unutterably mean-looking when the sunshine streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucy’s coffin, and I followed. He bent over and again forced back the leaden flange; and then a shock of surprise and dismay shot through me.

There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom.

“Is this a juggle?” I said to him.

“Are you convinced now?” said the Professor in response, and as he spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the dead lips and showed the white teeth.

“See,” he went on, “see, they are even sharper than before. With this and this”—and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below it—“the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend John?” Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I could not accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested; so, with an attempt to argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said:--

“She may have been placed here since last night.”

“Indeed? That is so, and by whom?”

“I do not know. Some one has done it.”

“And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would not look so.” I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not seem to notice my silence; at any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said:--

“Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded; here is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire when she was in a trance, sleep-walking—oh, you start; you do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it all later—and in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she is Un-Dead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when the Un-Dead sleep at home”—as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to a vampire was “home”—“their face show what they are, but this so sweet that was when she not Un-Dead she go back to the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep.” This turned my blood cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsing’s theories; but if she were really dead, what was there of terror in the idea of killing her? He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in my face, for he said almost joyously:--

“Ah, you believe now?”

I answered: “Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing to accept. How will you do this bloody work?”

“I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body.” It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective?

I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with a snap, and said:--

“I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. If I did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment, what is to be done; but there are other things to follow, and things that are thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This is simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time; and to act now would be to take danger from her for ever. But then we may have to want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? If you, who saw the wounds on Lucy’s throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the child’s at the hospital; if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and full to-day with a woman who have not change only to be more rose and more beautiful in a whole week, after she die—if you know of this and know of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard, and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how, then, can I expect Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe? He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven me because in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him say good-bye as he ought; and he may think that in some more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive; and that in most mistake of all we have killed her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, that have killed her by our ideas; and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet he never can be sure; and that is the worst of all. And he will sometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered; and again, he will think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all, an Un-Dead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, since I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he must pass through the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow, must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to him; then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind is made up. Let us go. You return home for to-night to your asylum, and see that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard in my own way. To-morrow night you will come to me to the Berkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too, and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly and there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set.”

So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly.

Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau, Berkeley Hotel directed to John Seward, M. D.

(Not delivered.)

“27 September.

“Friend John,--

“I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone to watch in that churchyard. It pleases me that the Un-Dead, Miss Lucy, shall not leave to-night, that so on the morrow night she may be more eager. Therefore I shall fix some things she like not—garlic and a crucifix—and so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as Un-Dead, and will heed. Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming out; they may not prevail on her wanting to get in; for then the Un-Dead is desperate, and must find the line of least resistance, whatsoever it may be. I shall be at hand all the night from sunset till after the sunrise, and if there be aught that may be learned I shall learn it. For Miss Lucy or from her, I have no fear; but that other to whom is there that she is Un-Dead, he have now the power to seek her tomb and find shelter. He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy’s life, and we lost; and in many ways the Un-Dead are strong. He have always the strength in his hand of twenty men; even we four who gave our strength to Miss Lucy it also is all to him. Besides, he can summon his wolf and I know not what. So if it be that he come thither on this night he shall find me; but none other shall—until it be too late. But it may be that he will not attempt the place. There is no reason why he should; his hunting ground is more full of game than the churchyard where the Un-Dead woman sleep, and the one old man watch.

“Therefore I write this in case.... Take the papers that are with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read them, and then find this great Un-Dead, and cut off his head and burn his heart or drive a stake through it, so that the world may rest from him.

“If it be so, farewell.

“Van Helsing.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

28 September.—It is wonderful what a good night’s sleep will do for one. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsing’s monstrous ideas; but now they seem to start out lurid before me as outrages on common sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely there must be some rational explanation of all these mysterious things. Is it possible that the Professor can have done it himself? He is so abnormally clever that if he went off his head he would carry out his intent with regard to some fixed idea in a wonderful way. I am loath to think it, and indeed it would be almost as great a marvel as the other to find that Van Helsing was mad; but anyhow I shall watch him carefully. I may get some light on the mystery.

 

29 September, morning..... Last night, at a little before ten o’clock, Arthur and Quincey came into Van Helsing’s room; he told us all that he wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all our wills were centred in his. He began by saying that he hoped we would all come with him too, “for,” he said, “there is a grave duty to be done there. You were doubtless surprised at my letter?” This query was directly addressed to Lord Godalming.

“I was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so much trouble around my house of late that I could do without any more. I have been curious, too, as to what you mean. Quincey and I talked it over; but the more we talked, the more puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself that I’m about up a tree as to any meaning about anything.”

“Me too,” said Quincey Morris laconically.

“Oh,” said the Professor, “then you are nearer the beginning, both of you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back before he can even get so far as to begin.”

It was evident that he recognised my return to my old doubting frame of mind without my saying a word. Then, turning to the other two, he said with intense gravity:--

“I want your permission to do what I think good this night. It is, I know, much to ask; and when you know what it is I propose to do you will know, and only then, how much. Therefore may I ask that you promise me in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry with me for a time—I must not disguise from myself the possibility that such may be—you shall not blame yourselves for anything.”

“That’s frank anyhow,” broke in Quincey. “I’ll answer for the Professor. I don’t quite see his drift, but I swear he’s honest; and that’s good enough for me.”

“I thank you, sir,” said Van Helsing proudly. “I have done myself the honour of counting you one trusting friend, and such endorsement is dear to me.” He held out a hand, which Quincey took.

Then Arthur spoke out:--

“Dr. Van Helsing, I don’t quite like to ‘buy a pig in a poke,’ as they say in Scotland, and if it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of these two, then I give my consent at once; though for the life of me, I cannot understand what you are driving at.”

“I accept your limitation,” said Van Helsing, “and all I ask of you is that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine, you will first consider it well and be satisfied that it does not violate your reservations.”

“Agreed!” said Arthur; “that is only fair. And now that the pourparlers are over, may I ask what it is we are to do?”

“I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to the churchyard at Kingstead.”

Arthur’s face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way:--

“Where poor Lucy is buried?” The Professor bowed. Arthur went on: “And when there?”

“To enter the tomb!” Arthur stood up.

“Professor, are you in earnest; or it is some monstrous joke? Pardon me, I see that you are in earnest.” He sat down again, but I could see that he sat firmly and proudly, as one who is on his dignity. There was silence until he asked again:--

“And when in the tomb?”

“To open the coffin.”

“This is too much!” he said, angrily rising again. “I am willing to be patient in all things that are reasonable; but in this—this desecration of the grave—of one who——” He fairly choked with indignation. The Professor looked pityingly at him.

“If I could spare you one pang, my poor friend,” he said, “God knows I would. But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths; or later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame!”

Arthur looked up with set white face and said:--

“Take care, sir, take care!”

“Would it not be well to hear what I have to say?” said Van Helsing. “And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose. Shall I go on?”

“That’s fair enough,” broke in Morris.

After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort:--

“Miss Lucy is dead; is it not so? Yes! Then there can be no wrong to her. But if she be not dead——”

Arthur jumped to his feet.

“Good God!” he cried. “What do you mean? Has there been any mistake; has she been buried alive?” He groaned in anguish that not even hope could soften.

“I did not say she was alive, my child; I did not think it. I go no further than to say that she might be Un-Dead.”

“Un-Dead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare, or what is it?”

“There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the verge of one. But I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?”

“Heavens and earth, no!” cried Arthur in a storm of passion. “Not for the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body. Dr. Van Helsing, you try me too far. What have I done to you that you should torture me so? What did that poor, sweet girl do that you should want to cast such dishonour on her grave? Are you mad that speak such things, or am I mad to listen to them? Don’t dare to think more of such a desecration; I shall not give my consent to anything you do. I have a duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage; and, by God, I shall do it!”

Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated, and said, gravely and sternly:--

“My Lord Godalming, I, too, have a duty to do, a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead; and, by God, I shall do it! All I ask you now is that you come with me, that you look and listen; and if when later I make the same request you do not be more eager for its fulfilment even than I am, then—then I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me. And then, to follow of your Lordship’s wishes I shall hold myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when and where you will.” His voice broke a little, and he went on with a voice full of pity:--

“But, I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me. In a long life of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did wring my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now. Believe me that if the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look from you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what a man can to save you from sorrow. Just think. For why should I give myself so much of labour and so much of sorrow? I have come here from my own land to do what I can of good; at the first to please my friend John, and then to help a sweet young lady, whom, too, I came to love. For her—I am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindness—I gave what you gave; the blood of my veins; I gave it, I, who was not, like you, her lover, but only her physician and her friend. I gave to her my nights and days—before death, after death; and if my death can do her good even now, when she is the dead Un-Dead, she shall have it freely.” He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected by it. He took the old man’s hand and said in a broken voice:--

“Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand; but at least I shall go with you and wait.”

CHAPTER XVI

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY--continued

IT was just a quarter before twelve o’clock when we got into the churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark with occasional gleams of moonlight between the rents of the heavy clouds that scudded across the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing slightly in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared that the proximity to a place laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset him; but he bore himself well. I took it that the very mystery of the proceeding was in some way a counteractant to his grief. The Professor unlocked the door, and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved the difficulty by entering first himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door. He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to the coffin. Arthur stepped forward hesitatingly; Van Helsing said to me:--

“You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that coffin?”

“It was.” The Professor turned to the rest saying:--

“You hear; and yet there is no one who does not believe with me.” He took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin. Arthur looked on, very pale but silent; when the lid was removed he stepped forward. He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or, at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness; he was still silent. Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and we all looked in and recoiled.

The coffin was empty!

For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by Quincey Morris:--

“Professor, I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn’t ask such a thing ordinarily—I wouldn’t so dishonour you as to imply a doubt; but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour. Is this your doing?”

“I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed nor touched her. What happened was this: Two nights ago my friend Seward and I came here—with good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which was then sealed up, and we found it, as now, empty. We then waited, and saw something white come through the trees. The next day we came here in day-time, and she lay there. Did she not, friend John?”

“Yes.”

“That night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing, and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at sundown the Un-Dead can move. I waited here all the night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was most probable that it was because I had laid over the clamps of those doors garlic, which the Un-Dead cannot bear, and other things which they shun. Last night there was no exodus, so to-night before the sundown I took away my garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But bear with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be. So”—here he shut the dark slide of his lantern—“now to the outside.” He opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the door behind him.

Oh! but it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and passing—like the gladness and sorrow of a man’s life; how sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay; how humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing’s conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has to stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug of tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a definite way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like thin, wafer-like biscuit, which was carefully rolled up in a white napkin; next he took out a double-handful of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into thin strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its setting in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near also, as they too were curious. He answered:--

“I am closing the tomb, so that the Un-Dead may not enter.”

“And is that stuff you have put there going to do it?” asked Quincey. “Great Scott! Is this a game?”

“It is.”

“What is that which you are using?” This time the question was by Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered:--

“The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence.” It was an answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt individually that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the Professor’s, a purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of things, it was impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching horror; and yet I, who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night.

There was a long spell of silence, a big, aching void, and then from the Professor a keen “S-s-s-s!” He pointed; and far down the avenue of yews we saw a white figure advance—a dim white figure, which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a fair-haired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We were starting forward, but the Professor’s warning hand, seen by us as he stood behind a yew-tree, kept us back; and then as we looked the white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognised the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we all advanced too; the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide; by the concentrated light that fell on Lucy’s face we could see that the lips were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe.

We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even Van Helsing’s iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen.

When Lucy—I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape—saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy’s eyes in form and colour; but Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur; when she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands.

She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said:--

“Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!”

There was something diabolically sweet in her tones—something of the tingling of glass when struck—which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb.

When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsing’s iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of the flesh were the coils of Medusa’s snakes, and the lovely, blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death—if looks could kill—we saw it at that moment.

And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of entry. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur:--

“Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?”

Arthur threw himself on his knees, and hid his face in his hands, as he answered:--

“Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like this ever any more;” and he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down; coming close to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on in horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own, pass in through the interstice where scarce a knife-blade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense of relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty to the edges of the door.

When this was done, he lifted the child and said:

“Come now, my friends; we can do no more till to-morrow. There is a funeral at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton lock the gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do; but not like this of to-night. As for this little one, he is not much harm, and by to-morrow night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the police will find him, as on the other night; and then to home.” Coming close to Arthur, he said:--

“My friend Arthur, you have had a sore trial; but after, when you look back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter waters, my child. By this time to-morrow you will, please God, have passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters; so do not mourn overmuch. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me.”

Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other on the way. We had left the child in safety, and were tired; so we all slept with more or less reality of sleep.

 

29 September, night.—A little before twelve o’clock we three—Arthur, Quincey Morris, and myself—called for the Professor. It was odd to notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by half-past one, and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton under the belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag; it was manifestly of fair weight.

When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the Professor to the tomb. He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing it behind us. Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit, and also two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck, by melting their own ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light sufficient to work by. When he again lifted the lid off Lucy’s coffin we all looked—Arthur trembling like an aspen—and saw that the body lay there in all its death-beauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy’s shape without her soul. I could see even Arthur’s face grow hard as he looked. Presently he said to Van Helsing:--

“Is this really Lucy’s body, or only a demon in her shape?”

“It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you all see her as she was, and is.”

She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth—which it made one shudder to see—the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy’s sweet purity. Van Helsing, with his usual methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and placing them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and some plumbing solder, and then a small oil-lamp, which gave out, when lit in a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at fierce heat with a blue flame; then his operating knives, which he placed to hand; and last a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer, such as in households is used in the coal-cellar for breaking the lumps. To me, a doctor’s preparations for work of any kind are stimulating and bracing, but the effect of these things on both Arthur and Quincey was to cause them a sort of consternation. They both, however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet.

When all was ready, Van Helsing said:--

“Before we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the Un-Dead. When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that die from the preying of the Un-Dead becomes themselves Un-Dead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die; or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have fill us with horror. The career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun. Those children whose blood she suck are not as yet so much the worse; but if she live on, Un-Dead, more and more they lose their blood and by her power over them they come to her; and so she draw their blood with that so wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease; the tiny wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their plays unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when this now Un-Dead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free. Instead of working wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. To this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the night when sleep is not: ‘It was my hand that sent her to the stars; it was the hand of him that loved her best; the hand that of all she would herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose?’ Tell me if there be such a one amongst us?”

We all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory; he stepped forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as snow:--

“My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!” Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder, and said:--

“Brave lad! A moment’s courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It will be a fearful ordeal—be not deceived in that—but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great; from this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you all the time.”

“Go on,” said Arthur hoarsely. “Tell me what I am to do.”

“Take this stake in your left hand, ready to place the point over the heart, and the hammer in your right. Then when we begin our prayer for the dead—I shall read him, I have here the book, and the others shall follow—strike in God’s name, that so all may be well with the dead that we love and that the Un-Dead pass away.”

Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might.

The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. His face was set, and high duty seemed to shine through it; the sight of it gave us courage so that our voices seemed to ring through the little vault.

And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still. The terrible task was over.

The hammer fell from Arthur’s hand. He reeled and would have fallen had we not caught him. The great drops of sweat sprang from his forehead, and his breath came in broken gasps. It had indeed been an awful strain on him; and had he not been forced to his task by more than human considerations he could never have gone through with it. For a few minutes we were so taken up with him that we did not look towards the coffin. When we did, however, a murmur of startled surprise ran from one to the other of us. We gazed so eagerly that Arthur rose, for he had been seated on the ground, and came and looked too; and then a glad, strange light broke over his face and dispelled altogether the gloom of horror that lay upon it.

There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity. True that there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and pain and waste; but these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth to what we knew. One and all we felt that the holy calm that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and symbol of the calm that was to reign for ever.

Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, and said to him:--

“And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven?”

The reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old man’s hand in his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said:--

“Forgiven! God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, and me peace.” He put his hands on the Professor’s shoulder, and laying his head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood unmoving. When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him:--

“And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning devil now—not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is the devil’s Un-Dead. She is God’s true dead, whose soul is with Him!”

Arthur bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the tomb; the Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the point of it in the body. Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with garlic. We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the coffin-lid, and gathering up our belongings, came away. When the Professor locked the door he gave the key to Arthur.

Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it seemed as if all nature were tuned to a different pitch. There was gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy.

Before we moved away Van Helsing said:--

“Now, my friends, one step of our work is done, one the most harrowing to ourselves. But there remains a greater task: to find out the author of all this our sorrow and to stamp him out. I have clues which we can follow; but it is a long task, and a difficult, and there is danger in it, and pain. Shall you not all help me? We have learned to believe, all of us—is it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do we not promise to go on to the bitter end?”

Each in turn, we took his hand, and the promise was made. Then said the Professor as we moved off:--

“Two nights hence you shall meet with me and dine together at seven of the clock with friend John. I shall entreat two others, two that you know not as yet; and I shall be ready to all our work show and our plans unfold. Friend John, you come with me home, for I have much to consult about, and you can help me. To-night I leave for Amsterdam, but shall return to-morrow night. And then begins our great quest. But first I shall have much to say, so that you may know what is to do and to dread. Then our promise shall be made to each other anew; for there is a terrible task before us, and once our feet are on the ploughshare we must not draw back.”

CHAPTER XVII

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY--continued

WHEN we arrived at the Berkeley Hotel, Van Helsing found a telegram waiting for him:--

The Professor was delighted. “Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina,” he said, “pearl among women! She arrive, but I cannot stay. She must go to your house, friend John. You must meet her at the station. Telegraph her en route, so that she may be prepared.”

When the wire was despatched he had a cup of tea; over it he told me of a diary kept by Jonathan Harker when abroad, and gave me a typewritten copy of it, as also of Mrs. Harker’s diary at Whitby. “Take these,” he said, “and study them well. When I have returned you will be master of all the facts, and we can then better enter on our inquisition. Keep them safe, for there is in them much of treasure. You will need all your faith, even you who have had such an experience as that of to-day. What is here told,” he laid his hand heavily and gravely on the packet of papers as he spoke, “may be the beginning of the end to you and me and many another; or it may sound the knell of the Un-Dead who walk the earth. Read all, I pray you, with the open mind; and if you can add in any way to the story here told do so, for it is all-important. You have kept diary of all these so strange things; is it not so? Yes! Then we shall go through all these together when we meet.” He then made ready for his departure, and shortly after drove off to Liverpool Street. I took my way to Paddington, where I arrived about fifteen minutes before the train came in.

The crowd melted away, after the bustling fashion common to arrival platforms; and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might miss my guest, when a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl stepped up to me, and, after a quick glance, said: “Dr. Seward, is it not?”

“And you are Mrs. Harker!” I answered at once; whereupon she held out her hand.

“I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucy; but——” She stopped suddenly, and a quick blush overspread her face.

The blush that rose to my own cheeks somehow set us both at ease, for it was a tacit answer to her own. I got her luggage, which included a typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I had sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sitting-room and bedroom prepared at once for Mrs. Harker.

In due time we arrived. She knew, of course, that the place was a lunatic asylum, but I could see that she was unable to repress a shudder when we entered.

She told me that, if she might, she would come presently to my study, as she had much to say. So here I am finishing my entry in my phonograph diary whilst I await her. As yet I have not had the chance of looking at the papers which Van Helsing left with me, though they lie open before me. I must get her interested in something, so that I may have an opportunity of reading them. She does not know how precious time is, or what a task we have in hand. I must be careful not to frighten her. Here she is!

Mina Harker’s Journal.

29 September.—After I had tidied myself, I went down to Dr. Seward’s study. At the door I paused a moment, for I thought I heard him talking with some one. As, however, he had pressed me to be quick, I knocked at the door, and on his calling out, “Come in,” I entered.

To my intense surprise, there was no one with him. He was quite alone, and on the table opposite him was what I knew at once from the description to be a phonograph. I had never seen one, and was much interested.

“I hope I did not keep you waiting,” I said; “but I stayed at the door as I heard you talking, and thought there was some one with you.”

“Oh,” he replied with a smile, “I was only entering my diary.”

“Your diary?” I asked him in surprise.

“Yes,” he answered. “I keep it in this.” As he spoke he laid his hand on the phonograph. I felt quite excited over it, and blurted out:--

“Why, this beats even shorthand! May I hear it say something?”

“Certainly,” he replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in train for speaking. Then he paused, and a troubled look overspread his face.

“The fact is,” he began awkwardly, “I only keep my diary in it; and as it is entirely—almost entirely—about my cases, it may be awkward—that is, I mean——” He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his embarrassment:--

“You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end. Let me hear how she died; for all that I know of her, I shall be very grateful. She was very, very dear to me.”

To my surprise, he answered, with a horrorstruck look in his face:--

“Tell you of her death? Not for the wide world!”

“Why not?” I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me. Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse. At length he stammered out:--

“You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the diary.” Even while he was speaking an idea dawned upon him, and he said with unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with the naïveté of a child: “That’s quite true, upon my honour. Honest Indian!” I could not but smile, at which he grimaced. “I gave myself away that time!” he said. “But do you know that, although I have kept the diary for months past, it never once struck me how I was going to find any particular part of it in case I wanted to look it up?” By this time my mind was made up that the diary of a doctor who attended Lucy might have something to add to the sum of our knowledge of that terrible Being, and I said boldly:--

“Then, Dr. Seward, you had better let me copy it out for you on my typewriter.” He grew to a positively deathly pallor as he said:--

“No! no! no! For all the world, I wouldn’t let you know that terrible story!”

Then it was terrible; my intuition was right! For a moment I thought, and as my eyes ranged the room, unconsciously looking for something or some opportunity to aid me, they lit on a great batch of typewriting on the table. His eyes caught the look in mine, and, without his thinking, followed their direction. As they saw the parcel he realised my meaning.

“You do not know me,” I said. “When you have read those papers—my own diary and my husband’s also, which I have typed—you will know me better. I have not faltered in giving every thought of my own heart in this cause; but, of course, you do not know me—yet; and I must not expect you to trust me so far.”

He is certainly a man of noble nature; poor dear Lucy was right about him. He stood up and opened a large drawer, in which were arranged in order a number of hollow cylinders of metal covered with dark wax, and said:--

“You are quite right. I did not trust you because I did not know you. But I know you now; and let me say that I should have known you long ago. I know that Lucy told you of me; she told me of you too. May I make the only atonement in my power? Take the cylinders and hear them—the first half-dozen of them are personal to me, and they will not horrify you; then you will know me better. Dinner will by then be ready. In the meantime I shall read over some of these documents, and shall be better able to understand certain things.” He carried the phonograph himself up to my sitting-room and adjusted it for me. Now I shall learn something pleasant, I am sure; for it will tell me the other side of a true love episode of which I know one side already....

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

29 September.—I was so absorbed in that wonderful diary of Jonathan Harker and that other of his wife that I let the time run on without thinking. Mrs. Harker was not down when the maid came to announce dinner, so I said: “She is possibly tired; let dinner wait an hour,” and I went on with my work. I had just finished Mrs. Harker’s diary, when she came in. She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her eyes were flushed with crying. This somehow moved me much. Of late I have had cause for tears, God knows! but the relief of them was denied me; and now the sight of those sweet eyes, brightened with recent tears, went straight to my heart. So I said as gently as I could:--

“I greatly fear I have distressed you.”

“Oh, no, not distressed me,” she replied, “but I have been more touched than I can say by your grief. That is a wonderful machine, but it is cruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of your heart. It was like a soul crying out to Almighty God. No one must hear them spoken ever again! See, I have tried to be useful. I have copied out the words on my typewriter, and none other need now hear your heart beat, as I did.”

“No one need ever know, shall ever know,” I said in a low voice. She laid her hand on mine and said very gravely:--

“Ah, but they must!”

“Must! But why?” I asked.

“Because it is a part of the terrible story, a part of poor dear Lucy’s death and all that led to it; because in the struggle which we have before us to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must have all the knowledge and all the help which we can get. I think that the cylinders which you gave me contained more than you intended me to know; but I can see that there are in your record many lights to this dark mystery. You will let me help, will you not? I know all up to a certain point; and I see already, though your diary only took me to 7 September, how poor Lucy was beset, and how her terrible doom was being wrought out. Jonathan and I have been working day and night since Professor Van Helsing saw us. He is gone to Whitby to get more information, and he will be here to-morrow to help us. We need have no secrets amongst us; working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark.” She looked at me so appealingly, and at the same time manifested such courage and resolution in her bearing, that I gave in at once to her wishes. “You shall,” I said, “do as you like in the matter. God forgive me if I do wrong! There are terrible things yet to learn of; but if you have so far travelled on the road to poor Lucy’s death, you will not be content, I know, to remain in the dark. Nay, the end—the very end—may give you a gleam of peace. Come, there is dinner. We must keep one another strong for what is before us; we have a cruel and dreadful task. When you have eaten you shall learn the rest, and I shall answer any questions you ask—if there be anything which you do not understand, though it was apparent to us who were present.”

Mina Harker’s Journal.

29 September.—After dinner I came with Dr. Seward to his study. He brought back the phonograph from my room, and I took my typewriter. He placed me in a comfortable chair, and arranged the phonograph so that I could touch it without getting up, and showed me how to stop it in case I should want to pause. Then he very thoughtfully took a chair, with his back to me, so that I might be as free as possible, and began to read. I put the forked metal to my ears and listened.

When the terrible story of Lucy’s death, and—and all that followed, was done, I lay back in my chair powerless. Fortunately I am not of a fainting disposition. When Dr. Seward saw me he jumped up with a horrified exclamation, and hurriedly taking a case-bottle from a cupboard, gave me some brandy, which in a few minutes somewhat restored me. My brain was all in a whirl, and only that there came through all the multitude of horrors, the holy ray of light that my dear, dear Lucy was at last at peace, I do not think I could have borne it without making a scene. It is all so wild, and mysterious, and strange that if I had not known Jonathan’s experience in Transylvania I could not have believed. As it was, I didn’t know what to believe, and so got out of my difficulty by attending to something else. I took the cover off my typewriter, and said to Dr. Seward:--

“Let me write this all out now. We must be ready for Dr. Van Helsing when he comes. I have sent a telegram to Jonathan to come on here when he arrives in London from Whitby. In this matter dates are everything, and I think that if we get all our material ready, and have every item put in chronological order, we shall have done much. You tell me that Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris are coming too. Let us be able to tell him when they come.” He accordingly set the phonograph at a slow pace, and I began to typewrite from the beginning of the seventh cylinder. I used manifold, and so took three copies of the diary, just as I had done with all the rest. It was late when I got through, but Dr. Seward went about his work of going his round of the patients; when he had finished he came back and sat near me, reading, so that I did not feel too lonely whilst I worked. How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of good men—even if there are monsters in it. Before I left him I remembered what Jonathan put in his diary of the Professor’s perturbation at reading something in an evening paper at the station at Exeter; so, seeing that Dr. Seward keeps his newspapers, I borrowed the files of “The Westminster Gazette” and “The Pall Mall Gazette,” and took them to my room. I remember how much “The Dailygraph” and “The Whitby Gazette,” of which I had made cuttings, helped us to understand the terrible events at Whitby when Count Dracula landed, so I shall look through the evening papers since then, and perhaps I shall get some new light. I am not sleepy, and the work will help to keep me quiet.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

30 September.—Mr. Harker arrived at nine o’clock. He had got his wife’s wire just before starting. He is uncommonly clever, if one can judge from his face, and full of energy. If this journal be true—and judging by one’s own wonderful experiences, it must be—he is also a man of great nerve. That going down to the vault a second time was a remarkable piece of daring. After reading his account of it I was prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet, business-like gentleman who came here to-day.

 

Later.—After lunch Harker and his wife went back to their own room, and as I passed a while ago I heard the click of the typewriter. They are hard at it. Mrs. Harker says that they are knitting together in chronological order every scrap of evidence they have. Harker has got the letters between the consignee of the boxes at Whitby and the carriers in London who took charge of them. He is now reading his wife’s typescript of my diary. I wonder what they make out of it. Here it is....

Jonathan Harker’s Journal.

29 September, in train to London.—When I received Mr. Billington’s courteous message that he would give me any information in his power I thought it best to go down to Whitby and make, on the spot, such inquiries as I wanted. It was now my object to trace that horrid cargo of the Count’s to its place in London. Later, we may be able to deal with it. Billington junior, a nice lad, met me at the station, and brought me to his father’s house, where they had decided that I must stay the night. They are hospitable, with true Yorkshire hospitality: give a guest everything, and leave him free to do as he likes. They all knew that I was busy, and that my stay was short, and Mr. Billington had ready in his office all the papers concerning the consignment of boxes. It gave me almost a turn to see again one of the letters which I had seen on the Count’s table before I knew of his diabolical plans. Everything had been carefully thought out, and done systematically and with precision. He seemed to have been prepared for every obstacle which might be placed by accident in the way of his intentions being carried out. To use an Americanism, he had “taken no chances,” and the absolute accuracy with which his instructions were fulfilled, was simply the logical result of his care. I saw the invoice, and took note of it: “Fifty cases of common earth, to be used for experimental purposes.” Also the copy of letter to Carter Paterson, and their reply; of both of these I got copies. This was all the information Mr. Billington could give me, so I went down to the port and saw the coastguards, the Customs officers and the harbour-master. They had all something to say of the strange entry of the ship, which is already taking its place in local tradition; but no one could add to the simple description “Fifty cases of common earth.” I then saw the station-master, who kindly put me in communication with the men who had actually received the boxes. Their tally was exact with the list, and they had nothing to add except that the boxes were “main and mortal heavy,” and that shifting them was dry work. One of them added that it was hard lines that there wasn’t any gentleman “such-like as yourself, squire,” to show some sort of appreciation of their efforts in a liquid form; another put in a rider that the thirst then generated was such that even the time which had elapsed had not completely allayed it. Needless to add, I took care before leaving to lift, for ever and adequately, this source of reproach.

 

30 September.—The station-master was good enough to give me a line to his old companion the station-master at King’s Cross, so that when I arrived there in the morning I was able to ask him about the arrival of the boxes. He, too, put me at once in communication with the proper officials, and I saw that their tally was correct with the original invoice. The opportunities of acquiring an abnormal thirst had been here limited; a noble use of them had, however, been made, and again I was compelled to deal with the result in an ex post facto manner.

From thence I went on to Carter Paterson’s central office, where I met with the utmost courtesy. They looked up the transaction in their day-book and letter-book, and at once telephoned to their King’s Cross office for more details. By good fortune, the men who did the teaming were waiting for work, and the official at once sent them over, sending also by one of them the way-bill and all the papers connected with the delivery of the boxes at Carfax. Here again I found the tally agreeing exactly; the carriers’ men were able to supplement the paucity of the written words with a few details. These were, I shortly found, connected almost solely with the dusty nature of the job, and of the consequent thirst engendered in the operators. On my affording an opportunity, through the medium of the currency of the realm, of the allaying, at a later period, this beneficial evil, one of the men remarked:--

“That ’ere ’ouse, guv’nor, is the rummiest I ever was in. Blyme! but it ain’t been touched sence a hundred years. There was dust that thick in the place that you might have slep’ on it without ’urtin’ of yer bones; an’ the place was that neglected that yer might ’ave smelled ole Jerusalem in it. But the ole chapel—that took the cike, that did! Me and my mate, we thort we wouldn’t never git out quick enough. Lor’, I wouldn’t take less nor a quid a moment to stay there arter dark.”

Having been in the house, I could well believe him; but if he knew what I know, he would, I think, have raised his terms.

Of one thing I am now satisfied: that all the boxes which arrived at Whitby from Varna in the Demeter were safely deposited in the old chapel at Carfax. There should be fifty of them there, unless any have since been removed—as from Dr. Seward’s diary I fear.

I shall try to see the carter who took away the boxes from Carfax when Renfield attacked them. By following up this clue we may learn a good deal.

 

Later.—Mina and I have worked all day, and we have put all the papers into order.

Mina Harker’s Journal

30 September.—I am so glad that I hardly know how to contain myself. It is, I suppose, the reaction from the haunting fear which I have had: that this terrible affair and the reopening of his old wound might act detrimentally on Jonathan. I saw him leave for Whitby with as brave a face as I could, but I was sick with apprehension. The effort has, however, done him good. He was never so resolute, never so strong, never so full of volcanic energy, as at present. It is just as that dear, good Professor Van Helsing said: he is true grit, and he improves under strain that would kill a weaker nature. He came back full of life and hope and determination; we have got everything in order for to-night. I feel myself quite wild with excitement. I suppose one ought to pity any thing so hunted as is the Count. That is just it: this Thing is not human—not even beast. To read Dr. Seward’s account of poor Lucy’s death, and what followed, is enough to dry up the springs of pity in one’s heart.

 

Later.—Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris arrived earlier than we expected. Dr. Seward was out on business, and had taken Jonathan with him, so I had to see them. It was to me a painful meeting, for it brought back all poor dear Lucy’s hopes of only a few months ago. Of course they had heard Lucy speak of me, and it seemed that Dr. Van Helsing, too, has been quite “blowing my trumpet,” as Mr. Morris expressed it. Poor fellows, neither of them is aware that I know all about the proposals they made to Lucy. They did not quite know what to say or do, as they were ignorant of the amount of my knowledge; so they had to keep on neutral subjects. However, I thought the matter over, and came to the conclusion that the best thing I could do would be to post them in affairs right up to date. I knew from Dr. Seward’s diary that they had been at Lucy’s death—her real death—and that I need not fear to betray any secret before the time. So I told them, as well as I could, that I had read all the papers and diaries, and that my husband and I, having typewritten them, had just finished putting them in order. I gave them each a copy to read in the library. When Lord Godalming got his and turned it over—it does make a pretty good pile—he said:--

“Did you write all this, Mrs. Harker?”

I nodded, and he went on:--

“I don’t quite see the drift of it; but you people are all so good and kind, and have been working so earnestly and so energetically, that all I can do is to accept your ideas blindfold and try to help you. I have had one lesson already in accepting facts that should make a man humble to the last hour of his life. Besides, I know you loved my poor Lucy—” Here he turned away and covered his face with his hands. I could hear the tears in his voice. Mr. Morris, with instinctive delicacy, just laid a hand for a moment on his shoulder, and then walked quietly out of the room. I suppose there is something in woman’s nature that makes a man free to break down before her and express his feelings on the tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to his manhood; for when Lord Godalming found himself alone with me he sat down on the sofa and gave way utterly and openly. I sat down beside him and took his hand. I hope he didn’t think it forward of me, and that if he ever thinks of it afterwards he never will have such a thought. There I wrong him; I know he never will—he is too true a gentleman. I said to him, for I could see that his heart was breaking:--

“I loved dear Lucy, and I know what she was to you, and what you were to her. She and I were like sisters; and now she is gone, will you not let me be like a sister to you in your trouble? I know what sorrows you have had, though I cannot measure the depth of them. If sympathy and pity can help in your affliction, won’t you let me be of some little service—for Lucy’s sake?”

In an instant the poor dear fellow was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed to me that all that he had of late been suffering in silence found a vent at once. He grew quite hysterical, and raising his open hands, beat his palms together in a perfect agony of grief. He stood up and then sat down again, and the tears rained down his cheeks. I felt an infinite pity for him, and opened my arms unthinkingly. With a sob he laid his head on my shoulder and cried like a wearied child, whilst he shook with emotion.

We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked; I felt this big sorrowing man’s head resting on me, as though it were that of the baby that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child. I never thought at the time how strange it all was.

After a little bit his sobs ceased, and he raised himself with an apology, though he made no disguise of his emotion. He told me that for days and nights past—weary days and sleepless nights—he had been unable to speak with any one, as a man must speak in his time of sorrow. There was no woman whose sympathy could be given to him, or with whom, owing to the terrible circumstance with which his sorrow was surrounded, he could speak freely. “I know now how I suffered,” he said, as he dried his eyes, “but I do not know even yet—and none other can ever know—how much your sweet sympathy has been to me to-day. I shall know better in time; and believe me that, though I am not ungrateful now, my gratitude will grow with my understanding. You will let me be like a brother, will you not, for all our lives—for dear Lucy’s sake?”

“For dear Lucy’s sake,” I said as we clasped hands. “Ay, and for your own sake,” he added, “for if a man’s esteem and gratitude are ever worth the winning, you have won mine to-day. If ever the future should bring to you a time when you need a man’s help, believe me, you will not call in vain. God grant that no such time may ever come to you to break the sunshine of your life; but if it should ever come, promise me that you will let me know.” He was so earnest, and his sorrow was so fresh, that I felt it would comfort him, so I said:--

“I promise.”

As I came along the corridor I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window. He turned as he heard my footsteps. “How is Art?” he said. Then noticing my red eyes, he went on: “Ah, I see you have been comforting him. Poor old fellow! he needs it. No one but a woman can help a man when he is in trouble of the heart; and he had no one to comfort him.”

He bore his own trouble so bravely that my heart bled for him. I saw the manuscript in his hand, and I knew that when he read it he would realise how much I knew; so I said to him:--

“I wish I could comfort all who suffer from the heart. Will you let me be your friend, and will you come to me for comfort if you need it? You will know, later on, why I speak.” He saw that I was in earnest, and stooping, took my hand, and raising it to his lips, kissed it. It seemed but poor comfort to so brave and unselfish a soul, and impulsively I bent over and kissed him. The tears rose in his eyes, and there was a momentary choking in his throat; he said quite calmly:--

“Little girl, you will never regret that true-hearted kindness, so long as ever you live!” Then he went into the study to his friend.

“Little girl!”—the very words he had used to Lucy, and oh, but he proved himself a friend!

CHAPTER XVIII

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

30 September.—I got home at five o’clock, and found that Godalming and Morris had not only arrived, but had already studied the transcript of the various diaries and letters which Harker and his wonderful wife had made and arranged. Harker had not yet returned from his visit to the carriers’ men, of whom Dr. Hennessey had written to me. Mrs. Harker gave us a cup of tea, and I can honestly say that, for the first time since I have lived in it, this old house seemed like home. When we had finished, Mrs. Harker said:--

“Dr. Seward, may I ask a favour? I want to see your patient, Mr. Renfield. Do let me see him. What you have said of him in your diary interests me so much!” She looked so appealing and so pretty that I could not refuse her, and there was no possible reason why I should; so I took her with me. When I went into the room, I told the man that a lady would like to see him; to which he simply answered: “Why?”

“She is going through the house, and wants to see every one in it,” I answered. “Oh, very well,” he said; “let her come in, by all means; but just wait a minute till I tidy up the place.” His method of tidying was peculiar: he simply swallowed all the flies and spiders in the boxes before I could stop him. It was quite evident that he feared, or was jealous of, some interference. When he had got through his disgusting task, he said cheerfully: “Let the lady come in,” and sat down on the edge of his bed with his head down, but with his eyelids raised so that he could see her as she entered. For a moment I thought that he might have some homicidal intent; I remembered how quiet he had been just before he attacked me in my own study, and I took care to stand where I could seize him at once if he attempted to make a spring at her. She came into the room with an easy gracefulness which would at once command the respect of any lunatic—for easiness is one of the qualities mad people most respect. She walked over to him, smiling pleasantly, and held out her hand.

“Good-evening, Mr. Renfield,” said she. “You see, I know you, for Dr. Seward has told me of you.” He made no immediate reply, but eyed her all over intently with a set frown on his face. This look gave way to one of wonder, which merged in doubt; then, to my intense astonishment, he said:--

“You’re not the girl the doctor wanted to marry, are you? You can’t be, you know, for she’s dead.” Mrs. Harker smiled sweetly as she replied:--

“Oh no! I have a husband of my own, to whom I was married before I ever saw Dr. Seward, or he me. I am Mrs. Harker.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“My husband and I are staying on a visit with Dr. Seward.”

“Then don’t stay.”

“But why not?” I thought that this style of conversation might not be pleasant to Mrs. Harker, any more than it was to me, so I joined in:--

“How did you know I wanted to marry any one?” His reply was simply contemptuous, given in a pause in which he turned his eyes from Mrs. Harker to me, instantly turning them back again:--

“What an asinine question!”

“I don’t see that at all, Mr. Renfield,” said Mrs. Harker, at once championing me. He replied to her with as much courtesy and respect as he had shown contempt to me:--

“You will, of course, understand, Mrs. Harker, that when a man is so loved and honoured as our host is, everything regarding him is of interest in our little community. Dr. Seward is loved not only by his household and his friends, but even by his patients, who, being some of them hardly in mental equilibrium, are apt to distort causes and effects. Since I myself have been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, I cannot but notice that the sophistic tendencies of some of its inmates lean towards the errors of non causa and ignoratio elenchi.” I positively opened my eyes at this new development. Here was my own pet lunatic—the most pronounced of his type that I had ever met with—talking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman. I wonder if it was Mrs. Harker’s presence which had touched some chord in his memory. If this new phase was spontaneous, or in any way due to her unconscious influence, she must have some rare gift or power.

We continued to talk for some time; and, seeing that he was seemingly quite reasonable, she ventured, looking at me questioningly as she began, to lead him to his favourite topic. I was again astonished, for he addressed himself to the question with the impartiality of the completest sanity; he even took himself as an example when he mentioned certain things.

“Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to take human life. The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his blood—relying, of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, ‘For the blood is the life.’ Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has vulgarised the truism to the very point of contempt. Isn’t that true, doctor?” I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what to either think or say; it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat up his spiders and flies not five minutes before. Looking at my watch, I saw that I should go to the station to meet Van Helsing, so I told Mrs. Harker that it was time to leave. She came at once, after saying pleasantly to Mr. Renfield: “Good-bye, and I hope I may see you often, under auspices pleasanter to yourself,” to which, to my astonishment, he replied:--

“Good-bye, my dear. I pray God I may never see your sweet face again. May He bless and keep you!”

When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing I left the boys behind me. Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first took ill, and Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has been for many a long day.

Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a boy. He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying:--

“Ah, friend John, how goes all? Well? So! I have been busy, for I come here to stay if need be. All affairs are settled with me, and I have much to tell. Madam Mina is with you? Yes. And her so fine husband? And Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too? Good!”

As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed, and of how my own diary had come to be of some use through Mrs. Harker’s suggestion; at which the Professor interrupted me:--

“Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man’s brain—a brain that a man should have were he much gifted—and a woman’s heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help to us; after to-night she must not have to do with this so terrible affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are determined—nay, are we not pledged?—to destroy this monster; but it is no part for a woman. Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer—both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And, besides, she is young woman and not so long married; there may be other things to think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has wrote all, then she must consult with us; but to-morrow she say good-bye to this work, and we go alone.” I agreed heartily with him, and then I told him what we had found in his absence: that the house which Dracula had bought was the very next one to my own. He was amazed, and a great concern seemed to come on him. “Oh that we had known it before!” he said, “for then we might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy. However, ‘the milk that is spilt cries not out afterwards,’ as you say. We shall not think of that, but go on our way to the end.” Then he fell into a silence that lasted till we entered my own gateway. Before we went to prepare for dinner he said to Mrs. Harker:--

“I am told, Madam Mina, by my friend John that you and your husband have put up in exact order all things that have been, up to this moment.”

“Not up to this moment, Professor,” she said impulsively, “but up to this morning.”

“But why not up to now? We have seen hitherto how good light all the little things have made. We have told our secrets, and yet no one who has told is the worse for it.”

Mrs. Harker began to blush, and taking a paper from her pockets, she said:--

“Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go in. It is my record of to-day. I too have seen the need of putting down at present everything, however trivial; but there is little in this except what is personal. Must it go in?” The Professor read it over gravely, and handed it back, saying:--

“It need not go in if you do not wish it; but I pray that it may. It can but make your husband love you the more, and all us, your friends, more honour you—as well as more esteem and love.” She took it back with another blush and a bright smile.

And so now, up to this very hour, all the records we have are complete and in order. The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner, and before our meeting, which is fixed for nine o’clock. The rest of us have already read everything; so when we meet in the study we shall all be informed as to facts, and can arrange our plan of battle with this terrible and mysterious enemy.

Mina Harker’s Journal.

30 September.—When we met in Dr. Seward’s study two hours after dinner, which had been at six o’clock, we unconsciously formed a sort of board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary; Jonathan sat next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris—Lord Godalming being next the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the centre. The Professor said:--

“I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts that are in these papers.” We all expressed assent, and he went on:--

“Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind of enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me. So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure according.

“There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that through long years I have train myself to keep an open mind, I could not have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. ‘See! see! I prove; I prove.’ Alas! Had I known at the first what now I know—nay, had I even guess at him—one so precious life had been spared to many of us who did love her. But that is gone; and we must so work, that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and the bat—the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to begin our strike to destroy him? How shall we find his where; and having found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much; it is a terrible task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win; and then where end we? Life is nothings; I heed him not. But to fail here, is not mere life or death. It is that we become as him; that we henceforward become foul things of the night like him—without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us for ever are the gates of heaven shut; for who shall open them to us again? We go on for all time abhorred by all; a blot on the face of God’s sunshine; an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face to face with duty; and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say, no; but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his song of birds, his music and his love, lie far behind. You others are young. Some have seen sorrow; but there are fair days yet in store. What say you?”

Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I saw his hand stretch out; but it was life to me to feel its touch—so strong, so self-reliant, so resolute. A brave man’s hand can speak for itself; it does not even need a woman’s love to hear its music.

When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I in his; there was no need for speaking between us.

“I answer for Mina and myself,” he said.

“Count me in, Professor,” said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as usual.

“I am with you,” said Lord Godalming, “for Lucy’s sake, if for no other reason.”

Dr. Seward simply nodded. The Professor stood up and, after laying his golden crucifix on the table, held out his hand on either side. I took his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left; Jonathan held my right with his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took hands our solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing went on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work had begun. It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way, as any other transaction of life:--

“Well, you know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not without strength. We have on our side power of combination—a power denied to the vampire kind; we have sources of science; we are free to act and think; and the hours of the day and the night are ours equally. In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered, and we are free to use them. We have self-devotion in a cause, and an end to achieve which is not a selfish one. These things are much.

“Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against us are restrict, and how the individual cannot. In fine, let us consider the limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular.

“All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions. These do not at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and death—nay of more than either life or death. Yet must we be 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 Chernosese; and in China, so far from us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples fear 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 to 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 wolfs, 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 are we 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 Turkey-land. 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.”

Whilst they were talking Mr. Morris was looking steadily at the window, and he now got up quietly, and went out of the room. There was a little pause, and then the Professor went on:--

“And now we must settle what we do. We have here much data, and we must proceed to lay out our campaign. We know from the inquiry of Jonathan that from the castle to Whitby came fifty boxes of earth, all of which were delivered at Carfax; we also know that at least some of these boxes have been removed. It seems to me, that our first step should be to ascertain whether all the rest remain in the house beyond that wall where we look to-day; or whether any more have been removed. If the latter, we must trace——”

Here we were interrupted in a very startling way. Outside the house came the sound of a pistol-shot; the glass of the window was shattered with a bullet, which, ricochetting from the top of the embrasure, struck the far wall of the room. I am afraid I am at heart a coward, for I shrieked out. The men all jumped to their feet; Lord Godalming flew over to the window and threw up the sash. As he did so we heard Mr. Morris’s voice without:--

“Sorry! I fear I have alarmed you. I shall come in and tell you about it.” A minute later he came in and said:--

“It was an idiotic thing of me to do, and I ask your pardon, Mrs. Harker, most sincerely; I fear I must have frightened you terribly. But the fact is that whilst the Professor was talking there came a big bat and sat on the window-sill. I have got such a horror of the damned brutes from recent events that I cannot stand them, and I went out to have a shot, as I have been doing of late of evenings, whenever I have seen one. You used to laugh at me for it then, Art.”

“Did you hit it?” asked Dr. Van Helsing.

“I don’t know; I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood.” Without saying any more he took his seat, and the Professor began to resume his statement:--

“We must trace each of these boxes; and when we are ready, we must either capture or kill this monster in his lair; or we must, so to speak, sterilise the earth, so that no more he can seek safety in it. Thus in the end we may find him in his form of man between the hours of noon and sunset, and so engage with him when he is at his most weak.

“And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all be well. You are too precious to us to have such risk. When we part to-night, you no more must question. We shall tell you all in good time. We are men and are able to bear; but you must be our star and our hope, and we shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such as we are.”

All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved; but it did not seem to me good that they should brave danger and, perhaps, lessen their safety—strength being the best safety—through care of me; but their minds were made up, and, though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, I could say nothing, save to accept their chivalrous care of me.

Mr. Morris resumed the discussion:--

“As there is no time to lose, I vote we have a look at his house right now. Time is everything with him; and swift action on our part may save another victim.”

I own that my heart began to fail me when the time for action came so close, but I did not say anything, for I had a greater fear that if I appeared as a drag or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave me out of their counsels altogether. They have now gone off to Carfax, with means to get into the house.

Manlike, they had told me to go to bed and sleep; as if a woman can sleep when those she loves are in danger! I shall lie down and pretend to sleep, lest Jonathan have added anxiety about me when he returns.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

1 October, 4 a. m.—Just as we were about to leave the house, an urgent message was brought to me from Renfield to know if I would see him at once, as he had something of the utmost importance to say to me. I told the messenger to say that I would attend to his wishes in the morning; I was busy just at the moment. The attendant added:--

“He seems very importunate, sir. I have never seen him so eager. I don’t know but what, if you don’t see him soon, he will have one of his violent fits.” I knew the man would not have said this without some cause, so I said: “All right; I’ll go now”; and I asked the others to wait a few minutes for me, as I had to go and see my “patient.”

“Take me with you, friend John,” said the Professor. “His case in your diary interest me much, and it had bearing, too, now and again on our case. I should much like to see him, and especial when his mind is disturbed.”

“May I come also?” asked Lord Godalming.

“Me too?” said Quincey Morris. “May I come?” said Harker. I nodded, and we all went down the passage together.

We found him in a state of considerable excitement, but far more rational in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him. There was an unusual understanding of himself, which was unlike anything I had ever met with in a lunatic; and he took it for granted that his reasons would prevail with others entirely sane. We all four went into the room, but none of the others at first said anything. His request was that I would at once release him from the asylum and send him home. This he backed up with arguments regarding his complete recovery, and adduced his own existing sanity. “I appeal to your friends,” he said, “they will, perhaps, not mind sitting in judgment on my case. By the way, you have not introduced me.” I was so much astonished, that the oddness of introducing a madman in an asylum did not strike me at the moment; and, besides, there was a certain dignity in the man’s manner, so much of the habit of equality, that I at once made the introduction: “Lord Godalming; Professor Van Helsing; Mr. Quincey Morris, of Texas; Mr. Renfield.” He shook hands with each of them, saying in turn:--

“Lord Godalming, I had the honour of seconding your father at the Windham; I grieve to know, by your holding the title, that he is no more. He was a man loved and honoured by all who knew him; and in his youth was, I have heard, the inventor of a burnt rum punch, much patronised on Derby night. Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great state. Its reception into the Union was a precedent which may have far-reaching effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold alliance to the Stars and Stripes. The power of Treaty may yet prove a vast engine of enlargement, when the Monroe doctrine takes its true place as a political fable. What shall any man say of his pleasure at meeting Van Helsing? Sir, I make no apology for dropping all forms of conventional prefix. When an individual has revolutionised therapeutics by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brain-matter, conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to limit him to one of a class. You, gentlemen, who by nationality, by heredity, or by the possession of natural gifts, are fitted to hold your respective places in the moving world, I take to witness that I am as sane as at least the majority of men who are in full possession of their liberties. And I am sure that you, Dr. Seward, humanitarian and medico-jurist as well as scientist, will deem it a moral duty to deal with me as one to be considered as under exceptional circumstances.” He made this last appeal with a courtly air of conviction which was not without its own charm.

I think we were all staggered. For my own part, I was under the conviction, despite my knowledge of the man’s character and history, that his reason had been restored; and I felt under a strong impulse to tell him that I was satisfied as to his sanity, and would see about the necessary formalities for his release in the morning. I thought it better to wait, however, before making so grave a statement, for of old I knew the sudden changes to which this particular patient was liable. So I contented myself with making a general statement that he appeared to be improving very rapidly; that I would have a longer chat with him in the morning, and would then see what I could do in the direction of meeting his wishes. This did not at all satisfy him, for he said quickly:--

“But I fear, Dr. Seward, that you hardly apprehend my wish. I desire to go at once—here—now—this very hour—this very moment, if I may. Time presses, and in our implied agreement with the old scytheman it is of the essence of the contract. I am sure it is only necessary to put before so admirable a practitioner as Dr. Seward so simple, yet so momentous a wish, to ensure its fulfilment.” He looked at me keenly, and seeing the negative in my face, turned to the others, and scrutinised them closely. Not meeting any sufficient response, he went on:--

“Is it possible that I have erred in my supposition?”

“You have,” I said frankly, but at the same time, as I felt, brutally. There was a considerable pause, and then he said slowly:--

“Then I suppose I must only shift my ground of request. Let me ask for this concession—boon, privilege, what you will. I am content to implore in such a case, not on personal grounds, but for the sake of others. I am not at liberty to give you the whole of my reasons; but you may, I assure you, take it from me that they are good ones, sound and unselfish, and spring from the highest sense of duty. Could you look, sir, into my heart, you would approve to the full the sentiments which animate me. Nay, more, you would count me amongst the best and truest of your friends.” Again he looked at us all keenly. I had a growing conviction that this sudden change of his entire intellectual method was but yet another form or phase of his madness, and so determined to let him go on a little longer, knowing from experience that he would, like all lunatics, give himself away in the end. Van Helsing was gazing at him with a look of utmost intensity, his bushy eyebrows almost meeting with the fixed concentration of his look. He said to Renfield in a tone which did not surprise me at the time, but only when I thought of it afterwards—for it was as of one addressing an equal:--

“Can you not tell frankly your real reason for wishing to be free to-night? I will undertake that if you will satisfy even me—a stranger, without prejudice, and with the habit of keeping an open mind—Dr. Seward will give you, at his own risk and on his own responsibility, the privilege you seek.” He shook his head sadly, and with a look of poignant regret on his face. The Professor went on:--

“Come, sir, bethink yourself. You claim the privilege of reason in the highest degree, since you seek to impress us with your complete reasonableness. You do this, whose sanity we have reason to doubt, since you are not yet released from medical treatment for this very defect. If you will not help us in our effort to choose the wisest course, how can we perform the duty which you yourself put upon us? Be wise, and help us; and if we can we shall aid you to achieve your wish.” He still shook his head as he said:--

“Dr. Van Helsing, I have nothing to say. Your argument is complete, and if I were free to speak I should not hesitate a moment; but I am not my own master in the matter. I can only ask you to trust me. If I am refused, the responsibility does not rest with me.” I thought it was now time to end the scene, which was becoming too comically grave, so I went towards the door, simply saying:--

“Come, my friends, we have work to do. Good-night.”

As, however, I got near the door, a new change came over the patient. He moved towards me so quickly that for the moment I feared that he was about to make another homicidal attack. My fears, however, were groundless, for he held up his two hands imploringly, and made his petition in a moving manner. As he saw that the very excess of his emotion was militating against him, by restoring us more to our old relations, he became still more demonstrative. I glanced at Van Helsing, and saw my conviction reflected in his eyes; so I became a little more fixed in my manner, if not more stern, and motioned to him that his efforts were unavailing. I had previously seen something of the same constantly growing excitement in him when he had to make some request of which at the time he had thought much, such, for instance, as when he wanted a cat; and I was prepared to see the collapse into the same sullen acquiescence on this occasion. My expectation was not realised, for, when he found that his appeal would not be successful, he got into quite a frantic condition. He threw himself on his knees, and held up his hands, wringing them in plaintive supplication, and poured forth a torrent of entreaty, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, and his whole face and form expressive of the deepest emotion:--

“Let me entreat you, Dr. Seward, oh, let me implore you, to let me out of this house at once. Send me away how you will and where you will; send keepers with me with whips and chains; let them take me in a strait-waistcoat, manacled and leg-ironed, even to a gaol; but let me go out of this. You don’t know what you do by keeping me here. I am speaking from the depths of my heart—of my very soul. You don’t know whom you wrong, or how; and I may not tell. Woe is me! I may not tell. By all you hold sacred—by all you hold dear—by your love that is lost—by your hope that lives—for the sake of the Almighty, take me out of this and save my soul from guilt! Can’t you hear me, man? Can’t you understand? Will you never learn? Don’t you know that I am sane and earnest now; that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting for his soul? Oh, hear me! hear me! Let me go! let me go! let me go!”

I thought that the longer this went on the wilder he would get, and so would bring on a fit; so I took him by the hand and raised him up.

“Come,” I said sternly, “no more of this; we have had quite enough already. Get to your bed and try to behave more discreetly.”

He suddenly stopped and looked at me intently for several moments. Then, without a word, he rose and moving over, sat down on the side of the bed. The collapse had come, as on former occasion, just as I had expected.

When I was leaving the room, last of our party, he said to me in a quiet, well-bred voice:--

“You will, I trust, Dr. Seward, do me the justice to bear in mind, later on, that I did what I could to convince you to-night.”

CHAPTER XIX

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

1 October, 5 a. m.—I went with the party to the search with an easy mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well. I am so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work. Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at all; but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and that she can henceforth leave the rest to us. We were, I think, all a little upset by the scene with Mr. Renfield. When we came away from his room we were silent till we got back to the study. Then Mr. Morris said to Dr. Seward:--

“Say, Jack, if that man wasn’t attempting a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw. I’m not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him not to get a chance.” Lord Godalming and I were silent, but Dr. Van Helsing added:--

“Friend John, you know more of lunatics than I do, and I’m glad of it, for I fear that if it had been to me to decide I would before that last hysterical outburst have given him free. But we live and learn, and in our present task we must take no chance, as my friend Quincey would say. All is best as they are.” Dr. Seward seemed to answer them both in a dreamy kind of way:--

“I don’t know but that I agree with you. If that man had been an ordinary lunatic I would have taken my chance of trusting him; but he seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way that I am afraid of doing anything wrong by helping his fads. I can’t forget how he prayed with almost equal fervour for a cat, and then tried to tear my throat out with his teeth. Besides, he called the Count ‘lord and master,’ and he may want to get out to help him in some diabolical way. That horrid thing has the wolves and the rats and his own kind to help him, so I suppose he isn’t above trying to use a respectable lunatic. He certainly did seem earnest, though. I only hope we have done what is best. These things, in conjunction with the wild work we have in hand, help to unnerve a man.” The Professor stepped over, and laying his hand on his shoulder, said in his grave, kindly way:--

“Friend John, have no fear. We are trying to do our duty in a very sad and terrible case; we can only do as we deem best. What else have we to hope for, except the pity of the good God?” Lord Godalming had slipped away for a few minutes, but now he returned. He held up a little silver whistle, as he remarked:--

“That old place may be full of rats, and if so, I’ve got an antidote on call.” Having passed the wall, we took our way to the house, taking care to keep in the shadows of the trees on the lawn when the moonlight shone out. When we got to the porch the Professor opened his bag and took out a lot of things, which he laid on the step, sorting them into four little groups, evidently one for each. Then he spoke:--

“My friends, we are going into a terrible danger, and we need arms of many kinds. Our enemy is not merely spiritual. Remember that he has the strength of twenty men, and that, though our necks or our windpipes are of the common kind—and therefore breakable or crushable—his are not amenable to mere strength. A stronger man, or a body of men more strong in all than him, can at certain times hold him; but they cannot hurt him as we can be hurt by him. We must, therefore, guard ourselves from his touch. Keep this near your heart”—as he spoke he lifted a little silver crucifix and held it out to me, I being nearest to him—“put these flowers round your neck”—here he handed to me a wreath of withered garlic blossoms—“for other enemies more mundane, this revolver and this knife; and for aid in all, these so small electric lamps, which you can fasten to your breast; and for all, and above all at the last, this, which we must not desecrate needless.” This was a portion of Sacred Wafer, which he put in an envelope and handed to me. Each of the others was similarly equipped. “Now,” he said, “friend John, where are the skeleton keys? If so that we can open the door, we need not break house by the window, as before at Miss Lucy’s.”

Dr. Seward tried one or two skeleton keys, his mechanical dexterity as a surgeon standing him in good stead. Presently he got one to suit; after a little play back and forward the bolt yielded, and, with a rusty clang, shot back. We pressed on the door, the rusty hinges creaked, and it slowly opened. It was startlingly like the image conveyed to me in Dr. Seward’s diary of the opening of Miss Westenra’s tomb; I fancy that the same idea seemed to strike the others, for with one accord they shrank back. The Professor was the first to move forward, and stepped into the open door.

“In manus tuas, Domine!” he said, crossing himself as he passed over the threshold. We closed the door behind us, lest when we should have lit our lamps we should possibly attract attention from the road. The Professor carefully tried the lock, lest we might not be able to open it from within should we be in a hurry making our exit. Then we all lit our lamps and proceeded on our search.

The light from the tiny lamps fell in all sorts of odd forms, as the rays crossed each other, or the opacity of our bodies threw great shadows. I could not for my life get away from the feeling that there was some one else amongst us. I suppose it was the recollection, so powerfully brought home to me by the grim surroundings, of that terrible experience in Transylvania. I think the feeling was common to us all, for I noticed that the others kept looking over their shoulders at every sound and every new shadow, just as I felt myself doing.

The whole place was thick with dust. The floor was seemingly inches deep, except where there were recent footsteps, in which on holding down my lamp I could see marks of hobnails where the dust was cracked. The walls were fluffy and heavy with dust, and in the corners were masses of spider’s webs, whereon the dust had gathered till they looked like old tattered rags as the weight had torn them partly down. On a table in the hall was a great bunch of keys, with a time-yellowed label on each. They had been used several times, for on the table were several similar rents in the blanket of dust, similar to that exposed when the Professor lifted them. He turned to me and said:--

“You know this place, Jonathan. You have copied maps of it, and you know it at least more than we do. Which is the way to the chapel?” I had an idea of its direction, though on my former visit I had not been able to get admission to it; so I led the way, and after a few wrong turnings found myself opposite a low, arched oaken door, ribbed with iron bands. “This is the spot,” said the Professor as he turned his lamp on a small map of the house, copied from the file of my original correspondence regarding the purchase. With a little trouble we found the key on the bunch and opened the door. We were prepared for some unpleasantness, for as we were opening the door a faint, malodorous air seemed to exhale through the gaps, but none of us ever expected such an odour as we encountered. None of the others had met the Count at all at close quarters, and when I had seen him he was either in the fasting stage of his existence in his rooms or, when he was gloated with fresh blood, in a ruined building open to the air; but here the place was small and close, and the long disuse had made the air stagnant and foul. There was an earthy smell, as of some dry miasma, which came through the fouler air. But as to the odour itself, how shall I describe it? It was not alone that it was composed of all the ills of mortality and with the pungent, acrid smell of blood, but it seemed as though corruption had become itself corrupt. Faugh! it sickens me to think of it. Every breath exhaled by that monster seemed to have clung to the place and intensified its loathsomeness.

Under ordinary circumstances such a stench would have brought our enterprise to an end; but this was no ordinary case, and the high and terrible purpose in which we were involved gave us a strength which rose above merely physical considerations. After the involuntary shrinking consequent on the first nauseous whiff, we one and all set about our work as though that loathsome place were a garden of roses.

We made an accurate examination of the place, the Professor saying as we began:--

“The first thing is to see how many of the boxes are left; we must then examine every hole and corner and cranny and see if we cannot get some clue as to what has become of the rest.” A glance was sufficient to show how many remained, for the great earth chests were bulky, and there was no mistaking them.

There were only twenty-nine left out of the fifty! Once I got a fright, for, seeing Lord Godalming suddenly turn and look out of the vaulted door into the dark passage beyond, I looked too, and for an instant my heart stood still. Somewhere, looking out from the shadow, I seemed to see the high lights of the Count’s evil face, the ridge of the nose, the red eyes, the red lips, the awful pallor. It was only for a moment, for, as Lord Godalming said, “I thought I saw a face, but it was only the shadows,” and resumed his inquiry, I turned my lamp in the direction, and stepped into the passage. There was no sign of any one; and as there were no corners, no doors, no aperture of any kind, but only the solid walls of the passage, there could be no hiding-place even for him. I took it that fear had helped imagination, and said nothing.

A few minutes later I saw Morris step suddenly back from a corner, which he was examining. We all followed his movements with our eyes, for undoubtedly some nervousness was growing on us, and we saw a whole mass of phosphorescence, which twinkled like stars. We all instinctively drew back. The whole place was becoming alive with rats.

For a moment or two we stood appalled, all save Lord Godalming, who was seemingly prepared for such an emergency. Rushing over to the great iron-bound oaken door, which Dr. Seward had described from the outside, and which I had seen myself, he turned the key in the lock, drew the huge bolts, and swung the door open. Then, taking his little silver whistle from his pocket, he blew a low, shrill call. It was answered from behind Dr. Seward’s house by the yelping of dogs, and after about a minute three terriers came dashing round the corner of the house. Unconsciously we had all moved towards the door, and as we moved I noticed that the dust had been much disturbed: the boxes which had been taken out had been brought this way. But even in the minute that had elapsed the number of the rats had vastly increased. They seemed to swarm over the place all at once, till the lamplight, shining on their moving dark bodies and glittering, baleful eyes, made the place look like a bank of earth set with fireflies. The dogs dashed on, but at the threshold suddenly stopped and snarled, and then, simultaneously lifting their noses, began to howl in most lugubrious fashion. The rats were multiplying in thousands, and we moved out.

Lord Godalming lifted one of the dogs, and carrying him in, placed him on the floor. The instant his feet touched the ground he seemed to recover his courage, and rushed at his natural enemies. They fled before him so fast that before he had shaken the life out of a score, the other dogs, who had by now been lifted in the same manner, had but small prey ere the whole mass had vanished.

With their going it seemed as if some evil presence had departed, for the dogs frisked about and barked merrily as they made sudden darts at their prostrate foes, and turned them over and over and tossed them in the air with vicious shakes. We all seemed to find our spirits rise. Whether it was the purifying of the deadly atmosphere by the opening of the chapel door, or the relief which we experienced by finding ourselves in the open I know not; but most certainly the shadow of dread seemed to slip from us like a robe, and the occasion of our coming lost something of its grim significance, though we did not slacken a whit in our resolution. We closed the outer door and barred and locked it, and bringing the dogs with us, began our search of the house. We found nothing throughout except dust in extraordinary proportions, and all untouched save for my own footsteps when I had made my first visit. Never once did the dogs exhibit any symptom of uneasiness, and even when we returned to the chapel they frisked about as though they had been rabbit-hunting in a summer wood.

The morning was quickening in the east when we emerged from the front. Dr. Van Helsing had taken the key of the hall-door from the bunch, and locked the door in orthodox fashion, putting the key into his pocket when he had done.

“So far,” he said, “our night has been eminently successful. No harm has come to us such as I feared might be and yet we have ascertained how many boxes are missing. More than all do I rejoice that this, our first—and perhaps our most difficult and dangerous—step has been accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina or troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds and smells of horror which she might never forget. One lesson, too, we have learned, if it be allowable to argue a particulari: that the brute beasts which are to the Count’s command are yet themselves not amenable to his spiritual power; for look, these rats that would come to his call, just as from his castle top he summon the wolves to your going and to that poor mother’s cry, though they come to him, they run pell-mell from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur. We have other matters before us, other dangers, other fears; and that monster—he has not used his power over the brute world for the only or the last time to-night. So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It has given us opportunity to cry ‘check’ in some ways in this chess game, which we play for the stake of human souls. And now let us go home. The dawn is close at hand, and we have reason to be content with our first night’s work. It may be ordained that we have many nights and days to follow, if full of peril; but we must go on, and from no danger shall we shrink.”

The house was silent when we got back, save for some poor creature who was screaming away in one of the distant wards, and a low, moaning sound from Renfield’s room. The poor wretch was doubtless torturing himself, after the manner of the insane, with needless thoughts of pain.

I came tiptoe into our own room, and found Mina asleep, breathing so softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it. She looks paler than usual. I hope the meeting to-night has not upset her. I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. Therefore I am glad that it is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear; and yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world. I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and to-morrow I shall keep dark over to-night’s doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened. I rest on the sofa, so as not to disturb her.

 

1 October, later.—I suppose it was natural that we should have all overslept ourselves, for the day was a busy one, and the night had no rest at all. Even Mina must have felt its exhaustion, for though I slept till the sun was high, I was awake before her, and had to call two or three times before she awoke. Indeed, she was so sound asleep that for a few seconds she did not recognize me, but looked at me with a sort of blank terror, as one looks who has been waked out of a bad dream. She complained a little of being tired, and I let her rest till later in the day. We now know of twenty-one boxes having been removed, and if it be that several were taken in any of these removals we may be able to trace them all. Such will, of course, immensely simplify our labour, and the sooner the matter is attended to the better. I shall look up Thomas Snelling to-day.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

1 October.—It was towards noon when I was awakened by the Professor walking into my room. He was more jolly and cheerful than usual, and it is quite evident that last night’s work has helped to take some of the brooding weight off his mind. After going over the adventure of the night he suddenly said:--

“Your patient interests me much. May it be that with you I visit him this morning? Or if that you are too occupy, I can go alone if it may be. It is a new experience to me to find a lunatic who talk philosophy, and reason so sound.” I had some work to do which pressed, so I told him that if he would go alone I would be glad, as then I should not have to keep him waiting; so I called an attendant and gave him the necessary instructions. Before the Professor left the room I cautioned him against getting any false impression from my patient. “But,” he answered, “I want him to talk of himself and of his delusion as to consuming live things. He said to Madam Mina, as I see in your diary of yesterday, that he had once had such a belief. Why do you smile, friend John?”

“Excuse me,” I said, “but the answer is here.” I laid my hand on the type-written matter. “When our sane and learned lunatic made that very statement of how he used to consume life, his mouth was actually nauseous with the flies and spiders which he had eaten just before Mrs. Harker entered the room.” Van Helsing smiled in turn. “Good!” he said. “Your memory is true, friend John. I should have remembered. And yet it is this very obliquity of thought and memory which makes mental disease such a fascinating study. Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the folly of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise. Who knows?” I went on with my work, and before long was through that in hand. It seemed that the time had been very short indeed, but there was Van Helsing back in the study. “Do I interrupt?” he asked politely as he stood at the door.

“Not at all,” I answered. “Come in. My work is finished, and I am free. I can go with you now, if you like.

“It is needless; I have seen him!”

“Well?”

“I fear that he does not appraise me at much. Our interview was short. When I entered his room he was sitting on a stool in the centre, with his elbows on his knees, and his face was the picture of sullen discontent. I spoke to him as cheerfully as I could, and with such a measure of respect as I could assume. He made no reply whatever. “Don’t you know me?” I asked. His answer was not reassuring: “I know you well enough; you are the old fool Van Helsing. I wish you would take yourself and your idiotic brain theories somewhere else. Damn all thick-headed Dutchmen!” Not a word more would he say, but sat in his implacable sullenness as indifferent to me as though I had not been in the room at all. Thus departed for this time my chance of much learning from this so clever lunatic; so I shall go, if I may, and cheer myself with a few happy words with that sweet soul Madam Mina. Friend John, it does rejoice me unspeakable that she is no more to be pained, no more to be worried with our terrible things. Though we shall much miss her help, it is better so.”

“I agree with you with all my heart,” I answered earnestly, for I did not want him to weaken in this matter. “Mrs. Harker is better out of it. Things are quite bad enough for us, all men of the world, and who have been in many tight places in our time; but it is no place for a woman, and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in time infallibly have wrecked her.”

So Van Helsing has gone to confer with Mrs. Harker and Harker; Quincey and Art are all out following up the clues as to the earth-boxes. I shall finish my round of work and we shall meet to-night.

Mina Harker’s Journal.

1 October.—It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am to-day; after Jonathan’s full confidence for so many years, to see him manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all. This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of what had happened in the visit to the Count’s house. And yet he must have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I know it comes from my husband’s great love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men.

That has done me good. Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all; and lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has feared of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my heart put down for his dear eyes to read. I feel strangely sad and low-spirited to-day. I suppose it is the reaction from the terrible excitement.

Last night I went to bed when the men had gone, simply because they told me to. I didn’t feel sleepy, and I did feel full of devouring anxiety. I kept thinking over everything that has been ever since Jonathan came to see me in London, and it all seems like a horrible tragedy, with fate pressing on relentlessly to some destined end. Everything that one does seems, no matter how right it may be, to bring on the very thing which is most to be deplored. If I hadn’t gone to Whitby, perhaps poor dear Lucy would be with us now. She hadn’t taken to visiting the churchyard till I came, and if she hadn’t come there in the day-time with me she wouldn’t have walked there in her sleep; and if she hadn’t gone there at night and asleep, that monster couldn’t have destroyed her as he did. Oh, why did I ever go to Whitby? There now, crying again! I wonder what has come over me to-day. I must hide it from Jonathan, for if he knew that I had been crying twice in one morning—I, who never cried on my own account, and whom he has never caused to shed a tear—the dear fellow would fret his heart out. I shall put a bold face on, and if I do feel weepy, he shall never see it. I suppose it is one of the lessons that we poor women have to learn....

I can’t quite remember how I fell asleep last night. I remember hearing the sudden barking of the dogs and a lot of queer sounds, like praying on a very tumultuous scale, from Mr. Renfield’s room, which is somewhere under this. And then there was silence over everything, silence so profound that it startled me, and I got up and looked out of the window. All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by the moonlight seeming full of a silent mystery of their own. Not a thing seemed to be stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or fate; so that a thin streak of white mist, that crept with almost imperceptible slowness across the grass towards the house, seemed to have a sentience and a vitality of its own. I think that the digression of my thoughts must have done me good, for when I got back to bed I found a lethargy creeping over me. I lay a while, but could not quite sleep, so I got out and looked out of the window again. The mist was spreading, and was now close up to the house, so that I could see it lying thick against the wall, as though it were stealing up to the windows. The poor man was more loud than ever, and though I could not distinguish a word he said, I could in some way recognise in his tones some passionate entreaty on his part. Then there was the sound of a struggle, and I knew that the attendants were dealing with him. I was so frightened that I crept into bed, and pulled the clothes over my head, putting my fingers in my ears. I was not then a bit sleepy, at least so I thought; but I must have fallen asleep, for, except dreams, I do not remember anything until the morning, when Jonathan woke me. I think that it took me an effort and a little time to realise where I was, and that it was Jonathan who was bending over me. My dream was very peculiar, and was almost typical of the way that waking thoughts become merged in, or continued in, dreams.

I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to come back. I was very anxious about him, and I was powerless to act; my feet, and my hands, and my brain were weighted, so that nothing could proceed at the usual pace. And so I slept uneasily and thought. Then it began to dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was dim around. The gaslight which I had left lit for Jonathan, but turned down, came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which had evidently grown thicker and poured into the room. Then it occurred to me that I had shut the window before I had come to bed. I would have got out to make certain on the point, but some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my limbs and even my will. I lay still and endured; that was all. I closed my eyes, but could still see through my eyelids. (It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.) The mist grew thicker and thicker and I could see now how it came in, for I could see it like smoke—or with the white energy of boiling water—pouring in, not through the window, but through the joinings of the door. It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed as if it became concentrated into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room, through the top of which I could see the light of the gas shining like a red eye. Things began to whirl through my brain just as the cloudy column was now whirling in the room, and through it all came the scriptural words “a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.” Was it indeed some such spiritual guidance that was coming to me in my sleep? But the pillar was composed of both the day and the night-guiding, for the fire was in the red eye, which at the thought got a new fascination for me; till, as I looked, the fire divided, and seemed to shine on me through the fog like two red eyes, such as Lucy told me of in her momentary mental wandering when, on the cliff, the dying sunlight struck the windows of St. Mary’s Church. Suddenly the horror burst upon me that it was thus that Jonathan had seen those awful women growing into reality through the whirling mist in the moonlight, and in my dream I must have fainted, for all became black darkness. The last conscious effort which imagination made was to show me a livid white face bending over me out of the mist. I must be careful of such dreams, for they would unseat one’s reason if there were too much of them. I would get Dr. Van Helsing or Dr. Seward to prescribe something for me which would make me sleep, only that I fear to alarm them. Such a dream at the present time would become woven into their fears for me. To-night I shall strive hard to sleep naturally. If I do not, I shall to-morrow night get them to give me a dose of chloral; that cannot hurt me for once, and it will give me a good night’s sleep. Last night tired me more than if I had not slept at all.

 

2 October 10 p. m.—Last night I slept, but did not dream. I must have slept soundly, for I was not waked by Jonathan coming to bed; but the sleep has not refreshed me, for to-day I feel terribly weak and spiritless. I spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down dozing. In the afternoon Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me. Poor man, he was very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and bade God bless me. Some way it affected me much; I am crying when I think of him. This is a new weakness, of which I must be careful. Jonathan would be miserable if he knew I had been crying. He and the others were out till dinner-time, and they all came in tired. I did what I could to brighten them up, and I suppose that the effort did me good, for I forgot how tired I was. After dinner they sent me to bed, and all went off to smoke together, as they said, but I knew that they wanted to tell each other of what had occurred to each during the day; I could see from Jonathan’s manner that he had something important to communicate. I was not so sleepy as I should have been; so before they went I asked Dr. Seward to give me a little opiate of some kind, as I had not slept well the night before. He very kindly made me up a sleeping draught, which he gave to me, telling me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild.... I have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloof. I hope I have not done wrong, for as sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear comes: that I may have been foolish in thus depriving myself of the power of waking. I might want it. Here comes sleep. Good-night.

CHAPTER XX

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

1 October, evening.—I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anything. The very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to him had proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected debauch. I learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor soul, that he was only the assistant to Smollet, who of the two mates was the responsible person. So off I drove to Walworth, and found Mr. Joseph Smollet at home and in his shirtsleeves, taking a late tea out of a saucer. He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good, reliable type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own. He remembered all about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful dog’s-eared notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle about the seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries in thick, half-obliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the boxes. There were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and left at 197, Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which he deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey. If then the Count meant to scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, these places were chosen as the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more fully. The systematic manner in which this was done made me think that he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of London. He was now fixed on the far east of the northern shore, on the east of the southern shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to be left out of his diabolical scheme—let alone the City itself and the very heart of fashionable London in the south-west and west. I went back to Smollet, and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had been taken from Carfax.

He replied:--

“Well, guv’nor, you’ve treated me wery ’an’some”—I had given him half a sovereign—“an’ I’ll tell yer all I know. I heard a man by the name of Bloxam say four nights ago in the ’Are an’ ’Ounds, in Pincher’s Alley, as ’ow he an’ his mate ’ad ’ad a rare dusty job in a old ’ouse at Purfect. There ain’t a-many such jobs as this ’ere, an’ I’m thinkin’ that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut.” I asked if he could tell me where to find him. I told him that if he could get me the address it would be worth another half-sovereign to him. So he gulped down the rest of his tea and stood up, saying that he was going to begin the search then and there. At the door he stopped, and said:--

“Look ’ere, guv’nor, there ain’t no sense in me a-keepin’ you ’ere. I may find Sam soon, or I mayn’t; but anyhow he ain’t like to be in a way to tell ye much to-night. Sam is a rare one when he starts on the booze. If you can give me a envelope with a stamp on it, and put yer address on it, I’ll find out where Sam is to be found and post it ye to-night. But ye’d better be up arter ’im soon in the mornin’, or maybe ye won’t ketch ’im; for Sam gets off main early, never mind the booze the night afore.”

This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny to buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change. When she came back, I addressed the envelope and stamped it, and when Smollet had again faithfully promised to post the address when found, I took my way to home. We’re on the track anyhow. I am tired to-night, and want sleep. Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale; her eyes look as though she had been crying. Poor dear, I’ve no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, for she herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision.

 

2 October, evening.—A long and trying and exciting day. By the first post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on which was written with a carpenter’s pencil in a sprawling hand:--

“Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for the depite.”

I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina. She looked heavy and sleepy and pale, and far from well. I determined not to wake her, but that, when I should return from this new search, I would arrange for her going back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home, with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here amongst us and in ignorance. I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and told him where I was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest so soon as I should have found out anything. I drove to Walworth and found, with some difficulty, Potter’s Court. Mr. Smollet’s spelling misled me, as I asked for Poter’s Court instead of Potter’s Court. However, when I had found the court, I had no difficulty in discovering Corcoran’s lodging-house. When I asked the man who came to the door for the “depite,” he shook his head, and said: “I dunno ’im. There ain’t no such a person ’ere; I never ’eard of ’im in all my bloomin’ days. Don’t believe there ain’t nobody of that kind livin’ ere or anywheres.” I took out Smollet’s letter, and as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name of the court might guide me. “What are you?” I asked.

“I’m the depity,” he answered. I saw at once that I was on the right track; phonetic spelling had again misled me. A half-crown tip put the deputy’s knowledge at my disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam, who had slept off the remains of his beer on the previous night at Corcoran’s, had left for his work at Poplar at five o’clock that morning. He could not tell me where the place of work was situated, but he had a vague idea that it was some kind of a “new-fangled ware’us”; and with this slender clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve o’clock before I got any satisfactory hint of such a building, and this I got at a coffee-shop, where some workmen were having their dinner. One of these suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a new “cold storage” building; and as this suited the condition of a “new-fangled ware’us,” I at once drove to it. An interview with a surly gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam; he was sent for on my suggesting that I was willing to pay his day’s wages to his foreman for the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing. When I had promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he told me that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly, and had taken from this house to the latter nine great boxes—“main heavy ones”—with a horse and cart hired by him for this purpose. I asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly, to which he replied:--

“Well, guv’nor, I forgits the number, but it was only a few doors from a big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built. It was a dusty old ’ouse, too, though nothin’ to the dustiness of the ’ouse we tooked the bloomin’ boxes from.”

“How did you get into the houses if they were both empty?”

“There was the old party what engaged me a-waitin’ in the ’ouse at Purfleet. He ’elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an’ him a old feller, with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldn’t throw a shadder.”

How this phrase thrilled through me!

“Why, ’e took up ’is end o’ the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and me a-puffin’ an’ a-blowin’ afore I could up-end mine anyhow—an’ I’m no chicken, neither.”

“How did you get into the house in Piccadilly?” I asked.

“He was there too. He must ’a’ started off and got there afore me, for when I rung of the bell he kem an’ opened the door ’isself an’ ’elped me to carry the boxes into the ’all.”

“The whole nine?” I asked.

“Yus; there was five in the first load an’ four in the second. It was main dry work, an’ I don’t so well remember ’ow I got ’ome.” I interrupted him:--

“Were the boxes left in the hall?”

“Yus; it was a big ’all, an’ there was nothin’ else in it.” I made one more attempt to further matters:--

“You didn’t have any key?”

“Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent, he opened the door ’isself an’ shut it again when I druv off. I don’t remember the last time—but that was the beer.”

“And you can’t remember the number of the house?”

“No, sir. But ye needn’t have no difficulty about that. It’s a ’igh ’un with a stone front with a bow on it, an’ ’igh steps up to the door. I know them steps, ’avin’ ’ad to carry the boxes up with three loafers what come round to earn a copper. The old gent give them shillin’s, an’ they seein’ they got so much, they wanted more; but ’e took one of them by the shoulder and was like to throw ’im down the steps, till the lot of them went away cussin’.” I thought that with this description I could find the house, so, having paid my friend for his information, I started off for Piccadilly. I had gained a new painful experience; the Count could, it was evident, handle the earth-boxes himself. If so, time was precious; for, now that he had achieved a certain amount of distribution, he could, by choosing his own time, complete the task unobserved. At Piccadilly Circus I discharged my cab, and walked westward; beyond the Junior Constitutional I came across the house described, and was satisfied that this was the next of the lairs arranged by Dracula. The house looked as though it had been long untenanted. The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up. All the framework was black with time, and from the iron the paint had mostly scaled away. It was evident that up to lately there had been a large notice-board in front of the balcony; it had, however, been roughly torn away, the uprights which had supported it still remaining. Behind the rails of the balcony I saw there were some loose boards, whose raw edges looked white. I would have given a good deal to have been able to see the notice-board intact, as it would, perhaps, have given some clue to the ownership of the house. I remembered my experience of the investigation and purchase of Carfax, and I could not but feel that if I could find the former owner there might be some means discovered of gaining access to the house.

There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side, and nothing could be done; so I went round to the back to see if anything could be gathered from this quarter. The mews were active, the Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation. I asked one or two of the grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me anything about the empty house. One of them said that he heard it had lately been taken, but he couldn’t say from whom. He told me, however, that up to very lately there had been a notice-board of “For Sale” up, and that perhaps Mitchell, Sons, & Candy, the house agents, could tell me something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name of that firm on the board. I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant know or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled away. It was now growing dusk, and the autumn night was closing in, so I did not lose any time. Having learned the address of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I was soon at their office in Sackville Street.

The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but uncommunicative in equal proportion. Having once told me that the Piccadilly house—which throughout our interview he called a “mansion”—was sold, he considered my business as concluded. When I asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and paused a few seconds before replying:--

“It is sold, sir.”

“Pardon me,” I said, with equal politeness, “but I have a special reason for wishing to know who purchased it.”

Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. “It is sold, sir,” was again his laconic reply.

“Surely,” I said, “you do not mind letting me know so much.”

“But I do mind,” he answered. “The affairs of their clients are absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy.” This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said:--

“Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their confidence. I am myself a professional man.” Here I handed him my card. “In this instance I am not prompted by curiosity; I act on the part of Lord Godalming, who wishes to know something of the property which was, he understood, lately for sale.” These words put a different complexion on affairs. He said:--

“I would like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially would I like to oblige his lordship. We once carried out a small matter of renting some chambers for him when he was the Honourable Arthur Holmwood. If you will let me have his lordship’s address I will consult the House on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his lordship by to-night’s post. It will be a pleasure if we can so far deviate from our rules as to give the required information to his lordship.”

I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked him, gave the address at Dr. Seward’s and came away. It was now dark, and I was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Aërated Bread Company and came down to Purfleet by the next train.

I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale, but she made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful, it wrung my heart to think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused her inquietude. Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking on at our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our confidence. It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of keeping her out of our grim task. She seems somehow more reconciled; or else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders. I am glad we made our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our growing knowledge would be torture to her.

I could not tell the others of the day’s discovery till we were alone; so after dinner—followed by a little music to save appearances even amongst ourselves—I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed. The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me as though she would detain me; but there was much to be talked of and I came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no difference between us.

When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire in the study. In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply read it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of my own information; when I had finished Van Helsing said:--

“This has been a great day’s work, friend Jonathan. Doubtless we are on the track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, then our work is near the end. But if there be some missing, we must search until we find them. Then shall we make our final coup, and hunt the wretch to his real death.” We all sat silent awhile and all at once Mr. Morris spoke:--

“Say! how are we going to get into that house?”

“We got into the other,” answered Lord Godalming quickly.

“But, Art, this is different. We broke house at Carfax, but we had night and a walled park to protect us. It will be a mighty different thing to commit burglary in Piccadilly, either by day or night. I confess I don’t see how we are going to get in unless that agency duck can find us a key of some sort; perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in the morning.” Lord Godalming’s brows contracted, and he stood up and walked about the room. By-and-by he stopped and said, turning from one to another of us:--

“Quincey’s head is level. This burglary business is getting serious; we got off once all right; but we have now a rare job on hand—unless we can find the Count’s key basket.”

As nothing could well be done before morning, and as it would be at least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming should hear from Mitchell’s, we decided not to take any active step before breakfast time. For a good while we sat and smoked, discussing the matter in its various lights and bearings; I took the opportunity of bringing this diary right up to the moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to bed....

Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regular. Her forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks even in her sleep. She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she did this morning. To-morrow will, I hope, mend all this; she will be herself at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy!

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

1 October.—I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His moods change so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they always mean something more than his own well-being, they form a more than interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him after his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding destiny. He was, in fact, commanding destiny—subjectively. He did not really care for any of the things of mere earth; he was in the clouds and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals. I thought I would improve the occasion and learn something, so I asked him:--

“What about the flies these times?” He smiled on me in quite a superior sort of way—such a smile as would have become the face of Malvolio—as he answered me:--

“The fly, my dear sir, has one striking feature; its wings are typical of the aërial powers of the psychic faculties. The ancients did well when they typified the soul as a butterfly!”

I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost logically, so I said quickly:--

“Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it?” His madness foiled his reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face as, shaking his head with a decision which I had but seldom seen in him, he said:--

“Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want.” Here he brightened up; “I am pretty indifferent about it at present. Life is all right; I have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to study zoöphagy!”

This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on:--

“Then you command life; you are a god, I suppose?” He smiled with an ineffably benign superiority.

“Oh no! Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doings. If I may state my intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things purely terrestrial, somewhat in the position which Enoch occupied spiritually!” This was a poser to me. I could not at the moment recall Enoch’s appositeness; so I had to ask a simple question, though I felt that by so doing I was lowering myself in the eyes of the lunatic:--

“And why with Enoch?”

“Because he walked with God.” I could not see the analogy, but did not like to admit it; so I harked back to what he had denied:--

“So you don’t care about life and you don’t want souls. Why not?” I put my question quickly and somewhat sternly, on purpose to disconcert him. The effort succeeded; for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into his old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon me as he replied:--

“I don’t want any souls, indeed, indeed! I don’t. I couldn’t use them if I had them; they would be no manner of use to me. I couldn’t eat them or——” He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over his face, like a wind-sweep on the surface of the water. “And doctor, as to life, what is it after all? When you’ve got all you require, and you know that you will never want, that is all. I have friends—good friends—like you, Dr. Seward”; this was said with a leer of inexpressible cunning. “I know that I shall never lack the means of life!”

I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he saw some antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on the last refuge of such as he—a dogged silence. After a short time I saw that for the present it was useless to speak to him. He was sulky, and so I came away.

Later in the day he sent for me. Ordinarily I would not have come without special reason, but just at present I am so interested in him that I would gladly make an effort. Besides, I am glad to have anything to help to pass the time. Harker is out, following up clues; and so are Lord Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study poring over the record prepared by the Harkers; he seems to think that by accurate knowledge of all details he will light upon some clue. He does not wish to be disturbed in the work, without cause. I would have taken him with me to see the patient, only I thought that after his last repulse he might not care to go again. There was also another reason: Renfield might not speak so freely before a third person as when he and I were alone.

I found him sitting out in the middle of the floor on his stool, a pose which is generally indicative of some mental energy on his part. When I came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on his lips:--

“What about souls?” It was evident then that my surmise had been correct. Unconscious cerebration was doing its work, even with the lunatic. I determined to have the matter out. “What about them yourself?” I asked. He did not reply for a moment but looked all round him, and up and down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for an answer.

“I don’t want any souls!” he said in a feeble, apologetic way. The matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I determined to use it—to “be cruel only to be kind.” So I said:--

“You like life, and you want life?”

“Oh yes! but that is all right; you needn’t worry about that!”

“But,” I asked, “how are we to get the life without getting the soul also?” This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up:--

“A nice time you’ll have some time when you’re flying out there, with the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing and twittering and miauing all round you. You’ve got their lives, you know, and you must put up with their souls!” Something seemed to affect his imagination, for he put his fingers to his ears and shut his eyes, screwing them up tightly just as a small boy does when his face is being soaped. There was something pathetic in it that touched me; it also gave me a lesson, for it seemed that before me was a child—only a child, though the features were worn, and the stubble on the jaws was white. It was evident that he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance, and, knowing how his past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign to himself, I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and go with him. The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him, speaking pretty loud so that he would hear me through his closed ears:--

“Would you like some sugar to get your flies round again?” He seemed to wake up all at once, and shook his head. With a laugh he replied:--

“Not much! flies are poor things, after all!” After a pause he added, “But I don’t want their souls buzzing round me, all the same.”

“Or spiders?” I went on.

“Blow spiders! What’s the use of spiders? There isn’t anything in them to eat or”—he stopped suddenly, as though reminded of a forbidden topic.

“So, so!” I thought to myself, “this is the second time he has suddenly stopped at the word ‘drink’; what does it mean?” Renfield seemed himself aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract my attention from it:--

“I don’t take any stock at all in such matters. ‘Rats and mice and such small deer,’ as Shakespeare has it, ‘chicken-feed of the larder’ they might be called. I’m past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chop-sticks, as to try to interest me about the lesser carnivora, when I know of what is before me.”

“I see,” I said. “You want big things that you can make your teeth meet in? How would you like to breakfast on elephant?”

“What ridiculous nonsense you are talking!” He was getting too wide awake, so I thought I would press him hard. “I wonder,” I said reflectively, “what an elephant’s soul is like!”

The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his high-horse and became a child again.

“I don’t want an elephant’s soul, or any soul at all!” he said. For a few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement. “To hell with you and your souls!” he shouted. “Why do you plague me about souls? Haven’t I got enough to worry, and pain, and distract me already, without thinking of souls!” He looked so hostile that I thought he was in for another homicidal fit, so I blew my whistle. The instant, however, that I did so he became calm, and said apologetically:--

“Forgive me, Doctor; I forgot myself. You do not need any help. I am so worried in my mind that I am apt to be irritable. If you only knew the problem I have to face, and that I am working out, you would pity, and tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not put me in a strait-waistcoat. I want to think and I cannot think freely when my body is confined. I am sure you will understand!” He had evidently self-control; so when the attendants came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew. Renfield watched them go; when the door was closed he said, with considerable dignity and sweetness:--

“Dr. Seward, you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me that I am very, very grateful to you!” I thought it well to leave him in this mood, and so I came away. There is certainly something to ponder over in this man’s state. Several points seem to make what the American interviewer calls “a story,” if one could only get them in proper order. Here they are:--

Will not mention “drinking.”

Fears the thought of being burdened with the “soul” of anything.

Has no dread of wanting “life” in the future.

Despises the meaner forms of life altogether, though he dreads being haunted by their souls.

Logically all these things point one way! he has assurance of some kind that he will acquire some higher life. He dreads the consequence—the burden of a soul. Then it is a human life he looks to!

And the assurance—?

Merciful God! the Count has been to him, and there is some new scheme of terror afoot!

 

Later.—I went after my round to Van Helsing and told him my suspicion. He grew very grave; and, after thinking the matter over for a while asked me to take him to Renfield. I did so. As we came to the door we heard the lunatic within singing gaily, as he used to do in the time which now seems so long ago. When we entered we saw with amazement that he had spread out his sugar as of old; the flies, lethargic with the autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried to make him talk of the subject of our previous conversation, but he would not attend. He went on with his singing, just as though we had not been present. He had got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a note-book. We had to come away as ignorant as we went in.

His is a curious case indeed; we must watch him to-night.

Letter, Mitchell, Sons and Candy to Lord Godalming.

“1 October.

“My Lord,

“We are at all times only too happy to meet your wishes. We beg, with regard to the desire of your Lordship, expressed by Mr. Harker on your behalf, to supply the following information concerning the sale and purchase of No. 347, Piccadilly. The original vendors are the executors of the late Mr. Archibald Winter-Suffield. The purchaser is a foreign nobleman, Count de Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the purchase money in notes ‘over the counter,’ if your Lordship will pardon us using so vulgar an expression. Beyond this we know nothing whatever of him.

“We are, my Lord,
“Your Lordship’s humble servants,
“Mitchell, Sons & Candy.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

2 October.—I placed a man in the corridor last night, and told him to make an accurate note of any sound he might hear from Renfield’s room, and gave him instructions that if there should be anything strange he was to call me. After dinner, when we had all gathered round the fire in the study—Mrs. Harker having gone to bed—we discussed the attempts and discoveries of the day. Harker was the only one who had any result, and we are in great hopes that his clue may be an important one.

Before going to bed I went round to the patient’s room and looked in through the observation trap. He was sleeping soundly, and his heart rose and fell with regular respiration.

This morning the man on duty reported to me that a little after midnight he was restless and kept saying his prayers somewhat loudly. I asked him if that was all; he replied that it was all he heard. There was something about his manner so suspicious that I asked him point blank if he had been asleep. He denied sleep, but admitted to having “dozed” for a while. It is too bad that men cannot be trusted unless they are watched.

To-day Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are looking after horses. Godalming thinks that it will be well to have horses always in readiness, for when we get the information which we seek there will be no time to lose. We must sterilise all the imported earth between sunrise and sunset; we shall thus catch the Count at his weakest, and without a refuge to fly to. Van Helsing is off to the British Museum looking up some authorities on ancient medicine. The old physicians took account of things which their followers do not accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be useful to us later.

I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats.

 

Later.—We have met again. We seem at last to be on the track, and our work of to-morrow may be the beginning of the end. I wonder if Renfield’s quiet has anything to do with this. His moods have so followed the doings of the Count, that the coming destruction of the monster may be carried to him in some subtle way. If we could only get some hint as to what passed in his mind, between the time of my argument with him to-day and his resumption of fly-catching, it might afford us a valuable clue. He is now seemingly quiet for a spell.... Is he?—— That wild yell seemed to come from his room....

 

The attendant came bursting into my room and told me that Renfield had somehow met with some accident. He had heard him yell; and when he went to him found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood. I must go at once....

CHAPTER XXI

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

3 October.—Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well as I can remember it, since last I made an entry. Not a detail that I can recall must be forgotten; in all calmness I must proceed.

When I came to Renfield’s room I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries; there seemed none of that unity of purpose between the parts of the body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against the floor—indeed it was from the face wounds that the pool of blood originated. The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we turned him over:--

“I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his right arm and leg and the whole side of his face are paralysed.” How such a thing could have happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure. He seemed quite bewildered, and his brows were gathered in as he said:--

“I can’t understand the two things. He could mark his face like that by beating his own head on the floor. I saw a young woman do it once at the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her. And I suppose he might have broke his neck by falling out of bed, if he got in an awkward kink. But for the life of me I can’t imagine how the two things occurred. If his back was broke, he couldn’t beat his head; and if his face was like that before the fall out of bed, there would be marks of it.” I said to him:--

“Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to kindly come here at once. I want him without an instant’s delay.” The man ran off, and within a few minutes the Professor, in his dressing gown and slippers, appeared. When he saw Renfield on the ground, he looked keenly at him a moment, and then turned to me. I think he recognised my thought in my eyes, for he said very quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant:--

“Ah, a sad accident! He will need very careful watching, and much attention. I shall stay with you myself; but I shall first dress myself. If you will remain I shall in a few minutes join you.”

The patient was now breathing stertorously and it was easy to see that he had suffered some terrible injury. Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity, bearing with him a surgical case. He had evidently been thinking and had his mind made up; for, almost before he looked at the patient, he whispered to me:--

“Send the attendant away. We must be alone with him when he becomes conscious, after the operation.” So I said:--

“I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all that we can at present. You had better go your round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate. Let me know instantly if there be anything unusual anywhere.”

The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the patient. The wounds of the face was superficial; the real injury was a depressed fracture of the skull, extending right up through the motor area. The Professor thought a moment and said:--

“We must reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far as can be; the rapidity of the suffusion shows the terrible nature of his injury. The whole motor area seems affected. The suffusion of the brain will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be too late.” As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I went over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and Quincey in pajamas and slippers: the former spoke:--

“I heard your man call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell him of an accident. So I woke Quincey or rather called for him as he was not asleep. Things are moving too quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of us these times. I’ve been thinking that to-morrow night will not see things as they have been. We’ll have to look back—and forward a little more than we have done. May we come in?” I nodded, and held the door open till they had entered; then I closed it again. When Quincey saw the attitude and state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the floor, he said softly:--

“My God! what has happened to him? Poor, poor devil!” I told him briefly, and added that we expected he would recover consciousness after the operation—for a short time, at all events. He went at once and sat down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him; we all watched in patience.

“We shall wait,” said Van Helsing, “just long enough to fix the best spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove the blood clot; for it is evident that the hæmorrhage is increasing.”

The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness. I had a horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsing’s face I gathered that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to come. I dreaded the words that Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to think; but the conviction of what was coming was on me, as I have read of men who have heard the death-watch. The poor man’s breathing came in uncertain gasps. Each instant he seemed as though he would open his eyes and speak; but then would follow a prolonged stertorous breath, and he would relapse into a more fixed insensibility. Inured as I was to sick beds and death, this suspense grew, and grew upon me. I could almost hear the beating of my own heart; and the blood surging through my temples sounded like blows from a hammer. The silence finally became agonising. I looked at my companions, one after another, and saw from their flushed faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal torture. There was a nervous suspense over us all, as though overhead some dread bell would peal out powerfully when we should least expect it.

At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient was sinking fast; he might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly set as he spoke:--

“There is no time to lose. His words may be worth many lives; I have been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul at stake! We shall operate just above the ear.”

Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments the breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath so prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest. Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare. This was continued for a few moments; then it softened into a glad surprise, and from the lips came a sigh of relief. He moved convulsively, and as he did so, said:--

“I’ll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait-waistcoat. I have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. What’s wrong with my face? it feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully.” He tried to turn his head; but even with the effort his eyes seemed to grow glassy again so I gently put it back. Then Van Helsing said in a quiet grave tone:--

“Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield.” As he heard the voice his face brightened, through its mutilation, and he said:--

“That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is of you to be here. Give me some water, my lips are dry; and I shall try to tell you. I dreamed”—he stopped and seemed fainting, I called quietly to Quincey—“The brandy—it is in my study—quick!” He flew and returned with a glass, the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened the parched lips, and the patient quickly revived. It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had been working in the interval, for, when he was quite conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonised confusion which I shall never forget, and said:--

“I must not deceive myself; it was no dream, but all a grim reality.” Then his eyes roved round the room; as they caught sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on:--

“If I were not sure already, I would know from them.” For an instant his eyes closed—not with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties to bear; when he opened them he said, hurriedly, and with more energy than he had yet displayed:--

“Quick, Doctor, quick. I am dying! I feel that I have but a few minutes; and then I must go back to death—or worse! Wet my lips with brandy again. I have something that I must say before I die; or before my poor crushed brain dies anyhow. Thank you! It was that night after you left me, when I implored you to let me go away. I couldn’t speak then, for I felt my tongue was tied; but I was as sane then, except in that way, as I am now. I was in an agony of despair for a long time after you left me; it seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My brain seemed to become cool again, and I realised where I was. I heard the dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was!” As he spoke, Van Helsing’s eyes never blinked, but his hand came out and met mine and gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray himself; he nodded slightly and said: “Go on,” in a low voice. Renfield proceeded:--

“He came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen him often before; but he was solid then—not a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a man’s when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth; the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when he turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldn’t ask him to come in at first, though I knew he wanted to—just as he had wanted all along. Then he began promising me things—not in words but by doing them.” He was interrupted by a word from the Professor:--

“How?”

“By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their wings; and big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on their backs.” Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously:--

“The Acherontia Aitetropos of the Sphinges—what you call the ‘Death’s-head Moth’?” The patient went on without stopping.

“Then he began to whisper: ‘Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and every one a life; and dogs to eat them, and cats too. All lives! all red blood, with years of life in it; and not merely buzzing flies!’ I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire; and then He moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red—like His, only smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped; and I thought he seemed to be saying: ‘All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!’ And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes; and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him: ‘Come in, Lord and Master!’ The rats were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an inch wide—just as the Moon herself has often come in through the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and splendour.”

His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again, and he continued; but it seemed as though his memory had gone on working in the interval for his story was further advanced. I was about to call him back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me: “Let him go on. Do not interrupt him; he cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his thought.” He proceeded:--

“All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send me anything, not even a blow-fly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him. When he slid in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at me, and his white face looked out of the mist with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn’t even smell the same as he went by me. I couldn’t hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker had come into the room.”

The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better. They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered; his face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without noticing:--

“When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn’t the same; it was like tea after the teapot had been watered.” Here we all moved, but no one said a word; he went on:--

“I didn’t know that she was here till she spoke; and she didn’t look the same. I don’t care for the pale people; I like them with lots of blood in them, and hers had all seemed to have run out. I didn’t think of it at the time; but when she went away I began to think, and it made me mad to know that He had been taking the life out of her.” I could feel that the rest quivered, as I did, but we remained otherwise still. “So when He came to-night I was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength; and as I knew I was a madman—at times anyhow—I resolved to use my power. Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle with me. I held tight; and I thought I was going to win, for I didn’t mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His eyes. They burned into me, and my strength became like water. He slipped through it, and when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed to steal away under the door.” His voice was becoming fainter and his breath more stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively.

“We know the worst now,” he said. “He is here, and we know his purpose. It may not be too late. Let us be armed—the same as we were the other night, but lose no time; there is not an instant to spare.” There was no need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into words—we shared them in common. We all hurried and took from our rooms the same things that we had when we entered the Count’s house. The Professor had his ready, and as we met in the corridor he pointed to them significantly as he said:--

“They never leave me; and they shall not till this unhappy business is over. Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with. Alas! alas! that that dear Madam Mina should suffer!” He stopped; his voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in my own heart.

Outside the Harkers’ door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the latter said:--

“Should we disturb her?”

“We must,” said Van Helsing grimly. “If the door be locked, I shall break it in.”

“May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady’s room!”

Van Helsing said solemnly, “You are always right; but this is life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor; and even were they not they are all as one to me to-night. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and shove; and you too, my friends. Now!”

He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We threw ourselves against it; with a crash it burst open, and we almost fell headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck, and my heart seemed to stand still.

The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor. Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black. His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we all recognised the Count—in every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left hand he held both Mrs. Harker’s hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained his feet, and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we, lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a great black cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gaslight sprang up under Quincey’s match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting open, had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing, Art, and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with it had given a scream so wild, so ear-piercing, so despairing that it seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin; from her throat trickled a thin stream of blood; her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the Count’s terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant despairingly, ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me:--

“Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she recovers herself; I must wake him!” He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all the while holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that was heart-breaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the window. There was much moonshine; and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew-tree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this; but at the instant I heard Harker’s quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness, and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might well be, was a look of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up. His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her arms stretched out, as though to embrace him; instantly, however, she drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook.

“In God’s name what does this mean?” Harker cried out. “Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear, what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! has it come to this!” and, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly together. “Good God help us! help her! oh, help her!” With a quick movement he jumped from bed, and began to pull on his clothes,—all the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion. “What has happened? Tell me all about it!” he cried without pausing. “Dr. Van Helsing, you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for him!” His wife, through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him: instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried out:--

“No! no! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough to-night, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you!” Her expression became frantic as she spoke; and, he yielding to her, she pulled him down sitting on the bed side, and clung to him fiercely.

Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness:--

“Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you no foul thing can approach. You are safe for to-night; and we must be calm and take counsel together.” She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head on her husband’s breast. When she raised it, his white night-robe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where the thin open wound in her neck had sent forth drops. The instant she saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking sobs:--

“Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear.” To this he spoke out resolutely:--

“Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you; and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!” He put out his arms and folded her to his breast; and for a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils; his mouth was set as steel. After a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous power to the utmost:--

“And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad fact; tell me all that has been.” I told him exactly what had happened, and he listened with seeming impassiveness; but his nostrils twitched and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to the open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to see, that, whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy husband and wife from each other and from themselves; so on nodding acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which Lord Godalming answered:--

“I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I looked in the study but, though he had been there, he had gone. He had, however——” He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on the bed. Van Helsing said gravely:--

“Go on, friend Arthur. We want here no more concealments. Our hope now is in knowing all. Tell freely!” So Art went on:--

“He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes; the cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the wax had helped the flames.” Here I interrupted. “Thank God there is the other copy in the safe!” His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he went on: “I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked into Renfield’s room; but there was no trace there except——!” Again he paused. “Go on,” said Harker hoarsely; so he bowed his head and moistening his lips with his tongue, added: “except that the poor fellow is dead.” Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of us she said solemnly:--

“God’s will be done!” I could not but feel that Art was keeping back something; but, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing. Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked:--

“And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell?”

“A little,” he answered. “It may be much eventually, but at present I can’t say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Count would go when he left the house. I did not see him; but I saw a bat rise from Renfield’s window, and flap westward. I expected to see him in some shape go back to Carfax; but he evidently sought some other lair. He will not be back to-night; for the sky is reddening in the east, and the dawn is close. We must work to-morrow!”

He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of perhaps a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that I could hear the sound of our hearts beating; then Van Helsing said, placing his hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harker’s head:--

“And now, Madam Mina—poor, dear, dear Madam Mina—tell us exactly what happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained; but it is need that we know all. For now more than ever has all work to be done quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must end all, if it may be so; and now is the chance that we may live and learn.”

The poor, dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly, and held out one hand to Van Helsing who took it in his, and, after stooping and kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly. After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her thoughts, she began:--

“I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but for a long time it did not act. I seemed to become more wakeful, and myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mind—all of them connected with death, and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble.” Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and said lovingly: “Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the medicine to its work with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to sleep. Sure enough sleep must soon have come to me, for I remember no more. Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when next I remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that I had before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this; you will find it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague terror which had come to me before and the same sense of some presence. I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so soundly that it seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping draught, and not I. I tried, but I could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me: beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mist—or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared—stood a tall, thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary’s Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant my heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was paralysed. In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, pointing as he spoke to Jonathan:--

“ ‘Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out before your very eyes.’ I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did so, ‘First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst!’ I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat!” Her husband groaned again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if he were the injured one, and went on:--

“I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long this horrible thing lasted I know not; but it seemed that a long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood!” The remembrance seemed for a while to overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her husband’s sustaining arm. With a great effort she recovered herself and went on:--

“Then he spoke to me mockingly, ‘And so you, like the others, would play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me and frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path. They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst they played wits against me—against me who commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were born—I was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and my helper. You shall be avenged in turn; for not one of them but shall minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you have done. You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my call. When my brain says “Come!” to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding; and to that end this!’ With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the—— Oh my God! my God! what have I done? What have I done to deserve such a fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days. God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril; and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear!” Then she began to rub her lips as though to cleanse them from pollution.

As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken, and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet; but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair.

We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action.

Of this I am sure: the sun rises to-day on no more miserable house in all the great round of its daily course.

CHAPTER XXII

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

3 October.—As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary. It is now six o’clock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour and take something to eat; for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will be, God knows, required to-day. I must keep writing at every chance, for I dare not stop to think. All, big and little, must go down; perhaps at the end the little things may teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are to-day. However, we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that it is in trouble and trial that our faith is tested—that we must keep on trusting; and that God will aid us up to the end. The end! oh my God! what end?... To work! To work!

When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were broken.

Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had heard anything. He said that he had been sitting down—he confessed to half dozing—when he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield had called out loudly several times, “God! God! God!” after that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard “voices” or “a voice,” and he said he could not say; that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could swear to it, if required, that the word “God” was spoken by the patient. Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into the matter; the question of an inquest had to be considered, and it would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it. As it was, he thought that on the attendant’s evidence he could give a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily to the same result.

When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence; that nothing of any sort—no matter how painful—should be kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of despair. “There must be no concealment,” she said, “Alas! we have had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that can give me more pain than I have already endured—than I suffer now! Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!” Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly but quietly:--

“But dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for others from yourself, after what has happened?” Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she answered:--

“Ah no! for my mind is made up!”

“To what?” he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply stating a fact:--

“Because if I find in myself—and I shall watch keenly for it—a sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die!”

“You would not kill yourself?” he asked, hoarsely.

“I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort!” She looked at him meaningly as she spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and came close to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly:

“My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But my child——” For a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his throat; he gulped it down and went on:--

“There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must not die. You must not die by any hand; but least of all by your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must not die; for if he is still with the quick Un-Dead, your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy; by the day, or the night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you do not die—nay, nor think of death—till this great evil be past.” The poor dear grew white as death, and shock and shivered, as I have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We were all silent; we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm and turning to him said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out her hand:--

“I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time, this horror may have passed away from me.” She was so good and brave that we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her, and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries and phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the record as she had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of anything to do—if “pleased” could be used in connection with so grim an interest.

As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was prepared with an exact ordering of our work.

“It is perhaps well,” he said, “that at our meeting after our visit to Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earth-boxes that lay there. Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose, and would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such an effort with regard to the others; but now he does not know our intentions. Nay, more, in all probability, he does not know that such a power exists to us as can sterilise his lairs, so that he cannot use them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge as to their disposition that, when we have examined the house in Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. To-day, then, is ours; and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning guards us in its course. Until it sets to-night, that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs and sterilise them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching and the destroying shall be, in time, sure.” Here I started up for I could not contain myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Mina’s life and happiness were flying from us, since whilst we talked action was impossible. But Van Helsing held up his hand warningly. “Nay, friend Jonathan,” he said, “in this, the quickest way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all act and act with desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in all probable the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will have paper that he write on; he will have his book of cheques. There are many belongings that he must have somewhere; why not in this place so central, so quiet, where he come and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the very vast of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and search that house; and when we learn what it holds, then we do what our friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt ‘stop the earths’ and so we run down our old fox—so? is it not?”

“Then let us come at once,” I cried, “we are wasting the precious, precious time!” The Professor did not move, but simply said:--

“And how are we to get into that house in Piccadilly?”

“Any way!” I cried. “We shall break in if need be.”

“And your police; where will they be, and what will they say?”

I was staggered; but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could:--

“Don’t wait more than need be; you know, I am sure, what torture I am in.”

“Ah, my child, that I do; and indeed there is no wish of me to add to your anguish. But just think, what can we do, until all the world be at movement. Then will come our time. I have thought and thought, and it seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all. Now we wish to get into the house, but we have no key; is it not so?” I nodded.

“Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could not still get it; and think there was to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what would you do?”

“I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the lock for me.”

“And your police, they would interfere, would they not?”

“Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly employed.”

“Then,” he looked at me as keenly as he spoke, “all that is in doubt is the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as to whether or no that employer has a good conscience or a bad one. Your police must indeed be zealous men and clever—oh, so clever!—in reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter. No, no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty house in this your London, or of any city in the world; and if you do it as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things are rightly done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a so fine house in London, and when he went for months of summer to Switzerland and lock up his house, some burglar came and broke window at back and got in. Then he went and made open the shutters in front and walk out and in through the door, before the very eyes of the police. Then he have an auction in that house, and advertise it, and put up big notice; and when the day come he sell off by a great auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them. Then he go to a builder, and he sell him that house, making an agreement that he pull it down and take all away within a certain time. And your police and other authority help him all they can. And when that owner come back from his holiday in Switzerland he find only an empty hole where his house had been. This was all done en règle; and in our work we shall be en règle too. We shall not go so early that the policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem it strange; but we shall go after ten o’clock, when there are many about, and such things would be done were we indeed owners of the house.”

I could not but see how right he was and the terrible despair of Mina’s face became relaxed a thought; there was hope in such good counsel. Van Helsing went on:--

“When once within that house we may find more clues; at any rate some of us can remain there whilst the rest find the other places where there be more earth-boxes—at Bermondsey and Mile End.”

Lord Godalming stood up. “I can be of some use here,” he said. “I shall wire to my people to have horses and carriages where they will be most convenient.”

“Look here, old fellow,” said Morris, “it is a capital idea to have all ready in case we want to go horsebacking; but don’t you think that one of your snappy carriages with its heraldic adornments in a byway of Walworth or Mile End would attract too much attention for our purposes? It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south or east; and even leave them somewhere near the neighbourhood we are going to.”

“Friend Quincey is right!” said the Professor. “His head is what you call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult thing that we go to do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may.”

Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced to see that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time the terrible experience of the night. She was very, very pale—almost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest it should give her needless pain; but it made my blood run cold in my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had sucked her blood. As yet there was no sign of the teeth growing sharper; but the time as yet was short, and there was time for fear.

When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of the disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt. It was finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should destroy the Count’s lair close at hand. In case he should find it out too soon, we should thus be still ahead of him in our work of destruction; and his presence in his purely material shape, and at his weakest, might give us some new clue.

As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that, after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly; that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End and destroyed them. It was possible, if not likely, the Professor urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and that if so we might be able to cope with him then and there. At any rate, we might be able to follow him in force. To this plan I strenuously objected, and so far as my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay and protect Mina, I thought that my mind was made up on the subject; but Mina would not listen to my objection. She said that there might be some law matter in which I could be useful; that amongst the Count’s papers might be some clue which I could understand out of my experience in Transylvania; and that, as it was, all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the Count’s extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Mina’s resolution was fixed; she said that it was the last hope for her that we should all work together. “As for me,” she said, “I have no fear. Things have been as bad as they can be; and whatever may happen must have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my husband! God can, if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one present.” So I started up crying out: “Then in God’s name let us come at once, for we are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we think.”

“Not so!” said Van Helsing, holding up his hand.

“But why?” I asked.

“Do you forget,” he said, with actually a smile, “that last night he banqueted heavily, and will sleep late?”

Did I forget! shall I ever—can I ever! Can any of us ever forget that terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance; but the pain overmastered her and she put her hands before her face, and shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had not intended to recall her frightful experience. He had simply lost sight of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort. When it struck him what he said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her. “Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, “dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I of all who so reverence you should have said anything so forgetful. These stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so; but you will forget it, will you not?” He bent low beside her as he spoke; she took his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely:--

“No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember; and with it I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong.”

Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful and encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:--

“Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy’s lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?” We all assured him. “Then it is well. Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case quite safe here until the sunset; and before then we shall return—if—— We shall return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attack. I have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing of things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and——”

There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he had placed the Wafer on Mina’s forehead, it had seared it—had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. My poor darling’s brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it; and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came quickly; the echo of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out:--

“Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day.” They all paused. I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of helpless grief, and putting my arms around held her tight. For a few minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends around us turned away their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van Helsing turned and said gravely; so gravely that I could not help feeling that he was in some way inspired, and was stating things outside himself:--

“It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God himself see fit, as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day, to redress all wrongs of the earth and of His children that He has placed thereon. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see, when that red scar, the sign of God’s knowledge of what has been, shall pass away, and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know. For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God sees right to lift the burden that is hard upon us. Till then we bear our Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His Will. It may be that we are chosen instruments of His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that other through stripes and shame; through tears and blood; through doubts and fears, and all that makes the difference between God and man.”

There was hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation. Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old man’s hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a word we all knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be true to each other. We men pledged ourselves to raise the veil of sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way, we loved; and we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task which lay before us.

It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting which neither of us shall forget to our dying day; and we set out.

To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.

We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as on the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any ground for such fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been made up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, or any sign of use in the house; and in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we had seen them last. Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before them:--

“And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilise this earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth because it has been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make it more holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now we sanctify it to God.” As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench, and very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open. The earth smelled musty and close; but we did not somehow seem to mind, for our attention was concentrated on the Professor. Taking from his box a piece of the Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth, and then shutting down the lid began to screw it home, we aiding him as he worked.

One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and left them as we had found them to all appearance; but in each was a portion of the Host.

When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly:--

“So much is already done. If it may be that with all the others we can be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may shine on Madam Mina’s forehead all white as ivory and with no stain!”

As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch our train we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and in the window of my own room saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and nodded to tell that our work there was successfully accomplished. She nodded in reply to show that she understood. The last I saw, she was waving her hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart that we sought the station and just caught the train, which was steaming in as we reached the platform.

I have written this in the train.

 

Piccadilly, 12:30 o’clock.—Just before we reached Fenchurch Street Lord Godalming said to me:--

“Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with us in case there should be any difficulty; for under the circumstances it wouldn’t seem so bad for us to break into an empty house. But you are a solicitor and the Incorporated Law Society might tell you that you should have known better.” I demurred as to my not sharing any danger even of odium, but he went on: “Besides, it will attract less attention if there are not too many of us. My title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with any policeman that may come along. You had better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the Green Park, somewhere in sight of the house; and when you see the door opened and the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall be on the lookout for you, and shall let you in.”

“The advice is good!” said Van Helsing, so we said no more. Godalming and Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At the corner of Arlington Street our contingent got out and strolled into the Green Park. My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much of our hope was centred, looming up grim and silent in its deserted condition amongst its more lively and spruce-looking neighbours. We sat down on a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as to attract as little attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass with leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others.

At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris; and down from the box descended a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of tools. Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. Together the two ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he wanted done. The workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on one of the spikes of the rail, saying something to a policeman who just then sauntered along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the man kneeling down placed his bag beside him. After searching through it, he took out a selection of tools which he produced to lay beside him in orderly fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole, blew into it, and turning to his employers, made some remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and the man lifted a good-sized bunch of keys; selecting one of them, he began to probe the lock, as if feeling his way with it. After fumbling about for a bit he tried a second, and then a third. All at once the door opened under a slight push from him, and he and the two others entered the hall. We sat still; my own cigar burnt furiously, but Van Helsing’s went cold altogether. We waited patiently as we saw the workman come out and bring in his bag. Then he held the door partly open, steadying it with his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the lock. This he finally handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and gave him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his coat and departed; not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole transaction.

When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and knocked at the door. It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris, beside whom stood Lord Godalming lighting a cigar.

“The place smells so vilely,” said the latter as we came in. It did indeed smell vilely—like the old chapel at Carfax—and with our previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had been using the place pretty freely. We moved to explore the house, all keeping together in case of attack; for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not be in the house. In the dining-room, which lay at the back of the hall, we found eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of the nine, which we sought! Our work was not over, and would never be until we should have found the missing box. First we opened the shutters of the window which looked out across a narrow stone-flagged yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed to look like the front of a miniature house. There were no windows in it, so we were not afraid of being over-looked. We did not lose any time in examining the chests. With the tools which we had brought with us we opened them, one by one, and treated them as we had treated those others in the old chapel. It was evident to us that the Count was not at present in the house, and we proceeded to search for any of his effects.

After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement to attic, we came to the conclusion that the dining-room contained any effects which might belong to the Count; and so we proceeded to minutely examine them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the great dining-room table. There were title deeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle; deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey; note-paper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were covered up in thin wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin—the latter containing dirty water which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all was a little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging to the other houses. When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the houses in the East and the South, took with them the keys in a great bunch, and set out to destroy the boxes in these places. The rest of us are, with what patience we can, waiting their return—or the coming of the Count.

CHAPTER XXIII

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

3 October.—The time seemed terrible long whilst we were waiting for the coming of Godalming and Quincey Morris. The Professor tried to keep our minds active by using them all the time. I could see his beneficent purpose, by the side glances which he threw from time to time at Harker. The poor fellow is overwhelmed in a misery that is appalling to see. Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with strong, youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. To-day he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his face. His energy is still intact; in fact, he is like a living flame. This may yet be his salvation, for, if all go well, it will tide him over the despairing period; he will then, in a kind of way, wake again to the realities of life. Poor fellow, I thought my own trouble was bad enough, but his——! The Professor knows this well enough, and is doing his best to keep his mind active. What he has been saying was, under the circumstances, of absorbing interest. So well as I can remember, here it is:--

“I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all the papers relating to this monster; and the more I have studied, the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there are signs of his advance; not only of his power, but of his knowledge of it. As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminus of Buda-Pesth, he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist—which latter was the highest development of the science-knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay. Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death; though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man’s stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well; and if it had not been that we have crossed his path he would be yet—he may be yet if we fail—the father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life.”

Harker groaned and said, “And this is all arrayed against my darling! But how is he experimenting? The knowledge may help us to defeat him!”

“He has all along, since his coming, been trying his power, slowly but surely; that big child-brain of his is working. Well for us, it is, as yet, a child-brain; for had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain things he would long ago have been beyond our power. However, he means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow. Festina lente may well be his motto.”

“I fail to understand,” said Harker wearily. “Oh, do be more plain to me! Perhaps grief and trouble are dulling my brain.”

The Professor laid his hand tenderly on his shoulder as he spoke:--

“Ah, my child, I will be plain. Do you not see how, of late, this monster has been creeping into knowledge experimentally. How he has been making use of the zoöphagous patient to effect his entry into friend John’s home; for your Vampire, though in all afterwards he can come when and how he will, must at the first make entry only when asked thereto by an inmate. But these are not his most important experiments. Do we not see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by others. He knew not then but that must be so. But all the time that so great child-brain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he might not himself move the box. So he began to help; and then, when he found that this be all-right, he try to move them all alone. And so he progress, and he scatter these graves of him; and none but he know where they are hidden. He may have intend to bury them deep in the ground. So that he only use them in the night, or at such time as he can change his form, they do him equal well; and none may know these are his hiding-place! But, my child, do not despair; this knowledge come to him just too late! Already all of his lairs but one be sterilise as for him; and before the sunset this shall be so. Then he have no place where he can move and hide. I delayed this morning that so we might be sure. Is there not more at stake for us than for him? Then why we not be even more careful than him? By my clock it is one hour and already, if all be well, friend Arthur and Quincey are on their way to us. To-day is our day, and we must go sure, if slow, and lose no chance. See! there are five of us when those absent ones return.”

Whilst he was speaking we were startled by a knock at the hall door, the double postman’s knock of the telegraph boy. We all moved out to the hall with one impulse, and Van Helsing, holding up his hand to us to keep silence, stepped to the door and opened it. The boy handed in a despatch. The Professor closed the door again, and, after looking at the direction, opened it and read aloud.

“Look out for D. He has just now, 12:45, come from Carfax hurriedly and hastened towards the South. He seems to be going the round and may want to see you: Mina.”

There was a pause, broken by Jonathan Harker’s voice:--

“Now, God be thanked, we shall soon meet!” Van Helsing turned to him quickly and said:--

“God will act in His own way and time. Do not fear, and do not rejoice as yet; for what we wish for at the moment may be our undoings.”

“I care for nothing now,” he answered hotly, “except to wipe out this brute from the face of creation. I would sell my soul to do it!”

“Oh, hush, hush, my child!” said Van Helsing. “God does not purchase souls in this wise; and the Devil, though he may purchase, does not keep faith. But God is merciful and just, and knows your pain and your devotion to that dear Madam Mina. Think you, how her pain would be doubled, did she but hear your wild words. Do not fear any of us, we are all devoted to this cause, and to-day shall see the end. The time is coming for action; to-day this Vampire is limit to the powers of man, and till sunset he may not change. It will take him time to arrive here—see, it is twenty minutes past one—and there are yet some times before he can hither come, be he never so quick. What we must hope for is that my Lord Arthur and Quincey arrive first.”

About half an hour after we had received Mrs. Harker’s telegram, there came a quiet, resolute knock at the hall door. It was just an ordinary knock, such as is given hourly by thousands of gentlemen, but it made the Professor’s heart and mine beat loudly. We looked at each other, and together moved out into the hall; we each held ready to use our various armaments—the spiritual in the left hand, the mortal in the right. Van Helsing pulled back the latch, and, holding the door half open, stood back, having both hands ready for action. The gladness of our hearts must have shown upon our faces when on the step, close to the door, we saw Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris. They came quickly in and closed the door behind them, the former saying, as they moved along the hall:--

“It is all right. We found both places; six boxes in each and we destroyed them all!”

“Destroyed?” asked the Professor.

“For him!” We were silent for a minute, and then Quincey said:--

“There’s nothing to do but to wait here. If, however, he doesn’t turn up by five o’clock, we must start off; for it won’t do to leave Mrs. Harker alone after sunset.”

“He will be here before long now,” said Van Helsing, who had been consulting his pocket-book. “Nota bene, in Madam’s telegram he went south from Carfax, that means he went to cross the river, and he could only do so at slack of tide, which should be something before one o’clock. That he went south has a meaning for us. He is as yet only suspicious; and he went from Carfax first to the place where he would suspect interference least. You must have been at Bermondsey only a short time before him. That he is not here already shows that he went to Mile End next. This took him some time; for he would then have to be carried over the river in some way. Believe me, my friends, we shall not have long to wait now. We should have ready some plan of attack, so that we may throw away no chance. Hush, there is no time now. Have all your arms! Be ready!” He held up a warning hand as he spoke, for we all could hear a key softly inserted in the lock of the hall door.

I could not but admire, even at such a moment, the way in which a dominant spirit asserted itself. In all our hunting parties and adventures in different parts of the world, Quincey Morris had always been the one to arrange the plan of action, and Arthur and I had been accustomed to obey him implicitly. Now, the old habit seemed to be renewed instinctively. With a swift glance around the room, he at once laid out our plan of attack, and, without speaking a word, with a gesture, placed us each in position. Van Helsing, Harker, and I were just behind the door, so that when it was opened the Professor could guard it whilst we two stepped between the incomer and the door. Godalming behind and Quincey in front stood just out of sight ready to move in front of the window. We waited in a suspense that made the seconds pass with nightmare slowness. The slow, careful steps came along the hall; the Count was evidently prepared for some surprise—at least he feared it.

Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room, winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so panther-like in the movement—something so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who, with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eye-teeth long and pointed; but the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organised plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count’s leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorne through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank-notes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count’s face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm; and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity—of anger and hellish rage—which came over the Count’s face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker’s arm, ere his blow could fall, and, grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the “ting” of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging.

We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us:--

“You think to baffle me, you—with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher’s. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest; but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine—my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!” With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor, as, realising the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall.

“We have learnt something—much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us; he fear time, he fear want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he return.” As he spoke he put the money remaining into his pocket; took the title-deeds in the bundle as Harker had left them, and swept the remaining things into the open fireplace, where he set fire to them with a match.

Godalming and Morris had rushed out into the yard, and Harker had lowered himself from the window to follow the Count. He had, however, bolted the stable door; and by the time they had forced it open there was no sign of him. Van Helsing and I tried to make inquiry at the back of the house; but the mews was deserted and no one had seen him depart.

It was now late in the afternoon, and sunset was not far off. We had to recognise that our game was up; with heavy hearts we agreed with the Professor when he said:--

“Let us go back to Madam Mina—poor, poor dear Madam Mina. All we can do just now is done; and we can there, at least, protect her. But we need not despair. There is but one more earth-box, and we must try to find it; when that is done all may yet be well.” I could see that he spoke as bravely as he could to comfort Harker. The poor fellow was quite broken down; now and again he gave a low groan which he could not suppress—he was thinking of his wife.

With sad hearts we came back to my house, where we found Mrs. Harker waiting us, with an appearance of cheerfulness which did honour to her bravery and unselfishness. When she saw our faces, her own became as pale as death: for a second or two her eyes were closed as if she were in secret prayer; and then she said cheerfully:--

“I can never thank you all enough. Oh, my poor darling!” As she spoke, she took her husband’s grey head in her hands and kissed it—“Lay your poor head here and rest it. All will yet be well, dear! God will protect us if He so will it in His good intent.” The poor fellow groaned. There was no place for words in his sublime misery.

We had a sort of perfunctory supper together, and I think it cheered us all up somewhat. It was, perhaps, the mere animal heat of food to hungry people—for none of us had eaten anything since breakfast—or the sense of companionship may have helped us; but anyhow we were all less miserable, and saw the morrow as not altogether without hope. True to our promise, we told Mrs. Harker everything which had passed; and although she grew snowy white at times when danger had seemed to threaten her husband, and red at others when his devotion to her was manifested, she listened bravely and with calmness. When we came to the part where Harker had rushed at the Count so recklessly, she clung to her husband’s arm, and held it tight as though her clinging could protect him from any harm that might come. She said nothing, however, till the narration was all done, and matters had been brought right up to the present time. Then without letting go her husband’s hand she stood up amongst us and spoke. Oh, that I could give any idea of the scene; of that sweet, sweet, good, good woman in all the radiant beauty of her youth and animation, with the red scar on her forehead, of which she was conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our teeth—remembering whence and how it came; her loving kindness against our grim hate; her tender faith against all our fears and doubting; and we, knowing that so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and purity and faith, was outcast from God.

“Jonathan,” she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips it was so full of love and tenderness, “Jonathan dear, and you all my true, true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fight—that you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he, too, is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him, too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction.”

As she spoke I could see her husband’s face darken and draw together, as though the passion in him were shrivelling his being to its core. Instinctively the clasp on his wife’s hand grew closer, till his knuckles looked white. She did not flinch from the pain which I knew she must have suffered, but looked at him with eyes that were more appealing than ever. As she stopped speaking he leaped to his feet, almost tearing his hand from hers as he spoke:--

“May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond it I could send his soul for ever and ever to burning hell I would do it!”

“Oh, hush! oh, hush! in the name of the good God. Don’t say such things, Jonathan, my husband; or you will crush me with fear and horror. Just think, my dear—I have been thinking all this long, long day of it—that ... perhaps ... some day ... I, too, may need such pity; and that some other like you—and with equal cause for anger—may deny it to me! Oh, my husband! my husband, indeed I would have spared you such a thought had there been another way; but I pray that God may not have treasured your wild words, except as the heart-broken wail of a very loving and sorely stricken man. Oh, God, let these poor white hairs go in evidence of what he has suffered, who all his life has done no wrong, and on whom so many sorrows have come.”

We men were all in tears now. There was no resisting them, and we wept openly. She wept, too, to see that her sweeter counsels had prevailed. Her husband flung himself on his knees beside her, and putting his arms round her, hid his face in the folds of her dress. Van Helsing beckoned to us and we stole out of the room, leaving the two loving hearts alone with their God.

Before they retired the Professor fixed up the room against any coming of the Vampire, and assured Mrs. Harker that she might rest in peace. She tried to school herself to the belief, and, manifestly for her husband’s sake, tried to seem content. It was a brave struggle; and was, I think and believe, not without its reward. Van Helsing had placed at hand a bell which either of them was to sound in case of any emergency. When they had retired, Quincey, Godalming, and I arranged that we should sit up, dividing the night between us, and watch over the safety of the poor stricken lady. The first watch falls to Quincey, so the rest of us shall be off to bed as soon as we can. Godalming has already turned in, for his is the second watch. Now that my work is done I, too, shall go to bed.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal.

3-4 October, close to midnight.—I thought yesterday would never end. There was over me a yearning for sleep, in some sort of blind belief that to wake would be to find things changed, and that any change must now be for the better. Before we parted, we discussed what our next step was to be, but we could arrive at no result. All we knew was that one earth-box remained, and that the Count alone knew where it was. If he chooses to lie hidden, he may baffle us for years; and in the meantime!—the thought is too horrible, I dare not think of it even now. This I know: that if ever there was a woman who was all perfection, that one is my poor wronged darling. I love her a thousand times more for her sweet pity of last night, a pity that made my own hate of the monster seem despicable. Surely God will not permit the world to be the poorer by the loss of such a creature. This is hope to me. We are all drifting reefwards now, and faith is our only anchor. Thank God! Mina is sleeping, and sleeping without dreams. I fear what her dreams might be like, with such terrible memories to ground them in. She has not been so calm, within my seeing, since the sunset. Then, for a while, there came over her face a repose which was like spring after the blasts of March. I thought at the time that it was the softness of the red sunset on her face, but somehow now I think it has a deeper meaning. I am not sleepy myself, though I am weary—weary to death. However, I must try to sleep; for there is to-morrow to think of, and there is no rest for me until....

 

Later.—I must have fallen asleep, for I was awaked by Mina, who was sitting up in bed, with a startled look on her face. I could see easily, for we did not leave the room in darkness; she had placed a warning hand over my mouth, and now she whispered in my ear:--

“Hush! there is someone in the corridor!” I got up softly, and crossing the room, gently opened the door.

Just outside, stretched on a mattress, lay Mr. Morris, wide awake. He raised a warning hand for silence as he whispered to me:--

“Hush! go back to bed; it is all right. One of us will be here all night. We don’t mean to take any chances!”

His look and gesture forbade discussion, so I came back and told Mina. She sighed and positively a shadow of a smile stole over her poor, pale face as she put her arms round me and said softly:--

“Oh, thank God for good brave men!” With a sigh she sank back again to sleep. I write this now as I am not sleepy, though I must try again.

 

4 October, morning.—Once again during the night I was wakened by Mina. This time we had all had a good sleep, for the grey of the coming dawn was making the windows into sharp oblongs, and the gas flame was like a speck rather than a disc of light. She said to me hurriedly:--

“Go, call the Professor. I want to see him at once.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I have an idea. I suppose it must have come in the night, and matured without my knowing it. He must hypnotise me before the dawn, and then I shall be able to speak. Go quick, dearest; the time is getting close.” I went to the door. Dr. Seward was resting on the mattress, and, seeing me, he sprang to his feet.

“Is anything wrong?” he asked, in alarm.

“No,” I replied; “but Mina wants to see Dr. Van Helsing at once.”

“I will go,” he said, and hurried into the Professor’s room.

In two or three minutes later Van Helsing was in the room in his dressing-gown, and Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming were with Dr. Seward at the door asking questions. When the Professor saw Mina a smile—a positive smile ousted the anxiety of his face; he rubbed his hands as he said:--

“Oh, my dear Madam Mina, this is indeed a change. See! friend Jonathan, we have got our dear Madam Mina, as of old, back to us to-day!” Then turning to her, he said, cheerfully: “And what am I do for you? For at this hour you do not want me for nothings.”

“I want you to hypnotise me!” she said. “Do it before the dawn, for I feel that then I can speak, and speak freely. Be quick, for the time is short!” Without a word he motioned her to sit up in bed.

Looking fixedly at her, he commenced to make passes in front of her, from over the top of her head downward, with each hand in turn. Mina gazed at him fixedly for a few minutes, during which my own heart beat like a trip hammer, for I felt that some crisis was at hand. Gradually her eyes closed, and she sat, stock still; only by the gentle heaving of her bosom could one know that she was alive. The Professor made a few more passes and then stopped, and I could see that his forehead was covered with great beads of perspiration. Mina opened her eyes; but she did not seem the same woman. There was a far-away look in her eyes, and her voice had a sad dreaminess which was new to me. Raising his hand to impose silence, the Professor motioned to me to bring the others in. They came on tip-toe, closing the door behind them, and stood at the foot of the bed, looking on. Mina appeared not to see them. The stillness was broken by Van Helsing’s voice speaking in a low level tone which would not break the current of her thoughts:--

“Where are you?” The answer came in a neutral way:--

“I do not know. Sleep has no place it can call its own.” For several minutes there was silence. Mina sat rigid, and the Professor stood staring at her fixedly; the rest of us hardly dared to breathe. The room was growing lighter; without taking his eyes from Mina’s face, Dr. Van Helsing motioned me to pull up the blind. I did so, and the day seemed just upon us. A red streak shot up, and a rosy light seemed to diffuse itself through the room. On the instant the Professor spoke again:--

“Where are you now?” The answer came dreamily, but with intention; it were as though she were interpreting something. I have heard her use the same tone when reading her shorthand notes.

“I do not know. It is all strange to me!”

“What do you see?”

“I can see nothing; it is all dark.”

“What do you hear?” I could detect the strain in the Professor’s patient voice.

“The lapping of water. It is gurgling by, and little waves leap. I can hear them on the outside.”

“Then you are on a ship?” We all looked at each other, trying to glean something each from the other. We were afraid to think. The answer came quick:--

“Oh, yes!”

“What else do you hear?”

“The sound of men stamping overhead as they run about. There is the creaking of a chain, and the loud tinkle as the check of the capstan falls into the rachet.”

“What are you doing?”

“I am still—oh, so still. It is like death!” The voice faded away into a deep breath as of one sleeping, and the open eyes closed again.

By this time the sun had risen, and we were all in the full light of day. Dr. Van Helsing placed his hands on Mina’s shoulders, and laid her head down softly on her pillow. She lay like a sleeping child for a few moments, and then, with a long sigh, awoke and stared in wonder to see us all around her. “Have I been talking in my sleep?” was all she said. She seemed, however, to know the situation without telling, though she was eager to know what she had told. The Professor repeated the conversation, and she said:--

“Then there is not a moment to lose: it may not be yet too late!” Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming started for the door but the Professor’s calm voice called them back:--

“Stay, my friends. That ship, wherever it was, was weighing anchor whilst she spoke. There are many ships weighing anchor at the moment in your so great Port of London. Which of them is it that you seek? God be thanked that we have once again a clue, though whither it may lead us we know not. We have been blind somewhat; blind after the manner of men, since when we can look back we see what we might have seen looking forward if we had been able to see what we might have seen! Alas, but that sentence is a puddle; is it not? We can know now what was in the Count’s mind, when he seize that money, though Jonathan’s so fierce knife put him in the danger that even he dread. He meant escape. Hear me, ESCAPE! He saw that with but one earth-box left, and a pack of men following like dogs after a fox, this London was no place for him. He have take his last earth-box on board a ship, and he leave the land. He think to escape, but no! we follow him. Tally Ho! as friend Arthur would say when he put on his red frock! Our old fox is wily; oh! so wily, and we must follow with wile. I, too, am wily and I think his mind in a little while. In meantime we may rest and in peace, for there are waters between us which he do not want to pass, and which he could not if he would—unless the ship were to touch the land, and then only at full or slack tide. See, and the sun is just rose, and all day to sunset is to us. Let us take bath, and dress, and have breakfast which we all need, and which we can eat comfortably since he be not in the same land with us.” Mina looked at him appealingly as she asked:--

“But why need we seek him further, when he is gone away from us?” He took her hand and patted it as he replied:--

“Ask me nothings as yet. When we have breakfast, then I answer all questions.” He would say no more, and we separated to dress.

After breakfast Mina repeated her question. He looked at her gravely for a minute and then said sorrowfully:--

“Because my dear, dear Madam Mina, now more than ever must we find him even if we have to follow him to the jaws of Hell!” She grew paler as she asked faintly:--

“Why?”

“Because,” he answered solemnly, “he can live for centuries, and you are but mortal woman. Time is now to be dreaded—since once he put that mark upon your throat.”

I was just in time to catch her as she fell forward in a faint.

CHAPTER XXIV

DR. SEWARD’S PHONOGRAPH DIARY, SPOKEN BY VAN HELSING

THIS to Jonathan Harker.

You are to stay with your dear Madam Mina. We shall go to make our search—if I can call it so, for it is not search but knowing, and we seek confirmation only. But do you stay and take care of her to-day. This is your best and most holiest office. This day nothing can find him here. Let me tell you that so you will know what we four know already, for I have tell them. He, our enemy, have gone away; he have gone back to his Castle in Transylvania. I know it so well, as if a great hand of fire wrote it on the wall. He have prepare for this in some way, and that last earth-box was ready to ship somewheres. For this he took the money; for this he hurry at the last, lest we catch him before the sun go down. It was his last hope, save that he might hide in the tomb that he think poor Miss Lucy, being as he thought like him, keep open to him. But there was not of time. When that fail he make straight for his last resource—his last earth-work I might say did I wish double entente. He is clever, oh, so clever! he know that his game here was finish; and so he decide he go back home. He find ship going by the route he came, and he go in it. We go off now to find what ship, and whither bound; when we have discover that, we come back and tell you all. Then we will comfort you and poor dear Madam Mina with new hope. For it will be hope when you think it over: that all is not lost. This very creature that we pursue, he take hundreds of years to get so far as London; and yet in one day, when we know of the disposal of him we drive him out. He is finite, though he is powerful to do much harm and suffers not as we do. But we are strong, each in our purpose; and we are all more strong together. Take heart afresh, dear husband of Madam Mina. This battle is but begun, and in the end we shall win—so sure as that God sits on high to watch over His children. Therefore be of much comfort till we return.

Van Helsing.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal.

4 October.—When I read to Mina, Van Helsing’s message in the phonograph, the poor girl brightened up considerably. Already the certainty that the Count is out of the country has given her comfort; and comfort is strength to her. For my own part, now that his horrible danger is not face to face with us, it seems almost impossible to believe in it. Even my own terrible experiences in Castle Dracula seem like a long-forgotten dream. Here in the crisp autumn air in the bright sunlight—--

Alas! how can I disbelieve! In the midst of my thought my eye fell on the red scar on my poor darling’s white forehead. Whilst that lasts, there can be no disbelief. And afterwards the very memory of it will keep faith crystal clear. Mina and I fear to be idle, so we have been over all the diaries again and again. Somehow, although the reality seems greater each time, the pain and the fear seem less. There is something of a guiding purpose manifest throughout, which is comforting. Mina says that perhaps we are the instruments of ultimate good. It may be! I shall try to think as she does. We have never spoken to each other yet of the future. It is better to wait till we see the Professor and the others after their investigations.

The day is running by more quickly than I ever thought a day could run for me again. It is now three o’clock.

Mina Harker’s Journal.

5 October, 5 p. m.—Our meeting for report. Present: Professor Van Helsing, Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, Mr. Quincey Morris, Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker.

Dr. Van Helsing described what steps were taken during the day to discover on what boat and whither bound Count Dracula made his escape:--

“As I knew that he wanted to get back to Transylvania, I felt sure that he must go by the Danube mouth; or by somewhere in the Black Sea, since by that way he come. It was a dreary blank that was before us. Omne ignotum pro magnifico; and so with heavy hearts we start to find what ships leave for the Black Sea last night. He was in sailing ship, since Madam Mina tell of sails being set. These not so important as to go in your list of the shipping in the Times, and so we go, by suggestion of Lord Godalming, to your Lloyd’s, where are note of all ships that sail, however so small. There we find that only one Black-Sea-bound ship go out with the tide. She is the Czarina Catherine, and she sail from Doolittle’s Wharf for Varna, and thence on to other parts and up the Danube. ‘Soh!’ said I, ‘this is the ship whereon is the Count.’ So off we go to Doolittle’s Wharf, and there we find a man in an office of wood so small that the man look bigger than the office. From him we inquire of the goings of the Czarina Catherine. He swear much, and he red face and loud of voice, but he good fellow all the same; and when Quincey give him something from his pocket which crackle as he roll it up, and put it in a so small bag which he have hid deep in his clothing, he still better fellow and humble servant to us. He come with us, and ask many men who are rough and hot; these be better fellows too when they have been no more thirsty. They say much of blood and bloom, and of others which I comprehend not, though I guess what they mean; but nevertheless they tell us all things which we want to know.

“They make known to us among them, how last afternoon at about five o’clock comes a man so hurry. A tall man, thin and pale, with high nose and teeth so white, and eyes that seem to be burning. That he be all in black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or the time. That he scatter his money in making quick inquiry as to what ship sails for the Black Sea and for where. Some took him to the office and then to the ship, where he will not go aboard but halt at shore end of gang-plank, and ask that the captain come to him. The captain come, when told that he will be pay well; and though he swear much at the first he agree to term. Then the thin man go and some one tell him where horse and cart can be hired. He go there and soon he come again, himself driving cart on which a great box; this he himself lift down, though it take several to put it on truck for the ship. He give much talk to captain as to how and where his box is to be place; but the captain like it not and swear at him in many tongues, and tell him that if he like he can come and see where it shall be. But he say ‘no’; that he come not yet, for that he have much to do. Whereupon the captain tell him that he had better be quick—with blood—for that his ship will leave the place—of blood—before the turn of the tide—with blood. Then the thin man smile and say that of course he must go when he think fit; but he will be surprise if he go quite so soon. The captain swear again, polyglot, and the thin man make him bow, and thank him, and say that he will so far intrude on his kindness as to come aboard before the sailing. Final the captain, more red than ever, and in more tongues tell him that he doesn’t want no Frenchmen—with bloom upon them and also with blood—in his ship—with blood on her also. And so, after asking where there might be close at hand a ship where he might purchase ship forms, he departed.

“No one knew where he went ‘or bloomin’ well cared,’ as they said, for they had something else to think of—well with blood again; for it soon became apparent to all that the Czarina Catherine would not sail as was expected. A thin mist began to creep up from the river, and it grew, and grew; till soon a dense fog enveloped the ship and all around her. The captain swore polyglot—very polyglot—polyglot with bloom and blood; but he could do nothing. The water rose and rose; and he began to fear that he would lose the tide altogether. He was in no friendly mood, when just at full tide, the thin man came up the gang-plank again and asked to see where his box had been stowed. Then the captain replied that he wished that he and his box—old and with much bloom and blood—were in hell. But the thin man did not be offend, and went down with the mate and saw where it was place, and came up and stood awhile on deck in fog. He must have come off by himself, for none notice him. Indeed they thought not of him; for soon the fog begin to melt away, and all was clear again. My friends of the thirst and the language that was of bloom and blood laughed, as they told how the captain’s swears exceeded even his usual polyglot, and was more than ever full of picturesque, when on questioning other mariners who were on movement up and down on the river that hour, he found that few of them had seen any of fog at all, except where it lay round the wharf. However, the ship went out on the ebb tide; and was doubtless by morning far down the river mouth. She was by then, when they told us, well out to sea.

“And so, my dear Madam Mina, it is that we have to rest for a time, for our enemy is on the sea, with the fog at his command, on his way to the Danube mouth. To sail a ship takes time, go she never so quick; and when we start we go on land more quick, and we meet him there. Our best hope is to come on him when in the box between sunrise and sunset; for then he can make no struggle, and we may deal with him as we should. There are days for us, in which we can make ready our plan. We know all about where he go; for we have seen the owner of the ship, who have shown us invoices and all papers that can be. The box we seek is to be landed in Varna, and to be given to an agent, one Ristics who will there present his credentials; and so our merchant friend will have done his part. When he ask if there be any wrong, for that so, he can telegraph and have inquiry made at Varna, we say ‘no’; for what is to be done is not for police or of the customs. It must be done by us alone and in our own way.”

When Dr. Van Helsing had done speaking, I asked him if he were certain that the Count had remained on board the ship. He replied: “We have the best proof of that: your own evidence, when in the hypnotic trance this morning.” I asked him again if it were really necessary that they should pursue the Count, for oh! I dread Jonathan leaving me, and I know that he would surely go if the others went. He answered in growing passion, at first quietly. As he went on, however, he grew more angry and more forceful, till in the end we could not but see wherein was at least some of that personal dominance which made him so long a master amongst men:--

“Yes, it is necessary—necessary—necessary! For your sake in the first, and then for the sake of humanity. This monster has done much harm already, in the narrow scope where he find himself, and in the short time when as yet he was only as a body groping his so small measure in darkness and not knowing. All this have I told these others; you, my dear Madam Mina, will learn it in the phonograph of my friend John, or in that of your husband. I have told them how the measure of leaving his own barren land—barren of peoples—and coming to a new land where life of man teems till they are like the multitude of standing corn, was the work of centuries. Were another of the Un-Dead, like him, to try to do what he has done, perhaps not all the centuries of the world that have been, or that will be, could aid him. With this one, all the forces of nature that are occult and deep and strong must have worked together in some wondrous way. The very place, where he have been alive, Un-Dead for all these centuries, is full of strangeness of the geologic and chemical world. There are deep caverns and fissures that reach none know whither. There have been volcanoes, some of whose openings still send out waters of strange properties, and gases that kill or make to vivify. Doubtless, there is something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations of occult forces which work for physical life in strange way; and in himself were from the first some great qualities. In a hard and warlike time he was celebrate that he have more iron nerve, more subtle brain, more braver heart, than any man. In him some vital principle have in strange way found their utmost; and as his body keep strong and grow and thrive, so his brain grow too. All this without that diabolic aid which is surely to him; for it have to yield to the powers that come from, and are, symbolic of good. And now this is what he is to us. He have infect you—oh, forgive me, my dear, that I must say such; but it is for good of you that I speak. He infect you in such wise, that even if he do no more, you have only to live—to live in your own old, sweet way; and so in time, death, which is of man’s common lot and with God’s sanction, shall make you like to him. This must not be! We have sworn together that it must not. Thus are we ministers of God’s own wish: that the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He have allowed us to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise; and like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause.” He paused and I said:--

“But will not the Count take his rebuff wisely? Since he has been driven from England, will he not avoid it, as a tiger does the village from which he has been hunted?”

“Aha!” he said, “your simile of the tiger good, for me, and I shall adopt him. Your man-eater, as they of India call the tiger who has once tasted blood of the human, care no more for the other prey, but prowl unceasing till he get him. This that we hunt from our village is a tiger, too, a man-eater, and he never cease to prowl. Nay, in himself he is not one to retire and stay afar. In his life, his living life, he go over the Turkey frontier and attack his enemy on his own ground; he be beaten back, but did he stay? No! He come again, and again, and again. Look at his persistence and endurance. With the child-brain that was to him he have long since conceive the idea of coming to a great city. What does he do? He find out the place of all the world most of promise for him. Then he deliberately set himself down to prepare for the task. He find in patience just how is his strength, and what are his powers. He study new tongues. He learn new social life; new environment of old ways, the politic, the law, the finance, the science, the habit of a new land and a new people who have come to be since he was. His glimpse that he have had, whet his appetite only and enkeen his desire. Nay, it help him to grow as to his brain; for it all prove to him how right he was at the first in his surmises. He have done this alone; all alone! from a ruin tomb in a forgotten land. What more may he not do when the greater world of thought is open to him. He that can smile at death, as we know him; who can flourish in the midst of diseases that kill off whole peoples. Oh, if such an one was to come from God, and not the Devil, what a force for good might he not be in this old world of ours. But we are pledged to set the world free. Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength. It would be at once his sheath and his armour, and his weapons to destroy us, his enemies, who are willing to peril even our own souls for the safety of one we love—for the good of mankind, and for the honour and glory of God.”

After a general discussion it was determined that for to-night nothing be definitely settled; that we should all sleep on the facts, and try to think out the proper conclusions. To-morrow, at breakfast, we are to meet again, and, after making our conclusions known to one another, we shall decide on some definite cause of action.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I feel a wonderful peace and rest to-night. It is as if some haunting presence were removed from me. Perhaps ...

My surmise was not finished, could not be; for I caught sight in the mirror of the red mark upon my forehead; and I knew that I was still unclean.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

5 October.—We all rose early, and I think that sleep did much for each and all of us. When we met at early breakfast there was more general cheerfulness than any of us had ever expected to experience again.

It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way—even by death—and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment. More than once as we sat around the table, my eyes opened in wonder whether the whole of the past days had not been a dream. It was only when I caught sight of the red blotch on Mrs. Harker’s forehead that I was brought back to reality. Even now, when I am gravely revolving the matter, it is almost impossible to realise that the cause of all our trouble is still existent. Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight of her trouble for whole spells; it is only now and again, when something recalls it to her mind, that she thinks of her terrible scar. We are to meet here in my study in half an hour and decide on our course of action. I see only one immediate difficulty, I know it by instinct rather than reason: we shall all have to speak frankly; and yet I fear that in some mysterious way poor Mrs. Harker’s tongue is tied. I know that she forms conclusions of her own, and from all that has been I can guess how brilliant and how true they must be; but she will not, or cannot, give them utterance. I have mentioned this to Van Helsing, and he and I are to talk it over when we are alone. I suppose it is some of that horrid poison which has got into her veins beginning to work. The Count had his own purposes when he gave her what Van Helsing called “the Vampire’s baptism of blood.” Well, there may be a poison that distils itself out of good things; in an age when the existence of ptomaines is a mystery we should not wonder at anything! One thing I know: that if my instinct be true regarding poor Mrs. Harker’s silences, then there is a terrible difficulty—an unknown danger—in the work before us. The same power that compels her silence may compel her speech. I dare not think further; for so I should in my thoughts dishonour a noble woman!

Van Helsing is coming to my study a little before the others. I shall try to open the subject with him.

 

Later.—When the Professor came in, we talked over the state of things. I could see that he had something on his mind which he wanted to say, but felt some hesitancy about broaching the subject. After beating about the bush a little, he said suddenly:--

“Friend John, there is something that you and I must talk of alone, just at the first at any rate. Later, we may have to take the others into our confidence”; then he stopped, so I waited; he went on:--

“Madam Mina, our poor, dear Madam Mina is changing.” A cold shiver ran through me to find my worst fears thus endorsed. Van Helsing continued:--

“With the sad experience of Miss Lucy, we must this time be warned before things go too far. Our task is now in reality more difficult than ever, and this new trouble makes every hour of the direst importance. I can see the characteristics of the vampire coming in her face. It is now but very, very slight; but it is to be seen if we have eyes to notice without to prejudge. Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes are more hard. But these are not all, there is to her the silence now often; as so it was with Miss Lucy. She did not speak, even when she wrote that which she wished to be known later. Now my fear is this. If it be that she can, by our hypnotic trance, tell what the Count see and hear, is it not more true that he who have hypnotise her first, and who have drink of her very blood and make her drink of his, should, if he will, compel her mind to disclose to him that which she know?” I nodded acquiescence; he went on:--

“Then, what we must do is to prevent this; we must keep her ignorant of our intent, and so she cannot tell what she know not. This is a painful task! Oh, so painful that it heart-break me to think of; but it must be. When to-day we meet, I must tell her that for reason which we will not to speak she must not more be of our council, but be simply guarded by us.” He wiped his forehead, which had broken out in profuse perspiration at the thought of the pain which he might have to inflict upon the poor soul already so tortured. I knew that it would be some sort of comfort to him if I told him that I also had come to the same conclusion; for at any rate it would take away the pain of doubt. I told him, and the effect was as I expected.

It is now close to the time of our general gathering. Van Helsing has gone away to prepare for the meeting, and his painful part of it. I really believe his purpose is to be able to pray alone.

 

Later.—At the very outset of our meeting a great personal relief was experienced by both Van Helsing and myself. Mrs. Harker had sent a message by her husband to say that she would not join us at present, as she thought it better that we should be free to discuss our movements without her presence to embarrass us. The Professor and I looked at each other for an instant, and somehow we both seemed relieved. For my own part, I thought that if Mrs. Harker realised the danger herself, it was much pain as well as much danger averted. Under the circumstances we agreed, by a questioning look and answer, with finger on lip, to preserve silence in our suspicions, until we should have been able to confer alone again. We went at once into our Plan of Campaign. Van Helsing roughly put the facts before us first:--

“The Czarina Catherine left the Thames yesterday morning. It will take her at the quickest speed she has ever made at least three weeks to reach Varna; but we can travel overland to the same place in three days. Now, if we allow for two days less for the ship’s voyage, owing to such weather influences as we know that the Count can bring to bear; and if we allow a whole day and night for any delays which may occur to us, then we have a margin of nearly two weeks. Thus, in order to be quite safe, we must leave here on 17th at latest. Then we shall at any rate be in Varna a day before the ship arrives, and able to make such preparations as may be necessary. Of course we shall all go armed—armed against evil things, spiritual as well as physical.” Here Quincey Morris added:--

“I understand that the Count comes from a wolf country, and it may be that he shall get there before us. I propose that we add Winchesters to our armament. I have a kind of belief in a Winchester when there is any trouble of that sort around. Do you remember, Art, when we had the pack after us at Tobolsk? What wouldn’t we have given then for a repeater apiece!”

“Good!” said Van Helsing, “Winchesters it shall be. Quincey’s head is level at all times, but most so when there is to hunt, metaphor be more dishonour to science than wolves be of danger to man. In the meantime we can do nothing here; and as I think that Varna is not familiar to any of us, why not go there more soon? It is as long to wait here as there. To-night and to-morrow we can get ready, and then, if all be well, we four can set out on our journey.”

“We four?” said Harker interrogatively, looking from one to another of us.

“Of course!” answered the Professor quickly, “you must remain to take care of your so sweet wife!” Harker was silent for awhile and then said in a hollow voice:--

“Let us talk of that part of it in the morning. I want to consult with Mina.” I thought that now was the time for Van Helsing to warn him not to disclose our plans to her; but he took no notice. I looked at him significantly and coughed. For answer he put his finger on his lips and turned away.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal.

5 October, afternoon.—For some time after our meeting this morning I could not think. The new phases of things leave my mind in a state of wonder which allows no room for active thought. Mina’s determination not to take any part in the discussion set me thinking; and as I could not argue the matter with her, I could only guess. I am as far as ever from a solution now. The way the others received it, too, puzzled me; the last time we talked of the subject we agreed that there was to be no more concealment of anything amongst us. Mina is sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child. Her lips are curved and her face beams with happiness. Thank God, there are such moments still for her.

 

Later.—How strange it all is. I sat watching Mina’s happy sleep, and came as near to being happy myself as I suppose I shall ever be. As the evening drew on, and the earth took its shadows from the sun sinking lower, the silence of the room grew more and more solemn to me. All at once Mina opened her eyes, and looking at me tenderly, said:--

“Jonathan, I want you to promise me something on your word of honour. A promise made to me, but made holily in God’s hearing, and not to be broken though I should go down on my knees and implore you with bitter tears. Quick, you must make it to me at once.”

“Mina,” I said, “a promise like that, I cannot make at once. I may have no right to make it.”

“But, dear one,” she said, with such spiritual intensity that her eyes were like pole stars, “it is I who wish it; and it is not for myself. You can ask Dr. Van Helsing if I am not right; if he disagrees you may do as you will. Nay, more, if you all agree, later, you are absolved from the promise.”

“I promise!” I said, and for a moment she looked supremely happy; though to me all happiness for her was denied by the red scar on her forehead. She said:--

“Promise me that you will not tell me anything of the plans formed for the campaign against the Count. Not by word, or inference, or implication; not at any time whilst this remains to me!” and she solemnly pointed to the scar. I saw that she was in earnest, and said solemnly:--

“I promise!” and as I said it I felt that from that instant a door had been shut between us.

 

Later, midnight.—Mina has been bright and cheerful all the evening. So much so that all the rest seemed to take courage, as if infected somewhat with her gaiety; as a result even I myself felt as if the pall of gloom which weighs us down were somewhat lifted. We all retired early. Mina is now sleeping like a little child; it is a wonderful thing that her faculty of sleep remains to her in the midst of her terrible trouble. Thank God for it, for then at least she can forget her care. Perhaps her example may affect me as her gaiety did to-night. I shall try it. Oh! for a dreamless sleep.

 

6 October, morning.—Another surprise. Mina woke me early, about the same time as yesterday, and asked me to bring Dr. Van Helsing. I thought that it was another occasion for hypnotism, and without question went for the Professor. He had evidently expected some such call, for I found him dressed in his room. His door was ajar, so that he could hear the opening of the door of our room. He came at once; as he passed into the room, he asked Mina if the others might come, too.

“No,” she said quite simply, “it will not be necessary. You can tell them just as well. I must go with you on your journey.”

Dr. Van Helsing was as startled as I was. After a moment’s pause he asked:--

“But why?”

“You must take me with you. I am safer with you, and you shall be safer, too.”

“But why, dear Madam Mina? You know that your safety is our solemnest duty. We go into danger, to which you are, or may be, more liable than any of us from—from circumstances—things that have been.” He paused, embarrassed.

As she replied, she raised her finger and pointed to her forehead:--

“I know. That is why I must go. I can tell you now, whilst the sun is coming up; I may not be able again. I know that when the Count wills me I must go. I know that if he tells me to come in secret, I must come by wile; by any device to hoodwink—even Jonathan.” God saw the look that she turned on me as she spoke, and if there be indeed a Recording Angel that look is noted to her everlasting honour. I could only clasp her hand. I could not speak; my emotion was too great for even the relief of tears. She went on:--

“You men are brave and strong. You are strong in your numbers, for you can defy that which would break down the human endurance of one who had to guard alone. Besides, I may be of service, since you can hypnotise me and so learn that which even I myself do not know.” Dr. Van Helsing said very gravely:--

“Madam Mina, you are, as always, most wise. You shall with us come; and together we shall do that which we go forth to achieve.” When he had spoken, Mina’s long spell of silence made me look at her. She had fallen back on her pillow asleep; she did not even wake when I had pulled up the blind and let in the sunlight which flooded the room. Van Helsing motioned to me to come with him quietly. We went to his room, and within a minute Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris were with us also. He told them what Mina had said, and went on:--

“In the morning we shall leave for Varna. We have now to deal with a new factor: Madam Mina. Oh, but her soul is true. It is to her an agony to tell us so much as she has done; but it is most right, and we are warned in time. There must be no chance lost, and in Varna we must be ready to act the instant when that ship arrives.”

“What shall we do exactly?” asked Mr. Morris laconically. The Professor paused before replying:--

“We shall at the first board that ship; then, when we have identified the box, we shall place a branch of the wild rose on it. This we shall fasten, for when it is there none can emerge; so at least says the superstition. And to superstition must we trust at the first; it was man’s faith in the early, and it have its root in faith still. Then, when we get the opportunity that we seek, when none are near to see, we shall open the box, and—and all will be well.”

“I shall not wait for any opportunity,” said Morris. “When I see the box I shall open it and destroy the monster, though there were a thousand men looking on, and if I am to be wiped out for it the next moment!” I grasped his hand instinctively and found it as firm as a piece of steel. I think he understood my look; I hope he did.

“Good boy,” said Dr. Van Helsing. “Brave boy. Quincey is all man. God bless him for it. My child, believe me none of us shall lag behind or pause from any fear. I do but say what we may do—what we must do. But, indeed, indeed we cannot say what we shall do. There are so many things which may happen, and their ways and their ends are so various that until the moment we may not say. We shall all be armed, in all ways; and when the time for the end has come, our effort shall not be lack. Now let us to-day put all our affairs in order. Let all things which touch on others dear to us, and who on us depend, be complete; for none of us can tell what, or when, or how, the end may be. As for me, my own affairs are regulate; and as I have nothing else to do, I shall go make arrangements for the travel. I shall have all tickets and so forth for our journey.”

There was nothing further to be said, and we parted. I shall now settle up all my affairs of earth, and be ready for whatever may come....

 

Later.—It is all done; my will is made, and all complete. Mina if she survive is my sole heir. If it should not be so, then the others who have been so good to us shall have remainder.

It is now drawing towards the sunset; Mina’s uneasiness calls my attention to it. I am sure that there is something on her mind which the time of exact sunset will reveal. These occasions are becoming harrowing times for us all, for each sunrise and sunset opens up some new danger—some new pain, which, however, may in God’s will be means to a good end. I write all these things in the diary since my darling must not hear them now; but if it may be that she can see them again, they shall be ready.

She is calling to me.

CHAPTER XXV

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

11 October, Evening.—Jonathan Harker has asked me to note this, as he says he is hardly equal to the task, and he wants an exact record kept.

I think that none of us were surprised when we were asked to see Mrs. Harker a little before the time of sunset. We have of late come to understand that sunrise and sunset are to her times of peculiar freedom; when her old self can be manifest without any controlling force subduing or restraining her, or inciting her to action. This mood or condition begins some half hour or more before actual sunrise or sunset, and lasts till either the sun is high, or whilst the clouds are still aglow with the rays streaming above the horizon. At first there is a sort of negative condition, as if some tie were loosened, and then the absolute freedom quickly follows; when, however, the freedom ceases the change-back or relapse comes quickly, preceded only by a spell of warning silence.

To-night, when we met, she was somewhat constrained, and bore all the signs of an internal struggle. I put it down myself to her making a violent effort at the earliest instant she could do so. A very few minutes, however, gave her complete control of herself; then, motioning her husband to sit beside her on the sofa where she was half reclining, she made the rest of us bring chairs up close. Taking her husband’s hand in hers began:--

“We are all here together in freedom, for perhaps the last time! I know, dear; I know that you will always be with me to the end.” This was to her husband whose hand had, as we could see, tightened upon hers. “In the morning we go out upon our task, and God alone knows what may be in store for any of us. You are going to be so good to me as to take me with you. I know that all that brave earnest men can do for a poor weak woman, whose soul perhaps is lost—no, no, not yet, but is at any rate at stake—you will do. But you must remember that I am not as you are. There is a poison in my blood, in my soul, which may destroy me; which must destroy me, unless some relief comes to us. Oh, my friends, you know as well as I do, that my soul is at stake; and though I know there is one way out for me, you must not and I must not take it!” She looked appealingly to us all in turn, beginning and ending with her husband.

“What is that way?” asked Van Helsing in a hoarse voice. “What is that way, which we must not—may not—take?”

“That I may die now, either by my own hand or that of another, before the greater evil is entirely wrought. I know, and you know, that were I once dead you could and would set free my immortal spirit, even as you did my poor Lucy’s. Were death, or the fear of death, the only thing that stood in the way I would not shrink to die here, now, amidst the friends who love me. But death is not all. I cannot believe that to die in such a case, when there is hope before us and a bitter task to be done, is God’s will. Therefore, I, on my part, give up here the certainty of eternal rest, and go out into the dark where may be the blackest things that the world or the nether world holds!” We were all silent, for we knew instinctively that this was only a prelude. The faces of the others were set and Harker’s grew ashen grey; perhaps he guessed better than any of us what was coming. She continued:--

“This is what I can give into the hotch-pot.” I could not but note the quaint legal phrase which she used in such a place, and with all seriousness. “What will each of you give? Your lives I know,” she went on quickly, “that is easy for brave men. Your lives are God’s, and you can give them back to Him; but what will you give to me?” She looked again questioningly, but this time avoided her husband’s face. Quincey seemed to understand; he nodded, and her face lit up. “Then I shall tell you plainly what I want, for there must be no doubtful matter in this connection between us now. You must promise me, one and all—even you, my beloved husband—that, should the time come, you will kill me.”

“What is that time?” The voice was Quincey’s, but it was low and strained.

“When you shall be convinced that I am so changed that it is better that I die that I may live. When I am thus dead in the flesh, then you will, without a moment’s delay, drive a stake through me and cut off my head; or do whatever else may be wanting to give me rest!”

Quincey was the first to rise after the pause. He knelt down before her and taking her hand in his said solemnly:--

“I’m only a rough fellow, who hasn’t, perhaps, lived as a man should to win such a distinction, but I swear to you by all that I hold sacred and dear that, should the time ever come, I shall not flinch from the duty that you have set us. And I promise you, too, that I shall make all certain, for if I am only doubtful I shall take it that the time has come!”

“My true friend!” was all she could say amid her fast-falling tears, as, bending over, she kissed his hand.

“I swear the same, my dear Madam Mina!” said Van Helsing.

“And I!” said Lord Godalming, each of them in turn kneeling to her to take the oath. I followed, myself. Then her husband turned to her wan-eyed and with a greenish pallor which subdued the snowy whiteness of his hair, and asked:--

“And must I, too, make such a promise, oh, my wife?”

“You too, my dearest,” she said, with infinite yearning of pity in her voice and eyes. “You must not shrink. You are nearest and dearest and all the world to me; our souls are knit into one, for all life and all time. Think, dear, that there have been times when brave men have killed their wives and their womenkind, to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy. Their hands did not falter any the more because those that they loved implored them to slay them. It is men’s duty towards those whom they love, in such times of sore trial! And oh, my dear, if it is to be that I must meet death at any hand, let it be at the hand of him that loves me best. Dr. Van Helsing, I have not forgotten your mercy in poor Lucy’s case to him who loved”—she stopped with a flying blush, and changed her phrase—“to him who had best right to give her peace. If that time shall come again, I look to you to make it a happy memory of my husband’s life that it was his loving hand which set me free from the awful thrall upon me.”

“Again I swear!” came the Professor’s resonant voice. Mrs. Harker smiled, positively smiled, as with a sigh of relief she leaned back and said:--

“And now one word of warning, a warning which you must never forget: this time, if it ever come, may come quickly and unexpectedly, and in such case you must lose no time in using your opportunity. At such a time I myself might be—nay! if the time ever comes, shall be—leagued with your enemy against you.”

“One more request;” she became very solemn as she said this, “it is not vital and necessary like the other, but I want you to do one thing for me, if you will.” We all acquiesced, but no one spoke; there was no need to speak:--

“I want you to read the Burial Service.” She was interrupted by a deep groan from her husband; taking his hand in hers, she held it over her heart, and continued: “You must read it over me some day. Whatever may be the issue of all this fearful state of things, it will be a sweet thought to all or some of us. You, my dearest, will I hope read it, for then it will be in your voice in my memory for ever—come what may!”

“But oh, my dear one,” he pleaded, “death is afar off from you.”

“Nay,” she said, holding up a warning hand. “I am deeper in death at this moment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy upon me!”

“Oh, my wife, must I read it?” he said, before he began.

“It would comfort me, my husband!” was all she said; and he began to read when she had got the book ready.

“How can I—how could any one—tell of that strange scene, its solemnity, its gloom, its sadness, its horror; and, withal, its sweetness. Even a sceptic, who can see nothing but a travesty of bitter truth in anything holy or emotional, would have been melted to the heart had he seen that little group of loving and devoted friends kneeling round that stricken and sorrowing lady; or heard the tender passion of her husband’s voice, as in tones so broken with emotion that often he had to pause, he read the simple and beautiful service from the Burial of the Dead. I—I cannot go on—words—and—v-voice—f-fail m-me!”

 

She was right in her instinct. Strange as it all was, bizarre as it may hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent influence at the time, it comforted us much; and the silence, which showed Mrs. Harker’s coming relapse from her freedom of soul, did not seem so full of despair to any of us as we had dreaded.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal.

15 October, Varna.—We left Charing Cross on the morning of the 12th, got to Paris the same night, and took the places secured for us in the Orient Express. We travelled night and day, arriving here at about five o’clock. Lord Godalming went to the Consulate to see if any telegram had arrived for him, whilst the rest of us came on to this hotel—“the Odessus.” The journey may have had incidents; I was, however, too eager to get on, to care for them. Until the Czarina Catherine comes into port there will be no interest for me in anything in the wide world. Thank God! Mina is well, and looks to be getting stronger; her colour is coming back. She sleeps a great deal; throughout the journey she slept nearly all the time. Before sunrise and sunset, however, she is very wakeful and alert; and it has become a habit for Van Helsing to hypnotise her at such times. At first, some effort was needed, and he had to make many passes; but now, she seems to yield at once, as if by habit, and scarcely any action is needed. He seems to have power at these particular moments to simply will, and her thoughts obey him. He always asks her what she can see and hear. She answers to the first:--

“Nothing; all is dark.” And to the second:--

“I can hear the waves lapping against the ship, and the water rushing by. Canvas and cordage strain and masts and yards creak. The wind is high—I can hear it in the shrouds, and the bow throws back the foam.” It is evident that the Czarina Catherine is still at sea, hastening on her way to Varna. Lord Godalming has just returned. He had four telegrams, one each day since we started, and all to the same effect: that the Czarina Catherine had not been reported to Lloyd’s from anywhere. He had arranged before leaving London that his agent should send him every day a telegram saying if the ship had been reported. He was to have a message even if she were not reported, so that he might be sure that there was a watch being kept at the other end of the wire.

We had dinner and went to bed early. To-morrow we are to see the Vice-Consul, and to arrange, if we can, about getting on board the ship as soon as she arrives. Van Helsing says that our chance will be to get on the boat between sunrise and sunset. The Count, even if he takes the form of a bat, cannot cross the running water of his own volition, and so cannot leave the ship. As he dare not change to man’s form without suspicion—which he evidently wishes to avoid—he must remain in the box. If, then, we can come on board after sunrise, he is at our mercy; for we can open the box and make sure of him, as we did of poor Lucy, before he wakes. What mercy he shall get from us will not count for much. We think that we shall not have much trouble with officials or the seamen. Thank God! this is the country where bribery can do anything, and we are well supplied with money. We have only to make sure that the ship cannot come into port between sunset and sunrise without our being warned, and we shall be safe. Judge Moneybag will settle this case, I think!

 

16 October.—Mina’s report still the same: lapping waves and rushing water, darkness and favouring winds. We are evidently in good time, and when we hear of the Czarina Catherine we shall be ready. As she must pass the Dardanelles we are sure to have some report.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17 October.—Everything is pretty well fixed now, I think, to welcome the Count on his return from his tour. Godalming told the shippers that he fancied that the box sent aboard might contain something stolen from a friend of his, and got a half consent that he might open it at his own risk. The owner gave him a paper telling the Captain to give him every facility in doing whatever he chose on board the ship, and also a similar authorisation to his agent at Varna. We have seen the agent, who was much impressed with Godalming’s kindly manner to him, and we are all satisfied that whatever he can do to aid our wishes will be done. We have already arranged what to do in case we get the box open. If the Count is there, Van Helsing and Seward will cut off his head at once and drive a stake through his heart. Morris and Godalming and I shall prevent interference, even if we have to use the arms which we shall have ready. The Professor says that if we can so treat the Count’s body, it will soon after fall into dust. In such case there would be no evidence against us, in case any suspicion of murder were aroused. But even if it were not, we should stand or fall by our act, and perhaps some day this very script may be evidence to come between some of us and a rope. For myself, I should take the chance only too thankfully if it were to come. We mean to leave no stone unturned to carry out our intent. We have arranged with certain officials that the instant the Czarina Catherine is seen, we are to be informed by a special messenger.

 

24 October.—A whole week of waiting. Daily telegrams to Godalming, but only the same story: “Not yet reported.” Mina’s morning and evening hypnotic answer is unvaried: lapping waves, rushing water, and creaking masts.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

25 October.—How I miss my phonograph! To write diary with a pen is irksome to me; but Van Helsing says I must. We were all wild with excitement yesterday when Godalming got his telegram from Lloyd’s. I know now what men feel in battle when the call to action is heard. Mrs. Harker, alone of our party, did not show any signs of emotion. After all, it is not strange that she did not; for we took special care not to let her know anything about it, and we all tried not to show any excitement when we were in her presence. In old days she would, I am sure, have noticed, no matter how we might have tried to conceal it; but in this way she is greatly changed during the past three weeks. The lethargy grows upon her, and though she seems strong and well, and is getting back some of her colour, Van Helsing and I are not satisfied. We talk of her often; we have not, however, said a word to the others. It would break poor Harker’s heart—certainly his nerve—if he knew that we had even a suspicion on the subject. Van Helsing examines, he tells me, her teeth very carefully, whilst she is in the hypnotic condition, for he says that so long as they do not begin to sharpen there is no active danger of a change in her. If this change should come, it would be necessary to take steps!... We both know what those steps would have to be, though we do not mention our thoughts to each other. We should neither of us shrink from the task—awful though it be to contemplate. “Euthanasia” is an excellent and a comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it.

It is only about 24 hours’ sail from the Dardanelles to here, at the rate the Czarina Catherine has come from London. She should therefore arrive some time in the morning; but as she cannot possibly get in before then, we are all about to retire early. We shall get up at one o’clock, so as to be ready.

 

25 October, Noon.—No news yet of the ship’s arrival. Mrs. Harker’s hypnotic report this morning was the same as usual, so it is possible that we may get news at any moment. We men are all in a fever of excitement, except Harker, who is calm; his hands are cold as ice, and an hour ago I found him whetting the edge of the great Ghoorka knife which he now always carries with him. It will be a bad lookout for the Count if the edge of that “Kukri” ever touches his throat, driven by that stern, ice-cold hand!

Van Helsing and I were a little alarmed about Mrs. Harker to-day. About noon she got into a sort of lethargy which we did not like; although we kept silence to the others, we were neither of us happy about it. She had been restless all the morning, so that we were at first glad to know that she was sleeping. When, however, her husband mentioned casually that she was sleeping so soundly that he could not wake her, we went to her room to see for ourselves. She was breathing naturally and looked so well and peaceful that we agreed that the sleep was better for her than anything else. Poor girl, she has so much to forget that it is no wonder that sleep, if it brings oblivion to her, does her good.

 

Later.—Our opinion was justified, for when after a refreshing sleep of some hours she woke up, she seemed brighter and better than she had been for days. At sunset she made the usual hypnotic report. Wherever he may be in the Black Sea, the Count is hurrying to his destination. To his doom, I trust!

 

26 October.—Another day and no tidings of the Czarina Catherine. She ought to be here by now. That she is still journeying somewhere is apparent, for Mrs. Harker’s hypnotic report at sunrise was still the same. It is possible that the vessel may be lying by, at times, for fog; some of the steamers which came in last evening reported patches of fog both to north and south of the port. We must continue our watching, as the ship may now be signalled any moment.

 

27 October, Noon.—Most strange; no news yet of the ship we wait for. Mrs. Harker reported last night and this morning as usual: “lapping waves and rushing water,” though she added that “the waves were very faint.” The telegrams from London have been the same: “no further report.” Van Helsing is terribly anxious, and told me just now that he fears the Count is escaping us. He added significantly:--

“I did not like that lethargy of Madam Mina’s. Souls and memories can do strange things during trance.” I was about to ask him more, but Harker just then came in, and he held up a warning hand. We must try to-night at sunset to make her speak more fully when in her hypnotic state.

 

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

28 October.—When the telegram came announcing the arrival in Galatz I do not think it was such a shock to any of us as might have been expected. True, we did not know whence, or how, or when, the bolt would come; but I think we all expected that something strange would happen. The delay of arrival at Varna made us individually satisfied that things would not be just as we had expected; we only waited to learn where the change would occur. None the less, however, was it a surprise. I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know that they will be. Transcendentalism is a beacon to the angels, even if it be a will-o’-the-wisp to man. It was an odd experience and we all took it differently. Van Helsing raised his hand over his head for a moment, as though in remonstrance with the Almighty; but he said not a word, and in a few seconds stood up with his face sternly set. Lord Godalming grew very pale, and sat breathing heavily. I was myself half stunned and looked in wonder at one after another. Quincey Morris tightened his belt with that quick movement which I knew so well; in our old wandering days it meant “action.” Mrs. Harker grew ghastly white, so that the scar on her forehead seemed to burn, but she folded her hands meekly and looked up in prayer. Harker smiled—actually smiled—the dark, bitter smile of one who is without hope; but at the same time his action belied his words, for his hands instinctively sought the hilt of the great Kukri knife and rested there. “When does the next train start for Galatz?” said Van Helsing to us generally.

“At 6:30 to-morrow morning!” We all started, for the answer came from Mrs. Harker.

“How on earth do you know?” said Art.

“You forget—or perhaps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so does Dr. Van Helsing—that I am the train fiend. At home in Exeter I always used to make up the time-tables, so as to be helpful to my husband. I found it so useful sometimes, that I always make a study of the time-tables now. I knew that if anything were to take us to Castle Dracula we should go by Galatz, or at any rate through Bucharest, so I learned the times very carefully. Unhappily there are not many to learn, as the only train to-morrow leaves as I say.”

“Wonderful woman!” murmured the Professor.

“Can’t we get a special?” asked Lord Godalming. Van Helsing shook his head: “I fear not. This land is very different from yours or mine; even if we did have a special, it would probably not arrive as soon as our regular train. Moreover, we have something to prepare. We must think. Now let us organize. You, friend Arthur, go to the train and get the tickets and arrange that all be ready for us to go in the morning. Do you, friend Jonathan, go to the agent of the ship and get from him letters to the agent in Galatz, with authority to make search the ship just as it was here. Morris Quincey, you see the Vice-Consul, and get his aid with his fellow in Galatz and all he can do to make our way smooth, so that no times be lost when over the Danube. John will stay with Madam Mina and me, and we shall consult. For so if time be long you may be delayed; and it will not matter when the sun set, since I am here with Madam to make report.”

“And I,” said Mrs. Harker brightly, and more like her old self than she had been for many a long day, “shall try to be of use in all ways, and shall think and write for you as I used to do. Something is shifting from me in some strange way, and I feel freer than I have been of late!” The three younger men looked happier at the moment as they seemed to realise the significance of her words; but Van Helsing and I, turning to each other, met each a grave and troubled glance. We said nothing at the time, however.

When the three men had gone out to their tasks Van Helsing asked Mrs. Harker to look up the copy of the diaries and find him the part of Harker’s journal at the Castle. She went away to get it; when the door was shut upon her he said to me:--

“We mean the same! speak out!”

“There is some change. It is a hope that makes me sick, for it may deceive us.”

“Quite so. Do you know why I asked her to get the manuscript?”

“No!” said I, “unless it was to get an opportunity of seeing me alone.”

“You are in part right, friend John, but only in part. I want to tell you something. And oh, my friend, I am taking a great—a terrible—risk; but I believe it is right. In the moment when Madam Mina said those words that arrest both our understanding, an inspiration came to me. In the trance of three days ago the Count sent her his spirit to read her mind; or more like he took her to see him in his earth-box in the ship with water rushing, just as it go free at rise and set of sun. He learn then that we are here; for she have more to tell in her open life with eyes to see and ears to hear than he, shut, as he is, in his coffin-box. Now he make his most effort to escape us. At present he want her not.

“He is sure with his so great knowledge that she will come at his call; but he cut her off—take her, as he can do, out of his own power, that so she come not to him. Ah! there I have hope that our man-brains that have been of man so long and that have not lost the grace of God, will come higher than his child-brain that lie in his tomb for centuries, that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only work selfish and therefore small. Here comes Madam Mina; not a word to her of her trance! She know it not; and it would overwhelm her and make despair just when we want all her hope, all her courage; when most we want all her great brain which is trained like man’s brain, but is of sweet woman and have a special power which the Count give her, and which he may not take away altogether—though he think not so. Hush! let me speak, and you shall learn. Oh, John, my friend, we are in awful straits. I fear, as I never feared before. We can only trust the good God. Silence! here she comes!”

I thought that the Professor was going to break down and have hysterics, just as he had when Lucy died, but with a great effort he controlled himself and was at perfect nervous poise when Mrs. Harker tripped into the room, bright and happy-looking and, in the doing of work, seemingly forgetful of her misery. As she came in, she handed a number of sheets of typewriting to Van Helsing. He looked over them gravely, his face brightening up as he read. Then holding the pages between his finger and thumb he said:--

“Friend John, to you with so much of experience already—and you, too, dear Madam Mina, that are young—here is a lesson: do not fear ever to think. A half-thought has been buzzing often in my brain, but I fear to let him loose his wings. Here now, with more knowledge, I go back to where that half-thought come from and I find that he be no half-thought at all; that be a whole thought, though so young that he is not yet strong to use his little wings. Nay, like the “Ugly Duck” of my friend Hans Andersen, he be no duck-thought at all, but a big swan-thought that sail nobly on big wings, when the time come for him to try them. See I read here what Jonathan have written:--

“That other of his race who, in a later age, again and again, brought his forces over The Great River into Turkey Land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph.”

“What does this tell us? Not much? no! The Count’s child-thought see nothing; therefore he speak so free. Your man-thought see nothing; my man-thought see nothing, till just now. No! But there comes another word from some one who speak without thought because she, too, know not what it mean—what it might mean. Just as there are elements which rest, yet when in nature’s course they move on their way and they touch—then pouf! and there comes a flash of light, heaven wide, that blind and kill and destroy some; but that show up all earth below for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ You, John, yes; for it is a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina; for crime touch you not—not but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not a particulari ad universale. There is this peculiarity in criminals. It is so constant, in all countries and at all times, that even police, who know not much from philosophy, come to know it empirically, that it is. That is to be empiric. The criminal always work at one crime—that is the true criminal who seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other. This criminal has not full man-brain. He is clever and cunning and resourceful; but he be not of man-stature as to brain. He be of child-brain in much. Now this criminal of ours is predestinate to crime also; he, too, have child-brain, and it is of the child to do what he have done. The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by principle, but empirically; and when he learn to do, then there is to him the ground to start from to do more. ‘Dos pou sto,’ said Archimedes. ‘Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!’ To do once, is the fulcrum whereby child-brain become man-brain; and until he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as he have done before! Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes are opened, and that to you the lightning flash show all the leagues,” for Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands and her eyes sparkled. He went on:--

“Now you shall speak. Tell us two dry men of science what you see with those so bright eyes.” He took her hand and held it whilst she spoke. His finger and thumb closed on her pulse, as I thought instinctively and unconsciously, as she spoke:--

“The Count is a criminal and of criminal type. Nordau and Lombroso would so classify him, and quâ criminal he is of imperfectly formed mind. Thus, in a difficulty he has to seek resource in habit. His past is a clue, and the one page of it that we know—and that from his own lips—tells that once before, when in what Mr. Morris would call a ‘tight place,’ he went back to his own country from the land he had tried to invade, and thence, without losing purpose, prepared himself for a new effort. He came again better equipped for his work; and won. So he came to London to invade a new land. He was beaten, and when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he fled back over the sea to his home; just as formerly he had fled back over the Danube from Turkey Land.”

“Good, good! oh, you so clever lady!” said Van Helsing, enthusiastically, as he stooped and kissed her hand. A moment later he said to me, as calmly as though we had been having a sick-room consultation:--

“Seventy-two only; and in all this excitement. I have hope.” Turning to her again, he said with keen expectation:--

“But go on. Go on! there is more to tell if you will. Be not afraid; John and I know. I do in any case, and shall tell you if you are right. Speak, without fear!”

“I will try to; but you will forgive me if I seem egotistical.”

“Nay! fear not, you must be egotist, for it is of you that we think.”

“Then, as he is criminal he is selfish; and as his intellect is small and his action is based on selfishness, he confines himself to one purpose. That purpose is remorseless. As he fled back over the Danube, leaving his forces to be cut to pieces, so now he is intent on being safe, careless of all. So his own selfishness frees my soul somewhat from the terrible power which he acquired over me on that dreadful night. I felt it! Oh, I felt it! Thank God, for His great mercy! My soul is freer than it has been since that awful hour; and all that haunts me is a fear lest in some trance or dream he may have used my knowledge for his ends.” The Professor stood up:--

“He has so used your mind; and by it he has left us here in Varna, whilst the ship that carried him rushed through enveloping fog up to Galatz, where, doubtless, he had made preparation for escaping from us. But his child-mind only saw so far; and it may be that, as ever is in God’s Providence, the very thing that the evil-doer most reckoned on for his selfish good, turns out to be his chiefest harm. The hunter is taken in his own snare, as the great Psalmist says. For now that he think he is free from every trace of us all, and that he has escaped us with so many hours to him, then his selfish child-brain will whisper him to sleep. He think, too, that as he cut himself off from knowing your mind, there can be no knowledge of him to you; there is where he fail! That terrible baptism of blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit, as you have as yet done in your times of freedom, when the sun rise and set. At such times you go by my volition and not by his; and this power to good of you and others, as you have won from your suffering at his hands. This is now all the more precious that he know it not, and to guard himself have even cut himself off from his knowledge of our where. We, however, are not selfish, and we believe that God is with us through all this blackness, and these many dark hours. We shall follow him; and we shall not flinch; even if we peril ourselves that we become like him. Friend John, this has been a great hour; and it have done much to advance us on our way. You must be scribe and write him all down, so that when the others return from their work you can give it to them; then they shall know as we do.”

And so I have written it whilst we wait their return, and Mrs. Harker has written with her typewriter all since she brought the MS. to us.

CHAPTER XXVI

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

29 October.—This is written in the train from Varna to Galatz. Last night we all assembled a little before the time of sunset. Each of us had done his work as well as he could; so far as thought, and endeavour, and opportunity go, we are prepared for the whole of our journey, and for our work when we get to Galatz. When the usual time came round Mrs. Harker prepared herself for her hypnotic effort; and after a longer and more serious effort on the part of Van Helsing than has been usually necessary, she sank into the trance. Usually she speaks on a hint; but this time the Professor had to ask her questions, and to ask them pretty resolutely, before we could learn anything; at last her answer came:--

“I can see nothing; we are still; there are no waves lapping, but only a steady swirl of water softly running against the hawser. I can hear men’s voices calling, near and far, and the roll and creak of oars in the rowlocks. A gun is fired somewhere; the echo of it seems far away. There is tramping of feet overhead, and ropes and chains are dragged along. What is this? There is a gleam of light; I can feel the air blowing upon me.”

Here she stopped. She had risen, as if impulsively, from where she lay on the sofa, and raised both her hands, palms upwards, as if lifting a weight. Van Helsing and I looked at each other with understanding. Quincey raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at her intently, whilst Harker’s hand instinctively closed round the hilt of his Kukri. There was a long pause. We all knew that the time when she could speak was passing; but we felt that it was useless to say anything. Suddenly she sat up, and, as she opened her eyes, said sweetly:--

“Would none of you like a cup of tea? You must all be so tired!” We could only make her happy, and so acquiesced. She bustled off to get tea; when she had gone Van Helsing said:--

“You see, my friends. He is close to land: he has left his earth-chest. But he has yet to get on shore. In the night he may lie hidden somewhere; but if he be not carried on shore, or if the ship do not touch it, he cannot achieve the land. In such case he can, if it be in the night, change his form and can jump or fly on shore, as he did at Whitby. But if the day come before he get on shore, then, unless he be carried he cannot escape. And if he be carried, then the customs men may discover what the box contain. Thus, in fine, if he escape not on shore to-night, or before dawn, there will be the whole day lost to him. We may then arrive in time; for if he escape not at night we shall come on him in daytime, boxed up and at our mercy; for he dare not be his true self, awake and visible, lest he be discovered.”

There was no more to be said, so we waited in patience until the dawn; at which time we might learn more from Mrs. Harker.

Early this morning we listened, with breathless anxiety, for her response in her trance. The hypnotic stage was even longer in coming than before; and when it came the time remaining until full sunrise was so short that we began to despair. Van Helsing seemed to throw his whole soul into the effort; at last, in obedience to his will she made reply:--

“All is dark. I hear lapping water, level with me, and some creaking as of wood on wood.” She paused, and the red sun shot up. We must wait till to-night.

And so it is that we are travelling towards Galatz in an agony of expectation. We are due to arrive between two and three in the morning; but already, at Bucharest, we are three hours late, so we cannot possibly get in till well after sun-up. Thus we shall have two more hypnotic messages from Mrs. Harker; either or both may possibly throw more light on what is happening.

 

Later.—Sunset has come and gone. Fortunately it came at a time when there was no distraction; for had it occurred whilst we were at a station, we might not have secured the necessary calm and isolation. Mrs. Harker yielded to the hypnotic influence even less readily than this morning. I am in fear that her power of reading the Count’s sensations may die away, just when we want it most. It seems to me that her imagination is beginning to work. Whilst she has been in the trance hitherto she has confined herself to the simplest of facts. If this goes on it may ultimately mislead us. If I thought that the Count’s power over her would die away equally with her power of knowledge it would be a happy thought; but I am afraid that it may not be so. When she did speak, her words were enigmatical:--

“Something is going out; I can feel it pass me like a cold wind. I can hear, far off, confused sounds—as of men talking in strange tongues, fierce-falling water, and the howling of wolves.” She stopped and a shudder ran through her, increasing in intensity for a few seconds, till, at the end, she shook as though in a palsy. She said no more, even in answer to the Professor’s imperative questioning. When she woke from the trance, she was cold, and exhausted, and languid; but her mind was all alert. She could not remember anything, but asked what she had said; when she was told, she pondered over it deeply for a long time and in silence.

 

30 October, 7 a. m.—We are near Galatz now, and I may not have time to write later. Sunrise this morning was anxiously looked for by us all. Knowing of the increasing difficulty of procuring the hypnotic trance, Van Helsing began his passes earlier than usual. They produced no effect, however, until the regular time, when she yielded with a still greater difficulty, only a minute before the sun rose. The Professor lost no time in his questioning; her answer came with equal quickness:--

“All is dark. I hear water swirling by, level with my ears, and the creaking of wood on wood. Cattle low far off. There is another sound, a queer one like——” She stopped and grew white, and whiter still.

“Go on; go on! Speak, I command you!” said Van Helsing in an agonised voice. At the same time there was despair in his eyes, for the risen sun was reddening even Mrs. Harker’s pale face. She opened her eyes, and we all started as she said, sweetly and seemingly with the utmost unconcern:--

“Oh, Professor, why ask me to do what you know I can’t? I don’t remember anything.” Then, seeing the look of amazement on our faces, she said, turning from one to the other with a troubled look:--

“What have I said? What have I done? I know nothing, only that I was lying here, half asleep, and heard you say go on! speak, I command you!’ It seemed so funny to hear you order me about, as if I were a bad child!”

“Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, sadly, “it is proof, if proof be needed, of how I love and honour you, when a word for your good, spoken more earnest than ever, can seem so strange because it is to order her whom I am proud to obey!”

The whistles are sounding; we are nearing Galatz. We are on fire with anxiety and eagerness.

Mina Harker’s Journal.

30 October.—Mr. Morris took me to the hotel where our rooms had been ordered by telegraph, he being the one who could best be spared, since he does not speak any foreign language. The forces were distributed much as they had been at Varna, except that Lord Godalming went to the Vice-Consul, as his rank might serve as an immediate guarantee of some sort to the official, we being in extreme hurry. Jonathan and the two doctors went to the shipping agent to learn particulars of the arrival of the Czarina Catherine.

 

Later.—Lord Godalming has returned. The Consul is away, and the Vice-Consul sick; so the routine work has been attended to by a clerk. He was very obliging, and offered to do anything in his power.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal.

30 October.—At nine o’clock Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and I called on Messrs. Mackenzie & Steinkoff, the agents of the London firm of Hapgood. They had received a wire from London, in answer to Lord Godalming’s telegraphed request, asking us to show them any civility in their power. They were more than kind and courteous, and took us at once on board the Czarina Catherine, which lay at anchor out in the river harbour. There we saw the Captain, Donelson by name, who told us of his voyage. He said that in all his life he had never had so favourable a run.

“Man!” he said, “but it made us afeard, for we expeckit that we should have to pay for it wi’ some rare piece o’ ill luck, so as to keep up the average. It’s no canny to run frae London to the Black Sea wi’ a wind ahint ye, as though the Deil himself were blawin’ on yer sail for his ain purpose. An’ a’ the time we could no speer a thing. Gin we were nigh a ship, or a port, or a headland, a fog fell on us and travelled wi’ us, till when after it had lifted and we looked out, the deil a thing could we see. We ran by Gibraltar wi’oot bein’ able to signal; an’ till we came to the Dardanelles and had to wait to get our permit to pass, we never were within hail o’ aught. At first I inclined to slack off sail and beat about till the fog was lifted; but whiles, I thocht that if the Deil was minded to get us into the Black Sea quick, he was like to do it whether we would or no. If we had a quick voyage it would be no to our miscredit wi’ the owners, or no hurt to our traffic; an’ the Old Mon who had served his ain purpose wad be decently grateful to us for no hinderin’ him.” This mixture of simplicity and cunning, of superstition and commercial reasoning, aroused Van Helsing, who said:--

“Mine friend, that Devil is more clever than he is thought by some; and he know when he meet his match!” The skipper was not displeased with the compliment, and went on:--

“When we got past the Bosphorus the men began to grumble; some o’ them, the Roumanians, came and asked me to heave overboard a big box which had been put on board by a queer lookin’ old man just before we had started frae London. I had seen them speer at the fellow, and put out their twa fingers when they saw him, to guard against the evil eye. Man! but the supersteetion of foreigners is pairfectly rideeculous! I sent them aboot their business pretty quick; but as just after a fog closed in on us I felt a wee bit as they did anent something, though I wouldn’t say it was agin the big box. Well, on we went, and as the fog didn’t let up for five days I joost let the wind carry us; for if the Deil wanted to get somewheres—well, he would fetch it up a’reet. An’ if he didn’t, well, we’d keep a sharp lookout anyhow. Sure eneuch, we had a fair way and deep water all the time; and two days ago, when the mornin’ sun came through the fog, we found ourselves just in the river opposite Galatz. The Roumanians were wild, and wanted me right or wrong to take out the box and fling it in the river. I had to argy wi’ them aboot it wi’ a handspike; an’ when the last o’ them rose off the deck wi’ his head in his hand, I had convinced them that, evil eye or no evil eye, the property and the trust of my owners were better in my hands than in the river Danube. They had, mind ye, taken the box on the deck ready to fling in, and as it was marked Galatz via Varna, I thocht I’d let it lie till we discharged in the port an’ get rid o’t althegither. We didn’t do much clearin’ that day, an’ had to remain the nicht at anchor; but in the mornin’, braw an’ airly, an hour before sun-up, a man came aboard wi’ an order, written to him from England, to receive a box marked for one Count Dracula. Sure eneuch the matter was one ready to his hand. He had his papers a’ reet, an’ glad I was to be rid o’ the dam’ thing, for I was beginnin’ masel’ to feel uneasy at it. If the Deil did have any luggage aboord the ship, I’m thinkin’ it was nane ither than that same!”

“What was the name of the man who took it?” asked Dr. Van Helsing with restrained eagerness.

“I’ll be tellin’ ye quick!” he answered, and, stepping down to his cabin, produced a receipt signed “Immanuel Hildesheim.” Burgen-strasse 16 was the address. We found out that this was all the Captain knew; so with thanks we came away.

We found Hildesheim in his office, a Hebrew of rather the Adelphi Theatre type, with a nose like a sheep, and a fez. His arguments were pointed with specie—we doing the punctuation—and with a little bargaining he told us what he knew. This turned out to be simple but important. He had received a letter from Mr. de Ville of London, telling him to receive, if possible before sunrise so as to avoid customs, a box which would arrive at Galatz in the Czarina Catherine. This he was to give in charge to a certain Petrof Skinsky, who dealt with the Slovaks who traded down the river to the port. He had been paid for his work by an English bank note, which had been duly cashed for gold at the Danube International Bank. When Skinsky had come to him, he had taken him to the ship and handed over the box, so as to save porterage. That was all he knew.

We then sought for Skinsky, but were unable to find him. One of his neighbours, who did not seem to bear him any affection, said that he had gone away two days before, no one knew whither. This was corroborated by his landlord, who had received by messenger the key of the house together with the rent due, in English money. This had been between ten and eleven o’clock last night. We were at a standstill again.

Whilst we were talking one came running and breathlessly gasped out that the body of Skinsky had been found inside the wall of the churchyard of St. Peter, and that the throat had been torn open as if by some wild animal. Those we had been speaking with ran off to see the horror, the women crying out “This is the work of a Slovak!” We hurried away lest we should have been in some way drawn into the affair, and so detained.

As we came home we could arrive at no definite conclusion. We were all convinced that the box was on its way, by water, to somewhere; but where that might be we would have to discover. With heavy hearts we came home to the hotel to Mina.

When we met together, the first thing was to consult as to taking Mina again into our confidence. Things are getting desperate, and it is at least a chance, though a hazardous one. As a preliminary step, I was released from my promise to her.

Mina Harker’s Journal.

30 October, evening.—They were so tired and worn out and dispirited that there was nothing to be done till they had some rest; so I asked them all to lie down for half an hour whilst I should enter everything up to the moment. I feel so grateful to the man who invented the “Traveller’s” typewriter, and to Mr. Morris for getting this one for me. I should have felt quite; astray doing the work if I had to write with a pen....

It is all done; poor dear, dear Jonathan, what he must have suffered, what must he be suffering now. He lies on the sofa hardly seeming to breathe, and his whole body appears in collapse. His brows are knit; his face is drawn with pain. Poor fellow, maybe he is thinking, and I can see his face all wrinkled up with the concentration of his thoughts. Oh! if I could only help at all.... I shall do what I can.

I have asked Dr. Van Helsing, and he has got me all the papers that I have not yet seen.... Whilst they are resting, I shall go over all carefully, and perhaps I may arrive at some conclusion. I shall try to follow the Professor’s example, and think without prejudice on the facts before me....

 

I do believe that under God’s providence I have made a discovery. I shall get the maps and look over them....

 

I am more than ever sure that I am right. My new conclusion is ready, so I shall get our party together and read it. They can judge it; it is well to be accurate, and every minute is precious.

Mina Harker’s Memorandum.

(Entered in her Journal.)

Ground of inquiry.—Count Dracula’s problem is to get back to his own place.

(a) He must be brought back by some one. This is evident; for had he power to move himself as he wished he could go either as man, or wolf, or bat, or in some other way. He evidently fears discovery or interference, in the state of helplessness in which he must be—confined as he is between dawn and sunset in his wooden box.

(b) How is he to be taken?—Here a process of exclusions may help us. By road, by rail, by water?

1. By Road.—There are endless difficulties, especially in leaving the city.

(x) There are people; and people are curious, and investigate. A hint, a surmise, a doubt as to what might be in the box, would destroy him.

(y) There are, or there may be, customs and octroi officers to pass.

(z) His pursuers might follow. This is his highest fear; and in order to prevent his being betrayed he has repelled, so far as he can, even his victim—me!

2. By Rail.—There is no one in charge of the box. It would have to take its chance of being delayed; and delay would be fatal, with enemies on the track. True, he might escape at night; but what would he be, if left in a strange place with no refuge that he could fly to? This is not what he intends; and he does not mean to risk it.

3. By Water.—Here is the safest way, in one respect, but with most danger in another. On the water he is powerless except at night; even then he can only summon fog and storm and snow and his wolves. But were he wrecked, the living water would engulf him, helpless; and he would indeed be lost. He could have the vessel drive to land; but if it were unfriendly land, wherein he was not free to move, his position would still be desperate.

We know from the record that he was on the water; so what we have to do is to ascertain what water.

The first thing is to realise exactly what he has done as yet; we may, then, get a light on what his later task is to be.

Firstly.—We must differentiate between what he did in London as part of his general plan of action, when he was pressed for moments and had to arrange as best he could.

Secondly we must see, as well as we can surmise it from the facts we know of, what he has done here.

As to the first, he evidently intended to arrive at Galatz, and sent invoice to Varna to deceive us lest we should ascertain his means of exit from England; his immediate and sole purpose then was to escape. The proof of this, is the letter of instructions sent to Immanuel Hildesheim to clear and take away the box before sunrise. There is also the instruction to Petrof Skinsky. These we must only guess at; but there must have been some letter or message, since Skinsky came to Hildesheim.

That, so far, his plans were successful we know. The Czarina Catherine made a phenomenally quick journey—so much so that Captain Donelson’s suspicions were aroused; but his superstition united with his canniness played the Count’s game for him, and he ran with his favouring wind through fogs and all till he brought up blindfold at Galatz. That the Count’s arrangements were well made, has been proved. Hildesheim cleared the box, took it off, and gave it to Skinsky. Skinsky took it—and here we lose the trail. We only know that the box is somewhere on the water, moving along. The customs and the octroi, if there be any, have been avoided.

Now we come to what the Count must have done after his arrival--on land, at Galatz.

The box was given to Skinsky before sunrise. At sunrise the Count could appear in his own form. Here, we ask why Skinsky was chosen at all to aid in the work? In my husband’s diary, Skinsky is mentioned as dealing with the Slovaks who trade down the river to the port; and the man’s remark, that the murder was the work of a Slovak, showed the general feeling against his class. The Count wanted isolation.

My surmise is, this: that in London the Count decided to get back to his castle by water, as the most safe and secret way. He was brought from the castle by Szgany, and probably they delivered their cargo to Slovaks who took the boxes to Varna, for there they were shipped for London. Thus the Count had knowledge of the persons who could arrange this service. When the box was on land, before sunrise or after sunset, he came out from his box, met Skinsky and instructed him what to do as to arranging the carriage of the box up some river. When this was done, and he knew that all was in train, he blotted out his traces, as he thought, by murdering his agent.

I have examined the map and find that the river most suitable for the Slovaks to have ascended is either the Pruth or the Sereth. I read in the typescript that in my trance I heard cows low and water swirling level with my ears and the creaking of wood. The Count in his box, then, was on a river in an open boat—propelled probably either by oars or poles, for the banks are near and it is working against stream. There would be no such sound if floating down stream.

Of course it may not be either the Sereth or the Pruth, but we may possibly investigate further. Now of these two, the Pruth is the more easily navigated, but the Sereth is, at Fundu, joined by the Bistritza which runs up round the Borgo Pass. The loop it makes is manifestly as close to Dracula’s castle as can be got by water.

Mina Harker’s Journal—continued.

When I had done reading, Jonathan took me in his arms and kissed me. The others kept shaking me by both hands, and Dr. Van Helsing said:--

“Our dear Madam Mina is once more our teacher. Her eyes have been where we were blinded. Now we are on the track once again, and this time we may succeed. Our enemy is at his most helpless; and if we can come on him by day, on the water, our task will be over. He has a start, but he is powerless to hasten, as he may not leave his box lest those who carry him may suspect; for them to suspect would be to prompt them to throw him in the stream where he perish. This he knows, and will not. Now men, to our Council of War; for, here and now, we must plan what each and all shall do.”

“I shall get a steam launch and follow him,” said Lord Godalming.

“And I, horses to follow on the bank lest by chance he land,” said Mr. Morris.

“Good!” said the Professor, “both good. But neither must go alone. There must be force to overcome force if need be; the Slovak is strong and rough, and he carries rude arms.” All the men smiled, for amongst them they carried a small arsenal. Said Mr. Morris:--

“I have brought some Winchesters; they are pretty handy in a crowd, and there may be wolves. The Count, if you remember, took some other precautions; he made some requisitions on others that Mrs. Harker could not quite hear or understand. We must be ready at all points.” Dr. Seward said:--

“I think I had better go with Quincey. We have been accustomed to hunt together, and we two, well armed, will be a match for whatever may come along. You must not be alone, Art. It may be necessary to fight the Slovaks, and a chance thrust—for I don’t suppose these fellows carry guns—would undo all our plans. There must be no chances, this time; we shall, not rest until the Count’s head and body have been separated, and we are sure that he cannot re-incarnate.” He looked at Jonathan as he spoke, and Jonathan looked at me. I could see that the poor dear was torn about in his mind. Of course he wanted to be with me; but then the boat service would, most likely, be the one which would destroy the ... the ... the ... Vampire. (Why did I hesitate to write the word?) He was silent awhile, and during his silence Dr. Van Helsing spoke:--

“Friend Jonathan, this is to you for twice reasons. First, because you are young and brave and can fight, and all energies may be needed at the last; and again that it is your right to destroy him—that—which has wrought such woe to you and yours. Be not afraid for Madam Mina; she will be my care, if I may. I am old. My legs are not so quick to run as once; and I am not used to ride so long or to pursue as need be, or to fight with lethal weapons. But I can be of other service; I can fight in other way. And I can die, if need be, as well as younger men. Now let me say that what I would is this: while you, my Lord Godalming and friend Jonathan go in your so swift little steamboat up the river, and whilst John and Quincey guard the bank where perchance he might be landed, I will take Madam Mina right into the heart of the enemy’s country. Whilst the old fox is tied in his box, floating on the running stream whence he cannot escape to land—where he dares not raise the lid of his coffin-box lest his Slovak carriers should in fear leave him to perish—we shall go in the track where Jonathan went,—from Bistritz over the Borgo, and find our way to the Castle of Dracula. Here, Madam Mina’s hypnotic power will surely help, and we shall find our way—all dark and unknown otherwise—after the first sunrise when we are near that fateful place. There is much to be done, and other places to be made sanctify, so that that nest of vipers be obliterated.” Here Jonathan interrupted him hotly:--

“Do you mean to say, Professor Van Helsing, that you would bring Mina, in her sad case and tainted as she is with that devil’s illness, right into the jaws of his death-trap? Not for the world! Not for Heaven or Hell!” He became almost speechless for a minute, and then went on:--

“Do you know what the place is? Have you seen that awful den of hellish infamy—with the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes, and every speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo? Have you felt the Vampire’s lips upon your throat?” Here he turned to me, and as his eyes lit on my forehead he threw up his arms with a cry: “Oh, my God, what have we done to have this terror upon us!” and he sank down on the sofa in a collapse of misery. The Professor’s voice, as he spoke in clear, sweet tones, which seemed to vibrate in the air, calmed us all:--

“Oh, my friend, it is because I would save Madam Mina from that awful place that I would go. God forbid that I should take her into that place. There is work—wild work—to be done there, that her eyes may not see. We men here, all save Jonathan, have seen with their own eyes what is to be done before that place can be purify. Remember that we are in terrible straits. If the Count escape us this time—and he is strong and subtle and cunning—he may choose to sleep him for a century, and then in time our dear one”—he took my hand—“would come to him to keep him company, and would be as those others that you, Jonathan, saw. You have told us of their gloating lips; you heard their ribald laugh as they clutched the moving bag that the Count threw to them. You shudder; and well may it be. Forgive me that I make you so much pain, but it is necessary. My friend, is it not a dire need for the which I am giving, possibly my life? If it were that any one went into that place to stay, it is I who would have to go to keep them company.”

“Do as you will,” said Jonathan, with a sob that shook him all over, “we are in the hands of God!”

 

Later.—Oh, it did me good to see the way that these brave men worked. How can women help loving men when they are so earnest, and so true, and so brave! And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do when basely used. I felt so thankful that Lord Godalming is rich, and that both he and Mr. Morris, who also has plenty of money, are willing to spend it so freely. For if they did not, our little expedition could not start, either so promptly or so well equipped, as it will within another hour. It is not three hours since it was arranged what part each of us was to do; and now Lord Godalming and Jonathan have a lovely steam launch, with steam up ready to start at a moment’s notice. Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris have half a dozen good horses, well appointed. We have all the maps and appliances of various kinds that can be had. Professor Van Helsing and I are to leave by the 11:40 train to-night for Veresti, where we are to get a carriage to drive to the Borgo Pass. We are bringing a good deal of ready money, as we are to buy a carriage and horses. We shall drive ourselves, for we have no one whom we can trust in the matter. The Professor knows something of a great many languages, so we shall get on all right. We have all got arms, even for me a large-bore revolver; Jonathan would not be happy unless I was armed like the rest. Alas! I cannot carry one arm that the rest do; the scar on my forehead forbids that. Dear Dr. Van Helsing comforts me by telling me that I am fully armed as there may be wolves; the weather is getting colder every hour, and there are snow-flurries which come and go as warnings.

 

Later.—It took all my courage to say good-bye to my darling. We may never meet again. Courage, Mina! the Professor is looking at you keenly; his look is a warning. There must be no tears now—unless it may be that God will let them fall in gladness.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal.

October 30. Night.—I am writing this in the light from the furnace door of the steam launch: Lord Godalming is firing up. He is an experienced hand at the work, as he has had for years a launch of his own on the Thames, and another on the Norfolk Broads. Regarding our plans, we finally decided that Mina’s guess was correct, and that if any waterway was chosen for the Count’s escape back to his Castle, the Sereth and then the Bistritza at its junction, would be the one. We took it, that somewhere about the 47th degree, north latitude, would be the place chosen for the crossing the country between the river and the Carpathians. We have no fear in running at good speed up the river at night; there is plenty of water, and the banks are wide enough apart to make steaming, even in the dark, easy enough. Lord Godalming tells me to sleep for a while, as it is enough for the present for one to be on watch. But I cannot sleep—how can I with the terrible danger hanging over my darling, and her going out into that awful place.... My only comfort is that we are in the hands of God. Only for that faith it would be easier to die than to live, and so be quit of all the trouble. Mr. Morris and Dr. Seward were off on their long ride before we started; they are to keep up the right bank, far enough off to get on higher lands where they can see a good stretch of river and avoid the following of its curves. They have, for the first stages, two men to ride and lead their spare horses—four in all, so as not to excite curiosity. When they dismiss the men, which shall be shortly, they shall themselves look after the horses. It may be necessary for us to join forces; if so they can mount our whole party. One of the saddles has a movable horn, and can be easily adapted for Mina, if required.

It is a wild adventure we are on. Here, as we are rushing along through the darkness, with the cold from the river seeming to rise up and strike us; with all the mysterious voices of the night around us, it all comes home. We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways; into a whole world of dark and dreadful things. Godalming is shutting the furnace door....

 

31 October.—Still hurrying along. The day has come, and Godalming is sleeping. I am on watch. The morning is bitterly cold; the furnace heat is grateful, though we have heavy fur coats. As yet we have passed only a few open boats, but none of them had on board any box or package of anything like the size of the one we seek. The men were scared every time we turned our electric lamp on them, and fell on their knees and prayed.

 

1 November, evening.—No news all day; we have found nothing of the kind we seek. We have now passed into the Bistritza; and if we are wrong in our surmise our chance is gone. We have over-hauled every boat, big and little. Early this morning, one crew took us for a Government boat, and treated us accordingly. We saw in this a way of smoothing matters, so at Fundu, where the Bistritza runs into the Sereth, we got a Roumanian flag which we now fly conspicuously. With every boat which we have over-hauled since then this trick has succeeded; we have had every deference shown to us, and not once any objection to whatever we chose to ask or do. Some of the Slovaks tell us that a big boat passed them, going at more than usual speed as she had a double crew on board. This was before they came to Fundu, so they could not tell us whether the boat turned into the Bistritza or continued on up the Sereth. At Fundu we could not hear of any such boat, so she must have passed there in the night. I am feeling very sleepy; the cold is perhaps beginning to tell upon me, and nature must have rest some time. Godalming insists that he shall keep the first watch. God bless him for all his goodness to poor dear Mina and me.

 

2 November, morning.—It is broad daylight. That good fellow would not wake me. He says it would have been a sin to, for I slept peacefully and was forgetting my trouble. It seems brutally selfish to me to have slept so long, and let him watch all night; but he was quite right. I am a new man this morning; and, as I sit here and watch him sleeping, I can do all that is necessary both as to minding the engine, steering, and keeping watch. I can feel that my strength and energy are coming back to me. I wonder where Mina is now, and Van Helsing. They should have got to Veresti about noon on Wednesday. It would take them some time to get the carriage and horses; so if they had started and travelled hard, they would be about now at the Borgo Pass. God guide and help them! I am afraid to think what may happen. If we could only go faster! but we cannot; the engines are throbbing and doing their utmost. I wonder how Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris are getting on. There seem to be endless streams running down the mountains into this river, but as none of them are very large—at present, at all events, though they are terrible doubtless in winter and when the snow melts—the horsemen may not have met much obstruction. I hope that before we get to Strasba we may see them; for if by that time we have not overtaken the Count, it may be necessary to take counsel together what to do next.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

2 November.—Three days on the road. No news, and no time to write it if there had been, for every moment is precious. We have had only the rest needful for the horses; but we are both bearing it wonderfully. Those adventurous days of ours are turning up useful. We must push on; we shall never feel happy till we get the launch in sight again.

 

3 November.—We heard at Fundu that the launch had gone up the Bistritza. I wish it wasn’t so cold. There are signs of snow coming; and if it falls heavy it will stop us. In such case we must get a sledge and go on, Russian fashion.

 

4 November.—To-day we heard of the launch having been detained by an accident when trying to force a way up the rapids. The Slovak boats get up all right, by aid of a rope and steering with knowledge. Some went up only a few hours before. Godalming is an amateur fitter himself, and evidently it was he who put the launch in trim again. Finally, they got up the rapids all right, with local help, and are off on the chase afresh. I fear that the boat is not any better for the accident; the peasantry tell us that after she got upon smooth water again, she kept stopping every now and again so long as she was in sight. We must push on harder than ever; our help may be wanted soon.

Mina Harker’s Journal.

31 October.—Arrived at Veresti at noon. The Professor tells me that this morning at dawn he could hardly hypnotise me at all, and that all I could say was: “dark and quiet.” He is off now buying a carriage and horses. He says that he will later on try to buy additional horses, so that we may be able to change them on the way. We have something more than 70 miles before us. The country is lovely, and most interesting; if only we were under different conditions, how delightful it would be to see it all. If Jonathan and I were driving through it alone what a pleasure it would be. To stop and see people, and learn something of their life, and to fill our minds and memories with all the colour and picturesqueness of the whole wild, beautiful country and the quaint people! But, alas!--

 

Later.—Dr. Van Helsing has returned. He has got the carriage and horses; we are to have some dinner, and to start in an hour. The landlady is putting us up a huge basket of provisions; it seems enough for a company of soldiers. The Professor encourages her, and whispers to me that it may be a week before we can get any good food again. He has been shopping too, and has sent home such a wonderful lot of fur coats and wraps, and all sorts of warm things. There will not be any chance of our being cold.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We shall soon be off. I am afraid to think what may happen to us. We are truly in the hands of God. He alone knows what may be, and I pray Him, with all the strength of my sad and humble soul, that He will watch over my beloved husband; that whatever may happen, Jonathan may know that I loved him and honoured him more than I can say, and that my latest and truest thought will be always for him.

CHAPTER XXVII

MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL

1 November.—All day long we have travelled, and at a good speed. The horses seem to know that they are being kindly treated, for they go willingly their full stage at best speed. We have now had so many changes and find the same thing so constantly that we are encouraged to think that the journey will be an easy one. Dr. Van Helsing is laconic; he tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and pays them well to make the exchange of horses. We get hot soup, or coffee, or tea; and off we go. It is a lovely country; full of beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full of nice qualities. They are very, very superstitious. In the first house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the scar on my forehead, she crossed herself and put out two fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye. I believe they went to the trouble of putting an extra amount of garlic into our food; and I can’t abide garlic. Ever since then I have taken care not to take off my hat or veil, and so have escaped their suspicions. We are travelling fast, and as we have no driver with us to carry tales, we go ahead of scandal; but I daresay that fear of the evil eye will follow hard behind us all the way. The Professor seems tireless; all day he would not take any rest, though he made me sleep for a long spell. At sunset time he hypnotised me, and he says that I answered as usual “darkness, lapping water and creaking wood”; so our enemy is still on the river. I am afraid to think of Jonathan, but somehow I have now no fear for him, or for myself. I write this whilst we wait in a farmhouse for the horses to be got ready. Dr. Van Helsing is sleeping, Poor dear, he looks very tired and old and grey, but his mouth is set as firmly as a conqueror’s; even in his sleep he is instinct with resolution. When we have well started I must make him rest whilst I drive. I shall tell him that we have days before us, and we must not break down when most of all his strength will be needed.... All is ready; we are off shortly.

 

2 November, morning.—I was successful, and we took turns driving all night; now the day is on us, bright though cold. There is a strange heaviness in the air—I say heaviness for want of a better word; I mean that it oppresses us both. It is very cold, and only our warm furs keep us comfortable. At dawn Van Helsing hypnotised me; he says I answered “darkness, creaking wood and roaring water,” so the river is changing as they ascend. I do hope that my darling will not run any chance of danger—more than need be; but we are in God’s hands.

 

2 November, night.—All day long driving. The country gets wilder as we go, and the great spurs of the Carpathians, which at Veresti seemed so far from us and so low on the horizon, now seem to gather round us and tower in front. We both seem in good spirits; I think we make an effort each to cheer the other; in the doing so we cheer ourselves. Dr. Van Helsing says that by morning we shall reach the Borgo Pass. The houses are very few here now, and the Professor says that the last horse we got will have to go on with us, as we may not be able to change. He got two in addition to the two we changed, so that now we have a rude four-in-hand. The dear horses are patient and good, and they give us no trouble. We are not worried with other travellers, and so even I can drive. We shall get to the Pass in daylight; we do not want to arrive before. So we take it easy, and have each a long rest in turn. Oh, what will to-morrow bring to us? We go to seek the place where my poor darling suffered so much. God grant that we may be guided aright, and that He will deign to watch over my husband and those dear to us both, and who are in such deadly peril. As for me, I am not worthy in His sight. Alas! I am unclean to His eyes, and shall be until He may deign to let me stand forth in His sight as one of those who have not incurred His wrath.

Memorandum by Abraham Van Helsing.

4 November.—This to my old and true friend John Seward, M.D., of Purfleet, London, in case I may not see him. It may explain. It is morning, and I write by a fire which all the night I have kept alive—Madam Mina aiding me. It is cold, cold; so cold that the grey heavy sky is full of snow, which when it falls will settle for all winter as the ground is hardening to receive it. It seems to have affected Madam Mina; she has been so heavy of head all day that she was not like herself. She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps! She who is usual so alert, have done literally nothing all the day; she even have lost her appetite. She make no entry into her little diary, she who write so faithful at every pause. Something whisper to me that all is not well. However, to-night she is more vif. Her long sleep all day have refresh and restore her, for now she is all sweet and bright as ever. At sunset I try to hypnotise her, but alas! with no effect; the power has grown less and less with each day, and to-night it fail me altogether. Well, God’s will be done—whatever it may be, and whithersoever it may lead!

Now to the historical, for as Madam Mina write not in her stenography, I must, in my cumbrous old fashion, that so each day of us may not go unrecorded.

We got to the Borgo Pass just after sunrise yesterday morning. When I saw the signs of the dawn I got ready for the hypnotism. We stopped our carriage, and got down so that there might be no disturbance. I made a couch with furs, and Madam Mina, lying down, yield herself as usual, but more slow and more short time than ever, to the hypnotic sleep. As before, came the answer: “darkness and the swirling of water.” Then she woke, bright and radiant and we go on our way and soon reach the Pass. At this time and place, she become all on fire with zeal; some new guiding power be in her manifested, for she point to a road and say:--

“This is the way.”

“How know you it?” I ask.

“Of course I know it,” she answer, and with a pause, add: “Have not my Jonathan travelled it and wrote of his travel?”

At first I think somewhat strange, but soon I see that there be only one such by-road. It is used but little, and very different from the coach road from the Bukovina to Bistritz, which is more wide and hard, and more of use.

So we came down this road; when we meet other ways—not always were we sure that they were roads at all, for they be neglect and light snow have fallen—the horses know and they only. I give rein to them, and they go on so patient. By-and-by we find all the things which Jonathan have note in that wonderful diary of him. Then we go on for long, long hours and hours. At the first, I tell Madam Mina to sleep; she try, and she succeed. She sleep all the time; till at the last, I feel myself to suspicious grow, and attempt to wake her. But she sleep on, and I may not wake her though I try. I do not wish to try too hard lest I harm her; for I know that she have suffer much, and sleep at times be all-in-all to her. I think I drowse myself, for all of sudden I feel guilt, as though I have done something; I find myself bolt up, with the reins in my hand, and the good horses go along jog, jog, just as ever. I look down and find Madam Mina still sleep. It is now not far off sunset time, and over the snow the light of the sun flow in big yellow flood, so that we throw great long shadow on where the mountain rise so steep. For we are going up, and up; and all is oh! so wild and rocky, as though it were the end of the world.

Then I arouse Madam Mina. This time she wake with not much trouble, and then I try to put her to hypnotic sleep. But she sleep not, being as though I were not. Still I try and try, till all at once I find her and myself in dark; so I look round, and find that the sun have gone down. Madam Mina laugh, and I turn and look at her. She is now quite awake, and look so well as I never saw her since that night at Carfax when we first enter the Count’s house. I am amaze, and not at ease then; but she is so bright and tender and thoughtful for me that I forget all fear. I light a fire, for we have brought supply of wood with us, and she prepare food while I undo the horses and set them, tethered in shelter, to feed. Then when I return to the fire she have my supper ready. I go to help her; but she smile, and tell me that she have eat already—that she was so hungry that she would not wait. I like it not, and I have grave doubts; but I fear to affright her, and so I am silent of it. She help me and I eat alone; and then we wrap in fur and lie beside the fire, and I tell her to sleep while I watch. But presently I forget all of watching; and when I sudden remember that I watch, I find her lying quiet, but awake, and looking at me with so bright eyes. Once, twice more the same occur, and I get much sleep till before morning. When I wake I try to hypnotise her; but alas! though she shut her eyes obedient, she may not sleep. The sun rise up, and up, and up; and then sleep come to her too late, but so heavy that she will not wake. I have to lift her up, and place her sleeping in the carriage when I have harnessed the horses and made all ready. Madam still sleep, and she look in her sleep more healthy and more redder than before. And I like it not. And I am afraid, afraid, afraid!—I am afraid of all things—even to think but I must go on my way. The stake we play for is life and death, or more than these, and we must not flinch.

 

5 November, morning.—Let me be accurate in everything, for though you and I have seen some strange things together, you may at the first think that I, Van Helsing, am mad—that the many horrors and the so long strain on nerves has at the last turn my brain.

All yesterday we travel, ever getting closer to the mountains, and moving into a more and more wild and desert land. There are great, frowning precipices and much falling water, and Nature seem to have held sometime her carnival. Madam Mina still sleep and sleep; and though I did have hunger and appeased it, I could not waken her—even for food. I began to fear that the fatal spell of the place was upon her, tainted as she is with that Vampire baptism. “Well,” said I to myself, “if it be that she sleep all the day, it shall also be that I do not sleep at night.” As we travel on the rough road, for a road of an ancient and imperfect kind there was, I held down my head and slept. Again I waked with a sense of guilt and of time passed, and found Madam Mina still sleeping, and the sun low down. But all was indeed changed; the frowning mountains seemed further away, and we were near the top of a steep-rising hill, on summit of which was such a castle as Jonathan tell of in his diary. At once I exulted and feared; for now, for good or ill, the end was near.

I woke Madam Mina, and again tried to hypnotise her; but alas! unavailing till too late. Then, ere the great dark came upon us—for even after down-sun the heavens reflected the gone sun on the snow, and all was for a time in a great twilight—I took out the horses and fed them in what shelter I could. Then I make a fire; and near it I make Madam Mina, now awake and more charming than ever, sit comfortable amid her rugs. I got ready food: but she would not eat, simply saying that she had not hunger. I did not press her, knowing her unavailingness. But I myself eat, for I must needs now be strong for all. Then, with the fear on me of what might be, I drew a ring so big for her comfort, round where Madam Mina sat; and over the ring I passed some of the wafer, and I broke it fine so that all was well guarded. She sat still all the time—so still as one dead; and she grew whiter and ever whiter till the snow was not more pale; and no word she said. But when I drew near, she clung to me, and I could know that the poor soul shook her from head to feet with a tremor that was pain to feel. I said to her presently, when she had grown more quiet:--

“Will you not come over to the fire?” for I wished to make a test of what she could. She rose obedient, but when she have made a step she stopped, and stood as one stricken.

“Why not go on?” I asked. She shook her head, and, coming back, sat down in her place. Then, looking at me with open eyes, as of one waked from sleep, she said simply:--

“I cannot!” and remained silent. I rejoiced, for I knew that what she could not, none of those that we dreaded could. Though there might be danger to her body, yet her soul was safe!

Presently the horses began to scream, and tore at their tethers till I came to them and quieted them. When they did feel my hands on them, they whinnied low as in joy, and licked at my hands and were quiet for a time. Many times through the night did I come to them, till it arrive to the cold hour when all nature is at lowest; and every time my coming was with quiet of them. In the cold hour the fire began to die, and I was about stepping forth to replenish it, for now the snow came in flying sweeps and with it a chill mist. Even in the dark there was a light of some kind, as there ever is over snow; and it seemed as though the snow-flurries and the wreaths of mist took shape as of women with trailing garments. All was in dead, grim silence only that the horses whinnied and cowered, as if in terror of the worst. I began to fear—horrible fears; but then came to me the sense of safety in that ring wherein I stood. I began, too, to think that my imaginings were of the night, and the gloom, and the unrest that I have gone through, and all the terrible anxiety. It was as though my memories of all Jonathan’s horrid experience were befooling me; for the snow flakes and the mist began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a shadowy glimpse of those women that would have kissed him. And then the horses cowered lower and lower, and moaned in terror as men do in pain. Even the madness of fright was not to them, so that they could break away. I feared for my dear Madam Mina when these weird figures drew near and circled round. I looked at her, but she sat calm, and smiled at me; when I would have stepped to the fire to replenish it, she caught me and held me back, and whispered, like a voice that one hears in a dream, so low it was:--

“No! No! Do not go without. Here you are safe!” I turned to her, and looking in her eyes, said:--

“But you? It is for you that I fear!” whereat she laughed—a laugh, low and unreal, and said:--

“Fear for me! Why fear for me? None safer in all the world from them than I am,” and as I wondered at the meaning of her words, a puff of wind made the flame leap up, and I see the red scar on her forehead. Then, alas! I knew. Did I not, I would soon have learned, for the wheeling figures of mist and snow came closer, but keeping ever without the Holy circle. Then they began to materialise till—if God have not take away my reason, for I saw it through my eyes—there were before me in actual flesh the same three women that Jonathan saw in the room, when they would have kissed his throat. I knew the swaying round forms, the bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous lips. They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina; and as their laugh came through the silence of the night, they twined their arms and pointed to her, and said in those so sweet tingling tones that Jonathan said were of the intolerable sweetness of the water-glasses:--

“Come, sister. Come to us. Come! Come!” In fear I turned to my poor Madam Mina, and my heart with gladness leapt like flame; for oh! the terror in her sweet eyes, the repulsion, the horror, told a story to my heart that was all of hope. God be thanked she was not, yet, of them. I seized some of the firewood which was by me, and holding out some of the Wafer, advanced on them towards the fire. They drew back before me, and laughed their low horrid laugh. I fed the fire, and feared them not; for I knew that we were safe within our protections. They could not approach, me, whilst so armed, nor Madam Mina whilst she remained within the ring, which she could not leave no more than they could enter. The horses had ceased to moan, and lay still on the ground; the snow fell on them softly, and they grew whiter. I knew that there was for the poor beasts no more of terror.

And so we remained till the red of the dawn to fall through the snow-gloom. I was desolate and afraid, and full of woe and terror; but when that beautiful sun began to climb the horizon life was to me again. At the first coming of the dawn the horrid figures melted in the whirling mist and snow; the wreaths of transparent gloom moved away towards the castle, and were lost.

Instinctively, with the dawn coming, I turned to Madam Mina, intending to hypnotise her; but she lay in a deep and sudden sleep, from which I could not wake her. I tried to hypnotise through her sleep, but she made no response, none at all; and the day broke. I fear yet to stir. I have made my fire and have seen the horses, they are all dead. To-day I have much to do here, and I keep waiting till the sun is up high; for there may be places where I must go, where that sunlight, though snow and mist obscure it, will be to me a safety.

I will strengthen me with breakfast, and then I will to my terrible work. Madam Mina still sleeps; and, God be thanked! she is calm in her sleep....

Jonathan Harker’s Journal.

4 November, evening.—The accident to the launch has been a terrible thing for us. Only for it we should have overtaken the boat long ago; and by now my dear Mina would have been free. I fear to think of her, off on the wolds near that horrid place. We have got horses, and we follow on the track. I note this whilst Godalming is getting ready. We have our arms. The Szgany must look out if they mean fight. Oh, if only Morris and Seward were with us. We must only hope! If I write no more Good-bye, Mina! God bless and keep you.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

5 November.—With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us dashing away from the river with their leiter-wagon. They surrounded it in a cluster, and hurried along as though beset. The snow is falling lightly and there is a strange excitement in the air. It may be our own feelings, but the depression is strange. Far off I hear the howling of wolves; the snow brings them down from the mountains, and there are dangers to all of us, and from all sides. The horses are nearly ready, and we are soon off. We ride to death of some one. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be....

Dr. Van Helsing’s Memorandum.

5 November, afternoon.—I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castle. The blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful; though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty hinges, lest some ill-intent or ill-chance should close them, so that being entered I might not get out. Jonathan’s bitter experience served me here. By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I knew that here my work lay. The air was oppressive; it seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy. Either there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves. Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight. The dilemma had me between his horns.

Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the Vampire in that Holy circle; and yet even there would be the wolf! I resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must submit, if it were God’s will. At any rate it was only death and freedom beyond. So did I choose for her. Had it but been for myself the choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work.

I knew that there were at least three graves to find—graves that are inhabit; so I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in old time, when such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton Un-Dead have hypnotise him; and he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss—and man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire fold; one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Un-Dead!...

There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was moved—I, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for hate—I was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties and to clog my very soul. It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me. Certain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open-eyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard.

Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by wrenching away tomb-tops one other of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should begin to be enthrall; but I go on searching until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if made to one much beloved that other fair sister which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of the mist. She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emotion. But God be thanked, that soul-wail of my dear Madam Mina had not died out of my ears; and, before the spell could be wrought further upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this time I had searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell; and as there had been only three of these Un-Dead phantoms around us in the night, I took it that there were no more of active Un-Dead existent. There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word

DRACULA.

This then was the Un-Dead home of the King-Vampire, to whom so many more were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew. Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in Dracula’s tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from it, Un-Dead, for ever.

Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it had been easy, comparative. But three! To begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horror; for if it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived through centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the years; who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives....

Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work; had I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. Had I not seen the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realisation that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and left my work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble in to its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries agone had at last assert himself and say at once and loud “I am here!”

Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never more can the Count enter there Un-Dead.

When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she woke from her sleep, and, seeing, me, cried out in pain that I had endured too much.

“Come!” she said, “come away from this awful place! Let us go to meet my husband who is, I know, coming towards us.” She was looking thin and pale and weak; but her eyes were pure and glowed with fervour. I was glad to see her paleness and her illness, for my mind was full of the fresh horror of that ruddy vampire sleep.

And so with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward to meet our friends—and him—whom Madam Mina tell me that she know are coming to meet us.

Mina Harker’s Journal.

6 November.—It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming. We did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take heavy rugs and wraps with us; we dared not face the possibility of being left without warmth in the cold and the snow. We had to take some of our provisions, too, for we were in a perfect desolation, and, so far as we could see through the snowfall, there was not even the sign of habitation. When we had gone about a mile, I was tired with the heavy walking and sat down to rest. Then we looked back and saw where the clear line of Dracula’s castle cut the sky; for we were so deep under the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective of the Carpathian mountains was far below it. We saw it in all its grandeur, perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice, and with seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the adjacent mountain on any side. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We could hear the distant howling of wolves. They were far off, but the sound, even though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was full of terror. I knew from the way Dr. Van Helsing was searching about that he was trying to seek some strategic point, where we would be less exposed in case of attack. The rough roadway still led downwards; we could trace it through the drifted snow.

In a little while the Professor signalled to me, so I got up and joined him. He had found a wonderful spot, a sort of natural hollow in a rock, with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders. He took me by the hand and drew me in: “See!” he said, “here you will be in shelter; and if the wolves do come I can meet them one by one.” He brought in our furs, and made a snug nest for me, and got out some provisions and forced them upon me. But I could not eat; to even try to do so was repulsive to me, and, much as I would have liked to please him, I could not bring myself to the attempt. He looked very sad, but did not reproach me. Taking his field-glasses from the case, he stood on the top of the rock, and began to search the horizon. Suddenly he called out:--

“Look! Madam Mina, look! look!” I sprang up and stood beside him on the rock; he handed me his glasses and pointed. The snow was now falling more heavily, and swirled about fiercely, for a high wind was beginning to blow. However, there were times when there were pauses between the snow flurries and I could see a long way round. From the height where we were it was possible to see a great distance; and far off, beyond the white waste of snow, I could see the river lying like a black ribbon in kinks and curls as it wound its way. Straight in front of us and not far off—in fact, so near that I wondered we had not noticed before—came a group of mounted men hurrying along. In the midst of them was a cart, a long leiter-wagon which swept from side to side, like a dog’s tail wagging, with each stern inequality of the road. Outlined against the snow as they were, I could see from the men’s clothes that they were peasants or gypsies of some kind.

On the cart was a great square chest. My heart leaped as I saw it, for I felt that the end was coming. The evening was now drawing close, and well I knew that at sunset the Thing, which was till then imprisoned there, would take new freedom and could in any of many forms elude all pursuit. In fear I turned to the Professor; to my consternation, however, he was not there. An instant later, I saw him below me. Round the rock he had drawn a circle, such as we had found shelter in last night. When he had completed it he stood beside me again, saying:--

“At least you shall be safe here from him!” He took the glasses from me, and at the next lull of the snow swept the whole space below us. “See,” he said, “they come quickly; they are flogging the horses, and galloping as hard as they can.” He paused and went on in a hollow voice:--

“They are racing for the sunset. We may be too late. God’s will be done!” Down came another blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole landscape was blotted out. It soon passed, however, and once more his glasses were fixed on the plain. Then came a sudden cry:--

“Look! Look! Look! See, two horsemen follow fast, coming up from the south. It must be Quincey and John. Take the glass. Look before the snow blots it all out!” I took it and looked. The two men might be Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris. I knew at all events that neither of them was Jonathan. At the same time I knew that Jonathan was not far off; looking around I saw on the north side of the coming party two other men, riding at break-neck speed. One of them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took, of course, to be Lord Godalming. They, too, were pursuing the party with the cart. When I told the Professor he shouted in glee like a schoolboy, and, after looking intently till a snow fall made sight impossible, he laid his Winchester rifle ready for use against the boulder at the opening of our shelter. “They are all converging,” he said. “When the time comes we shall have gypsies on all sides.” I got out my revolver ready to hand, for whilst we were speaking the howling of wolves came louder and closer. When the snow storm abated a moment we looked again. It was strange to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us, and beyond, the sun shining more and more brightly as it sank down towards the far mountain tops. Sweeping the glass all around us I could see here and there dots moving singly and in twos and threes and larger numbers—the wolves were gathering for their prey.

Every instant seemed an age whilst we waited. The wind came now in fierce bursts, and the snow was driven with fury as it swept upon us in circling eddies. At times we could not see an arm’s length before us; but at others, as the hollow-sounding wind swept by us, it seemed to clear the air-space around us so that we could see afar off. We had of late been so accustomed to watch for sunrise and sunset, that we knew with fair accuracy when it would be; and we knew that before long the sun would set. It was hard to believe that by our watches it was less than an hour that we waited in that rocky shelter before the various bodies began to converge close upon us. The wind came now with fiercer and more bitter sweeps, and more steadily from the north. It seemingly had driven the snow clouds from us, for, with only occasional bursts, the snow fell. We could distinguish clearly the individuals of each party, the pursued and the pursuers. Strangely enough those pursued did not seem to realise, or at least to care, that they were pursued; they seemed, however, to hasten with redoubled speed as the sun dropped lower and lower on the mountain tops.

Closer and closer they drew. The Professor and I crouched down behind our rock, and held our weapons ready; I could see that he was determined that they should not pass. One and all were quite unaware of our presence.

All at once two voices shouted out to: “Halt!” One was my Jonathan’s, raised in a high key of passion; the other Mr. Morris’ strong resolute tone of quiet command. The gypsies may not have known the language, but there was no mistaking the tone, in whatever tongue the words were spoken. Instinctively they reined in, and at the instant Lord Godalming and Jonathan dashed up at one side and Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris on the other. The leader of the gypsies, a splendid-looking fellow who sat his horse like a centaur, waved them back, and in a fierce voice gave to his companions some word to proceed. They lashed the horses which sprang forward; but the four men raised their Winchester rifles, and in an unmistakable way commanded them to stop. At the same moment Dr. Van Helsing and I rose behind the rock and pointed our weapons at them. Seeing that they were surrounded the men tightened their reins and drew up. The leader turned to them and gave a word at which every man of the gypsy party drew what weapon he carried, knife or pistol, and held himself in readiness to attack. Issue was joined in an instant.

The leader, with a quick movement of his rein, threw his horse out in front, and pointing first to the sun—now close down on the hill tops—and then to the castle, said something which I did not understand. For answer, all four men of our party threw themselves from their horses and dashed towards the cart. I should have felt terrible fear at seeing Jonathan in such danger, but that the ardour of battle must have been upon me as well as the rest of them; I felt no fear, but only a wild, surging desire to do something. Seeing the quick movement of our parties, the leader of the gypsies gave a command; his men instantly formed round the cart in a sort of undisciplined endeavour, each one shouldering and pushing the other in his eagerness to carry out the order.

In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on one side of the ring of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart; it was evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them. Neither the levelled weapons nor the flashing knives of the gypsies in front, nor the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their attention. Jonathan’s impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him; instinctively they cowered, aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr. Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of Szgany. All the time I had been breathlessly watching Jonathan I had, with the tail of my eye, seen him pressing desperately forward, and had seen the knives of the gypsies flash as he won a way through them, and they cut at him. He had parried with his great bowie knife, and at first I thought that he too had come through in safety; but as he sprang beside Jonathan, who had by now jumped from the cart, I could see that with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the blood was spurting through his fingers. He did not delay notwithstanding this, for as Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked one end of the chest, attempting to prize off the lid with his great Kukri knife, he attacked the other frantically with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the lid began to yield; the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back.

By this time the gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had given in and made no resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew too well.

As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.

But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris’s bowie knife plunged into the heart.

It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumble into dust and passed from our sight.

I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.

The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the setting sun.

The gypsies, taking us as in some way the cause of the extraordinary disappearance of the dead man, turned, without a word, and rode away as if for their lives. Those who were unmounted jumped upon the leiter-wagon and shouted to the horsemen not to desert them. The wolves, which had withdrawn to a safe distance, followed in their wake, leaving us alone.

Mr. Morris, who had sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow, holding his hand pressed to his side; the blood still gushed through his fingers. I flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now keep me back; so did the two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him and the wounded man laid back his head on his shoulder. With a sigh he took, with a feeble effort, my hand in that of his own which was unstained. He must have seen the anguish of my heart in my face, for he smiled at me and said:--

“I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God!” he cried suddenly, struggling up to a sitting posture and pointing to me, “It was worth for this to die! Look! look!”

The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red gleams fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With one impulse the men sank on their knees and a deep and earnest “Amen” broke from all as their eyes followed the pointing of his finger. The dying man spoke:--

“Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!”

And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman.

NOTE

Seven years ago we all went through the flames; and the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured. It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boy’s birthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris died. His mother holds, I know, the secret belief that some of our brave friend’s spirit has passed into him. His bundle of names links all our little band of men together; but we call him Quincey.

In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania, and went over the old ground which was, and is, to us so full of vivid and terrible memories. It was almost impossible to believe that the things which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears were living truths. Every trace of all that had been was blotted out. The castle stood as before, reared high above a waste of desolation.

When we got home we were talking of the old time—which we could all look back on without despair, for Godalming and Seward are both happily married. I took the papers from the safe where they had been ever since our return so long ago. We were struck with the fact, that in all the mass of material of which the record is composed, there is hardly one authentic document; nothing but a mass of typewriting, except the later note-books of Mina and Seward and myself, and Van Helsing’s memorandum. We could hardly ask any one, even did we wish to, to accept these as proofs of so wild a story. Van Helsing summed it all up as he said, with our boy on his knee:--

“We want no proofs; we ask none to believe us! This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care; later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake.”

Jonathan Harker.

THE END

Inferno: Canto I


Midway upon the journey of our life
  I found myself within a forest dark,
  For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
  What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
  Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;
  But of the good to treat, which there I found,
  Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
  So full was I of slumber at the moment
  In which I had abandoned the true way.

But after I had reached a mountain's foot,
  At that point where the valley terminated,
  Which had with consternation pierced my heart,

Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,
  Vested already with that planet's rays
  Which leadeth others right by every road.

Then was the fear a little quieted
  That in my heart's lake had endured throughout
  The night, which I had passed so piteously.

And even as he, who, with distressful breath,
  Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,
  Turns to the water perilous and gazes;

So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,
  Turn itself back to re-behold the pass
  Which never yet a living person left.

After my weary body I had rested,
  The way resumed I on the desert slope,
  So that the firm foot ever was the lower.

And lo! almost where the ascent began,
  A panther light and swift exceedingly,
  Which with a spotted skin was covered o'er!

And never moved she from before my face,
  Nay, rather did impede so much my way,
  That many times I to return had turned.

The time was the beginning of the morning,
  And up the sun was mounting with those stars
  That with him were, what time the Love Divine

At first in motion set those beauteous things;
  So were to me occasion of good hope,
  The variegated skin of that wild beast,

The hour of time, and the delicious season;
  But not so much, that did not give me fear
  A lion's aspect which appeared to me.

He seemed as if against me he were coming
  With head uplifted, and with ravenous hunger,
  So that it seemed the air was afraid of him;

And a she-wolf, that with all hungerings
  Seemed to be laden in her meagreness,
  And many folk has caused to live forlorn!

She brought upon me so much heaviness,
  With the affright that from her aspect came,
  That I the hope relinquished of the height.

And as he is who willingly acquires,
  And the time comes that causes him to lose,
  Who weeps in all his thoughts and is despondent,

E'en such made me that beast withouten peace,
  Which, coming on against me by degrees
  Thrust me back thither where the sun is silent.

While I was rushing downward to the lowland,
  Before mine eyes did one present himself,
  Who seemed from long-continued silence hoarse.

When I beheld him in the desert vast,
  "Have pity on me," unto him I cried,
  "Whiche'er thou art, or shade or real man!"

He answered me: "Not man; man once I was,
  And both my parents were of Lombardy,
  And Mantuans by country both of them.

'Sub Julio' was I born, though it was late,
  And lived at Rome under the good Augustus,
  During the time of false and lying gods.

A poet was I, and I sang that just
  Son of Anchises, who came forth from Troy,
  After that Ilion the superb was burned.

But thou, why goest thou back to such annoyance?
  Why climb'st thou not the Mount Delectable,
  Which is the source and cause of every joy?"

"Now, art thou that Virgilius and that fountain
  Which spreads abroad so wide a river of speech?"
  I made response to him with bashful forehead.

"O, of the other poets honour and light,
  Avail me the long study and great love
  That have impelled me to explore thy volume!

Thou art my master, and my author thou,
  Thou art alone the one from whom I took
  The beautiful style that has done honour to me.

Behold the beast, for which I have turned back;
  Do thou protect me from her, famous Sage,
  For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble."

"Thee it behoves to take another road,"
  Responded he, when he beheld me weeping,
  "If from this savage place thou wouldst escape;

Because this beast, at which thou criest out,
  Suffers not any one to pass her way,
  But so doth harass him, that she destroys him;

And has a nature so malign and ruthless,
  That never doth she glut her greedy will,
  And after food is hungrier than before.

Many the animals with whom she weds,
  And more they shall be still, until the Greyhound
  Comes, who shall make her perish in her pain.

He shall not feed on either earth or pelf,
  But upon wisdom, and on love and virtue;
  'Twixt Feltro and Feltro shall his nation be;

Of that low Italy shall he be the saviour,
  On whose account the maid Camilla died,
  Euryalus, Turnus, Nisus, of their wounds;

Through every city shall he hunt her down,
  Until he shall have driven her back to Hell,
  There from whence envy first did let her loose.

Therefore I think and judge it for thy best
  Thou follow me, and I will be thy guide,
  And lead thee hence through the eternal place,

Where thou shalt hear the desperate lamentations,
  Shalt see the ancient spirits disconsolate,
  Who cry out each one for the second death;

And thou shalt see those who contented are
  Within the fire, because they hope to come,
  Whene'er it may be, to the blessed people;

To whom, then, if thou wishest to ascend,
  A soul shall be for that than I more worthy;
  With her at my departure I will leave thee;

Because that Emperor, who reigns above,
  In that I was rebellious to his law,
  Wills that through me none come into his city.

He governs everywhere, and there he reigns;
  There is his city and his lofty throne;
  O happy he whom thereto he elects!"

And I to him: "Poet, I thee entreat,
  By that same God whom thou didst never know,
  So that I may escape this woe and worse,

Thou wouldst conduct me there where thou hast said,
  That I may see the portal of Saint Peter,
  And those thou makest so disconsolate."

Then he moved on, and I behind him followed.



Inferno: Canto II


Day was departing, and the embrowned air
  Released the animals that are on earth
  From their fatigues; and I the only one

Made myself ready to sustain the war,
  Both of the way and likewise of the woe,
  Which memory that errs not shall retrace.

O Muses, O high genius, now assist me!
  O memory, that didst write down what I saw,
  Here thy nobility shall be manifest!

And I began: "Poet, who guidest me,
  Regard my manhood, if it be sufficient,
  Ere to the arduous pass thou dost confide me.

Thou sayest, that of Silvius the parent,
  While yet corruptible, unto the world
  Immortal went, and was there bodily.

But if the adversary of all evil
  Was courteous, thinking of the high effect
  That issue would from him, and who, and what,

To men of intellect unmeet it seems not;
  For he was of great Rome, and of her empire
  In the empyreal heaven as father chosen;

The which and what, wishing to speak the truth,
  Were stablished as the holy place, wherein
  Sits the successor of the greatest Peter.

Upon this journey, whence thou givest him vaunt,
  Things did he hear, which the occasion were
  Both of his victory and the papal mantle.

Thither went afterwards the Chosen Vessel,
  To bring back comfort thence unto that Faith,
  Which of salvation's way is the beginning.

But I, why thither come, or who concedes it?
  I not Aeneas am, I am not Paul,
  Nor I, nor others, think me worthy of it.

Therefore, if I resign myself to come,
  I fear the coming may be ill-advised;
  Thou'rt wise, and knowest better than I speak."

And as he is, who unwills what he willed,
  And by new thoughts doth his intention change,
  So that from his design he quite withdraws,

Such I became, upon that dark hillside,
  Because, in thinking, I consumed the emprise,
  Which was so very prompt in the beginning.

"If I have well thy language understood,"
  Replied that shade of the Magnanimous,
  "Thy soul attainted is with cowardice,

Which many times a man encumbers so,
  It turns him back from honoured enterprise,
  As false sight doth a beast, when he is shy.

That thou mayst free thee from this apprehension,
  I'll tell thee why I came, and what I heard
  At the first moment when I grieved for thee.

Among those was I who are in suspense,
  And a fair, saintly Lady called to me
  In such wise, I besought her to command me.

Her eyes where shining brighter than the Star;
  And she began to say, gentle and low,
  With voice angelical, in her own language:

'O spirit courteous of Mantua,
  Of whom the fame still in the world endures,
  And shall endure, long-lasting as the world;

A friend of mine, and not the friend of fortune,
  Upon the desert slope is so impeded
  Upon his way, that he has turned through terror,

And may, I fear, already be so lost,
  That I too late have risen to his succour,
  From that which I have heard of him in Heaven.

Bestir thee now, and with thy speech ornate,
  And with what needful is for his release,
  Assist him so, that I may be consoled.

Beatrice am I, who do bid thee go;
  I come from there, where I would fain return;
  Love moved me, which compelleth me to speak.

When I shall be in presence of my Lord,
  Full often will I praise thee unto him.'
  Then paused she, and thereafter I began:

'O Lady of virtue, thou alone through whom
  The human race exceedeth all contained
  Within the heaven that has the lesser circles,

So grateful unto me is thy commandment,
  To obey, if 'twere already done, were late;
  No farther need'st thou ope to me thy wish.

But the cause tell me why thou dost not shun
  The here descending down into this centre,
  From the vast place thou burnest to return to.'

'Since thou wouldst fain so inwardly discern,
  Briefly will I relate,' she answered me,
  'Why I am not afraid to enter here.

Of those things only should one be afraid
  Which have the power of doing others harm;
  Of the rest, no; because they are not fearful.

God in his mercy such created me
  That misery of yours attains me not,
  Nor any flame assails me of this burning.

A gentle Lady is in Heaven, who grieves
  At this impediment, to which I send thee,
  So that stern judgment there above is broken.

In her entreaty she besought Lucia,
  And said, "Thy faithful one now stands in need
  Of thee, and unto thee I recommend him."

Lucia, foe of all that cruel is,
  Hastened away, and came unto the place
  Where I was sitting with the ancient Rachel.

"Beatrice" said she, "the true praise of God,
  Why succourest thou not him, who loved thee so,
  For thee he issued from the vulgar herd?

Dost thou not hear the pity of his plaint?
  Dost thou not see the death that combats him
  Beside that flood, where ocean has no vaunt?"

Never were persons in the world so swift
  To work their weal and to escape their woe,
  As I, after such words as these were uttered,

Came hither downward from my blessed seat,
  Confiding in thy dignified discourse,
  Which honours thee, and those who've listened to it.'

After she thus had spoken unto me,
  Weeping, her shining eyes she turned away;
  Whereby she made me swifter in my coming;

And unto thee I came, as she desired;
  I have delivered thee from that wild beast,
  Which barred the beautiful mountain's short ascent.

What is it, then?  Why, why dost thou delay?
  Why is such baseness bedded in thy heart?
  Daring and hardihood why hast thou not,

Seeing that three such Ladies benedight
  Are caring for thee in the court of Heaven,
  And so much good my speech doth promise thee?"

Even as the flowerets, by nocturnal chill,
  Bowed down and closed, when the sun whitens them,
  Uplift themselves all open on their stems;

Such I became with my exhausted strength,
  And such good courage to my heart there coursed,
  That I began, like an intrepid person:

"O she compassionate, who succoured me,
  And courteous thou, who hast obeyed so soon
  The words of truth which she addressed to thee!

Thou hast my heart so with desire disposed
  To the adventure, with these words of thine,
  That to my first intent I have returned.

Now go, for one sole will is in us both,
  Thou Leader, and thou Lord, and Master thou."
  Thus said I to him; and when he had moved,

I entered on the deep and savage way.



Inferno: Canto III


"Through me the way is to the city dolent;
  Through me the way is to eternal dole;
  Through me the way among the people lost.

Justice incited my sublime Creator;
  Created me divine Omnipotence,
  The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.

Before me there were no created things,
  Only eterne, and I eternal last.
  All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

These words in sombre colour I beheld
  Written upon the summit of a gate;
  Whence I: "Their sense is, Master, hard to me!"

And he to me, as one experienced:
  "Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
  All cowardice must needs be here extinct.

We to the place have come, where I have told thee
  Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
  Who have foregone the good of intellect."

And after he had laid his hand on mine
  With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
  He led me in among the secret things.

There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
  Resounded through the air without a star,
  Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.

Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
  Accents of anger, words of agony,
  And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,

Made up a tumult that goes whirling on
  For ever in that air for ever black,
  Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.

And I, who had my head with horror bound,
  Said: "Master, what is this which now I hear?
  What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?"

And he to me: "This miserable mode
  Maintain the melancholy souls of those
  Who lived withouten infamy or praise.

Commingled are they with that caitiff choir
  Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,
  Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.

The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;
  Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,
  For glory none the damned would have from them."

And I: "O Master, what so grievous is
  To these, that maketh them lament so sore?"
  He answered: "I will tell thee very briefly.

These have no longer any hope of death;
  And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
  They envious are of every other fate.

No fame of them the world permits to be;
  Misericord and Justice both disdain them.
  Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass."

And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,
  Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,
  That of all pause it seemed to me indignant;

And after it there came so long a train
  Of people, that I ne'er would have believed
  That ever Death so many had undone.

When some among them I had recognised,
  I looked, and I beheld the shade of him
  Who made through cowardice the great refusal.

Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,
  That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches
  Hateful to God and to his enemies.

These miscreants, who never were alive,
  Were naked, and were stung exceedingly
  By gadflies and by hornets that were there.

These did their faces irrigate with blood,
  Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet
  By the disgusting worms was gathered up.

And when to gazing farther I betook me.
  People I saw on a great river's bank;
  Whence said I: "Master, now vouchsafe to me,

That I may know who these are, and what law
  Makes them appear so ready to pass over,
  As I discern athwart the dusky light."

And he to me: "These things shall all be known
  To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay
  Upon the dismal shore of Acheron."

Then with mine eyes ashamed and downward cast,
  Fearing my words might irksome be to him,
  From speech refrained I till we reached the river.

And lo! towards us coming in a boat
  An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,
  Crying: "Woe unto you, ye souls depraved!

Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
  I come to lead you to the other shore,
  To the eternal shades in heat and frost.

And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,
  Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead!"
  But when he saw that I did not withdraw,

He said: "By other ways, by other ports
  Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for passage;
  A lighter vessel needs must carry thee."

And unto him the Guide: "Vex thee not, Charon;
  It is so willed there where is power to do
  That which is willed; and farther question not."

Thereat were quieted the fleecy cheeks
  Of him the ferryman of the livid fen,
  Who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.

But all those souls who weary were and naked
  Their colour changed and gnashed their teeth together,
  As soon as they had heard those cruel words.

God they blasphemed and their progenitors,
  The human race, the place, the time, the seed
  Of their engendering and of their birth!

Thereafter all together they drew back,
  Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,
  Which waiteth every man who fears not God.

Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,
  Beckoning to them, collects them all together,
  Beats with his oar whoever lags behind.

As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,
  First one and then another, till the branch
  Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;

In similar wise the evil seed of Adam
  Throw themselves from that margin one by one,
  At signals, as a bird unto its lure.

So they depart across the dusky wave,
  And ere upon the other side they land,
  Again on this side a new troop assembles.

"My son," the courteous Master said to me,
  "All those who perish in the wrath of God
  Here meet together out of every land;

And ready are they to pass o'er the river,
  Because celestial Justice spurs them on,
  So that their fear is turned into desire.

This way there never passes a good soul;
  And hence if Charon doth complain of thee,
  Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports."

This being finished, all the dusk champaign
  Trembled so violently, that of that terror
  The recollection bathes me still with sweat.

The land of tears gave forth a blast of wind,
  And fulminated a vermilion light,
  Which overmastered in me every sense,

And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.



Inferno: Canto IV


Broke the deep lethargy within my head
  A heavy thunder, so that I upstarted,
  Like to a person who by force is wakened;

And round about I moved my rested eyes,
  Uprisen erect, and steadfastly I gazed,
  To recognise the place wherein I was.

True is it, that upon the verge I found me
  Of the abysmal valley dolorous,
  That gathers thunder of infinite ululations.

Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous,
  So that by fixing on its depths my sight
  Nothing whatever I discerned therein.

"Let us descend now into the blind world,"
  Began the Poet, pallid utterly;
  "I will be first, and thou shalt second be."

And I, who of his colour was aware,
  Said: "How shall I come, if thou art afraid,
  Who'rt wont to be a comfort to my fears?"

And he to me: "The anguish of the people
  Who are below here in my face depicts
  That pity which for terror thou hast taken.

Let us go on, for the long way impels us."
  Thus he went in, and thus he made me enter
  The foremost circle that surrounds the abyss.

There, as it seemed to me from listening,
  Were lamentations none, but only sighs,
  That tremble made the everlasting air.

And this arose from sorrow without torment,
  Which the crowds had, that many were and great,
  Of infants and of women and of men.

To me the Master good: "Thou dost not ask
  What spirits these, which thou beholdest, are?
  Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther,

That they sinned not; and if they merit had,
  'Tis not enough, because they had not baptism
  Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest;

And if they were before Christianity,
  In the right manner they adored not God;
  And among such as these am I myself.

For such defects, and not for other guilt,
  Lost are we and are only so far punished,
  That without hope we live on in desire."

Great grief seized on my heart when this I heard,
  Because some people of much worthiness
  I knew, who in that Limbo were suspended.

"Tell me, my Master, tell me, thou my Lord,"
  Began I, with desire of being certain
  Of that Faith which o'ercometh every error,

"Came any one by his own merit hence,
  Or by another's, who was blessed thereafter?"
  And he, who understood my covert speech,

Replied: "I was a novice in this state,
  When I saw hither come a Mighty One,
  With sign of victory incoronate.

Hence he drew forth the shade of the First Parent,
  And that of his son Abel, and of Noah,
  Of Moses the lawgiver, and the obedient

Abraham, patriarch, and David, king,
  Israel with his father and his children,
  And Rachel, for whose sake he did so much,

And others many, and he made them blessed;
  And thou must know, that earlier than these
  Never were any human spirits saved."

We ceased not to advance because he spake,
  But still were passing onward through the forest,
  The forest, say I, of thick-crowded ghosts.

Not very far as yet our way had gone
  This side the summit, when I saw a fire
  That overcame a hemisphere of darkness.

We were a little distant from it still,
  But not so far that I in part discerned not
  That honourable people held that place.

"O thou who honourest every art and science,
  Who may these be, which such great honour have,
  That from the fashion of the rest it parts them?"

And he to me: "The honourable name,
  That sounds of them above there in thy life,
  Wins grace in Heaven, that so advances them."

In the mean time a voice was heard by me:
  "All honour be to the pre-eminent Poet;
  His shade returns again, that was departed."

After the voice had ceased and quiet was,
  Four mighty shades I saw approaching us;
  Semblance had they nor sorrowful nor glad.

To say to me began my gracious Master:
  "Him with that falchion in his hand behold,
  Who comes before the three, even as their lord.

That one is Homer, Poet sovereign;
  He who comes next is Horace, the satirist;
  The third is Ovid, and the last is Lucan.

Because to each of these with me applies
  The name that solitary voice proclaimed,
  They do me honour, and in that do well."

Thus I beheld assemble the fair school
  Of that lord of the song pre-eminent,
  Who o'er the others like an eagle soars.

When they together had discoursed somewhat,
  They turned to me with signs of salutation,
  And on beholding this, my Master smiled;

And more of honour still, much more, they did me,
  In that they made me one of their own band;
  So that the sixth was I, 'mid so much wit.

Thus we went on as far as to the light,
  Things saying 'tis becoming to keep silent,
  As was the saying of them where I was.

We came unto a noble castle's foot,
  Seven times encompassed with lofty walls,
  Defended round by a fair rivulet;

This we passed over even as firm ground;
  Through portals seven I entered with these Sages;
  We came into a meadow of fresh verdure.

People were there with solemn eyes and slow,
  Of great authority in their countenance;
  They spake but seldom, and with gentle voices.

Thus we withdrew ourselves upon one side
  Into an opening luminous and lofty,
  So that they all of them were visible.

There opposite, upon the green enamel,
  Were pointed out to me the mighty spirits,
  Whom to have seen I feel myself exalted.

I saw Electra with companions many,
  'Mongst whom I knew both Hector and Aeneas,
  Caesar in armour with gerfalcon eyes;

I saw Camilla and Penthesilea
  On the other side, and saw the King Latinus,
  Who with Lavinia his daughter sat;

I saw that Brutus who drove Tarquin forth,
  Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia,
  And saw alone, apart, the Saladin.

When I had lifted up my brows a little,
  The Master I beheld of those who know,
  Sit with his philosophic family.

All gaze upon him, and all do him honour.
  There I beheld both Socrates and Plato,
  Who nearer him before the others stand;

Democritus, who puts the world on chance,
  Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales,
  Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus;

Of qualities I saw the good collector,
  Hight Dioscorides; and Orpheus saw I,
  Tully and Livy, and moral Seneca,

Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy,
  Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna,
  Averroes, who the great Comment made.

I cannot all of them pourtray in full,
  Because so drives me onward the long theme,
  That many times the word comes short of fact.

The sixfold company in two divides;
  Another way my sapient Guide conducts me
  Forth from the quiet to the air that trembles;

And to a place I come where nothing shines.



Inferno: Canto V


Thus I descended out of the first circle
  Down to the second, that less space begirds,
  And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing.

There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;
  Examines the transgressions at the entrance;
  Judges, and sends according as he girds him.

I say, that when the spirit evil-born
  Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;
  And this discriminator of transgressions

Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it;
  Girds himself with his tail as many times
  As grades he wishes it should be thrust down.

Always before him many of them stand;
  They go by turns each one unto the judgment;
  They speak, and hear, and then are downward hurled.

"O thou, that to this dolorous hostelry
  Comest," said Minos to me, when he saw me,
  Leaving the practice of so great an office,

"Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest;
  Let not the portal's amplitude deceive thee."
  And unto him my Guide: "Why criest thou too?

Do not impede his journey fate-ordained;
  It is so willed there where is power to do
  That which is willed; and ask no further question."

And now begin the dolesome notes to grow
  Audible unto me; now am I come
  There where much lamentation strikes upon me.

I came into a place mute of all light,
  Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,
  If by opposing winds 't is combated.

The infernal hurricane that never rests
  Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;
  Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.

When they arrive before the precipice,
  There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,
  There they blaspheme the puissance divine.

I understood that unto such a torment
  The carnal malefactors were condemned,
  Who reason subjugate to appetite.

And as the wings of starlings bear them on
  In the cold season in large band and full,
  So doth that blast the spirits maledict;

It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;
  No hope doth comfort them for evermore,
  Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.

And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,
  Making in air a long line of themselves,
  So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,

Shadows borne onward by the aforesaid stress.
  Whereupon said I: "Master, who are those
  People, whom the black air so castigates?"

"The first of those, of whom intelligence
  Thou fain wouldst have," then said he unto me,
  "The empress was of many languages.

To sensual vices she was so abandoned,
  That lustful she made licit in her law,
  To remove the blame to which she had been led.

She is Semiramis, of whom we read
  That she succeeded Ninus, and was his spouse;
  She held the land which now the Sultan rules.

The next is she who killed herself for love,
  And broke faith with the ashes of Sichaeus;
  Then Cleopatra the voluptuous."

Helen I saw, for whom so many ruthless
  Seasons revolved; and saw the great Achilles,
  Who at the last hour combated with Love.

Paris I saw, Tristan; and more than a thousand
  Shades did he name and point out with his finger,
  Whom Love had separated from our life.

After that I had listened to my Teacher,
  Naming the dames of eld and cavaliers,
  Pity prevailed, and I was nigh bewildered.

And I began: "O Poet, willingly
  Speak would I to those two, who go together,
  And seem upon the wind to be so light."

And, he to me: "Thou'lt mark, when they shall be
  Nearer to us; and then do thou implore them
  By love which leadeth them, and they will come."

Soon as the wind in our direction sways them,
  My voice uplift I: "O ye weary souls!
  Come speak to us, if no one interdicts it."

As turtle-doves, called onward by desire,
  With open and steady wings to the sweet nest
  Fly through the air by their volition borne,

So came they from the band where Dido is,
  Approaching us athwart the air malign,
  So strong was the affectionate appeal.

"O living creature gracious and benignant,
  Who visiting goest through the purple air
  Us, who have stained the world incarnadine,

If were the King of the Universe our friend,
  We would pray unto him to give thee peace,
  Since thou hast pity on our woe perverse.

Of what it pleases thee to hear and speak,
  That will we hear, and we will speak to you,
  While silent is the wind, as it is now.

Sitteth the city, wherein I was born,
  Upon the sea-shore where the Po descends
  To rest in peace with all his retinue.

Love, that on gentle heart doth swiftly seize,
  Seized this man for the person beautiful
  That was ta'en from me, and still the mode offends me.

Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,
  Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,
  That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me;

Love has conducted us unto one death;
  Caina waiteth him who quenched our life!"
  These words were borne along from them to us.

As soon as I had heard those souls tormented,
  I bowed my face, and so long held it down
  Until the Poet said to me: "What thinkest?"

When I made answer, I began: "Alas!
  How many pleasant thoughts, how much desire,
  Conducted these unto the dolorous pass!"

Then unto them I turned me, and I spake,
  And I began: "Thine agonies, Francesca,
  Sad and compassionate to weeping make me.

But tell me, at the time of those sweet sighs,
  By what and in what manner Love conceded,
  That you should know your dubious desires?"

And she to me: "There is no greater sorrow
  Than to be mindful of the happy time
  In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.

But, if to recognise the earliest root
  Of love in us thou hast so great desire,
  I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.

One day we reading were for our delight
  Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
  Alone we were and without any fear.

Full many a time our eyes together drew
  That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
  But one point only was it that o'ercame us.

When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
  Being by such a noble lover kissed,
  This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,

Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
  Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.
  That day no farther did we read therein."

And all the while one spirit uttered this,
  The other one did weep so, that, for pity,
  I swooned away as if I had been dying,

And fell, even as a dead body falls.



Inferno: Canto VI


At the return of consciousness, that closed
  Before the pity of those two relations,
  Which utterly with sadness had confused me,

New torments I behold, and new tormented
  Around me, whichsoever way I move,
  And whichsoever way I turn, and gaze.

In the third circle am I of the rain
  Eternal, maledict, and cold, and heavy;
  Its law and quality are never new.

Huge hail, and water sombre-hued, and snow,
  Athwart the tenebrous air pour down amain;
  Noisome the earth is, that receiveth this.

Cerberus, monster cruel and uncouth,
  With his three gullets like a dog is barking
  Over the people that are there submerged.

Red eyes he has, and unctuous beard and black,
  And belly large, and armed with claws his hands;
  He rends the spirits, flays, and quarters them.

Howl the rain maketh them like unto dogs;
  One side they make a shelter for the other;
  Oft turn themselves the wretched reprobates.

When Cerberus perceived us, the great worm!
   His mouths he opened, and displayed his tusks;
   Not a limb had he that was motionless.

And my Conductor, with his spans extended,
  Took of the earth, and with his fists well filled,
  He threw it into those rapacious gullets.

Such as that dog is, who by barking craves,
  And quiet grows soon as his food he gnaws,
  For to devour it he but thinks and struggles,

The like became those muzzles filth-begrimed
  Of Cerberus the demon, who so thunders
  Over the souls that they would fain be deaf.

We passed across the shadows, which subdues
  The heavy rain-storm, and we placed our feet
  Upon their vanity that person seems.

They all were lying prone upon the earth,
  Excepting one, who sat upright as soon
  As he beheld us passing on before him.

"O thou that art conducted through this Hell,"
  He said to me, "recall me, if thou canst;
  Thyself wast made before I was unmade."

And I to him: "The anguish which thou hast
  Perhaps doth draw thee out of my remembrance,
  So that it seems not I have ever seen thee.

But tell me who thou art, that in so doleful
  A place art put, and in such punishment,
  If some are greater, none is so displeasing."

And he to me: "Thy city, which is full
  Of envy so that now the sack runs over,
  Held me within it in the life serene.

You citizens were wont to call me Ciacco;
  For the pernicious sin of gluttony
  I, as thou seest, am battered by this rain.

And I, sad soul, am not the only one,
  For all these suffer the like penalty
  For the like sin;" and word no more spake he.

I answered him: "Ciacco, thy wretchedness
  Weighs on me so that it to weep invites me;
  But tell me, if thou knowest, to what shall come

The citizens of the divided city;
  If any there be just; and the occasion
  Tell me why so much discord has assailed it."

And he to me: "They, after long contention,
  Will come to bloodshed; and the rustic party
  Will drive the other out with much offence.

Then afterwards behoves it this one fall
  Within three suns, and rise again the other
  By force of him who now is on the coast.

High will it hold its forehead a long while,
  Keeping the other under heavy burdens,
  Howe'er it weeps thereat and is indignant.

The just are two, and are not understood there;
  Envy and Arrogance and Avarice
  Are the three sparks that have all hearts enkindled."

Here ended he his tearful utterance;
  And I to him: "I wish thee still to teach me,
  And make a gift to me of further speech.

Farinata and Tegghiaio, once so worthy,
  Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, and Mosca,
  And others who on good deeds set their thoughts,

Say where they are, and cause that I may know them;
  For great desire constraineth me to learn
  If Heaven doth sweeten them, or Hell envenom."

And he: "They are among the blacker souls;
  A different sin downweighs them to the bottom;
  If thou so far descendest, thou canst see them.

But when thou art again in the sweet world,
  I pray thee to the mind of others bring me;
  No more I tell thee and no more I answer."

Then his straightforward eyes he turned askance,
  Eyed me a little, and then bowed his head;
  He fell therewith prone like the other blind.

And the Guide said to me: "He wakes no more
  This side the sound of the angelic trumpet;
  When shall approach the hostile Potentate,

Each one shall find again his dismal tomb,
  Shall reassume his flesh and his own figure,
  Shall hear what through eternity re-echoes."

So we passed onward o'er the filthy mixture
  Of shadows and of rain with footsteps slow,
  Touching a little on the future life.

Wherefore I said: "Master, these torments here,
  Will they increase after the mighty sentence,
  Or lesser be, or will they be as burning?"

And he to me: "Return unto thy science,
  Which wills, that as the thing more perfect is,
  The more it feels of pleasure and of pain.

Albeit that this people maledict
  To true perfection never can attain,
  Hereafter more than now they look to be."

Round in a circle by that road we went,
  Speaking much more, which I do not repeat;
  We came unto the point where the descent is;

There we found Plutus the great enemy.



Inferno: Canto VII


"Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!"
  Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began;
  And that benignant Sage, who all things knew,

Said, to encourage me: "Let not thy fear
  Harm thee; for any power that he may have
  Shall not prevent thy going down this crag."

Then he turned round unto that bloated lip,
  And said: "Be silent, thou accursed wolf;
  Consume within thyself with thine own rage.

Not causeless is this journey to the abyss;
  Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wrought
  Vengeance upon the proud adultery."

Even as the sails inflated by the wind
  Involved together fall when snaps the mast,
  So fell the cruel monster to the earth.

Thus we descended into the fourth chasm,
  Gaining still farther on the dolesome shore
  Which all the woe of the universe insacks.

Justice of God, ah! who heaps up so many
  New toils and sufferings as I beheld?
  And why doth our transgression waste us so?

As doth the billow there upon Charybdis,
  That breaks itself on that which it encounters,
  So here the folk must dance their roundelay.

Here saw I people, more than elsewhere, many,
  On one side and the other, with great howls,
  Rolling weights forward by main force of chest.

They clashed together, and then at that point
  Each one turned backward, rolling retrograde,
  Crying, "Why keepest?" and, "Why squanderest thou?"

Thus they returned along the lurid circle
  On either hand unto the opposite point,
  Shouting their shameful metre evermore.

Then each, when he arrived there, wheeled about
  Through his half-circle to another joust;
  And I, who had my heart pierced as it were,

Exclaimed: "My Master, now declare to me
  What people these are, and if all were clerks,
  These shaven crowns upon the left of us."

And he to me: "All of them were asquint
  In intellect in the first life, so much
  That there with measure they no spending made.

Clearly enough their voices bark it forth,
  Whene'er they reach the two points of the circle,
  Where sunders them the opposite defect.

Clerks those were who no hairy covering
  Have on the head, and Popes and Cardinals,
  In whom doth Avarice practise its excess."

And I: "My Master, among such as these
  I ought forsooth to recognise some few,
  Who were infected with these maladies."

And he to me: "Vain thought thou entertainest;
  The undiscerning life which made them sordid
  Now makes them unto all discernment dim.

Forever shall they come to these two buttings;
  These from the sepulchre shall rise again
  With the fist closed, and these with tresses shorn.

Ill giving and ill keeping the fair world
  Have ta'en from them, and placed them in this scuffle;
  Whate'er it be, no words adorn I for it.

Now canst thou, Son, behold the transient farce
  Of goods that are committed unto Fortune,
  For which the human race each other buffet;

For all the gold that is beneath the moon,
  Or ever has been, of these weary souls
  Could never make a single one repose."

"Master," I said to him, "now tell me also
  What is this Fortune which thou speakest of,
  That has the world's goods so within its clutches?"

And he to me: "O creatures imbecile,
  What ignorance is this which doth beset you?
  Now will I have thee learn my judgment of her.

He whose omniscience everything transcends
  The heavens created, and gave who should guide them,
  That every part to every part may shine,

Distributing the light in equal measure;
  He in like manner to the mundane splendours
  Ordained a general ministress and guide,

That she might change at times the empty treasures
  From race to race, from one blood to another,
  Beyond resistance of all human wisdom.

Therefore one people triumphs, and another
  Languishes, in pursuance of her judgment,
  Which hidden is, as in the grass a serpent.

Your knowledge has no counterstand against her;
  She makes provision, judges, and pursues
  Her governance, as theirs the other gods.

Her permutations have not any truce;
  Necessity makes her precipitate,
  So often cometh who his turn obtains.

And this is she who is so crucified
  Even by those who ought to give her praise,
  Giving her blame amiss, and bad repute.

But she is blissful, and she hears it not;
  Among the other primal creatures gladsome
  She turns her sphere, and blissful she rejoices.

Let us descend now unto greater woe;
  Already sinks each star that was ascending
  When I set out, and loitering is forbidden."

We crossed the circle to the other bank,
  Near to a fount that boils, and pours itself
  Along a gully that runs out of it.

The water was more sombre far than perse;
  And we, in company with the dusky waves,
  Made entrance downward by a path uncouth.

A marsh it makes, which has the name of Styx,
  This tristful brooklet, when it has descended
  Down to the foot of the malign gray shores.

And I, who stood intent upon beholding,
  Saw people mud-besprent in that lagoon,
  All of them naked and with angry look.

They smote each other not alone with hands,
  But with the head and with the breast and feet,
  Tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth.

Said the good Master: "Son, thou now beholdest
  The souls of those whom anger overcame;
  And likewise I would have thee know for certain

Beneath the water people are who sigh
  And make this water bubble at the surface,
  As the eye tells thee wheresoe'er it turns.

Fixed in the mire they say, 'We sullen were
  In the sweet air, which by the sun is gladdened,
  Bearing within ourselves the sluggish reek;

Now we are sullen in this sable mire.'
  This hymn do they keep gurgling in their throats,
  For with unbroken words they cannot say it."

Thus we went circling round the filthy fen
  A great arc 'twixt the dry bank and the swamp,
  With eyes turned unto those who gorge the mire;

Unto the foot of a tower we came at last.



Inferno: Canto VIII


I say, continuing, that long before
  We to the foot of that high tower had come,
  Our eyes went upward to the summit of it,

By reason of two flamelets we saw placed there,
  And from afar another answer them,
  So far, that hardly could the eye attain it.

And, to the sea of all discernment turned,
  I said: "What sayeth this, and what respondeth
  That other fire? and who are they that made it?"

And he to me: "Across the turbid waves
  What is expected thou canst now discern,
  If reek of the morass conceal it not."

Cord never shot an arrow from itself
  That sped away athwart the air so swift,
  As I beheld a very little boat

Come o'er the water tow'rds us at that moment,
  Under the guidance of a single pilot,
  Who shouted, "Now art thou arrived, fell soul?"

"Phlegyas, Phlegyas, thou criest out in vain
  For this once," said my Lord; "thou shalt not have us
  Longer than in the passing of the slough."

As he who listens to some great deceit
  That has been done to him, and then resents it,
  Such became Phlegyas, in his gathered wrath.

My Guide descended down into the boat,
  And then he made me enter after him,
  And only when I entered seemed it laden.

Soon as the Guide and I were in the boat,
  The antique prow goes on its way, dividing
  More of the water than 'tis wont with others.

While we were running through the dead canal,
  Uprose in front of me one full of mire,
  And said, "Who 'rt thou that comest ere the hour?"

And I to him: "Although I come, I stay not;
  But who art thou that hast become so squalid?"
  "Thou seest that I am one who weeps," he answered.

And I to him: "With weeping and with wailing,
  Thou spirit maledict, do thou remain;
  For thee I know, though thou art all defiled."

Then stretched he both his hands unto the boat;
  Whereat my wary Master thrust him back,
  Saying, "Away there with the other dogs!"

Thereafter with his arms he clasped my neck;
  He kissed my face, and said: "Disdainful soul,
  Blessed be she who bore thee in her bosom.

That was an arrogant person in the world;
  Goodness is none, that decks his memory;
  So likewise here his shade is furious.

How many are esteemed great kings up there,
  Who here shall be like unto swine in mire,
  Leaving behind them horrible dispraises!"

And I: "My Master, much should I be pleased,
  If I could see him soused into this broth,
  Before we issue forth out of the lake."

And he to me: "Ere unto thee the shore
  Reveal itself, thou shalt be satisfied;
  Such a desire 'tis meet thou shouldst enjoy."

A little after that, I saw such havoc
  Made of him by the people of the mire,
  That still I praise and thank my God for it.

They all were shouting, "At Philippo Argenti!"
  And that exasperate spirit Florentine
  Turned round upon himself with his own teeth.

We left him there, and more of him I tell not;
  But on mine ears there smote a lamentation,
  Whence forward I intent unbar mine eyes.

And the good Master said: "Even now, my Son,
  The city draweth near whose name is Dis,
  With the grave citizens, with the great throng."

And I: "Its mosques already, Master, clearly
  Within there in the valley I discern
  Vermilion, as if issuing from the fire

They were."  And he to me: "The fire eternal
  That kindles them within makes them look red,
  As thou beholdest in this nether Hell."

Then we arrived within the moats profound,
  That circumvallate that disconsolate city;
  The walls appeared to me to be of iron.

Not without making first a circuit wide,
  We came unto a place where loud the pilot
  Cried out to us, "Debark, here is the entrance."

More than a thousand at the gates I saw
  Out of the Heavens rained down, who angrily
  Were saying, "Who is this that without death

Goes through the kingdom of the people dead?"
  And my sagacious Master made a sign
  Of wishing secretly to speak with them.

A little then they quelled their great disdain,
  And said: "Come thou alone, and he begone
  Who has so boldly entered these dominions.

Let him return alone by his mad road;
  Try, if he can; for thou shalt here remain,
  Who hast escorted him through such dark regions."

Think, Reader, if I was discomforted
  At utterance of the accursed words;
  For never to return here I believed.

"O my dear Guide, who more than seven times
  Hast rendered me security, and drawn me
  From imminent peril that before me stood,

Do not desert me," said I, "thus undone;
  And if the going farther be denied us,
  Let us retrace our steps together swiftly."

And that Lord, who had led me thitherward,
  Said unto me: "Fear not; because our passage
  None can take from us, it by Such is given.

But here await me, and thy weary spirit
  Comfort and nourish with a better hope;
  For in this nether world I will not leave thee."

So onward goes and there abandons me
  My Father sweet, and I remain in doubt,
  For No and Yes within my head contend.

I could not hear what he proposed to them;
  But with them there he did not linger long,
  Ere each within in rivalry ran back.

They closed the portals, those our adversaries,
  On my Lord's breast, who had remained without
  And turned to me with footsteps far between.

His eyes cast down, his forehead shorn had he
  Of all its boldness, and he said, with sighs,
  "Who has denied to me the dolesome houses?"

And unto me: "Thou, because I am angry,
  Fear not, for I will conquer in the trial,
  Whatever for defence within be planned.

This arrogance of theirs is nothing new;
  For once they used it at less secret gate,
  Which finds itself without a fastening still.

O'er it didst thou behold the dead inscription;
  And now this side of it descends the steep,
  Passing across the circles without escort,

One by whose means the city shall be opened."



Inferno: Canto IX


That hue which cowardice brought out on me,
  Beholding my Conductor backward turn,
  Sooner repressed within him his new colour.

He stopped attentive, like a man who listens,
  Because the eye could not conduct him far
  Through the black air, and through the heavy fog.

"Still it behoveth us to win the fight,"
  Began he; "Else. . .Such offered us herself. . .
  O how I long that some one here arrive!"

Well I perceived, as soon as the beginning
  He covered up with what came afterward,
  That they were words quite different from the first;

But none the less his saying gave me fear,
  Because I carried out the broken phrase,
  Perhaps to a worse meaning than he had.

"Into this bottom of the doleful conch
  Doth any e'er descend from the first grade,
  Which for its pain has only hope cut off?"

This question put I; and he answered me:
  "Seldom it comes to pass that one of us
  Maketh the journey upon which I go.

True is it, once before I here below
  Was conjured by that pitiless Erictho,
  Who summoned back the shades unto their bodies.

Naked of me short while the flesh had been,
  Before within that wall she made me enter,
  To bring a spirit from the circle of Judas;

That is the lowest region and the darkest,
  And farthest from the heaven which circles all.
  Well know I the way; therefore be reassured.

This fen, which a prodigious stench exhales,
  Encompasses about the city dolent,
  Where now we cannot enter without anger."

And more he said, but not in mind I have it;
  Because mine eye had altogether drawn me
  Tow'rds the high tower with the red-flaming summit,

Where in a moment saw I swift uprisen
  The three infernal Furies stained with blood,
  Who had the limbs of women and their mien,

And with the greenest hydras were begirt;
  Small serpents and cerastes were their tresses,
  Wherewith their horrid temples were entwined.

And he who well the handmaids of the Queen
  Of everlasting lamentation knew,
  Said unto me: "Behold the fierce Erinnys.

This is Megaera, on the left-hand side;
  She who is weeping on the right, Alecto;
  Tisiphone is between;" and then was silent.

Each one her breast was rending with her nails;
  They beat them with their palms, and cried so loud,
  That I for dread pressed close unto the Poet.

"Medusa come, so we to stone will change him!"
  All shouted looking down; "in evil hour
  Avenged we not on Theseus his assault!"

"Turn thyself round, and keep thine eyes close shut,
  For if the Gorgon appear, and thou shouldst see it,
  No more returning upward would there be."

Thus said the Master; and he turned me round
  Himself, and trusted not unto my hands
  So far as not to blind me with his own.

O ye who have undistempered intellects,
  Observe the doctrine that conceals itself
  Beneath the veil of the mysterious verses!

And now there came across the turbid waves
  The clangour of a sound with terror fraught,
  Because of which both of the margins trembled;

Not otherwise it was than of a wind
  Impetuous on account of adverse heats,
  That smites the forest, and, without restraint,

The branches rends, beats down, and bears away;
  Right onward, laden with dust, it goes superb,
  And puts to flight the wild beasts and the shepherds.

Mine eyes he loosed, and said: "Direct the nerve
  Of vision now along that ancient foam,
  There yonder where that smoke is most intense."

Even as the frogs before the hostile serpent
  Across the water scatter all abroad,
  Until each one is huddled in the earth.

More than a thousand ruined souls I saw,
  Thus fleeing from before one who on foot
  Was passing o'er the Styx with soles unwet.

From off his face he fanned that unctuous air,
  Waving his left hand oft in front of him,
  And only with that anguish seemed he weary.

Well I perceived one sent from Heaven was he,
  And to the Master turned; and he made sign
  That I should quiet stand, and bow before him.

Ah! how disdainful he appeared to me!
  He reached the gate, and with a little rod
  He opened it, for there was no resistance.

"O banished out of Heaven, people despised!"
  Thus he began upon the horrid threshold;
  "Whence is this arrogance within you couched?

Wherefore recalcitrate against that will,
  From which the end can never be cut off,
  And which has many times increased your pain?

What helpeth it to butt against the fates?
  Your Cerberus, if you remember well,
  For that still bears his chin and gullet peeled."

Then he returned along the miry road,
  And spake no word to us, but had the look
  Of one whom other care constrains and goads

Than that of him who in his presence is;
  And we our feet directed tow'rds the city,
  After those holy words all confident.

Within we entered without any contest;
  And I, who inclination had to see
  What the condition such a fortress holds,

Soon as I was within, cast round mine eye,
  And see on every hand an ample plain,
  Full of distress and torment terrible.

Even as at Arles, where stagnant grows the Rhone,
  Even as at Pola near to the Quarnaro,
  That shuts in Italy and bathes its borders,

The sepulchres make all the place uneven;
  So likewise did they there on every side,
  Saving that there the manner was more bitter;

For flames between the sepulchres were scattered,
  By which they so intensely heated were,
  That iron more so asks not any art.

All of their coverings uplifted were,
  And from them issued forth such dire laments,
  Sooth seemed they of the wretched and tormented.

And I: "My Master, what are all those people
  Who, having sepulture within those tombs,
  Make themselves audible by doleful sighs?"

And he to me: "Here are the Heresiarchs,
  With their disciples of all sects, and much
  More than thou thinkest laden are the tombs.

Here like together with its like is buried;
  And more and less the monuments are heated."
  And when he to the right had turned, we passed

Between the torments and high parapets.



Inferno: Canto X


Now onward goes, along a narrow path
  Between the torments and the city wall,
  My Master, and I follow at his back.

"O power supreme, that through these impious circles
  Turnest me," I began, "as pleases thee,
  Speak to me, and my longings satisfy;

The people who are lying in these tombs,
  Might they be seen? already are uplifted
  The covers all, and no one keepeth guard."

And he to me: "They all will be closed up
  When from Jehoshaphat they shall return
  Here with the bodies they have left above.

Their cemetery have upon this side
  With Epicurus all his followers,
  Who with the body mortal make the soul;

But in the question thou dost put to me,
  Within here shalt thou soon be satisfied,
  And likewise in the wish thou keepest silent."

And I: "Good Leader, I but keep concealed
  From thee my heart, that I may speak the less,
  Nor only now hast thou thereto disposed me."

"O Tuscan, thou who through the city of fire
  Goest alive, thus speaking modestly,
  Be pleased to stay thy footsteps in this place.

Thy mode of speaking makes thee manifest
  A native of that noble fatherland,
  To which perhaps I too molestful was."

Upon a sudden issued forth this sound
  From out one of the tombs; wherefore I pressed,
  Fearing, a little nearer to my Leader.

And unto me he said: "Turn thee; what dost thou?
  Behold there Farinata who has risen;
  From the waist upwards wholly shalt thou see him."

I had already fixed mine eyes on his,
  And he uprose erect with breast and front
  E'en as if Hell he had in great despite.

And with courageous hands and prompt my Leader
  Thrust me between the sepulchres towards him,
  Exclaiming, "Let thy words explicit be."

As soon as I was at the foot of his tomb
  Somewhat he eyed me, and, as if disdainful,
  Then asked of me, "Who were thine ancestors?"

I, who desirous of obeying was,
  Concealed it not, but all revealed to him;
  Whereat he raised his brows a little upward.

Then said he: "Fiercely adverse have they been
  To me, and to my fathers, and my party;
  So that two several times I scattered them."

"If they were banished, they returned on all sides,"
  I answered him, "the first time and the second;
  But yours have not acquired that art aright."

Then there uprose upon the sight, uncovered
  Down to the chin, a shadow at his side;
  I think that he had risen on his knees.

Round me he gazed, as if solicitude
  He had to see if some one else were with me,
  But after his suspicion was all spent,

Weeping, he said to me: "If through this blind
  Prison thou goest by loftiness of genius,
  Where is my son? and why is he not with thee?"

And I to him: "I come not of myself;
  He who is waiting yonder leads me here,
  Whom in disdain perhaps your Guido had."

His language and the mode of punishment
  Already unto me had read his name;
  On that account my answer was so full.

Up starting suddenly, he cried out: "How
  Saidst thou,--he had?  Is he not still alive?
  Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?"

When he became aware of some delay,
  Which I before my answer made, supine
  He fell again, and forth appeared no more.

But the other, magnanimous, at whose desire
  I had remained, did not his aspect change,
  Neither his neck he moved, nor bent his side.

"And if," continuing his first discourse,
  "They have that art," he said, "not learned aright,
  That more tormenteth me, than doth this bed.

But fifty times shall not rekindled be
  The countenance of the Lady who reigns here,
  Ere thou shalt know how heavy is that art;

And as thou wouldst to the sweet world return,
  Say why that people is so pitiless
  Against my race in each one of its laws?"

Whence I to him: "The slaughter and great carnage
  Which have with crimson stained the Arbia, cause
  Such orisons in our temple to be made."

After his head he with a sigh had shaken,
  "There I was not alone," he said, "nor surely
  Without a cause had with the others moved.

But there I was alone, where every one
  Consented to the laying waste of Florence,
  He who defended her with open face."

"Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose,"
  I him entreated, "solve for me that knot,
  Which has entangled my conceptions here.

It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly,
  Beforehand whatsoe'er time brings with it,
  And in the present have another mode."

"We see, like those who have imperfect sight,
  The things," he said, "that distant are from us;
  So much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler.

When they draw near, or are, is wholly vain
  Our intellect, and if none brings it to us,
  Not anything know we of your human state.

Hence thou canst understand, that wholly dead
  Will be our knowledge from the moment when
  The portal of the future shall be closed."

Then I, as if compunctious for my fault,
  Said: "Now, then, you will tell that fallen one,
  That still his son is with the living joined.

And if just now, in answering, I was dumb,
  Tell him I did it because I was thinking
  Already of the error you have solved me."

And now my Master was recalling me,
  Wherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit
  That he would tell me who was with him there.

He said: "With more than a thousand here I lie;
  Within here is the second Frederick,
  And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not."

Thereon he hid himself; and I towards
  The ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting
  Upon that saying, which seemed hostile to me.

He moved along; and afterward thus going,
  He said to me, "Why art thou so bewildered?"
  And I in his inquiry satisfied him.

"Let memory preserve what thou hast heard
  Against thyself," that Sage commanded me,
  "And now attend here;" and he raised his finger.

"When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet
  Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold,
  From her thou'lt know the journey of thy life."

Unto the left hand then he turned his feet;
  We left the wall, and went towards the middle,
  Along a path that strikes into a valley,

Which even up there unpleasant made its stench.



Inferno: Canto XI


Upon the margin of a lofty bank
  Which great rocks broken in a circle made,
  We came upon a still more cruel throng;

And there, by reason of the horrible
  Excess of stench the deep abyss throws out,
  We drew ourselves aside behind the cover

Of a great tomb, whereon I saw a writing,
  Which said: "Pope Anastasius I hold,
  Whom out of the right way Photinus drew."

"Slow it behoveth our descent to be,
  So that the sense be first a little used
  To the sad blast, and then we shall not heed it."

The Master thus; and unto him I said,
  "Some compensation find, that the time pass not
  Idly;" and he: "Thou seest I think of that.

My son, upon the inside of these rocks,"
  Began he then to say, "are three small circles,
  From grade to grade, like those which thou art leaving.

They all are full of spirits maledict;
  But that hereafter sight alone suffice thee,
  Hear how and wherefore they are in constraint.

Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven,
  Injury is the end; and all such end
  Either by force or fraud afflicteth others.

But because fraud is man's peculiar vice,
  More it displeases God; and so stand lowest
  The fraudulent, and greater dole assails them.

All the first circle of the Violent is;
  But since force may be used against three persons,
  In three rounds 'tis divided and constructed.

To God, to ourselves, and to our neighbour can we
  Use force; I say on them and on their things,
  As thou shalt hear with reason manifest.

A death by violence, and painful wounds,
  Are to our neighbour given; and in his substance
  Ruin, and arson, and injurious levies;

Whence homicides, and he who smites unjustly,
  Marauders, and freebooters, the first round
  Tormenteth all in companies diverse.

Man may lay violent hands upon himself
  And his own goods; and therefore in the second
  Round must perforce without avail repent

Whoever of your world deprives himself,
  Who games, and dissipates his property,
  And weepeth there, where he should jocund be.

Violence can be done the Deity,
  In heart denying and blaspheming Him,
  And by disdaining Nature and her bounty.

And for this reason doth the smallest round
  Seal with its signet Sodom and Cahors,
  And who, disdaining God, speaks from the heart.

Fraud, wherewithal is every conscience stung,
  A man may practise upon him who trusts,
  And him who doth no confidence imburse.

This latter mode, it would appear, dissevers
  Only the bond of love which Nature makes;
  Wherefore within the second circle nestle

Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic,
  Falsification, theft, and simony,
  Panders, and barrators, and the like filth.

By the other mode, forgotten is that love
  Which Nature makes, and what is after added,
  From which there is a special faith engendered.

Hence in the smallest circle, where the point is
  Of the Universe, upon which Dis is seated,
  Whoe'er betrays for ever is consumed."

And I: "My Master, clear enough proceeds
  Thy reasoning, and full well distinguishes
  This cavern and the people who possess it.

But tell me, those within the fat lagoon,
  Whom the wind drives, and whom the rain doth beat,
  And who encounter with such bitter tongues,

Wherefore are they inside of the red city
  Not punished, if God has them in his wrath,
  And if he has not, wherefore in such fashion?"

And unto me he said: "Why wanders so
  Thine intellect from that which it is wont?
  Or, sooth, thy mind where is it elsewhere looking?

Hast thou no recollection of those words
  With which thine Ethics thoroughly discusses
  The dispositions three, that Heaven abides not,--

Incontinence, and Malice, and insane
  Bestiality? and how Incontinence
  Less God offendeth, and less blame attracts?

If thou regardest this conclusion well,
  And to thy mind recallest who they are
  That up outside are undergoing penance,

Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons
  They separated are, and why less wroth
  Justice divine doth smite them with its hammer."

"O Sun, that healest all distempered vision,
  Thou dost content me so, when thou resolvest,
  That doubting pleases me no less than knowing!

Once more a little backward turn thee," said I,
  "There where thou sayest that usury offends
  Goodness divine, and disengage the knot."

"Philosophy," he said, "to him who heeds it,
  Noteth, not only in one place alone,
  After what manner Nature takes her course

From Intellect Divine, and from its art;
  And if thy Physics carefully thou notest,
  After not many pages shalt thou find,

That this your art as far as possible
  Follows, as the disciple doth the master;
  So that your art is, as it were, God's grandchild.

From these two, if thou bringest to thy mind
  Genesis at the beginning, it behoves
  Mankind to gain their life and to advance;

And since the usurer takes another way,
  Nature herself and in her follower
  Disdains he, for elsewhere he puts his hope.

But follow, now, as I would fain go on,
  For quivering are the Fishes on the horizon,
  And the Wain wholly over Caurus lies,

And far beyond there we descend the crag."



Inferno: Canto XII


The place where to descend the bank we came
  Was alpine, and from what was there, moreover,
  Of such a kind that every eye would shun it.

Such as that ruin is which in the flank
  Smote, on this side of Trent, the Adige,
  Either by earthquake or by failing stay,

For from the mountain's top, from which it moved,
  Unto the plain the cliff is shattered so,
  Some path 'twould give to him who was above;

Even such was the descent of that ravine,
  And on the border of the broken chasm
  The infamy of Crete was stretched along,

Who was conceived in the fictitious cow;
  And when he us beheld, he bit himself,
  Even as one whom anger racks within.

My Sage towards him shouted: "Peradventure
  Thou think'st that here may be the Duke of Athens,
  Who in the world above brought death to thee?

Get thee gone, beast, for this one cometh not
  Instructed by thy sister, but he comes
  In order to behold your punishments."

As is that bull who breaks loose at the moment
  In which he has received the mortal blow,
  Who cannot walk, but staggers here and there,

The Minotaur beheld I do the like;
  And he, the wary, cried: "Run to the passage;
  While he wroth, 'tis well thou shouldst descend."

Thus down we took our way o'er that discharge
  Of stones, which oftentimes did move themselves
  Beneath my feet, from the unwonted burden.

Thoughtful I went; and he said: "Thou art thinking
  Perhaps upon this ruin, which is guarded
  By that brute anger which just now I quenched.

Now will I have thee know, the other time
  I here descended to the nether Hell,
  This precipice had not yet fallen down.

But truly, if I well discern, a little
  Before His coming who the mighty spoil
  Bore off from Dis, in the supernal circle,

Upon all sides the deep and loathsome valley
  Trembled so, that I thought the Universe
  Was thrilled with love, by which there are who think

The world ofttimes converted into chaos;
  And at that moment this primeval crag
  Both here and elsewhere made such overthrow.

But fix thine eyes below; for draweth near
  The river of blood, within which boiling is
  Whoe'er by violence doth injure others."

O blind cupidity, O wrath insane,
  That spurs us onward so in our short life,
  And in the eternal then so badly steeps us!

I saw an ample moat bent like a bow,
  As one which all the plain encompasses,
  Conformable to what my Guide had said.

And between this and the embankment's foot
  Centaurs in file were running, armed with arrows,
  As in the world they used the chase to follow.

Beholding us descend, each one stood still,
  And from the squadron three detached themselves,
  With bows and arrows in advance selected;

And from afar one cried: "Unto what torment
  Come ye, who down the hillside are descending?
  Tell us from there; if not, I draw the bow."

My Master said: "Our answer will we make
  To Chiron, near you there; in evil hour,
  That will of thine was evermore so hasty."

Then touched he me, and said: "This one is Nessus,
  Who perished for the lovely Dejanira,
  And for himself, himself did vengeance take.

And he in the midst, who at his breast is gazing,
  Is the great Chiron, who brought up Achilles;
  That other Pholus is, who was so wrathful.

Thousands and thousands go about the moat
  Shooting with shafts whatever soul emerges
  Out of the blood, more than his crime allots."

Near we approached unto those monsters fleet;
  Chiron an arrow took, and with the notch
  Backward upon his jaws he put his beard.

After he had uncovered his great mouth,
  He said to his companions: "Are you ware
  That he behind moveth whate'er he touches?

Thus are not wont to do the feet of dead men."
  And my good Guide, who now was at his breast,
  Where the two natures are together joined,

Replied: "Indeed he lives, and thus alone
  Me it behoves to show him the dark valley;
  Necessity, and not delight, impels us.

Some one withdrew from singing Halleluja,
  Who unto me committed this new office;
  No thief is he, nor I a thievish spirit.

But by that virtue through which I am moving
  My steps along this savage thoroughfare,
  Give us some one of thine, to be with us,

And who may show us where to pass the ford,
  And who may carry this one on his back;
  For 'tis no spirit that can walk the air."

Upon his right breast Chiron wheeled about,
  And said to Nessus: "Turn and do thou guide them,
  And warn aside, if other band may meet you."

We with our faithful escort onward moved
  Along the brink of the vermilion boiling,
  Wherein the boiled were uttering loud laments.

People I saw within up to the eyebrows,
  And the great Centaur said: "Tyrants are these,
  Who dealt in bloodshed and in pillaging.

Here they lament their pitiless mischiefs; here
  Is Alexander, and fierce Dionysius
  Who upon Sicily brought dolorous years.

That forehead there which has the hair so black
  Is Azzolin; and the other who is blond,
  Obizzo is of Esti, who, in truth,

Up in the world was by his stepson slain."
  Then turned I to the Poet; and he said,
  "Now he be first to thee, and second I."

A little farther on the Centaur stopped
  Above a folk, who far down as the throat
  Seemed from that boiling stream to issue forth.

A shade he showed us on one side alone,
  Saying: "He cleft asunder in God's bosom
  The heart that still upon the Thames is honoured."

Then people saw I, who from out the river
  Lifted their heads and also all the chest;
  And many among these I recognised.

Thus ever more and more grew shallower
  That blood, so that the feet alone it covered;
  And there across the moat our passage was.

"Even as thou here upon this side beholdest
  The boiling stream, that aye diminishes,"
  The Centaur said, "I wish thee to believe

That on this other more and more declines
  Its bed, until it reunites itself
  Where it behoveth tyranny to groan.

Justice divine, upon this side, is goading
  That Attila, who was a scourge on earth,
  And Pyrrhus, and Sextus; and for ever milks

The tears which with the boiling it unseals
  In Rinier da Corneto and Rinier Pazzo,
  Who made upon the highways so much war."

Then back he turned, and passed again the ford.



Inferno: Canto XIII


Not yet had Nessus reached the other side,
  When we had put ourselves within a wood,
  That was not marked by any path whatever.

Not foliage green, but of a dusky colour,
  Not branches smooth, but gnarled and intertangled,
  Not apple-trees were there, but thorns with poison.

Such tangled thickets have not, nor so dense,
  Those savage wild beasts, that in hatred hold
  'Twixt Cecina and Corneto the tilled places.

There do the hideous Harpies make their nests,
  Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades,
  With sad announcement of impending doom;

Broad wings have they, and necks and faces human,
  And feet with claws, and their great bellies fledged;
  They make laments upon the wondrous trees.

And the good Master: "Ere thou enter farther,
  Know that thou art within the second round,"
  Thus he began to say, "and shalt be, till

Thou comest out upon the horrible sand;
  Therefore look well around, and thou shalt see
  Things that will credence give unto my speech."

I heard on all sides lamentations uttered,
  And person none beheld I who might make them,
  Whence, utterly bewildered, I stood still.

I think he thought that I perhaps might think
  So many voices issued through those trunks
  From people who concealed themselves from us;

Therefore the Master said: "If thou break off
  Some little spray from any of these trees,
  The thoughts thou hast will wholly be made vain."

Then stretched I forth my hand a little forward,
  And plucked a branchlet off from a great thorn;
  And the trunk cried, "Why dost thou mangle me?"

After it had become embrowned with blood,
  It recommenced its cry: "Why dost thou rend me?
  Hast thou no spirit of pity whatsoever?

Men once we were, and now are changed to trees;
  Indeed, thy hand should be more pitiful,
  Even if the souls of serpents we had been."

As out of a green brand, that is on fire
  At one of the ends, and from the other drips
  And hisses with the wind that is escaping;

So from that splinter issued forth together
  Both words and blood; whereat I let the tip
  Fall, and stood like a man who is afraid.

"Had he been able sooner to believe,"
  My Sage made answer, "O thou wounded soul,
  What only in my verses he has seen,

Not upon thee had he stretched forth his hand;
  Whereas the thing incredible has caused me
  To put him to an act which grieveth me.

But tell him who thou wast, so that by way
  Of some amends thy fame he may refresh
  Up in the world, to which he can return."

And the trunk said: "So thy sweet words allure me,
  I cannot silent be; and you be vexed not,
  That I a little to discourse am tempted.

I am the one who both keys had in keeping
  Of Frederick's heart, and turned them to and fro
  So softly in unlocking and in locking,

That from his secrets most men I withheld;
  Fidelity I bore the glorious office
  So great, I lost thereby my sleep and pulses.

The courtesan who never from the dwelling
  Of Caesar turned aside her strumpet eyes,
  Death universal and the vice of courts,

Inflamed against me all the other minds,
  And they, inflamed, did so inflame Augustus,
  That my glad honours turned to dismal mournings.

My spirit, in disdainful exultation,
  Thinking by dying to escape disdain,
  Made me unjust against myself, the just.

I, by the roots unwonted of this wood,
  Do swear to you that never broke I faith
  Unto my lord, who was so worthy of honour;

And to the world if one of you return,
  Let him my memory comfort, which is lying
  Still prostrate from the blow that envy dealt it."

Waited awhile, and then: "Since he is silent,"
  The Poet said to me, "lose not the time,
  But speak, and question him, if more may please thee."

Whence I to him: "Do thou again inquire
  Concerning what thou thinks't will satisfy me;
  For I cannot, such pity is in my heart."

Therefore he recommenced: "So may the man
  Do for thee freely what thy speech implores,
  Spirit incarcerate, again be pleased

To tell us in what way the soul is bound
  Within these knots; and tell us, if thou canst,
  If any from such members e'er is freed."

Then blew the trunk amain, and afterward
  The wind was into such a voice converted:
  "With brevity shall be replied to you.

When the exasperated soul abandons
  The body whence it rent itself away,
  Minos consigns it to the seventh abyss.

It falls into the forest, and no part
  Is chosen for it; but where Fortune hurls it,
  There like a grain of spelt it germinates.

It springs a sapling, and a forest tree;
  The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves,
  Do pain create, and for the pain an outlet.

Like others for our spoils shall we return;
  But not that any one may them revest,
  For 'tis not just to have what one casts off.

Here we shall drag them, and along the dismal
  Forest our bodies shall suspended be,
  Each to the thorn of his molested shade."

We were attentive still unto the trunk,
  Thinking that more it yet might wish to tell us,
  When by a tumult we were overtaken,

In the same way as he is who perceives
  The boar and chase approaching to his stand,
  Who hears the crashing of the beasts and branches;

And two behold! upon our left-hand side,
  Naked and scratched, fleeing so furiously,
  That of the forest, every fan they broke.

He who was in advance: "Now help, Death, help!"
  And the other one, who seemed to lag too much,
  Was shouting: "Lano, were not so alert

Those legs of thine at joustings of the Toppo!"
  And then, perchance because his breath was failing,
  He grouped himself together with a bush.

Behind them was the forest full of black
  She-mastiffs, ravenous, and swift of foot
  As greyhounds, who are issuing from the chain.

On him who had crouched down they set their teeth,
  And him they lacerated piece by piece,
  Thereafter bore away those aching members.

Thereat my Escort took me by the hand,
  And led me to the bush, that all in vain
  Was weeping from its bloody lacerations.

"O Jacopo," it said, "of Sant' Andrea,
  What helped it thee of me to make a screen?
  What blame have I in thy nefarious life?"

When near him had the Master stayed his steps,
  He said: "Who wast thou, that through wounds so many
  Art blowing out with blood thy dolorous speech?"

And he to us: "O souls, that hither come
  To look upon the shameful massacre
  That has so rent away from me my leaves,

Gather them up beneath the dismal bush;
  I of that city was which to the Baptist
  Changed its first patron, wherefore he for this

Forever with his art will make it sad.
  And were it not that on the pass of Arno
  Some glimpses of him are remaining still,

Those citizens, who afterwards rebuilt it
  Upon the ashes left by Attila,
  In vain had caused their labour to be done.

Of my own house I made myself a gibbet."



Inferno: Canto XIV


Because the charity of my native place
  Constrained me, gathered I the scattered leaves,
  And gave them back to him, who now was hoarse.

Then came we to the confine, where disparted
  The second round is from the third, and where
  A horrible form of Justice is beheld.

Clearly to manifest these novel things,
  I say that we arrived upon a plain,
  Which from its bed rejecteth every plant;

The dolorous forest is a garland to it
  All round about, as the sad moat to that;
  There close upon the edge we stayed our feet.

The soil was of an arid and thick sand,
  Not of another fashion made than that
  Which by the feet of Cato once was pressed.

Vengeance of God, O how much oughtest thou
  By each one to be dreaded, who doth read
  That which was manifest unto mine eyes!

Of naked souls beheld I many herds,
  Who all were weeping very miserably,
  And over them seemed set a law diverse.

Supine upon the ground some folk were lying;
  And some were sitting all drawn up together,
  And others went about continually.

Those who were going round were far the more,
  And those were less who lay down to their torment,
  But had their tongues more loosed to lamentation.

O'er all the sand-waste, with a gradual fall,
  Were raining down dilated flakes of fire,
  As of the snow on Alp without a wind.

As Alexander, in those torrid parts
  Of India, beheld upon his host
  Flames fall unbroken till they reached the ground.

Whence he provided with his phalanxes
  To trample down the soil, because the vapour
  Better extinguished was while it was single;

Thus was descending the eternal heat,
  Whereby the sand was set on fire, like tinder
  Beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole.

Without repose forever was the dance
  Of miserable hands, now there, now here,
  Shaking away from off them the fresh gleeds.

"Master," began I, "thou who overcomest
  All things except the demons dire, that issued
  Against us at the entrance of the gate,

Who is that mighty one who seems to heed not
  The fire, and lieth lowering and disdainful,
  So that the rain seems not to ripen him?"

And he himself, who had become aware
  That I was questioning my Guide about him,
  Cried: "Such as I was living, am I, dead.

If Jove should weary out his smith, from whom
  He seized in anger the sharp thunderbolt,
  Wherewith upon the last day I was smitten,

And if he wearied out by turns the others
  In Mongibello at the swarthy forge,
  Vociferating, 'Help, good Vulcan, help!'

Even as he did there at the fight of Phlegra,
  And shot his bolts at me with all his might,
  He would not have thereby a joyous vengeance."

Then did my Leader speak with such great force,
  That I had never heard him speak so loud:
  "O Capaneus, in that is not extinguished

Thine arrogance, thou punished art the more;
  Not any torment, saving thine own rage,
  Would be unto thy fury pain complete."

Then he turned round to me with better lip,
  Saying: "One of the Seven Kings was he
  Who Thebes besieged, and held, and seems to hold

God in disdain, and little seems to prize him;
  But, as I said to him, his own despites
  Are for his breast the fittest ornaments.

Now follow me, and mind thou do not place
  As yet thy feet upon the burning sand,
  But always keep them close unto the wood."

Speaking no word, we came to where there gushes
  Forth from the wood a little rivulet,
  Whose redness makes my hair still stand on end.

As from the Bulicame springs the brooklet,
  The sinful women later share among them,
  So downward through the sand it went its way.

The bottom of it, and both sloping banks,
  Were made of stone, and the margins at the side;
  Whence I perceived that there the passage was.

"In all the rest which I have shown to thee
  Since we have entered in within the gate
  Whose threshold unto no one is denied,

Nothing has been discovered by thine eyes
  So notable as is the present river,
  Which all the little flames above it quenches."

These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him
  That he would give me largess of the food,
  For which he had given me largess of desire.

"In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,"
  Said he thereafterward, "whose name is Crete,
  Under whose king the world of old was chaste.

There is a mountain there, that once was glad
  With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida;
  Now 'tis deserted, as a thing worn out.

Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle
  Of her own son; and to conceal him better,
  Whene'er he cried, she there had clamours made.

A grand old man stands in the mount erect,
  Who holds his shoulders turned tow'rds Damietta,
  And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.

His head is fashioned of refined gold,
  And of pure silver are the arms and breast;
  Then he is brass as far down as the fork.

From that point downward all is chosen iron,
  Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay,
  And more he stands on that than on the other.

Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure
  Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears,
  Which gathered together perforate that cavern.

From rock to rock they fall into this valley;
  Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form;
  Then downward go along this narrow sluice

Unto that point where is no more descending.
  They form Cocytus; what that pool may be
  Thou shalt behold, so here 'tis not narrated."

And I to him: "If so the present runnel
  Doth take its rise in this way from our world,
  Why only on this verge appears it to us?"

And he to me: "Thou knowest the place is round,
  And notwithstanding thou hast journeyed far,
  Still to the left descending to the bottom,

Thou hast not yet through all the circle turned.
  Therefore if something new appear to us,
  It should not bring amazement to thy face."

And I again: "Master, where shall be found
  Lethe and Phlegethon, for of one thou'rt silent,
  And sayest the other of this rain is made?"

"In all thy questions truly thou dost please me,"
  Replied he; "but the boiling of the red
  Water might well solve one of them thou makest.

Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat,
  There where the souls repair to lave themselves,
  When sin repented of has been removed."

Then said he: "It is time now to abandon
  The wood; take heed that thou come after me;
  A way the margins make that are not burning,

And over them all vapours are extinguished."



Inferno: Canto XV


Now bears us onward one of the hard margins,
  And so the brooklet's mist o'ershadows it,
  From fire it saves the water and the dikes.

Even as the Flemings, 'twixt Cadsand and Bruges,
  Fearing the flood that tow'rds them hurls itself,
  Their bulwarks build to put the sea to flight;

And as the Paduans along the Brenta,
  To guard their villas and their villages,
  Or ever Chiarentana feel the heat;

In such similitude had those been made,
  Albeit not so lofty nor so thick,
  Whoever he might be, the master made them.

Now were we from the forest so remote,
  I could not have discovered where it was,
  Even if backward I had turned myself,

When we a company of souls encountered,
  Who came beside the dike, and every one
  Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont

To eye each other under a new moon,
  And so towards us sharpened they their brows
  As an old tailor at the needle's eye.

Thus scrutinised by such a family,
  By some one I was recognised, who seized
  My garment's hem, and cried out, "What a marvel!"

And I, when he stretched forth his arm to me,
  On his baked aspect fastened so mine eyes,
  That the scorched countenance prevented not

His recognition by my intellect;
  And bowing down my face unto his own,
  I made reply, "Are you here, Ser Brunetto?"

And he: "May't not displease thee, O my son,
  If a brief space with thee Brunetto Latini
  Backward return and let the trail go on."

I said to him: "With all my power I ask it;
  And if you wish me to sit down with you,
  I will, if he please, for I go with him."

"O son," he said, "whoever of this herd
  A moment stops, lies then a hundred years,
  Nor fans himself when smiteth him the fire.

Therefore go on; I at thy skirts will come,
  And afterward will I rejoin my band,
  Which goes lamenting its eternal doom."

I did not dare to go down from the road
  Level to walk with him; but my head bowed
  I held as one who goeth reverently.

And he began: "What fortune or what fate
  Before the last day leadeth thee down here?
  And who is this that showeth thee the way?"

"Up there above us in the life serene,"
  I answered him, "I lost me in a valley,
  Or ever yet my age had been completed.

But yestermorn I turned my back upon it;
  This one appeared to me, returning thither,
  And homeward leadeth me along this road."

And he to me: "If thou thy star do follow,
  Thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port,
  If well I judged in the life beautiful.

And if I had not died so prematurely,
  Seeing Heaven thus benignant unto thee,
  I would have given thee comfort in the work.

But that ungrateful and malignant people,
  Which of old time from Fesole descended,
  And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,

Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe;
  And it is right; for among crabbed sorbs
  It ill befits the sweet fig to bear fruit.

Old rumour in the world proclaims them blind;
  A people avaricious, envious, proud;
  Take heed that of their customs thou do cleanse thee.

Thy fortune so much honour doth reserve thee,
  One party and the other shall be hungry
  For thee; but far from goat shall be the grass.

Their litter let the beasts of Fesole
  Make of themselves, nor let them touch the plant,
  If any still upon their dunghill rise,

In which may yet revive the consecrated
  Seed of those Romans, who remained there when
  The nest of such great malice it became."

"If my entreaty wholly were fulfilled,"
  Replied I to him, "not yet would you be
  In banishment from human nature placed;

For in my mind is fixed, and touches now
  My heart the dear and good paternal image
  Of you, when in the world from hour to hour

You taught me how a man becomes eternal;
  And how much I am grateful, while I live
  Behoves that in my language be discerned.

What you narrate of my career I write,
  And keep it to be glossed with other text
  By a Lady who can do it, if I reach her.

This much will I have manifest to you;
  Provided that my conscience do not chide me,
  For whatsoever Fortune I am ready.

Such handsel is not new unto mine ears;
  Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel around
  As it may please her, and the churl his mattock."

My Master thereupon on his right cheek
  Did backward turn himself, and looked at me;
  Then said: "He listeneth well who noteth it."

Nor speaking less on that account, I go
  With Ser Brunetto, and I ask who are
  His most known and most eminent companions.

And he to me: "To know of some is well;
  Of others it were laudable to be silent,
  For short would be the time for so much speech.

Know them in sum, that all of them were clerks,
  And men of letters great and of great fame,
  In the world tainted with the selfsame sin.

Priscian goes yonder with that wretched crowd,
  And Francis of Accorso; and thou hadst seen there
  If thou hadst had a hankering for such scurf,

That one, who by the Servant of the Servants
  From Arno was transferred to Bacchiglione,
  Where he has left his sin-excited nerves.

More would I say, but coming and discoursing
  Can be no longer; for that I behold
  New smoke uprising yonder from the sand.

A people comes with whom I may not be;
  Commended unto thee be my Tesoro,
  In which I still live, and no more I ask."

Then he turned round, and seemed to be of those
  Who at Verona run for the Green Mantle
  Across the plain; and seemed to be among them

The one who wins, and not the one who loses.



Inferno: Canto XVI


Now was I where was heard the reverberation
  Of water falling into the next round,
  Like to that humming which the beehives make,

When shadows three together started forth,
  Running, from out a company that passed
  Beneath the rain of the sharp martyrdom.

Towards us came they, and each one cried out:
  "Stop, thou; for by thy garb to us thou seemest
  To be some one of our depraved city."

Ah me! what wounds I saw upon their limbs,
  Recent and ancient by the flames burnt in!
  It pains me still but to remember it.

Unto their cries my Teacher paused attentive;
  He turned his face towards me, and "Now wait,"
  He said; "to these we should be courteous.

And if it were not for the fire that darts
  The nature of this region, I should say
  That haste were more becoming thee than them."

As soon as we stood still, they recommenced
  The old refrain, and when they overtook us,
  Formed of themselves a wheel, all three of them.

As champions stripped and oiled are wont to do,
  Watching for their advantage and their hold,
  Before they come to blows and thrusts between them,

Thus, wheeling round, did every one his visage
  Direct to me, so that in opposite wise
  His neck and feet continual journey made.

And, "If the misery of this soft place
  Bring in disdain ourselves and our entreaties,"
  Began one, "and our aspect black and blistered,

Let the renown of us thy mind incline
  To tell us who thou art, who thus securely
  Thy living feet dost move along through Hell.

He in whose footprints thou dost see me treading,
  Naked and skinless though he now may go,
  Was of a greater rank than thou dost think;

He was the grandson of the good Gualdrada;
  His name was Guidoguerra, and in life
  Much did he with his wisdom and his sword.

The other, who close by me treads the sand,
  Tegghiaio Aldobrandi is, whose fame
  Above there in the world should welcome be.

And I, who with them on the cross am placed,
  Jacopo Rusticucci was; and truly
  My savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me."

Could I have been protected from the fire,
  Below I should have thrown myself among them,
  And think the Teacher would have suffered it;

But as I should have burned and baked myself,
  My terror overmastered my good will,
  Which made me greedy of embracing them.

Then I began: "Sorrow and not disdain
  Did your condition fix within me so,
  That tardily it wholly is stripped off,

As soon as this my Lord said unto me
  Words, on account of which I thought within me
  That people such as you are were approaching.

I of your city am; and evermore
  Your labours and your honourable names
  I with affection have retraced and heard.

I leave the gall, and go for the sweet fruits
  Promised to me by the veracious Leader;
  But to the centre first I needs must plunge."

"So may the soul for a long while conduct
  Those limbs of thine," did he make answer then,
  "And so may thy renown shine after thee,

Valour and courtesy, say if they dwell
  Within our city, as they used to do,
  Or if they wholly have gone out of it;

For Guglielmo Borsier, who is in torment
  With us of late, and goes there with his comrades,
  Doth greatly mortify us with his words."

"The new inhabitants and the sudden gains,
  Pride and extravagance have in thee engendered,
  Florence, so that thou weep'st thereat already!"

In this wise I exclaimed with face uplifted;
  And the three, taking that for my reply,
  Looked at each other, as one looks at truth.

"If other times so little it doth cost thee,"
  Replied they all, "to satisfy another,
  Happy art thou, thus speaking at thy will!

Therefore, if thou escape from these dark places,
  And come to rebehold the beauteous stars,
  When it shall pleasure thee to say, 'I was,'

See that thou speak of us unto the people."
  Then they broke up the wheel, and in their flight
  It seemed as if their agile legs were wings.

Not an Amen could possibly be said
  So rapidly as they had disappeared;
  Wherefore the Master deemed best to depart.

I followed him, and little had we gone,
  Before the sound of water was so near us,
  That speaking we should hardly have been heard.

Even as that stream which holdeth its own course
  The first from Monte Veso tow'rds the East,
  Upon the left-hand slope of Apennine,

Which is above called Acquacheta, ere
  It down descendeth into its low bed,
  And at Forli is vacant of that name,

Reverberates there above San Benedetto
  From Alps, by falling at a single leap,
  Where for a thousand there were room enough;

Thus downward from a bank precipitate,
  We found resounding that dark-tinted water,
  So that it soon the ear would have offended.

I had a cord around about me girt,
  And therewithal I whilom had designed
  To take the panther with the painted skin.

After I this had all from me unloosed,
  As my Conductor had commanded me,
  I reached it to him, gathered up and coiled,

Whereat he turned himself to the right side,
  And at a little distance from the verge,
  He cast it down into that deep abyss.

"It must needs be some novelty respond,"
  I said within myself, "to the new signal
  The Master with his eye is following so."

Ah me! how very cautious men should be
  With those who not alone behold the act,
  But with their wisdom look into the thoughts!

He said to me: "Soon there will upward come
  What I await; and what thy thought is dreaming
  Must soon reveal itself unto thy sight."

Aye to that truth which has the face of falsehood,
  A man should close his lips as far as may be,
  Because without his fault it causes shame;

But here I cannot; and, Reader, by the notes
  Of this my Comedy to thee I swear,
  So may they not be void of lasting favour,

Athwart that dense and darksome atmosphere
  I saw a figure swimming upward come,
  Marvellous unto every steadfast heart,

Even as he returns who goeth down
  Sometimes to clear an anchor, which has grappled
  Reef, or aught else that in the sea is hidden,

Who upward stretches, and draws in his feet.



Inferno: Canto XVII


"Behold the monster with the pointed tail,
  Who cleaves the hills, and breaketh walls and weapons,
  Behold him who infecteth all the world."

Thus unto me my Guide began to say,
  And beckoned him that he should come to shore,
  Near to the confine of the trodden marble;

And that uncleanly image of deceit
  Came up and thrust ashore its head and bust,
  But on the border did not drag its tail.

The face was as the face of a just man,
  Its semblance outwardly was so benign,
  And of a serpent all the trunk beside.

Two paws it had, hairy unto the armpits;
  The back, and breast, and both the sides it had
  Depicted o'er with nooses and with shields.

With colours more, groundwork or broidery
  Never in cloth did Tartars make nor Turks,
  Nor were such tissues by Arachne laid.

As sometimes wherries lie upon the shore,
  That part are in the water, part on land;
  And as among the guzzling Germans there,

The beaver plants himself to wage his war;
  So that vile monster lay upon the border,
  Which is of stone, and shutteth in the sand.

His tail was wholly quivering in the void,
  Contorting upwards the envenomed fork,
  That in the guise of scorpion armed its point.

The Guide said: "Now perforce must turn aside
  Our way a little, even to that beast
  Malevolent, that yonder coucheth him."

We therefore on the right side descended,
  And made ten steps upon the outer verge,
  Completely to avoid the sand and flame;

And after we are come to him, I see
  A little farther off upon the sand
  A people sitting near the hollow place.

Then said to me the Master: "So that full
  Experience of this round thou bear away,
  Now go and see what their condition is.

There let thy conversation be concise;
  Till thou returnest I will speak with him,
  That he concede to us his stalwart shoulders."

Thus farther still upon the outermost
  Head of that seventh circle all alone
  I went, where sat the melancholy folk.

Out of their eyes was gushing forth their woe;
  This way, that way, they helped them with their hands
  Now from the flames and now from the hot soil.

Not otherwise in summer do the dogs,
  Now with the foot, now with the muzzle, when
  By fleas, or flies, or gadflies, they are bitten.

When I had turned mine eyes upon the faces
  Of some, on whom the dolorous fire is falling,
  Not one of them I knew; but I perceived

That from the neck of each there hung a pouch,
  Which certain colour had, and certain blazon;
  And thereupon it seems their eyes are feeding.

And as I gazing round me come among them,
  Upon a yellow pouch I azure saw
  That had the face and posture of a lion.

Proceeding then the current of my sight,
  Another of them saw I, red as blood,
  Display a goose more white than butter is.

And one, who with an azure sow and gravid
  Emblazoned had his little pouch of white,
  Said unto me: "What dost thou in this moat?

Now get thee gone; and since thou'rt still alive,
  Know that a neighbour of mine, Vitaliano,
  Will have his seat here on my left-hand side.

A Paduan am I with these Florentines;
  Full many a time they thunder in mine ears,
  Exclaiming, 'Come the sovereign cavalier,

He who shall bring the satchel with three goats;'"
  Then twisted he his mouth, and forth he thrust
  His tongue, like to an ox that licks its nose.

And fearing lest my longer stay might vex
  Him who had warned me not to tarry long,
  Backward I turned me from those weary souls.

I found my Guide, who had already mounted
  Upon the back of that wild animal,
  And said to me: "Now be both strong and bold.

Now we descend by stairways such as these;
  Mount thou in front, for I will be midway,
  So that the tail may have no power to harm thee."

Such as he is who has so near the ague
  Of quartan that his nails are blue already,
  And trembles all, but looking at the shade;

Even such became I at those proffered words;
  But shame in me his menaces produced,
  Which maketh servant strong before good master.

I seated me upon those monstrous shoulders;
  I wished to say, and yet the voice came not
  As I believed, "Take heed that thou embrace me."

But he, who other times had rescued me
  In other peril, soon as I had mounted,
  Within his arms encircled and sustained me,

And said: "Now, Geryon, bestir thyself;
  The circles large, and the descent be little;
  Think of the novel burden which thou hast."

Even as the little vessel shoves from shore,
  Backward, still backward, so he thence withdrew;
  And when he wholly felt himself afloat,

There where his breast had been he turned his tail,
  And that extended like an eel he moved,
  And with his paws drew to himself the air.

A greater fear I do not think there was
  What time abandoned Phaeton the reins,
  Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were scorched;

Nor when the wretched Icarus his flanks
  Felt stripped of feathers by the melting wax,
  His father crying, "An ill way thou takest!"

Than was my own, when I perceived myself
  On all sides in the air, and saw extinguished
  The sight of everything but of the monster.

Onward he goeth, swimming slowly, slowly;
  Wheels and descends, but I perceive it only
  By wind upon my face and from below.

I heard already on the right the whirlpool
  Making a horrible crashing under us;
  Whence I thrust out my head with eyes cast downward.

Then was I still more fearful of the abyss;
  Because I fires beheld, and heard laments,
  Whereat I, trembling, all the closer cling.

I saw then, for before I had not seen it,
  The turning and descending, by great horrors
  That were approaching upon divers sides.

As falcon who has long been on the wing,
  Who, without seeing either lure or bird,
  Maketh the falconer say, "Ah me, thou stoopest,"

Descendeth weary, whence he started swiftly,
  Thorough a hundred circles, and alights
  Far from his master, sullen and disdainful;

Even thus did Geryon place us on the bottom,
  Close to the bases of the rough-hewn rock,
  And being disencumbered of our persons,

He sped away as arrow from the string.



Inferno: Canto XVIII


There is a place in Hell called Malebolge,
  Wholly of stone and of an iron colour,
  As is the circle that around it turns.

Right in the middle of the field malign
  There yawns a well exceeding wide and deep,
  Of which its place the structure will recount.

Round, then, is that enclosure which remains
  Between the well and foot of the high, hard bank,
  And has distinct in valleys ten its bottom.

As where for the protection of the walls
  Many and many moats surround the castles,
  The part in which they are a figure forms,

Just such an image those presented there;
  And as about such strongholds from their gates
  Unto the outer bank are little bridges,

So from the precipice's base did crags
  Project, which intersected dikes and moats,
  Unto the well that truncates and collects them.

Within this place, down shaken from the back
  Of Geryon, we found us; and the Poet
  Held to the left, and I moved on behind.

Upon my right hand I beheld new anguish,
  New torments, and new wielders of the lash,
  Wherewith the foremost Bolgia was replete.

Down at the bottom were the sinners naked;
  This side the middle came they facing us,
  Beyond it, with us, but with greater steps;

Even as the Romans, for the mighty host,
  The year of Jubilee, upon the bridge,
  Have chosen a mode to pass the people over;

For all upon one side towards the Castle
  Their faces have, and go unto St. Peter's;
  On the other side they go towards the Mountain.

This side and that, along the livid stone
  Beheld I horned demons with great scourges,
  Who cruelly were beating them behind.

Ah me! how they did make them lift their legs
  At the first blows! and sooth not any one
  The second waited for, nor for the third.

While I was going on, mine eyes by one
  Encountered were; and straight I said: "Already
  With sight of this one I am not unfed."

Therefore I stayed my feet to make him out,
  And with me the sweet Guide came to a stand,
  And to my going somewhat back assented;

And he, the scourged one, thought to hide himself,
  Lowering his face, but little it availed him;
  For said I: "Thou that castest down thine eyes,

If false are not the features which thou bearest,
  Thou art Venedico Caccianimico;
  But what doth bring thee to such pungent sauces?"

And he to me: "Unwillingly I tell it;
  But forces me thine utterance distinct,
  Which makes me recollect the ancient world.

I was the one who the fair Ghisola
  Induced to grant the wishes of the Marquis,
  Howe'er the shameless story may be told.

Not the sole Bolognese am I who weeps here;
  Nay, rather is this place so full of them,
  That not so many tongues to-day are taught

'Twixt Reno and Savena to say 'sipa;'
  And if thereof thou wishest pledge or proof,
  Bring to thy mind our avaricious heart."

While speaking in this manner, with his scourge
  A demon smote him, and said: "Get thee gone
  Pander, there are no women here for coin."

I joined myself again unto mine Escort;
  Thereafterward with footsteps few we came
  To where a crag projected from the bank.

This very easily did we ascend,
  And turning to the right along its ridge,
  From those eternal circles we departed.

When we were there, where it is hollowed out
  Beneath, to give a passage to the scourged,
  The Guide said: "Wait, and see that on thee strike

The vision of those others evil-born,
  Of whom thou hast not yet beheld the faces,
  Because together with us they have gone."

From the old bridge we looked upon the train
  Which tow'rds us came upon the other border,
  And which the scourges in like manner smite.

And the good Master, without my inquiring,
  Said to me: "See that tall one who is coming,
  And for his pain seems not to shed a tear;

Still what a royal aspect he retains!
  That Jason is, who by his heart and cunning
  The Colchians of the Ram made destitute.

He by the isle of Lemnos passed along
  After the daring women pitiless
  Had unto death devoted all their males.

There with his tokens and with ornate words
  Did he deceive Hypsipyle, the maiden
  Who first, herself, had all the rest deceived.

There did he leave her pregnant and forlorn;
  Such sin unto such punishment condemns him,
  And also for Medea is vengeance done.

With him go those who in such wise deceive;
  And this sufficient be of the first valley
  To know, and those that in its jaws it holds."

We were already where the narrow path
  Crosses athwart the second dike, and forms
  Of that a buttress for another arch.

Thence we heard people, who are making moan
  In the next Bolgia, snorting with their muzzles,
  And with their palms beating upon themselves

The margins were incrusted with a mould
  By exhalation from below, that sticks there,
  And with the eyes and nostrils wages war.

The bottom is so deep, no place suffices
  To give us sight of it, without ascending
  The arch's back, where most the crag impends.

Thither we came, and thence down in the moat
  I saw a people smothered in a filth
  That out of human privies seemed to flow;

And whilst below there with mine eye I search,
  I saw one with his head so foul with ordure,
  It was not clear if he were clerk or layman.

He screamed to me: "Wherefore art thou so eager
  To look at me more than the other foul ones?"
  And I to him: "Because, if I remember,

I have already seen thee with dry hair,
  And thou'rt Alessio Interminei of Lucca;
  Therefore I eye thee more than all the others."

And he thereon, belabouring his pumpkin:
  "The flatteries have submerged me here below,
  Wherewith my tongue was never surfeited."

Then said to me the Guide: "See that thou thrust
  Thy visage somewhat farther in advance,
  That with thine eyes thou well the face attain

Of that uncleanly and dishevelled drab,
  Who there doth scratch herself with filthy nails,
  And crouches now, and now on foot is standing.

Thais the harlot is it, who replied
  Unto her paramour, when he said, 'Have I
  Great gratitude from thee?'--'Nay, marvellous;'

And herewith let our sight be satisfied."



Inferno: Canto XIX


O Simon Magus, O forlorn disciples,
  Ye who the things of God, which ought to be
  The brides of holiness, rapaciously

For silver and for gold do prostitute,
  Now it behoves for you the trumpet sound,
  Because in this third Bolgia ye abide.

We had already on the following tomb
  Ascended to that portion of the crag
  Which o'er the middle of the moat hangs plumb.

Wisdom supreme, O how great art thou showest
  In heaven, in earth, and in the evil world,
  And with what justice doth thy power distribute!

I saw upon the sides and on the bottom
  The livid stone with perforations filled,
  All of one size, and every one was round.

To me less ample seemed they not, nor greater
  Than those that in my beautiful Saint John
  Are fashioned for the place of the baptisers,

And one of which, not many years ago,
  I broke for some one, who was drowning in it;
  Be this a seal all men to undeceive.

Out of the mouth of each one there protruded
  The feet of a transgressor, and the legs
  Up to the calf, the rest within remained.

In all of them the soles were both on fire;
  Wherefore the joints so violently quivered,
  They would have snapped asunder withes and bands.

Even as the flame of unctuous things is wont
  To move upon the outer surface only,
  So likewise was it there from heel to point.

"Master, who is that one who writhes himself,
  More than his other comrades quivering,"
  I said, "and whom a redder flame is sucking?"

And he to me: "If thou wilt have me bear thee
  Down there along that bank which lowest lies,
  From him thou'lt know his errors and himself."

And I: "What pleases thee, to me is pleasing;
  Thou art my Lord, and knowest that I depart not
  From thy desire, and knowest what is not spoken."

Straightway upon the fourth dike we arrived;
  We turned, and on the left-hand side descended
  Down to the bottom full of holes and narrow.

And the good Master yet from off his haunch
  Deposed me not, till to the hole he brought me
  Of him who so lamented with his shanks.

"Whoe'er thou art, that standest upside down,
  O doleful soul, implanted like a stake,"
  To say began I, "if thou canst, speak out."

I stood even as the friar who is confessing
  The false assassin, who, when he is fixed,
  Recalls him, so that death may be delayed.

And he cried out: "Dost thou stand there already,
  Dost thou stand there already, Boniface?
  By many years the record lied to me.

Art thou so early satiate with that wealth,
  For which thou didst not fear to take by fraud
  The beautiful Lady, and then work her woe?"

Such I became, as people are who stand,
  Not comprehending what is answered them,
  As if bemocked, and know not how to answer.

Then said Virgilius: "Say to him straightway,
  'I am not he, I am not he thou thinkest.'"
  And I replied as was imposed on me.

Whereat the spirit writhed with both his feet,
  Then, sighing, with a voice of lamentation
  Said to me: "Then what wantest thou of me?

If who I am thou carest so much to know,
  That thou on that account hast crossed the bank,
  Know that I vested was with the great mantle;

And truly was I son of the She-bear,
  So eager to advance the cubs, that wealth
  Above, and here myself, I pocketed.

Beneath my head the others are dragged down
  Who have preceded me in simony,
  Flattened along the fissure of the rock.

Below there I shall likewise fall, whenever
  That one shall come who I believed thou wast,
  What time the sudden question I proposed.

But longer I my feet already toast,
  And here have been in this way upside down,
  Than he will planted stay with reddened feet;

For after him shall come of fouler deed
  From tow'rds the west a Pastor without law,
  Such as befits to cover him and me.

New Jason will he be, of whom we read
  In Maccabees; and as his king was pliant,
  So he who governs France shall be to this one."

I do not know if I were here too bold,
  That him I answered only in this metre:
  "I pray thee tell me now how great a treasure

Our Lord demanded of Saint Peter first,
  Before he put the keys into his keeping?
  Truly he nothing asked but 'Follow me.'

Nor Peter nor the rest asked of Matthias
  Silver or gold, when he by lot was chosen
  Unto the place the guilty soul had lost.

Therefore stay here, for thou art justly punished,
  And keep safe guard o'er the ill-gotten money,
  Which caused thee to be valiant against Charles.

And were it not that still forbids it me
  The reverence for the keys superlative
  Thou hadst in keeping in the gladsome life,

I would make use of words more grievous still;
  Because your avarice afflicts the world,
  Trampling the good and lifting the depraved.

The Evangelist you Pastors had in mind,
  When she who sitteth upon many waters
  To fornicate with kings by him was seen;

The same who with the seven heads was born,
  And power and strength from the ten horns received,
  So long as virtue to her spouse was pleasing.

Ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver;
  And from the idolater how differ ye,
  Save that he one, and ye a hundred worship?

Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was mother,
  Not thy conversion, but that marriage dower
  Which the first wealthy Father took from thee!"

And while I sang to him such notes as these,
  Either that anger or that conscience stung him,
  He struggled violently with both his feet.

I think in sooth that it my Leader pleased,
  With such contented lip he listened ever
  Unto the sound of the true words expressed.

Therefore with both his arms he took me up,
  And when he had me all upon his breast,
  Remounted by the way where he descended.

Nor did he tire to have me clasped to him;
  But bore me to the summit of the arch
  Which from the fourth dike to the fifth is passage.

There tenderly he laid his burden down,
  Tenderly on the crag uneven and steep,
  That would have been hard passage for the goats:

Thence was unveiled to me another valley.



Inferno: Canto XX


Of a new pain behoves me to make verses
  And give material to the twentieth canto
  Of the first song, which is of the submerged.

I was already thoroughly disposed
  To peer down into the uncovered depth,
  Which bathed itself with tears of agony;

And people saw I through the circular valley,
  Silent and weeping, coming at the pace
  Which in this world the Litanies assume.

As lower down my sight descended on them,
  Wondrously each one seemed to be distorted
  From chin to the beginning of the chest;

For tow'rds the reins the countenance was turned,
  And backward it behoved them to advance,
  As to look forward had been taken from them.

Perchance indeed by violence of palsy
  Some one has been thus wholly turned awry;
  But I ne'er saw it, nor believe it can be.

As God may let thee, Reader, gather fruit
  From this thy reading, think now for thyself
  How I could ever keep my face unmoistened,

When our own image near me I beheld
  Distorted so, the weeping of the eyes
  Along the fissure bathed the hinder parts.

Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak
  Of the hard crag, so that my Escort said
  To me: "Art thou, too, of the other fools?

Here pity lives when it is wholly dead;
  Who is a greater reprobate than he
  Who feels compassion at the doom divine?

Lift up, lift up thy head, and see for whom
  Opened the earth before the Thebans' eyes;
  Wherefore they all cried: 'Whither rushest thou,

Amphiaraus?  Why dost leave the war?'
  And downward ceased he not to fall amain
  As far as Minos, who lays hold on all.

See, he has made a bosom of his shoulders!
  Because he wished to see too far before him
  Behind he looks, and backward goes his way:

Behold Tiresias, who his semblance changed,
  When from a male a female he became,
  His members being all of them transformed;

And afterwards was forced to strike once more
  The two entangled serpents with his rod,
  Ere he could have again his manly plumes.

That Aruns is, who backs the other's belly,
  Who in the hills of Luni, there where grubs
  The Carrarese who houses underneath,

Among the marbles white a cavern had
  For his abode; whence to behold the stars
  And sea, the view was not cut off from him.

And she there, who is covering up her breasts,
  Which thou beholdest not, with loosened tresses,
  And on that side has all the hairy skin,

Was Manto, who made quest through many lands,
  Afterwards tarried there where I was born;
  Whereof I would thou list to me a little.

After her father had from life departed,
  And the city of Bacchus had become enslaved,
  She a long season wandered through the world.

Above in beauteous Italy lies a lake
  At the Alp's foot that shuts in Germany
  Over Tyrol, and has the name Benaco.

By a thousand springs, I think, and more, is bathed,
  'Twixt Garda and Val Camonica, Pennino,
  With water that grows stagnant in that lake.

Midway a place is where the Trentine Pastor,
  And he of Brescia, and the Veronese
  Might give his blessing, if he passed that way.

Sitteth Peschiera, fortress fair and strong,
  To front the Brescians and the Bergamasks,
  Where round about the bank descendeth lowest.

There of necessity must fall whatever
  In bosom of Benaco cannot stay,
  And grows a river down through verdant pastures.

Soon as the water doth begin to run,
  No more Benaco is it called, but Mincio,
  Far as Governo, where it falls in Po.

Not far it runs before it finds a plain
  In which it spreads itself, and makes it marshy,
  And oft 'tis wont in summer to be sickly.

Passing that way the virgin pitiless
  Land in the middle of the fen descried,
  Untilled and naked of inhabitants;

There to escape all human intercourse,
  She with her servants stayed, her arts to practise
  And lived, and left her empty body there.

The men, thereafter, who were scattered round,
  Collected in that place, which was made strong
  By the lagoon it had on every side;

They built their city over those dead bones,
  And, after her who first the place selected,
  Mantua named it, without other omen.

Its people once within more crowded were,
  Ere the stupidity of Casalodi
  From Pinamonte had received deceit.

Therefore I caution thee, if e'er thou hearest
  Originate my city otherwise,
  No falsehood may the verity defraud."

And I: "My Master, thy discourses are
  To me so certain, and so take my faith,
  That unto me the rest would be spent coals.

But tell me of the people who are passing,
  If any one note-worthy thou beholdest,
  For only unto that my mind reverts."

Then said he to me: "He who from the cheek
  Thrusts out his beard upon his swarthy shoulders
  Was, at the time when Greece was void of males,

So that there scarce remained one in the cradle,
  An augur, and with Calchas gave the moment,
  In Aulis, when to sever the first cable.

Eryphylus his name was, and so sings
  My lofty Tragedy in some part or other;
  That knowest thou well, who knowest the whole of it.

The next, who is so slender in the flanks,
  Was Michael Scott, who of a verity
  Of magical illusions knew the game.

Behold Guido Bonatti, behold Asdente,
  Who now unto his leather and his thread
  Would fain have stuck, but he too late repents.

Behold the wretched ones, who left the needle,
  The spool and rock, and made them fortune-tellers;
  They wrought their magic spells with herb and image.

But come now, for already holds the confines
  Of both the hemispheres, and under Seville
  Touches the ocean-wave, Cain and the thorns,

And yesternight the moon was round already;
  Thou shouldst remember well it did not harm thee
  From time to time within the forest deep."

Thus spake he to me, and we walked the while.



Inferno: Canto XXI


From bridge to bridge thus, speaking other things
  Of which my Comedy cares not to sing,
  We came along, and held the summit, when

We halted to behold another fissure
  Of Malebolge and other vain laments;
  And I beheld it marvellously dark.

As in the Arsenal of the Venetians
  Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch
  To smear their unsound vessels o'er again,

For sail they cannot; and instead thereof
  One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks
  The ribs of that which many a voyage has made;

One hammers at the prow, one at the stern,
  This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists,
  Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen;

Thus, not by fire, but by the art divine,
  Was boiling down below there a dense pitch
  Which upon every side the bank belimed.

I saw it, but I did not see within it
  Aught but the bubbles that the boiling raised,
  And all swell up and resubside compressed.

The while below there fixedly I gazed,
  My Leader, crying out: "Beware, beware!"
  Drew me unto himself from where I stood.

Then I turned round, as one who is impatient
  To see what it behoves him to escape,
  And whom a sudden terror doth unman,

Who, while he looks, delays not his departure;
  And I beheld behind us a black devil,
  Running along upon the crag, approach.

Ah, how ferocious was he in his aspect!
  And how he seemed to me in action ruthless,
  With open wings and light upon his feet!

His shoulders, which sharp-pointed were and high,
  A sinner did encumber with both haunches,
  And he held clutched the sinews of the feet.

From off our bridge, he said: "O Malebranche,
  Behold one of the elders of Saint Zita;
  Plunge him beneath, for I return for others

Unto that town, which is well furnished with them.
  All there are barrators, except Bonturo;
  No into Yes for money there is changed."

He hurled him down, and over the hard crag
  Turned round, and never was a mastiff loosened
  In so much hurry to pursue a thief.

The other sank, and rose again face downward;
  But the demons, under cover of the bridge,
  Cried: "Here the Santo Volto has no place!

Here swims one otherwise than in the Serchio;
  Therefore, if for our gaffs thou wishest not,
  Do not uplift thyself above the pitch."

They seized him then with more than a hundred rakes;
  They said: "It here behoves thee to dance covered,
  That, if thou canst, thou secretly mayest pilfer."

Not otherwise the cooks their scullions make
  Immerse into the middle of the caldron
  The meat with hooks, so that it may not float.

Said the good Master to me: "That it be not
  Apparent thou art here, crouch thyself down
  Behind a jag, that thou mayest have some screen;

And for no outrage that is done to me
  Be thou afraid, because these things I know,
  For once before was I in such a scuffle."

Then he passed on beyond the bridge's head,
  And as upon the sixth bank he arrived,
  Need was for him to have a steadfast front.

With the same fury, and the same uproar,
  As dogs leap out upon a mendicant,
  Who on a sudden begs, where'er he stops,

They issued from beneath the little bridge,
  And turned against him all their grappling-irons;
  But he cried out: "Be none of you malignant!

Before those hooks of yours lay hold of me,
  Let one of you step forward, who may hear me,
  And then take counsel as to grappling me."

They all cried out: "Let Malacoda go;"
  Whereat one started, and the rest stood still,
  And he came to him, saying: "What avails it?"

"Thinkest thou, Malacoda, to behold me
  Advanced into this place," my Master said,
  "Safe hitherto from all your skill of fence,

Without the will divine, and fate auspicious?
  Let me go on, for it in Heaven is willed
  That I another show this savage road."

Then was his arrogance so humbled in him,
  That he let fall his grapnel at his feet,
  And to the others said: "Now strike him not."

And unto me my Guide: "O thou, who sittest
  Among the splinters of the bridge crouched down,
  Securely now return to me again."

Wherefore I started and came swiftly to him;
  And all the devils forward thrust themselves,
  So that I feared they would not keep their compact.

And thus beheld I once afraid the soldiers
  Who issued under safeguard from Caprona,
  Seeing themselves among so many foes.

Close did I press myself with all my person
  Beside my Leader, and turned not mine eyes
  From off their countenance, which was not good.

They lowered their rakes, and "Wilt thou have me hit him,"
  They said to one another, "on the rump?"
  And answered: "Yes; see that thou nick him with it."

But the same demon who was holding parley
  With my Conductor turned him very quickly,
  And said: "Be quiet, be quiet, Scarmiglione;"

Then said to us: "You can no farther go
  Forward upon this crag, because is lying
  All shattered, at the bottom, the sixth arch.

And if it still doth please you to go onward,
  Pursue your way along upon this rock;
  Near is another crag that yields a path.

Yesterday, five hours later than this hour,
  One thousand and two hundred sixty-six
  Years were complete, that here the way was broken.

I send in that direction some of mine
  To see if any one doth air himself;
  Go ye with them; for they will not be vicious.

Step forward, Alichino and Calcabrina,"
  Began he to cry out, "and thou, Cagnazzo;
  And Barbariccia, do thou guide the ten.

Come forward, Libicocco and Draghignazzo,
  And tusked Ciriatto and Graffiacane,
  And Farfarello and mad Rubicante;

Search ye all round about the boiling pitch;
  Let these be safe as far as the next crag,
  That all unbroken passes o'er the dens."

"O me! what is it, Master, that I see?
  Pray let us go," I said, "without an escort,
  If thou knowest how, since for myself I ask none.

If thou art as observant as thy wont is,
  Dost thou not see that they do gnash their teeth,
  And with their brows are threatening woe to us?"

And he to me: "I will not have thee fear;
  Let them gnash on, according to their fancy,
  Because they do it for those boiling wretches."

Along the left-hand dike they wheeled about;
  But first had each one thrust his tongue between
  His teeth towards their leader for a signal;

And he had made a trumpet of his rump.



Inferno: Canto XXII


I have erewhile seen horsemen moving camp,
  Begin the storming, and their muster make,
  And sometimes starting off for their escape;

Vaunt-couriers have I seen upon your land,
  O Aretines, and foragers go forth,
  Tournaments stricken, and the joustings run,

Sometimes with trumpets and sometimes with bells,
  With kettle-drums, and signals of the castles,
  And with our own, and with outlandish things,

But never yet with bagpipe so uncouth
  Did I see horsemen move, nor infantry,
  Nor ship by any sign of land or star.

We went upon our way with the ten demons;
  Ah, savage company! but in the church
  With saints, and in the tavern with the gluttons!

Ever upon the pitch was my intent,
  To see the whole condition of that Bolgia,
  And of the people who therein were burned.

Even as the dolphins, when they make a sign
  To mariners by arching of the back,
  That they should counsel take to save their vessel,

Thus sometimes, to alleviate his pain,
  One of the sinners would display his back,
  And in less time conceal it than it lightens.

As on the brink of water in a ditch
  The frogs stand only with their muzzles out,
  So that they hide their feet and other bulk,

So upon every side the sinners stood;
  But ever as Barbariccia near them came,
  Thus underneath the boiling they withdrew.

I saw, and still my heart doth shudder at it,
  One waiting thus, even as it comes to pass
  One frog remains, and down another dives;

And Graffiacan, who most confronted him,
  Grappled him by his tresses smeared with pitch,
  And drew him up, so that he seemed an otter.

I knew, before, the names of all of them,
  So had I noted them when they were chosen,
  And when they called each other, listened how.

"O Rubicante, see that thou do lay
  Thy claws upon him, so that thou mayst flay him,"
  Cried all together the accursed ones.

And I: "My Master, see to it, if thou canst,
  That thou mayst know who is the luckless wight,
  Thus come into his adversaries' hands."

Near to the side of him my Leader drew,
  Asked of him whence he was; and he replied:
  "I in the kingdom of Navarre was born;

My mother placed me servant to a lord,
  For she had borne me to a ribald knave,
  Destroyer of himself and of his things.

Then I domestic was of good King Thibault;
  I set me there to practise barratry,
  For which I pay the reckoning in this heat."

And Ciriatto, from whose mouth projected,
  On either side, a tusk, as in a boar,
  Caused him to feel how one of them could rip.

Among malicious cats the mouse had come;
  But Barbariccia clasped him in his arms,
  And said: "Stand ye aside, while I enfork him."

And to my Master he turned round his head;
  "Ask him again," he said, "if more thou wish
  To know from him, before some one destroy him."

The Guide: "Now tell then of the other culprits;
  Knowest thou any one who is a Latian,
  Under the pitch?"  And he: "I separated

Lately from one who was a neighbour to it;
  Would that I still were covered up with him,
  For I should fear not either claw nor hook!"

And Libicocco: "We have borne too much;"
  And with his grapnel seized him by the arm,
  So that, by rending, he tore off a tendon.

Eke Draghignazzo wished to pounce upon him
  Down at the legs; whence their Decurion
  Turned round and round about with evil look.

When they again somewhat were pacified,
  Of him, who still was looking at his wound,
  Demanded my Conductor without stay:

"Who was that one, from whom a luckless parting
  Thou sayest thou hast made, to come ashore?"
  And he replied: "It was the Friar Gomita,

He of Gallura, vessel of all fraud,
  Who had the enemies of his Lord in hand,
  And dealt so with them each exults thereat;

Money he took, and let them smoothly off,
  As he says; and in other offices
  A barrator was he, not mean but sovereign.

Foregathers with him one Don Michael Zanche
  Of Logodoro; and of Sardinia
  To gossip never do their tongues feel tired.

O me! see that one, how he grinds his teeth;
  Still farther would I speak, but am afraid
  Lest he to scratch my itch be making ready."

And the grand Provost, turned to Farfarello,
  Who rolled his eyes about as if to strike,
  Said: "Stand aside there, thou malicious bird."

"If you desire either to see or hear,"
  The terror-stricken recommenced thereon,
  "Tuscans or Lombards, I will make them come.

But let the Malebranche cease a little,
  So that these may not their revenges fear,
  And I, down sitting in this very place,

For one that I am will make seven come,
  When I shall whistle, as our custom is
  To do whenever one of us comes out."

Cagnazzo at these words his muzzle lifted,
  Shaking his head, and said: "Just hear the trick
  Which he has thought of, down to throw himself!"

Whence he, who snares in great abundance had,
  Responded: "I by far too cunning am,
  When I procure for mine a greater sadness."

Alichin held not in, but running counter
  Unto the rest, said to him: "If thou dive,
  I will not follow thee upon the gallop,

But I will beat my wings above the pitch;
  The height be left, and be the bank a shield
  To see if thou alone dost countervail us."

O thou who readest, thou shalt hear new sport!
  Each to the other side his eyes averted;
  He first, who most reluctant was to do it.

The Navarrese selected well his time;
  Planted his feet on land, and in a moment
  Leaped, and released himself from their design.

Whereat each one was suddenly stung with shame,
  But he most who was cause of the defeat;
  Therefore he moved, and cried: "Thou art o'ertakern."

But little it availed, for wings could not
  Outstrip the fear; the other one went under,
  And, flying, upward he his breast directed;

Not otherwise the duck upon a sudden
  Dives under, when the falcon is approaching,
  And upward he returneth cross and weary.

Infuriate at the mockery, Calcabrina
  Flying behind him followed close, desirous
  The other should escape, to have a quarrel.

And when the barrator had disappeared,
  He turned his talons upon his companion,
  And grappled with him right above the moat.

But sooth the other was a doughty sparhawk
  To clapperclaw him well; and both of them
  Fell in the middle of the boiling pond.

A sudden intercessor was the heat;
  But ne'ertheless of rising there was naught,
  To such degree they had their wings belimed.

Lamenting with the others, Barbariccia
  Made four of them fly to the other side
  With all their gaffs, and very speedily

This side and that they to their posts descended;
  They stretched their hooks towards the pitch-ensnared,
  Who were already baked within the crust,

And in this manner busied did we leave them.



Inferno: Canto XXIII


Silent, alone, and without company
  We went, the one in front, the other after,
  As go the Minor Friars along their way.

Upon the fable of Aesop was directed
  My thought, by reason of the present quarrel,
  Where he has spoken of the frog and mouse;

For 'mo' and 'issa' are not more alike
  Than this one is to that, if well we couple
  End and beginning with a steadfast mind.

And even as one thought from another springs,
  So afterward from that was born another,
  Which the first fear within me double made.

Thus did I ponder: "These on our account
  Are laughed to scorn, with injury and scoff
  So great, that much I think it must annoy them.

If anger be engrafted on ill-will,
  They will come after us more merciless
  Than dog upon the leveret which he seizes,"

I felt my hair stand all on end already
  With terror, and stood backwardly intent,
  When said I: "Master, if thou hidest not

Thyself and me forthwith, of Malebranche
  I am in dread; we have them now behind us;
  I so imagine them, I already feel them."

And he: "If I were made of leaded glass,
  Thine outward image I should not attract
  Sooner to me than I imprint the inner.

Just now thy thoughts came in among my own,
  With similar attitude and similar face,
  So that of both one counsel sole I made.

If peradventure the right bank so slope
  That we to the next Bolgia can descend,
  We shall escape from the imagined chase."

Not yet he finished rendering such opinion,
  When I beheld them come with outstretched wings,
  Not far remote, with will to seize upon us.

My Leader on a sudden seized me up,
  Even as a mother who by noise is wakened,
  And close beside her sees the enkindled flames,

Who takes her son, and flies, and does not stop,
  Having more care of him than of herself,
  So that she clothes her only with a shift;

And downward from the top of the hard bank
  Supine he gave him to the pendent rock,
  That one side of the other Bolgia walls.

Ne'er ran so swiftly water through a sluice
  To turn the wheel of any land-built mill,
  When nearest to the paddles it approaches,

As did my Master down along that border,
  Bearing me with him on his breast away,
  As his own son, and not as a companion.

Hardly the bed of the ravine below
  His feet had reached, ere they had reached the hill
  Right over us; but he was not afraid;

For the high Providence, which had ordained
  To place them ministers of the fifth moat,
  The power of thence departing took from all.

A painted people there below we found,
  Who went about with footsteps very slow,
  Weeping and in their semblance tired and vanquished.

They had on mantles with the hoods low down
  Before their eyes, and fashioned of the cut
  That in Cologne they for the monks are made.

Without, they gilded are so that it dazzles;
  But inwardly all leaden and so heavy
  That Frederick used to put them on of straw.

O everlastingly fatiguing mantle!
  Again we turned us, still to the left hand
  Along with them, intent on their sad plaint;

But owing to the weight, that weary folk
  Came on so tardily, that we were new
  In company at each motion of the haunch.

Whence I unto my Leader: "See thou find
  Some one who may by deed or name be known,
  And thus in going move thine eye about."

And one, who understood the Tuscan speech,
  Cried to us from behind: "Stay ye your feet,
  Ye, who so run athwart the dusky air!

Perhaps thou'lt have from me what thou demandest."
  Whereat the Leader turned him, and said: "Wait,
  And then according to his pace proceed."

I stopped, and two beheld I show great haste
  Of spirit, in their faces, to be with me;
  But the burden and the narrow way delayed them.

When they came up, long with an eye askance
  They scanned me without uttering a word.
  Then to each other turned, and said together:

"He by the action of his throat seems living;
  And if they dead are, by what privilege
  Go they uncovered by the heavy stole?"

Then said to me: "Tuscan, who to the college
  Of miserable hypocrites art come,
  Do not disdain to tell us who thou art."

And I to them: "Born was I, and grew up
  In the great town on the fair river of Arno,
  And with the body am I've always had.

But who are ye, in whom there trickles down
  Along your cheeks such grief as I behold?
  And what pain is upon you, that so sparkles?"

And one replied to me: "These orange cloaks
  Are made of lead so heavy, that the weights
  Cause in this way their balances to creak.

Frati Gaudenti were we, and Bolognese;
  I Catalano, and he Loderingo
  Named, and together taken by thy city,

As the wont is to take one man alone,
  For maintenance of its peace; and we were such
  That still it is apparent round Gardingo."

"O Friars," began I, "your iniquitous. . ."
  But said no more; for to mine eyes there rushed
  One crucified with three stakes on the ground.

When me he saw, he writhed himself all over,
  Blowing into his beard with suspirations;
  And the Friar Catalan, who noticed this,

Said to me: "This transfixed one, whom thou seest,
  Counselled the Pharisees that it was meet
  To put one man to torture for the people.

Crosswise and naked is he on the path,
  As thou perceivest; and he needs must feel,
  Whoever passes, first how much he weighs;

And in like mode his father-in-law is punished
  Within this moat, and the others of the council,
  Which for the Jews was a malignant seed."

And thereupon I saw Virgilius marvel
  O'er him who was extended on the cross
  So vilely in eternal banishment.

Then he directed to the Friar this voice:
  "Be not displeased, if granted thee, to tell us
  If to the right hand any pass slope down

By which we two may issue forth from here,
  Without constraining some of the black angels
  To come and extricate us from this deep."

Then he made answer: "Nearer than thou hopest
  There is a rock, that forth from the great circle
  Proceeds, and crosses all the cruel valleys,

Save that at this 'tis broken, and does not bridge it;
  You will be able to mount up the ruin,
  That sidelong slopes and at the bottom rises."

The Leader stood awhile with head bowed down;
  Then said: "The business badly he recounted
  Who grapples with his hook the sinners yonder."

And the Friar: "Many of the Devil's vices
  Once heard I at Bologna, and among them,
  That he's a liar and the father of lies."

Thereat my Leader with great strides went on,
  Somewhat disturbed with anger in his looks;
  Whence from the heavy-laden I departed

After the prints of his beloved feet.



Inferno: Canto XXIV


In that part of the youthful year wherein
  The Sun his locks beneath Aquarius tempers,
  And now the nights draw near to half the day,

What time the hoar-frost copies on the ground
  The outward semblance of her sister white,
  But little lasts the temper of her pen,

The husbandman, whose forage faileth him,
  Rises, and looks, and seeth the champaign
  All gleaming white, whereat he beats his flank,

Returns in doors, and up and down laments,
  Like a poor wretch, who knows not what to do;
  Then he returns and hope revives again,

Seeing the world has changed its countenance
  In little time, and takes his shepherd's crook,
  And forth the little lambs to pasture drives.

Thus did the Master fill me with alarm,
  When I beheld his forehead so disturbed,
  And to the ailment came as soon the plaster.

For as we came unto the ruined bridge,
  The Leader turned to me with that sweet look
  Which at the mountain's foot I first beheld.

His arms he opened, after some advisement
  Within himself elected, looking first
  Well at the ruin, and laid hold of me.

And even as he who acts and meditates,
  For aye it seems that he provides beforehand,
  So upward lifting me towards the summit

Of a huge rock, he scanned another crag,
  Saying: "To that one grapple afterwards,
  But try first if 'tis such that it will hold thee."

This was no way for one clothed with a cloak;
  For hardly we, he light, and I pushed upward,
  Were able to ascend from jag to jag.

And had it not been, that upon that precinct
  Shorter was the ascent than on the other,
  He I know not, but I had been dead beat.

But because Malebolge tow'rds the mouth
  Of the profoundest well is all inclining,
  The structure of each valley doth import

That one bank rises and the other sinks.
  Still we arrived at length upon the point
  Wherefrom the last stone breaks itself asunder.

The breath was from my lungs so milked away,
  When I was up, that I could go no farther,
  Nay, I sat down upon my first arrival.

"Now it behoves thee thus to put off sloth,"
  My Master said; "for sitting upon down,
  Or under quilt, one cometh not to fame,

Withouten which whoso his life consumes
  Such vestige leaveth of himself on earth,
  As smoke in air or in the water foam.

And therefore raise thee up, o'ercome the anguish
  With spirit that o'ercometh every battle,
  If with its heavy body it sink not.

A longer stairway it behoves thee mount;
  'Tis not enough from these to have departed;
  Let it avail thee, if thou understand me."

Then I uprose, showing myself provided
  Better with breath than I did feel myself,
  And said: "Go on, for I am strong and bold."

Upward we took our way along the crag,
  Which jagged was, and narrow, and difficult,
  And more precipitous far than that before.

Speaking I went, not to appear exhausted;
  Whereat a voice from the next moat came forth,
  Not well adapted to articulate words.

I know not what it said, though o'er the back
  I now was of the arch that passes there;
  But he seemed moved to anger who was speaking.

I was bent downward, but my living eyes
  Could not attain the bottom, for the dark;
  Wherefore I: "Master, see that thou arrive

At the next round, and let us descend the wall;
  For as from hence I hear and understand not,
  So I look down and nothing I distinguish."

"Other response," he said, "I make thee not,
  Except the doing; for the modest asking
  Ought to be followed by the deed in silence."

We from the bridge descended at its head,
  Where it connects itself with the eighth bank,
  And then was manifest to me the Bolgia;

And I beheld therein a terrible throng
  Of serpents, and of such a monstrous kind,
  That the remembrance still congeals my blood

Let Libya boast no longer with her sand;
  For if Chelydri, Jaculi, and Phareae
  She breeds, with Cenchri and with Amphisbaena,

Neither so many plagues nor so malignant
  E'er showed she with all Ethiopia,
  Nor with whatever on the Red Sea is!

Among this cruel and most dismal throng
  People were running naked and affrighted.
  Without the hope of hole or heliotrope.

They had their hands with serpents bound behind them;
  These riveted upon their reins the tail
  And head, and were in front of them entwined.

And lo! at one who was upon our side
  There darted forth a serpent, which transfixed him
  There where the neck is knotted to the shoulders.

Nor 'O' so quickly e'er, nor 'I' was written,
  As he took fire, and burned; and ashes wholly
  Behoved it that in falling he became.

And when he on the ground was thus destroyed,
  The ashes drew together, and of themselves
  Into himself they instantly returned.

Even thus by the great sages 'tis confessed
  The phoenix dies, and then is born again,
  When it approaches its five-hundredth year;

On herb or grain it feeds not in its life,
  But only on tears of incense and amomum,
  And nard and myrrh are its last winding-sheet.

And as he is who falls, and knows not how,
  By force of demons who to earth down drag him,
  Or other oppilation that binds man,

When he arises and around him looks,
  Wholly bewildered by the mighty anguish
  Which he has suffered, and in looking sighs;

Such was that sinner after he had risen.
  Justice of God! O how severe it is,
  That blows like these in vengeance poureth down!

The Guide thereafter asked him who he was;
  Whence he replied: "I rained from Tuscany
  A short time since into this cruel gorge.

A bestial life, and not a human, pleased me,
  Even as the mule I was; I'm Vanni Fucci,
  Beast, and Pistoia was my worthy den."

And I unto the Guide: "Tell him to stir not,
  And ask what crime has thrust him here below,
  For once a man of blood and wrath I saw him."

And the sinner, who had heard, dissembled not,
  But unto me directed mind and face,
  And with a melancholy shame was painted.

Then said: "It pains me more that thou hast caught me
  Amid this misery where thou seest me,
  Than when I from the other life was taken.

What thou demandest I cannot deny;
  So low am I put down because I robbed
  The sacristy of the fair ornaments,

And falsely once 'twas laid upon another;
  But that thou mayst not such a sight enjoy,
  If thou shalt e'er be out of the dark places,

Thine ears to my announcement ope and hear:
  Pistoia first of Neri groweth meagre;
  Then Florence doth renew her men and manners;

Mars draws a vapour up from Val di Magra,
  Which is with turbid clouds enveloped round,
  And with impetuous and bitter tempest

Over Campo Picen shall be the battle;
  When it shall suddenly rend the mist asunder,
  So that each Bianco shall thereby be smitten.

And this I've said that it may give thee pain."



Inferno: Canto XXV


At the conclusion of his words, the thief
  Lifted his hands aloft with both the figs,
  Crying: "Take that, God, for at thee I aim them."

From that time forth the serpents were my friends;
  For one entwined itself about his neck
  As if it said: "I will not thou speak more;"

And round his arms another, and rebound him,
  Clinching itself together so in front,
  That with them he could not a motion make.

Pistoia, ah, Pistoia! why resolve not
  To burn thyself to ashes and so perish,
  Since in ill-doing thou thy seed excellest?

Through all the sombre circles of this Hell,
  Spirit I saw not against God so proud,
  Not he who fell at Thebes down from the walls!

He fled away, and spake no further word;
  And I beheld a Centaur full of rage
  Come crying out: "Where is, where is the scoffer?"

I do not think Maremma has so many
  Serpents as he had all along his back,
  As far as where our countenance begins.

Upon the shoulders, just behind the nape,
  With wings wide open was a dragon lying,
  And he sets fire to all that he encounters.

My Master said: "That one is Cacus, who
  Beneath the rock upon Mount Aventine
  Created oftentimes a lake of blood.

He goes not on the same road with his brothers,
  By reason of the fraudulent theft he made
  Of the great herd, which he had near to him;

Whereat his tortuous actions ceased beneath
  The mace of Hercules, who peradventure
  Gave him a hundred, and he felt not ten."

While he was speaking thus, he had passed by,
  And spirits three had underneath us come,
  Of which nor I aware was, nor my Leader,

Until what time they shouted: "Who are you?"
  On which account our story made a halt,
  And then we were intent on them alone.

I did not know them; but it came to pass,
  As it is wont to happen by some chance,
  That one to name the other was compelled,

Exclaiming: "Where can Cianfa have remained?"
  Whence I, so that the Leader might attend,
  Upward from chin to nose my finger laid.

If thou art, Reader, slow now to believe
  What I shall say, it will no marvel be,
  For I who saw it hardly can admit it.

As I was holding raised on them my brows,
  Behold! a serpent with six feet darts forth
  In front of one, and fastens wholly on him.

With middle feet it bound him round the paunch,
  And with the forward ones his arms it seized;
  Then thrust its teeth through one cheek and the other;

The hindermost it stretched upon his thighs,
  And put its tail through in between the two,
  And up behind along the reins outspread it.

Ivy was never fastened by its barbs
  Unto a tree so, as this horrible reptile
  Upon the other's limbs entwined its own.

Then they stuck close, as if of heated wax
  They had been made, and intermixed their colour;
  Nor one nor other seemed now what he was;

E'en as proceedeth on before the flame
  Upward along the paper a brown colour,
  Which is not black as yet, and the white dies.

The other two looked on, and each of them
  Cried out: "O me, Agnello, how thou changest!
  Behold, thou now art neither two nor one."

Already the two heads had one become,
  When there appeared to us two figures mingled
  Into one face, wherein the two were lost.

Of the four lists were fashioned the two arms,
  The thighs and legs, the belly and the chest
  Members became that never yet were seen.

Every original aspect there was cancelled;
  Two and yet none did the perverted image
  Appear, and such departed with slow pace.

Even as a lizard, under the great scourge
  Of days canicular, exchanging hedge,
  Lightning appeareth if the road it cross;

Thus did appear, coming towards the bellies
  Of the two others, a small fiery serpent,
  Livid and black as is a peppercorn.

And in that part whereat is first received
  Our aliment, it one of them transfixed;
  Then downward fell in front of him extended.

The one transfixed looked at it, but said naught;
  Nay, rather with feet motionless he yawned,
  Just as if sleep or fever had assailed him.

He at the serpent gazed, and it at him;
  One through the wound, the other through the mouth
  Smoked violently, and the smoke commingled.

Henceforth be silent Lucan, where he mentions
  Wretched Sabellus and Nassidius,
  And wait to hear what now shall be shot forth.

Be silent Ovid, of Cadmus and Arethusa;
  For if him to a snake, her to fountain,
  Converts he fabling, that I grudge him not;

Because two natures never front to front
  Has he transmuted, so that both the forms
  To interchange their matter ready were.

Together they responded in such wise,
  That to a fork the serpent cleft his tail,
  And eke the wounded drew his feet together.

The legs together with the thighs themselves
  Adhered so, that in little time the juncture
  No sign whatever made that was apparent.

He with the cloven tail assumed the figure
  The other one was losing, and his skin
  Became elastic, and the other's hard.

I saw the arms draw inward at the armpits,
  And both feet of the reptile, that were short,
  Lengthen as much as those contracted were.

Thereafter the hind feet, together twisted,
  Became the member that a man conceals,
  And of his own the wretch had two created.

While both of them the exhalation veils
  With a new colour, and engenders hair
  On one of them and depilates the other,

The one uprose and down the other fell,
  Though turning not away their impious lamps,
  Underneath which each one his muzzle changed.

He who was standing drew it tow'rds the temples,
  And from excess of matter, which came thither,
  Issued the ears from out the hollow cheeks;

What did not backward run and was retained
  Of that excess made to the face a nose,
  And the lips thickened far as was befitting.

He who lay prostrate thrusts his muzzle forward,
  And backward draws the ears into his head,
  In the same manner as the snail its horns;

And so the tongue, which was entire and apt
  For speech before, is cleft, and the bi-forked
  In the other closes up, and the smoke ceases.

The soul, which to a reptile had been changed,
  Along the valley hissing takes to flight,
  And after him the other speaking sputters.

Then did he turn upon him his new shoulders,
  And said to the other: "I'll have Buoso run,
  Crawling as I have done, along this road."

In this way I beheld the seventh ballast
  Shift and reshift, and here be my excuse
  The novelty, if aught my pen transgress.

And notwithstanding that mine eyes might be
  Somewhat bewildered, and my mind dismayed,
  They could not flee away so secretly

But that I plainly saw Puccio Sciancato;
  And he it was who sole of three companions,
  Which came in the beginning, was not changed;

The other was he whom thou, Gaville, weepest.



Inferno: Canto XXVI


Rejoice, O Florence, since thou art so great,
  That over sea and land thou beatest thy wings,
  And throughout Hell thy name is spread abroad!

Among the thieves five citizens of thine
  Like these I found, whence shame comes unto me,
  And thou thereby to no great honour risest.

But if when morn is near our dreams are true,
  Feel shalt thou in a little time from now
  What Prato, if none other, craves for thee.

And if it now were, it were not too soon;
  Would that it were, seeing it needs must be,
  For 'twill aggrieve me more the more I age.

We went our way, and up along the stairs
  The bourns had made us to descend before,
  Remounted my Conductor and drew me.

And following the solitary path
  Among the rocks and ridges of the crag,
  The foot without the hand sped not at all.

Then sorrowed I, and sorrow now again,
  When I direct my mind to what I saw,
  And more my genius curb than I am wont,

That it may run not unless virtue guide it;
  So that if some good star, or better thing,
  Have given me good, I may myself not grudge it.

As many as the hind (who on the hill
  Rests at the time when he who lights the world
  His countenance keeps least concealed from us,

While as the fly gives place unto the gnat)
  Seeth the glow-worms down along the valley,
  Perchance there where he ploughs and makes his vintage;

With flames as manifold resplendent all
  Was the eighth Bolgia, as I grew aware
  As soon as I was where the depth appeared.

And such as he who with the bears avenged him
  Beheld Elijah's chariot at departing,
  What time the steeds to heaven erect uprose,

For with his eye he could not follow it
  So as to see aught else than flame alone,
  Even as a little cloud ascending upward,

Thus each along the gorge of the intrenchment
  Was moving; for not one reveals the theft,
  And every flame a sinner steals away.

I stood upon the bridge uprisen to see,
  So that, if I had seized not on a rock,
  Down had I fallen without being pushed.

And the Leader, who beheld me so attent,
  Exclaimed: "Within the fires the spirits are;
  Each swathes himself with that wherewith he burns."

"My Master," I replied, "by hearing thee
  I am more sure; but I surmised already
  It might be so, and already wished to ask thee

Who is within that fire, which comes so cleft
  At top, it seems uprising from the pyre
  Where was Eteocles with his brother placed."

He answered me: "Within there are tormented
  Ulysses and Diomed, and thus together
  They unto vengeance run as unto wrath.

And there within their flame do they lament
  The ambush of the horse, which made the door
  Whence issued forth the Romans' gentle seed;

Therein is wept the craft, for which being dead
  Deidamia still deplores Achilles,
  And pain for the Palladium there is borne."

"If they within those sparks possess the power
  To speak," I said, "thee, Master, much I pray,
  And re-pray, that the prayer be worth a thousand,

That thou make no denial of awaiting
  Until the horned flame shall hither come;
  Thou seest that with desire I lean towards it."

And he to me: "Worthy is thy entreaty
  Of much applause, and therefore I accept it;
  But take heed that thy tongue restrain itself.

Leave me to speak, because I have conceived
  That which thou wishest; for they might disdain
  Perchance, since they were Greeks, discourse of thine."

When now the flame had come unto that point,
  Where to my Leader it seemed time and place,
  After this fashion did I hear him speak:

"O ye, who are twofold within one fire,
  If I deserved of you, while I was living,
  If I deserved of you or much or little

When in the world I wrote the lofty verses,
  Do not move on, but one of you declare
  Whither, being lost, he went away to die."

Then of the antique flame the greater horn,
  Murmuring, began to wave itself about
  Even as a flame doth which the wind fatigues.

Thereafterward, the summit to and fro
  Moving as if it were the tongue that spake,
  It uttered forth a voice, and said: "When I

From Circe had departed, who concealed me
  More than a year there near unto Gaeta,
  Or ever yet Aeneas named it so,

Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence
  For my old father, nor the due affection
  Which joyous should have made Penelope,

Could overcome within me the desire
  I had to be experienced of the world,
  And of the vice and virtue of mankind;

But I put forth on the high open sea
  With one sole ship, and that small company
  By which I never had deserted been.

Both of the shores I saw as far as Spain,
  Far as Morocco, and the isle of Sardes,
  And the others which that sea bathes round about.

I and my company were old and slow
  When at that narrow passage we arrived
  Where Hercules his landmarks set as signals,

That man no farther onward should adventure.
  On the right hand behind me left I Seville,
  And on the other already had left Ceuta.

'O brothers, who amid a hundred thousand
  Perils,' I said, 'have come unto the West,
  To this so inconsiderable vigil

Which is remaining of your senses still
  Be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge,
  Following the sun, of the unpeopled world.

Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
  Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
  But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.'

So eager did I render my companions,
  With this brief exhortation, for the voyage,
  That then I hardly could have held them back.

And having turned our stern unto the morning,
  We of the oars made wings for our mad flight,
  Evermore gaining on the larboard side.

Already all the stars of the other pole
  The night beheld, and ours so very low
  It did not rise above the ocean floor.

Five times rekindled and as many quenched
  Had been the splendour underneath the moon,
  Since we had entered into the deep pass,

When there appeared to us a mountain, dim
  From distance, and it seemed to me so high
  As I had never any one beheld.

Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping;
  For out of the new land a whirlwind rose,
  And smote upon the fore part of the ship.

Three times it made her whirl with all the waters,
  At the fourth time it made the stern uplift,
  And the prow downward go, as pleased Another,

Until the sea above us closed again."



Inferno: Canto XXVII


Already was the flame erect and quiet,
  To speak no more, and now departed from us
  With the permission of the gentle Poet;

When yet another, which behind it came,
  Caused us to turn our eyes upon its top
  By a confused sound that issued from it.

As the Sicilian bull (that bellowed first
  With the lament of him, and that was right,
  Who with his file had modulated it)

Bellowed so with the voice of the afflicted,
  That, notwithstanding it was made of brass,
  Still it appeared with agony transfixed;

Thus, by not having any way or issue
  At first from out the fire, to its own language
  Converted were the melancholy words.

But afterwards, when they had gathered way
  Up through the point, giving it that vibration
  The tongue had given them in their passage out,

We heard it said: "O thou, at whom I aim
  My voice, and who but now wast speaking Lombard,
  Saying, 'Now go thy way, no more I urge thee,'

Because I come perchance a little late,
  To stay and speak with me let it not irk thee;
  Thou seest it irks not me, and I am burning.

If thou but lately into this blind world
  Hast fallen down from that sweet Latian land,
  Wherefrom I bring the whole of my transgression,

Say, if the Romagnuols have peace or war,
  For I was from the mountains there between
  Urbino and the yoke whence Tiber bursts."

I still was downward bent and listening,
  When my Conductor touched me on the side,
  Saying: "Speak thou: this one a Latian is."

And I, who had beforehand my reply
  In readiness, forthwith began to speak:
  "O soul, that down below there art concealed,

Romagna thine is not and never has been
  Without war in the bosom of its tyrants;
  But open war I none have left there now.

Ravenna stands as it long years has stood;
  The Eagle of Polenta there is brooding,
  So that she covers Cervia with her vans.

The city which once made the long resistance,
  And of the French a sanguinary heap,
  Beneath the Green Paws finds itself again;

Verrucchio's ancient Mastiff and the new,
  Who made such bad disposal of Montagna,
  Where they are wont make wimbles of their teeth.

The cities of Lamone and Santerno
  Governs the Lioncel of the white lair,
  Who changes sides 'twixt summer-time and winter;

And that of which the Savio bathes the flank,
  Even as it lies between the plain and mountain,
  Lives between tyranny and a free state.

Now I entreat thee tell us who thou art;
  Be not more stubborn than the rest have been,
  So may thy name hold front there in the world."

After the fire a little more had roared
  In its own fashion, the sharp point it moved
  This way and that, and then gave forth such breath:

"If I believed that my reply were made
  To one who to the world would e'er return,
  This flame without more flickering would stand still;

But inasmuch as never from this depth
  Did any one return, if I hear true,
  Without the fear of infamy I answer,

I was a man of arms, then Cordelier,
  Believing thus begirt to make amends;
  And truly my belief had been fulfilled

But for the High Priest, whom may ill betide,
  Who put me back into my former sins;
  And how and wherefore I will have thee hear.

While I was still the form of bone and pulp
  My mother gave to me, the deeds I did
  Were not those of a lion, but a fox.

The machinations and the covert ways
  I knew them all, and practised so their craft,
  That to the ends of earth the sound went forth.

When now unto that portion of mine age
  I saw myself arrived, when each one ought
  To lower the sails, and coil away the ropes,

That which before had pleased me then displeased me;
  And penitent and confessing I surrendered,
  Ah woe is me! and it would have bestead me;

The Leader of the modern Pharisees
  Having a war near unto Lateran,
  And not with Saracens nor with the Jews,

For each one of his enemies was Christian,
  And none of them had been to conquer Acre,
  Nor merchandising in the Sultan's land,

Nor the high office, nor the sacred orders,
  In him regarded, nor in me that cord
  Which used to make those girt with it more meagre;

But even as Constantine sought out Sylvester
  To cure his leprosy, within Soracte,
  So this one sought me out as an adept

To cure him of the fever of his pride.
  Counsel he asked of me, and I was silent,
  Because his words appeared inebriate.

And then he said: 'Be not thy heart afraid;
  Henceforth I thee absolve; and thou instruct me
  How to raze Palestrina to the ground.

Heaven have I power to lock and to unlock,
  As thou dost know; therefore the keys are two,
  The which my predecessor held not dear.'

Then urged me on his weighty arguments
  There, where my silence was the worst advice;
  And said I: 'Father, since thou washest me

Of that sin into which I now must fall,
  The promise long with the fulfilment short
  Will make thee triumph in thy lofty seat.'

Francis came afterward, when I was dead,
  For me; but one of the black Cherubim
  Said to him: 'Take him not; do me no wrong;

He must come down among my servitors,
  Because he gave the fraudulent advice
  From which time forth I have been at his hair;

For who repents not cannot be absolved,
  Nor can one both repent and will at once,
  Because of the contradiction which consents not.'

O miserable me! how I did shudder
  When he seized on me, saying: 'Peradventure
  Thou didst not think that I was a logician!'

He bore me unto Minos, who entwined
  Eight times his tail about his stubborn back,
  And after he had bitten it in great rage,

Said: 'Of the thievish fire a culprit this;'
  Wherefore, here where thou seest, am I lost,
  And vested thus in going I bemoan me."

When it had thus completed its recital,
  The flame departed uttering lamentations,
  Writhing and flapping its sharp-pointed horn.

Onward we passed, both I and my Conductor,
  Up o'er the crag above another arch,
  Which the moat covers, where is paid the fee

By those who, sowing discord, win their burden.



Inferno: Canto XXVIII


Who ever could, e'en with untrammelled words,
  Tell of the blood and of the wounds in full
  Which now I saw, by many times narrating?

Each tongue would for a certainty fall short
  By reason of our speech and memory,
  That have small room to comprehend so much.

If were again assembled all the people
  Which formerly upon the fateful land
  Of Puglia were lamenting for their blood

Shed by the Romans and the lingering war
  That of the rings made such illustrious spoils,
  As Livy has recorded, who errs not,

With those who felt the agony of blows
  By making counterstand to Robert Guiscard,
  And all the rest, whose bones are gathered still

At Ceperano, where a renegade
  Was each Apulian, and at Tagliacozzo,
  Where without arms the old Alardo conquered,

And one his limb transpierced, and one lopped off,
  Should show, it would be nothing to compare
  With the disgusting mode of the ninth Bolgia.

A cask by losing centre-piece or cant
  Was never shattered so, as I saw one
  Rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind.

Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;
  His heart was visible, and the dismal sack
  That maketh excrement of what is eaten.

While I was all absorbed in seeing him,
  He looked at me, and opened with his hands
  His bosom, saying: "See now how I rend me;

How mutilated, see, is Mahomet;
  In front of me doth Ali weeping go,
  Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;

And all the others whom thou here beholdest,
  Disseminators of scandal and of schism
  While living were, and therefore are cleft thus.

A devil is behind here, who doth cleave us
  Thus cruelly, unto the falchion's edge
  Putting again each one of all this ream,

When we have gone around the doleful road;
  By reason that our wounds are closed again
  Ere any one in front of him repass.

But who art thou, that musest on the crag,
  Perchance to postpone going to the pain
  That is adjudged upon thine accusations?"

"Nor death hath reached him yet, nor guilt doth bring him,"
  My Master made reply, "to be tormented;
  But to procure him full experience,

Me, who am dead, behoves it to conduct him
  Down here through Hell, from circle unto circle;
  And this is true as that I speak to thee."

More than a hundred were there when they heard him,
  Who in the moat stood still to look at me,
  Through wonderment oblivious of their torture.

"Now say to Fra Dolcino, then, to arm him,
  Thou, who perhaps wilt shortly see the sun,
  If soon he wish not here to follow me,

So with provisions, that no stress of snow
  May give the victory to the Novarese,
  Which otherwise to gain would not be easy."

After one foot to go away he lifted,
  This word did Mahomet say unto me,
  Then to depart upon the ground he stretched it.

Another one, who had his throat pierced through,
  And nose cut off close underneath the brows,
  And had no longer but a single ear,

Staying to look in wonder with the others,
  Before the others did his gullet open,
  Which outwardly was red in every part,

And said: "O thou, whom guilt doth not condemn,
  And whom I once saw up in Latian land,
  Unless too great similitude deceive me,

Call to remembrance Pier da Medicina,
  If e'er thou see again the lovely plain
  That from Vercelli slopes to Marcabo,

And make it known to the best two of Fano,
  To Messer Guido and Angiolello likewise,
  That if foreseeing here be not in vain,

Cast over from their vessel shall they be,
  And drowned near unto the Cattolica,
  By the betrayal of a tyrant fell.

Between the isles of Cyprus and Majorca
  Neptune ne'er yet beheld so great a crime,
  Neither of pirates nor Argolic people.

That traitor, who sees only with one eye,
  And holds the land, which some one here with me
  Would fain be fasting from the vision of,

Will make them come unto a parley with him;
  Then will do so, that to Focara's wind
  They will not stand in need of vow or prayer."

And I to him: "Show to me and declare,
  If thou wouldst have me bear up news of thee,
  Who is this person of the bitter vision."

Then did he lay his hand upon the jaw
  Of one of his companions, and his mouth
  Oped, crying: "This is he, and he speaks not.

This one, being banished, every doubt submerged
  In Caesar by affirming the forearmed
  Always with detriment allowed delay."

O how bewildered unto me appeared,
  With tongue asunder in his windpipe slit,
  Curio, who in speaking was so bold!

And one, who both his hands dissevered had,
  The stumps uplifting through the murky air,
  So that the blood made horrible his face,

Cried out: "Thou shalt remember Mosca also,
  Who said, alas! 'A thing done has an end!'
  Which was an ill seed for the Tuscan people."

"And death unto thy race," thereto I added;
  Whence he, accumulating woe on woe,
  Departed, like a person sad and crazed.

But I remained to look upon the crowd;
  And saw a thing which I should be afraid,
  Without some further proof, even to recount,

If it were not that conscience reassures me,
  That good companion which emboldens man
  Beneath the hauberk of its feeling pure.

I truly saw, and still I seem to see it,
  A trunk without a head walk in like manner
  As walked the others of the mournful herd.

And by the hair it held the head dissevered,
  Hung from the hand in fashion of a lantern,
  And that upon us gazed and said: "O me!"

It of itself made to itself a lamp,
  And they were two in one, and one in two;
  How that can be, He knows who so ordains it.

When it was come close to the bridge's foot,
  It lifted high its arm with all the head,
  To bring more closely unto us its words,

Which were: "Behold now the sore penalty,
  Thou, who dost breathing go the dead beholding;
  Behold if any be as great as this.

And so that thou may carry news of me,
  Know that Bertram de Born am I, the same
  Who gave to the Young King the evil comfort.

I made the father and the son rebellious;
  Achitophel not more with Absalom
  And David did with his accursed goadings.

Because I parted persons so united,
  Parted do I now bear my brain, alas!
  From its beginning, which is in this trunk.

Thus is observed in me the counterpoise."



Inferno: Canto XXIX


The many people and the divers wounds
  These eyes of mine had so inebriated,
  That they were wishful to stand still and weep;

But said Virgilius: "What dost thou still gaze at?
  Why is thy sight still riveted down there
  Among the mournful, mutilated shades?

Thou hast not done so at the other Bolge;
  Consider, if to count them thou believest,
  That two-and-twenty miles the valley winds,

And now the moon is underneath our feet;
  Henceforth the time allotted us is brief,
  And more is to be seen than what thou seest."

"If thou hadst," I made answer thereupon,
  "Attended to the cause for which I looked,
  Perhaps a longer stay thou wouldst have pardoned."

Meanwhile my Guide departed, and behind him
  I went, already making my reply,
  And superadding: "In that cavern where

I held mine eyes with such attention fixed,
  I think a spirit of my blood laments
  The sin which down below there costs so much."

Then said the Master: "Be no longer broken
  Thy thought from this time forward upon him;
  Attend elsewhere, and there let him remain;

For him I saw below the little bridge,
  Pointing at thee, and threatening with his finger
  Fiercely, and heard him called Geri del Bello.

So wholly at that time wast thou impeded
  By him who formerly held Altaforte,
  Thou didst not look that way; so he departed."

"O my Conductor, his own violent death,
  Which is not yet avenged for him," I said,
  "By any who is sharer in the shame,

Made him disdainful; whence he went away,
  As I imagine, without speaking to me,
  And thereby made me pity him the more."

Thus did we speak as far as the first place
  Upon the crag, which the next valley shows
  Down to the bottom, if there were more light.

When we were now right over the last cloister
  Of Malebolge, so that its lay-brothers
  Could manifest themselves unto our sight,

Divers lamentings pierced me through and through,
  Which with compassion had their arrows barbed,
  Whereat mine ears I covered with my hands.

What pain would be, if from the hospitals
  Of Valdichiana, 'twixt July and September,
  And of Maremma and Sardinia

All the diseases in one moat were gathered,
  Such was it here, and such a stench came from it
  As from putrescent limbs is wont to issue.

We had descended on the furthest bank
  From the long crag, upon the left hand still,
  And then more vivid was my power of sight

Down tow'rds the bottom, where the ministress
  Of the high Lord, Justice infallible,
  Punishes forgers, which she here records.

I do not think a sadder sight to see
  Was in Aegina the whole people sick,
  (When was the air so full of pestilence,

The animals, down to the little worm,
  All fell, and afterwards the ancient people,
  According as the poets have affirmed,

Were from the seed of ants restored again,)
  Than was it to behold through that dark valley
  The spirits languishing in divers heaps.

This on the belly, that upon the back
  One of the other lay, and others crawling
  Shifted themselves along the dismal road.

We step by step went onward without speech,
  Gazing upon and listening to the sick
  Who had not strength enough to lift their bodies.

I saw two sitting leaned against each other,
  As leans in heating platter against platter,
  From head to foot bespotted o'er with scabs;

And never saw I plied a currycomb
  By stable-boy for whom his master waits,
  Or him who keeps awake unwillingly,

As every one was plying fast the bite
  Of nails upon himself, for the great rage
  Of itching which no other succour had.

And the nails downward with them dragged the scab,
  In fashion as a knife the scales of bream,
  Or any other fish that has them largest.

"O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thee,"
  Began my Leader unto one of them,
  "And makest of them pincers now and then,

Tell me if any Latian is with those
  Who are herein; so may thy nails suffice thee
  To all eternity unto this work."

"Latians are we, whom thou so wasted seest,
  Both of us here," one weeping made reply;
  "But who art thou, that questionest about us?"

And said the Guide: "One am I who descends
  Down with this living man from cliff to cliff,
  And I intend to show Hell unto him."

Then broken was their mutual support,
  And trembling each one turned himself to me,
  With others who had heard him by rebound.

Wholly to me did the good Master gather,
  Saying: "Say unto them whate'er thou wishest."
  And I began, since he would have it so:

"So may your memory not steal away
  In the first world from out the minds of men,
  But so may it survive 'neath many suns,

Say to me who ye are, and of what people;
  Let not your foul and loathsome punishment
  Make you afraid to show yourselves to me."

"I of Arezzo was," one made reply,
  "And Albert of Siena had me burned;
  But what I died for does not bring me here.

'Tis true I said to him, speaking in jest,
  That I could rise by flight into the air,
  And he who had conceit, but little wit,

Would have me show to him the art; and only
  Because no Daedalus I made him, made me
  Be burned by one who held him as his son.

But unto the last Bolgia of the ten,
  For alchemy, which in the world I practised,
  Minos, who cannot err, has me condemned."

And to the Poet said I: "Now was ever
  So vain a people as the Sienese?
  Not for a certainty the French by far."

Whereat the other leper, who had heard me,
  Replied unto my speech: "Taking out Stricca,
  Who knew the art of moderate expenses,

And Niccolo, who the luxurious use
  Of cloves discovered earliest of all
  Within that garden where such seed takes root;

And taking out the band, among whom squandered
  Caccia d'Ascian his vineyards and vast woods,
  And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered!

But, that thou know who thus doth second thee
  Against the Sienese, make sharp thine eye
  Tow'rds me, so that my face well answer thee,

And thou shalt see I am Capocchio's shade,
  Who metals falsified by alchemy;
  Thou must remember, if I well descry thee,

How I a skilful ape of nature was."



Inferno: Canto XXX


'Twas at the time when Juno was enraged,
  For Semele, against the Theban blood,
  As she already more than once had shown,

So reft of reason Athamas became,
  That, seeing his own wife with children twain
  Walking encumbered upon either hand,

He cried: "Spread out the nets, that I may take
  The lioness and her whelps upon the passage;"
  And then extended his unpitying claws,

Seizing the first, who had the name Learchus,
  And whirled him round, and dashed him on a rock;
  And she, with the other burthen, drowned herself;--

And at the time when fortune downward hurled
  The Trojan's arrogance, that all things dared,
  So that the king was with his kingdom crushed,

Hecuba sad, disconsolate, and captive,
  When lifeless she beheld Polyxena,
  And of her Polydorus on the shore

Of ocean was the dolorous one aware,
  Out of her senses like a dog she barked,
  So much the anguish had her mind distorted;

But not of Thebes the furies nor the Trojan
  Were ever seen in any one so cruel
  In goading beasts, and much more human members,

As I beheld two shadows pale and naked,
  Who, biting, in the manner ran along
  That a boar does, when from the sty turned loose.

One to Capocchio came, and by the nape
  Seized with its teeth his neck, so that in dragging
  It made his belly grate the solid bottom.

And the Aretine, who trembling had remained,
  Said to me: "That mad sprite is Gianni Schicchi,
  And raving goes thus harrying other people."

"O," said I to him, "so may not the other
  Set teeth on thee, let it not weary thee
  To tell us who it is, ere it dart hence."

And he to me: "That is the ancient ghost
  Of the nefarious Myrrha, who became
  Beyond all rightful love her father's lover.

She came to sin with him after this manner,
  By counterfeiting of another's form;
  As he who goeth yonder undertook,

That he might gain the lady of the herd,
  To counterfeit in himself Buoso Donati,
  Making a will and giving it due form."

And after the two maniacs had passed
  On whom I held mine eye, I turned it back
  To look upon the other evil-born.

I saw one made in fashion of a lute,
  If he had only had the groin cut off
  Just at the point at which a man is forked.

The heavy dropsy, that so disproportions
  The limbs with humours, which it ill concocts,
  That the face corresponds not to the belly,

Compelled him so to hold his lips apart
  As does the hectic, who because of thirst
  One tow'rds the chin, the other upward turns.

"O ye, who without any torment are,
  And why I know not, in the world of woe,"
  He said to us, "behold, and be attentive

Unto the misery of Master Adam;
  I had while living much of what I wished,
  And now, alas! a drop of water crave.

The rivulets, that from the verdant hills
  Of Cassentin descend down into Arno,
  Making their channels to be cold and moist,

Ever before me stand, and not in vain;
  For far more doth their image dry me up
  Than the disease which strips my face of flesh.

The rigid justice that chastises me
  Draweth occasion from the place in which
  I sinned, to put the more my sighs in flight.

There is Romena, where I counterfeited
  The currency imprinted with the Baptist,
  For which I left my body burned above.

But if I here could see the tristful soul
  Of Guido, or Alessandro, or their brother,
  For Branda's fount I would not give the sight.

One is within already, if the raving
  Shades that are going round about speak truth;
  But what avails it me, whose limbs are tied?

If I were only still so light, that in
  A hundred years I could advance one inch,
  I had already started on the way,

Seeking him out among this squalid folk,
  Although the circuit be eleven miles,
  And be not less than half a mile across.

For them am I in such a family;
  They did induce me into coining florins,
  Which had three carats of impurity."

And I to him: "Who are the two poor wretches
  That smoke like unto a wet hand in winter,
  Lying there close upon thy right-hand confines?"

"I found them here," replied he, "when I rained
  Into this chasm, and since they have not turned,
  Nor do I think they will for evermore.

One the false woman is who accused Joseph,
  The other the false Sinon, Greek of Troy;
  From acute fever they send forth such reek."

And one of them, who felt himself annoyed
  At being, peradventure, named so darkly,
  Smote with the fist upon his hardened paunch.

It gave a sound, as if it were a drum;
  And Master Adam smote him in the face,
  With arm that did not seem to be less hard,

Saying to him: "Although be taken from me
  All motion, for my limbs that heavy are,
  I have an arm unfettered for such need."

Whereat he answer made: "When thou didst go
  Unto the fire, thou hadst it not so ready:
  But hadst it so and more when thou wast coining."

The dropsical: "Thou sayest true in that;
  But thou wast not so true a witness there,
  Where thou wast questioned of the truth at Troy."

"If I spake false, thou falsifiedst the coin,"
  Said Sinon; "and for one fault I am here,
  And thou for more than any other demon."

"Remember, perjurer, about the horse,"
  He made reply who had the swollen belly,
  "And rueful be it thee the whole world knows it."

"Rueful to thee the thirst be wherewith cracks
  Thy tongue," the Greek said, "and the putrid water
  That hedges so thy paunch before thine eyes."

Then the false-coiner: "So is gaping wide
  Thy mouth for speaking evil, as 'tis wont;
  Because if I have thirst, and humour stuff me

Thou hast the burning and the head that aches,
  And to lick up the mirror of Narcissus
  Thou wouldst not want words many to invite thee."

In listening to them was I wholly fixed,
  When said the Master to me: "Now just look,
  For little wants it that I quarrel with thee."

When him I heard in anger speak to me,
  I turned me round towards him with such shame
  That still it eddies through my memory.

And as he is who dreams of his own harm,
  Who dreaming wishes it may be a dream,
  So that he craves what is, as if it were not;

Such I became, not having power to speak,
  For to excuse myself I wished, and still
  Excused myself, and did not think I did it.

"Less shame doth wash away a greater fault,"
  The Master said, "than this of thine has been;
  Therefore thyself disburden of all sadness,

And make account that I am aye beside thee,
  If e'er it come to pass that fortune bring thee
  Where there are people in a like dispute;

For a base wish it is to wish to hear it."



Inferno: Canto XXXI


One and the selfsame tongue first wounded me,
  So that it tinged the one cheek and the other,
  And then held out to me the medicine;

Thus do I hear that once Achilles' spear,
  His and his father's, used to be the cause
  First of a sad and then a gracious boon.

We turned our backs upon the wretched valley,
  Upon the bank that girds it round about,
  Going across it without any speech.

There it was less than night, and less than day,
  So that my sight went little in advance;
  But I could hear the blare of a loud horn,

So loud it would have made each thunder faint,
  Which, counter to it following its way,
  Mine eyes directed wholly to one place.

After the dolorous discomfiture
  When Charlemagne the holy emprise lost,
  So terribly Orlando sounded not.

Short while my head turned thitherward I held
  When many lofty towers I seemed to see,
  Whereat I: "Master, say, what town is this?"

And he to me: "Because thou peerest forth
  Athwart the darkness at too great a distance,
  It happens that thou errest in thy fancy.

Well shalt thou see, if thou arrivest there,
  How much the sense deceives itself by distance;
  Therefore a little faster spur thee on."

Then tenderly he took me by the hand,
  And said: "Before we farther have advanced,
  That the reality may seem to thee

Less strange, know that these are not towers, but giants,
  And they are in the well, around the bank,
  From navel downward, one and all of them."

As, when the fog is vanishing away,
  Little by little doth the sight refigure
  Whate'er the mist that crowds the air conceals,

So, piercing through the dense and darksome air,
  More and more near approaching tow'rd the verge,
  My error fled, and fear came over me;

Because as on its circular parapets
  Montereggione crowns itself with towers,
  E'en thus the margin which surrounds the well

With one half of their bodies turreted
  The horrible giants, whom Jove menaces
  E'en now from out the heavens when he thunders.

And I of one already saw the face,
  Shoulders, and breast, and great part of the belly,
  And down along his sides both of the arms.

Certainly Nature, when she left the making
  Of animals like these, did well indeed,
  By taking such executors from Mars;

And if of elephants and whales she doth not
  Repent her, whosoever looketh subtly
  More just and more discreet will hold her for it;

For where the argument of intellect
  Is added unto evil will and power,
  No rampart can the people make against it.

His face appeared to me as long and large
  As is at Rome the pine-cone of Saint Peter's,
  And in proportion were the other bones;

So that the margin, which an apron was
  Down from the middle, showed so much of him
  Above it, that to reach up to his hair

Three Frieslanders in vain had vaunted them;
  For I beheld thirty great palms of him
  Down from the place where man his mantle buckles.

"Raphael mai amech izabi almi,"
  Began to clamour the ferocious mouth,
  To which were not befitting sweeter psalms.

And unto him my Guide: "Soul idiotic,
  Keep to thy horn, and vent thyself with that,
  When wrath or other passion touches thee.

Search round thy neck, and thou wilt find the belt
  Which keeps it fastened, O bewildered soul,
  And see it, where it bars thy mighty breast."

Then said to me: "He doth himself accuse;
  This one is Nimrod, by whose evil thought
  One language in the world is not still used.

Here let us leave him and not speak in vain;
  For even such to him is every language
  As his to others, which to none is known."

Therefore a longer journey did we make,
  Turned to the left, and a crossbow-shot oft
  We found another far more fierce and large.

In binding him, who might the master be
  I cannot say; but he had pinioned close
  Behind the right arm, and in front the other,

With chains, that held him so begirt about
  From the neck down, that on the part uncovered
  It wound itself as far as the fifth gyre.

"This proud one wished to make experiment
  Of his own power against the Supreme Jove,"
  My Leader said, "whence he has such a guerdon.

Ephialtes is his name; he showed great prowess.
  What time the giants terrified the gods;
  The arms he wielded never more he moves."

And I to him: "If possible, I should wish
  That of the measureless Briareus
  These eyes of mine might have experience."

Whence he replied: "Thou shalt behold Antaeus
  Close by here, who can speak and is unbound,
  Who at the bottom of all crime shall place us.

Much farther yon is he whom thou wouldst see,
  And he is bound, and fashioned like to this one,
  Save that he seems in aspect more ferocious."

There never was an earthquake of such might
  That it could shake a tower so violently,
  As Ephialtes suddenly shook himself.

Then was I more afraid of death than ever,
  For nothing more was needful than the fear,
  If I had not beheld the manacles.

Then we proceeded farther in advance,
  And to Antaeus came, who, full five ells
  Without the head, forth issued from the cavern.

"O thou, who in the valley fortunate,
  Which Scipio the heir of glory made,
  When Hannibal turned back with all his hosts,

Once brought'st a thousand lions for thy prey,
  And who, hadst thou been at the mighty war
  Among thy brothers, some it seems still think

The sons of Earth the victory would have gained:
  Place us below, nor be disdainful of it,
  There where the cold doth lock Cocytus up.

Make us not go to Tityus nor Typhoeus;
  This one can give of that which here is longed for;
  Therefore stoop down, and do not curl thy lip.

Still in the world can he restore thy fame;
  Because he lives, and still expects long life,
  If to itself Grace call him not untimely."

So said the Master; and in haste the other
  His hands extended and took up my Guide,--
  Hands whose great pressure Hercules once felt.

Virgilius, when he felt himself embraced,
  Said unto me: "Draw nigh, that I may take thee;"
  Then of himself and me one bundle made.

As seems the Carisenda, to behold
  Beneath the leaning side, when goes a cloud
  Above it so that opposite it hangs;

Such did Antaeus seem to me, who stood
  Watching to see him stoop, and then it was
  I could have wished to go some other way.

But lightly in the abyss, which swallows up
  Judas with Lucifer, he put us down;
  Nor thus bowed downward made he there delay,

But, as a mast does in a ship, uprose.



Inferno: Canto XXXII


If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous,
  As were appropriate to the dismal hole
  Down upon which thrust all the other rocks,

I would press out the juice of my conception
  More fully; but because I have them not,
  Not without fear I bring myself to speak;

For 'tis no enterprise to take in jest,
  To sketch the bottom of all the universe,
  Nor for a tongue that cries Mamma and Babbo.

But may those Ladies help this verse of mine,
  Who helped Amphion in enclosing Thebes,
  That from the fact the word be not diverse.

O rabble ill-begotten above all,
  Who're in the place to speak of which is hard,
  'Twere better ye had here been sheep or goats!

When we were down within the darksome well,
  Beneath the giant's feet, but lower far,
  And I was scanning still the lofty wall,

I heard it said to me: "Look how thou steppest!
  Take heed thou do not trample with thy feet
  The heads of the tired, miserable brothers!"

Whereat I turned me round, and saw before me
  And underfoot a lake, that from the frost
  The semblance had of glass, and not of water.

So thick a veil ne'er made upon its current
  In winter-time Danube in Austria,
  Nor there beneath the frigid sky the Don,

As there was here; so that if Tambernich
  Had fallen upon it, or Pietrapana,
  E'en at the edge 'twould not have given a creak.

And as to croak the frog doth place himself
  With muzzle out of water,--when is dreaming
  Of gleaning oftentimes the peasant-girl,--

Livid, as far down as where shame appears,
  Were the disconsolate shades within the ice,
  Setting their teeth unto the note of storks.

Each one his countenance held downward bent;
  From mouth the cold, from eyes the doleful heart
  Among them witness of itself procures.

When round about me somewhat I had looked,
  I downward turned me, and saw two so close,
  The hair upon their heads together mingled.

"Ye who so strain your breasts together, tell me,"
  I said, "who are you;" and they bent their necks,
  And when to me their faces they had lifted,

Their eyes, which first were only moist within,
  Gushed o'er the eyelids, and the frost congealed
  The tears between, and locked them up again.

Clamp never bound together wood with wood
  So strongly; whereat they, like two he-goats,
  Butted together, so much wrath o'ercame them.

And one, who had by reason of the cold
  Lost both his ears, still with his visage downward,
  Said: "Why dost thou so mirror thyself in us?

If thou desire to know who these two are,
  The valley whence Bisenzio descends
  Belonged to them and to their father Albert.

They from one body came, and all Caina
  Thou shalt search through, and shalt not find a shade
  More worthy to be fixed in gelatine;

Not he in whom were broken breast and shadow
  At one and the same blow by Arthur's hand;
  Focaccia not; not he who me encumbers

So with his head I see no farther forward,
  And bore the name of Sassol Mascheroni;
  Well knowest thou who he was, if thou art Tuscan.

And that thou put me not to further speech,
  Know that I Camicion de' Pazzi was,
  And wait Carlino to exonerate me."

Then I beheld a thousand faces, made
  Purple with cold; whence o'er me comes a shudder,
  And evermore will come, at frozen ponds.

And while we were advancing tow'rds the middle,
  Where everything of weight unites together,
  And I was shivering in the eternal shade,

Whether 'twere will, or destiny, or chance,
  I know not; but in walking 'mong the heads
  I struck my foot hard in the face of one.

Weeping he growled: "Why dost thou trample me?
  Unless thou comest to increase the vengeance
  of Montaperti, why dost thou molest me?"

And I: "My Master, now wait here for me,
  That I through him may issue from a doubt;
  Then thou mayst hurry me, as thou shalt wish."

The Leader stopped; and to that one I said
  Who was blaspheming vehemently still:
  "Who art thou, that thus reprehendest others?"

"Now who art thou, that goest through Antenora
  Smiting," replied he, "other people's cheeks,
  So that, if thou wert living, 'twere too much?"

"Living I am, and dear to thee it may be,"
  Was my response, "if thou demandest fame,
  That 'mid the other notes thy name I place."

And he to me: "For the reverse I long;
  Take thyself hence, and give me no more trouble;
  For ill thou knowest to flatter in this hollow."

Then by the scalp behind I seized upon him,
  And said: "It must needs be thou name thyself,
  Or not a hair remain upon thee here."

Whence he to me: "Though thou strip off my hair,
  I will not tell thee who I am, nor show thee,
  If on my head a thousand times thou fall."

I had his hair in hand already twisted,
  And more than one shock of it had pulled out,
  He barking, with his eyes held firmly down,

When cried another: "What doth ail thee, Bocca?
  Is't not enough to clatter with thy jaws,
  But thou must bark? what devil touches thee?"

"Now," said I, "I care not to have thee speak,
  Accursed traitor; for unto thy shame
  I will report of thee veracious news."

"Begone," replied he, "and tell what thou wilt,
  But be not silent, if thou issue hence,
  Of him who had just now his tongue so prompt;

He weepeth here the silver of the French;
  'I saw,' thus canst thou phrase it, 'him of Duera
  There where the sinners stand out in the cold.'

If thou shouldst questioned be who else was there,
  Thou hast beside thee him of Beccaria,
  Of whom the gorget Florence slit asunder;

Gianni del Soldanier, I think, may be
  Yonder with Ganellon, and Tebaldello
  Who oped Faenza when the people slep."

Already we had gone away from him,
  When I beheld two frozen in one hole,
  So that one head a hood was to the other;

And even as bread through hunger is devoured,
  The uppermost on the other set his teeth,
  There where the brain is to the nape united.

Not in another fashion Tydeus gnawed
  The temples of Menalippus in disdain,
  Than that one did the skull and the other things.

"O thou, who showest by such bestial sign
  Thy hatred against him whom thou art eating,
  Tell me the wherefore," said I, "with this compact,

That if thou rightfully of him complain,
  In knowing who ye are, and his transgression,
  I in the world above repay thee for it,

If that wherewith I speak be not dried up."



Inferno: Canto XXXIII


His mouth uplifted from his grim repast,
  That sinner, wiping it upon the hair
  Of the same head that he behind had wasted.

Then he began: "Thou wilt that I renew
  The desperate grief, which wrings my heart already
  To think of only, ere I speak of it;

But if my words be seed that may bear fruit
  Of infamy to the traitor whom I gnaw,
  Speaking and weeping shalt thou see together.

I know not who thou art, nor by what mode
  Thou hast come down here; but a Florentine
  Thou seemest to me truly, when I hear thee.

Thou hast to know I was Count Ugolino,
  And this one was Ruggieri the Archbishop;
  Now I will tell thee why I am such a neighbour.

That, by effect of his malicious thoughts,
  Trusting in him I was made prisoner,
  And after put to death, I need not say;

 But ne'ertheless what thou canst not have heard,
  That is to say, how cruel was my death,
  Hear shalt thou, and shalt know if he has wronged me.

A narrow perforation in the mew,
  Which bears because of me the title of Famine,
  And in which others still must be locked up,

Had shown me through its opening many moons
  Already, when I dreamed the evil dream
  Which of the future rent for me the veil.

This one appeared to me as lord and master,
  Hunting the wolf and whelps upon the mountain
  For which the Pisans cannot Lucca see.

With sleuth-hounds gaunt, and eager, and well trained,
  Gualandi with Sismondi and Lanfianchi
  He had sent out before him to the front.

After brief course seemed unto me forespent
  The father and the sons, and with sharp tushes
  It seemed to me I saw their flanks ripped open.

When I before the morrow was awake,
  Moaning amid their sleep I heard my sons
  Who with me were, and asking after bread.

Cruel indeed art thou, if yet thou grieve not,
  Thinking of what my heart foreboded me,
  And weep'st thou not, what art thou wont to weep at?

They were awake now, and the hour drew nigh
  At which our food used to be brought to us,
  And through his dream was each one apprehensive;

And I heard locking up the under door
  Of the horrible tower; whereat without a word
  I gazed into the faces of my sons.

I wept not, I within so turned to stone;
  They wept; and darling little Anselm mine
  Said: 'Thou dost gaze so, father, what doth ail thee?'

Still not a tear I shed, nor answer made
  All of that day, nor yet the night thereafter,
  Until another sun rose on the world.

As now a little glimmer made its way
  Into the dolorous prison, and I saw
  Upon four faces my own very aspect,

Both of my hands in agony I bit;
  And, thinking that I did it from desire
  Of eating, on a sudden they uprose,

And said they: 'Father, much less pain 'twill give us
  If thou do eat of us; thyself didst clothe us
  With this poor flesh, and do thou strip it off.'

I calmed me then, not to make them more sad.
  That day we all were silent, and the next.
  Ah! obdurate earth, wherefore didst thou not open?

When we had come unto the fourth day, Gaddo
  Threw himself down outstretched before my feet,
  Saying, 'My father, why dost thou not help me?'

And there he died; and, as thou seest me,
  I saw the three fall, one by one, between
  The fifth day and the sixth; whence I betook me,

Already blind, to groping over each,
  And three days called them after they were dead;
  Then hunger did what sorrow could not do."

When he had said this, with his eyes distorted,
  The wretched skull resumed he with his teeth,
  Which, as a dog's, upon the bone were strong.

Ah! Pisa, thou opprobrium of the people
  Of the fair land there where the 'Si' doth sound,
  Since slow to punish thee thy neighbours are,

Let the Capraia and Gorgona move,
  And make a hedge across the mouth of Arno
  That every person in thee it may drown!

For if Count Ugolino had the fame
  Of having in thy castles thee betrayed,
  Thou shouldst not on such cross have put his sons.

Guiltless of any crime, thou modern Thebes!
  Their youth made Uguccione and Brigata,
  And the other two my song doth name above!

We passed still farther onward, where the ice
  Another people ruggedly enswathes,
  Not downward turned, but all of them reversed.

Weeping itself there does not let them weep,
  And grief that finds a barrier in the eyes
  Turns itself inward to increase the anguish;

Because the earliest tears a cluster form,
  And, in the manner of a crystal visor,
  Fill all the cup beneath the eyebrow full.

And notwithstanding that, as in a callus,
  Because of cold all sensibility
  Its station had abandoned in my face,

Still it appeared to me I felt some wind;
  Whence I: "My Master, who sets this in motion?
  Is not below here every vapour quenched?"

Whence he to me: "Full soon shalt thou be where
  Thine eye shall answer make to thee of this,
  Seeing the cause which raineth down the blast."

And one of the wretches of the frozen crust
  Cried out to us: "O souls so merciless
  That the last post is given unto you,

Lift from mine eyes the rigid veils, that I
  May vent the sorrow which impregns my heart
  A little, e'er the weeping recongeal."

Whence I to him: "If thou wouldst have me help thee
  Say who thou wast; and if I free thee not,
  May I go to the bottom of the ice."

Then he replied: "I am Friar Alberigo;
  He am I of the fruit of the bad garden,
  Who here a date am getting for my fig."

"O," said I to him, "now art thou, too, dead?"
  And he to me: "How may my body fare
  Up in the world, no knowledge I possess.

Such an advantage has this Ptolomaea,
  That oftentimes the soul descendeth here
  Sooner than Atropos in motion sets it.

And, that thou mayest more willingly remove
  From off my countenance these glassy tears,
  Know that as soon as any soul betrays

As I have done, his body by a demon
  Is taken from him, who thereafter rules it,
  Until his time has wholly been revolved.

Itself down rushes into such a cistern;
  And still perchance above appears the body
  Of yonder shade, that winters here behind me.

This thou shouldst know, if thou hast just come down;
  It is Ser Branca d' Oria, and many years
  Have passed away since he was thus locked up."

"I think," said I to him, "thou dost deceive me;
  For Branca d' Oria is not dead as yet,
  And eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and puts on clothes."

"In moat above," said he, "of Malebranche,
  There where is boiling the tenacious pitch,
  As yet had Michel Zanche not arrived,

When this one left a devil in his stead
  In his own body and one near of kin,
  Who made together with him the betrayal.

But hitherward stretch out thy hand forthwith,
  Open mine eyes;"--and open them I did not,
  And to be rude to him was courtesy.

Ah, Genoese! ye men at variance
  With every virtue, full of every vice
  Wherefore are ye not scattered from the world?

For with the vilest spirit of Romagna
  I found of you one such, who for his deeds
  In soul already in Cocytus bathes,

And still above in body seems alive!



Inferno: Canto XXXIV


"'Vexilla Regis prodeunt Inferni'
  Towards us; therefore look in front of thee,"
  My Master said, "if thou discernest him."

As, when there breathes a heavy fog, or when
  Our hemisphere is darkening into night,
  Appears far off a mill the wind is turning,

Methought that such a building then I saw;
  And, for the wind, I drew myself behind
  My Guide, because there was no other shelter.

Now was I, and with fear in verse I put it,
  There where the shades were wholly covered up,
  And glimmered through like unto straws in glass.

Some prone are lying, others stand erect,
  This with the head, and that one with the soles;
  Another, bow-like, face to feet inverts.

When in advance so far we had proceeded,
  That it my Master pleased to show to me
  The creature who once had the beauteous semblance,

He from before me moved and made me stop,
  Saying: "Behold Dis, and behold the place
  Where thou with fortitude must arm thyself."

How frozen I became and powerless then,
  Ask it not, Reader, for I write it not,
  Because all language would be insufficient.

I did not die, and I alive remained not;
  Think for thyself now, hast thou aught of wit,
  What I became, being of both deprived.

The Emperor of the kingdom dolorous
  From his mid-breast forth issued from the ice;
  And better with a giant I compare

Than do the giants with those arms of his;
  Consider now how great must be that whole,
  Which unto such a part conforms itself.

Were he as fair once, as he now is foul,
  And lifted up his brow against his Maker,
  Well may proceed from him all tribulation.

O, what a marvel it appeared to me,
  When I beheld three faces on his head!
  The one in front, and that vermilion was;

Two were the others, that were joined with this
  Above the middle part of either shoulder,
  And they were joined together at the crest;

And the right-hand one seemed 'twixt white and yellow;
  The left was such to look upon as those
  Who come from where the Nile falls valley-ward.

Underneath each came forth two mighty wings,
  Such as befitting were so great a bird;
  Sails of the sea I never saw so large.

 No feathers had they, but as of a bat
  Their fashion was; and he was waving them,
  So that three winds proceeded forth therefrom.

Thereby Cocytus wholly was congealed.
  With six eyes did he weep, and down three chins
  Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel.

At every mouth he with his teeth was crunching
  A sinner, in the manner of a brake,
  So that he three of them tormented thus.

To him in front the biting was as naught
  Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine
  Utterly stripped of all the skin remained.

"That soul up there which has the greatest pain,"
  The Master said, "is Judas Iscariot;
  With head inside, he plies his legs without.

Of the two others, who head downward are,
  The one who hangs from the black jowl is Brutus;
  See how he writhes himself, and speaks no word.

And the other, who so stalwart seems, is Cassius.
  But night is reascending, and 'tis time
  That we depart, for we have seen the whole."

As seemed him good, I clasped him round the neck,
  And he the vantage seized of time and place,
  And when the wings were opened wide apart,

He laid fast hold upon the shaggy sides;
  From fell to fell descended downward then
  Between the thick hair and the frozen crust.

When we were come to where the thigh revolves
  Exactly on the thickness of the haunch,
  The Guide, with labour and with hard-drawn breath,

Turned round his head where he had had his legs,
  And grappled to the hair, as one who mounts,
  So that to Hell I thought we were returning.

"Keep fast thy hold, for by such stairs as these,"
  The Master said, panting as one fatigued,
  "Must we perforce depart from so much evil."

Then through the opening of a rock he issued,
  And down upon the margin seated me;
  Then tow'rds me he outstretched his wary step.

I lifted up mine eyes and thought to see
  Lucifer in the same way I had left him;
  And I beheld him upward hold his legs.

And if I then became disquieted,
  Let stolid people think who do not see
  What the point is beyond which I had passed.

"Rise up," the Master said, "upon thy feet;
  The way is long, and difficult the road,
  And now the sun to middle-tierce returns."

It was not any palace corridor
  There where we were, but dungeon natural,
  With floor uneven and unease of light.

"Ere from the abyss I tear myself away,
  My Master," said I when I had arisen,
  "To draw me from an error speak a little;

Where is the ice? and how is this one fixed
  Thus upside down? and how in such short time
  From eve to morn has the sun made his transit?"

And he to me: "Thou still imaginest
  Thou art beyond the centre, where I grasped
  The hair of the fell worm, who mines the world.

That side thou wast, so long as I descended;
  When round I turned me, thou didst pass the point
  To which things heavy draw from every side,

And now beneath the hemisphere art come
  Opposite that which overhangs the vast
  Dry-land, and 'neath whose cope was put to death

The Man who without sin was born and lived.
  Thou hast thy feet upon the little sphere
  Which makes the other face of the Judecca.

Here it is morn when it is evening there;
  And he who with his hair a stairway made us
  Still fixed remaineth as he was before.

Upon this side he fell down out of heaven;
  And all the land, that whilom here emerged,
  For fear of him made of the sea a veil,

And came to our hemisphere; and peradventure
  To flee from him, what on this side appears
  Left the place vacant here, and back recoiled."

A place there is below, from Beelzebub
  As far receding as the tomb extends,
  Which not by sight is known, but by the sound

Of a small rivulet, that there descendeth
  Through chasm within the stone, which it has gnawed
  With course that winds about and slightly falls.

The Guide and I into that hidden road
  Now entered, to return to the bright world;
  And without care of having any rest

We mounted up, he first and I the second,
  Till I beheld through a round aperture
  Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;

Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.

The Gilgamesh Epic is the most notable literary product of Babylonia as yet discovered in the mounds of Mesopotamia. It recounts the exploits and adventures of a favorite hero, and in its final form covers twelve tablets, each tablet consisting of six columns (three on the obverse and three on the reverse) of about 50 lines for each column, or a total of about 3600 lines. Of this total, however, barely more than one-half has been found among the remains of the great collection of cuneiform tablets gathered by King Ashurbanapal (668–626 B.C.) in his palace at Nineveh, and discovered by Layard in 18541 in the course of his excavations of the mound Kouyunjik (opposite Mosul). The fragments of the epic painfully gathered—chiefly by George Smith—from the circa 30,000 tablets and bits of tablets brought to the British Museum were published in model form by Professor Paul Haupt;2 and that edition still remains the primary source for our study of the Epic.[10]

For the sake of convenience we may call the form of the Epic in the fragments from the library of Ashurbanapal the Assyrian version, though like most of the literary productions in the library it not only reverts to a Babylonian original, but represents a late copy of a much older original. The absence of any reference to Assyria in the fragments recovered justifies us in assuming that the Assyrian version received its present form in Babylonia, perhaps in Erech; though it is of course possible that some of the late features, particularly the elaboration of the teachings of the theologians or schoolmen in the eleventh and twelfth tablets, may have been produced at least in part under Assyrian influence. A definite indication that the Gilgamesh Epic reverts to a period earlier than Hammurabi (or Hammurawi)3 i.e., beyond 2000 B. C., was furnished by the publication of a text clearly belonging to the first Babylonian dynasty (of which Hammurabi was the sixth member) in CT. VI, 5; which text Zimmern4 recognized as a part of the tale of Atra-ḫasis, one of the names given to the survivor of the deluge, recounted on the eleventh tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic.5 This was confirmed by the discovery6 of a [11]fragment of the deluge story dated in the eleventh year of Ammisaduka, i.e., c. 1967 B.C. In this text, likewise, the name of the deluge hero appears as Atra-ḫasis (col. VIII, 4).7 But while these two tablets do not belong to the Gilgamesh Epic and merely introduce an episode which has also been incorporated into the Epic, Dr. Bruno Meissner in 1902 published a tablet, dating, as the writing and the internal evidence showed, from the Hammurabi period, which undoubtedly is a portion of what by way of distinction we may call an old Babylonian version.8 It was picked up by Dr. Meissner at a dealer’s shop in Bagdad and acquired for the Berlin Museum. The tablet consists of four columns (two on the obverse and two on the reverse) and deals with the hero’s wanderings in search of a cure from disease with which he has been smitten after the death of his companion Enkidu. The hero fears that the disease will be fatal and longs to escape death. It corresponds to a portion of Tablet X of the Assyrian version. Unfortunately, only the lower portion of the obverse and the upper of the reverse have been preserved (57 lines in all); and in default of a colophon we do not know the numeration of the tablet in this old Babylonian edition. Its chief value, apart from its furnishing a proof for the existence of the Epic as early as 2000 B. C., lies (a) in the writing Gish instead of Gish-gi(n)-mash in the Assyrian version, for the name of the hero, (b) in the writing En-ki-dũ—abbreviated from dũg—() “Enki is good” for En-ki-dú () in the Assyrian version,9 and (c) in the remarkable address of the maiden Sabitum, dwelling at the seaside, to whom Gilgamesh comes in the course of his wanderings. From the Assyrian version we know that the hero tells the maiden of his grief for his lost companion, and of his longing to escape the dire fate of Enkidu. In the old Babylonian fragment the answer of Sabitum is given in full, and the sad note that it strikes, showing how hopeless it is for man to try to escape death which is in store for all mankind, is as remarkable as is the philosophy of “eat, drink and be merry” which Sabitum imparts. The address indicates how early the tendency arose to attach to ancient tales the current religious teachings.[12]

Such teachings, reminding us of the leading thought in the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes,10 indicate the didactic character given to ancient tales that were of popular origin, but which were modified and elaborated under the influence of the schools which arose in connection with the Babylonian temples. The story itself belongs, therefore, to a still earlier period than the form it received in this old Babylonian version. The existence of this tendency at so early a date comes to us as a genuine surprise, and justifies the assumption that the attachment of a lesson to the deluge story in the Assyrian version, to wit, the limitation in attainment of immortality to those singled out by the gods as exceptions, dates likewise from the old Babylonian period. The same would apply to the twelfth tablet, which is almost entirely didactic, intended to illustrate the impossibility of learning anything of the fate of those who have passed out of this world. It also emphasizes the necessity of contenting oneself with the comfort that the care of the dead, by providing burial and food and drink offerings for them affords, as the only means of ensuring for them rest and freedom from the pangs of hunger and distress. However, it is of course possible that the twelfth tablet, which impresses one as a supplement to the adventures of Gilgamesh, ending with his return to Uruk (i.e., Erech) at the close of the eleventh tablet, may represent a later elaboration of the tendency to connect religious teachings with the exploits of a favorite hero.[13]

 

We now have further evidence both of the extreme antiquity of the literary form of the Gilgamesh Epic and also of the disposition to make the Epic the medium of illustrating aspects of life and the destiny of mankind. The discovery by Dr. Arno Poebel of a Sumerian form of the tale of the descent of Ishtar to the lower world and her release11—apparently a nature myth to illustrate the change of season from summer to winter and back again to spring—enables us to pass beyond the Akkadian (or Semitic) form of tales current in the Euphrates Valley to the Sumerian form. Furthermore, we are indebted to Dr. Langdon for the identification of two Sumerian fragments in the Nippur Collection which deal with the adventures of Gilgamesh, one in Constantinople,12 the other in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum.13 The former, of which only 25 lines are preserved (19 on the obverse and 6 on the reverse), appears to be a description of the weapons of Gilgamesh with which he arms himself for an encounter—presumably the encounter with Ḫumbaba or Ḫuwawa, the ruler of the cedar forest in the mountain.14 The latter deals with the building operations of Gilgamesh in the city of Erech. A text in Zimmern’s Sumerische Kultlieder aus altbabylonischer Zeit (Leipzig, 1913), No. 196, appears likewise to be a fragment of the Sumerian version of the Gilgamesh Epic, bearing on the episode of Gilgamesh’s and Enkidu’s relations to the goddess Ishtar, covered in the sixth and seventh tablets of the Assyrian version.15

Until, however, further fragments shall have turned up, it would be hazardous to institute a comparison between the Sumerian and the Akkadian versions. All that can be said for the present is that there is every reason to believe in the existence of a literary form of the Epic in Sumerian which presumably antedated the Akkadian recension, [14]just as we have a Sumerian form of Ishtar’s descent into the nether world, and Sumerian versions of creation myths, as also of the Deluge tale.16 It does not follow, however, that the Akkadian versions of the Gilgamesh Epic are translations of the Sumerian, any more than that the Akkadian creation myths are translations of a Sumerian original. Indeed, in the case of the creation myths, the striking difference between the Sumerian and Akkadian views of creation17 points to the independent production of creation stories on the part of the Semitic settlers of the Euphrates Valley, though no doubt these were worked out in part under Sumerian literary influences. The same is probably true of Deluge tales, which would be given a distinctly Akkadian coloring in being reproduced and steadily elaborated by the Babylonian literati attached to the temples. The presumption is, therefore, in favor of an independent literary origin for the Semitic versions of the Gilgamesh Epic, though naturally with a duplication of the episodes, or at least of some of them, in the Sumerian narrative. Nor does the existence of a Sumerian form of the Epic necessarily prove that it originated with the Sumerians in their earliest home before they came to the Euphrates Valley. They may have adopted it after their conquest of southern Babylonia from the Semites who, there are now substantial grounds for believing, were the earlier settlers in the Euphrates Valley.18 We must distinguish, therefore, between the earliest literary form, which was undoubtedly Sumerian, and the origin of the episodes embodied in the Epic, including the chief actors, Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu. It will be shown that one of the chief episodes, the encounter of the two heroes with a powerful guardian or ruler of a cedar forest, points to a western region, more specifically to Amurru, as the scene. The names of the two chief actors, moreover, appear to have been “Sumerianized” by an artificial process,19 and if this view turns out to be [15]correct, we would have a further ground for assuming the tale to have originated among the Akkadian settlers and to have been taken over from them by the Sumerians.

 

New light on the earliest Babylonian version of the Epic, as well as on the Assyrian version, has been shed by the recovery of two substantial fragments of the form which the Epic had assumed in Babylonia in the Hammurabi period. The study of this important new material also enables us to advance the interpretation of the Epic and to perfect the analysis into its component parts. In the spring of 1914, the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania acquired by purchase a large tablet, the writing of which as well as the style and the manner of spelling verbal forms and substantives pointed distinctly to the time of the first Babylonian dynasty. The tablet was identified by Dr. Arno Poebel as part of the Gilgamesh Epic; and, as the colophon showed, it formed the second tablet of the series. He copied it with a view to publication, but the outbreak of the war which found him in Germany—his native country—prevented him from carrying out this intention.20 He, however, utilized some of its contents in his discussion of the historical or semi-historical traditions about Gilgamesh, as revealed by the important list of partly mythical and partly historical dynasties, found among the tablets of the Nippur collection, in which Gilgamesh occurs21 as a King of an Erech dynasty, whose father was Â, a priest of Kulab.22

The publication of the tablet was then undertaken by Dr. Stephen Langdon in monograph form under the title, “The Epic of Gilgamish.”23 In a preliminary article on the tablet in the Museum Journal, Vol. VIII, pages 29–38, Dr. Langdon took the tablet to be of the late [16]Persian period (i.e., between the sixth and third century B. C.), but his attention having been called to this error of some 1500 years, he corrected it in his introduction to his edition of the text, though he neglected to change some of his notes in which he still refers to the text as “late.”24 In addition to a copy of the text, accompanied by a good photograph, Dr. Langdon furnished a transliteration and translation with some notes and a brief introduction. The text is unfortunately badly copied, being full of errors; and the translation is likewise very defective. A careful collation with the original tablet was made with the assistance of Dr. Edward Chiera, and as a consequence we are in a position to offer to scholars a correct text. We beg to acknowledge our obligations to Dr. Gordon, the Director of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, for kindly placing the tablet at our disposal. Instead of republishing the text, I content myself with giving a full list of corrections in the appendix to this volume which will enable scholars to control our readings, and which will, I believe, justify the translation in the numerous passages in which it deviates from Dr. Langdon’s rendering. While credit should be given to Dr. Langdon for having made this important tablet accessible, the interests of science demand that attention be called to his failure to grasp the many important data furnished by the tablet, which escaped him because of his erroneous readings and faulty translations.

The tablet, consisting of six columns (three on the obverse and three on the reverse), comprised, according to the colophon, 240 lines25 and formed the second tablet of the series. Of the total, 204 lines are preserved in full or in part, and of the missing thirty-six quite a number can be restored, so that we have a fairly complete tablet. The most serious break occurs at the top of the reverse, where about eight lines are missing. In consequence of this the connection between the end of the obverse (where about five lines are missing) and the beginning of the reverse is obscured, though not to the extent of our entirely losing the thread of the narrative.[17]

About the same time that the University of Pennsylvania Museum purchased this second tablet of the Gilgamesh Series, Yale University obtained a tablet from the same dealer, which turned out to be a continuation of the University of Pennsylvania tablet. That the two belong to the same edition of the Epic is shown by their agreement in the dark brown color of the clay, in the writing as well as in the size of the tablet, though the characters on the Yale tablet are somewhat cramped and in consequence more difficult to read. Both tablets consist of six columns, three on the obverse and three on the reverse. The measurements of both are about the same, the Pennsylvania tablet being estimated at about 7 inches high, as against 72/16 inches for the Yale tablet, while the width of both is 6½ inches. The Yale tablet is, however, more closely written and therefore has a larger number of lines than the Pennsylvania tablet. The colophon to the Yale tablet is unfortunately missing, but from internal evidence it is quite certain that the Yale tablet follows immediately upon the Pennsylvania tablet and, therefore, may be set down as the third of the series. The obverse is very badly preserved, so that only a general view of its contents can be secured. The reverse contains serious gaps in the first and second columns. The scribe evidently had a copy before him which he tried to follow exactly, but finding that he could not get all of the copy before him in the six columns, he continued the last column on the edge. In this way we obtain for the sixth column 64 lines as against 45 for column IV, and 47 for column V, and a total of 292 lines for the six columns. Subtracting the 16 lines written on the edge leaves us 276 lines for our tablet as against 240 for its companion. The width of each column being the same on both tablets, the difference of 36 lines is made up by the closer writing.

Both tablets have peculiar knobs at the sides, the purpose of which is evidently not to facilitate holding the tablet in one’s hand while writing or reading it, as Langdon assumed26 (it would be quite impracticable for this purpose), but simply to protect the tablet in its position on a shelf, where it would naturally be placed on the edge, just as we arrange books on a shelf. Finally be it noted that these two tablets of the old Babylonian version do not belong to the same edition as the Meissner tablet above described, for the latter consists [18]of two columns each on obverse and reverse, as against three columns each in the case of our two tablets. We thus have the interesting proof that as early as 2000 B.C. there were already several editions of the Epic. As to the provenance of our two tablets, there are no definite data, but it is likely that they were found by natives in the mounds at Warka, from which about the year 1913, many tablets came into the hands of dealers. It is likely that where two tablets of a series were found, others of the series were also dug up, and we may expect to find some further portions of this old Babylonian version turning up in the hands of other dealers or in museums.

 

Coming to the contents of the two tablets, the Pennsylvania tablet deals with the meeting of the two heroes, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, their conflict, followed by their reconciliation, while the Yale tablet in continuation takes up the preparations for the encounter of the two heroes with the guardian of the cedar forest, Ḫumbaba—but probably pronounced Ḫubaba27—or, as the name appears in the old Babylonian version, Ḫuwawa. The two tablets correspond, therefore, to portions of Tablets I to V of the Assyrian version;28 but, as will be shown in detail further on, the number of completely parallel passages is not large, and the Assyrian version shows an independence of the old Babylonian version that is larger than we had reason to expect. In general, it may be said that the Assyrian version is more elaborate, which points to its having received its present form at a considerably later period than the old Babylonian version.29 On the other hand, we already find in the Babylonian version the tendency towards repetition, which is characteristic of Babylonian-Assyrian tales in general. Through the two Babylonian tablets we are enabled to fill out certain details [19]of the two episodes with which they deal: (1) the meeting of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and (2) the encounter with Ḫuwawa; while their greatest value consists in the light that they throw on the gradual growth of the Epic until it reached its definite form in the text represented by the fragments in Ashurbanapal’s Library. Let us now take up the detailed analysis, first of the Pennsylvania tablet and then of the Yale tablet. The Pennsylvania tablet begins with two dreams recounted by Gilgamesh to his mother, which the latter interprets as presaging the coming of Enkidu to Erech. In the one, something like a heavy meteor falls from heaven upon Gilgamesh and almost crushes him. With the help of the heroes of Erech, Gilgamesh carries the heavy burden to his mother Ninsun. The burden, his mother explains, symbolizes some one who, like Gilgamesh, is born in the mountains, to whom all will pay homage and of whom Gilgamesh will become enamoured with a love as strong as that for a woman. In a second dream, Gilgamesh sees some one who is like him, who brandishes an axe, and with whom he falls in love. This personage, the mother explains, is again Enkidu.

Langdon is of the opinion that these dreams are recounted to Enkidu by a woman with whom Enkidu cohabits for six days and seven nights and who weans Enkidu from association with animals. This, however, cannot be correct. The scene between Enkidu and the woman must have been recounted in detail in the first tablet, as in the Assyrian version,30 whereas here in the second tablet we have the continuation of the tale with Gilgamesh recounting his dreams directly to his mother. The story then continues with the description of the coming of Enkidu, conducted by the woman to the outskirts of Erech, where food is given him. The main feature of the incident is the conversion of Enkidu to civilized life. Enkidu, who hitherto had gone about naked, is clothed by the woman. Instead of sucking milk and drinking from a trough like an animal, food and strong drink are placed before him, and he is taught how to eat and drink in human fashion. In human fashion he also becomes drunk, and his “spree” is naïvely described: “His heart became glad and his face shone.”31 [20]Like an animal, Enkidu’s body had hitherto been covered with hair, which is now shaved off. He is anointed with oil, and clothed “like a man.” Enkidu becomes a shepherd, protecting the fold against wild beasts, and his exploit in dispatching lions is briefly told. At this point—the end of column 3 (on the obverse), i.e., line 117, and the beginning of column 4 (on the reverse), i.e., line 131—a gap of 13 lines—the tablet is obscure, but apparently the story of Enkidu’s gradual transformation from savagery to civilized life is continued, with stress upon his introduction to domestic ways with the wife chosen or decreed for him, and with work as part of his fate. All this has no connection with Gilgamesh, and it is evident that the tale of Enkidu was originally an independent tale to illustrate the evolution of man’s career and destiny, how through intercourse with a woman he awakens to the sense of human dignity, how he becomes accustomed to the ways of civilization, how he passes through the pastoral stage to higher walks of life, how the family is instituted, and how men come to be engaged in the labors associated with human activities. In order to connect this tale with the Gilgamesh story, the two heroes are brought together; the woman taking on herself, in addition to the rôle of civilizer, that of the medium through which Enkidu is brought to Gilgamesh. The woman leads Enkidu from the outskirts of Erech into the city itself, where the people on seeing him remark upon his likeness to Gilgamesh. He is the very counterpart of the latter, though somewhat smaller in stature. There follows the encounter between the two heroes in the streets of Erech, where they engage in a fierce combat. Gilgamesh is overcome by Enkidu and is enraged at being thrown to the ground. The tablet closes with the endeavor of Enkidu to pacify Gilgamesh. Enkidu declares that the mother of Gilgamesh has exalted her son above the ordinary mortal, and that Enlil himself has singled him out for royal prerogatives.

After this, we may assume, the two heroes become friends and together proceed to carry out certain exploits, the first of which is an attack upon the mighty guardian of the cedar forest. This is the main episode in the Yale tablet, which, therefore, forms the third tablet of the old Babylonian version.

In the first column of the obverse of the Yale tablet, which is badly preserved, it would appear that the elders of Erech (or perhaps the people) are endeavoring to dissuade Gilgamesh from making the [21]attempt to penetrate to the abode of Ḫuwawa. If this is correct, then the close of the first column may represent a conversation between these elders and the woman who accompanies Enkidu. It would be the elders who are represented as “reporting the speech to the woman,” which is presumably the determination of Gilgamesh to fight Ḫuwawa. The elders apparently desire Enkidu to accompany Gilgamesh in this perilous adventure, and with this in view appeal to the woman. In the second column after an obscure reference to the mother of Gilgamesh—perhaps appealing to the sun-god—we find Gilgamesh and Enkidu again face to face. From the reference to Enkidu’s eyes “filled with tears,” we may conclude that he is moved to pity at the thought of what will happen to Gilgamesh if he insists upon carrying out his purpose. Enkidu, also, tries to dissuade Gilgamesh. This appears to be the main purport of the dialogue between the two, which begins about the middle of the second column and extends to the end of the third column. Enkidu pleads that even his strength is insufficient,

Gilgamesh apparently asks for a description of the terrible tyrant who thus arouses the fear of Enkidu, and in reply Enkidu tells him how at one time, when he was roaming about with the cattle, he penetrated into the forest and heard the roar of Ḫuwawa which was like that of a deluge. The mouth of the tyrant emitted fire, and his breath was death. It is clear, as Professor Haupt has suggested,32 that Enkidu furnishes the description of a volcano in eruption, with its mighty roar, spitting forth fire and belching out a suffocating smoke. Gilgamesh is, however, undaunted and urges Enkidu to accompany him in the adventure.

“I will go down to the forest,” says Gilgamesh, if the conjectural restoration of the line in question (l. 126) is correct. Enkidu replies by again drawing a lurid picture of what will happen “When we go (together) to the forest…….” This speech of Enkidu is continued on the reverse. In reply Gilgamesh emphasizes his reliance upon the good will of Shamash and reproaches Enkidu with cowardice. He declares himself superior to Enkidu’s warning, and in bold terms [22]says that he prefers to perish in the attempt to overcome Ḫuwawa rather than abandon it.

There follows an interesting description of the forging of the weapons for the two heroes in preparation for the encounter.33 The elders of Erech when they see these preparations are stricken with fear. They learn of Ḫuwawa’s threat to annihilate Gilgamesh if he dares to enter the cedar forest, and once more try to dissuade Gilgamesh from the undertaking.

They try to frighten Gilgamesh by repeating the description of the terrible Ḫuwawa. Gilgamesh is still undaunted and prays to his patron deity Shamash, who apparently accords him a favorable “oracle” (têrtu). The two heroes arm themselves for the fray, and the elders of Erech, now reconciled to the perilous undertaking, counsel Gilgamesh to take provision along for the undertaking. They urge Gilgamesh to allow Enkidu to take the lead, for

The elders dismiss Gilgamesh with fervent wishes that Enkidu may track out the “closed path” for Gilgamesh, and commit him to the care of Lugalbanda—here perhaps an epithet of Shamash. They advise Gilgamesh to perform certain rites, to wash his feet in the stream of Ḫuwawa and to pour out a libation of water to Shamash. Enkidu follows in a speech likewise intended to encourage the hero; and with the actual beginning of the expedition against Ḫuwawa the tablet ends. The encounter itself, with the triumph of the two heroes, must have been described in the fourth tablet.[23]

 

Now before taking up the significance of the additions to our knowledge of the Epic gained through these two tablets, it will be well to discuss the forms in which the names of the two heroes and of the ruler of the cedar forest occur in our tablets.

As in the Meissner fragment, the chief hero is invariably designated as ^dGish in both the Pennsylvania and Yale tablets; and we may therefore conclude that this was the common form in the Hammurabi period, as against the writing ^dGish-gì(n)-mash34 in the Assyrian version. Similarly, as in the Meissner fragment, the second hero’s name is always written En-ki-dũ35 (abbreviated from dúg) as against En-ki-dú in the Assyrian version. Finally, we encounter in the Yale tablet for the first time the writing Ḫu-wa-wa as the name of the guardian of the cedar forest, as against Ḫum-ba-ba in the Assyrian version, though in the latter case, as we may now conclude from the Yale tablet, the name should rather be read Ḫu-ba-ba.36 The variation in the writing of the latter name is interesting as pointing to the aspirate pronunciation of the labial in both instances. The name would thus present a complete parallel to the Hebrew name Ḫowawa (or Ḫobab) who appears as the brother-in-law of Moses in the P document, Numbers 10, 29.37 Since the name also occurs, written precisely as in the Yale tablet, among the “Amoritic” names in the important lists published by Dr. Chiera,38 there can be no doubt that [24]Ḫuwawa or Ḫubaba is a West Semitic name. This important fact adds to the probability that the “cedar forest” in which Ḫuwawa dwells is none other than the Lebanon district, famed since early antiquity for its cedars. This explanation of the name Ḫuwawa disposes of suppositions hitherto brought forward for an Elamitic origin. Gressmann39 still favors such an origin, though realizing that the description of the cedar forest points to the Amanus or Lebanon range. In further confirmation of the West Semitic origin of the name, we have in Lucian, De Dea Syria, § 19, the name Kombabos40 (the guardian of Stratonika), which forms a perfect parallel to Ḫu(m)baba. Of the important bearings of this western character of the name Ḫuwawa on the interpretation and origin of the Gilgamesh Epic, suggesting that the episode of the encounter between the tyrant and the two heroes rests upon a tradition of an expedition against the West or Amurru land, we shall have more to say further on.

The variation in the writing of the name Enkidu is likewise interesting. It is evident that the form in the old Babylonian version with the sign dũ (i.e., dúg) is the original, for it furnishes us with a suitable etymology “Enki is good.” The writing with dúg, pronounced dū, also shows that the sign dú as the third element in the form which the name has in the Assyrian version is to be read dú, and that former readings like Ea-bani must be definitely abandoned.41 The form with dú is clearly a phonetic writing of the Sumerian name, the sign dú being chosen to indicate the pronunciation (not the ideograph) of the third element dúg. This is confirmed by the writing En-gi-dú in the syllabary CT XVIII, 30, 10. The phonetic writing is, therefore, a warning against any endeavor to read the name by an Akkadian transliteration of the signs. This would not of itself prove that Enkidu is of Sumerian origin, for it might well be that the writing En-ki-dú is an endeavor to give a Sumerian aspect to a name that may have been foreign. The element dúg corresponds to the Semitic ṭâbu, “good,” and En-ki being originally a designation of a deity as the “lord of the land,” which would be the Sumerian [25]manner of indicating a Semitic Baal, it is not at all impossible that En-ki-dúg may be the “Sumerianized” form of a Semitic בַּעל טזֹב “Baal is good.” It will be recalled that in the third column of the Yale tablet, Enkidu speaks of himself in his earlier period while still living with cattle, as wandering into the cedar forest of Ḫuwawa, while in another passage (ll. 252–253) he is described as “acquainted with the way … to the entrance of the forest.” This would clearly point to the West as the original home of Enkidu. We are thus led once more to Amurru—taken as a general designation of the West—as playing an important role in the Gilgamesh Epic.42 If Gilgamesh’s expedition against Ḫuwawa of the Lebanon district recalls a Babylonian campaign against Amurru, Enkidu’s coming from his home, where, as we read repeatedly in the Assyrian version,

may rest on a tradition of an Amorite invasion of Babylonia. The fight between Gilgamesh and Enkidu would fit in with this tradition, while the subsequent reconciliation would be the form in which the tradition would represent the enforced union between the invaders and the older settlers.

Leaving this aside for the present, let us proceed to a consideration of the relationship of the form ^dGish, for the chief personage in the Epic in the old Babylonian version, to ^dGish-gi(n)-mash in the Assyrian version. Of the meaning of Gish there is fortunately no doubt. It is clearly the equivalent to the Akkadian zikaru, “man” (Brünnow No. 5707), or possibly rabû, “great” (Brünnow No. 5704). Among various equivalents, the preference is to be given to itlu, “hero.” The determinative for deity stamps the person so designated as deified, or as in part divine, and this is in accord with the express statement in the Assyrian version of the Gilgamesh Epic which describes the hero as

[26]

Gish is, therefore, the hero-god par excellence; and this shows that we are not dealing with a genuine proper name, but rather with a descriptive attribute. Proper names are not formed in this way, either in Sumerian or Akkadian. Now what relation does this form Gish bear to

 

 

as the name of the hero is invariably written in the Assyrian version, the form which was at first read ^dIz-tu-bar or ^dGish-du-bar by scholars, until Pinches found in a neo-Babylonian syllabary45 the equation of it with Gi-il-ga-mesh? Pinches’ discovery pointed conclusively to the popular pronunciation of the hero’s name as Gilgamesh; and since Aelian (De natura Animalium XII, 2) mentions a Babylonian personage Gilgamos (though what he tells us of Gilgamos does not appear in our Epic, but seems to apply to Etana, another figure of Babylonian mythology), there seemed to be no further reason to question that the problem had been solved. Besides, in a later Syriac list of Babylonian kings found in the Scholia of Theodor bar Koni, the name גלמגום with a variant גמיגמוס occurs,46 and it is evident that we have here again the Gi-il-ga-mesh, discovered by Pinches. The existence of an old Babylonian hero Gilgamesh who was likewise a king is thus established, as well as his identification with

 

 

It is evident that we cannot read this name as Iz-tu-bar or Gish-du-bar, but that we must read the first sign as Gish and the third as Mash, while for the second we must assume a reading Gìn or Gi. This would give us Gish-gì(n)-mash which is clearly again (like En-ki-dú) not an etymological writing but a phonetic one, intended to convey an approach to the popular pronunciation. Gi-il-ga-mesh might well be merely a variant for Gish-ga-mesh, or vice versa, and this would come close to Gish-gi-mash. Now, when we have a name the pronunciation of which is not definite but approximate, and which is written in various ways, the probabilities are that the name is foreign. A foreign name might naturally be spelled in various ways. The [27]Epic in the Assyrian version clearly depicts ^dGish-gì(n)-mash as a conqueror of Erech, who forces the people into subjection, and whose autocratic rule leads the people of Erech to implore the goddess Aruru to create a rival to him who may withstand him. In response to this appeal ^dEnkidu is formed out of dust by Aruru and eventually brought to Erech.47 Gish-gì(n)-mash or Gilgamesh is therefore in all probability a foreigner; and the simplest solution suggested by the existence of the two forms (1) Gish in the old Babylonian version and (2) Gish-gì(n)-mash in the Assyrian version, is to regard the former as an abbreviation, which seemed appropriate, because the short name conveyed the idea of the “hero” par excellence. If Gish-gì(n)-mash is a foreign name, one would think in the first instance of Sumerian; but here we encounter a difficulty in the circumstance that outside of the Epic this conqueror and ruler of Erech appears in quite a different form, namely, as ^dGish-bil-ga-mesh, with ^dGish-gibil(or bìl)-ga-mesh and ^dGish-bil-ge-mesh as variants.48 In the remarkable list of partly mythological and partly historical dynasties, published by Poebel,49 the fifth member of the first dynasty of Erech appears as ^dGish-bil-ga-mesh; and similarly in an inscription of the days of Sin-gamil, ^dGish-bil-ga-mesh is mentioned as the builder of the wall of Erech.50 Moreover, in the several fragments of the Sumerian version of the Epic we have invariably the form ^dGish-bil-ga-mesh. It is evident, therefore, that this is the genuine form of the name in Sumerian and presumably, therefore, the oldest form. By way of further confirmation we have in the syllabary above referred to, CT, XVIII, 30, 6–8, three designations of our hero, viz:

• ^dGish-gibil(or bíl)-ga-mesh
• muḳ-tab-lu (“warrior”)
• a-lik pa-na (“leader”)

 

All three designations are set down as the equivalent of the Sumerian Esigga imin i.e., “the seven-fold hero.”[28]

Of the same general character is the equation in another syllabary:51

Furthermore, the name occurs frequently in “Temple” documents of the Ur dynasty in the form ^dGish-bil-ga-mesh52 with ^dGish-bil-gi(n)-mesh as a variant.53 In a list of deities (CT XXV, 28, K 7659) we likewise encounter ^dGish-gibil(or bíl)-ga-mesh, and lastly in a syllabary we have the equation54

The variant Gish-gibil for Gish-bil may be disposed of readily, in view of the frequent confusion or interchange of the two signs Bil (Brünnow No. 4566) and Gibil or Bíl (Brünnow No. 4642) which has also the value Gi (Brünnow 4641), so that we might also read Gish-gi-ga-mesh. Both signs convey the idea of “fire,” “renew,” etc.; both revert to the picture of flames of fire, in the one case with a bowl (or some such obiect) above it, in the other the flames issuing apparently from a torch.55 The meaning of the name is not affected whether we read ^dGish-bil-ga-mesh or ^dGish-gibil(or bíl)-ga-mesh, for the middle element in the latter case being identical with the fire-god, written ^dBil-gi and to be pronounced in the inverted form as Gibil with -ga (or ge) as the phonetic complement; it is equivalent, therefore, to the writing bil-ga in the former case. Now Gish-gibil or Gish-bíl conveys the idea of abu, “father” (Brünnow No. 5713), just as Bil (Brünnow No. 4579) has this meaning, while Pa-gibil-(ga) or Pa-bíl-ga is abu abi, “grandfather.”56 This meaning may be derived from Gibil, as also from Bíl = išatu, “fire,” then eššu, “new,” then abu, “father,” as the renewer or creator. Gish with Bíl or Gibil would, therefore, be “the father-man” or “the father-hero,” [29]i.e., again the hero par excellence, the original hero, just as in Hebrew and Arabic ab is used in this way.57 The syllable ga being a phonetic complement, the element mesh is to be taken by itself and to be explained, as Poebel suggested, as “hero” (itlu. Brünnow No. 5967).

We would thus obtain an entirely artificial combination, “man (or hero), father, hero,” which would simply convey in an emphatic manner the idea of the Ur-held, the original hero, the father of heroes as it were—practically the same idea, therefore, as the one conveyed by Gish alone, as the hero par excellence. Our investigation thus leads us to a substantial identity between Gish and the longer form Gish-bil(or bíl)-ga-mesh, and the former might, therefore, well be used as an abbreviation of the latter. Both the shorter and the longer forms are descriptive epithets based on naive folk etymology, rather than personal names, just as in the designation of our hero as muḳtablu, the “fighter,” or as âlik pâna, “the leader,” or as Esigga imin, “the seven-fold hero,” or Esigga tuk, “the one who is a hero,” are descriptive epithets, and as Atra-ḫasis, “the very wise one,” is such an epithet for the hero of the deluge story. The case is different with Gi-il-ga-mesh, or Gish-gì(n)-mash, which represent the popular and actual pronunciation of the name, or at least the approach to such pronunciation. Such forms, stripped as they are of all artificiality, impress one as genuine names. The conclusion to which we are thus led is that Gish-bil(or bíl)-ga-mesh is a play upon the genuine name, to convey to those to whom the real name, as that of a foreigner, would suggest no meaning an interpretation fitting in with his character. In other words, Gish-bil-ga-mesh is a “Sumerianized” form of the name, introduced into the Sumerian version of the tale which became a folk-possession in the Euphrates Valley. Such plays upon names to suggest the character of an individual or some incident are familiar to us from the narratives in Genesis.58 They do not constitute genuine etymologies and are rarely of use in leading to a correct etymology. Reuben, e.g., certainly does not mean “Yahweh has seen my affliction,” which the mother is supposed to have exclaimed at [30]the birth (Genesis 29, 32), with a play upon ben and be’onyi, any more than Judah means “I praise Yahweh” (v. 35), though it does contain the divine name (Y^ehô) as an element. The play on the name may be close or remote, as long as it fulfills its function of suggesting an etymology that is complimentary or appropriate.

In this way, an artificial division and at the same time a distortion of a foreign name like Gilgamesh into several elements, Gish-bil-ga-mesh, is no more violent than, for example, the explanation of Issachar or rather Issaschar as “God has given my hire” (Genesis 30, 18) with a play upon the element s^echar, and as though the name were to be divided into Yah (“God”) and s^echar (“hire”); or the popular name of Alexander among the Arabs as Zu’l Karnaini, “the possessor of the two horns.” with a suggestion of his conquest of two hemispheres, or what not.59 The element Gil in Gilgamesh would be regarded as a contraction of Gish-bil or gi-bil, in order to furnish the meaning “father-hero,” or Gil might be looked upon as a variant for Gish, which would give us the “phonetic” form in the Assyrian version ^dGish-gi-mash,60 as well as such a variant writing ^dGish-gi-mas-(si). Now a name like Gilgamesh, upon which we may definitely settle as coming closest to the genuine form, certainly impresses one as foreign, i.e., it is neither Sumerian nor Akkadian; and we have already suggested that the circumstance that the hero of the Epic is portrayed as a conqueror of Erech, and a rather ruthless one at that, points to a tradition of an invasion of the Euphrates Valley as the background for the episode in the first tablet of the series. Now it is significant that many of the names in the “mythical” dynasties, as they appear in Poebel’s list,61 are likewise foreign, such as Mes-ki-in-ga-še-ir, son of the god Shamash (and the founder of the “mythical” dynasty of Erech of which ^dGish-bil-ga-mesh is the fifth member),62 and En-me-ir-kár his son. In a still earlier “mythical” dynasty, we encounter names like Ga-lu-mu-um, Zu-ga-gi-ib, Ar-pi, [31]E-ta-na,63 which are distinctly foreign, while such names as En-me(n)-nun-na and Bar-sal-nun-na strike one again as “Sumerianized” names rather than as genuine Sumerian formations.64

Some of these names, as Galumum, Arpi and Etana, are so Amoritic in appearance, that one may hazard the conjecture of their western origin. May Gilgamesh likewise belong to the Amurru65 region, or does he represent a foreigner from the East in contrast to Enkidu, whose name, we have seen, may have been Baal-Ṭôb in the West, with which region he is according to the Epic so familiar? It must be confessed that the second element ga-mesh would fit in well with a Semitic origin for the name, for the element impresses one as the participial form of a Semitic stem g-m-š, just as in the second element of Meskin-gašer we have such a form. Gil might then be the name of a West-Semitic deity. Such conjectures, however, can for the present not be substantiated, and we must content ourselves with the conclusion that Gilgamesh as the real name of the hero, or at least the form which comes closest to the real name, points to a foreign origin for the hero, and that such forms as ^dGish-bil-ga-mesh and ^dGish-bíl-gi-mesh and other variants are “Sumerianized” forms for which an artificial etymology was brought forward to convey the [32]idea of the “original hero” or the hero par excellence. By means of this “play” on the name, which reverts to the compilers of the Sumerian version of the Epic, Gilgamesh was converted into a Sumerian figure, just as the name Enkidu may have been introduced as a Sumerian translation of his Amoritic name. ^dGish at all events is an abbreviated form of the “Sumerianized” name, introduced by the compilers of the earliest Akkadian version, which was produced naturally under the influence of the Sumerian version. Later, as the Epic continued to grow, a phonetic writing was introduced, ^dGish-gi-mash, which is in a measure a compromise between the genuine name and the “Sumerianized” form, but at the same time an approach to the real pronunciation.

 

Next to the new light thrown upon the names and original character of the two main figures of the Epic, one of the chief points of interest in the Pennsylvania fragment is the proof that it furnishes for a striking resemblance of the two heroes, Gish and Enkidu, to one another. In interpreting the dream of Gish, his mother. Ninsun, lays stress upon the fact that the dream portends the coming of someone who is like Gish, “born in the field and reared in the mountain” (lines 18–19). Both, therefore, are shown by this description to have come to Babylonia from a mountainous region, i.e., they are foreigners; and in the case of Enkidu we have seen that the mountain in all probability refers to a region in the West, while the same may also be the case with Gish. The resemblance of the two heroes to one another extends to their personal appearance. When Enkidu appears on the streets of Erech, the people are struck by this resemblance. They remark that he is “like Gish,” though “shorter in stature” (lines 179–180). Enkidu is described as a rival or counterpart.66

This relationship between the two is suggested also by the Assyrian version. In the creation of Enkidu by Aruru, the people urge the goddess to create the “counterpart” (zikru) of Gilgamesh, someone who will be like him (ma-ši-il) (Tablet I, 2, 31). Enkidu not only comes from the mountain,67 but the mountain is specifically designated [33]as his birth-place (I, 4, 2), precisely as in the Pennsylvania tablet, while in another passage he is also described, as in our tablet, as “born in the field.”68 Still more significant is the designation of Gilgamesh as the talimu, “younger brother,” of Enkidu.69 In accord with this, we find Gilgamesh in his lament over Enkidu describing him as a “younger brother” (ku-ta-ni);70 and again in the last tablet of the Epic, Gilgamesh is referred to as the “brother” of Enkidu.71 This close relationship reverts to the Sumerian version, for the Constantinople fragment (Langdon, above, p. 13) begins with the designation of Gish-bil-ga-mesh as “his brother.” By “his” no doubt Enkidu is meant. Likewise in the Sumerian text published by Zimmern (above, p. 13) Gilgamesh appears as the brother of Enkidu (rev. 1, 17).

Turning to the numerous representations of Gilgamesh and Enkidu on Seal Cylinders,72 we find this resemblance of the two heroes to each other strikingly confirmed. Both are represented as bearded, with the strands arranged in the same fashion. The face in both cases is broad, with curls protruding at the side of the head, though at times these curls are lacking in the case of Enkidu. What is particularly striking is to find Gilgamesh generally a little taller than Enkidu, thus bearing out the statement in the Pennsylvania tablet that Enkidu is “shorter in stature.” There are, to be sure, also some distinguishing marks between the two. Thus Enkidu is generally represented with animal hoofs, but not always.73 Enkidu is commonly portrayed with the horns of a bison, but again this sign is wanting in quite a number of instances.74 The hoofs and the horns mark the period when Enkidu lived with animals and much like an [34]animal. Most remarkable, however, of all are cylinders on which we find the two heroes almost exactly alike as, for example, Ward No. 199 where two figures, the one a duplicate of the other (except that one is just a shade taller), are in conflict with each other. Dr. Ward was puzzled by this representation and sets it down as a “fantastic” scene in which “each Gilgamesh is stabbing the other.” In the light of the Pennsylvania tablet, this scene is clearly the conflict between the two heroes described in column 6, preliminary to their forming a friendship. Even in the realm of myth the human experience holds good that there is nothing like a good fight as a basis for a subsequent alliance. The fragment describes this conflict as a furious one in which Gilgamesh is worsted, and his wounded pride assuaged by the generous victor, who comforts his vanquished enemy by the assurance that he was destined for something higher than to be a mere “Hercules.” He was singled out for the exercise of royal authority. True to the description of the two heroes in the Pennsylvania tablet as alike, one the counterpart of the other, the seal cylinder portrays them almost exactly alike, as alike as two brothers could possibly be; with just enough distinction to make it clear on close inspection that two figures are intended and not one repeated for the sake of symmetry. There are slight variations in the manner in which the hair is worn, and slightly varying expressions of the face, just enough to make it evident that the one is intended for Gilgamesh and the other for Enkidu. When, therefore, in another specimen, No. 173, we find a Gilgamesh holding his counterpart by the legs, it is merely another aspect of the fight between the two heroes, one of whom is intended to represent Enkidu, and not, as Dr. Ward supposed, a grotesque repetition of Gilgamesh.75

The description of Enkidu in the Pennsylvania tablet as a parallel figure to Gilgamesh leads us to a consideration of the relationship of the two figures to one another. Many years ago it was pointed out that the Gilgamesh Epic was a composite tale in which various stories of an independent origin had been combined and brought into more or less artificial connection with the heros eponymos of southern Babylonia.76 We may now go a step further and point out that not [35]only is Enkidu originally an entirely independent figure, having no connection with Gish or Gilgamesh, but that the latter is really depicted in the Epic as the counterpart of Enkidu, a reflection who has been given the traits of extraordinary physical power that belong to Enkidu. This is shown in the first place by the fact that in the encounter it is Enkidu who triumphs over Gilgamesh. The entire analysis of the episode of the meeting between the two heroes as given by Gressmann77 must be revised. It is not Enkidu who is terrified and who is warned against the encounter. It is Gilgamesh who, during the night on his way from the house in which the goddess Ishḫara lies, encounters Enkidu on the highway. Enkidu “blocks the path”78 of Gilgamesh. He prevents Gilgamesh from re-entering the house,79 and the two attack each other “like oxen.”80 They grapple with each other, and Enkidu forces Gilgamesh to the ground. Enkidu is, therefore, the real hero whose traits of physical prowess are afterwards transferred to Gilgamesh.

Similarly in the next episode, the struggle against Ḫuwawa, the Yale tablet makes it clear that in the original form of the tale Enkidu is the real hero. All warn Gish against the undertaking—the elders of Erech, Enkidu, and also the workmen. “Why dost thou desire to do this?”81 they say to him. “Thou art young, and thy heart carries thee away. Thou knowest not what thou proposest to do.”82 This part of the incident is now better known to us through the latest fragment of the Assyrian version discovered and published by King.83 The elders say to Gilgamesh:

Gilgamesh is sufficiently impressed by this warning to invite Enkidu to accompany him on a visit to his mother, Ninsun, for the purpose of receiving her counsel.86

It is only after Enkidu, who himself hesitates and tries to dissuade Gish, decides to accompany the latter that the elders of Erech are reconciled and encourage Gish for the fray. The two in concert proceed against Ḫuwawa. Gilgamesh alone cannot carry out the plan. Now when a tale thus associates two figures in one deed, one of the two has been added to the original tale. In the present case there can be little doubt that Enkidu, without whom Gish cannot proceed, who is specifically described as “acquainted with the way … to the entrance of the forest”87 in which Ḫuwawa dwells is the original vanquisher. Naturally, the Epic aims to conceal this fact as much as possible ad majorem gloriam of Gilgamesh. It tries to put the one who became the favorite hero into the foreground. Therefore, in both the Babylonian and the Assyrian version Enkidu is represented as hesitating, and Gilgamesh as determined to go ahead. Gilgamesh, in fact, accuses Enkidu of cowardice and boldly declares that he will proceed even though failure stare him in the face.88 Traces of the older view, however, in which Gilgamesh is the one for whom one fears the outcome, crop out; as, for example, in the complaint of Gilgamesh’s mother to Shamash that the latter has stirred the heart of her son to take the distant way to Ḫu(m)baba,

Ninsun evidently fears the consequences when her son informs her of his intention and asks her counsel. The answer of Shamash is not preserved, but no doubt it was of a reassuring character, as was the answer of the Sun-god to Gish’s appeal and prayer as set forth in the Yale tablet.90[37]

Again, as a further indication that Enkidu is the real conqueror of Ḫuwawa, we find the coming contest revealed to Enkidu no less than three times in dreams, which Gilgamesh interprets.91 Since the person who dreams is always the one to whom the dream applies, we may see in these dreams a further trace of the primary rôle originally assigned to Enkidu.

Another exploit which, according to the Assyrian version, the two heroes perform in concert is the killing of a bull, sent by Anu at the instance of Ishtar to avenge an insult offered to the goddess by Gilgamesh, who rejects her offer of marriage. In the fragmentary description of the contest with the bull, we find Enkidu “seizing” the monster by “its tail.”92

That Enkidu originally played the part of the slayer is also shown by the statement that it is he who insults Ishtar by throwing a piece of the carcass into the goddess’ face,93 adding also an insulting speech; and this despite the fact that Ishtar in her rage accuses Gilgamesh of killing the bull.94 It is thus evident that the Epic alters the original character of the episodes in order to find a place for Gilgamesh, with the further desire to assign to the latter the chief rôle. Be it noted also that Enkidu, not Gilgamesh, is punished for the insult to Ishtar. Enkidu must therefore in the original form of the episode have been the guilty party, who is stricken with mortal disease as a punishment to which after twelve days he succumbs.95 In view of this, we may supply the name of Enkidu in the little song introduced at the close of the encounter with the bull, and not Gilgamesh as has hitherto been done.

[38]

Finally, the killing of lions is directly ascribed to Enkidu in the Pennsylvania tablet:

whereas Gilgamesh appears to be afraid of lions. On his long search for Utnapishtim he says:

He prays to Sin and Ishtar to protect and save him. When, therefore, in another passage some one celebrates Gilgamesh as the one who overcame the “guardian,” who dispatched Ḫu(m)baba in the cedar forest, who killed lions and overthrew the bull,99 we have the completion of the process which transferred to Gilgamesh exploits and powers which originally belonged to Enkidu, though ordinarily the process stops short at making Gilgamesh a sharer in the exploits; with the natural tendency, to be sure, to enlarge the share of the favorite.

We can now understand why the two heroes are described in the Pennsylvania tablet as alike, as born in the same place, aye, as brothers. Gilgamesh in the Epic is merely a reflex of Enkidu. The latter is the real hero and presumably, therefore, the older figure.100 Gilgamesh resembles Enkidu, because he is originally Enkidu. The “resemblance” motif is merely the manner in which in the course of the partly popular, partly literary transfer, the recollection is preserved that Enkidu is the original, and Gilgamesh the copy.

The artificiality of the process which brings the two heroes together is apparent in the dreams of Gilgamesh which are interpreted by his mother as portending the coming of Enkidu. Not the conflict is foreseen, but the subsequent close association, naïvely described as due to the personal charm which Enkidu exercises, which will lead Gilgamesh to fall in love with the one whom he is to meet. The two will become one, like man and wife.[39]

On the basis of our investigations, we are now in a position to reconstruct in part the cycle of episodes that once formed part of an Enkidu Epic. The fight between Enkidu and Gilgamesh, in which the former is the victor, is typical of the kind of tales told of Enkidu. He is the real prototype of the Greek Hercules. He slays lions, he overcomes a powerful opponent dwelling in the forests of Lebanon, he kills the bull, and he finally succumbs to disease sent as a punishment by an angry goddess. The death of Enkidu naturally formed the close of the Enkidu Epic, which in its original form may, of course, have included other exploits besides those taken over into the Gilgamesh Epic.

 

There is another aspect of the figure of Enkidu which is brought forward in the Pennsylvania tablet more clearly than had hitherto been the case. Many years ago attention was called to certain striking resemblances between Enkidu and the figure of the first man as described in the early chapters of Genesis.101 At that time we had merely the Assyrian version of the Gilgamesh Epic at our disposal, and the main point of contact was the description of Enkidu living with the animals, drinking and feeding like an animal, until a woman is brought to him with whom he engages in sexual intercourse. This suggested that Enkidu was a picture of primeval man, while the woman reminded one of Eve, who when she is brought to Adam becomes his helpmate and inseparable companion. The Biblical tale stands, of course, on a much higher level, and is introduced, as are other traditions and tales of primitive times, in the style of a parable to convey certain religious teachings. For all that, suggestions of earlier conceptions crop out in the picture of Adam surrounded by animals to which he assigns names. Such a phrase as “there was no helpmate corresponding to him” becomes intelligible on the supposition of an existing tradition or belief, that man once lived and, indeed, cohabited with animals. The tales in the early chapters of Genesis must rest on very early popular traditions, which have been cleared of mythological and other objectionable features in order to adapt them to the purpose of the Hebrew compilers, to serve as a medium for illustrating [40]certain religious teachings regarding man’s place in nature and his higher destiny. From the resemblance between Enkidu and Adam it does not, of course, follow that the latter is modelled upon the former, but only that both rest on similar traditions of the condition under which men lived in primeval days prior to the beginnings of human culture.

We may now pass beyond these general indications and recognize in the story of Enkidu as revealed by the Pennsylvania tablet an attempt to trace the evolution of primitive man from low beginnings to the regular and orderly family life associated with advanced culture. The new tablet furnishes a further illustration for the surprisingly early tendency among the Babylonian literati to connect with popular tales teachings of a religious or ethical character. Just as the episode between Gilgamesh and the maiden Sabitum is made the occasion for introducing reflections on the inevitable fate of man to encounter death, so the meeting of Enkidu with the woman becomes the medium of impressing the lesson of human progress through the substitution of bread and wine for milk and water, through the institution of the family, and through work and the laying up of resources. This is the significance of the address to Enkidu in column 4 of the Pennsylvania tablet, even though certain expressions in it are somewhat obscure. The connection of the entire episode of Enkidu and the woman with Gilgamesh is very artificial; and it becomes much more intelligible if we disassociate it from its present entanglement in the Epic. In Gilgamesh’s dream, portending the meeting with Enkidu, nothing is said of the woman who is the companion of the latter. The passage in which Enkidu is created by Aruru to oppose Gilgamesh102 betrays evidence of having been worked over in order to bring Enkidu into association with the longing of the people of Erech to get rid of a tyrannical character. The people in their distress appeal to Aruru to create a rival to Gilgamesh. In response,

Now this “man of Anu” cannot possibly be Enkidu, for the sufficient reason that a few lines further on Enkidu is described as an [41]offspring of Ninib. Moreover, the being created is not a “counterpart” of Gilgamesh, but an animal-man, as the description that follows shows. We must separate lines 30–33 in which the creation of the “Anu man” is described from lines 34–41 in which the creation of Enkidu is narrated. Indeed, these lines strike one as the proper beginning of the original Enkidu story, which would naturally start out with his birth and end with his death. The description is clearly an account of the creation of the first man, in which capacity Enkidu is brought forward.

The description of Enkidu follows, with his body covered with hair like an animal, and eating and drinking with the animals. There follows an episode105 which has no connection whatsoever with the Gilgamesh Epic, but which is clearly intended to illustrate how Enkidu came to abandon the life with the animals. A hunter sees Enkidu and is amazed at the strange sight—an animal and yet a man. Enkidu, as though resenting his condition, becomes enraged at the sight of the hunter, and the latter goes to his father and tells him of the strange creature whom he is unable to catch. In reply, the father advises his son to take a woman with him when next he goes out on his pursuit, and to have the woman remove her dress in the presence of Enkidu, who will then approach her, and after intercourse with her will abandon the animals among whom he lives. By this device he will catch the strange creature. Lines 14–18 of column 3 in the first tablet in which the father of the hunter refers to Gilgamesh must be regarded as a later insertion, a part of the reconstruction of the tale to connect the episode with Gilgamesh. The advice of the father to his son, the hunter, begins, line 19,

[42]

In the reconstructed tale, the father tells his son to go to Gilgamesh to relate to him the strange appearance of the animal-man; but there is clearly no purpose in this, as is shown by the fact that when the hunter does so, Gilgamesh makes precisely the same speech as does the father of the hunter. Lines 40–44 of column 3, in which Gilgamesh is represented as speaking to the hunter form a complete doublet to lines 19–24, beginning

and similarly the description of Enkidu appears twice, lines 2–12 in an address of the hunter to his father, and lines 29–39 in the address of the hunter to Gilgamesh.

The artificiality of the process of introducing Gilgamesh into the episode is revealed by this awkward and entirely meaningless repetition. We may therefore reconstruct the first two scenes in the Enkidu Epic as follows:106

Tablet I, col. 2, 34–35: Creation of Enkidu by Aruru.

36–41: Description of Enkidu’s hairy body and of his life with the animals.

42–50: The hunter sees Enkidu, who shows his anger, as also his woe, at his condition.

3, 1–12: The hunter tells his father of the strange being who pulls up the traps which the hunter digs, and who tears the nets so that the hunter is unable to catch him or the animals.

19–24: The father of the hunter advises his son on his next expedition to take a woman with him in order to lure the strange being from his life with the animals.

Line 25, beginning “On the advice of his father,” must have set forth, in the original form of the episode, how the hunter procured the woman and took her with him to meet Enkidu.

Column 4 gives in detail the meeting between the two, and naïvely describes how the woman exposes her charms to Enkidu, who is captivated by her and stays with her six days and seven nights. The animals see the change in Enkidu and run away from him. [43]He has been transformed through the woman. So far the episode. In the Assyrian version there follows an address of the woman to Enkidu beginning (col. 4, 34):

We find her urging him to go with her to Erech, there to meet Gilgamesh and to enjoy the pleasures of city life with plenty of beautiful maidens. Gilgamesh, she adds, will expect Enkidu, for the coming of the latter to Erech has been foretold in a dream. It is evident that here we have again the later transformation of the Enkidu Epic in order to bring the two heroes together. Will it be considered too bold if we assume that in the original form the address of the woman and the construction of the episode were such as we find preserved in part in columns 2 to 4 of the Pennsylvania tablet, which forms part of the new material that can now be added to the Epic? The address of the woman begins in line 51 of the Pennsylvania tablet:

This corresponds to the line in the Assyrian version (I, 4, 34) as given above, just as lines 52–53:

correspond to I, 4, 35, of the Assyrian version. There follows in both the old Babylonian and the Assyrian version the appeal of the woman to Enkidu, to allow her to lead him to Erech where Gilgamesh dwells (Pennsylvania tablet lines 54–61 = Assyrian version I, 4, 36–39); but in the Pennsylvania tablet we now have a second speech (lines 62–63) beginning like the first one with al-ka, “come:”

Enkidu consents, and now the woman takes off her garments and clothes the naked Enkidu, while putting another garment on herself. She takes hold of his hand and leads him to the sheepfolds (not to Erech!!), where bread and wine are placed before him. Accustomed hitherto to sucking milk with cattle, Enkidu does not know what to do with the strange food until encouraged and instructed by the woman. The entire third column is taken up with this introduction [44]of Enkidu to civilized life in a pastoral community, and the scene ends with Enkidu becoming a guardian of flocks. Now all this has nothing to do with Gilgamesh, and clearly sets forth an entirely different idea from the one embodied in the meeting of the two heroes. In the original Enkidu tale, the animal-man is looked upon as the type of a primitive savage, and the point of the tale is to illustrate in the naïve manner characteristic of folklore the evolution to the higher form of pastoral life. This aspect of the incident is, therefore, to be separated from the other phase which has as its chief motif the bringing of the two heroes together.

We now obtain, thanks to the new section revealed by the Pennsylvania tablet, a further analogy107 with the story of Adam and Eve, but with this striking difference, that whereas in the Babylonian tale the woman is the medium leading man to the higher life, in the Biblical story the woman is the tempter who brings misfortune to man. This contrast is, however, not inherent in the Biblical story, but due to the point of view of the Biblical writer, who is somewhat pessimistically inclined and looks upon primitive life, when man went naked and lived in a garden, eating of fruits that grew of themselves, as the blessed life in contrast to advanced culture which leads to agriculture and necessitates hard work as the means of securing one’s substance. Hence the woman through whom Adam eats of the tree of knowledge and becomes conscious of being naked is looked upon as an evil tempter, entailing the loss of the primeval life of bliss in a gorgeous Paradise. The Babylonian point of view is optimistic. The change to civilized life—involving the wearing of clothes and the eating of food that is cultivated (bread and wine) is looked upon as an advance. Hence the woman is viewed as the medium of raising man to a higher level. The feature common to the Biblical and Babylonian tales is the attachment of a lesson to early folk-tales. The story of Adam and Eve,108 as the story of Enkidu and the woman, is told with a purpose. Starting with early traditions of men’s primitive life on earth, that may have arisen independently, Hebrew and [45]Babylonian writers diverged, each group going its own way, each reflecting the particular point of view from which the evolution of human society was viewed.

Leaving the analogy between the Biblical and Babylonian tales aside, the main point of value for us in the Babylonian story of Enkidu and the woman is the proof furnished by the analysis, made possible through the Pennsylvania tablet, that the tale can be separated from its subsequent connection with Gilgamesh. We can continue this process of separation in the fourth column, where the woman instructs Enkidu in the further duty of living his life with the woman decreed for him, to raise a family, to engage in work, to build cities and to gather resources. All this is looked upon in the same optimistic spirit as marking progress, whereas the Biblical writer, consistent with his point of view, looks upon work as a curse, and makes Cain, the murderer, also the founder of cities. The step to the higher forms of life is not an advance according to the J document. It is interesting to note that even the phrase the “cursed ground” occurs in both the Babylonian and Biblical tales; but whereas in the latter (Gen. 3, 17) it is because of the hard work entailed in raising the products of the earth that the ground is cursed, in the former (lines 62–63) it is the place in which Enkidu lives before he advances to the dignity of human life that is “cursed,” and which he is asked to leave. Adam is expelled from Paradise as a punishment, whereas Enkidu is implored to leave it as a necessary step towards progress to a higher form of existence. The contrast between the Babylonian and the Biblical writer extends to the view taken of viniculture. The Biblical writer (again the J document) looks upon Noah’s drunkenness as a disgrace. Noah loses his sense of shame and uncovers himself (Genesis 9, 21), whereas in the Babylonian description Enkidu’s jolly spirit after he has drunk seven jars of wine meets with approval. The Biblical point of view is that he who drinks wine becomes drunk;109 the Babylonian says, if you drink wine you become happy.110

If the thesis here set forth of the original character and import of the episode of Enkidu with the woman is correct, we may again regard lines 149–153 of the Pennsylvania tablet, in which Gilgamesh is introduced, as a later addition to bring the two heroes into association. [46]The episode in its original form ended with the introduction of Enkidu first to pastoral life, and then to the still higher city life with regulated forms of social existence.

Now, to be sure, this Enkidu has little in common with the Enkidu who is described as a powerful warrior, a Hercules, who kills lions, overcomes the giant Ḫuwawa, and dispatches a great bull, but it is the nature of folklore everywhere to attach to traditions about a favorite hero all kinds of tales with which originally he had nothing to do. Enkidu, as such a favorite, is viewed also as the type of primitive man,111 and so there arose gradually an Epic which began with his birth, pictured him as half-animal half-man, told how he emerged from this state, how he became civilized, was clothed, learned to eat food and drink wine, how he shaved off the hair with which his body was covered,112 anointed himself—in short,

Thereupon he is taught his duties as a husband, is introduced to the work of building, and to laying aside supplies, and the like. The fully-developed and full-fledged hero then engages in various exploits, of which some are now embodied in the Gilgamesh Epic. Who this Enkidu was, we are not in a position to determine, but the suggestion has been thrown out above that he is a personage foreign to Babylonia, that his home appears to be in the undefined Amurru district, and that he conquers that district. The original tale of Enkidu, if this view be correct, must therefore have been carried to the Euphrates Valley, at a very remote period, with one of the migratory waves that brought a western people as invaders into Babylonia. Here the tale was combined with stories current of another hero, Gilgamesh—perhaps also of Western origin—whose conquest of Erech likewise represents an invasion of Babylonia. The center of the Gilgamesh tale was Erech, and in the process of combining the stories of Enkidu and Gilgamesh, Enkidu is brought to Erech and the two perform exploits [47]in common. In such a combination, the aim would be to utilize all the incidents of both tales. The woman who accompanies Enkidu, therefore, becomes the medium of bringing the two heroes together. The story of the evolution of primitive man to civilized life is transformed into the tale of Enkidu’s removal to Erech, and elaborated with all kinds of details, among which we have, as perhaps embodying a genuine historical tradition, the encounter of the two heroes.

Before passing on, we have merely to note the very large part taken in both the old Babylonian and the Assyrian version by the struggle against Ḫuwawa. The entire Yale tablet—forming, as we have seen, the third of the series—is taken up with the preparation for the struggle, and with the repeated warnings given to Gilgamesh against the dangerous undertaking. The fourth tablet must have recounted the struggle itself, and it is not improbable that this episode extended into the fifth tablet, since in the Assyrian version this is the case. The elaboration of the story is in itself an argument in favor of assuming some historical background for it—the recollection of the conquest of Amurru by some powerful warrior; and we have seen that this conquest must be ascribed to Enkidu and not to Gilgamesh.

 

If, now, Enkidu is not only the older figure but the one who is the real hero of the most notable episode in the Gilgamesh Epic; if, furthermore, Enkidu is the Hercules who kills lions and dispatches the bull sent by an enraged goddess, what becomes of Gilgamesh? What is left for him?

In the first place, he is definitely the conqueror of Erech. He builds the wall of Erech,114 and we may assume that the designation of the city as Uruk supûri, “the walled Erech,”115 rests upon this tradition. He is also associated with the great temple Eanna, “the heavenly house,” in Erech. To Gilgamesh belongs also the unenviable tradition of having exercised his rule in Erech so harshly that the people are impelled to implore Aruru to create a rival who may rid [48]the district of the cruel tyrant, who is described as snatching sons and daughters from their families, and in other ways terrifying the population—an early example of “Schrecklichkeit.” Tablets II to V inclusive of the Assyrian version being taken up with the Ḫuwawa episode, modified with a view of bringing the two heroes together, we come at once to the sixth tablet, which tells the story of how the goddess Ishtar wooed Gilgamesh, and of the latter’s rejection of her advances. This tale is distinctly a nature myth. The attempt of Gressmann116 to find some historical background to the episode is a failure. The goddess Ishtar symbolizes the earth which woos the sun in the spring, but whose love is fatal, for after a few months the sun’s power begins to wane. Gilgamesh, who in incantation hymns is invoked in terms which show that he was conceived as a sun-god,117 recalls to the goddess how she changed her lovers into animals, like Circe of Greek mythology, and brought them to grief. Enraged at Gilgamesh’s insult to her vanity, she flies to her father Anu and cries for revenge. At this point the episode of the creation of the bull is introduced, but if the analysis above given is correct it is Enkidu who is the hero in dispatching the bull, and we must assume that the sickness with which Gilgamesh is smitten is the punishment sent by Anu to avenge the insult to his daughter. This sickness symbolizes the waning strength of the sun after midsummer is past. The sun recedes from the earth, and this was pictured in the myth as the sun-god’s rejection of Ishtar; Gilgamesh’s fear of death marks the approach of the winter season, when the sun appears to have lost its vigor completely and is near to death. The entire episode is, therefore, a nature myth, symbolical of the passing of spring to midsummer and then to the bare season. The myth has been attached to Gilgamesh as a favorite figure, and then woven into a pattern with the episode of Enkidu and the bull. The bull episode can be detached from the nature myth without any loss to the symbolism of the tale of Ishtar and Gilgamesh.

As already suggested, with Enkidu’s death after this conquest of the bull the original Enkidu Epic came to an end. In order to connect Gilgamesh with Enkidu, the former is represented as sharing [49]in the struggle against the bull. Enkidu is punished with death, while Gilgamesh is smitten with disease. Since both shared equally in the guilt, the punishment should have been the same for both. The differentiation may be taken as an indication that Gilgamesh’s disease has nothing to do with the bull episode, but is merely part of the nature myth.

Gilgamesh now begins a series of wanderings in search of the restoration of his vigor, and this motif is evidently a continuation of the nature myth to symbolize the sun’s wanderings during the dark winter in the hope of renewed vigor with the coming of the spring. Professor Haupt’s view is that the disease from which Gilgamesh is supposed to be suffering is of a venereal character, affecting the organs of reproduction. This would confirm the position here taken that the myth symbolizes the loss of the sun’s vigor. The sun’s rays are no longer strong enough to fertilize the earth. In accord with this, Gilgamesh’s search for healing leads him to the dark regions118 in which the scorpion-men dwell. The terrors of the region symbolize the gloom of the winter season. At last Gilgamesh reaches a region of light again, described as a landscape situated at the sea. The maiden in control of this region bolts the gate against Gilgamesh’s approach, but the latter forces his entrance. It is the picture of the sun-god bursting through the darkness, to emerge as the youthful reinvigorated sun-god of the spring.

Now with the tendency to attach to popular tales and nature myths lessons illustrative of current beliefs and aspirations, Gilgamesh’s search for renewal of life is viewed as man’s longing for eternal life. The sun-god’s waning power after midsummer is past suggests man’s growing weakness after the meridian of life has been left behind. Winter is death, and man longs to escape it. Gilgamesh’s wanderings are used as illustration of this longing, and accordingly the search for life becomes also the quest for immortality. Can the precious boon of eternal life be achieved? Popular fancy created the figure of a favorite of the gods who had escaped a destructive deluge in which all mankind had perished.119 Gilgamesh hears [50]of this favorite and determines to seek him out and learn from him the secret of eternal life. The deluge story, again a pure nature myth, symbolical of the rainy season which destroys all life in nature, is thus attached to the Epic. Gilgamesh after many adventures finds himself in the presence of the survivor of the Deluge who, although human, enjoys immortal life among the gods. He asks the survivor how he came to escape the common fate of mankind, and in reply Utnapishtim tells the story of the catastrophe that brought about universal destruction. The moral of the tale is obvious. Only those singled out by the special favor of the gods can hope to be removed to the distant “source of the streams” and live forever. The rest of mankind must face death as the end of life.

That the story of the Deluge is told in the eleventh tablet of the series, corresponding to the eleventh month, known as the month of “rain curse”120 and marking the height of the rainy season, may be intentional, just as it may not be accidental that Gilgamesh’s rejection of Ishtar is recounted in the sixth tablet, corresponding to the sixth month,121 which marks the end of the summer season. The two tales may have formed part of a cycle of myths, distributed among the months of the year. The Gilgamesh Epic, however, does not form such a cycle. Both myths have been artificially attached to the adventures of the hero. For the deluge story we now have the definite proof for its independent existence, through Dr. Poebel’s publication of a Sumerian text which embodies the tale,122 and without any reference [51]to Gilgamesh. Similarly, Scheil and Hilprecht have published fragments of deluge stories written in Akkadian and likewise without any connection with the Gilgamesh Epic.123

In the Epic the story leads to another episode attached to Gilgamesh, namely, the search for a magic plant growing in deep water, which has the power of restoring old age to youth. Utnapishtim, the survivor of the deluge, is moved through pity for Gilgamesh, worn out by his long wanderings. At the request of his wife, Utnapishtim decides to tell Gilgamesh of this plant, and he succeeds in finding it. He plucks it and decides to take it back to Erech so that all may enjoy the benefit, but on his way stops to bathe in a cool cistern. A serpent comes along and snatches the plant from him, and he is forced to return to Erech with his purpose unachieved. Man cannot hope, when old age comes on, to escape death as the end of everything.

Lastly, the twelfth tablet of the Assyrian version of the Gilgamesh Epic is of a purely didactic character, bearing evidence of having been added as a further illustration of the current belief that there is no escape from the nether world to which all must go after life has come to an end. Proper burial and suitable care of the dead represent all that can be done in order to secure a fairly comfortable rest for those who have passed out of this world. Enkidu is once more introduced into this episode. His shade is invoked by Gilgamesh and rises up out of the lower world to give a discouraging reply to Gilgamesh’s request,

The mournful message comes back:

Death is a mystery and must always remain such. The historical Gilgamesh has clearly no connection with the figure introduced into [52]this twelfth tablet. Indeed, as already suggested, the Gilgamesh Epic must have ended with the return to Erech, as related at the close of the eleventh tablet. The twelfth tablet was added by some school-men of Babylonia (or perhaps of Assyria), purely for the purpose of conveying a summary of the teachings in regard to the fate of the dead. Whether these six episodes covering the sixth to the twelfth tablets, (1) the nature myth, (2) the killing of the divine bull, (3) the punishment of Gilgamesh and the death of Enkidu, (4) Gilgamesh’s wanderings, (5) the Deluge, (6) the search for immortality, were all included at the time that the old Babylonian version was compiled cannot, of course, be determined until we have that version in a more complete form. Since the two tablets thus far recovered show that as early as 2000 B.C. the Enkidu tale had already been amalgamated with the current stories about Gilgamesh, and the endeavor made to transfer the traits of the former to the latter, it is eminently likely that the story of Ishtar’s unhappy love adventure with Gilgamesh was included, as well as Gilgamesh’s punishment and the death of Enkidu. With the evidence furnished by Meissner’s fragment of a version of the old Babylonian revision and by our two tablets, of the early disposition to make popular tales the medium of illustrating current beliefs and the teachings of the temple schools, it may furthermore be concluded that the death of Enkidu and the punishment of Gilgamesh were utilized for didactic purposes in the old Babylonian version. On the other hand, the proof for the existence of the deluge story in the Hammurabi period and some centuries later, independent of any connection with the Gilgamesh Epic, raises the question whether in the old Babylonian version, of which our two tablets form a part, the deluge tale was already woven into the pattern of the Epic. At all events, till proof to the contrary is forthcoming, we may assume that the twelfth tablet of the Assyrian version, though also reverting to a Babylonian original, dates as the latest addition to the Epic from a period subsequent to 2000 B.C.; and that the same is probably the case with the eleventh tablet.

 

To sum up, there are four main currents that flow together in the Gilgamesh Epic even in its old Babylonian form: (1) the adventures of a mighty warrior Enkidu, resting perhaps on a faint tradition [53]of the conquest of Amurru by the hero; (2) the more definite recollection of the exploits of a foreign invader of Babylonia by the name of Gilgamesh, whose home appears likewise to have been in the West;124 (3) nature myths and didactic tales transferred to Enkidu and Gilgamesh as popular figures; and (4) the process of weaving the traditions, exploits, myths and didactic tales together, in the course of which process Gilgamesh becomes the main hero, and Enkidu his companion.

Furthermore, our investigation has shown that to Enkidu belongs the episode with the woman, used to illustrate the evolution of primitive man to the ways and conditions of civilized life, the conquest of Ḫuwawa in the land of Amurru, the killing of lions and also of the bull, while Gilgamesh is the hero who conquers Erech. Identified with the sun-god, the nature myth of the union of the sun with the earth and the subsequent separation of the two is also transferred to him. The wanderings of the hero, smitten with disease, are a continuation of the nature myth, symbolizing the waning vigor of the sun with the approach of the wintry season.

The details of the process which led to making Gilgamesh the favorite figure, to whom the traits and exploits of Enkidu and of the sun-god are transferred, escape us, but of the fact that Enkidu is the older figure, of whom certain adventures were set forth in a tale that once had an independent existence, there can now be little doubt in the face of the evidence furnished by the two tablets of the old Babylonian version; just as the study of these tablets shows that in the combination of the tales of Enkidu and Gilgamesh, the former is the prototype of which Gilgamesh is the copy. If the two are regarded as brothers, as born in the same place, even resembling one another in appearance and carrying out their adventures in common, it is because in the process of combination Gilgamesh becomes the reflex of Enkidu. That Enkidu is not the figure created by Aruru to relieve Erech of its tyrannical ruler is also shown by the fact that Gilgamesh remains in control of Erech. It is to Erech that he returns when he fails of his purpose to learn the secret of escape from old age and death. Erech is, therefore, not relieved of the presence of the ruthless ruler through Enkidu. The “Man of Anu” formed by Aruru as a deliverer is confused in the course of the growth of the [54]Epic with Enkidu, the offspring of Ninib, and in this way we obtain the strange contradiction of Enkidu and Gilgamesh appearing first as bitter rivals and then as close and inseparable friends. It is of the nature of Epic compositions everywhere to eliminate unnecessary figures by concentrating on one favorite the traits belonging to another or to several others.

The close association of Enkidu and Gilgamesh which becomes one of the striking features in the combination of the tales of these two heroes naturally recalls the “Heavenly Twins” motif, which has been so fully and so suggestively treated by Professor J. Rendell Harris in his Cult of the Heavenly Twins, (London, 1906). Professor Harris has conclusively shown how widespread the tendency is to associate two divine or semi-divine beings in myths and legends as inseparable companions125 or twins, like Castor and Pollux, Romulus and Remus,126 the Acvins in the Rig-Veda,127 Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau in the Old Testament, the Kabiri of the Phoenicians,128 Herakles and Iphikles in Greek mythology, Ambrica and Fidelio in Teutonic mythology, Patollo and Potrimpo in old Prussian mythology, Cautes and Cautopates in Mithraism, Jesus and Thomas (according to the Syriac Acts of Thomas), and the various illustrations of “Dioscuri in Christian Legends,” set forth by Dr. Harris in his work under this title, which carries the motif far down into the period of legends about Christian Saints who appear in pairs, including the reference to such a pair in Shakespeare’s Henry V:

There are indeed certain parallels which suggest that Enkidu-Gilgamesh may represent a Babylonian counterpart to the “Heavenly [55]Twins.” In the Indo-Iranian, Greek and Roman mythology, the twins almost invariably act together. In unison they proceed on expeditions to punish enemies.129

But after all, the parallels are of too general a character to be of much moment; and moreover the parallels stop short at the critical point, for Gilgamesh though worsted is not killed by Enkidu, whereas one of the “Heavenly Twins” is always killed by the brother, as Abel is by Cain, and Iphikles by his twin brother Herakles. Even the trait which is frequent in the earliest forms of the “Heavenly Twins,” according to which one is immortal and the other is mortal, though applying in a measure to Enkidu who is killed by Ishtar, while Gilgamesh the offspring of a divine pair is only smitten with disease, is too unsubstantial to warrant more than a general comparison between the Enkidu-Gilgamesh pair and the various forms of the “twin” motif found throughout the ancient world. For all that, the point is of some interest that in the Gilgamesh Epic we should encounter two figures who are portrayed as possessing the same traits and accomplishing feats in common, which suggest a partial parallel to the various forms in which the twin-motif appears in the mythologies, folk-lore and legends of many nations; and it may be that in some of these instances the duplication is due, as in the case of Enkidu and Gilgamesh, to an actual transfer of the traits of one figure to another who usurped his place.

 

In concluding this study of the two recently discovered tablets of the old Babylonian version of the Gilgamesh Epic which has brought us several steps further in the interpretation and in our understanding of the method of composition of the most notable literary production of ancient Babylonia, it will be proper to consider the literary relationship of the old Babylonian to the Assyrian version.

We have already referred to the different form in which the names of the chief figures appear in the old Babylonian version, ^dGish as against ^dGish-gì(n)-mash, ^dEn-ki-dũ as against ^dEn-ki-dú, Ḫu-wa-wa as against Ḫu(m)-ba-ba. Erech appears as Uruk ribîtim, “Erech of [56]the Plazas,” as against Uruk supûri, “walled Erech” (or “Erech within the walls”), in the Assyrian version.130 These variations point to an independent recension for the Assyrian revision; and this conclusion is confirmed by a comparison of parallel passages in our two tablets with the Assyrian version, for such parallels rarely extend to verbal agreements in details, and, moreover, show that the Assyrian version has been elaborated.

Beginning with the Pennsylvania tablet, column I is covered in the Assyrian version by tablet I, 5, 25, to 6, 33, though, as pointed out above, in the Assyrian version we have the anticipation of the dreams of Gilgamesh and their interpretation through their recital to Enkidu by his female companion, whereas in the old Babylonian version we have the dreams directly given in a conversation between Gilgamesh and his mother. In the anticipation, there would naturally be some omissions. So lines 4–5 and 12–13 of the Pennsylvania tablet do not appear in the Assyrian version, but in their place is a line (I, 5, 35), to be restored to

which occurs in the old Babylonian version only in connection with the second dream. The point is of importance as showing that in the Babylonian version the first dream lays stress upon the omen of the falling meteor, as symbolizing the coming of Enkidu, whereas the second dream more specifically reveals Enkidu as a man,131 of whom Gilgamesh is instantly enamored. Strikingly variant lines, though conveying the same idea, are frequent. Thus line 14 of the Babylonian version reads

and appears in the Assyrian version (I, 5, 35^b supplied from 6, 26)

[57]

with an additional line in elaboration

which anticipates the speech of the mother

Line 10 of the Pennsylvania tablet has pa-ḫi-ir as against iz-za-az I, 5, 31.

Line 8 has ik-ta-bi-it as against da-an in the Assyrian version I, 5, 29.

More significant is the variant to line 9

as against I, 5, 30.

The important lines 31–36 are not found in the Assyrian version, with the exception of I, 6, 27, which corresponds to lines 33–34, but this lack of correspondence is probably due to the fact that the Assyrian version represents the anticipation of the dreams which, as already suggested, might well omit some details. As against this we have in the Assyrian version I, 6, 23–25, an elaboration of line 30 in the Pennsylvania tablet and taken over from the recital of the first dream. Through the Assyrian version I, 6, 31–32, we can restore the closing lines of column I of the Pennsylvania tablet, while with line 33 = line 45 of the Pennsylvania tablet, the parallel between the two versions comes to an end. Lines 34–43 of the Assyrian version (bringing tablet I to a close)135 represent an elaboration of the speech of Ninsun, followed by a further address of Gilgamesh to his mother, and by the determination of Gilgamesh to seek out Enkidu.136 Nothing of this sort appears to have been included in the old Babylonian version.[58]Our text proceeds with the scene between Enkidu and the woman, in which the latter by her charms and her appeal endeavors to lead Enkidu away from his life with the animals. From the abrupt manner in which the scene is introduced in line 43 of the Pennsylvania tablet, it is evident that this cannot be the first mention of the woman. The meeting must have been recounted in the first tablet, as is the case in the Assyrian version.137 The second tablet takes up the direct recital of the dreams of Gilgamesh and then continues the narrative. Whether in the old Babylonian version the scene between Enkidu and the woman was described with the same naïve details, as in the Assyrian version, of the sexual intercourse between the two for six days and seven nights cannot of course be determined, though presumably the Assyrian version, with the tendency of epics to become more elaborate as they pass from age to age, added some realistic touches. Assuming that lines 44–63 of the Pennsylvania tablet—the cohabitation of Enkidu and the address of the woman—is a repetition of what was already described in the first tablet, the comparison with the Assyrian version I, 4, 16–41, not only points to the elaboration of the later version, but likewise to an independent recension, even where parallel lines can be picked out. Only lines 46–48 of the Pennsylvania tablet form a complete parallel to line 21 of column 4 of the Assyrian version. The description in lines 22–32 of column 4 is missing, though it may, of course, have been included in part in the recital in the first tablet of the old Babylonian version. Lines 49–59 of the Pennsylvania tablet are covered by 33–39, the only slight difference being the specific mention in line 58 of the Pennsylvania tablet of Eanna, the temple in Erech, described as “the dwelling of Anu,” whereas in the Assyrian version Eanna is merely referred to as the “holy house” and described as “the dwelling of Anu and Ishtar,” where Ishtar is clearly a later addition.

Leaving aside lines 60–61, which may be merely a variant (though independent) of line 39 of column 4 of the Assyrian version, we now have in the Pennsylvania tablet a second speech of the woman to Enkidu (not represented in the Assyrian version) beginning like the first one with alka, “Come” (lines 62–63), in which she asks Enkidu to leave the “accursed ground” in which he dwells. This speech, as the description which follows, extending into columns 3–4, [59]and telling how the woman clothed Enkidu, how she brought him to the sheep folds, how she taught him to eat bread and to drink wine, and how she instructed him in the ways of civilization, must have been included in the second tablet of the Assyrian version which has come down to us in a very imperfect form. Nor is the scene in which Enkidu and Gilgamesh have their encounter found in the preserved portions of the second (or possibly the third) tablet of the Assyrian version, but only a brief reference to it in the fourth tablet,138 in which in Epic style the story is repeated, leading up to the second exploit—the joint campaign of Enkidu and Gilgamesh against Ḫuwawa. This reference, covering only seven lines, corresponds to lines 192–231 of the Pennsylvania tablet; but the former being the repetition and the latter the original recital, the comparison to be instituted merely reveals again the independence of the Assyrian version, as shown in the use of kibsu, “tread” (IV, 2, 46), for šêpu, “foot” (l. 216), i-na-uš, “quake” (line 5C), as against ir-tu-tu (ll. 221 and 226).

Such variants as

against

and again

against

all point once more to the literary independence of the Assyrian version. The end of the conflict and the reconciliation of the two heroes is likewise missing in the Assyrian version. It may have been referred to at the beginning of column 3139 of Tablet IV.

Coming to the Yale tablet, the few passages in which a comparison [60]may be instituted with the fourth tablet of the Assyrian version, to which in a general way it must correspond, are not sufficient to warrant any conclusions, beyond the confirmation of the literary independence of the Assyrian version. The section comprised within lines 72–89, where Enkidu’s grief at his friend’s decision to fight Ḫuwawa is described140, and he makes confession of his own physical exhaustion, may correspond to Tablet IV, column 4, of the Assyrian version. This would fit in with the beginning of the reverse, the first two lines of which (136–137) correspond to column 5 of the fourth tablet of the Assyrian version, with a variation “seven-fold fear”141 as against “fear of men” in the Assyrian version. If lines 138–139 (in column 4) of the Yale tablet correspond to line 7 of column 5 of Tablet IV of the Assyrian version, we would again have an illustration of the elaboration of the later version by the addition of lines 3–6. But beyond this we have merely the comparison of the description of Ḫuwawa

which occurs twice in the Yale tablet (lines 110–111 and 196–197), with the same phrase in the Assyrian version Tablet IV, 5, 3—but here, as just pointed out, with an elaboration.

Practically, therefore, the entire Yale tablet represents an addition to our knowledge of the Ḫuwawa episode, and until we are fortunate enough to discover more fragments of the fourth tablet of the Assyrian version, we must content ourselves with the conclusions reached from a comparison of the Pennsylvania tablet with the parallels in the Assyrian version.

It may be noted as a general point of resemblance in the exterior form of the old Babylonian and Assyrian versions that both were inscribed on tablets containing six columns, three on the obverse and three on the reverse; and that the length of the tablets—an average of 40 to 50 lines—was about the same, thus revealing in the external form a conventiona1 size for the tablets in the older period, which was carried over into later times.[61]

 

Pennsylvania Tablet

The 240 lines of the six columns of the text are enumerated in succession, with an indication on the margin where a new column begins. This method, followed also in the case of the Yale tablet, seems preferable to Langdon’s breaking up of the text into Obverse and Reverse, with a separate enumeration for each of the six columns. In order, however, to facilitate a comparison with Langdon’s edition, a table is added:

Obverse Col.	I, 1	= Line	1 of our text.
,,	I, 5	= ,,	5 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 10	= ,,	10 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 15	= ,,	15 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 20	= ,,	20 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 25	= ,,	25 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 30	= ,,	30 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 35	= ,,	35 ,, ,, ,,
Col.	II, 1	= Line	41 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 5	= ,,	45 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 10	= ,,	50 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 15	= ,,	55 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 20	= ,,	60 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 25	= ,,	65 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 30	= ,,	70 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 35	= ,,	75 ,, ,, ,,
Col.	III, 1	= Line	81 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 5	= ,,	85 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 10	= ,,	90 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 15	= ,,	95 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 26	= ,,	100 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 25	= ,,	105 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 30	= ,,	110 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 35	= ,,	115 ,, ,, ,,
Reverse Col.	I, 1 (= Col. IV)	= Line	131 of our text.
,,	I, 5	= ,,	135 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 10	= ,,	140 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 15	= ,,	145 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 20	= ,,	150 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 25	= ,,	155 ,, ,, ,,
,,	I, 30	= ,,	160 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 1 (= Col. V)	= Line	171 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 5	= ,,	175 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 10	= ,,	180 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 15	= ,,	185 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 20	= ,,	190 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 25	= ,,	195 ,, ,, ,,
,,	II, 30	= ,,	200 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 1 (= Col. VI)	= Line	208 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 5	= ,,	212 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 10	= ,,	217 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 15	= ,,	222 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 20	= ,,	227 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 25	= ,,	232 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 30	= ,,	237 ,, ,, ,,
,,	III, 33	= ,,	240 ,, ,, ,,

[62]

 

Pennsylvania Tablet.

 

Transliteration.

 

Col. I.

 

Col. II.

(Perhaps one additional line missing.)

 

Col. III.

(About five lines missing.)

 

Col. IV.

(About eight lines missing.)

(About three lines missing.)[67]

 

Col. V.

(About six lines missing.)

(About three lines missing.)[68]

 

Col. VI.

(About four lines missing.)

[62]

 

Translation.

 

Col. I.

 

Col II.

(Perhaps one additional line missing.)

 

Col. III.

(About five lines missing.)

 

Col. IV.

(About eight lines missing.)

(About three lines missing.)[67]

 

Col. V.

(About six lines missing.)

(About three lines missing.)[68]

 

Col. VI.

(About four lines missing.)

[69]

 

Commentary on the Pennsylvania Tablet.

Line 1. The verb tibû with pašâru expresses the aim of Gish to secure an interpretation for his dream. This disposes of Langdon’s note 1 on page 211 of his edition, in which he also erroneously speaks of our text as “late.” Pašâru is not a variant of zakâru. Both verbs occur just as here in the Assyrian version I, 5, 25.

Line 3. ina šât mušitia, “in this my night,” i.e., in the course of this night of mine. A curious way of putting it, but the expression occurs also in the Assyrian version, e.g., I, 5, 26 (parallel passage to ours) and II, 4^a, 14. In the Yale tablet we find, similarly, mu-ši-it-ka (l. 262), “thy night,” i.e., “at night to thee.”

Line 5. Before Langdon put down the strange statement of Gish “wandering about in the midst of omens” (misreading id-da-tim for it-lu-tim), he might have asked himself the question, what it could possibly mean. How can one walk among omens?

Line 6. ka-ka-bu šá-ma-i must be taken as a compound term for “starry heaven.” The parallel passage in the Assyrian version (Tablet I, 5, 27) has the ideograph for star, with the plural sign as a variant. Literally, therefore, “The starry heaven (or “the stars in heaven”) was there,” etc. Langdon’s note 2 on page 211 rests on an erroneous reading.

Line 7. kiṣru šá Anim, “mass of Anu,” appears to be the designation of a meteor, which might well be described as a “mass” coming from Anu, i.e., from the god of heaven who becomes the personification of the heavens in general. In the Assyrian version (I, 5, 28) we have kima ki-iṣ-rù, i.e., “something like a mass of heaven.” Note also I, 3, 16, where in a description of Gilgamesh, his strength is said to be “strong like a mass (i.e., a meteor) of heaven.”

Line 9. For nuššašu ûl iltê we have a parallel in the Hebrew phrase נלְַפָסֵתִי נשַׂפָס (Isaiah 1, 14).

Line 10. Uruk mâtum, as the designation for the district of Erech, occurs in the Assyrian version, e.g., I, 5, 31, and IV, 2, 38; also to be supplied, I, 6, 23.

For paḫir the parallel in the Assyrian version has iz-za-az (I, 5, 31), but VI, 197, we find paḫ-ru and paḫ-ra.

Line 17. mi-in-di does not mean “truly” as Langdon translates, but “some one.” It occurs also in the Assyrian version X, 1, 13, mi-in-di-e ma-an-nu-ṵ, “this is some one who,” etc.[70]

Line 18. Cf. Assyrian version I, 5, 3, and IV, 4, 7, ina ṣiri âlid—both passages referring to Enkidu.

Line 21. Cf. Assyrian version II, 3^b, 38, with malkê, “kings,” as a synonym of itlutum.

Line 23. ta-tar-ra-as-sú from tarâṣu, “direct,” “guide,” etc.

Line 24. I take uš-ti-nim-ma as III, 2, from išênu (יָשֵׁן), the verb underlying šittu, “sleep,” and šuttu, “dream.”

Line 26. Cf. Assyrian version I, 6, 21—a complete parallel.

Line 28. Uruk ri-bi-tim, the standing phrase in both tablets of the old Babylonian version, for which in the Assyrian version we have Uruk su-pu-ri. The former term suggests the “broad space” outside of the city or the “common” in a village community, while supûri, “enclosed,” would refer to the city within the walls. Dr. W. F. Albright (in a private communication) suggests “Erech of the plazas” as a suitable translation for Uruk ribîtim. A third term, Uruk mâtum (see above, note to line 10), though designating rather the district of which Erech was the capital, appears to be used as a synonym to Uruk ribîtim, as may be concluded from the phrase i-na ri-bi-tum ma-ti (l. 214 of the Pennsylvania tablet), which clearly means the “plaza” of the city. One naturally thinks of רְחֹבֹת עִיר in Genesis 10, 11—the equivalent of Babylonian ri-bi-tu âli—which can hardly be the name of a city. It appears to be a gloss, as is הִיַפָס הָעִיּר הַגְּדֹלָה at the end of v. 12. The latter gloss is misplaced, since it clearly describes “Nineveh,” mentioned in v. 11. Inasmuch as רְחֹבֹת עִיר immediately follows the mention of Nineveh, it seems simplest to take the phrase as designating the “outside” or “suburbs” of the city, a complete parallel, therefore, to ri-bi-tu mâti in our text. Nineveh, together with the “suburbs,” forms the “great city.” Uruk ribîtim is, therefore, a designation for “greater Erech,” proper to a capital city, which by its gradual growth would take in more than its original confines. “Erech of the plazas” must have come to be used as a honorific designation of this important center as early as 2000 B. C., whereas later, perhaps because of its decline, the epithet no longer seemed appropriate and was replaced by the more modest designation of “walled Erech,” with an allusion to the tradition which ascribed the building of the wall of the city to Gilgamesh. At all [71]events, all three expressions, “Erech of the plazas,” “Erech walled” and “Erech land,” are to be regarded as synonymous. The position once held by Erech follows also from its ideographic designation (Brünnow No. 4796) by the sign “house” with a “gunufied” extension, which conveys the idea of Unu = šubtu, or “dwelling” par excellence. The pronunciation Unug or Unuk (see the gloss u-nu-uk, VR 23, 8^a), composed of unu, “dwelling,” and ki, “place,” is hardly to be regarded as older than Uruk, which is to be resolved into uru, “city,” and ki, “place,” but rather as a play upon the name, both Unu + ki and Uru + ki conveying the same idea of the city or the dwelling place par excellence. As the seat of the second oldest dynasty according to Babylonian traditions (see Poebel’s list in Historical and Grammatical Texts No. 2), Erech no doubt was regarded as having been at one time “the city,” i.e., the capital of the entire Euphrates Valley.

Line 31. A difficult line for which Langdon proposes the translation: “Another axe seemed his visage”!!—which may be picturesque, but hardly a description befitting a hero. How can a man’s face seem to be an axe? Langdon attaches šá-ni in the sense of “second” to the preceding word “axe,” whereas šanî bunušu, “change of his countenance” or “his countenance being changed,” is to be taken as a phrase to convey the idea of “being disturbed,” “displeased” or “angry.” The phrase is of the same kind as the well-known šunnu ṭêmu, “changing of reason,” to denote “insanity.” See the passages in Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, pp. 355 and 1068. In Hebrew, too, we have the same two phrases, e.g., וַיְשַׁנֹּו ַפָסֶת־טַעְמֹו (I Sam. 21, 14 = Ps. 34, 1), “and he changed his reason,” i.e., feigned insanity and מְשַׁנֶּה פָּנָיו (Job 14, 20), “changing his face,” to indicate a radical alteration in the frame of mind. There is a still closer parallel in Biblical Aramaic: Dan. 3, 19, “The form of his visage was changed,” meaning “he was enraged.” Fortunately, the same phrase occurs also in the Yale tablet (l. 192), šá-nu-ú bu-nu-šú, in a connection which leaves no doubt that the aroused fury of the tyrant Ḫuwawa is described by it:

precisely, therefore, as we should say—following Biblical usage—“his countenance fell.” Cf. also the phrase pânušu arpu, “his countenance [72]was darkened” (Assyrian version I, 2, 48), to express “anger.” The line, therefore, in the Pennsylvania tablet must describe Enkidu’s anger. With the brandishing of the axe the hero’s anger was also stirred up. The touch was added to prepare us for the continuation in which Gish describes how, despite this (or perhaps just because of it), Enkidu seemed so attractive that Gish instantly fell in love with him. May perhaps the emphatic form ḫaṣinumma (line 31) against ḫaṣinu (line 29) have been used to indicate “The axe it was,” or “because of the axe?” It would be worth while to examine other texts of the Hammurabi period with a view of determining the scope in the use and meaning of the emphatic ma when added to a substantive.

Line 32. The combination amur ù aḫtadu occurs also in the El-Amarna Letters, No. 18, 12.

Line 34. In view of the common Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic חָבַב “to love,” it seems preferable to read here, as in the other passages in the Assyrian versions (I, 4, 15; 4, 35; 6, 27, etc.), a-ḫa-ab-bu-ub, aḫ-bu-ub, iḫ-bu-bu, etc. (instead of with p), and to render “embrace.”

Lines 38–40, completing the column, may be supplied from the Assyrian version I, 6, 30–32, in conjunction with lines 33–34 of our text. The beginning of line 32 in Jensen’s version is therefore to be filled out [ta-ra-am-šú ki]-i.

Line 43. The restoration at the beginning of this line

enables us to restore also the beginning of the second tablet of the Assyrian version (cf. the colophon of the fragment 81, 7–27, 93, in Jeremias, Izdubar-Nimrod, plate IV = Jensen, p. 134),

Line 44. The restoration of this line is largely conjectural, based on the supposition that its contents correspond in a general way to I, 4, 16, of the Assyrian version. The reading di-da is quite certain, as is also ip-ti-[e]; and since both words occur in the line of the Assyrian version in question, it is tempting to supply at the beginning ur-[šá] = “her loins” (cf. Holma, Namen der Körperteile, etc., p. 101), which is likewise found in the same line of the Assyrian version. At all events the line describes the fascination exercised [73]upon Enkidu by the woman’s bodily charms, which make him forget everything else.

Lines 46–47 form a parallel to I, 4, 21, of the Assyrian version. The form šamkatu, “courtesan,” is constant in the old Babylonian version (ll. 135 and 172), as against šamḫatu in the Assyrian version (I, 3, 19, 40, 45; 4, 16), which also uses the plural šam-ḫa-a-ti (II, 3^b, 40). The interchange between ḫ and k is not without precedent (cf. Meissner, Altbabylonisches Privatrecht, page 107, note 2, and more particularly Chiera, List of Personal Names, page 37).

In view of the evidence, set forth in the Introduction, for the assumption that the Enkidu story has been combined with a tale of the evolution of primitive man to civilized life, it is reasonable to suggest that in the original Enkidu story the female companion was called šamkatu, “courtesan,” whereas in the tale of the primitive man, which was transferred to Enkidu, the associate was ḫarimtu, a “woman,” just as in the Genesis tale, the companion of Adam is simply called ishshâ, “woman.” Note that in the Assyrian parallel (Tablet I, 4, 26) we have two readings, ir-ḫi (imperf.) and a variant i-ri-ḫi (present). The former is the better reading, as our tablet shows.

Lines 49–59 run parallel to the Assyrian version I, 4, 33–38, with slight variations which have been discussed above, p. 58, and from which we may conclude that the Assyrian version represents an independent redaction. Since in our tablet we have presumably the repetition of what may have been in part at least set forth in the first tablet of the old Babylonian version, we must not press the parallelism with the first tablet of the Assyrian version too far; but it is noticeable nevertheless (1) that our tablet contains lines 57–58 which are not represented in the Assyrian version, and (2) that the second speech of the “woman” beginning, line 62, with al-ka, “come” (just as the first speech, line 54), is likewise not found in the first tablet of the Assyrian version; which on the other hand contains a line (39) not in the Babylonian version, besides the detailed answer of Enkidu (I 4, 42–5, 5). Line 6, which reads “Enkidu and the woman went (il-li-ku) to walled Erech,” is also not found in the second tablet of the old Babylonian version.

Line 63. For magrû, “accursed,” see the frequent use in Astrological texts (Jastrow, Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens II, page [74]450, note 2). Langdon, by his strange error in separating ma-a-ag-ri-im into two words ma-a-ak and ri-i-im, with a still stranger rendering: “unto the place yonder of the shepherds!!”, naturally misses the point of this important speech.

Line 64 corresponds to I, 4, 40, of the Assyrian version, which has an additional line, leading to the answer of Enkidu. From here on, our tablet furnishes material not represented in the Assyrian version, but which was no doubt included in the second tablet of that version of which we have only a few fragments.

Line 70 must be interpreted as indicating that the woman kept one garment for herself. Ittalbaš would accordingly mean, “she kept on.” The female dress appears to have consisted of an upper and a lower garment.

Line 72. The restoration “like a god” is favored by line 51, where Enkidu is likened to a god, and is further confirmed by l. 190.

Line 73. gupru is identical with gu-up-ri (Thompson, Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers, etc., 223 rev. 2 and 223^a rev. 8), and must be correlated to gipâru (Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 229^a), “planted field,” “meadow,” and the like. Thompson’s translation “men” (as though a synonym of gabru) is to be corrected accordingly.

Line 74. There is nothing missing between a-šar and tar-ba-ṣi-im.

Line 75. ri-ia-ú, which Langdon renders “shepherd,” is the equivalent of the Arabic riʿy and Hebrew רְעִי “pasturage,” “fodder.” We have usually the feminine form ri-i-tu (Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 990^b). The break at the end of the second column is not serious. Evidently Enkidu, still accustomed to live like an animal, is first led to the sheepfolds, and this suggests a repetition of the description of his former life. Of the four or five lines missing, we may conjecturally restore four, on the basis of the Assyrian version, Tablet I, 4, 2–5, or I, 2, 39–41. This would then join on well to the beginning of column 3.

Line 81. Both here and in l. 52 our text has na-ma-áš-te-e, as against nam-maš-ši-i in the Assyrian version, e.g., Tablet I, 2, 41; 4, 5, etc.,—the feminine form, therefore, as against the masculine. Langdon’s note 3 on page 213 is misleading. In astrological texts we also find nam-maš-te; e.g., Thompson, Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers, etc., No. 200, Obv. 2.[75]

Line 93. zi-ma-at (for simat) ba-la-ṭi-im is not “conformity of life” as Langdon renders, but that which “belongs to life” like si-mat pag-ri-šá, “belonging to her body,” in the Assyrian version III, 2^a, 3 (Jensen, page 146). “Food,” says the woman, “is the staff of life.”

Line 94. Langdon’s strange rendering “of the conditions and fate of the land” rests upon an erroneous reading (see the corrections, Appendix I), which is the more inexcusable because in line 97 the same ideogram, Kàš = šikaru, “wine,” occurs, and is correctly rendered by him. Šimti mâti is not the “fate of the land,” but the “fixed custom of the land.”

Line 98. aṣ-ṣa-mi-im (plural of aṣṣamu), which Langdon takes as an adverb in the sense of “times,” is a well-known word for a large “goblet,” which occurs in Incantation texts, e.g., CT XVI, 24, obv. 1, 19, mê a-ṣa-am-mi-e šú-puk, “pour out goblets of water.” Line 18 of the passage shoves that aṣammu is a Sumerian loan word.

Line 99. it-tap-šar, I, 2, from pašâru, “loosen.” In combination with kabtatum (from kabitatum, yielding two forms: kabtatum, by elision of i, and kabittu, by elision of a), “liver,” pašâru has the force of becoming cheerful. Cf. ka-bit-ta-ki lip-pa-šir (ZA V., p. 67, line 14).

Line 100, note the customary combination of “liver” (kabtatum) and “heart” (libbu) for “disposition” and “mind,” just as in the standing phrase in penitential prayers: “May thy liver be appeased, thy heart be quieted.”

Line 102. The restoration [^lùŠÚ]-I = gallabu “barber” (Delitzsch, Sumer. Glossar, p. 267) was suggested to me by Dr. H. F. Lutz. The ideographic writing “raising the hand” is interesting as recalling the gesture of shaving or cutting. Cf. a reference to a barber in Lutz, Early Babylonian Letters from Larsa, No. 109, 6.

Line 103. Langdon has correctly rendered šuḫuru as “hair,” and has seen that we have here a loan-word from the Sumerian Suḫur = kimmatu, “hair,” according to the Syllabary S^b 357 (cf. Delitzsch, Sumer. Glossar., p. 253). For kimmatu, “hair,” more specifically hair of the head and face, see Holma, Namen der Körperteile, page 3. The same sign Suḫur or Suḫ (Brünnow No. 8615), with Lal, i.e., “hanging hair,” designates the “beard” (ziḳnu, cf. Brünnow, No. 8620, and Holma, l. c., p. 36), and it is interesting to [76]note that we have šuḫuru (introduced as a loan-word) for the barbershop, according to II R, 21, 27^c (= CT XII, 41).

In view of all this, we may regard as assured Holma’s conjecture to read šú-[ḫur-ma-šú] in the list 93074 obv. (MVAG 1904, p. 203; and Holma, Beiträge z. Assyr. Lexikon, p. 36), as the Akkadian equivalent to Suḫur-Maš-Ḫa and the name of a fish, so called because it appeared to have a double “beard” (cf. Holma, Namen der Körperteile). One is tempted, furthermore, to see in the difficult word שכירה (Isaiah 7, 20) a loan-word from our šuḫuru, and to take the words ַפָסֶת־הָרַֹפָסשׁ וְשַׂעַר הָרַגְלַיִם “the head and hair of the feet” (euphemistic for the hair around the privates), as an explanatory gloss to the rare word שכירה for “hair” of the body in general—just as in the passage in the Pennsylvania tablet. The verse in Isaiah would then read, “The Lord on that day will shave with the razor the hair (השכירה), and even the beard will be removed.” The rest of the verse would represent a series of explanatory glosses: (a) “Beyond the river” (i.e., Assyria), a gloss to יְגַלַּח (b) “with the king of Assyria,” a gloss to בְּתַעַר “with a razor;” and (c) “the hair of the head and hair of the feet,” a gloss to השכירה. For “hair of the feet” we have an interesting equivalent in Babylonian šu-ḫur (and šú-ḫu-ur) šêpi (CT XII, 41, 23–24 c-d). Cf. also Boissier, Documents Assyriens relatifs aux Présages, p. 258, 4–5. The Babylonian phrase is like the Hebrew one to be interpreted as a euphemism for the hair around the male or female organ. To be sure, the change from ה to כ in השכירה constitutes an objection, but not a serious one in the case of a loan-word, which would aim to give the pronunciation of the original word, rather than the correct etymological equivalent. The writing with aspirated כ fulfills this condition. (Cf. šamkatum and šamḫatum, above p. 73). The passage in Isaiah being a reference to Assyria, the prophet might be tempted to use a foreign word to make his point more emphatic. To take השכירה as “hired,” as has hitherto been done, and to translate “with a hired razor,” is not only to suppose a very wooden metaphor, but is grammatically difficult, since השכירח would be a feminine adjective attached to a masculine substantive.

Coming back to our passage in the Pennsylvania tablet, it is to [77]be noted that Enkidu is described as covered “all over his body with hair” (Assyrian version, Tablet I, 2, 36) like an animal. To convert him into a civilized man, the hair is removed.

Line 107. mutu does not mean “husband” here, as Langdon supposes, but must be taken as in l. 238 in the more general sense of “man,” for which there is good evidence.

Line 109. la-bi (plural form) are “lions”—not “panthers” as Langdon has it. The verb ú-gi-ir-ri is from gâru, “to attack.” Langdon by separating ú from gi-ir-ri gets a totally wrong and indeed absurd meaning. See the corrections in the Appendix. He takes the sign ú for the copula (!!) which of course is impossible.

Line 110. Read uš-sa-ak-pu, III, 1, of sakâpu, which is frequently used for “lying down” and is in fact a synonym of ṣalâlu. See Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, page 758^a. The original has very clearly Síb (= rê’u, “shepherd”) with the plural sign. The “shepherds of the night,” who could now rest since Enkidu had killed the lions, are of course the shepherds who were accustomed to watch the flocks during the night.

Line 111. ut-tap-pi-iš is II, 2, napâšu, “to make a hole,” hence “to plunge” in connection with a weapon. Šib-ba-ri is, of course, not “mountain goats,” as Langdon renders, but a by-form to šibbiru, “stick,” and designates some special weapon. Since on seal cylinders depicting Enkidu killing lions and other animals the hero is armed with a dagger, this is presumably the weapon šibbaru.

Line 113. Langdon’s translation is again out of the question and purely fanciful. The traces favor the restoration na-ki-[di-e], “shepherds,” and since the line appears to be a parallel to line 110, I venture to suggest at the beginning [it-ti]-lu from na’âlu, “lie down”—a synonym, therefore, to sakâpu in line 110. The shepherds can sleep quietly after Enkidu has become the “guardian” of the flocks. In the Assyrian version (tablet II, 3^a, 4) Enkidu is called a na-kid, “shepherd,” and in the preceding line we likewise have ^lùNa-Kid with the plural sign, i.e., “shepherds.” This would point to nakidu being a Sumerian loan-word, unless it is vice versa, a word that has gone over into the Sumerian from Akkadian. Is perhaps the fragment in question (K 8574) in the Assyrian version (Haupt’s ed. No. 25) the parallel to our passage? If in line 4 of this fragment we could read šú for sa, i.e., na-kid-šú-nu, “their shepherd, we would have a [78]parallel to line 114 of the Pennsylvania tablet, with na-kid as a synonym to maṣṣaru, “protector.” The preceding line would then be completed as follows:

(or perhaps only it-ti-lu-ma, since the nim is not certain) and would correspond to line 113 of the Pennsylvania tablet. Inasmuch as the writing on the tiny fragment is very much blurred, it is quite possible that in line 2 we must read šib-ba-ri (instead of bar-ba-ri), which would furnish a parallel to line 111 of the Pennsylvania tablet. The difference between Bar and Šib is slight, and the one sign might easily be mistaken for the other in the case of close writing. The continuation of line 2 of the fragment would then correspond to line 112 of the Pennsylvania tablet, while line 1 of the fragment might be completed [re-e]-u-ti(?) šá [mu-ši-a-tim], though this is by no means certain.

The break at the close of column 3 (about 5 lines) and the top of column 4 (about 8 lines) is a most serious interruption in the narrative, and makes it difficult to pick up the thread where the tablet again becomes readable. We cannot be certain whether the “strong man, the unique hero” who addresses some one (lines 115–117) is Enkidu or Gish or some other personage, but presumably Gish is meant. In the Assyrian version, Tablet I, 3, 2 and 29, we find Gilgamesh described as the “unique hero” and in l. 234 of the Pennsylvania tablet Gish is called “unique,” while again, in the Assyrian version, Tablet I, 2, 15 and 26, he is designated as gašru as in our text. Assuming this, whom does he address? Perhaps the shepherds? In either case he receives an answer that rejoices him. If the fragment of the Assyrian version (K 8574) above discussed is the equivalent to the close of column 3 of the Pennsylvania tablet, we may go one step further, and with some measure of assurance assume that Gish is told of Enkidu’s exploits and that the latter is approaching Erech. This pleases Gish, but Enkidu when he sees Gish(?) is stirred to anger and wants to annihilate him. At this point, the “man” (who is probably Gish, though the possibility of a third personage must be admitted) intervenes and in a long speech sets forth the destiny and higher aims of mankind. The contrast between Enkidu and Gish (or the third party) is that between the primitive [79]savage and the civilized being. The contrast is put in the form of an opposition between the two. The primitive man is the stronger and wishes to destroy the one whom he regards as a natural foe and rival. On the other hand, the one who stands on a higher plane wants to lift his fellow up. The whole of column 4, therefore, forms part of the lesson attached to the story of Enkidu, who, identified with man in a primitive stage, is made the medium of illustrating how the higher plane is reached through the guiding influences of the woman’s hold on man, an influence exercised, to be sure, with the help of her bodily charms.

Line 135. uk-ki-ši (imperative form) does not mean “take away,” as Langdon (who entirely misses the point of the whole passage) renders, but on the contrary, “lure him on,” “entrap him,” and the like. The verb occurs also in the Yale tablet, ll. 183 and 186.

Line 137. Langdon’s note to lu-uš-šú had better be passed over in silence. The form is II. 1, from ešû, “destroy.”

Line 139. Since the man whom the woman calls approaches Enkidu, the subject of both verbs is the man, and the object is Enkidu; i.e., therefore, “The man approaches Enkidu and beholds him.”

Line 140. Langdon’s interpretation of this line again is purely fanciful. E-di-il cannot, of course, be a “phonetic variant” of edir; and certainly the line does not describe the state of mind of the woman. Lines 140–141 are to be taken as an expression of amazement at Enkidu’s appearance. The first word appears to be an imperative in the sense of “Be off,” “Away,” from dâlu, “move, roam.” The second word e-eš, “why,” occurs with the same verb dâlu in the Meissner fragment: e-eš ta-da-al (column 3, 1), “why dost thou roam about?” The verb at the end of the line may perhaps be completed to ta-ḫi-il-la-am. The last sign appears to be am, but may be ma, in which case we should have to complete simply ta-ḫi-il-ma. Taḫîl would be the second person present of ḫîlu. Cf. i-ḫi-il, frequently in astrological texts, e.g., Virolleaud, Adad No. 3, lines 21 and 33.

Line 141. The reading lim-nu at the beginning, instead of Langdon’s mi-nu, is quite certain, as is also ma-na-aḫ-ti-ka instead of what Langdon proposes, which gives no sense whatever. Manaḫtu in the sense of the “toil” and “activity of life” (like עָמָל throughout the Book of Ecclesiastes) occurs in the introductory lines to [80]the Assyrian version of the Epic I, 1, 8, ka-lu ma-na-aḫ-ti-[šu], “all of his toil,” i.e., all of his career.

Line 142. The subject of the verb cannot be the woman, as Langdon supposes, for the text in that case, e.g., line 49, would have said pi-šá (“her mouth”) not pi-šú (“his mouth”). The long speech, detailing the function and destiny of civilized man, is placed in the mouth of the man who meets Enkidu.

In the Introduction it has been pointed out that lines 149 and 151 of the speech appear to be due to later modifications of the speech designed to connect the episode with Gish. Assuming this to be the case, the speech sets forth the following five distinct aims of human life: (1) establishing a home (line 144), (2) work (line 147), (3) storing up resources (line 148), (4) marriage (line 150), (5) monogamy (line 154); all of which is put down as established for all time by divine decree (lines 155–157), and as man’s fate from his birth (lines 158–159).

Line 144. bi-ti-iš e-mu-ti is for bîti šá e-mu-ti, just as ḳab-lu-uš Ti-a-ma-ti (Assyrian Creation Myth, IV, 65) stands for ḳablu šá Tiamti. Cf. bît e-mu-ti (Assyrian version, IV, 2, 46 and 48). The end of the line is lost beyond recovery, but the general sense is clear.

Line 146. tu-a-ar is a possible reading. It may be the construct of tu-a-ru, of frequent occurrence in legal texts and having some such meaning as “right,” “claim” or “prerogative.” See the passages given by Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 1139^b.

Line 148. The reading uk-la-at, “food,” and then in the wider sense “food supply,” “provisions,” is quite certain. The fourth sign looks like the one for “city.” E-mi-sa may stand for e-mid-sa, “place it.” The general sense of the line, at all events, is clear, as giving the advice to gather resources. It fits in with the Babylonian outlook on life to regard work and wealth as the fruits of work and as a proper purpose in life.

Line 150 (repeated lines 152–153) is a puzzling line. To render piti pûk epši (or epiši), as Langdon proposes, “open, addressing thy speech,” is philologically and in every other respect inadmissible. The word pu-uk (which Langdon takes for “thy mouth”!!) can, of course, be nothing but the construct form of pukku, which occurs in the Assyrian version in the sense of “net” (pu-uk-ku I, 2, 9 and 21, and also in the colophon to the eleventh tablet furnishing the [81]beginning of the twelfth tablet (Haupt’s edition No. 56), as well as in column 2, 29, and column 3, 6, of this twelfth tablet). In the two last named passages pukku is a synonym of mekû, which from the general meaning of “enclosure” comes to be a euphemistic expression for the female organ. So, for example, in the Assyrian Creation Myth, Tablet IV, 66 (synonym of ḳablu, “waist,” etc.). See Holma, Namen der Körperteile, page 158. Our word pukku must be taken in this same sense as a designation of the female organ—perhaps more specifically the “hymen” as the “net,” though the womb in general might also be designated as a “net” or “enclosure.” Kak-(ši) is no doubt to be read epši, as Langdon correctly saw; or perhaps better, epiši. An expression like ip-ši-šú lul-la-a (Assyrian version, I, 4, 13; also line 19, i-pu-us-su-ma lul-la-a), with the explanation šipir zinništi, “the work of woman” (i.e., after the fashion of woman), shows that epêšu is used in connection with the sexual act. The phrase pitî pûk epiši a-na ḫa-a-a-ri, literally “open the net, perform the act for marriage,” therefore designates the fulfillment of the marriage act, and the line is intended to point to marriage with the accompanying sexual intercourse as one of the duties of man. While the general meaning is thus clear, the introduction of Gish is puzzling, except on the supposition that lines 149 and 151 represent later additions to connect the speech, detailing the advance to civilized life, with the hero. See above, p. 45 seq.

Line 154. aššat šimâtim is the “legitimate wife,” and the line inculcates monogamy as against promiscuous sexual intercourse. We know that monogamy was the rule in Babylonia, though a man could in addition to the wife recognized as the legalized spouse take a concubine, or his wife could give her husband a slave as a concubine. Even in that case, according to the Hammurabi Code, §§145–146, the wife retained her status. The Code throughout assumes that a man has only one wife—the aššat šimâtim of our text. The phrase “so” (or “that”) before “as afterwards” is to be taken as an idiomatic expression—“so it was and so it should be for all times”—somewhat like the phrase maḫriam ù arkiam, “for all times,” in legal documents (CT VIII, 38^c, 22–23). For the use of mûk see Behrens, Assyrisch-Babylonische Briefe, p. 3.

Line 158. i-na bi-ti-iḳ a-bu-un-na-ti-šú. Another puzzling line, for which Langdon proposes “in the work of his presence,” which [82]is as obscure as the original. In a note he says that apunnâti means “nostrils,” which is certainly wrong. There has been considerable discussion about this term (see Holma, Namen der Körperteile, pages 150 and 157), the meaning of which has been advanced by Christian’s discussion in OLZ 1914, p. 397. From this it appears that it must designate a part of the body which could acquire a wider significance so as to be used as a synonym for “totality,” since it appears in a list of equivalent for Dur = nap-ḫa-ru, “totality,” ka-lu-ma, “all,” a-bu-un-na-tum e-ṣi-im-tum, “bony structure,” and kul-la-tum, “totality” (CT XII, 10, 7–10). Christian shows that it may be the “navel,” which could well acquire a wider significance for the body in general; but we may go a step further and specify the “umbilical cord” (tentatively suggested also by Christian) as the primary meaning, then the “navel,” and from this the “body” in general. The structure of the umbilical cord as a series of strands would account for designating it by a plural form abunnâti, as also for the fact that one could speak of a right and left side of the appunnâti. To distinguish between the “umbilical cord” and the “navel,” the ideograph Dur (the common meaning of which is riksu, “bond” [Delitzsch, Sumer. Glossar., p. 150]), was used for the former, while for the latter Li Dur was employed, though the reading in Akkadian in both cases was the same. The expression “with (or at) the cutting of his umbilical cord” would mean, therefore, “from his birth”—since the cutting of the cord which united the child with the mother marks the beginning of the separate life. Lines 158–159, therefore, in concluding the address to Enkidu, emphasize in a picturesque way that what has been set forth is man’s fate for which he has been destined from birth. [See now Albright’s remarks on abunnatu in the Revue d’Assyriologie 16, pp. 173–175, with whose conclusion, however, that it means primarily “backbone” and then “stature,” I cannot agree.]

In the break of about three lines at the bottom of column 4, and of about six at the beginning of column 5, there must have been set forth the effect of the address on Enkidu and the indication of his readiness to accept the advice; as in a former passage (line 64), Enkidu showed himself willing to follow the woman. At all events the two now proceed to the heart of the city. Enkidu is in front [83]and the woman behind him. The scene up to this point must have taken place outside of Erech—in the suburbs or approaches to the city, where the meadows and the sheepfolds were situated.

Line 174. um-ma-nu-um are not the “artisans,” as Langdon supposes, but the “people” of Erech, just as in the Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 1, 40, where the word occurs in connection with i-dip-pi-ir, which is perhaps to be taken as a synonym of paḫâru, “gather;” so also i-dip-pir (Tablet I, 2, 40) “gathers with the flock.”

Lines 180–182 must have contained the description of Enkidu’s resemblance to Gish, but the lines are too mutilated to permit of any certain restoration. See the corrections (Appendix) for a suggested reading for the end of line 181.

Line 183 can be restored with considerable probability on the basis of the Assyrian version, Tablet I, 3, 3 and 30, where Enkidu is described as one “whose power is strong in the land.”

Lines 186–187. The puzzling word, to be read apparently kak-ki-a-tum, can hardly mean “weapons,” as Langdon proposes. In that case we should expect kakkê; and, moreover, to so render gives no sense, especially since the verb ú-te-el-li-lu is without much question to be rendered “rejoiced,” and not “purified.” Kakkiatum—if this be the correct reading—may be a designation of Erech like ribîtim.

Lines 188–189 are again entirely misunderstood by Langdon, owing to erroneous readings. See the corrections in the Appendix.

Line 190. i-li-im in this line is used like Hebrew Elohîm, “God.”

Line 191. šakiššum = šakin-šum, as correctly explained by Langdon.

Line 192. With this line a new episode begins which, owing to the gap at the beginning of column 6, is somewhat obscure. The episode leads to the hostile encounter between Gish and Enkidu. It is referred to in column 2 of the fourth tablet of the Assyrian version. Lines 35–50—all that is preserved of this column—form in part a parallel to columns 5–6 of the Pennsylvania tablet, but in much briefer form, since what on the Pennsylvania tablet is the incident itself is on the fourth tablet of the Assyrian version merely a repeated summary of the relationship between the two heroes, leading up to the expedition against Ḫu(m)baba. Lines 38–40 of [84]column 2 of the Assyrian version correspond to lines 174–177 of the Pennsylvania tablet, and lines 44–50 to lines 192–221. It would seem that Gish proceeds stealthily at night to go to the goddess Ishḫara, who lies on a couch in the bît êmuti , the “family house” Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 2. 46–48). He encounters Enkidu in the street, and the latter blocks Gish’s path, puts his foot in the gate leading to the house where the goddess is, and thus prevents Gish from entering. Thereupon the two have a fierce encounter in which Gish is worsted. The meaning of the episode itself is not clear. Does Enkidu propose to deprive Gish, here viewed as a god (cf. line 190 of the Pennsylvania tablet = Assyrian version, Tablet I, 4, 45, “like a god”), of his spouse, the goddess Ishḫara—another form of Ishtar? Or are the two heroes, the one a counterpart of the other, contesting for the possession of a goddess? Is it in this scene that Enkidu becomes the “rival” (me-iḫ-rù, line 191 of the Pennsylvania tablet) of the divine Gish? We must content ourself with having obtained through the Pennsylvania tablet a clearer indication of the occasion of the fight between the two heroes, and leave the further explanation of the episode till a fortunate chance may throw additional light upon it. There is perhaps a reference to the episode in the Assyrian version, Tablet II, 3^b, 35–36.

Line 196. For i-na-ag-šá-am (from nagâšu), Langdon proposes the purely fanciful “embracing her in sleep,” whereas it clearly means “he approaches.” Cf. Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, page 645^a.

Lines 197–200 appear to correspond to Tablet IV, 2, 35–37, of the Assyrian version, though not forming a complete parallel. We may therefore supply at the beginning of line 35 of the Assyrian version [ittaziz] Enkidu, corresponding to line 197 of the Pennsylvania tablet. Line 36 of IV, 2, certainly appears to correspond to line 200 (dan-nu-ti = da-na-ni-iš-šú).

Line 208. The first sign looks more like šar, though ur is possible.

Line 211 is clearly a description of Enkidu, as is shown by a comparison with the Assyrian version I, 2, 37: [pi]-ti-ik pi-ir-ti-šú uḫ-tan-na-ba kima ^dNidaba, “The form of his hair sprouted like wheat.” We must therefore supply Enkidu in the preceding line. Tablet IV, 4, 6, of the Assyrian version also contains a reference to the flowing hair of Enkidu.[85]

Line 212. For the completion of the line cf. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters, No. 214.

Line 214. For ribîtu mâti see the note above to line 28 of column 1.

Lines 215–217 correspond almost entirely to the Assyrian version IV, 2, 46–48. The variations ki-ib-su in place of šêpu, and kima lîm, “like oxen,” instead of ina bâb êmuti (repeated from line 46), ana šurûbi for êribam, are slight though interesting. The Assyrian version shows that the “gate” in line 215 is “the gate of the family house” in which the goddess Ishḫara lies.

Lines 218–228. The detailed description of the fight between the two heroes is only partially preserved in the Assyrian version.

Line 218. li-i-im is evidently to be taken as plural here as in line 224, just as su-ḳi-im (lines 27 and 175), ri-bi-tim (lines 4, 28, etc.), tarbaṣim (line 74), aṣṣamim (line 98) are plural forms. Our text furnishes, as does also the Yale tablet, an interesting illustration of the vacillation in the Hammurabi period in the twofold use of im: (a) as an indication of the plural (as in Hebrew), and (b) as a mere emphatic ending (lines 63, 73, and 232), which becomes predominant in the post-Hammurabi age.

Line 227. Gilgamesh is often represented on seal cylinders as kneeling, e.g., Ward Seal Cylinders Nos. 159, 160, 165. Cf. also Assyrian version V, 3, 6, where Gilgamesh is described as kneeling, though here in prayer. See further the commentary to the Yale tablet, line 215.

Line 229. We must of course read uz-za-šú, “his anger,” and not uṣ-ṣa-šú, “his javelin,” as Langdon does, which gives no sense.

Line 231. Langdon’s note is erroneous. He again misses the point. The stem of the verb here as in line 230 (i-ni-iḫ) is the common nâḫu, used so constantly in connection with pašâḫu, to designate the cessation of anger.

Line 234. ištên applied to Gish designates him of course as “unique,” not as “an ordinary man,” as Langdon supposes.

Line 236. On this title “wild cow of the stall” for Ninsun, see Poebel in OLZ 1914, page 6, to whom we owe the correct view regarding the name of Gilgamesh’s mother.

Line 238. mu-ti here cannot mean “husband,” but “man” in [86]general. See above note to line 107. Langdon’s strange misreading ri-eš-su for ri-eš-ka (“thy head”) leads him again to miss the point, namely that Enkidu comforts his rival by telling him that he is destined for a career above that of the ordinary man. He is to be more than a mere prize fighter; he is to be a king, and no doubt in the ancient sense, as the representative of the deity. This is indicated by the statement that the kingship is decreed for him by Enlil. Similarly, Ḫu(m)baba or Ḫuwawa is designated by Enlil to inspire terror among men (Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 5, 2 and 5), i-šim-šú ^dEnlil = Yale tablet, l. 137, where this is to be supplied. This position accorded to Enlil is an important index for the origin of the Epic, which is thus shown to date from a period when the patron deity of Nippur was acknowledged as the general head of the pantheon. This justifies us in going back several centuries at least before Hammurabi for the beginning of the Gilgamesh story. If it had originated in the Hammurabi period, we should have had Marduk introduced instead of Enlil.

Line 242. As has been pointed out in the corrections to the text (Appendix), šú-tu-ur can only be III, 1, from atâru, “to be in excess of.” It is a pity that the balance of the line is broken off, since this is the first instance of a colophon beginning with the term in question. In some way šutûr must indicate that the copy of the text has been “enlarged.” It is tempting to fill out the line šú-tu-ur e-li [duppi labiri], and to render “enlarged from an original,” as an indication of an independent recension of the Epic in the Hammurabi period. All this, however, is purely conjectural, and we must patiently hope for more tablets of the Old Babylonian version to turn up. The chances are that some portions of the same edition as the Yale and Pennsylvania tablets are in the hands of dealers at present or have been sold to European museums. The war has seriously interfered with the possibility of tracing the whereabouts of groups of tablets that ought never to have been separated.[87]

 

Yale Tablet.

 

Transliteration.

(About ten lines missing.)

 

Col. I.

(About 17 lines missing.)

 

Col. II.

(About eleven lines missing.)

(About four lines missing.)

(About four lines missing.)

 

Col. III.

 

Col. IV.

 

Col. V.

(About five lines missing.)

(About two lines missing.)

 

Col. VI.

(Three lines missing.)

 

L.E.

[87]

 

Translation.

(About ten lines missing.)

 

Col. I.

(About 17 lines missing.)

 

Col. II.

(About eleven lines missing.)

(About four lines missing.)

(About four lines missing.)

 

Col. III.

 

Col. IV.

 

Col. V.

(About five lines missing.)

(About two lines missing.)

 

Col. VI.

(Three lines missing.)

 

L.E.

[96]

Lines 13–14 (also line 16). See for the restoration, lines 112–13.

Line 62. For the restoration, see Jensen, p. 146 (Tablet III, 2^a,9.)

Lines 64–66. Restored on the basis of the Assyrian version, ib. line 10.

Line 72. Cf. Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 4, 10, and restore at the end of this line di-im-tam as in our text, instead of Jensen’s conjecture.

Lines 74, 77 and 83. The restoration zar-biš, suggested by the Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 4, 4.

Lines 76 and 82. Cf. Assyrian version, Tablet VIII, 3, 18.

Line 78. (ú-ta-ab-bil from abâlu, “grieve” or “darkened.” Cf. uš-ta-kal (Assyrian version, ib. line 9), where, perhaps, we are to restore it-ta-[bil pa-ni-šú].

Line 87. uš-ta-li-pa from elêpu, “exhaust.” See Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 49a.

Line 89. Cf. Assyrian version, ib. line 11, and restore the end of the line there to i-ni-iš, as in our text.

Line 96. For dapinu as an epithet of Ḫuwawa, see Assyrian version, Tablet III, 2a, 17, and 3a, 12. Dapinu occurs also as a description of an ox (Rm 618, Bezold, Catalogue of the Kouyunjik Tablets, etc., p. 1627).

Line 98. The restoration on the basis of ib. III, 2a, 18.

Lines 96–98 may possibly form a parallel to ib. lines 17–18, which would then read about as follows: “Until I overcome Ḫuwawa, the terrible, and all the evil in the land I shall have destroyed.” At the same time, it is possible that we are to restore [lu-ul]-li-ik at the end of line 98.

Line 101. lilissu occurs in the Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 6, 36.

Line 100. For ḫalbu, “jungle,” see Assyrian version, Tablet V, 3, 39 (p. 160).

Lines 109–111. These lines enable us properly to restore Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 5, 3 = Haupt’s edition, p. 83 (col. 5, 3). No doubt the text read as ours mu-tum (or mu-u-tum) na-pis-su.

Line 115. šupatu, which occurs again in line 199 and also line 275.šú-pa-as-su (= šupat-su) must have some such meaning as [97]“dwelling,” demanded by the context. [Dhorme refers me to OLZ 1916, p. 145].

Line 129. Restored on the basis of the Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 6, 38.

Line 131. The restoration muḳtablu, tentatively suggested on the basis of CT XVIII, 30, 7b, where muḳtablu, “warrior,” appears as one of the designations of Gilgamesh, followed by a-lik pa-na, “the one who goes in advance,” or “leader”—the phrase so constantly used in the Ḫuwawa episode.

Line 132. Cf. Assyrian version, Tablet I, 5, 18–19.

Lines 136–137. These two lines restored on the basis of Jensen IV, 5, 2 and 5. The variant in the Assyrian version, šá niše (written Uku^meš in one case and Lu^meš in the other), for the numeral 7 in our text to designate a terror of the largest and most widespread character, is interesting. The number 7 is similarly used as a designation of Gilgamesh, who is called Esigga imin, “seven-fold strong,” i.e., supremely strong (CT XVIII, 30, 6–8). Similarly, Enkidu, ib. line 10, is designated a-rá imina, “seven-fold.”

Line 149. A difficult line because of the uncertainty of the reading at the beginning of the following line. The most obvious meaning of mi-it-tu is “corpse,” though in the Assyrian version šalamtu is used (Assyrian version, Tablet V, 2, 42). On the other hand, it is possible—as Dr. Lutz suggested to me—that mittu, despite the manner of writing, is identical with miṭṭú, the name of a divine weapon, well-known from the Assyrian creation myth (Tablet IV, 130), and other passages. The combination miṭ-ṭu šá-ḳu-ú-, “lofty weapon,” in the Bilingual text IV, R², 18 No. 3, 31–32, would favor the meaning “weapon” in our passage, since [šá]-ḳu-tu is a possible restoration at the beginning of line 150. However, the writing mi-it-ti points too distinctly to a derivative of the stem mâtu, and until a satisfactory explanation of lines 150–152 is forthcoming, we must stick to the meaning “corpse” and read the verb il-ḳu-ut.

Line 152. The context suggests “lion” for the puzzling la-bu.

Line 156. Another puzzling line. Dr. Clay’s copy is an accurate reproduction of what is distinguishable. At the close of the line there appears to be a sign written over an erasure.

Line 158. [ga-ti lu-]uš-kun as in line 186, literally, “I will place my hand,” i.e., I purpose, I am determined.[98]

Line 160. The restoration on the basis of the parallel line 187. Note the interesting phrase, “writing a name” in the sense of acquiring “fame.”

Line 161. The kiškattê, “artisans,” are introduced also in the Assyrian version, Tablet VI, 187, to look at the enormous size and weight of the horns of the slain divine bull. See for other passages Muss-Arnolt Assyrian Dictionary, p. 450^b. At the beginning of this line, we must seek for the same word as in line 163.

Line 162. While the restoration belê, “weapon,” is purely conjectural, the context clearly demands some such word. I choose belê in preference to kakkê, in view of the Assyrian version, Tablet VI, 1.

Line 163. Putuku (or putukku) from patâku would be an appropriate word for the fabrication of weapons.

Line 165. The rabûtim here, as in line 167, I take as the “master mechanics” as contrasted with the ummianu, “common workmen,” or journeymen. A parallel to this forging of the weapons for the two heroes is to be found in the Sumerian fragment of the Gilgamesh Epic published by Langdon, Historical and Religious Texts from the Temple Library of Nippur (Munich, 1914), No. 55, 1–15.

Lines 168–170 describe the forging of the various parts of the lances for the two heroes. The ṣipru is the spear point Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 886^b; the išid paṭri is clearly the “hilt,” and the mešelitum I therefore take as the “blade” proper. The word occurs here for the first time, so far as I can see. For 30 minas, see Assyrian version, Tablet VI, 189, as the weight of the two horns of the divine bull. Each axe weighing 3 biltu, and the lance with point and hilt 3 biltu we would have to assume 4 biltu for each pašu, so as to get a total of 10 biltu as the weight of the weapons for each hero. The lance is depicted on seal cylinders representing Gilgamesh and Enkidu, for example, Ward, Seal Cylinders, No. 199, and also in Nos. 184 and 191 in the field, with the broad hilt; and in an enlarged form in No. 648. Note the clear indication of the hilt. The two figures are Gilgamesh and Enkidu—not two Gilgameshes, as Ward assumed. See above, page 34. A different weapon is the club or mace, as seen in Ward, Nos. 170 and 173. This appears also to be the weapon which Gilgamesh holds in his hand on the colossal figure from the palace of Sargon (Jastrow, Civilization of [99]Babylonia and Assyria, Pl. LVII), though it has been given a somewhat grotesque character by a perhaps intentional approach to the scimitar, associated with Marduk (see Ward, Seal Cylinders, Chap. XXVII). The exact determination of the various weapons depicted on seal-cylinders merits a special study.

Line 181. Begins a speech of Ḫuwawa, extending to line 187, reported to Gish by the elders (line 188–189), who add a further warning to the youthful and impetuous hero.

Line 183. lu-uk-šú-su (also l. 186), from akâšu, “drive on” or “lure on,” occurs on the Pennsylvania tablet, line 135, uk-ki-ši, “lure on” or “entrap,” which Langdon erroneously renders “take away” and thereby misses the point completely. See the comment to the line of the Pennsylvania tablet in question.

Line 192. On the phrase šanû bunu, “change of countenance,” in the sense of “enraged,” see the note to the Pennsylvania tablet, l.31.

Line 194. nu-ma-at occurs in a tablet published by Meissner, Altbabyl. Privatrecht, No. 100, with bît abi, which shows that the total confine of a property is meant; here, therefore, the “interior” of the forest or heart. It is hardly a “by-form” of nuptum as Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 690^b, and others have supposed, though nu-um-tum in one passage quoted by Muss-Arnolt, ib. p. 705^a, may have arisen from an aspirate pronunciation of the p in nubtum.

Line 215. The kneeling attitude of prayer is an interesting touch. It symbolizes submission, as is shown by the description of Gilgamesh’s defeat in the encounter with Enkidu (Pennsylvania tablet, l. 227), where Gilgamesh is represented as forced to “kneel” to the ground. Again in the Assyrian version, Tablet V, 4, 6, Gilgamesh kneels down (though the reading ka-mis is not certain) and has a vision.

Line 229. It is much to be regretted that this line is so badly preserved, for it would have enabled us definitely to restore the opening line of the Assyrian version of the Gilgamesh Epic. The fragment published by Jeremias in his appendix to his Izdubar-Nimrod, Plate IV, gives us the end of the colophon line to the Epic, reading ……… di ma-a-ti (cf. ib., Pl. I, 1. … a-ti). Our text evidently reproduces the same phrase and enables us to supply ka, as well as [100]the name of the hero Gišh of which there are distinct traces. The missing word, therefore, describes the hero as the ruler, or controller of the land. But what are the two signs before ka? A participial form from pakâdu, which one naturally thinks of, is impossible because of the ka, and for the same reason one cannot supply the word for shepherd (nakidu). One might think of ka-ak-ka-du, except that kakkadu is not used for “head” in the sense of “chief” of the land. I venture to restore [i-ik-]ka-di, “strong one.” Our text at all events disposes of Haupt’s conjecture iš-di ma-a-ti (JAOS 22, p. 11), “Bottom of the earth,” as also of Ungnad’s proposed [a-di pa]-a-ti, “to the ends” (Ungnad-Gressmann, Gilgamesch-Epos, p. 6, note), or a reading di-ma-a-ti, “pillars.” The first line of the Assyrian version would now read

i.e., “The one who saw everything, Gilgamesh the strong one (?) of the land.”

We may at all events be quite certain that the name of the hero occurred in the first line and that he was described by some epithet indicating his superior position.

Lines 229–235 are again an address of Gilgamesh to the sun-god, after having received a favorable “oracle” from the god (line 222). The hero promises to honor and to celebrate the god, by erecting thrones for him.

Lines 237–244 describe the arming of the hero by the “master” craftsman. In addition to the pašu and paṭru, the bow (?) and quiver are given to him.

Line 249 is paralleled in the new fragment of the Assyrian version published by King in PSBA 1914, page 66 (col. 1, 2), except that this fragment adds gi-mir to e-mu-ḳi-ka.

Lines 251–252 correspond to column 1, 6–8, of King’s fragment, with interesting variations “battle” and “fight” instead of “way” and “road,” which show that in the interval between the old Babylonian and the Assyrian version, the real reason why Enkidu should lead the way, namely, because he knows the country in which Ḫuwawa dwells (lines 252–253), was supplemented by describing Enkidu also as being more experienced in battle than Gilgamesh.

Line 254. I am unable to furnish a satisfactory rendering for this line, owing to the uncertainty of the word at the end. Can it [101]be “his household,” from the stem which in Hebrew gives us מִשְׁפָּחָה “family?”

Line 255. Is paralleled by col. 1, 4, of King’s new fragment. The episode of Gišh and Enkidu proceeding to Ninsun, the mother of Gish, to obtain her counsel, which follows in King’s fragment, appears to have been omitted in the old Babylonian version. Such an elaboration of the tale is exactly what we should expect as it passed down the ages.

Line 257. Our text shows that irnittu (lines 257, 264, 265) means primarily “endeavor,” and then success in one’s endeavor, or “triumph.”

Lines 266–270. Do not appear to refer to rites performed after a victory, as might at a first glance appear, but merely voice the hope that Gišh will completely take possession of Ḫuwawa’s territory, so as to wash up after the fight in Ḫuwawa’s own stream; and the hope is also expressed that he may find pure water in Ḫuwawa’s land in abundance, to offer a libation to Šhamašh.

Line 275. On šú-pa-as-su = šupat-su, see above, to l. 115.

[Note on Sabitum (above, p. 11)

In a communication before the Oriental Club of Philadelphia (Feb. 10, 1920), Prof. Haupt made the suggestion that sa-bi-tum (or tu), hitherto regarded as a proper name, is an epithet describing the woman who dwells at the seashore which Gilgamesh in the course of his wanderings reaches, as an “innkeeper”. It is noticeable that the term always appears without the determinative placed before proper names; and since in the old Babylonian version (so far as preserved) and in the Assyrian version, the determinative is invariably used, its consistent absence in the case of sabitum (Assyrian Version, Tablet X, 1, 1, 10, 15, 20; 2, 15–16 [sa-bit]; Meissner fragment col. 2, 11–12) speaks in favor of Professor Haupt’s suggestion. The meaning “innkeeper”, while not as yet found in Babylonian-Assyrian literature is most plausible, since we have sabū as a general name for ’drink’, though originally designating perhaps more specifically sesame wine (Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 745^b) or distilled brandy, according to Prof. Haupt. Similarly, in the Aramaic dialects, s^eb^ha is used for “to drink” and in the Pael to “furnish drink”. Muss-Arnolt in [102]his Assyrian Dictionary, 746^b, has also recognized that sabitum was originally an epithet and compares the Aramaic s^eb^hoyâthâ(p1) “barmaids”. In view of the bad reputation of inns in ancient Babylonia as brothels, it would be natural for an epithet like sabitum to become the equivalent to “public” women, just as the inn was a “public” house. Sabitum would, therefore, have the same force as šamḫatu (the “harlot”), used in the Gilgamesh Epic by the side of ḫarimtu “woman” (see the note to line 46 of Pennsylvania Tablet). The Sumerian term for the female innkeeper is Sal Geštinna “the woman of the wine,” known to us from the Hammurabi Code §§108–111. The bad reputation of inns is confirmed by these statutes, for the house of the Sal Geštinna is a gathering place for outlaws. The punishment of a female devotee who enters the “house of a wine woman” (bît Sal Geštinna §110) is death. It was not “prohibition” that prompted so severe a punishment, but the recognition of the purpose for which a devotee would enter such a house of ill repute. The speech of the sabitum or innkeeper to Gilgamesh (above, p. 12) was, therefore, an invitation to stay with her, instead of seeking for life elsewhere. Viewed as coming from a “public woman” the address becomes significant. The invitation would be parallel to the temptation offered by the ḫarimtu in the first tablet of the Enkidu, and to which Enkidu succumbs. The incident in the tablet would, therefore, form a parallel in the adventures of Gilgamesh to the one that originally belonged to the Enkidu cycle. Finally, it is quite possible that sabitum is actually the Akkadian equivalent of the Sumerian Sal Geštinna, though naturally until this equation is confirmed by a syllabary or by other direct evidence, it remains a conjecture. See now also Albright’s remarks on Sabitum in the A. J. S. L. 36, pp. 269 seq.][103]

 

Corrections to the Text of Langdon’s Edition of the Pennsylvania Tablet.1

 

Column 1.

5. Read it-lu-tim (“heroes”) instead of id-da-tim (“omens”).

6. Read ka-ka-bu instead of ka-ka-’a. This disposes of Langdon’s note 2 on p. 211.

9 Read ú-ni-iš-šú-ma, “I became weak” (from enêšu, “weak”) instead of ilam iš-šú-ma, “He bore a net”(!). This disposes of Langdon’s note 5 on page 211.

10. Read Uruk^ki instead of ad-ki. Langdon’s note 7 is wrong.

12. Langdon’s note 8 is wrong. ú-um-mid-ma pu-ti does not mean “he attained my front.”

14. Read ab-ba-la-áš-šú instead of at-ba-la-áš-šú.

15. Read mu-di-a-at instead of mu-u-da-a-at.

20. Read ta-ḫa-du instead of an impossible [sa]-ah-ḫa-ta—two mistakes in one word. Supply kima Sal before taḫadu.

22. Read áš-šú instead of šú; and at the end of the line read [tu-ut]-tu-ú-ma instead of šú-ú-zu.

23. Read ta-tar-ra-[as-su].

24. Read [uš]-ti-nim-ma instead of [iš]-ti-lam-ma.

28. Read at the beginning šá instead of ina.

29. Langdon’s text and transliteration of the first word do not tally. Read ḫa-aṣ-ṣi-nu, just as in line 31.

32. Read aḫ-ta-du (“I rejoiced”) instead of aḫ-ta-ta.

 

Column 2.

4. Read at the end of the line di-da-šá(?) ip-tí-[e] instead of Di-?-al-lu-un (!).

5. Supply ^dEn-ki-dū at the beginning. Traces point to this reading.

19. Read [gi]-it-ma-[lu] after ^dGiš, as suggested by the Assyrian version, Tablet I, 4, 38, where emûḳu (“strength”) replaces nepištu of our text.

20. Read at-[ta kima Sal ta-ḫa]-bu-[ub]-šú.

21. Read ta-[ra-am-šú ki-ma].[104]

23. Read as one word ma-a-ag-ri-i-im (“accursed”), spelled in characteristic Hammurabi fashion, instead of dividing into two words ma-a-ak and ri-i-im, as Langdon does, who suggests as a translation “unto the place yonder(?) of the shepherd”(!).

24. Read im-ta-ḫar instead of im-ta-gar.

32. Supply ili(?) after ki-ma.

33. Read šá-ri-i-im as one word.

35. Read i-na [áš]-ri-šú [im]-ḫu-ru.

36. Traces at beginning point to either ù or ki (= itti). Restoration of lines 36–39 (perhaps to be distributed into five lines) on the basis of the Assyrian version, Tablet I, 4, 2–5.

 

Column 3.

14. Read Kàš (= šikaram, “wine”) ši-ti, “drink,” as in line 17, instead of bi-iš-ti, which leads Langdon to render this perfectly simple line “of the conditions and the fate of the land”(!).

21. Read it-tam-ru instead of it-ta-bir-ru.

22. Supply [^lùŠú]-I.

29. Read ú-gi-ir-ri from garû (“attack), instead of separating into ú and gi-ir-ri, as Langdon does, who translates “and the lion.” The sign used can never stand for the copula! Nor is girru, “lion!”

30. Read Síb^meš, “shepherds,” instead of šab-[ši]-eš!

31. šib-ba-ri is not “mountain goat,” nor can ut-tap-pi-iš mean “capture.” The first word means “dagger,” and the second “he drew out.”

33. Read it-ti-[lu] na-ki-[di-e], instead of itti immer nakie which yields no sense. Langdon’s rendering, even on the basis of his reading of the line, is a grammatical monstrosity.

35. Read giš instead of wa.

37. Read perhaps a-na [na-ki-di-e i]- za-ak-ki-ir.

 

Column 4.

4. The first sign is clearly iz, not ta, as Langdon has it in note 1 on page 216.

9. The fourth sign is su, not šú.

10. Separate e-eš (“why”) from the following. Read ta-ḫi-[il], followed, perhaps, by la. The last sign is not certain; it may be ma.[105]

11. Read lim-nu instead of mi-nu. In the same line read a-la-ku ma-na-aḫ-[ti]-ka instead of a-la-ku-zu(!) na-aḫ … ma, which, naturally, Langdon cannot translate.

16. Read e-lu-tim instead of pa-a-ta-tim. The first sign of the line, tu, is not certain, because apparently written over an erasure. The second sign may be a. Some one has scratched the tablet at this point.

18. Read uk-la-at âli (?) instead of ug-ad-ad-lil, which gives no possible sense!

 

Column 5.

2. Read [wa]-ar-ki-šú.

8. Read i-ta-wa-a instead of i-ta-me-a. The word pi-it-tam belongs to line 9! The sign pi is unmistakable. This disposes of note 1 on p. 218.

9. Read Mi = ṣalmu, “image.” This disposes of Langdon’s note 2 on page 218. Of six notes on this page, four are wrong.

11. The first sign appears to be si and the second ma. At the end we are perhaps to supply [šá-ki-i pu]-uk-ku-ul, on the basis of the Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 2, 45, šá-ki-i pu-[uk-ku-ul].

12. Traces at end of line suggest i-pa(?)-ka-du.

13. Read i-[na mâti da-an e-mu]-ki i-wa.

18. Read ur-šá-nu instead of ip-šá-nu.

19. Read i-šá-ru instead of i-tu-ru.

24. The reading it-ti after ^dGiš is suggested by the traces.

25. Read in-ni-[ib-bi-it] at the end of the line.

28. Read ip-ta-ra-[aṣ a-la]-ak-tam at the end of the line, as in the Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 2, 37.

30. The conjectural restoration is based on the Assyrian version, Tablet IV, 2, 36.

 

Column 6.

3. Read i-na ṣi-ri-[šú].

5. Supply [il-li-ik].

21. Langdon’s text has a superfluous ga.

22. Read uz-za-šú, “his anger,” instead of uṣ-ṣa-šú, “his javelin” (!).

23. Read i-ni-iḫ i-ra-as-su, i.e., “his breast was quieted,” in the sense of “his anger was appeased.”

31. Read ri-eš-ka instead of ri-eš-su.[106]

In general, it should be noted that the indications of the number of lines missing at the bottom of columns 1–3 and at the top of columns 4–6 as given by Langdon are misleading. Nor should he have drawn any lines at the bottom of columns 1–3 as though the tablet were complete. Besides in very many cases the space indications of what is missing within a line are inaccurate. Dr. Langdon also omitted to copy the statement on the edge: 4 šú-ši, i.e., “240 lines;” and in the colophon he mistranslates šú-tu-ur, “written,” as though from šaṭâru, “write,” whereas the form is the permansive III, 1, of atâru, “to be in excess of.” The sign tu never has the value ṭu! In all, Langdon has misread the text or mistransliterated it in over forty places, and of the 204 preserved lines he has mistranslated about one-half.

 

Plates