"stoker-dracula-168" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

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