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

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 Conquistodores 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
sterness, 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 pharmacopoeia
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