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That damned scar hung there on her face, an ominous red warning to us all.
The goings-on in Mina's subconscious remember that at the time we did not know
that word had been channeled by Van Helsing's mesmeric powers into producing
this stigma. And that the scar nearly matched the one I had received at her
husband's hands must have been more than sheer coincidence there's that
profound or perhaps meaningless word again. And no one who could see both
scars seems ever to have remarked upon 'heir similarity except for Mina, and
one other, as I will shortly relate.
Van Helsing, now that the tiger had been as he thought driven far from the
village, and perhaps beyond the hunters' reach forever, was, perhaps impelled
by his own subconscious, looking for other potential game. "Our poor dear
Madam Mina is changing," he confided to Seward at a moment when the two of
them were alone. "I can see the characteristics of the vampire coming into 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& there is to her the silence now often, as it was with Miss
Lucy."
Whilst Seward nodded, wide-eyed, the professor went on: "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 that he who have hypnotize her first, and have made her
drink of his blood, should compel her mind to disclose to him what she know of
us?"
Seward had to agree, and it was decided to again reverse policy and exclude
Mina from all councils of war. On that evening, before they had been forced to
break this sad news to her, "a great personal relief was experienced" by both
doctors, as Seward wrote, when "Mrs. Harker& 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."
Mina of course had caught some hints from Jonathan as to which way the wind
was blowing, and had also caught from me a mental signal that I was a-thirst
to visit her that night.
Actually my small, furry shape alighted on her bedroom windowsill just as she
was packing her husband off to join the other men in their deliberations
below. She closed the door of their sitting-room behind him with a sigh of
relief, and came tripping gaily into the bedroom. Her face brightened further
as she caught sight of the transformed count with bat nose pressed against the
pane, impatiently awaiting audience.
She moved at once to open the window for me that I might avoid the
inconvenience of a shape change to get in but her first glance at the bat-form
as it hopped inside was not without an admixture of repugnance. I made haste
to swell into human shape as soon as I was well within the room.
"Think of it as a mere disguise," I murmured when we had kissed. "No more
than a suit I sometimes wear. But tell me, why such a joyous dance step, fair
lady, as that with which you crossed the sitting room just now?"
"Besides the joy of seeing you again," Mina answered, "it was just sheer
relief at not having to endure another of their meetings." She told me how she
had just anticipated her re-exclusion by their leadership, and sighed as if at
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the removal of an ill-fitting shoe. "They all sit there, scowling or
open-mouthed, listening to Van Helsing rant on about how hideous vampires are,
as if that had no connection at all with me. That is, until one of them
remembers the mark of Cain upon my forehead, and sneaks a look at it; and then
his eyes slide almost guiltily away as soon as they come near to meeting mine.
Even even Jonathan is no longer quite willing to look me steadily in the Face.
He loves me still, I think, but it is as if as if he has grown somewhat
ashamed of me."
She raised her fingers to the red scar that marred her beauty. "Vlad, speak
fully and honestly, as your love for me is full and true. What can be done
about this? Is there no way to make it disappear?"
I was now sitting on her bed, my legs crossed, swinging one of a pair of
stylish new English boots. I supposed I might possibly have applied some
hypnotic powers of my own to rid her of the scar, but it had been my
experience with similar hysterical manifestations that if they were suppressed
in one form, without the root cause being removed, they were likely to
reappear in some new form even more discomfiting.
"Not without considerable risk to you," I answered. "Not at present, anyway.
Remember, Van Helsing would probably be gravely suspicious that you were truly
turning vampire if the scar, or the small marks on your throat, were to
suddenly disappear. But take heart, in time we shall find a way."
"But, Vlad, why should Dr. Van Helsing's touching me with the Host have left
this hideous stain for all to see? I still cannot understand; be patient with
me. Why must I bear this mark if if I am not in fact& "
"Unclean and evil? Be assured that you are not. That mark can have come only
through Van Helsing's mesmeric power, whether under his deliberate control or
not, acting on your body through a part of your own mind that is not
conscious."
"But how can a mind that is not conscious act?"
"I do not know how." In that year of 1891 a young doctor named Sigmund Freud
was only beginning his researches into hysteria. "But I have seen similar
things before. Mina, I myself may be evidence of a superior kind of hypnotic
power."
"What do you mean, Vlad?"
"I mean a power basically similar to hypnotism, but carried to an extreme
degree, far beyond what Van Helsing or Charcot or any of the regular
practitioners of today can hope to accomplish. Surpassing their best
efforts or the best efforts I could consciously make even as the steam
locomotive transcends the power of the boiling tea kettle.
"I should have died of sword wounds, Mina, in the year of Our Lord 1476. My
lungs stopped, and my heart, but I feared neither death nor life& do you know
the writings of the American, Poe? Or of Joseph Glanville, your own
countryman? 'Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly,
save only by the weakness of his feeble will.' It was no vampire woman's
embrace that made me what I am."
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