Page 305 - DRACULA

Dracula

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 become softened and
even resolved into their youthful beauty, that this was
especially so when death had been preceded by any acute
or prolonged suffering. I 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 goodbye, 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 goodbye, 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!’

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