Page 603 - DRACULA

Dracula

read it, for then it will be in your voice in my memory
forever, 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 anyone, 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 and emotional that often he had to pause, he read
the simple and beautiful service from the Burial of the
Dead. I cannot go on … words … and v-voices … f-fail
m-me!
She was right in her instinct. Strange as it was, bizarre
as it may hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent

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