Tuesday, May 14, 2019

What did Van Helsing say many times to Dracula?

In Bram Stoker's Dracula Professor Van Helsing is the only one in the book that seems to have the knowledge and expertise to defeat Dracula. For example, he fills Lucy's room with garlic because he knows vampires detest the smell and fixes it so Dracula can no longer enter his castle. As one point he states

The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages.

However, Van Helsing does not say anything directly to the Count in any of their three meetings. In their first meeting, he can only watch in horror as the Count releases his grip on Mina and leaves the room.

As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His eye flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the white sharp, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast.

In their second meeting, the Count tells Van Helsing and the others that he has the love of their women and nothing can stop him. After the count leaves Van Helsing points out

We have learnt something-much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us . . . For if not, why he hurry so?

In their third meeting, he watches as Mr. Morris plunges his bowie knife into the count's heart.
The one thing that he repeats about the Count throughout is that the Count is one of the "un-dead."

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