Dracula in London

Newspaper clippings of blood-drained victims.

The Lyceum Theatre.

A.S.

I knew even before he spoke in his watered-down but still musical Irish brogue that I was in the presence of none other than Abraham—better known as “Bram”—Stoker.

“Mr. Fort,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Thank you for coming. Have you paper and pen?”

“I do,” I called from the darkness of the theatre, then produced said items from my jacket pocket. (Fortunately the light from the stage bled forward enough that I could see to make notes.)

“Excellent,” said Mr. Stoker, then wiped at his mouth with a dark-stained handkerchief he clutched in one shaking, palsied hand.

I knew—as did many of his admirers—that Stoker had been in seclusion for the last few years. Ill health was rumored—a rumor which I saw now to be sadly true (though whether or not he was suffering from the final stages of untreated syphilis I had not the medical knowledge to ascertain). I can tell you that the rumored feeblemindedness was true, for several times during his narrative did Mr. Stoker begin muttering gibberish for minutes on end, until he would fall into something like a brief trance from which he would emerge lucid and articulate.

“I am a great admirer of your writings,” he said from his place on the stage. “You must assemble your articles into a book for publication one day.”

“That is my intent,” I replied, suddenly aware of the single bead of perspiration that was snaking down my spine.

“May I suggest, then,” said Stoker, “that you call your work The Book of the Damned?”

“Why?”

He laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “Because all so-called ‘unnatural phenomena’ comes from damned places, sir. Speak of damned places and you speak of places where powerful emotional forces have been penned up. Have you ever been within the walls of a prison, Mr. Fort? Where the massed feelings of hatred, deprivation, claustrophobia, and brutalization have seeped into the very stones? One can feel it. The emotions resonate. They seethe, trapped, waiting for release, waiting to be given form, Mr. Fort. What you might call an ‘unconscious confluence’ were you to label it in one of your articles.

“You now sit in the remnants of one such ‘damned place,’ sir: the charred remains of the Lyceum Theatre. These stage boards, the curtain above me, the very seats which surround you and the one in which you now sit, were discovered by myself in a basement storage area of the Lyceum during my time there as manager—along, of course, with Sir Henry Irving, my own personal vampire.”

He spoke living’s name with a level of disgust that was absolutely chilling to hear. Even though Stoker attempted to hide his true feelings about Irving in his biography of the famous actor, it was now well known that, during the twenty-seven years Stoker worked as stage manager at the Lyceum, Irving treated him little better than a slave, paying him so very little that, upon Irving’s death, Stoker was forced to borrow money from friends and relatives in order to survive; when he was no longer able to borrow money, he was forced to write such drivel as his latest (and, I suspicioned, what would be his last) novel, The Lair of the White Worm.

I could not help but share the sorrow of this broken man on the stage before me; there had been a potential for true literary greatness there, once, but no more… and the late Sir Henry Irving was as much to blame for that as were Stoker’s so-called “personal indulgences.”

“Remember as you listen, Mr. Fort: emotions resonate. They seethe, trapped, waiting for release, waiting to be given form.”

I wrote down his words, though they seemed more the ramblings of a mind surrendering to the body’s sicknesses.

Stoker coughed into his handkerchief once again. Even from my place in the “audience,” I could see that he was coughing up blood. His handkerchief was useless to him now. I took my own, unused handkerchief from my pocket and rose to approach the stage and give it to him, but was stopped by the appearance of a great, dark wolf by Stoker’s side.

It wandered on from stage left and seated itself next to his wheelchair. Even sitting on its haunches, it was nearly as tall as he. I had never seen such a magnificent and terrifying creature in all my life. It looked upon me with pitiless eyes that, in the light of the stage, glowed a deep, frightening crimson.

I returned the handkerchief to my pocket and took my seat once again.

“You’ll come to no harm, Mr. Fort,” said Stoker, reaching out to rub the fur at the nape of the great wolfs neck. The beast growled contentedly. I thought of a line from Stoker’s most famous novel, about the Children of the Night, and what sweet music they made.

What follows is my transcription of Stoker’s narrative. I have taken the liberty of removing the sometimes- prolonged pauses he took between words, as well as excising those instances where his crumbling mind led him down rambling paths of incomprehensibility.

I ask only that you remember this was a man who could have achieved true literary greatness, but who is now only remembered as the author of “that dreadful vampire book.”

Even now, I still sorrow at the thought of What Might Have Been, had Fate been kinder to him.

The Narrative of Abraham (Bram) Stoker, as told to Charles Fort.

Little Russell Street, London, 1912.

I was born in Dublin in 1847, one of seven children. Though I was a very sickly child, I was nonetheless my mother’s favorite. During those years I spent in my sickbed, my mother tended to me with great and loving care. Having fostered a lifelong fascination with stories of the macabre, she entertained me with countless Irish ghost stories—the worst kind there is, I should add. As a child I was lulled to sleep each night with tales of banshees, demons, ghouls, and horrific accounts of the cholera outbreak of 1832.

My mother was a remarkable woman—strong-minded, ambitious, proud, a writer—she hoped that I, too, might one day become a person of letters—a visitor to workhouses for wayward and indigent girls, and above all, she was a proponent of women’s rights—much like her close friend, the mother of Oscar Wilde. I sincerely believe that, were it not for her kind ministrations on my behalf, I might have surrendered to the illnesses that plagued my early years. But she gave me strength and a sense of self-worth, and for that alone I shall always cherish her memory.

When I became of college age and was accepted at Trinity on an athletic scholarship—you would not know it to look at this pathetic body now, but there was a time when I was a champion. I was a record breaker, in my day… and, I must admit, I gained a reputation among the members of my class for a somewhat exaggerated masculinity—some would even call it polemical. But I assure you that I was never less than chivalric toward the ladies with whom I kept company. I often wonder now if my way with the ladies back then is not the reason I am being punished in my final days with a wife so distant and frigid I might as well be wed to a corpse.

In 1871 I graduated with honours in science—Pure Mathematics, which enabled me to accept a civil service position at Dublin Castle. That same year I began to review theatrical positions in Dublin, and in 1876 I was privileged to review Sir Henry Irving’s magnificent performance in Hamlet. Shortly thereafter, we became great friends—or so I thought.

The great actor is a strange beast, indeed, Mr. Fort, for his ego is such that it requires—nay, demands—constant feeding. Sir Henry was much like a child in that way. He took more of my friendship than he ever did return, but I was simply too awestruck * by the man’s genius to take notice of this.

I became his stage manager when he took over management of the Lyceum Theatre. That same year, I began to publish my writings—The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland. It was released to unanimous indifference from critics and the public alike. Sir Henry urged me to explore more “universal” themes in my work, much as Shakespeare and Milton and Marlowe did in theirs. The man was simply hoping that his lapdog assistant would, perhaps, compose a play in which he might once again take center stage and be the focus of attention… but I digress. I served Sir Henry well and loyally over the years. His opinion of my writing remained, as always, dismissive… until I wrote Dracula. On this, he at last expressed an opinion. “It is absolute, pandering rubbish,” he said. Still, in “reward” for my many years of service and friendship to