Dracula's Guest & Other Weird Tales - A Dream of Red Hands

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
A Dream of Red Hands. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Reading
by Bologna Times, A Dream of Red Hands by Bram Stoker.

(00:22):
The first opinion given to me regarding Jacob Settle was
a simple descriptive statement, He's a down in the mouth chap.
But I found that it embodied the thoughts and ideas
of all his fellow workmen. There was in the phrase
a certain easy tolerance, an absence of positive feeling of

(00:43):
any kind, rather than any complete opinion, which marked pretty
accurately the man's place in public esteem. Still, there was
some dissimilarity between this and his appearance, which unconsciously set
me thinking, and by degrees, as I saw more of
the place and the workman, I came to have a

(01:06):
special interest in him. He was I found forever doing kindnesses,
not involving money expenses beyond his humble means, but in
the manifold ways of forethought and forbearance and self repression,
which are the truer charities of life. Women and children
trusted him implicitly, though strangely, enough, he rather shunned them,

(01:30):
except when anyone was sick, and then he made his
appearance to help if he could. Timidly and awkwardly. He
led a very solitary life, keeping house by himself in
a tiny cottage or rather hut of one room, far
on the edge of the moorland. His existence seemed so

(01:52):
sad and solitary that I wished to cheer it up,
and for the purpose took the occasion, when we had
both been sit up with the child injured by me
through accident, to offer to lend him books. He gladly accepted,
and as we parted in the gray of the dawn,
I felt something of mutual confidence had been established between us.

(02:16):
The books were always most carefully and punctually returned, and
in time Jacob Settle and I became quite friends. Once
or twice, as I crossed the moorland on Sundays, I
looked in on him, But on such occasions he was
shy and ill at ease, so that I felt diffident

(02:37):
about calling to see him. He would never, under any
circumstances come into my own lodgings. One Sunday afternoon, I
was coming back from a long walk beyond the moor,
and as I passed Settle's cottage, stopped at the door
to say how do you do to him? As the
door was shut, I thought that he was out, and

(02:58):
merely knocked for form's sake or through habit, not expecting
to get any answer. To my surprise, I heard a
feeble voice from within, though what was said I could
not hear. I entered at once and found Jacob lying
half dressed upon his bed. He was as pale as death,

(03:20):
and the sweat was simply rolling off his face. His
hands were unconsciously gripping the bedclothes, as a drowning man
holds on to whatever he may grasp. As I came in,
he half arose with a wild, hunted look in his eyes,
which were wide open and staring, as though something of
horror had come before them. But when he recognized me,

(03:43):
he sank back on the couch with a smothered sob
of relief and closed his eyes. I stood by him
for a while, quite a minute or two while he gasped.
Then he opened his eyes and looked at me, but
with such a despairing, woeful expression that, as I am
a living man, I would have rather seen that frozen

(04:06):
look of horror. I sat down beside him and asked
after his health. For a while he would not answer me,
except to say that he was not ill. But then,
after scrutinizing me closely, he half arose on his elbow
and said, I thank you kindly, sir, But I am
simply telling you the truth. I am not ill as

(04:29):
men call it, though God knows whether there be not
worse sicknesses than doctors know of. I'll tell you as
you are so kind, but I trust that you won't
even mention such a thing to a living soul, for
it might welk me more and greater woe. I am
suffering from a bad dream, A bad dream, I said,

(04:52):
hoping to cheer him. But dreams pass away with the light,
even with waking there I stopped for before his I
saw the answer in his desolate look round the little place. No, no,
that's all well for people that live in comfort and
with those they love around them. It is a thousand

(05:13):
times worse for those who live alone and have to
do so. What cheir is there for me? Waking here
in the silence of the night, with a wide more
around me full of voices and full of faces that
make my waking a worse dream than my sleep. Ah,
young sir, you have no pass that can send its
legions to people the darkness and the empty space, and

(05:38):
I pray the Good God that you may never have.
As he spoke, there was such an almost irresistible gravity
of conviction in his manner that I abandoned my remonstrance
about his solitary life. I felt that I was in
the presence of some secret influence which I could not

(05:58):
fathom my relief, for I knew not what to say.
He went on. Two nights passed. I have dreamt it.
It was hard enough the first night, but I came
through it last night. The expectation was in itself almost
worse than the dream, until the dream came, and then
it swept away every remembrance of lesser pain. I stayed

(06:21):
awake till just before the dawn, and then it came again.
And ever since I have been in such an agony
as I am sure the dying feel, and with it
all the dread of to night. Before he had got
to the end of the sentence, my mind was made up,
and I felt that I could speak to him more cheerfully,

(06:42):
try and get to sleep early to night. In fact,
before the evening has passed away, the sleep will refresh you,
and I promise you there will not be any bad
dreams after to night. He shook his head hopelessly. So
I sat a little longer and then left him. When
I got home, I made my arrangements for the night,

(07:03):
for I had made up my mind to share. Jacob
settles lonely vigil in his cottage on the moor. I
judged that if he got to sleep before sunset, he
would wake well before midnight. And so, just as the
bells of the city were striking eleven, I stood opposite
his door, armed with a bag, in which were my supper,

(07:23):
an extra large flask, a couple of candles, and a book.
The moonlight was bright and flooded the whole more till
it was almost as light as day. But ever an
anon black clouds drove across the sky and made a
darkness which, by comparison seemed almost tangible. I opened the

(07:44):
door softly and entered without waking Jacob, who lay asleep
with his white face upward. He was still and again
bathed in sweat. I tried to imagine what visions were
passing before those closed eyes, which could bring with them
the misery and woe which were stamped on the face.
But fancy failed me, and I waited for the awakening.

(08:07):
It came suddenly, and in a fashion which touched me
to the quick, for the hollow groan that broke from
the man's white lips as he half arose and sank back,
was manifestly the realization or completion of some train of
thought which had gone before. If this be dreaming, I

(08:29):
said to myself that it must be based on some
very terrible reality. What can have been that unhappy fact
that he spoke of? While thus I spoke, he realized
that I was with him. It struck me as strange
that he had no period of that doubt as to
whether dream or reality surrounded him, which commonly marks an

(08:53):
expected environment of waking men. With a positive cry of joy,
he seized my hand and held it in his two wet,
trembling hands, as a frightened child clings on to some
one whom it loves. I tried to soothe him. There there,
it is all right. I have come to stay with
you to night, and together we will try to fight

(09:15):
this evil dream. He let go my hand suddenly, and
sank back on his bed and covered his eyes with
his hands. Fight it, fight it, the evil dream. Ah, No, sir, no,
no mortal power can fight that dream, for it comes
from gold and is burned in here. And he beat

(09:37):
upon his forehead. Then he went on, it is the
same dream, ever, the same, and yet it groes in
its power to torture me every time it comes. What
is the dream? I asked, thinking that the speaking of
it might give him some relief. But he shrank away

(09:57):
from me, and, after a long pause, said, now I
had better not tell it. It may not come again.
There was manifestly something to conceal from me, something that
lay beyond the dream. So I answered, all right, I
hope you have seen the last of it, But if

(10:18):
it should come again, you will tell me, will you not.
I ask not out of curiosity, but because I think
it may relieve you to speak. He answered with what
I thought was almost an undue amount of solemnity. If
it comes again, I shall tell you all. Then I

(10:38):
tried to get his mind away from the subject to
more mundane things. So I produced supper and made him
share it with me, including the contents of the flask.
After a little he braced up, and when I lit
my cigar, having given him another, we smoked a full
hour and talked of many things. Little by little, the

(11:01):
comfort of his body stole over his mind, and I
could see sleep laying her gentle hands on his eyelids.
He felt it too, and told me that now he
felt all right and I might safely leave him. But
I told him that right or wrong, I was going
to see in the daylight. So I lit my other

(11:22):
candle and began to read. As he fell asleep. By degrees,
I got interested in my book, so interested that presently
I was startled by its dropping out of my hands.
I looked and saw that Jacob was still asleep, and
I was rejoiced to see that there was on his
face a look of unwonted happiness, while his lips seemed

(11:46):
to move with unspoken words. Then I turned to my
work again and again woke, but this time to feel
chilled to my very marrow by hearing the voice from
the bed beside me, not with those red hands. Never
never on looking at him, I found that he was
still asleep. He woke, however, in an instant, and did

(12:10):
not seem surprised to see me. There was again that
strange apathy as to his surroundings. Then I said, settle,
tell me your dream. You may speak freely, for I
shall hold your confidence sacred while we both live. I
shall never mention what you may choose to tell me.
He replied. I said I would, but I had better

(12:34):
tell you first what goes before the dream, that you
may understand. I was a schoolmaster when I was a
very young man. It was only a parish school in
a little village in the west Country. No need to
mention any names. Better not. I was engaged to be
married to a young girl whom I loved and almost reverenced.

(12:58):
It was the old story. While we were waiting for
the time when we could afford to set up house together,
another man came along. He was nearly as young as
I was, and handsome, and a gentleman, with all a
gentleman's attractive ways for a woman of our class. He
would go fishing, and she would meet him while I

(13:19):
was at my work in school. I reasoned with her
and implored to give him up. I offered to get
married at once and go away and begin the world
in this strange country. But she would not listen to
anything I could say, and I could see that she
was infatuated with him. Then I took it on myself

(13:39):
to meet the man and ask him to deal well
with the girl, for I thought he might mean honestly
by her, so that there might be no talk or
chance of talk on the part of the others. I
went where I should meet him, with none by, and
we met here. Jacob said had to pause for something

(14:01):
seemed to rise in his throat, and he almost gasped
for breath. Then he went on, sir, as God is
above us, there was no selfish thought in my heart
that day. I loved my pretty Mabel too well to
be content with a part of her love. And I
had thought of my own unhappiness too often not to

(14:22):
have come to realize that whatever might come to her,
my hope was gone. He was insolent to me. You, sir,
who are a gentleman, cannot know perhaps how galling can
be the insolence of one who is above you in station.
But I bore with that. I implored him well with
the girl, for what might be only a pastime of

(14:46):
an idle hour with him might be the breaking of
her heart, for I never had a thought of her truth,
or that the worst of harm could come to her.
It was only the unhappiness to her heart I feared.
But when I asked him when he intended to marry her,
his laughter galled me so that I had lost my

(15:08):
temper and told him that I would not stand by
and see her life made unhappy. Then he grew angry too,
and in his anger said such cruel things of her
that then and there I swore he should not live
to do her harm. God knows how it came about,
for in such moments of passion it is hard to
remember the steps from a word to a blow. But

(15:31):
I found myself standing over his dead body with my hands, crimson,
with a blood that welled from his torn throat. We
were alone, and he was a stranger, with none of
his kin to seek for him. And murder does not
always out, not all at once. His bones may be
whitening still, for all I know. In the pool of

(15:53):
the river where I left him, no one suspected his
absence or why it was, except my poor Mabel, And
she dared not speak. But it was all in vain,
for when I came back again after an absence of months,
for I could not live in the place. I learned
that her shame had come, and that she had died

(16:14):
in it. Hitherto I had been borne up by the
thought that my ill deed had saved her future. But
now when I learned that I had been too late,
and that my poor love was smirched with that man's sin,
I fled away, with the sense of my useless guilt
upon me more heavily than I could bear. Ah, Sir,

(16:38):
you that have not done such a sin don't know
what it is to carry it with you. You may
think that custom makes it easy to you, but it
is not so. It grows and grows with every hour
till it becomes intolerable, and with it growing too the
feeling that you must forever stand outside Heaven. Don't know

(17:00):
what it means, and I pray God that you never may.
Ordinary men to whom all things are possible, don't often,
if ever, think of Heaven. It is a name and
nothing more, and they are content to wait and let
things be. But to those who are doomed to be
shut out forever, you cannot think what it means. You

(17:21):
cannot guess or measure the terrible, endless longing to see
the gates opened, and to be able to join the
white figures within. And this brings me to my dream.
It seemed that the portal was before me, with great
gates of massive steel, with bars of the thickness of
a mast, rising to the very clouds, and so close

(17:44):
that between them was just a glimpse of a crystal grotto,
on whose shining walls were figured many white clad forms,
with faces radiant with joy. When I stood before the gate,
my heart and soul were so full of rapture and
longing that I forgot. And there stood at the gate

(18:04):
two mighty angels, with sweeping wings, and oh so stern
of countenance. They held each in one hand a flaming sword,
and in the other the latchet, which moved to and
fro at the lightest touch. Nearer were figures, all draped
in black, with heads covered so that only the eyes
were seen, and they handed to each who came white garments,

(18:28):
such as the angels were. A low murmur came that
told that all should put on their own robes and
without soil, or the angels would not pass them in,
but would smite them down with the flaming swords. I
was eager to don my own garment and hurriedly throw
it over me. Then stepped swiftly to the gate, but

(18:49):
it moved not, and the angels, loosing the latchet, pointed
to my dress. I looked down and was aghast, for
the whole robe was smeared with blood. My hands were red,
they glittered with the blood that dripped from them, as
on that day by the river bank. And then the
angels raised the flaming swords to smite me down, and

(19:12):
the horror was complete. I awoke again and again and again.
That awful dream comes to me. I never learned from
the experience. I never remember, but at the beginning the
hope is ever there to make the end more appalling.
And I know that the dream does not come out

(19:33):
of the common darkness where the dreams abired, but that
it is sent from God as a punishment. Never, never
shall I be able to pass the gate, for the
soil on the angel garments must ever come from these
bloody hands. I listened as in a spell. As Jacob
Settle spoke. There was something so far away in the

(19:56):
tone of his voice, something so dreamy and mystic in
the eyes that looked as if through me at some
spirit beyond. Something so lofty in his very diction, and
in such marked contrast to his work worn clothes and
his poor surroundings, that I wondered if the whole thing
were not a dream. We were both silent for a

(20:19):
long time. I kept looking at the man before me,
and growing wonderment. Now that his confession had been made,
his soul, which had been crushed to the very earth,
seemed to leap back again to uprightness with some resilient force.
I suppose I ought to have been horrified with his story,

(20:40):
but strange to say I was not. It certainly is
not pleasant to be made the recipient of the confidence
of a murderer. But this poor fellow seemed to have
had not only so much provocation, but so much self
denying purpose in his deed of blood, that I did
not feel called upon to pass judgment upon him. My

(21:03):
purpose was to comfort, so I spoke out with what
calmness I could, for my heart was beating fast and heavily.
You need not despair, Jacob Settle. God is very good,
and his mercy is great. Live on and work on
in the hope that some day you may feel that

(21:23):
you have atoned for the past. Here I paused, for
I could see that deep natural sleep this time was
creeping upon him. Go to sleep, I said, I shall
watch with you here, and we shall have no more
evil dreams to night. He made an effort to pull
himself together and answered, I don't know how to thank

(21:47):
you for your goodness to me this night, but I
think you had best leave me now. I'll try and
sleep this out. I feel a weight off my mind
since I have told you all, if there's anything of
the man left in me, I must try and fight
out life alone. I'll go to night as you wish it,
I said, But take my advice and do not live

(22:09):
in such a solitary way. Go among men and women,
Live among them, share their joys and sorrows, and it
will help you to forget this solitude will make you melancholy,
mad I will, he answered, half consciously, for sleep was
overmastering him. I turned to go, and he looked after me.

(22:32):
When I had touched the latch, I dropped it, and,
coming back to the bed, held out my hand. He
grasped it with both his as he rose to a
sitting posture, and I said my good night, trying to
cheer him. Heart, man, heart, there is work in this
world for you to do, Jacob Settle. You can wear
those white robes yet and pass through that gate of steel.

(22:56):
Then I left him. A week after I found his
cottage deserted, and on asking at the works, was told
that he had gone north. No one exactly knew whither.
Two years afterwards, I was staying for a few days
with my friend doctor Monroe in Glasgow. He was a

(23:17):
busy man and could not spare much time for going
about with me, so I spent my days in excursions
to the truss Acts and Loch Katrine and down the Clyde.
On the second last evening of my stay, I came
back somewhat later than I had arranged, but found that
my host was late too. The maid told me that

(23:39):
he had been sent for to the hospital a case
of accident at the gas works, and the dinner was
postponed an hour, so, telling her I would stroll down
to find her master and walk back with him, I
went out. At the hospital. I found him washing his
hands preparatory to starting for home. Casually, I asked him

(24:00):
what his case was, Oh, the usual thing. A rotten
rope and men's lives of no account. Two men were
working in a gusometer when the rope that held their
scaffolding broke. It must have occurred just before the dinner hour,
for no one noticed their absence till the men had returned.
There was about seven feet of water in the guessometer,

(24:23):
so they had a hard fight for it. Poor fellows. However,
one of them was alive, just alive. But we have
had a hard job to pull him through. It seems
that he owes his life to his mate, for I
have never heard of greater heroism. They swam together while
their strength lasted. But at the end they were so

(24:43):
done up that even the lights above and the men
slung with ropes coming down to help them, could not
keep them up. But one of them stood on the
bottom and held up his comrade over his head, and
those few breaths made all the difference between life and death.
They were a shocking sight when they were taken out,
for that water is like a purple dye. With the

(25:07):
gas and the tar, the man upstairs looked as if
he had been washed in blood. Ugh, and the other oh,
he's worse still. But he must have been a very
noble fellow. That struggle under the water must have been fearful.
One can see that by the way the blood has

(25:28):
been drawn from the extremities. It makes the idea of
the stigmata possible. To look at him resolution like this,
could you would think do anything in the world. Ay,
it might almost unbar the gates of heaven. Look here,
old man. It is not a very pleasant sight, especially

(25:48):
just before dinner. But you are our writer, and this
is an odd case. Here is something you would not
like to miss, for in all human probability, you will
never see anything like it again. While he was speaking,
he had brought me into the mortuary of the hospital.
On the bier lay a body covered with a white
sheet which was wrapped close around It. Looks like a chrysalis,

(26:13):
don't it, I say, Jack. If there be anything in
the old myth that a soul is typified by a butterfly, well,
then the one that this chrysalis sent forth was a
very noble specimen, and took all the sunlight on its wings.
See here he uncovered the face horrible. Indeed, it looked

(26:35):
as though stained with blood. But I knew him at once.
Jacob Settle, my friend, pulled the winding sheet further down.
The hands were crossed on the purple breast, as they
had been reverently placed by some tender hearted person. As
I saw them, my heart throbbed with a great exultation,
for the memory of his harrowing dream rushed across my mind.

(26:58):
There was no stain now on those poor brave hands,
for they were blanched white as snow. And somehow, as
I looked, I felt that the evil dream was all over,
that noble soul had won a way through the gate.
At last, the white robe had now no stain from
the hands that had put it on end of a

(27:20):
dream of red hands.