Dracula's Guest And Other Weird Tales (59 page)

1
.   
en rapport
: In sympathy (French).

2
.   
nem. con.
: OED: ‘Especially with reference to a motion carried: (with) no one speaking (or voting) against.’ From
nemine contradicente
(Latin).

3
.   
tiled
: OED: ‘Tile:
Freemasonry
. (Usually ‘tyle’). To protect (a lodge or meeting) from interruption and intrusion, so as to keep its proceedings secret, by placing a ‘tiler’ before the door. Also
transf.
to bind (a person) to secrecy; to keep (any meeting or proceeding) strictly secret.’

1
.   
dragons… in their slime
: Cf. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809– 92),
In Memoriam
(1854):

No more? A monster then, a dream,

A discord. Dragons of the prime,

That tare each other in their slime,

Were mellow music matched with him. (56: 21–4)

2
.   
In fine
: To conclude or sum up, finally (Latin).

3
.   
Derbyshire
…
Kentucky
: Some of the deepest caves in Britain are found in Derbyshire, including the Blue John Cavern (worked by the Romans for its deposits of the mineral Blue John); Treak Cliff Cavern (containing some of Britain’s finest stalactite and stalagmite formations); and Speedwell Cavern (mined for its rich lead deposits). The Mammoth caves in Kentucky remain the longest recorded cave system in the world with more than 360 miles explored and mapped. It is the second-oldest tourist attraction in America after Niagara Falls, with guided tours offered since 1816.

4
.   
Philosopher’s Stone… transmutation of metal
: The Philosopher’s Stone was reputed by alchemists to possess the property of changing other metals into gold or silver. Commonly identified with the
elixir vitae
(elixir of life), it was also supposed to heal
wounds and prolong life indefinitely. Although scientifically discredited by the twentieth century, the metaphors and imagery of the Philosopher’s Stone persisted. In 1901, atomic scientists Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) and Frederick Soddy (1877– 1956) discovered that radioactivity was a sign of fundamental changes (transmutation) within elements. Soddy, an alchemical hobbyist, quickly made the connection between this and the ancient search for the Philosopher’s Stone, and the process was subsequently named the ‘Disintegration Theory of Atomic Transmutation’. Radium itself had been discovered in 1898 by the Polish-born French chemist Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867– 1934) and her husband, Pierre (1859–1906). Awarding their Nobel Prize in 1911, Dr E. W. Dahlgren declared: ‘The theory of transmutation, dear to the alchemists, has been unexpectedly restored to life, this time in an exact form, deprived of any mystical element; and the Philosopher’s Stone with the property of inducing such transmutations is no longer a mysterious, elusive elixir but is something which modern science calls energy.’

5
.   ‘
the substance… things unseen
’: Cf. Hebrews 11:1: ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’

1
.   
genii and species
: In 1735 Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus (1707–78) published the first volume of his
Systema Naturae
, in which he established his scheme for classifying all known and yet to be discovered organisms according to the greater or lesser extent of their structural similarity. Linnaeus used a binomial nomenclature system, according all organisms two Latin name categories,
genus
and
species
. In total, Linnaeus’ classification hierarchy consisted of five levels:
kingdom, class, order, genus
and
species
. The Linnaean system of classification was widely accepted by the early nineteenth century and remains the basic framework for all categorization in the biological sciences, although the modern taxonomical system now includes seven levels of classification:
kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species
.

2
.   
it is cold-blooded
: Arabella herself is referred to as being cold-blooded in
Chapters XV
and
XIX
.

1
.   
Barbette
: A platform or mound of earth within a fortification, on which the guns are raised so that they can be fired over the parapet.

2
.   
a cocotte
: A prostitute (French).

1
.   
the Isle of Man
: Stoker’s links with the Isle of Man (of which Douglas is the capital) were through his friendship with Thomas Henry Hall Caine (1853–1931), to whom
Dracula
was dedicated. Of Manx parentage, Caine was the highly successful author of such melodramatic novels as
The Deemster
(1887),
The Bondman
(1890) and
The Manxman
(1894).

2
.   
the Ribble
: The River Ribble, which runs through North Yorkshire and Lancashire in the north of England, marked the ancient northern boundary of Mercia, and at the time of the Domesday Book (1086) was the northern boundary of Cheshire.

1
.   
kick the beam
: To die; to be of inferior consequence.

2
.   
seen her close and lived to tell the tale
: Links can be made here between Lady Arabella’s avatar as serpent and the Greek mythological character of Medusa, a monstrous female with hair of living venomous serpents whose glance would turn all living creatures to stone.

1
.   
a snake… stealth and cunning
: Compare this with Van Helsing’s assessment of Dracula: ‘he too have child-brain, and it is of the child to do what he have done’ (
Dracula
, p. 363). Contemporary criminal anthropologists such as Cesare Lombroso (1836–1909) and Max Nordau (1849–1923) postulated the existence of a criminal type, physically distinguishable and ‘lower’ in the evolutionary scale than the ‘normal’ human being.
In her animality, Lady Arabella thus reveals her abnormality and criminality.

2
.   
I remember… the Khan of Bokhara
: Stoker may possibly be referring here to the assassination of Alexander II of Russia (1818–81) who, whilst driving through the streets of St Petersburg near the Winter Palace on 13 March 1881, was mortally wounded in a grenade ambush organized by a gang of revolutionaries.

1
.   
The slop-basin
: Properly equipped, a tea-tray would comprise a teapot and stand, teacups and saucers, sugar bowl, milk jug and slop basin for discarding used tea leaves.

2
.   
Queenstown
: It is possible that Stoker here is referring to the sea port in County Cork (Ireland) now called Cobh. The locality was renamed Queenstown in 1849 to commemorate a visit by Queen Victoria. One of the major transatlantic Irish ports, Cobh was the last port of call for the RMS
Titanic
on 11 April 1911 before she set out across the Atlantic.

1
.   
semaphore signals
: The semaphore system is an alphabet-signalling method based on the waving of hand-held flags in a particular pattern. The flags are usually square, red and yellow, with the red portion in the upper hoist.

2
.   
a via dolorosa
: Literally ‘way of grief’ (Latin), the Via Dolorosa is the route in Jerusalem that Christ is believed to have followed from Pilate’s judgement hall to Calvary.

1
.   
dernier cri
: Latest fashion (literally ‘last cry’) (French).

1
.   
Stafford owes much… time to time
: A fine white potter’s clay, also called kaolin, china clay was employed in the manufacture of china or porcelain. North Staffordshire became the centre of ceramic and porcelain production in Britain in the seventeenth century, due to the ready availability of clay, salt, lead and coal.

2
.   
the labours of Hercules
: To atone for the killing of his wife and children, executed in a fit of madness, Hercules was sentenced by the Oracle to serve King Eurystheus. As part of his sentence, Hercules had to perform twelve seemingly impossible Labours. These were: procuring the skin of the Nemean Lion; killing the Lernean Hydra; acquiring the Hind of Ceryneia and the Erymanthian Boar; cleaning the Augean Stables in a single day; driving away the Stymphalian Birds; killing the Cretan Bull; acquiring the Man-Eating Horses of Diomedes, Hippolyte’s Girdle, the Cattle of Geryon and the Apples of the Hesperides; and finally, journeying into the Underworld to kidnap the beast Cerberus.

3
.   
there is nothing new under the sun
: Cf. Ecclesiastes 1:9: ‘The thing that hath been, is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.’

4
.   
the Chartist trouble
: Chartism was a movement for social and political reform in Britain during the mid nineteenth century which took its name from the
People’s Charter
of 1838, a document calling for radical reform of the electoral and enfranchisement system.

5
.   
greater explosion at Hell Gate in New York
: Hell Gate is a narrow tidal channel in the East River in New York City separating Ward’s Island and Astoria, Queens. Navigation in the strait was extremely hazardous due to the submerged rocks and converging tide-currents and by the late nineteenth century hundreds of ships had sunk in the channel. In 1876 the US Army Corps of Engineers blasted the dangerous rocks – one explosion of which was the largest man-made blast in history up until the Atomic Age.

1
.   
a Kelvin sounding apparatus
: The Kelvin Sounding Machine, invented by the mathematical physicist and engineer William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824–1907), was a device used to calculate water depth in fathoms. A lead weight was lowered on a wire and the depth recorded by the apparatus.

2
.   
parti
: A person considered in terms of eligibility for marriage on grounds of wealth, social status, etc. (French).

1
.   
Eritis Sicut Deus
: ‘Ye shall be as gods’ (Latin), from Genesis 3:5: ‘For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’

1
.   
That way madness lies
: Cf. William Shakespeare,
King Lear
(III, iv, 21): ‘O, that way madness lies. Let me shun that.’

2
.   
When the Master of Evil… kingdoms of the earth
: Cf. Luke 4:5: ‘And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.’

3
.   
a magnesium light
: When burnt, magnesium produces a blinding white light, commonly used in signalling, in pyrotechnics or in photography where a strong illumination is required.

1
.   
a rope-walk or a bundle of hop-poles
: A rope-walk is a stretch of ground appropriated to the making of ropes. A hop-pole is a tall pole on which hop-plants are trained.

2
.   
spring guns
: A gun rigged to fire when a string or other triggering device is tripped by contact with the string of sufficient force to ‘spring’ the trigger.

3
.   
inter alia
: ‘Amongst other things’ (Latin).