The Historian

Ranov escorts Paul and Helen to the monastery at Bachkovo, where they ask to meet a monk once named Vasil Pondev, on Stoichev’s advice. Brother Angel, as he is now known, is old and infirm, kept separate from the other monks. He speaks nonsense, according to Ranov, and his thoughts are hard to follow. He sings bits of a ballad that mentions a dragon as protector. When Paul asks him directly about Dracula, Brother Angel falls into a fit of anguish. They later ask the archivist at the monastery about the song. It originated from a nearby village, and they decide to investigate further.

Helen’s postcards to her daughter, the narrator, lament the loss of her husband. She says that he must believe her to be dead, because he has not come to search for her. She also explains that she was afraid that she would contaminate her daughter after being bitten twice.

Paul and Helen, along with Ranov, will attend a festival at the local village to find out more about the song. Paul is impatient, feeling that Dracula’s tomb, and Rossi, is somewhere close.

Ranov introduces them to the most knowledgeable of the local folksingers, Baba Yanka. While she is welcoming and eager to sing for them at first, she is hesitant when they ask about the ballad concerning the dragon. When she finally sings it, she shrinks in fear and says that they never recite this song at night. The dragon that once protected them, the song claims, now preys upon them.

Later, at the festival, Paul and Helen listen to songs and watch villagers walk across the dying embers of the central fire. Some of them carry icons. Baba Yanka holds one that depicts a knight and a dragon.

Helen’s postcards continue: She remains devoted to her research, now in Greece. It is 1964, and Helen remarks that he—an unnamed menace—pulls at her, that her pollution makes her an easy target. She dreams of being the one to defeat him.

The icon carried by Baba Yanka—Saint George—excites Paul and Helen. They must take up the offer for a tour of the local church. As they descend into the crypt, their priest guide points out the place where the patron saint is buried; it bears the emblem of Saint George. Though the church itself was built in the 18th century, Paul points out that lots of churches are built on the foundations of much older structures. He determines that they should research further, after returning to Baba Yanka in the village.

Paul and Helen sneak away from Ranov to return to the church. Helen is hesitant: to potentially desecrate the burial place of a saint. They remove the reliquary, and Paul takes out the silver dagger Bora bequeathed him. Underneath it is a slab of marble, and they struggle to move it. The stone coffin beneath bears a painting of what looks like Vlad Dracula. They push the top stone aside and discover Professor Rossi.

Rossi’s face is transformed, pale and sunken. His lips are red, and his neck has been ravaged. Paul and Helen realize immediately what they must do. Helen has only a moment to tell him she is his daughter. Rossi tells them that Dracula kidnapped him to serve as the archivist for his library. Rossi refused, and thus he was infected and abandoned. Rossi tells Paul that he has hidden some letters in a book inside the library that will help them find Dracula.

Sunset arrives, and Rossi begins to transform. Helen places the dagger above Rossi’s chest, and Paul uses a loose stone from the crypt to drive it into his heart.

Rossi’s letters reveal a harrowing ordeal. After reluctantly passing along his research to Paul, Rossi remembers being attacked; he wakes in “an open sarcophagus” (599). He knows that he has been bitten and realizes that he will likely be turned fully into a vampire. He becomes aware of a presence in the room, who finally introduces himself as Dracula.

Dracula is both regal and terrifying, seemingly very much alive, yet clearly not. His movements are strange, and his voice slightly unreal. Dracula tells Rossi that they are not in Wallachia but does not reveal their exact location. Rossi is surprised that Dracula knows the current world.

Rossi then looks around him and sees that Dracula has amassed a great library, filled with ancient manuscripts and scrolls, as well as modern books and documents. Rossi asks him about the dragon book, and Dracula admits to printing 1,453 copies, corresponding to the year of the fall of Constantinople. The books are intended to lure scholars to him—with plenty of barriers to keep the unworthy away. Rossi is the first person persistent enough to continue, so Dracula has chosen him.

He wants Rossi to help him to catalog his books and retrieve new acquisitions—once Dracula has made him immortal. He wants the catalog completed before he moves his library; he believes it to be endangered in its present location. When Dracula leaves, Rossi looks around and finds Dracula’s tomb. Rossi resolves to resist Dracula’s offers. He knows he cannot commit suicide, as he fears he might return as a vampire. Instead, he will type out his experiences in secret, hoping somebody might find his revelations.

The next day, Rossi examines Dracula’s library, finding volumes about military sieges and battles alongside works about torture and terror. Dracula also possesses numerous books about his own exploits and legends. The more Dracula presses him, the more Rossi refuses to cooperate. He is bitten again. Rossi grows weaker and confused about the passage of time. Dracula informs Rossi that the library will soon be moved, and he will leave Rossi behind. Rossi hides his letters in “the most beautiful book I have found here” (621) and calls upon the forces of goodness to keep him from becoming like Dracula.

Helen wants to bury her father, but Paul knows that they do not have time. They find a hidden entry to what was once the library, but there is nothing left. A tomb inscribed with the word DRACULA remains, but there is no body in it. Suddenly, they are interrupted by the intrusion of several people, including Ranov, Géza József, and Stoichev. They are looking for Dracula, using Stoichev as a non-consenting guide. Paul notices that the other man with the group is the dead librarian. When he points out that the man is a vampire, he runs, and Ranov chases him. He, too, is bitten.

As Paul and Helen are escorted out of the crypt, they notice that Rossi’s body is not visible. Stoichev tells them that he and one of the monks were able to close the tomb before the others arrived.

Paul and Helen return to Istanbul and tell Bora their story. He asks about the book they found, which Helen smuggled out of the country, containing Rossi’s letters. Helen suspects it is very old—15th century, before the fall of Constantinople—and considers it something her father gave to her. After some time has passed, they will put the book up at auction.

They say goodbye to Bora and his wife—who gives Helen a beautiful scarf for her wedding day—and return to the US.

The narrator’s father tells the last part of his story. He and Helen are married, and their early days together are full of love and happiness. The narrator is born, and they name her after Helen’s mother. Helen does not adapt to motherhood well; she is sorrowful and quiet. Paul decides to take her to France, and they visit the monastery of Saint-Matthieu outside of Les Bains. Touring the church there excites Helen, especially the crypt. She wants to stay longer.

The next day, Helen goes missing. Paul is frantic, demanding answers from the monks. One of them, Brother Kiril, responds: She was asking about who was buried in the crypt. Paul also discovers that there is always a monk named Brother Kiril who keeps watch over that tomb. He demands the abbot open it. To his horror, it is empty. They will not tell the other monks.

Paul hears shouting. The monks have discovered that there is blood on the rocks below the cliff on which the monastery rests. Helen has presumably leapt to her death.

Paul is engulfed by grief. At first, he refuses to believe that Helen is dead, then he just wants to find her body and bring her home. He admits to himself that he wanted to examine her body and ensure that her death was natural. If so, he wonders whether she fell from the height or whether she jumped. Eventually, he realizes he must return home to care for his daughter.

The narrator understands that her mother has written the bundle of postcards after her supposed death. She knows her father has returned to Saint-Matthieu.

The narrator and Barley travel up toward the monastery, which she visited two years earlier with her father. The church is closed to visitors while it undergoes restoration, so they are alone. When they descend into the crypt, they find her father prying the lid off the large tomb. He insists that they leave, then changes his mind; he must keep her close to protect her. When they open the tomb, they find it empty. Before they can register their disappointment, a figure emerges from the shadows. It speaks, but the narrator quickly realizes that only she can understand the words: Dracula is calling her father to become his acolyte, a reward for his persistence. Her father demands to know where Helen is.

As Dracula rises to attack, something comes up behind him. Dracula shoves the figure away, and it collapses against the wall. Then, shots are fired, and Dracula falls to the floor, turning to a pile of dust. Paul recognizes Helen, and Barley runs over to the injured figure against the wall: It is Master James from Oxford, the Hugh James that Paul met at the conference.

Paul comforts Barley, remarking on James’s bravery. Helen says that she would not have had a clear shot had James not distracted Dracula. Paul knows that James has had his revenge against the monster who maimed his fiancée.

Helen confirms that she is still human, having avoided the third and fatal bite. She looks older and tired, but she tries to tell her story. After the narrator was born, Helen couldn’t stop thinking about her relationship to Dracula, fearing that she might have passed something evil along to her child. She did leap from the cliff at Saint-Matthieu in despair that she would never defeat him, but she was spared. She committed herself to her search. She could not return to her daughter until she knew that this evil was eradicated from the world.

One day, she recognized her daughter and realized that Dracula was following the narrator. So, Helen followed the narrator, trying to keep her safe—and knowing it would help her locate Dracula’s tomb. Barley interrupts to say that he called Master James, because the name of Turgut Bora sounded familiar to him; indeed, Hugh James was still looking for Dracula and came to France to help.

The narrator notes that her mother went home with them, but would sometimes remain distant, touching the healed wound at her neck absently. Helen would die less than a decade later, and Paul would take the dagger to her resting place.

The narrator attends a conference in Philadelphia many years later. She decides to visit a local library, which has some holdings related to Dracula. She looks through some of Bram Stoker’s notes, as well as a more sinister document from the late 15th century describing Dracula’s barbarity. As she leaves, the librarian runs after her, handing her the personal items she forgot. Among these items is a book she has not seen before. It contains an image of a ferocious dragon spread across its center.

The narrator imagines the distant past, a scene from 1476. Dracula greets the abbot at Snagov, giving him money for a new sacristy and baptismal font. They discuss his plans to be buried there. Dracula requests having his portrait painted upon his gravestone, but he does not want the image of the cross. He tells the abbot of a place in Gaul—now France—where the monks have learned how to defeat death. He mentions how fond he is of books and gestures to the first printing press in all of Wallachia; he tells the monks who make the woodcuts that he has a job for them. As the narrator imagines, even at this time of political peril, he does not appear at all like a man in fear for his life.