Dracula - Chapter 25 (Bite 1)

“What will each of you give? Your lives I know. That is easy for brave men. But what will you give to me?”

In this chapter of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, read aloud on the podcast Bite at a Time Books, Mina Harker makes a request that cuts to the heart of the novel’s central question: what are the living willing to sacrifice when the soul itself is at stake? The chapter is Doctor Seward’s diary entry for 11 October, and it records a single, wrenching scene that unfolds just before sunset.

Mina has become a creature of the sunrise and sunset. The narrator notes that these times bring her a peculiar freedom, when her old self can manifest without the controlling force that subdues or incites her. The condition begins half an hour before sunrise or sunset and lasts until the sun is high or the clouds still glow. There is first a negative condition, as if a tie were loosened, and then absolute freedom follows. When the freedom ceases, the relapse comes quickly, preceded only by a spell. Tonight, when the group meets, she is somewhat constrained and bears all the signs of an internal struggle, but within a few minutes she gains complete control.