#romance..

it’s an imperfect comparison because Dr. Seward doesn’t contemplate Lucy turning - he is simply faced with the horror caused by her transformation, which quickly - with Van Helsing’s intelectual guidance - turns into disgust for the creature she has become. Seward separates Lucy-human and Lucy-vampire in his mind to the point where he stops calling the second one by her name, calling her instead “the Thing”.

Seward on chapter 16:

When he again lifted the lid off Lucy’s coffin we all looked—Arthur trembling like an aspen—and saw that the body lay there in all its death-beauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy’s shape without her soul.

Then Van Helsing convinces Arthur, Lucy’s fiancée, he must be the one to end her vampiric self - out of love for her true, christian self. 

Seward again, same chapter:

There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity.

Jonathan has time to contemplate Mina turning, but/and he also has previous knowledge of what a vampire is.

This is Jonathan, chapter 22:

To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.

NOTE, I’m also fascinated that the scene where Mina talks about pity for the count and for herself comes AFTER Jonathan states the previous thought...

Seward records on chapter 23:

“Jonathan dear, and you all my true, true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fight—that you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he, too, is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him, too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction.”

As she spoke I could see her husband’s face darken and draw together, as though the passion in him were shrivelling his being to its core. Instinctively the clasp on his wife’s hand grew closer, till his knuckles looked white. She did not flinch from the pain which I knew she must have suffered, but looked at him with eyes that were more appealing than ever. As she stopped speaking he leaped to his feet, almost tearing his hand from hers as he spoke:—

“May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond it I could send his soul for ever and ever to burning hell I would do it!”

“Oh, hush! oh, hush! in the name of the good God. Don’t say such things, Jonathan, my husband; or you will crush me with fear and horror. Just think, my dear—I have been thinking all this long, long day of it—that ... perhaps ... some day ... I, too, may need such pity; and that some other like you—and with equal cause for anger—may deny it to me! 

Then further, on chapter 25, Mina finally makes them all swear to not hesitate to kill her if the time comes:

“(...) what will you give to me?” She looked again questioningly, but this time avoided her husband’s face. Quincey seemed to understand; he nodded, and her face lit up. “Then I shall tell you plainly what I want, for there must be no doubtful matter in this connection between us now. You must promise me, one and all—even you, my beloved husband—that, should the time come, you will kill me.”

Quincey promises, then Van Helsing, then Arthur and Seward. Then,

her husband turned to her wan-eyed and with a greenish pallor which subdued the snowy whiteness of his hair, and asked:—

“And must I, too, make such a promise, oh, my wife?”

Mina says he must, and makes him read the Burial Service, but... he doesn’t actually say he promises :o Not that I think he was trying to wiggle out; I just think it’s interesting. Van Helsing explicitly promises twice.

Jonathan’s narration makes me think his personal hatred for Dracula and vampires is more vicious and laced with disgust and contempt than anyone else in the group, but his first instinct when considering that Mina might not be saved is... To go with her...

PS to myself, 

Also this bit which belongs to the scene where they talk about pity on chapter 23:

We men were all in tears now. There was no resisting them, and we wept openly. She wept, too, to see that her sweeter counsels had prevailed. Her husband flung himself on his knees beside her, and putting his arms round her, hid his face in the folds of her dress.

ideal sapiosexual/morosexual couple

Yui: R-Ruki-kun!? What are you doing…!?

Ruki: Can you not tell? I’m obviously repenting for my sins.