I took the opportunity of bringing this diary...
- Posted at 7:26 PM on Wednesday, February 3, 2010 by baimin615
I took the opportunity of bringing this diary right up to the momentI am very sleepy and shall go to bed?
Just a lineMina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regularHer forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks even in her sleepShe is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she did this morningTomorrow will, I hope, mend all thisShe will be herself at home in ExeterOh, but I am sleepy!
DRSEWARD'S DIARY
1 October-I am puzzled afresh about RenfieldHis moods change so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they always mean something more than his own well-being, they form a more than interesting studyThis morning, when I went to see him after his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding destinyHe was, in fact, commanding destiny, subjectivelyHe did not really care for any of the things of mere earth, he was in the clouds and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals
I thought I would improve the occasion and learn something, so I asked him, "What about the flies these times?"
He smiled on me in quite a superior sort of way, such a smile as would have become the face of Malvolio, as he answered me, "The fly, my dear sir, has one striking featureIt's wings are typical of the aerial powers of the psychic facultiesThe ancients did well when they typified the soul as a butterfly!"
I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost logically, so I said quickly, "Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it?"
His madness foiled his reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face as, shaking his head with a decision which I had but seldom seen in him
He said, "Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls Here he brightened up"I am pretty indifferent about it at presentYou must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to study zoophagy!"
This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on"Then you command lifeYou are a god, I suppose?"
He smiled with an ineffably benign superiority"Oh no! Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the DeityI am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doingsIf I may state my intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things purely terrestrial, somewhat in the position which Enoch occupied spiritually!"
This was a poser to meI could not at the moment recall Enoch's appositeness, so I had to ask a simple question, though I felt that by so doing I was lowering myself in the eyes of the lunatic"And why with Enoch?"
"Because he walked with God
I could not see the analogy, but did not like to admit it, so I harked back to what he had denied"So you don't care about life and you don't want soulsWhy not?" I put my question quickly and somewhat sternly, on purpose to disconcert him
The effort succeeded, for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into his old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon me as he replied"I don't want any souls, indeed, indeed! I don'tI couldn't use them if I had themThey would be no manner of use to meI couldn't eat them or?"
He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over his face, like a wind sweep on the surface of the water
"And doctor, as to life, what is it after all? When you've got all you require, and you know that you will never want, that is allI have friends, good friends, like you, Dr This was said with a leer of inexpressible cunning"I know that I shall never lack the means of life!"
I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he saw some antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on the last refuge of such as he, a dogged shop silence
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