Atlas Nightshade

Day 63

_Dr. Seward's Diary._

_1 October._--I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His 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 study. This morning, when I went to see him after his

repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding destiny.

He was, in fact, commanding destiny--subjectively. He 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 feature; its wings are typical

of the aërial powers of the psychic faculties. The 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. Life is all I want." Here he brightened

up; "I am pretty indifferent about it at present. Life is all right; I

have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to

study zoöphagy!"

This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on:--

"Then you command life; you 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

Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doings. If 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 me. I 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 souls. Why 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't. I couldn't use them if

I had them; they would be no manner of use to me. I 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 all. I have friends--good

friends--like you, Dr. Seward"; 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 silence. After a short time I saw that for the present it

was useless to speak to him. He was sulky, and so I came away.

Later in the day he sent for me. Ordinarily I would not have come

without special reason, but just at present I am so interested in him

that I would gladly make an effort. Besides, I am glad to have anything

to help to pass the time. Harker is out, following up clues; and so are

Lord Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study poring over the

record prepared by the Harkers; he seems to think that by accurate

knowledge of all details he will light upon some clue. He does not wish

to be disturbed in the work, without cause. I would have taken him with

me to see the patient, only I thought that after his last repulse he

might not care to go again. There was also another reason: Renfield

might not speak so freely before a third person as when he and I were

alone.

I found him sitting out in the middle of the floor on his stool, a pose

which is generally indicative of some mental energy on his part. When I

came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on his

lips:--

"What about souls?" It was evident then that my surmise had been

correct. Unconscious cerebration was doing its work, even with the

lunatic. I determined to have the matter out. "What about them

yourself?" I asked. He did not reply for a moment but looked all round

him, and up and down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for

an answer.

"I don't want any souls!" he said in a feeble, apologetic way. The

matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I determined to use it--to "be

cruel only to be kind." So I said:--

"You like life, and you want life?"

"Oh yes! but that is all right; you needn't worry about that!"

"But," I asked, "how are we to get the life without getting the soul

also?" This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up:--

"A nice time you'll have some time when you're flying out there, with

the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing

and twittering and miauing all round you. You've got their lives, you

know, and you must put up with their souls!" Something seemed to affect

his imagination, for he put his fingers to his ears and shut his eyes,

screwing them up tightly just as a small boy does when his face is being

soaped. There was something pathetic in it that touched me; it also gave

me a lesson, for it seemed that before me was a child--only a child,

though the features were worn, and the stubble on the jaws was white. It

was evident that he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance,

and, knowing how his past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign

to himself, I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and

go with him. The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him,

speaking pretty loud so that he would hear me through his closed ears:--

"Would you like some sugar to get your flies round again?" He seemed to

wake up all at once, and shook his head. With a laugh he replied:--

"Not much! flies are poor things, after all!" After a pause he added,

"But I don't want their souls buzzing round me, all the same."

"Or spiders?" I went on.

"Blow spiders! What's the use of spiders? There isn't anything in them

to eat or"--he stopped suddenly, as though reminded of a forbidden

topic.

"So, so!" I thought to myself, "this is the second time he has suddenly

stopped at the word 'drink'; what does it mean?" Renfield seemed himself

aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract

my attention from it:--

"I don't take any stock at all in such matters. 'Rats and mice and such

small deer,' as Shakespeare has it, 'chicken-feed of the larder' they

might be called. I'm past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well

ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chop-sticks, as to try to

interest me about the lesser carnivora, when I know of what is before

me."