Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing
is regular. Her forehead is puckered up into
little wrinkles, as though she thinks even in her
sleep. She is still too pale, but does not look
so haggard as she did this morning. Tomorrow
will, I hope, mend all this. She will be herself
at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy!
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. It’s wings are typical
of the aerial 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 zoophagy!”
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.
