Dracula. Bram Stoker

cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds,

      and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied,

      without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were

      a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood.

      I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if

      there were anything odd about him during the day.

      11 a. m. The attendant has just been to me to say that

      Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of

      feathers. «My belief is, doctor,» he said, «that he has eaten his

      birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!»

      ii p. m. I gave Renfield a strong opiate to-night, enough

      to make even him sleep, and took away his pocket-book to

      look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain

      lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac

      is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification

      Mina Murray’s Journal 67

      for him, and call him a zoophagous (life-eating) maniac; what he

      desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid

      himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many

      flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted

      a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later

      steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experi-

      ment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men

      sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results to-day! Why

      not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect the

      knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such mind

      did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic I might

      advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with

      which Burdon-Sanderson’s physiology or Ferrier’s brain-knowl-

      edge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause!

      I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good

      cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an

      exceptional brain, congenitally?

      How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their

      own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at

      only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and to-day

      begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with

      each day of our lives?

      To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with

      my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it will be

      until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger ac-

      count with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot

      be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose

      happiness is yours; but I must only wait on hopeless and work.

      Work! work!

      If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend

      there a good, unselfish cause to make me work that would be

      indeed happiness.

      Mina Murray’s Journal.

      26 July. I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself

      here; it is like whispering to one’s self and listening at the same

      time. And there is also something about the shorthand symbols

      that makes it different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy

      and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for some

      time, and was very concerned; but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins,

      who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written

      asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed had just

      been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and

      68 Dracula

      says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan;

      I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy,

      although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walk-

      ing in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we

      have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night.

      Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out

      on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get sud-

      denly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all

      over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy,

      and she tells me that her husband, Lucy’s father, had the same

      nabit; that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go

      out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married hi the autumn,

      and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is

      to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only

      Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simply way, and shall

      have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood he is the

      Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming is

      coming up here very shortly as soon as he can leave town, for

      his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting

      the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat

      on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I

      daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right

      when he arrives.

      2*7 July. No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy

      about him, though why I should I do not know; but I do wish

      that he would write, if it were only a single line. Lucy walks

      more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving

      about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so hot that she

      cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and the perpetually being

      wakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and

      wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy’s health keeps up. Mr. Holm-

      wood has been suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has

      been taken seriously ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing

      him, but it does not touch her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and

      her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost that anaemic look

      which she had. I pray it will all last.

      5 August.