11 pm.--I gave Renfield a strong opiate tonight, enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocketbook 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 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 experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results today! 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 knowledge 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 today 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 shall be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account 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 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.
"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?"
(Before we all start humming a certain children's song and wondering at Seward's obtuseness, I should point out that the earliest version of "I Know an Old Lady..." seems to have been written sometime around 1947.)
Renfield, who clearly had something of a classical education, perhaps planned to ascend the Great Chain of Being by consuming his way to the top: first flies, then spiders, then sparrows, then cats, on up to humans. Perhaps his goal was to become a demon (some versions of the Great Chain place demons just above humans), an angel, or even a god?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being
Posted by: Most Significant | July 20, 2021 at 05:01 AM
Good call, MS.
(My favorite memory of that song is a punk version. Can't find it now.)
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | July 20, 2021 at 02:44 PM
Can there be more than one punk version?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o5ZNdrkXtl4
I enjoyed it, to my surprise.
Posted by: Most Significant | July 21, 2021 at 04:51 PM
I think that was the one!
Ah, memories of the early 1980s.
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | July 31, 2021 at 04:54 PM