
again; and beginning 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!«
    11 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 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 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 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 to-day begun a new record. How many of us begin a
