"stoker-dracula-168" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are
of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at
present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my
astonishment, he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but
took the matter in simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and
then said: "May I have three days? I shall clear them away." Of
course, I said that would do. I must watch him.

18 June.- He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several
big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the
number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he
has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his
room.

1 July.- His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his
flies, and to-day I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked
very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at
all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the
same time as before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with
him, for when a horrid blow-fly, bloated with some carrion food,
buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultantly for a few
moments between his finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was
going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but
he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome; that it
was life, strong life, and gave life to him. This gave me an idea,
or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders.
He has evidently some deep problem in his mind for he keeps a little
note-book in which he is always jotting down something. Whole pages of
it are filled with masses of figures, generally single numbers added
up in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though
he were "focussing" some account, as the auditors put it.

8 July.- There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary
idea in my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then,
oh, unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to your
conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so
that I might notice if there were any change. Things remain as they
were except that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new
one. He has managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially
tamed it. His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders
have diminished. Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he
still brings in the flies by tempting them with his food.

19 July.- We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of
sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I
came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favour- a
very, very great favour; and as he spoke he fawned on me like a dog. I
asked him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his
voice and bearing:-