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

"A kitten, a nice little, sleek, playful kitten, that I can play
with, and teach, and feed- and feed and feed!" I was not unprepared
for this request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in
size and vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame
sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the
spiders; so I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not
rather have a cat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he
answered:-

"Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you
should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would
they?" I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it would not
be possible, but that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could
see a warning of danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce,
sidelong, look which meant killing. The man is an undeveloped
homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present craving and see
how it will work out; then I shall know more.

10 p.m.- I have visited him again and found him sitting in a
corner brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before
me and implored me to let him have a cat; that his salvation
depended upon it. I was firm, however, and told him that he could
not have it, whereupon he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing
his fingers, in the corner where I had found him. I shall see him in
the morning early.

20 July.- Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went his
rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his
sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning
his fly-catching again; and beginning it 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