_Dr. Seward s Diary._
_20 August._--The case of Renfield grows even more interesting. He has
now so far quieted that there are spells of cessation from his passion.
For the first week after his attack he was perpetually violent. Then one
night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet, and kept murmuring to
himself: Now I can wait; now I can wait. The attendant came to tell
me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him. He was still in the
strait-waistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone
from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleading--I might
almost say, cringing --softness. I was satisfied with his present
condition, and directed him to be relieved. The attendants hesitated,
but finally carried out my wishes without protest. It was a strange
thing that the patient had humour enough to see their distrust, for,
coming close to me, he said in a whisper, all the while looking
furtively at them:--
They think I could hurt you! Fancy _me_ hurting _you_! The fools!
It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself dissociated
even in the mind of this poor madman from the others; but all the same I
do not follow his thought. Am I to take it that I have anything in
common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together; or has
he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my well-being is needful
to him? I must find out later on. To-night he will not speak. Even the
offer of a kitten or even a full-grown cat will not tempt him. He will
only say: I don t take any stock in cats. I have more to think of now,
and I can wait; I can wait.
After a while I left him. The attendant tells me that he was quiet
until just before dawn, and that then he began to get uneasy, and at
length violent, until at last he fell into a paroxysm which exhausted
him so that he swooned into a sort of coma.
* * * * *
... Three nights has the same thing happened--violent all day then quiet
from moonrise to sunrise. I wish I could get some clue to the cause. It
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