aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract
my attention from it:--
I don t take any stock at all in such matters. Rats and mice and such
small deer, as Shakespeare has it, chicken-feed of the larder they
might be called. I m past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well
ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chop-sticks, as to try to
interest me about the lesser carnivora, when I know of what is before
me.
I see, I said. You want big things that you can make your teeth meet
in? How would you like to breakfast on elephant?
What ridiculous nonsense you are talking! He was getting too wide
awake, so I thought I would press him hard. I wonder, I said
reflectively, what an elephant s soul is like!
The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his
high-horse and became a child again.
I don t want an elephant s soul, or any soul at all! he said. For a
few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with
his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement. To
hell with you and your souls! he shouted. Why do you plague me about
souls? Haven t I got enough to worry, and pain, and distract me already,
without thinking of souls! He looked so hostile that I thought he was
in for another homicidal fit, so I blew my whistle. The instant,
however, that I did so he became calm, and said apologetically:--
Forgive me, Doctor; I forgot myself. You do not need any help. I am so
worried in my mind that I am apt to be irritable. If you only knew the
problem I have to face, and that I am working out, you would pity, and
tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not put me in a strait-waistcoat. I
want to think and I cannot think freely when my body is confined. I am
sure you will understand! He had evidently self-control; so when the
attendants came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew. Renfield
watched them go; when the door was closed he said, with considerable
dignity and sweetness:--
Dr. Seward, you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me that
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