Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 38: Cease Thy Wretchedness

Chapter 38: Cease Thy Wretchedness

Dr. Chilton's Diary

(Kept in Phonograph)

18 August.—The case of Randall Tier grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed; instinct, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He has not once mentioned his inclination to dress and act like a predator, and has indeed shown no interest in doing so since arriving here at the Purfleet Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not yet know.

His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it 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.

19 August.—He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several very 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.

On a personal note, I have had a letter from Alana Bloom. Will Graham is recovering well physically; they daily climb the 199 steps up to the churchyard – but she is still concerned about his mental wellbeing. She reports that he seems preoccupied with the darker side of life, speaking with her on two separate occasions about suicide. Not his own, but the topic, whether she really thought that someone in so much pain that they wanted to end their life deserved to burn in Hell. I believe Mr. Graham has always had an inclination toward the melancholic and the morbid, which attracted him to his original line of work. It will be interesting to see his mood at the welcome home party scheduled for their return.

Ah, I await the day with a palpitating heart. I count down the minutes until I might see Alana's sweet face again!

20 August.—Randall Tier's 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.

"You'll allow me to be a predator to the low creatures, won't you, Dr. Chilton? I must be allowed to stalk and kill some prey. No one will miss a fly or two."

This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He evidently has 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 calculating some account, as the auditors put it.

No letter from Miss Bloom today. I have written to her mother, Prudence, to see if I may be permitted to stop by after my hospital rounds tomorrow night to pay a visit. One must be well-acquainted with one's future in-laws.

21 August.—There is a method in Randall Tier's madness, and the connected idea in my mind is growing. I kept away from my friend for the morning, so that I might notice if there were any changes. 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. And so his collection grows, as do the figures he is calculating in his little book. I have also noticed that he has been doing some drawing. The images he sketches look like some kind of rudimentary schematics.