| If I do not, I shall tomorrow night get them to... 734 |
[Jan. 31st, 2010|02:46 am] |
If I do not, I shall tomorrow night get them to give me a dose of chloral, that cannot hurt me for once, and it will give me a good night's sleepLast night tired me more than if I had not slept at all
2 October 10 P-Last night I slept, but did not dreamI must have slept soundly, for I was not waked by Jonathan coming to bed, but the sleep has not refreshed me, for today I feel terribly weak and spiritlessI spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down dozingRenfield asked if he might see mePoor man, he was very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and bade God bless meSome way it affected me muchI am crying when I think of himThis is a new weakness, of which I must be carefulJonathan would be miserable if he knew I had been cryingHe and the others were out till dinner time, and they all came in tiredI did what I could to brighten them up, and I suppose that the effort did me good, for I forgot how tired I wasAfter dinner they sent me to bed, and all went off to smoke together, as they said, but I knew that they wanted to tell each other of what had occurred to each during the dayI could see from Jonathan's manner that he had something important to communicateI was not so sleepy as I should have been, so before they went I asked DrSeward to give me a little opiate of some kind, as I had not slept well the night beforeHe very kindly made me up a sleeping draught, which he gave to me, telling me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild? I have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloofI hope I have not done wrong, for as sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear comes: that I may have been foolish in thus depriving myself of the power of waking
CHAPTER 20
JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL
1 October, evening-I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anythingThe very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to him had proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected debauchI learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor soul, that he was only the assistant of Smollet, who of the two mates was the responsible personSo off I drove to Walworth, and found MrJoseph Smollet at home and in his shirtsleeves, taking a late tea out of a saucerHe is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good, reliable type of workman, and with a headpiece of his ownHe remembered all about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful dog-eared notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle about the seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries in thick, half-obliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the boxesThere were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and left at 197 Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which he deposited at Jamaica Lane, BermondseyIf then the Count meant to scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, these places were chosen as the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more fullyThe systematic manner in which this was done made me think that he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of LondonHe was now fixed on the far east on the northern shore, on the east of the southern shore, and on the southThe north and west were surely never meant to be left out of his diabolical scheme, let alone the City itself and the very heart of fashionable London in the south-west and westI went back to Smollet, and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had been taken from Carfax
He replied, "Well guv'nor, you've treated me very 'an'some", I had given him half a sovereign, "an I'll tell yer all I knowI heard a man by the name of Bloxam say four nights ago in the 'Are an' 'Ounds, in Pincher's Alley, as 'ow he an' his mate 'ad 'ad a rare dusty job in a old 'ouse at PurfleetThere ain't a many such jobs as this 'ere, an' I'm thinkin' that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut
I asked if he could tell me where to find himI told him that if he could get me the address it would be worth another half sovereign to himSo he gulped down the rest of his tea and stood up, saying that he was going to begin the search then and |
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