For half an hour or more, Renfield kept getting more and more excited. I pretended not to watch him, but I kept a careful watch on him anyway. Suddenly, that secretive look came into his eyes — the look we always see when a madman gets an idea. His head and back moved in a way that asylum workers know very well. Then he became completely quiet. He went and sat on the edge of his bed, looking into space with dull, expressionless eyes.

I wanted to see if his lack of interest was real or just fake. I tried to talk to him about his pets, a topic that always made him excited before.

At first he did not answer, but finally he said angrily, "Forget about them! I don't care about them at all."

"What?" I said. "Do you mean to tell me you don't care about spiders?" (Spiders are his current hobby, and his notebook is full of numbers about them.)

He answered in a mysterious way, "The bridesmaids look bright when they wait for the bride. But when the bride comes, the bridesmaids no longer look bright to the person who is watching."