THE MYSTERIOUS MANIAC.
Stay, jailer, stay, and hear my woe;
She is not mad, who kneels to thee,
For what I am, full well I know,
And what I was, and what should be;
I'll rave no more in proud despair--
My language shall be calm tho' sad;
But yet I'll truly, firmly swear,
I am not mad! no, no, not mad!
--M. G. Lewis.
It was at the close of a beautiful day in early spring that Traverse
Rocke, accompanying the old doctor and the old sister, reached the
grove on the borders of the beautiful lake upon the banks of which was
situated the "Calm Retreat."
A large, low, white building surrounded with piazzas and shaded by
fragrant and flowering southern trees, it looked like the luxurious
country seat of some wealthy merchant or planter rather than a prison
for the insane.
Doctor St. Jean conducted his young assistant into a broad and cool
hall on each side of which doors opened into spacious rooms, occupied
by the proprietor and his household. The cells of the patients, as it
appeared were up-stairs. The country doctor and the matron who had been
in charge during the absence of the proprietor and his sister now came
forward to welcome the party and report the state of the institution
and its inmates.
All were as usual, the country doctor said, except "Mademoiselle."
"And what of her--how is Mademoiselle----?"
"A patient most interesting, Doctor Rocke," said the old Frenchman,
alternately questioning his substitute and addressing Traverse.
"She has stopped her violent ravings, and seems to me to be sinking
into a state of stupid despair," replied the substitute.
"A patient most interesting, my young friend! A history most pathetic!
You shall hear of it some time. But come into the parlor, and you,
Angele, my sister, ring and order coffee," said the old Frenchman,
leading the way into a pleasant apartment on the right of the hall,
furnished with straw matting upon the floor and bamboo settees and
chairs around the walls.
Here coffee was presently served to the travelers, who soon after
retired for the night.
Traverse's room was a large, pleasant apartment at the end of a wide,
long hall, on each side of which were the doors opening into the cells
of the patients.
Fatigued by his journey, Traverse slept soundly through the night; but
early in the morning he was rudely awakened by the sounds of maniac
voices from the cells. Some were crying, some laughing aloud some
groaning and howling and some holding forth in fancied exhortations.
He dressed himself quickly and left his room to walk down the length of
the long hall and observe the cells on each side. The doors were at
regular intervals, and each door had in its center a small opening to
enable the proprietor to look in upon the patients.
As these were all women, and some of them delicate and refined even in
their insanity, Traverse felt shocked at this necessary, if it were
necessary, exposure of their sanctuary.
The cells were, in fact, small bedrooms that with their white-washed
walls and white-curtained beds and windows looked excessively neat,
clean and cool, but also, it must be confessed, very bare, dreary and
cheerless.
"Even a looking-glass would be a great benefit to those poor girls, for
I remember that even Clara, in her violent grief, and mother in her
lifelong sorrow, never neglected their looking-glass and personal
appearance," said Traverse to himself, as he passed down the hall and
resolved that this little indulgence should be afforded the patients.
And except those first involuntary glances he scrupulously avoided
looking in through the gratings upon those helpless women who had no
means of secluding themselves.
But as he turned to go down the stairs his eyes went full into an
opposite cell and fell upon a vision of beauty and sorrow that
immediately riveted his gaze.
It was a small and graceful female figure, clothed in deep black,
seated by the window, with her elbow resting upon the sill and her chin
supported on her hand. Her eyes were cast down until her eyelashes lay
like inky lines upon her snow-white cheek. Her face, of classic
regularity and marble whiteness, bore a ghastly contrast to the long
eyelashes, arched eyebrows and silken ringlets black as midnight. She
might have been a statue or a picture, so motionless she sat.
Conscious of the wrong of gazing upon this solitary woman, Traverse
forced his looks away and passed on down-stairs, where he again met the
old doctor and Mademoiselle Angele at breakfast.
After breakfast Doctor St. Jean invited his young assistant to
accompany him on a round of visits to the patients, and they went
immediately up to the hall, at the end of which Traverse had slept.
"There are our incurables, but they are not violent; incurables never
are! Poor Mademoiselle! She has just been conveyed to this ward," said
the doctor, opening the door of the first cell on the right at the head
of the stairs and admitting Traverse at once into the presence of the
beautiful, black-haired, snow-faced woman, who had so much interested
him.
"This is my friend, Doctor Rocke, Mademoiselle; Doctor, this is my
friend, Mademoiselle Mont de St. Pierre!"
Traverse bowed profoundly, and the lady arose, curtsied and resumed her
seat, saying, coldly:
"I have told you, Monsieur, never to address me as Mademoiselle; you
persist in doing so, and I shall never notice the insult again."
"Ten thousand pardons, madame! But if madame will always look so young,
so beautiful, can I ever remember that she is a widow?"
The classic lip of the woman curled in scorn, and she disdained a
reply.
"I take an appeal to Monsieur Le Docteur--is not madame young and
beautiful?" asked the Frenchman, turning to Traverse, while the
splendid, black eyes of the stranger passed from the one to the other.
Traverse caught the glance of the lady and bowed gravely. It was the
most delicate and proper reply.
She smiled almost as gravely, and with a much kinder expression than
any she had bestowed upon the Frenchman.
"And how has madame fared during my absence so long? The servants--have
they been respectful? Have they been observant? Have they been obedient
to the will of madame? Madame has but to speak!" said the doctor,
bowing politely.
"Why should I speak when every word I utter you believe, or affect to
believe, to be the ravings of a maniac? I will speak no more," said the
lady, turning away her superb dark eyes and looking out of the window.
"Ah, madame will not so punish her friend, her servant, her slave!"
A gesture of fierce impatience and disgust was the only reply deigned
by the lady.
"Come away; she is angry and may become dangerously excited," said the
old doctor, leading the way from the cell.
"Did you tell me this lady is one of the incurables?" inquired
Traverse, when they had left her apartment.
"Bah! yes, poor girl, vera incurable, as my sister would say."
"Yet she appears to me to be perfectly sane, as well as exceedingly
beautiful and interesting."
"Ah, bah; my excellent, my admirable, my inexperienced young friend,
that is all you know of lunatics! With more or less violence of
assertion, they every one insist upon their sanity, just as criminals
protest their innocence. Ah, bah! you shall go into every cell in this
ward and find not one lunatic among them," sneered the old doctor, as
he led the way into the next little room.
It was indeed as he had foretold, and Traverse Rocke found himself
deeply affected by the melancholy, the earnest and sometimes the
violent manner in which the poor unfortunates protested their sanity
and implored or demanded to be restored to home and friends.
"You perceive," said the doctor, with a dry laugh, "that they are none
of them crazy?"
"I see," said Traverse, "but I also detect a very great difference
between that lovely woman in the south cell and these other inmates."
"Bah! bah! bah! She is more beautiful, more accomplished, more refined
than the others, and she is in one of her lucid intervals! That is all;
but as to a difference between her insanity and that of the other
patients, it lies in this, that she is the most hopelessly mad of the
whole lot! She has been mad eighteen years!"
"Is it possible?" exclaimed Traverse, incredulously.
"She lost her reason at the age of sixteen, and she is now thirty-four;
you can calculate!"
"It is amazing and very sorrowful! How beautiful she is!"
"Yes; her beauty was a fatal gift. It is a sad story. Ah, it is a sad
story. You shall hear it when we get through."
"I can connect no idea of woman's frailty with that refined and
intellectual face," said Traverse coldly.
"Ah, bah! you are young! you know not the world! you, my innocent, my
pious young friend!" said the old doctor, as they crossed the hall to
go into the next wing of the building, in which were situated the men's
wards.
Traverse found nothing that particularly interested him in this
department, and when they had concluded their round of visits and were
seated together in the old doctor's study, Traverse asked him for the
story of his beautiful patient.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
"It is a story miserable, as I told you before. A gentleman, illustrious,
from Virginia, an officer high in the army, and distinguished in the
war, he brought this woman to me nearly three years ago. He informed me
that--oh, bien! I had better tell you the story in my own manner. This
young lady, Mademoiselle Mont de St. Pierre, is of a family noble and
distinguished--a relative of this officer, illustrious and brave. At
fifteen Mademoiselle met a man, handsome and without honor. Ah, bah!
you understand! at sixteen the child became a fallen angel! She lost
her reason through sorrow and shame. This relative--this gentleman,
illustrious and noble, tender and compassionate--took her to the seclusion
of his country house, where she lived in elegance, luxury and honor.
But as the years passed her malady increased; her presence became
dangerous; in a word, the gentleman, distinguished and noble, saw the
advertisement of my 'Calm Retreat,' my institution incomparable, and he
wrote to me. In a word, he liked my terms and brought to me his young
relative, so lovely and so unfortunate. Ah! he is a good man, this
officer, so gallant, so chivalrous; but she is ungrateful!"
"Ungrateful!"
"Ah, bah! yes; it is the way of lunatics! They ever imagine their best
friends to be their worst enemies. The poor, crazed creature fancies
that she is the sister-in-law of this officer illustrious! She thinks
that she is the widow of his elder brother, whom she imagines he
murdered, and that she is the mother of children, whom she says he has
abducted or destroyed, so that he may enjoy the estate that is her
widow's dower and their orphans' patrimony. That is the reason why she
insists on being called madame instead of mademoiselle, and we indulge
her when we think of it!"
"But all this is very singular!"
"Ah, bah! who can account for a lunatic's fancies? She is the maddest
of the whole lot. Sometimes she used to become so violent that we would
have to restrain her. But lately, Doctor Wood tells me, she is quite
still; that we consider a bad sign; there is always hope for a lunatic
until they begin to sink into this state," said the doctor, with an air
of competency.