When Dr. Biron built his famous private asylum in the very heart of
Passy, intended, according to his prospectus, to provide a retreat for
people suffering from nervous breakdown or from overwork or
over-excitement, and to offer hospital treatment to the insane, in order
to secure a kind of official sanction for his institution, he took the
wise precaution to proclaim from the housetops that he would enlist the
services of ex-medical officers of the hospitals. The idea was a shrewd
and a successful one, and his establishment throve.
Perret and Sembadel were having breakfast, and also were grumbling.
"I shouldn't curse the meanness of the management quite so much if they
didn't put us on to all the jobs," said Sembadel. "Hang it all, man, we
are both qualified, and when we undertook to assist Dr. Biron we did so,
I presume, in order to top off our theoretical training with some
practical clinical experience."
"Who's stopping you?" Perret enquired.
"How can we find the time, when besides all our actual work with the
patients, we have to do all this administrative work, writing to people
to say how the patients are, and all that? That ought to be done by
clerks, not by us."
"Isn't one job as good as another?" Perret retorted. "Besides, we are
the only people who know how the patients really are, so it's common
sense that we should have to write to their friends."
"They might let us have a secretary, anyhow," Sembadel growled.
Perret saw that his friend was in a bad temper, so did not try to carry
on the argument.
"Say," he said, "you ought to make a special note of that case of No.
25, for your thesis. She was in your ward for about six months, wasn't
she?"
"No. 25?" said Sembadel. "Yes, I know: a woman named Rambert; age about
forty; hallucination that people are persecuting her; anæmic, with
alternate crises of excitement and melancholia, punctuated by fits of
passion; treatment: rest, nourishment, anodynes."
"You evidently remember the case distinctly."
"She interested me; she has marvellous eyes. Well, what about her?"
"Why, when she was moved into my pavilion the diagnosis was bad and the
prognosis very bad: she was supposed to be incurable. Just go and see
her now: her brain is restored: she's a new woman." He came to the table
and picked up some notepaper. "I wrote to her husband a day or two ago
and told him he might expect to hear that his wife had recovered, but I
imagine my letter miscarried, for I've had no answer. I have a good mind
to write to him again and ask for permission to send her to the
convalescent home. The mischief of it is that this Etienne Rambert may
want to remove her altogether, and that would mean one paying patient
less, which would put our worthy director in a bad temper for a month."
He turned to his correspondence, and for some minutes the silence in the
room was only broken by the scratching of pens on paper. Then an
attendant came in, bringing a quantity of letters. Perret picked them up
and began to sort them out.
"None for you," he said to Sembadel. "Not one of those little mauve
envelopes which you look for every day and which decide what your temper
will be. I must look out for storms."
"Shan't even have time to grouse to-day," Sembadel growled again. "You
forget that Swelding pays us an official visit to-day."
"The Danish professor? Is it this morning that he is coming?"
"So it seems."
"Who is the fellow?"
"Just one of those foreign savants who haven't succeeded in becoming
famous at home and so go abroad to worry other people under a pretext of
investigations. That's why he wants to come here. Wrote some beastly
little pamphlet on the ideontology of the hyper-imaginative. Never heard
of it myself."
The conversation dropped, and presently the two men went off to their
wards to see their patients, and warn the attendants to have everything
in apple-pie order for the official inspection.
* * * * *
Meantime, in the great drawing-room, elaborate courtesies were being
exchanged between Dr. Biron and Professor Swelding.
Dr. Biron was a man of about forty, with a high-coloured face and an
active, vigorous frame. He gesticulated freely and spoke in an unctuous,
fawning tone.
"I am delighted at the great compliment you pay me by coming here, sir,"
he said. "When I started this institution five years ago I certainly did
not dare to hope that it would so soon win sufficient reputation to
entitle it to the honour of inspection by men so eminent in the
scientific world as yourself."
The professor listened with a courteous smile but evinced no hurry in
replying.
Professor Swelding was certainly a remarkable figure. He might have been
sixty, but he bore very lightly the weight of the years that laid their
snows upon his thick and curly but startlingly white hair. It was this
hair that attracted attention first; it was of extraordinary thickness
and was joined on to a heavy moustache and a long and massive beard. He
was like a man who might have taken a vow never to cut his hair. It
covered his ears and grew low upon his forehead, so that hardly a
vestige of the face could be seen, while, further, all the expression of
the eyes was concealed behind large blue spectacles. The professor was
enveloped in a heavy cloak, in spite of the bright sunshine; evidently
he was one of those men from the cold North who do not know what real
warmth is and have no idea of what it means to be too thickly clothed.
He spoke French correctly, but with a slight accent and a slow
enunciation that betrayed a foreign origin.
"I was really anxious, sir, to observe for myself the measures you have
taken which have set your institution in the forefront of establishments
of the kind," he replied. "I have read with the very greatest interest
your various communications to the transactions of learned societies. It
is a great advantage for a practitioner like myself to be able to profit
by the experience of a savant of your high standing."
A few further compliments were exchanged and then Dr. Biron suggested a
visit to the various wards, and led his guest out into the grounds of
the institution.
If Dr. Biron did not possess that theoretical knowledge of insanity
which has made French alienists famous throughout the world, he was
certainly a first-rate organiser. His sanatorium was a model one. It was
situated in one of the wealthiest, quietest and airiest quarters of
Paris, and stood in a vast enclosure behind high walls; within this
enclosure a number of small pavilions were built, all attractive in
design, and communicating by broad flights of steps with a beautiful
garden studded with trees and shrubs, but further subdivided into a
series of little gardens separated from one another by white latticed
palings.
"You see, Professor, I rely entirely on the isolation principle. A
single block would have involved a deleterious collocation of various
types of insanity, so I built this series of small pavilions, where my
patients can be segregated according to their type of alienation. The
system has great therapeutic advantages, and I am sure it is the
explanation of my high percentage of cures."
Professor Swelding nodded approval.
"We apply the system of segregation in Denmark," he said, "but we have
never carried it so far as to divide the general grounds. I see that
each of your pavilions has its own private garden."
"I regard that as indispensable," Dr. Biron declared. He led his visitor
to one of the little gardens, where a man of about fifty was walking
about between two attendants. "This man is a megalomaniac," he said: "he
believes that he is the Almighty."
"What is your treatment here?" Professor Swelding enquired. "I am aware
that the books prescribe isolation, but that is not sufficient by
itself."
"I nurse the brain by nursing the body," Dr. Biron replied. "I build up
my patient's system by careful attention to hygiene, diet, and rest, and
I pretend to ignore his mental alienation. There is always a spark of
sound sense in a diseased brain. This man imagines he is the Almighty,
but when he is hungry he has to ask for something to eat, and then we
pretend to wonder why he has any need to eat if he is the Almighty; he
has to concoct some explanation, and very gradually his reasoning power
is restored. A man ceases to be insane the moment he begins to
comprehend that he is insane."
The Professor followed the doctor, casting curious eyes at the various
patients who were walking in their gardens.
"Have you many cures?"
"That is a difficult question to answer," said Dr. Biron. "The
statistics are so very different in the different categories of
insanity."
"Of course," said Professor Swelding; "but take some particular type of
dementia, say, hallucination of persecution. What percentage of cures
can you show there?"
"Twenty per cent absolute recoveries, and forty per cent definite
improvements," the doctor replied promptly, and as the Professor evinced
unmistakable astonishment at so high a percentage, Dr. Biron took him
familiarly by the arm and drew him along. "I will show you a patient who
actually is to be sent home in a day or two. I believe that she is
completely cured, or on the very point of being completely cured."
A woman of about forty was sitting in one of the gardens by the side of
an attendant, quietly sewing. Dr. Biron paused to draw his visitor's
particular attention to her.
"That lady belongs to one of the best of our great merchant families.
She is Mme. Alice Rambert, wife of Etienne Rambert, the rubber merchant.
She has been under my care for nearly ten months. When she came here she
was in the last stage of debility and anæmia and suffered from the most
characteristic hallucination of all: she thought that assassins were all
round her. I have built up her physical system, and now I have cured her
mind. At the present moment that lady is not mad at all, in the proper
sense of the term."
"She never shows any symptoms of reverting to her morbid condition?"
Professor Swelding enquired with interest.
"Never."
"And would not, even if violently upset?"
"I do not think so."
"May I talk to her?"
"Certainly," and Dr. Biron led the visitor towards the seat on which the
patient was sitting. "Madame Rambert," he said, "may I present Professor
Swelding to you? He has heard that you are here and would like to pay
his respects."
Mme. Rambert put down her needlework and rose and looked at the Danish
professor.
"I am delighted to make the gentleman's acquaintance," she said, "but I
should like to know how he was aware of my existence, my dear doctor."
"I regret that I cannot claim to know you, madame," said Professor
Swelding, replying for Dr. Biron, "but I know that in addressing you I
shall be speaking to the inmate of this institution who will testify
most warmly to the scientific skill and the devotion of Dr. Biron."
"At all events," Mme. Rambert replied coldly, "he carries his kindness
to the extent of wishing his patients never to be dull, since he brings
unexpected visitors to see them."
The phrase was an implicit reproach of Dr. Biron's too ready inclination
to exhibit his patients as so many rare and curious wild animals, and it
stung him all the more because he was convinced that Mme. Rambert was
perfectly sane. He pretended not to hear what she said, giving some
order to the attendant, Berthe, who was standing respectfully by.
"I understand, madame," Professor Swelding replied gently. "You object
to my visit as an intrusion?"
Mme. Rambert had picked up her work and already was sewing again, but
suddenly she sprang up, so abruptly that the professor recoiled, and
exclaimed sharply:
"Who called me? Who called me? Who----"
The Professor was attempting to speak when the patient interrupted him.
"Oh!" she cried, "Alice! Alice! His voice--his voice! Go away! You
frighten me! Who spoke? Go away! Oh, help! help!" and she fled screaming
towards the far end of the garden, with the attendant and Dr. Biron
running after her. With all the cleverness of the insane she managed to
elude them, and continued to scream. "Oh, I recognised him! Do go away,
I implore you! Go! Murder! Murder!"
The attendant tried to reassure the doctor.
"Don't be frightened, sir. She is not dangerous. I expect the visit from
that gentleman has upset her."
The poor demented creature had taken refuge behind a clump of shrubs,
and was standing there with eyes dilated with anguish fixed on the
Professor and hand pointing to him, trembling in every limb.
"Fantômas!" she cried: "Fantômas! There--I know him! Oh, help!"
The scene was horribly distressing, and Dr. Biron put an end to it by
ordering the attendant to take Mme. Rambert to her room and induce her
to rest, and to send at once for M. Perret. Then he turned to Professor
Swelding.
"I am greatly distressed by this incident, Professor. It proves that the
cure of this poor creature is by no means so assured as I had believed.
But there are other cases which will not shake your faith in my judgment
like this, I hope. Shall we go on?"
Professor Swelding tried to comfort the doctor.
"The brain is a pathetically frail thing," he said. "You could not have
a more striking case to prove it: that poor lady, whom you believed to
be cured, suddenly having a typical crisis of her form of insanity
provoked by--what? Neither you nor I look particularly like assassins,
do we?" And he followed Dr. Biron, who was much discomfited, to be shown
other matters of interest.
* * * * *
"Better now, madame? Are you going to be good?"
Mme. Rambert was reclining on a sofa in her room, watching her
attendant, Berthe, moving about and tidying up the slight disorder
caused by her recent ministrations. The patient made a little gesture of
despair.
"Poor Berthe!" she said. "If you only knew how unhappy I am, and how
sorry for having given way to that panic just now!"
"Oh, that was nothing," said the attendant. "The doctor won't attach any
importance to that."
"Yes, he will," said the patient with a weary smile. "I think he will
attach importance to it, and in any case it will delay my discharge from
this place."
"Not a bit of it, madame. Why, you know they have written to your home
to say you are cured?"
Mme. Rambert did not reply for a minute or two. Then she said:
"Tell me, Berthe, what do you understand by the word 'cured'?"
The attendant was rather nonplussed.
"Why, it means that you are better: that you are quite well."
Her patient smiled bitterly.
"It is true that my health is better now, and that my stay here has done
me good. But that is not what I was talking about. What is your opinion
about my madness?"
"You mustn't think about that," the attendant remonstrated. "You are no
more mad than I am."
"Oh, I know the worst symptom of madness is to declare you are not mad,"
Mme. Rambert answered sadly; "so I will be careful not to say it,
Berthe. But, apart from this last panic, the reason for which I cannot
tell you, have you ever known me do, or heard me say, anything that was
utterly devoid of reason, in all the time that I have been in your
charge?"
Struck by the remark, the attendant, in spite of herself, was obliged to
confess:
"No, I never have--that is----"
"That is," Mme. Rambert finished for her, "I have sometimes protested to
you that I was the victim of an abominable persecution, and that there
was a tragic mystery in my life: in short, that if I was shut up here,
it was because someone wanted me to be shut up. Come now, Berthe, has
it never occurred to you that perhaps I was telling the truth?"
The attendant had been shaken for a minute by the calm self-possession
of her patient; now she resumed her professional manner.
"Don't worry any more, Mme. Rambert, for you know as well as I do that
Dr. Biron acknowledges that you are cured now. You are going to leave
the place and resume your ordinary life."
"Ah, Berthe," said Mme. Rambert, twisting and untwisting her hands, "if
you only knew! Why, if I leave this sanatorium, or rather if the doctor
sends me back to my family, I shall certainly be put in some other
sanatorium before two days are past! No, it isn't merely an idea that I
have got into my head," she went on as the attendant protested. "Listen:
during the whole ten months that I have been here, I have never once
protested that I was not insane. I was quite glad to be in this place!
For I felt safe here. But now I am not sure of that. I must go, but I
must not go merely to return to my husband! I must be free, free to go
to those who will help me to escape from the horrible trap in which I
have spent the last few years of my life!"
Mme. Rambert's earnest tone convinced the attendant in spite of her own
instinct.
"Yes?" she said enquiringly.
"I suppose you know that I am rich, Berthe?" Mme. Rambert went on. "I
have always been generous to you, and higher fees are paid for me here
than are paid for any other patient. Would you like to make sure of your
future for ever, and quite easily? I have heard you talk about getting
married. Shall I give you a dot? You might lose your situation here, but
if you trust me I will make it up to you a hundredfold, if you will help
me to escape from this place! And it cannot be too soon! I have not a
minute to lose!"
Berthe tried to get away from her patient, but Mme. Rambert held her
back, almost by force.
"Tell me your price," she said. "How much do you want? A thousand
pounds? Two thousand pounds?" and as the attendant, bewildered by the
mere suggestion of such fabulous sums, was silent, Mme. Rambert slipped
a diamond ring off her finger and held it out to the young woman. "Take
that as proof of my sincerity," she said. "If anybody asks me about it I
will say that I have lost it. And from now, Berthe, begin to prepare a
way for me to escape! The very night that I am free I swear you shall be
a rich woman!"
Berthe got up, swaying, hardly knowing if she was awake or dreaming.
"A rich woman!" she murmured. "A rich woman!" and over the girl's face
there suddenly crept a horrible expression of cupidity and desire.