DR. THUREL
The day was beginning to dawn when Surdon returned with Dr. Thurel.
He had to seek the famous doctor at an official function. Not that he
had, however, to drag him away by main force. The story which he told,
straightway induced the doctor to leave, and he did not even take the
trouble to return to his house and change his clothes.
I shall always remember his arrival in the wan light of day with his
white shirt-front, his long, pallid face, his colorless eyes whose
expression of deep thought it was impossible to forget when once you
had encountered it.
From that day the image of Dr. Thurel has lingered in my memory. He
brought with him so much that was new to me as I stood struggling on
the threshold of this mysterious drama, and shed so much light on it.
True, I was not at first dazzled, but I was at once “stirred” by the
depths of my ignorance.
While the facts themselves had merely aroused my wrath without making
any impression on my mind, he was able in a few words to reveal a new
world to me. He was a man who was constantly saying the most astounding
things and yet they were always impregnated with good sense. One felt
compelled to understand the meaning and to believe in him unless one
wished to be taken for a fool.
He gazed at Cordélia for some time, used the stethoscope, drew himself
up and said:
“This is not exactly a case of catalepsy. It is what is called hypnotic
sleep with muscular rigidity. Have no fear. We shall get the better of
it.”
Thereupon he bent over her, blew on her eyes and made some curious
gestures, but obtained no greater success than his country colleague.
Nevertheless after each futile experiment he seemed quite satisfied.
“That must be it. That must be it. Of course,” he muttered.
Strange to say, whatever he did, and even the fact that his efforts
were of no avail inspired me with perfect confidence. I felt sure
that, thanks to him, we should soon be out of our misery.
He requested me to step into the boudoir and questioned me at great
length. He told me that, on the way, he had drawn out the servant, and
the man had acquainted him of his mistress’s peculiar mental condition
a few months before our marriage. He begged me to confide everything
to him without reserve, and regard him not only as a doctor, but as a
father confessor.
Then I recounted the story of the English painter and the portrait and
the various incidents relating to it, and how Cordélia had complained
of being “as cold as the portrait.”
He asked to be allowed to see the canvas, and after examining it,
observed:
“All the trouble comes from this picture. There is no doubt about that.
Your wife, monsieur, is under the influence of this man Patrick, but we
will rid her of it, you may be certain.”
“But she hasn’t seen the man Patrick for several months.”
“Very likely, but then there is the portrait. Patrick can do a great
deal through the instrumentality of this portrait. He has renewed the
link with her through it.”
After that he told me facts about the externalization of sensibility
compared with which Cordélia’s remarks were so much child’s play, and
told them so simply and accompanied them by such logical explanations
that they no longer astounded me.
There could be no doubt that Dr. Thurel possessed the gift of
persuasion.
“So my wife’s sensibility was really in the portrait?” I said.
“Yes, to some extent. The body may be in one place and its sensibility
in another. A clairvoyant’s body, for instance, does not move, but his
individual vision is at the spot which he is describing. In like manner
your wife’s sensibility was transmitted to the portrait by means of
thought.”
“By means of thought?”
“Her thought yielded to that of another person. But her sensibility was
there, for thought holding absolute command over sensibility is able
to produce on it the desired effect.... Dr. Charcot, the master of us
all, made an experiment in this regard by applying a sheet of paper to
the epidermis of a patient whom he had hypnotized, and indicated by
suggestion that he had employed a blistering plaster. At once the usual
effects of a blistering plaster were apparent, such as the swelling of
the skin and so forth. I am quoting this experiment because it is the
most typical case, and you will see for yourself the conclusion that
may be drawn from it.”
Suddenly he stopped, looked steadily at the portrait which had been
left in the boudoir. Like every one else, he was enraptured by it. He
lifted it and blew upon it.... He blew sharply upon the eyes.
Then he replaced it in its position and walked on tiptoe towards the
next room, the door of which had been left ajar, making a sign to me to
remain where I stood. He looked into the room. Almost at once he turned
around with the light of victory shining on his face.
He came back to me still walking on tiptoe.
“She’s waking up,” he said in an undertone. “Don’t say anything of all
this to her. Pretend to think that she’s been in a natural sleep. I can
do nothing more here for some hours. I shall go and have a rest. Never
mind about me. Look after her. I must tell you this: If you kiss her,
kiss her as a brother.”
“What do you mean—as a brother?”
“Well, be kind and gentle to her as a brother. I assure you....”
But I did not wait to hear more. Already I stood in the doorway.
Cordélia’s eyes were wide open and she seemed to be looking for me. And
yet when her eyes alighted on me there was a look of astonishment in
them as if she had not expected to see me there.
“Hullo, there you are,” she breathed. “Where are we now?”
“Why, at home, my dear Cordélia.”
I saw her cheeks flush, her eyes smile, her lips bloom again.
“Oh yes, of course,” she returned. “Oh my dear Hector, what a lovely
night! But why didn’t you go to bed when you came in? You haven’t
caught cold? There was a cool breeze by the riverside. What a couple
of sillies we are? Who would have thought of a honeymoon in the
moonlight? Well, what did I tell you about my park? Can you imagine a
more beautiful bridal chamber?”
I listened to her incomprehensible chatter with a feeling of
consternation. Her first words: “What a lovely night!” struck a pang at
my heart. It was indeed a lovely night! And what did she mean by her
“beautiful bridal chamber?” And why, as she spoke, did she look round
as if she beheld our room for the first time? From what sort of dream
had she awakened? I had no opportunity to put these questions to her.
Her head drooped again on the pillow, her eyes closed, and this time
she fell into a calm, natural sleep. A soft regular breathing escaped
from her lips, and she wore a smile which ought to have delighted, but
which perturbed me. For, after all, what was she smiling at? I was
afraid in my dazed condition to ask myself _whom_ was she smiling at.
She had awakened out of her first torpor but to fall into another,
without giving me time to kiss her even as a brother. What was this
walk along the riverside? What was this bridal chamber of which I
knew nothing? I was once more alone, alone with her, and I could not
restrain my tears, while she continued to smile in her sleep. It was
more than I could bear.
And so the hours went by. At last it was morning.
I set my forehead against the window-pane and watched as in a sort of
dream the life of the country outside awakening around me. For that
matter the entire episode seemed to me a dream, an optical illusion.
Was the night through which I had just passed, this incredible wedding
night, a reality? Had I indeed emerged from it and were my eyes now
looking out upon everyday things? Were not those carts which rolled
along the roads, phantom carts? I was in the last stage of exhaustion,
and yet I was conscious that it would be impossible for me to seek
forgetfulness in the sleep which was essential to my physical and
mental health. My suffering mind was never more restless.
And my thoughts were revolving, endlessly revolving, round the
extraordinary language uttered by Cordélia in the interval between the
two sleeps. “Why didn’t you go to bed when you came in?” Well, I said
to myself with a feeling of dull resentment against my wavering and
insensate imagination, well, what is there in all this to cause so much
painful excitement. Cordélia dreamt that she was wandering with you in
the park during the night. Why make such a fuss about it?
Of course, of course. I wished Dr. Thurel was awake. I longed to talk
to him. I longed to talk to him.
He had been given a room in the left wing of the château. From where I
stood I could perceive the windows with their closed wooden shutters.
Truth to tell, I stared at nothing else.
Cordélia on the bed behind me was sleeping her peaceful sleep and
still smiling. I turned away from her. No, and again no! I failed to
understand how she could smile, even in her sleep, when I was so much
to be pitied.
And then I saw the shutters in the doctor’s room being opened. I
slipped out of the room. I crossed the courtyard. I knocked at his
door.
“It’s I, Doctor.”
“Well?” he questioned as I entered.
“Well, she is still asleep. She is sleeping in the most peaceful manner
as if nothing had happened.”
“That was to be expected, and all is for the best.”
“She said a few things before she fell asleep.”
“What did she say? Tell me what she said.”
I repeated her words, and observing that the doctor was in deep
thought, added:
“Apparently she was recalling a dream that she had when she was in her
trance.”
“A dream! You think it was a dream? It may have been. But....”
“But what?”
“Why, there’s another theory which the undoubted fact that your wife
was under the influence of suggestion renders quite plausible.”
“What theory?”
“Well, we are plainly confronted with the phenomenon which we call the
externalization....”
“I know, I know.... The externalization of sensibility.”
“One moment. The phenomenon of the externalization of sensibility finds
its counterpart here in another phenomenon: the externalization of
motive power.”
“What then?”
“Why then her active individuality, her vital force, her aura, as the
magicians call it, might really have left her last night, and taken
that walk, and it would have been no dream.”
“It’s amazing.”
“Not at all.”
“Still, if she actually left us, how do you account for her talk about
having a walk with me? I personally did not leave here either in body
or mind.”
“I have already explained,” returned the doctor, “that we are not
dealing in this case”—these were his own words “in this case” spoken
with the composure of an expert which did but increase my agitation—“we
are not dealing with a cataleptic condition, properly so called, for,
in that event, she would not have remembered what she had been doing,
but of a rigid hypnotic condition from which the subject sometimes
awakes with vague recollections.... Here obviously there were vague
recollections.”
“You mean,” I exclaimed, “that she thinks she remembers going out with
me, but that, in reality, to use your own language, she went for a walk
with another person. It’s ridiculous ... utterly ridiculous.”
“Or she went alone.... Calm yourself.”
It was all very well for him to say, “Calm yourself.” I refused to be
pacified.
“All this, Doctor, seems to me appalling. You don’t mean to say that a
person can do such things while the body is asleep, and not dream of
them?”
“My dear fellow, have you still to learn that an ignorant person in a
condition of somnambulism can become a scholar, can spend his nights
furnishing his polygon with multifarious learning, and even acquire
foreign languages? That is what can be done while one is asleep.”
“What do you mean by his polygon?”
“We will deal with that another time, young man. It would lead us too
far from the subject we are discussing.”
“Meanwhile there is one thing that I do understand,” I returned. “My
wife is suffering from some terrible mental disorder.”
“But, my dear fellow, there is no reason to lose hope,” returned the
doctor in a confident voice. “An illness of the mind can be cured by
the mind. Have confidence in my treatment, and take me to your wife.”
Cordélia had just risen. I found her clad in a kimono, her hair falling
loosely over her shoulders, standing in front of the glass making
faces. As soon as she saw me she threw herself into my arms and cried
in a mocking voice:
“Oh, my poor husband!”
Then all of a sudden she asked:
“Who is in the next room?”
No movement of any kind could be heard. Dr. Thurel had seated himself
in the boudoir without a sound, and I had closed the door behind me. I
was so greatly surprised that I made no answer.
“Is it one of your friends?” she asked. “Why don’t you introduce him to
me?”
She forgot the place and her incomplete toilette—everything. She made
for the door with a firm tread, opened it softly, caught sight of
the strange-looking old gentleman in evening dress, seemed in no way
disconcerted, smiled, and went up to him with outstretched hand.
“This is Dr. Thurel,” I said. “He is, in fact, a friend—one of my best
and most reliable friends.”
“Indeed, I have often heard of you,” she returned. “Oh, doctor, how
pleased I am to meet you.”
She sat down beside him. He still held her hand. And now he kept his
eyes fixed on hers, and her gaze seemed riveted on him.
“Leave us,” he whispered peremptorily, “I want to talk to her.”
I left them together, and I descended into the garden, impelled by an
irritability which made my teeth chatter.
* * * * *
Ten minutes elapsed, which seemed so long drawn out that I could have
shouted aloud. At length Dr. Thurel appeared. He was beaming.
“Cheer up,” said the old gentleman, “I think I have rid her mind of
any thought of the other person. All the same he had exerted a magical
power of attraction over her. Good-bye, my dear fellow.”
“If that is so,” I cried excitedly, “how shall I ever be able to
express my gratitude to you?”
“Stuff! Look here, give me the portrait. I will place it in my private
collection.”
I gave him the portrait and, Heaven only knows, with a glad heart!