"I mean your son. He was with you to-day; you were unkind to him."
"Was I?" she asked. "I have no son." Still her eyes gazed into mine as
though searching for something, and as I looked I thought the tears rose
in them and trembled, but they did not overflow. I was profoundly
surprised. They had told me that she had no memory for any one, and yet
she seemed to have told me that her husband was dead,--if indeed his
name had been Paul,--and although she said she had no son, her tears
rose at the mention of him. Probably for the very reason that I had not
then had any experience of insane persons, the impression formed itself
in my mind that this poor lady was not mad, after all. It seemed madness
on my own part to doubt the evidence before me,--the evidence of
attendants trained to the duty of watching lunatics, the assurances of a
man who had grown famous by studying diseases of the brain as Professor
Cutter had, the unanimous opinion of Madame Patoff's family. How could
they all be mistaken? Besides, she might have been really mad, and she
might be now recovering; this might be one of her first lucid moments. I
hardly knew how to continue, but I was so much interested by her first
answers that I felt I must say something.
"Why do you say you have no son! He is here in the house; you have seen
him to-day. Your son is Paul Patoff. He loves you, and has come to see
you."
Again the low, silvery laugh came rippling from her lips. She let the
book fall from her hands upon her lap, and leaned far back upon the
couch.
"Why do you torment me so?" she asked. "I tell you I have no son." Again
she laughed,--less sweetly than before. "Why do you torment me?"
"I do not want to torment you. I will leave you. Shall I come again?"
"Again?" she repeated, vacantly, as though not understanding. But as I
stood beside her I moved a little, and I thought her eyes rested on the
figure of the professor, standing at the other end of the room, and her
face expressed dislike of him, while her answer to me was a meaningless
repetition of my own word.
"Yes," I said. "Shall I come again? Do you like to talk Russian?" This
time she said nothing, but her eyes remained fixed upon the professor.
"I am going," I added. "Good-by."
She looked up suddenly. I bowed to her, out of habit, I suppose. Do
people generally bow to insane persons? To my surprise, she put out her
hand and took mine, and shook it, in the most natural way imaginable;
but she did not answer me. Just as I was turning from her she spoke
again.
"Who are you?" she asked in English.
"My name is Griggs," I replied, and lingered to see if she would say
more. But she laughed again,--very little this time,--and she took up
the book she had dropped and began to read.
Cutter smiled, too, as we left the room. I glanced back at the graceful
figure of the gray-haired woman, extended upon her couch. She did not
look up, and a moment later Cutter and I stood again in the antechamber.
The professor slowly rubbed his hands together,--his gigantic hands,
modeled by nature for dealing with big things. Mrs. North rose from her
reading.
"I have an idea that our patient has recognized this gentleman," said
the scientist. "This has been a remarkably eventful day. She is probably
very tired, and if you could induce her to go to bed it would be a very
good thing, Mrs. North. Good-evening."
"Good-evening," I said. Mrs. North made a slight inclination with her
head, in answer to our salutation. I pushed aside the heavy curtain,
and we went out. Cutter had a pass-key to the heavy door in the passage,
and opened it and closed it noiselessly behind us. I felt as though I
had been in a dream, as we emerged into the dimly lighted great hall,
where a huge fire burned in the old-fashioned fireplace, and Fang, the
white deerhound, lay asleep upon the thick rug.
"And now, Mr. Griggs," said the professor, stopping short and thrusting
his hands into his pockets, "will you tell me what she said to you, and
whether she gave any signs of intelligence?" He faced me very sharply,
as though to disconcert me by the suddenness of his question. It was a
habit he had.
"She said very little," I replied. "She said that 'Paul' was dead. Was
that her husband's name as well as her son's?"
"Yes. What else?"
"She told me she had no son; and when I reminded her that she had seen
him that very afternoon, she laughed and answered, 'I tell you I have no
son,--why do you torment me?' She said all that in Russian. As I was
going away you heard her ask me who I was, in English. My name appeared
to amuse her."
"Yes," assented Cutter, with a smile. "Was that all?"
"That was all she said," I answered, with perfect truth. Somehow I did
not care to tell the professor of the look I thought I had seen in her
face when her eyes rested on him. In the first place, as he was doing
his best to cure her, it seemed useless to tell him that I thought she
disliked him. It might have been only my imagination. Besides, that
nameless, undefined suspicion had crossed my brain that Madame Patoff
was not really mad; and though her apparently meaningless words might
have been interpreted to mean something in connection with her
expression of face in speaking, it was all too vague to be worth
detailing. I had determined that I would see her again and see her
alone, before long. I might then make some discovery, or satisfy myself
that she was really insane.
"Well," observed the professor, "it looks as though she remembered her
husband's death, at all events; and if she remembers that, she has the
memory of her own identity, which is something in such cases. I think
she faintly recognized you. That flush that came into her face was there
when she saw her son this afternoon, so far as I can gather from
Carvel's description. I wish they had waited for me. This remark about
her son is very curious, too. It is more like a monomania than anything
we have had yet. It is like a fixed idea in character; she certainly is
not sane enough to have meant it ironically,--to have meant that Paul
Patoff is not a son to her while thinking only of the other one who is
dead. Did she speak Russian fluently? She has not spoken it for more
than eighteen months,--perhaps longer."
"She speaks it perfectly," I replied.
"What strange tricks this brain of ours will play us!" exclaimed the
professor. "Here is a woman who has forgotten every circumstance of her
former life, has forgotten her friends and relations, and is puzzling us
all with her extraordinary lack of memory, and who, nevertheless,
remembers fluently the forms and expressions of one of the most
complicated languages in the world. At the same time we do not think
that she remembers what she reads. I wish we could find out. She acts
like a person who has had an injury to some part of the head which has
not affected the rest. But then, she never received any injury, to my
knowledge."
"Not even when she fell at Weissenstein?"
"Not the least. I made a careful examination."
"I do not see that we are likely to arrive at a conclusion by any amount
of guessing," I remarked. "Nothing but time and experiments will show
what is the matter with her."
"I have not the time, and I cannot invent the experiments," replied the
professor, impatiently. "I have a great mind to advise Carvel to put her
into an asylum, and have done with all this sort of thing."
"He will never consent to do that," I answered. "He evidently believes
that she is recovering. I could see it in his face this evening. What do
the nurses think of it?"
"Mrs. North never says anything very encouraging, excepting that she has
taken care of many insane women before, and remembers no case like this.
She is a famous nurse, too. Those people, from their constant daily
experience, sometimes understand things that we specialists do not. But
on the other hand, she is so taciturn and cautious that she can hardly
be induced to speak at all. The other woman is younger and more
enthusiastic, but she has not half so much sense."
I was silent. I was thinking that, according to all accounts, I had been
more successful than any one hitherto, and that a possible clue to
Madame Patoff's condition might be obtained by encouraging her to speak
in her adopted language. Perhaps something of the sort crossed the
professor's mind.
"Should you like to see her again?" he inquired. "It will be interesting
to know whether this return of memory is wholly transitory. She
recognized her son to-day, and I think she had some recognition of you.
You might both see her again to-morrow, and discover if the same
symptoms present themselves."
"I should be glad to go again," I replied. "But if I can be of any
service, it seems to me that I ought to be informed of the circumstances
which led to her insanity. I might have a better chance of rousing her
attention."
"Carvel will never consent to that," said the professor, shortly, and he
looked away from me as I spoke.
I was about to ask whether Cutter himself was acquainted with the whole
story, when Fang, the dog, who had taken no notice whatever of our
presence in the hall, suddenly sprang to his feet and trotted across the
floor, wagging his tail. He had recognized the tread of his mistress,
and a moment later Hermione entered and came towards us. Hermione did
not like the professor very much, and the professor knew it; for he was
a man of quick and intuitive perceptions, who had a marvelous
understanding of the sympathies and antipathies of those with whom he
was thrown. He sniffed the air rather discontentedly as the young girl
approached, and he looked at his watch.
"Fang has good ears, Miss Carvel," said he. "He knew your step before
you came in."
"Yes," answered Hermione, seating herself in one of the deep chairs by
the fireside, and caressing the dog's head as he laid his long muzzle
upon her knee. "Poor Fang, you know your friends, don't you? Mr. Griggs,
this new collar is always unfastening itself. I believe you have
bewitched it! See, here it is falling off again."
I bent down to examine the lock. The professor was not interested in the
dog nor his collar, and, muttering something about speaking to Carvel
before he went to bed, he left us.
"I could not stay in there," said Hermione. "Aunt Chrysophrasia is
talking to cousin Paul in her usual way, and Macaulay has got into a
corner with mamma, so that I was left alone. Where have you been all
this time?"
"I have heard what you could not tell me," I answered. "I have been to
see Madame Patoff with the professor."
"Not really? Oh, I am so glad! Now I can always talk to you about it.
Did papa tell you? Why did he want you to go?"
I briefly explained the circumstances of my seeing Madame Patoff in the
Black Forest, and the hope that was entertained of her recognizing me.
"Do you ever go in to see her, Miss Carvel?" I asked.
"Sometimes. They do not like me to go," said she; "they think it is too
depressing for me. I cannot tell why. Poor dear aunt! she used to be
glad to see me. Is not it dreadfully sad? Can you imagine a man who has
just seen his mother in such a condition, behaving as Paul Patoff
behaves this evening? He talks as if nothing had happened."
"No, I cannot imagine it. I suppose he does not want to make everybody
feel badly about it."
"Mr. Griggs, is she really mad?" asked Hermione, in a low voice, leaning
forward and clasping her hands.
"Why," I began, very much surprised, "does anybody doubt that she is
insane?"
"I do," said the young girl, decidedly. "I do not believe she is any
more insane than you and I are."
"That is a very bold thing to say," I objected, "when a man of Professor
Cutter's reputation in those things says that she is crazy, and gives up
so much time to visiting her."
"All the same," said Hermione, "I do not believe it. I am sure people
sometimes try to kill themselves without being insane, and that is all
it rests on."
"But she has never recognized any one since that," I urged.
"Perhaps she is ashamed," suggested my companion, simply.
I was struck by the reply. It was such a simple idea that it seemed
almost foolish. But it was a woman's thought about another woman, and it
had its value. I laughed a little, but I answered seriously enough.
"Why should she be ashamed?"
"It seems to me," said the young girl, "that if I had done something
very foolish and wicked, like trying to kill myself, and if people took
it for granted that I was crazy, I would let them believe it, because I
should be too much ashamed of myself to allow that I had consciously
done anything so bad. Perhaps that is very silly; do you think so?"
"I do not think it is silly," I replied. "It is a very original idea."
"Well, I will tell you something. Soon after she was first brought here
I used to go and see her more often than I do now. She interested me so
much. I was often alone with her. She never answered any questions, but
she would sometimes let me read aloud to her. I do not know whether she
understood anything I read, but it soothed her, and occasionally she
would go to sleep while I was reading. One day I was sitting quite
quietly beside her, and she looked at me very sadly, as though she were
thinking of somebody she had loved,--I cannot tell why; and without
thinking I looked at her, and said, 'Dear aunt Annie, tell me, you are
not really mad, are you?' Then she turned very pale and began to cry, so
that I was frightened, and called the nurse, and went away. I never told
anybody, because it seemed so foolish of me, and I thought I had been
unkind, and had hurt her feelings. But after that she did not seem to
want to see me when I came, and so I have thought a great deal about it.
Do you see? Perhaps there is not much connection."
"I think you ought to have told some one; your father, for instance," I
said. "It is very interesting."
"I have told you, though it is so long since it happened," she answered;
and then she added, quickly, "Shall you tell Professor Cutter?"
"No," I replied, after a moment's hesitation. "I do not think I shall.
Should you like me to tell him?"
"Oh, no," she exclaimed quickly, "I should much rather you would not."
"Why?" I inquired. "I agree with you, but I should like to know your
reason."
"I think Professor Cutter knows more already than he will tell you or
me"---- She checked herself, and then continued in a lower voice: "It is
prejudice, of course, but I do not like him. I positively cannot bear
the sight of him."
"I fancy he knows that you do not like him," I remarked.
"Tell me, Miss Carvel, do you know anything of the reason why Madame
Patoff became insane? If you do know, you must not tell me what it was,
because your father does not wish me to hear it. But I should like to be
sure whether you know all about it or not; whether you and I judge her
from the same point of view, or whether you are better instructed than I
am."
"I know nothing about it," said Hermione, quietly.
She sat gazing into the great fire, one small hand supporting her chin,
and the other resting upon the sharp white head of Fang, who never moved
from her knee. There was a pause, during which we were both wondering
what strange circumstance could have brought the unhappy woman to her
present condition, whether it were that of real or of assumed insanity.
"I do not know," she repeated, at last. "I wish I did; but I suppose it
was something too dreadful to be told. There are such dreadful things in
the world, you know."
"Yes, I know there are," I answered, gravely; and in truth I was
persuaded that the prime cause must have been extraordinary indeed,
since even John Carvel had said that he could not tell me.
"There are such dreadful things," Hermione said again. "Just think how
horrible it would be if"---- She stopped short, and blushed crimson in
the ruddy firelight.
"What?" I asked. But she did not answer, and I saw that the idea had
pained her, whatever it might be. Presently she turned the phrase so as
to make it appear natural enough.
"What a horrible thing it would be if we found that poor aunt Annie only
let us believe she was mad, because she had done something she was sorry
for, and would not own it!"
"Dreadful indeed," I replied. Hermione rose from her deep chair.
"Good-night, Mr. Griggs," she said. "I hope we may all understand
everything some day."
"Good-night, Miss Carvel."
"How careful you are of the formalities!" she said, laughing. "How two
years change everything! It used to be 'Good-night, Hermy,' so short a
time ago!"
"Good-night, Hermy," I said, laughing too, as she took my hand. "If you
are old enough to be called Miss Carvel, I am old enough to call you
Hermy still."
"Oh, I did not mean that," she said, and went away.
I sat a few minutes by the fire after she had gone, and then, fearing
lest I should be disturbed by the professor or John Carvel, I too left
the hall, and went to my own room, to think over the events of the day.
I had learned so much that I was confused, and needed rest and leisure
to reflect. That morning I had waked with a sensation of unsatisfied
curiosity. All I had wanted to discover had been told me before
bed-time, and more also; and now I was unpleasantly aware that this very
curiosity was redoubled, and that, having been promoted from knowing
nothing to knowing something, I felt I had only begun to guess how much
there was to be known.
Oh, this interest in other people's business! How grand and beautiful
and simple a thing it is to mind one's own affairs, and leave other
people to mind what concerns them! And yet I defy the most indifferent
man alive to let himself be put in my position, and not to feel
curiosity; to be taken into a half confidence of the most intense
interest, and not to desire exceedingly to be trusted with the
remainder; to be asked to consider and give an opinion upon certain
effects, and to be deliberately informed that he may never know the
causes which led to the results he sees.
On mature reflection, what had struck me as most remarkable in
connection with the whole matter was Hermione's simple, almost childlike
guess,--that Madame Patoff was ashamed of something, and was willing to
be considered insane, rather than let it be thought she was in
possession of her faculties at the time when she did the deed, whatever
it might be. That this was a conceivable hypothesis there was no manner
of doubt, only I could hardly imagine what action, apart from the poor
woman's attempt at suicide, could have been so serious as to persuade
her to act insanity for the rest of her life. Surely John Carvel, with
his great, kind heart, would not be unforgiving. But John Carvel might
not have been concerned in the matter at all. He spoke of knowing the
details and being unable to tell them to me, but he never said they
concerned any one but Madame Patoff.
Strange that Hermione should not know, either. Whatever the details
were, they were not fit for her young ears. It was strange, too, that
she should have conceived an antipathy for the professor. He was a man
who was generally popular, or who at least had the faculty of making
himself acceptable when he chose; but it was perfectly evident that the
scientist and the young girl disliked each other. There was more in it
than appeared upon the surface. Innocent young girls do not suddenly
contract violent prejudices against elderly and inoffensive men who do
not weary them or annoy them in some way; still less do men of large
intellect and experience take unreasoning and foolish dislikes to young
and beautiful maidens. We know little of the hidden sympathies and
antipathies of the human heart, but we know enough to say with certainty
that in broad cases the average human being will not, without cause, act
wholly in contradiction to the dictates of reason and the probabilities
of human nature.
I lay awake long that night, and for many nights afterwards, trying to
explain to myself these problems, and planning ways and means for
discovering whether or not the beautiful old lady down-stairs was in her
right mind, or was playing a shameful and wicked trick upon the man who
sheltered her. But though other events followed each other with
rapidity, it was long before I got at the truth and settled the
question. Whether or not I was right in wishing to pursue the secret to
its ultimate source and explanation, I leave you to judge. I will only
say that, although I was at first impelled by what seems now a wretched
and worthless curiosity, I found, as time went on, that there was such a
multiplicity of interests at stake, that the complications were so
singular and unexpected and the passions aroused so masterful and
desperate, that, being in the fight, I had no choice but to fight it to
the end. So I did my very best in helping those to whom I owed
allegiance by all the laws of hospitality and gratitude, and in
concentrating my whole strength and intelligence and activity in the
discovery of an evil which I suspected from the first to be very great,
but of which I was far from realizing the magnitude and extent.
You will forgive my thus speaking of myself, and this apology for my
doings at this stage of my story; but I am aware that my motives
hitherto may have appeared contemptible, and I am anxious to have you
understand that when I found myself suddenly placed in what I regard as
one of the most extraordinary situations of my life, I honestly put my
hand out, and strove to become an agent for good in that strange series
of events into which my poor curiosity had originally brought me. And
having thus explained and expressed myself in concluding what I may
regard as the first part of my story, I promise that I will not trouble
you again, dear lady, with any unnecessary asseverations of my good
faith, nor with any useless defense of my actions; conceiving that
although I am responsible to you for the telling of this tale, I am
answerable to many for the part I played in the circumstances here
related; and that, on the other hand, though no one can find much fault
with me for my doings, none but you will have occasion to criticise my
mode of telling them.
Henceforth, therefore, and to the end, I will speak of events which
happened from an historical point of view, frequently detailing
conversations in which I took no part and scenes of which I had not at
the time any knowledge, and only introducing myself in the first person
when the nature of the story requires it.