Though my few hours at home failed to prove that I did not belong in an
institution, it served one good purpose. Certain relatives who had
objected to my commitment now agreed that there was no alternative,
and, accordingly, my eldest brother caused himself to be appointed my
conservator. He had long favored taking such action, but other
relatives had counseled delay. They had been deterred by that inbred
dread of seeing a member of the family branded by law as a mental
incompetent, and, to a degree, stigmatized by the prevailing
unwarranted attitude of the public toward mental illness and the
institutions in which mental cases are treated. The very thought was
repellent; and a mistaken sense of duty--and perhaps a suggestion of
pride--led them to wish me out of such an institution as long as
possible.
Though at the time I dreaded commitment, it was the best possible thing
that could befall me. To be, as I was, in the world but not of it, was
exasperating. The constant friction that is inevitable under such
conditions--conditions such as existed for me in the home of my
attendant--can only aggravate the mental disturbance. Especially is
this true of those laboring under delusions of persecution. Such
delusions multiply with the complexity of the life led. It is the
even-going routine of institutional life which affords the
indispensable quieting effect--provided that routine is well ordered,
and not defeated by annoyances imposed by ignorant or indifferent
doctors and attendants.
My commitment occurred on June 11th, 1901. The institution to which I
was committed was a chartered, private institution, but not run for
personal profit. It was considered one of the best of its kind in the
country and was pleasantly situated. Though the view was a restricted
one, a vast expanse of lawn, surrounded by groups of trees, like
patches of primeval forest, gave the place an atmosphere which was not
without its remedial effect. My quarters were comfortable, and after a
little time I adjusted myself to my new environment.
Breakfast was served about half-past seven, though the hour varied
somewhat according to the season--earlier in summer and later in
winter. In the spring, summer, and autumn, when the weather was
favorable, those able to go out of doors were taken after breakfast for
walks within the grounds, or were allowed to roam about the lawn and
sit under the trees, where they remained for an hour or two at a time.
Dinner was usually served shortly after noon, and then the active
patients were again taken out of doors, where they remained an hour or
two doing much as they pleased, but under watchful eyes. About
half-past three they returned to their respective wards, there to
remain until the next day--except those who cared to attend the
religious service which was held almost every afternoon in an endowed
chapel.
In all institutions those confined in different kinds of wards go to
bed at different hours. The patients in the best wards retire at nine
or ten o'clock. Those in the wards where more troublesome cases are
treated go to bed usually at seven or eight o'clock. I, while
undergoing treatment, have retired at all hours, so that I am in the
better position to describe the mysteries of what is, in a way, one of
the greatest secret societies in the world. I soon became accustomed to
the rather agreeable routine, and had I not been burdened with the
delusions which held me a prisoner of the police, and kept me a
stranger to my old world, I should have been able to enjoy a
comparatively happy existence in spite of all.
This new feeling of comparative contentment had not been brought about
by any marked improvement in health. It was due directly and entirely
to an environment more nearly in tune with my ill-tuned mind. While
surrounded by sane people my mental inferiority had been painfully
apparent to me, as well as to others. Here a feeling of superiority
easily asserted itself, for many of my associates were, to my mind,
vastly inferior to myself. But this stimulus did not affect me at once.
For several weeks I believed the institution to be peopled by
detectives, feigning insanity. The government was still operating the
Third Degree, only on a grander scale. Nevertheless, I did soon come to
the conclusion that the institution was what it purported to be--still
cherishing the idea, however, that certain patients and attachés were
detectives.
For a while after my arrival I again abandoned my new-found reading
habit. But as I became accustomed to my surroundings I grew bolder and
resumed the reading of newspapers and such books as were at hand. There
was a bookcase in the ward, filled with old numbers of standard English
periodicals; among them: _Westminster Review, Edinburgh Review, London
Quarterly_, and _Blackwood's_. There were also copies of _Harper's_ and
_The Atlantic Monthly_, dated a generation or more before my first
reading days. Indeed, some of the reviews were over fifty years old.
But I had to read their heavy contents or go without reading, for I
would not yet ask even for a thing I ardently desired. In the room of
one of the patients were thirty or forty books belonging to him. Time
and again I walked by his door and cast longing glances at those books,
which at first I had not the courage to ask for or to take. But during
the summer, about the time I was getting desperate, I finally managed
to summon enough courage to take them surreptitiously. It was usually
while the owner of these books was attending the daily service in the
chapel that his library became a circulating one.
The contents of the books I read made perhaps a deeper impression on my
memory than most books make on the minds of normal readers. To assure
myself of the fact, I have since reread "The Scarlet Letter," and I
recognize it as an old friend. The first part of the story, however,
wherein Hawthorne describes his work as a Custom House official and
portrays his literary personality, seems to have made scarcely any
impression. This I attribute to my utter lack of interest at that time
in writers and their methods. I then had no desire to write a book, nor
any thought of ever doing so.
Letters I looked upon with suspicion. I never read them at the time
they were received. I would not even open them; but generally, after a
week or sometimes a month, I would secretly open and read
them--forgeries of the detectives.
I still refused to speak, and exhibited physical activity only when the
patients were taken out of doors. For hours I would sit reading books
or newspapers, or apparently doing nothing. But my mind was in an
active state and very sensitive. As the event proved, almost everything
done or said within the range of my senses was making indelible
impressions, though these at the time were frequently of such a
character that I experienced great difficulty in trying to recall
incidents which I thought I might find useful at the time of my
appearance in court.
My ankles had not regained anything like their former strength. It hurt
to walk. For months I continued to go flat-footed. I could not sustain
my weight with heels lifted from the floor. In going downstairs I had
to place my insteps on the edge of each step, or go one step at a time,
like a child. Believing that the detectives were pampering me into
prime condition, as a butcher fattens a beast for slaughter, I
deliberately made myself out much weaker than I really was; and not a
little of my inactivity was due to a desire to prolong my fairly
comfortable existence, by deferring as long as possible the day of
trial and conspicuous disgrace.
But each day still had its distressing incidents. Whenever the
attendants were wanted at the office, an electric bell was rung. During
the fourteen months that I remained in this hospital in a depressed
condition, the bell in my ward rang several hundred times. Never did it
fail to send through me a mild shock of terror, for I imagined that at
last the hour had struck for my transportation to the scene of trial.
Relatives and friends would be brought to the ward--heralded, of
course, by a warning bell--and short interviews would be held in my
room, during which the visitors had to do all the talking. My eldest
brother, whom I shall refer to hereafter as my conservator, called
often. He seldom failed to use one phrase which worried me.
"You are looking better and getting stronger," he would say. "We shall
straighten you out yet."
To be "straightened out" was an ambiguous phrase which might refer to
the end of the hangman's rope or to a fatal electric shock.
I preferred to be let alone, and the assistant physician in charge of
my case, after several ineffectual attempts to engage me in
conversation, humored my persistent taciturnity. For more than a year
his only remarks to me were occasional conventional salutations.
Subsequent events have led me to doubt the wisdom of his policy.
For one year no further attention was paid to me than to see that I had
three meals a day, the requisite number of baths, and a sufficient
amount of exercise. I was, however, occasionally urged by an attendant
to write a letter to some relative, but that, of course, I refused to
do. As I shall have many hard things to say about attendants in
general, I take pleasure in testifying that, so long as I remained in a
passive condition, those at this institution were kind, and at times
even thoughtful. But there came a time when diplomatic relations with
doctors and attendants became so strained that war promptly ensued.
It was no doubt upon the gradual, but sure improvement in my physical
condition that the doctors were relying for my eventual return to
normality. They were not without some warrant for this. In a way I had
become less suspicious, but my increased confidence was due as much to
an increasing indifference to my fate as to an improvement in health.
And there were other signs of improved mental vigor. I was still
watchful, however, for a chance to end my life, and, but for a series
of fortunate circumstances, I do not doubt that my choice of evils
would have found tragic expression in an overt act.
Having convinced myself that most of my associates were really insane,
and therefore (as I believed) disqualified as competent witnesses in a
court of law, I would occasionally engage in conversation with a few
whose evident incompetency seemed to make them safe confidants. One, a
man who during his life had more than once been committed to an
institution, took a very evident interest in me and persisted in
talking to me, often much against my will. His persistent
inquisitiveness seemed to support his own statement that he had
formerly been a successful life-insurance agent. He finally gained my
confidence to such a degree that months before I finally began to talk
to others I permitted myself to converse frequently with him--but only
when we were so situated as to escape observation. I would talk to him
on almost any subject, but would not speak about myself. At length,
however, his admirable persistence overcame my reticence. During a
conversation held in June, 1902, he abruptly said, "Why you are kept
here I cannot understand. Apparently you are as sane as anyone. You
have never made any but sensible remarks to me." Now for weeks I had
been waiting for a chance to tell this man my very thoughts. I had come
to believe him a true friend who would not betray me.
"If I should tell you things which you apparently don't know, you would
understand why I am held here," I said.
"Well, tell me," he urged.
"Will you promise not to repeat my statements to any one else?"
"I promise not to say a word."
"Well," I remarked, "you have seen certain persons who have come here,
professing to be relatives of mine."
"Yes, and they are your relatives, aren't they?"
"They look like my relatives, but they're not," was my reply.
My inquisitive friend burst into laughter and said, "Well, if you mean
_that_, I shall have to take back what I just said. You are really the
craziest person I have ever met, and I have met several."
"You will think differently some day," I replied; for I believed that
when my trial should occur, he would appreciate the significance of my
remark. I did not tell him that I believed these callers to be
detectives; nor did I hint that I thought myself in the hands of the
police.
Meanwhile, during July and August, 1902, I redoubled my activity in
devising suicidal schemes; for I now thought my physical condition
satisfactory to my enemies, and was sure that my trial could not be
postponed beyond the next opening of the courts in September. I even
went so far as to talk to one of the attendants, a medical student, who
during the summer worked as an attendant at the hospital. I approached
him artfully. First I asked him to procure from the library for me "The
Scarlet Letter," "The House of the Seven Gables," and other books; then
I talked medicine and finally asked him to lend me a textbook on
anatomy which I knew he had in his possession. This he did, cautioning
me not to let anyone know that he had done so. The book once secured, I
lost no time in examining that part which described the heart, its
functions, and especially its exact position in the body. I had
scarcely begun to read when the young man returned and took the book
from me, giving as his reason that an attendant had no right to let a
patient read a medical work. Maybe his change of heart was
providential.
As is usual in these institutions, all knives, forks, and other
articles that might be used by a patient for a dangerous purpose were
counted by the attendants after each meal. This I knew, and the
knowledge had a deterrent effect. I dared not take one. Though I might
at any time during the night have hanged myself, that method did not
appeal to me, and I kept it in mind only as a last resort. To get
possession of some sharp dagger-like instrument which I could plunge
into my heart at a moment's notice--this was my consuming desire. With
such a weapon I felt that I could, when the crisis came, rob the
detectives of their victory. During the summer months an employé spent
his entire time mowing the lawn with a large horse-drawn machine. This,
when not in use, was often left outdoors. Upon it was a square wooden
box, containing certain necessary tools, among them a sharp, spike-like
instrument, used to clean the oil-holes when they became clogged. This
bit of steel was five or six inches long, and was shaped like a pencil.
For at least three months, I seldom went out of doors that I did not go
with the intention of purloining that steel spike. I intended then to
keep it in my room against the day of my anticipated transfer to jail.
It was now that my delusions protected me from the very fate they had
induced me to court. For had I not believed that the eye of a detective
was on me every moment, I could have taken that spike a score of times.
Often, when it was not in use, I walked to the lawnmower and even laid
my hand upon the tool-box. But I dared not open it. My feelings were
much like those of Pandora about a certain other box. In my case,
however, the box upon which I looked with longing had Hope without, and
not within. Instinctively, perhaps, I realized this, for I did not lift
the lid.
One day, as the patients were returning to their wards, I saw, lying
directly in my path (I could even now point out the spot), the coveted
weapon. Never have I seen anything that I wanted more. To have stooped
and picked it up without detection would have been easy; and had I
known, as I know now, that it had been carelessly dropped there,
nothing could have prevented me from doing so and perhaps using it with
fatal effect. But I believed it had been placed there deliberately and
as a test, by those who had divined my suicidal purpose. The eye of the
imagined detective, which, I am inclined to believe, and like to
believe, was the eye of the real God, was upon me; and though I stepped
directly over it, I did not pick up that thing of death.