Part 25

"No. It is impossible. I was once called to give my opinion in such a case. The man betrayed himself in half an hour, and yet he was a very clever fellow. He was a servant; murdered his master to rob him; was caught, but succeeded in restoring the valuables to their places, and pretended to be crazy. It was very well managed and he played the fool splendidly, but I caught him."

"How?" I asked.

"Simply by bullying. I treated him roughly, and never stopped talking to him,--just the worst treatment for a person really insane. In less than an hour I had wearied him out, his feigned madness became so fatiguing to him that there was finally only a spasmodic attempt, and when I had done with him the sane man was perfectly apparent. He grew too much frightened and too tired to act a part. He was hanged, to the satisfaction of all concerned, and he made a complete confession."

"But how about the artificial insanity you spoke of? How can it be produced?"

"By any poison, from coffee to alcohol, from tobacco to belladonna. A man who is drunk is insane."

"I wonder whether, if a madman got drunk, he would be sane?" I said.

"Sometimes. A man who has delirium tremens can be brought to his right mind for a time by alcohol, unless he is too far gone. The habitual drunkard is not in his right mind until he has had a certain amount of liquor. All habitual poisons act in that way, even tea. How often do you hear a woman or a student say, 'I do not feel like myself to-day,--I have not had my tea'! When a man does not feel like himself, he means that he feels like some one else, and he is mildly crazy. Generally speaking, any sudden change in our habits of eating and drinking will produce a temporary unsoundness of the mind. Every one knows that thirst sometimes brings on a dangerous madness, and hunger produces hallucinations and visions which take a very real character."

"I know,--I have seen that. In the East it is thought that insanity can be caused by mesmerism, or something like it."

"It is not impossible," answered the scientist. "We do not deny that some very extraordinary circumstances can be induced by sympathy and antipathy."

"I suppose you do not believe in actual mesmerism, do you?"

"I neither affirm nor deny,--I wait; and until I have been convinced I do not consider my opinion worth giving."

"That is the only rational position for a man of science. I fancy that nothing but experience satisfies you,--why should it?"

"The trouble is that experiments, according to the old maxim, are generally made, and should be made, upon worthless bodies, and that they are necessarily very far from being conclusive in regard to the human body. There is no doubt that dogs are subject to grief, joy, hope, and disappointment; but it is not possible to conclude from the conduct of a dog who is deprived of a particularly interesting bone he is gnawing, for instance, how a man will act who is robbed of his possessions. Similarity of misfortune does not imply analogy in the consequences."

"Certainly not. Otherwise everybody would act in the same way, if put in the same case."

The professor's conversation was interesting if only on account of the extreme simplicity with which he spoke of such a complicated subject. I was impressed with the belief that he belonged to a class of scientists whose interest in what they hope to learn surpasses their enthusiasm for what they have already learned,--a class of scientists unfortunately very rare in our day. For we talk more nonsense about science than would fill many volumes, because we devote so much time to the pursuit of knowledge; nevertheless, the amount of knowledge actually acquired, beyond all possibility of contradiction, is ludicrously small as compared with the energy expended in the pursuit of it and the noise made over its attainment. Science lays many eggs, but few are hatched. Science boasts much, but accomplishes little; is vainglorious, puffed up, and uncharitable; desires to be considered as the root of all civilization and the seed of all good, whereas it is the heart that civilizes, never the head.

I walked by the professor's side in deep thought, and he, too, became silent, so that we talked little more until we were coming home and had almost reached the house.

"Why has Patoff never been in England before?" I asked, suddenly.

"I believe he has," answered Cutter.

"He says he has not."

"Never mind. I believe he was in London during nearly eighteen months, about four or five years ago, as secretary in the Russian embassy. He never went near his relations."

"Why should he say now that he never was in the country?"

"Because they would not like it, if they knew he had been so near them without ever visiting them."

"Was his mother with him? Did she never write to her people?"

"No," said Cutter, with a short laugh, "she never wrote to them."

"How very odd!" I exclaimed, as we entered the hall-door.

"It was odd," answered my companion, and went up-stairs. There was something very unsatisfactory about him, I thought; and then I cursed my own curiosity. What business was it all of mine? If Paul Patoff chose to tell a diplomatic falsehood, it certainly did not concern me. It was possible that his mother might have quarreled with her family,--indeed, in former years I had sometimes thought as much from their never mentioning her; and in that case it would be natural that her son might not have cared to visit his relations when he was in England before. He need not have made such a show of never having visited the country, but people often do that sort of thing. And now it was probable that since Madame Patoff had been insane there might have been a reconciliation and a smoothing over of the family difficulties. I had no idea where Madame Patoff might be. I could not ask any one such a delicate question, for I supposed she was confined in an asylum, and no one volunteered the information. Probably Cutter's visit to Carvel Place was connected with her sad state; perhaps Patoff's coming might be the result of it, also. It was impossible to say. But of this I was certain: that John Carvel and his wife had both grown older and sadder in the past two years, and that there was an air of concealment about the house which made me very uncomfortable. I have been connected with more than one odd story in my time, and I confess that I no longer care for excitement as I once did. If people are going to get into trouble, I would rather not be there to see it, and I have a strong dislike to being suddenly called upon to play an unexpected part in sensational events. Above all, I hate mystery; I hate the mournful air of superior sorrow that hangs about people who have a disagreeable secret, and the constant depression of long-protracted anxiety in those about me. It spoiled my pleasure in the quiet country life to see John's face grow every day more grave and Mary Carvel's eyes turn sadder. Pain of any sort is unpleasant to witness, but there is nothing so depressing as to watch the progress of melancholy in one's friends; to feel that from some cause which they will not confide they are losing peace and health and happiness. Even if one knew the cause one might not be able to do anything to remove it, for it is no bodily ill, that can be doctored and studied and experimented upon, a subject for dissertation and barbarous, semi-classic nomenclature; quacks do not pretend to cure it with patent medicines, and great physicians do not write nebulous articles about it in the reviews. There is little room for speculation in the matter of grief, for most people know well enough what it is, and need no Latin words with Greek terminations to express it. It is the breaking of the sea of life over the harbor bar where science ends and humanity begins.

Poor John! It needed something strong indeed to sadden his cheerfulness and leaden his energy. That evening I talked with Hermione in the drawing room. She looked more lovely than ever dressed all in white, with a single row of pearls around her throat. Her delicate features were pale and luminous, and her brown eyes brighter than usual,--a mere girl, scarcely yet gone into the world, but such a woman! It was no wonder that Paul glanced from time to time in admiration at his cousin.

We were seated in Chrysophrasia's corner, Hermione and I. There was nothing odd in that; the young girl likes me and enjoys talking to me, and I am no longer young. You know, dear friend, that I am forty-six years old this summer, and it is a long time since any one thought of flirting with me. I am not dangerous,--nature has taken care of that,--and I am thought very safe company for the young.