by Poe · Cluster: World Upside Down · Comedy
Abstract
A satirical horror-comedy: a visitor to a French madhouse discovers the lunatics have overthrown their keepers and taken over the asylum. Themes of madness, the world upside down, and appearance vs reality.
Testo / Text
Parti / Parts
Readability (prose)66.2 Flesch ease8.6 FK grade11.5 Fog10% complex18.6 words/sent
Connections
Topoi: World Upside Down Archetypes: Trickster Motifs: Madness (2) Themes & Concepts: Madness, Appearance vs Reality, Satire of Society Forms & Genres: Short Story, Satire
Testo integrale / Full text
During the autumn of 18—, while on a tour through the extreme
southern provinces of France, my route led me within a few miles
of a certain _Maison de Santé_ or private mad-house, about which
I had heard much, in Paris, from my medical friends. As I had
never visited a place of the kind, I thought the opportunity too
good to be lost; and so proposed to my travelling companion (a
gentleman with whom I had made casual acquaintance a few days
before), that we should turn aside, for an hour or so, and look
through the establishment. To this he objected—pleading haste in
the first place, and, in the second, a very usual horror at the
sight of a lunatic. He begged me, however, not to let any mere
courtesy towards himself interfere with the gratification of my
curiosity, and said that he would ride on leisurely, so that I
might overtake him during the day, or, at all events, during the
next. As he bade me good-bye, I bethought me that there might be
some difficulty in obtaining access to the premises, and
mentioned my fears on this point. He replied that, in fact,
unless I had personal knowledge of the superintendent, Monsieur
Maillard, or some credential in the way of a letter, a difficulty
might be found to exist, as the regulations of these private
mad-houses were more rigid than the public hospital laws. For
himself, he added, he had, some years since, made the
acquaintance of Maillard, and would so far assist me as to ride
up to the door and introduce me; although his feelings on the
subject of lunacy would not permit of his entering the house.
I thanked him, and, turning from the main road, we entered a
grass-grown by-path, which, in half an hour, nearly lost itself
in a dense forest, clothing the base of a mountain. Through this
dank and gloomy wood we rode some two miles, when the _Maison de
Santé_ came in view. It was a fantastic château, much
dilapidated, and indeed scarcely tenantable through age and
neglect. Its aspect inspired me with absolute dread, and,
checking my horse, I half resolved to turn back. I soon, however,
grew ashamed of my weakness, and proceeded.
As we rode up to the gate-way, I perceived it slightly open, and
the visage of a man peering through. In an instant afterward,
this man came forth, accosted my companion by name, shook him
cordially by the hand, and begged him to alight. It was Monsieur
Maillard himself. He was a portly, fine-looking gentleman of the
old school, with a polished manner, and a certain air of gravity,
dignity, and authority which was very impressive.
My friend, having presented me, mentioned my desire to inspect
the establishment, and received Monsieur Maillard’s assurance
that he would show me all attention, now took leave, and I saw
him no more.
When he had gone, the superintendent ushered me into a small and
exceedingly neat parlor, containing, among other indications of
refined taste, many books, drawings, pots of flowers, and musical
instruments. A cheerful fire blazed upon the hearth. At a piano,
singing an aria from Bellini, sat a young and very beautiful
woman, who, at my entrance, paused in her song, and received me
with graceful courtesy. Her voice was low, and her whole manner
subdued. I thought, too, that I perceived the traces of sorrow in
her countenance, which was excessively, although to my taste, not
unpleasingly, pale. She was attired in deep mourning, and excited
in my bosom a feeling of mingled respect, interest, and
admiration.
I had heard, at Paris, that the institution of Monsieur Maillard
was managed upon what is vulgarly termed the “system of
soothing”—that all punishments were avoided—that even confinement
was seldom resorted to—that the patients, while secretly watched,
were left much apparent liberty, and that most of them were
permitted to roam about the house and grounds in the ordinary
apparel of persons in right mind.
Keeping these impressions in view, I was cautious in what I said
before the young lady; for I could not be sure that she was sane;
and, in fact, there was a certain restless brilliancy about her
eyes which half led me to imagine she was not. I confined my
remarks, therefore, to general topics, and to such as I thought
would not be displeasing or exciting even to a lunatic. She
replied in a perfectly rational manner to all that I said; and
even her original observations were marked with the soundest good
sense, but a long acquaintance with the metaphysics of mania, had
taught me to put no faith in such evidence of sanity, and I
continued to practise, throughout the interview, the caution with
which I commenced it.
Presently a smart footman in livery brought in a tray with fruit,
wine, and other refreshments, of which I partook, the lady soon
afterward leaving the room. As she departed I turned my eyes in
an inquiring manner toward my host.
“No,” he said, “oh, no—a member of my family—my niece, and a most
accomplished woman.”
“I beg a thousand pardons for the suspicion,” I replied, “but of
course you will know how to excuse me. The excellent
administration of your affairs here is well understood in Paris,
and I thought it just possible, you know—”
“Yes, yes—say no more—or rather it is myself who should thank you
for the commendable prudence you have displayed. We seldom find
so much of forethought in young men; and, more than once, some
unhappy contre-temps has occurred in consequence of
thoughtlessness on the part of our visitors. While my former
system was in operation, and my patients were permitted the
privilege of roaming to and fro at will, they were often aroused
to a dangerous frenzy by injudicious persons who called to
inspect the house. Hence I was obliged to enforce a rigid system
of exclusion; and none obtained access to the premises upon whose
discretion I could not rely.”
“While your former system was in operation!” I said, repeating
his words—“do I understand you, then, to say that the ‘soothing
system’ of which I have heard so much is no longer in force?”
“It is now,” he replied, “several weeks since we have concluded
to renounce it forever.”
“Indeed! you astonish me!”
“We found it, sir,” he said, with a sigh, “absolutely necessary
to return to the old usages. The danger of the soothing system
was, at all times, appalling; and its advantages have been much
overrated. I believe, sir, that in this house it has been given a
fair trial, if ever in any. We did every thing that rational
humanity could suggest. I am sorry that you could not have paid
us a visit at an earlier period, that you might have judged for
yourself. But I presume you are conversant with the soothing
practice—with its details.”
“Not altogether. What I have heard has been at third or fourth
hand.”
“I may state the system, then, in general terms, as one in which
the patients were _menagés_—humored. We contradicted no fancies
which entered the brains of the mad. On the contrary, we not only
indulged but encouraged them; and many of our most permanent
cures have been thus effected. There is no argument which so
touches the feeble reason of the madman as the argumentum ad
absurdum. We have had men, for example, who fancied themselves
chickens. The cure was, to insist upon the thing as a fact—to
accuse the patient of stupidity in not sufficiently perceiving it
to be a fact—and thus to refuse him any other diet for a week
than that which properly appertains to a chicken. In this manner
a little corn and gravel were made to perform wonders.”
“But was this species of acquiescence all?”
“By no means. We put much faith in amusements of a simple kind,
such as music, dancing, gymnastic exercises generally, cards,
certain classes of books, and so forth. We affected to treat each
individual as if for some ordinary physical disorder; and the
word ‘lunacy’ was never employed. A great point was to set each
lunatic to guard the actions of all the others. To repose
confidence in the understanding or discretion of a madman, is to
gain him body and soul. In this way we were enabled to dispense
with an expensive body of keepers.”
“And you had no punishments of any kind?”
“None.”
“And you never confined your patients?”
“Very rarely. Now and then, the malady of some individual growing
to a crisis, or taking a sudden turn of fury, we conveyed him to
a secret cell, lest his disorder should infect the rest, and
there kept him until we could dismiss him to his friends—for with
the raging maniac we have nothing to do. He is usually removed to
the public hospitals.”
“And you have now changed all this—and you think for the better?”
“Decidedly. The system had its disadvantages, and even its
dangers. It is now, happily, exploded throughout all the _Maisons
de Santé_ of France.”
“I am very much surprised,” I said, “at what you tell me; for I
made sure that, at this moment, no other method of treatment for
mania existed in any portion of the country.”
“You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time
will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is
going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others.
Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see. Now
about our _Maisons de Santé_, it is clear that some ignoramus has
misled you. After dinner, however, when you have sufficiently
recovered from the fatigue of your ride, I will be happy to take
you over the house, and introduce to you a system which, in my
opinion, and in that of every one who has witnessed its
operation, is incomparably the most effectual as yet devised.”
“Your own?” I inquired—“one of your own invention?”
“I am proud,” he replied, “to acknowledge that it is—at least in
some measure.”
In this manner I conversed with Monsieur Maillard for an hour or
two, during which he showed me the gardens and conservatories of
the place.
“I cannot let you see my patients,” he said, “just at present. To
a sensitive mind there is always more or less of the shocking in
such exhibitions; and I do not wish to spoil your appetite for
dinner. We will dine. I can give you some veal a la Menehoult,
with cauliflowers in _velouté_ sauce—after that a glass of Clos
de Vougeot—then your nerves will be sufficiently steadied.”
At six, dinner was announced; and my host conducted me into a
large _salle à manger_, where a very numerous company were
assembled—twenty-five or thirty in all. They were, apparently,
people of rank—certainly of high breeding—although their
habiliments, I thought, were extravagantly rich, partaking
somewhat too much of the ostentatious finery of the _vielle
cour_. I noticed that at least two-thirds of these guests were
ladies; and some of the latter were by no means accoutred in what
a Parisian would consider good taste at the present day. Many
females, for example, whose age could not have been less than
seventy were bedecked with a profusion of jewelry, such as rings,
bracelets, and earrings, and wore their bosoms and arms
shamefully bare. I observed, too, that very few of the dresses
were well made—or, at least, that very few of them fitted the
wearers. In looking about, I discovered the interesting girl to
whom Monsieur Maillard had presented me in the little parlor; but
my surprise was great to see her wearing a hoop and farthingale,
with high-heeled shoes, and a dirty cap of Brussels lace, so much
too large for her that it gave her face a ridiculously diminutive
expression. When I had first seen her, she was attired, most
becomingly, in deep mourning. There was an air of oddity, in
short, about the dress of the whole party, which, at first,
caused me to recur to my original idea of the “soothing system,”
and to fancy that Monsieur Maillard had been willing to deceive
me until after dinner, that I might experience no uncomfortable
feelings during the repast, at finding myself dining with
lunatics; but I remembered having been informed, in Paris, that
the southern provincialists were a peculiarly eccentric people,
with a vast number of antiquated notions; and then, too, upon
conversing with several members of the company, my apprehensions
were immediately and fully dispelled.
The dining-room itself, although perhaps sufficiently comfortable
and of good dimensions, had nothing too much of elegance about
it. For example, the floor was uncarpeted; in France, however, a
carpet is frequently dispensed with. The windows, too, were
without curtains; the shutters, being shut, were securely
fastened with iron bars, applied diagonally, after the fashion of
our ordinary shop-shutters. The apartment, I observed, formed, in
itself, a wing of the château, and thus the windows were on three
sides of the parallelogram, the door being at the other. There
were no less than ten windows in all.
The table was superbly set out. It was loaded with plate, and
more than loaded with delicacies. The profusion was absolutely
barbaric. There were meats enough to have feasted the Anakim.
Never, in all my life, had I witnessed so lavish, so wasteful an
expenditure of the good things of life. There seemed very little
taste, however, in the arrangements; and my eyes, accustomed to
quiet lights, were sadly offended by the prodigious glare of a
multitude of wax candles, which, in silver candelabra, were
deposited upon the table, and all about the room, wherever it was
possible to find a place. There were several active servants in
attendance; and, upon a large table, at the farther end of the
apartment, were seated seven or eight people with fiddles, fifes,
trombones, and a drum. These fellows annoyed me very much, at
intervals, during the repast, by an infinite variety of noises,
which were intended for music, and which appeared to afford much
entertainment to all present, with the exception of myself.
Upon the whole, I could not help thinking that there was much of
the bizarre about every thing I saw—but then the world is made up
of all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts
of conventional customs. I had travelled, too, so much, as to be
quite an adept at the nil admirari; so I took my seat very coolly
at the right hand of my host, and, having an excellent appetite,
did justice to the good cheer set before me.
The conversation, in the meantime, was spirited and general. The
ladies, as usual, talked a great deal. I soon found that nearly
all the company were well educated; and my host was a world of
good-humored anecdote in himself. He seemed quite willing to
speak of his position as superintendent of a_Maison de Santé_;
and, indeed, the topic of lunacy was, much to my surprise, a
favorite one with all present. A great many amusing stories were
told, having reference to the _whims_ of the patients.
“We had a fellow here once,” said a fat little gentleman, who sat
at my right,—“a fellow that fancied himself a tea-pot; and by the
way, is it not especially singular how often this particular
crotchet has entered the brain of the lunatic? There is scarcely
an insane asylum in France which cannot supply a human tea-pot.
Our gentleman was a Britannia-ware tea-pot, and was careful to
polish himself every morning with buckskin and whiting.”
“And then,” said a tall man just opposite, “we had here, not long
ago, a person who had taken it into his head that he was a
donkey—which allegorically speaking, you will say, was quite
true. He was a troublesome patient; and we had much ado to keep
him within bounds. For a long time he would eat nothing but
thistles; but of this idea we soon cured him by insisting upon
his eating nothing else. Then he was perpetually kicking out his
heels—so—so—”
“Mr. De Kock! I will thank you to behave yourself!” here
interrupted an old lady, who sat next to the speaker. “Please
keep your feet to yourself! You have spoiled my brocade! Is it
necessary, pray, to illustrate a remark in so practical a style?
Our friend here can surely comprehend you without all this. Upon
my word, you are nearly as great a donkey as the poor unfortunate
imagined himself. Your acting is very natural, as I live.”
“Mille pardons! Ma’m’selle!” replied Monsieur De Kock, thus
addressed—“a thousand pardons! I had no intention of offending.
Ma’m’selle Laplace—Monsieur De Kock will do himself the honor of
taking wine with you.”
Here Monsieur De Kock bowed low, kissed his hand with much
ceremony, and took wine with Ma’m’selle Laplace.
“Allow me, mon ami,” now said Monsieur Maillard, addressing
myself, “allow me to send you a morsel of this veal _à la St.
Menehoult_—you will find it particularly fine.”
At this instant three sturdy waiters had just succeeded in
depositing safely upon the table an enormous dish, or trencher,
containing what I supposed to be the “_monstrum, horrendum,
informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum_.” A closer scrutiny assured
me, however, that it was only a small calf roasted whole, and set
upon its knees, with an apple in its mouth, as is the English
fashion of dressing a hare.
“Thank you, no,” I replied; “to say the truth, I am not
particularly partial to veal _à la St_.—what is it?—for I do not
find that it altogether agrees with me. I will change my plate,
however, and try some of the rabbit.”
There were several side-dishes on the table, containing what
appeared to be the ordinary French rabbit—a very delicious
morceau, which I can recommend.
“Pierre,” cried the host, “change this gentleman’s plate, and
give him a side-piece of this rabbit au-chat.”
“This what?” said I.
“This rabbit _au-chat_.”
“Why, thank you—upon second thoughts, no. I will just help myself
to some of the ham.”
There is no knowing what one eats, thought I to myself, at the
tables of these people of the province. I will have none of their
rabbit _au-chat_—and, for the matter of that, none of their
_cat-au-rabbit_ either.
“And then,” said a cadaverous looking personage, near the foot of
the table, taking up the thread of the conversation where it had
been broken off,—“and then, among other oddities, we had a
patient, once upon a time, who very pertinaciously maintained
himself to be a Cordova cheese, and went about, with a knife in
his hand, soliciting his friends to try a small slice from the
middle of his leg.”
“He was a great fool, beyond doubt,” interposed some one, “but
not to be compared with a certain individual whom we all know,
with the exception of this strange gentleman. I mean the man who
took himself for a bottle of champagne, and always went off with
a pop and a fizz, in this fashion.”
Here the speaker, very rudely, as I thought, put his right thumb
in his left cheek, withdrew it with a sound resembling the
popping of a cork, and then, by a dexterous movement of the
tongue upon the teeth, created a sharp hissing and fizzing, which
lasted for several minutes, in imitation of the frothing of
champagne. This behavior, I saw plainly, was not very pleasing to
Monsieur Maillard; but that gentleman said nothing, and the
conversation was resumed by a very lean little man in a big wig.
“And then there was an ignoramus,” said he, “who mistook himself
for a frog, which, by the way, he resembled in no little degree.
I wish you could have seen him, sir,”—here the speaker addressed
myself—“it would have done your heart good to see the natural
airs that he put on. Sir, if that man was not a frog, I can only
observe that it is a pity he was not. His croak
thus—o-o-o-o-gh—o-o-o-o-gh! was the finest note in the world—B
flat; and when he put his elbows upon the table thus—after taking
a glass or two of wine—and distended his mouth, thus, and rolled
up his eyes, thus, and winked them with excessive rapidity, thus,
why then, sir, I take it upon myself to say, positively, that you
would have been lost in admiration of the genius of the man.”
“I have no doubt of it,” I said.
“And then,” said somebody else, “then there was Petit Gaillard,
who thought himself a pinch of snuff, and was truly distressed
because he could not take himself between his own finger and
thumb.”
“And then there was Jules Desoulières, who was a very singular
genius, indeed, and went mad with the idea that he was a pumpkin.
He persecuted the cook to make him up into pies—a thing which the
cook indignantly refused to do. For my part, I am by no means
sure that a pumpkin pie _à la Desoulières_ would not have been
very capital eating indeed!”
“You astonish me!” said I; and I looked inquisitively at Monsieur
Maillard.
“Ha! ha! ha!” said that gentleman—“he! he! he!—hi! hi! hi!—ho!
ho! ho!—hu! hu! hu!—very good indeed! You must not be astonished,
_mon ami;_ our friend here is a wit—a _drôle_—you must not
understand him to the letter.”
“And then,” said some other one of the party,—“then there was
Bouffon Le Grand—another extraordinary personage in his way. He
grew deranged through love, and fancied himself possessed of two
heads. One of these he maintained to be the head of Cicero; the
other he imagined a composite one, being Demosthenes’ from the
top of the forehead to the mouth, and Lord Brougham’s from the
mouth to the chin. It is not impossible that he was wrong; but he
would have convinced you of his being in the right; for he was a
man of great eloquence. He had an absolute passion for oratory,
and could not refrain from display. For example, he used to leap
upon the dinner-table thus, and—and—”
Here a friend, at the side of the speaker, put a hand upon his
shoulder and whispered a few words in his ear; upon which he
ceased talking with great suddenness, and sank back within his
chair.
“And then,” said the friend who had whispered, “there was
Boullard, the tee-totum. I call him the tee-totum because, in
fact, he was seized with the droll, but not altogether
irrational, crotchet, that he had been converted into a
tee-totum. You would have roared with laughter to see him spin.
He would turn round upon one heel by the hour, in this
manner—so—”
Here the friend whom he had just interrupted by a whisper,
performed an exactly similar office for himself.
“But then,” cried the old lady, at the top of her voice, “your
Monsieur Boullard was a madman, and a very silly madman at best;
for who, allow me to ask you, ever heard of a human tee-totum?
The thing is absurd. Madame Joyeuse was a more sensible person,
as you know. She had a crotchet, but it was instinct with common
sense, and gave pleasure to all who had the honor of her
acquaintance. She found, upon mature deliberation, that, by some
accident, she had been turned into a chicken-cock; but, as such,
she behaved with propriety. She flapped her wings with prodigious
effect—so—so—so—and, as for her crow, it was delicious!
Cock-a-doodle-doo!—cock-a-doodle-doo!—cock-a-doodle-de-doo
dooo-do-o-o-o-o-o-o!”
“Madame Joyeuse, I will thank you to behave yourself!” here
interrupted our host, very angrily. “You can either conduct
yourself as a lady should do, or you can quit the table
forthwith—take your choice.”
The lady (whom I was much astonished to hear addressed as Madame
Joyeuse, after the description of Madame Joyeuse she had just
given) blushed up to the eyebrows, and seemed exceedingly abashed
at the reproof. She hung down her head, and said not a syllable
in reply. But another and younger lady resumed the theme. It was
my beautiful girl of the little parlor.
“Oh, Madame Joyeuse was a fool!” she exclaimed, “but there was
really much sound sense, after all, in the opinion of Eugénie
Salsafette. She was a very beautiful and painfully modest young
lady, who thought the ordinary mode of habiliment indecent, and
wished to dress herself, always, by getting outside instead of
inside of her clothes. It is a thing very easily done, after all.
You have only to do so—and then so—so—so—and then so—so—so—and
then so—so—and then—”
“Mon dieu! Ma’m’selle Salsafette!” here cried a dozen voices at
once. “What are you about?—forbear!—that is sufficient!—we see,
very plainly, how it is done!—hold! hold!” and several persons
were already leaping from their seats to withhold Ma’m’selle
Salsafette from putting herself upon a par with the Medicean
Venus, when the point was very effectually and suddenly
accomplished by a series of loud screams, or yells, from some
portion of the main body of the _château_.
My nerves were very much affected, indeed, by these yells; but
the rest of the company I really pitied. I never saw any set of
reasonable people so thoroughly frightened in my life. They all
grew as pale as so many corpses, and, shrinking within their
seats, sat quivering and gibbering with terror, and listening for
a repetition of the sound. It came again—louder and seemingly
nearer—and then a third time very loud, and then a fourth time
with a vigor evidently diminished. At this apparent dying away of
the noise, the spirits of the company were immediately regained,
and all was life and anecdote as before. I now ventured to
inquire the cause of the disturbance.
“A mere _bagatelle_,” said Monsieur Maillard. “We are used to
these things, and care really very little about them. The
lunatics, every now and then, get up a howl in concert; one
starting another, as is sometimes the case with a bevy of dogs at
night. It occasionally happens, however, that the _concerto_
yells are succeeded by a simultaneous effort at breaking loose;
when, of course, some little danger is to be apprehended.”
“And how many have you in charge?”
“At present we have not more than ten, altogether.”
“Principally females, I presume?”
“Oh, no—every one of them men, and stout fellows, too, I can tell
you.”
“Indeed! I have always understood that the majority of lunatics
were of the gentler sex.”
“It is generally so, but not always. Some time ago, there were
about twenty-seven patients here; and, of that number, no less
than eighteen were women; but, lately, matters have changed very
much, as you see.”
“Yes—have changed very much, as you see,” here interrupted the
gentleman who had broken the shins of Ma’m’selle Laplace.
“Yes—have changed very much, as you see!” chimed in the whole
company at once.
“Hold your tongues, every one of you!” said my host, in a great
rage. Whereupon the whole company maintained a dead silence for
nearly a minute. As for one lady, she obeyed Monsieur Maillard to
the letter, and thrusting out her tongue, which was an
excessively long one, held it very resignedly, with both hands,
until the end of the entertainment.
“And this gentlewoman,” said I, to Monsieur Maillard, bending
over and addressing him in a whisper—“this good lady who has just
spoken, and who gives us the cock-a-doodle-de-doo—she, I presume,
is harmless—quite harmless, eh?”
“Harmless!” ejaculated he, in unfeigned surprise, “why—why, what
can you mean?”
“Only slightly touched?” said I, touching my head. “I take it for
granted that she is not particularly not dangerously affected,
eh?”
“_Mon dieu!_ what is it you imagine? This lady, my particular old
friend Madame Joyeuse, is as absolutely sane as myself. She has
her little eccentricities, to be sure—but then, you know, all old
women—all _very_ old women—are more or less eccentric!”
“To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure—and then the rest of these
ladies and gentlemen—”
“Are my friends and keepers,” interupted Monsieur Maillard,
drawing himself up with _hauteur_,—“my very good friends and
assistants.”
“What! all of them?” I asked,—“the women and all?”
“Assuredly,” he said,—“we could not do at all without the women;
they are the best lunatic nurses in the world; they have a way of
their own, you know; their bright eyes have a marvellous
effect—something like the fascination of the snake, you know.”
“To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure! They behave a little odd,
eh?—they are a little queer, eh?—don’t you think so?”
“Odd!—queer!—why, do you really think so? We are not very
prudish, to be sure, here in the South—do pretty much as we
please—enjoy life, and all that sort of thing, you know—”
“To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure.”
“And then, perhaps, this Clos de Vougeot is a little heady, you
know—a little strong—you understand, eh?”
“To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure. By the bye, Monsieur, did I
understand you to say that the system you have adopted, in place
of the celebrated soothing system, was one of very rigorous
severity?”
“By no means. Our confinement is necessarily close; but the
treatment—the medical treatment, I mean—is rather agreeable to
the patients than otherwise.”
“And the new system is one of your own invention?”
“Not altogether. Some portions of it are referable to Professor
Tarr, of whom you have, necessarily, heard; and, again, there are
modifications in my plan which I am happy to acknowledge as
belonging of right to the celebrated Fether, with whom, if I
mistake not, you have the honor of an intimate acquaintance.”
“I am quite ashamed to confess,” I replied, “that I have never
even heard the names of either gentleman before.”
“Good heavens!” ejaculated my host, drawing back his chair
abruptly, and uplifting his hands. “I surely do not hear you
aright! You did not intend to say, eh? that you had never heard
either of the learned Doctor Tarr, or of the celebrated Professor
Fether?”
“I am forced to acknowledge my ignorance,” I replied; “but the
truth should be held inviolate above all things. Nevertheless, I
feel humbled to the dust, not to be acquainted with the works of
these, no doubt, extraordinary men. I will seek out their
writings forthwith, and peruse them with deliberate care.
Monsieur Maillard, you have really—I must confess it—you have
really—made me ashamed of myself!”
And this was the fact.
“Say no more, my good young friend,” he said kindly, pressing my
hand,—“join me now in a glass of Sauterne.”
We drank. The company followed our example without stint. They
chatted—they jested—they laughed—they perpetrated a thousand
absurdities—the fiddles shrieked—the drum row-de-dowed—the
trombones bellowed like so many brazen bulls of Phalaris—and the
whole scene, growing gradually worse and worse, as the wines
gained the ascendancy, became at length a sort of pandemonium in
petto. In the meantime, Monsieur Maillard and myself, with some
bottles of Sauterne and Vougeot between us, continued our
conversation at the top of the voice. A word spoken in an
ordinary key stood no more chance of being heard than the voice
of a fish from the bottom of Niagara Falls.
“And, sir,” said I, screaming in his ear, “you mentioned
something before dinner about the danger incurred in the old
system of soothing. How is that?”
“Yes,” he replied, “there was, occasionally, very great danger
indeed. There is no accounting for the caprices of madmen; and,
in my opinion as well as in that of Dr. Tarr and Professor
Fether, it is never safe to permit them to run at large
unattended. A lunatic may be ‘soothed,’ as it is called, for a
time, but, in the end, he is very apt to become obstreperous. His
cunning, too, is proverbial and great. If he has a project in
view, he conceals his design with a marvellous wisdom; and the
dexterity with which he counterfeits sanity, presents, to the
metaphysician, one of the most singular problems in the study of
mind. When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high
time to put him in a straitjacket.”
“But the danger, my dear sir, of which you were speaking, in your
own experience—during your control of this house—have you had
practical reason to think liberty hazardous in the case of a
lunatic?”
“Here?—in my own experience?—why, I may say, yes. For example:—no
very long while ago, a singular circumstance occurred in this
very house. The ‘soothing system,’ you know, was then in
operation, and the patients were at large. They behaved
remarkably well—especially so—any one of sense might have known
that some devilish scheme was brewing from that particular fact,
that the fellows behaved so remarkably well. And, sure enough,
one fine morning the keepers found themselves pinioned hand and
foot, and thrown into the cells, where they were attended, as if
they were the lunatics, by the lunatics themselves, who had
usurped the offices of the keepers.”
“You don’t tell me so! I never heard of any thing so absurd in my
life!”
“Fact—it all came to pass by means of a stupid fellow—a
lunatic—who, by some means, had taken it into his head that he
had invented a better system of government than any ever heard of
before—of lunatic government, I mean. He wished to give his
invention a trial, I suppose, and so he persuaded the rest of the
patients to join him in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the
reigning powers.”
“And he really succeeded?”
“No doubt of it. The keepers and kept were soon made to exchange
places. Not that exactly either—for the madmen had been free, but
the keepers were shut up in cells forthwith, and treated, I am
sorry to say, in a very cavalier manner.”
“But I presume a counter-revolution was soon effected. This
condition of things could not have long existed. The country
people in the neighborhood—visitors coming to see the
establishment—would have given the alarm.”
“There you are out. The head rebel was too cunning for that. He
admitted no visitors at all—with the exception, one day, of a
very stupid-looking young gentleman of whom he had no reason to
be afraid. He let him in to see the place—just by way of
variety,—to have a little fun with him. As soon as he had
gammoned him sufficiently, he let him out, and sent him about his
business.”
“And how long, then, did the madmen reign?”
“Oh, a very long time, indeed—a month certainly—how much longer I
can’t precisely say. In the meantime, the lunatics had a jolly
season of it—that you may swear. They doffed their own shabby
clothes, and made free with the family wardrobe and jewels. The
cellars of the château were well stocked with wine; and these
madmen are just the devils that know how to drink it. They lived
well, I can tell you.”
“And the treatment—what was the particular species of treatment
which the leader of the rebels put into operation?”
“Why, as for that, a madman is not necessarily a fool, as I have
already observed; and it is my honest opinion that his treatment
was a much better treatment than that which it superseded. It was
a very capital system indeed—simple—neat—no trouble at all—in
fact it was delicious—it was—”
Here my host’s observations were cut short by another series of
yells, of the same character as those which had previously
disconcerted us. This time, however, they seemed to proceed from
persons rapidly approaching.
“Gracious heavens!” I ejaculated—“the lunatics have most
undoubtedly broken loose.”
“I very much fear it is so,” replied Monsieur Maillard, now
becoming excessively pale. He had scarcely finished the sentence,
before loud shouts and imprecations were heard beneath the
windows; and, immediately afterward, it became evident that some
persons outside were endeavoring to gain entrance into the room.
The door was beaten with what appeared to be a sledge-hammer, and
the shutters were wrenched and shaken with prodigious violence.
A scene of the most terrible confusion ensued. Monsieur Maillard,
to my excessive astonishment threw himself under the side-board.
I had expected more resolution at his hands. The members of the
orchestra, who, for the last fifteen minutes, had been seemingly
too much intoxicated to do duty, now sprang all at once to their
feet and to their instruments, and, scrambling upon their table,
broke out, with one accord, into, “Yankee Doodle,” which they
performed, if not exactly in tune, at least with an energy
superhuman, during the whole of the uproar.
Meantime, upon the main dining-table, among the bottles and
glasses, leaped the gentleman who, with such difficulty, had been
restrained from leaping there before. As soon as he fairly
settled himself, he commenced an oration, which, no doubt, was a
very capital one, if it could only have been heard. At the same
moment, the man with the teetotum predilection, set himself to
spinning around the apartment, with immense energy, and with arms
outstretched at right angles with his body; so that he had all
the air of a tee-totum in fact, and knocked everybody down that
happened to get in his way. And now, too, hearing an incredible
popping and fizzing of champagne, I discovered at length, that it
proceeded from the person who performed the bottle of that
delicate drink during dinner. And then, again, the frog-man
croaked away as if the salvation of his soul depended upon every
note that he uttered. And, in the midst of all this, the
continuous braying of a donkey arose over all. As for my old
friend, Madame Joyeuse, I really could have wept for the poor
lady, she appeared so terribly perplexed. All she did, however,
was to stand up in a corner, by the fireplace, and sing out
incessantly at the top of her voice, “Cock-a-doodle-de-dooooooh!”
And now came the climax—the catastrophe of the drama. As no
resistance, beyond whooping and yelling and cock-a-doodling, was
offered to the encroachments of the party without, the ten
windows were very speedily, and almost simultaneously, broken in.
But I shall never forget the emotions of wonder and horror with
which I gazed, when, leaping through these windows, and down
among us _pêle-mêle_, fighting, stamping, scratching, and
howling, there rushed a perfect army of what I took to be
chimpanzees, ourang-outangs, or big black baboons of the Cape of
Good Hope.
I received a terrible beating—after which I rolled under a sofa
and lay still. After lying there some fifteen minutes, during
which time I listened with all my ears to what was going on in
the room, I came to same satisfactory _dénouement_ of this
tragedy. Monsieur Maillard, it appeared, in giving me the account
of the lunatic who had excited his fellows to rebellion, had been
merely relating his own exploits. This gentleman had, indeed,
some two or three years before, been the superintendent of the
establishment, but grew crazy himself, and so became a patient.
This fact was unknown to the travelling companion who introduced
me. The keepers, ten in number, having been suddenly overpowered,
were first well tarred, then carefully feathered, and then shut
up in underground cells. They had been so imprisoned for more
than a month, during which period Monsieur Maillard had
generously allowed them not only the tar and feathers (which
constituted his “system”), but some bread and abundance of water.
The latter was pumped on them daily. At length, one escaping
through a sewer, gave freedom to all the rest.
The “soothing system,” with important modifications, has been
resumed at the _château;_ yet I cannot help agreeing with
Monsieur Maillard, that his own “treatment” was a very capital
one of its kind. As he justly observed, it was “simple—neat—and
gave no trouble at all—not the least.”
I have only to add that, although I have searched every library
in Europe for the works of Doctor _Tarr_ and Professor _Fether_,
I have, up to the present day, utterly failed in my endeavors at
procuring an edition.