XIV
After being without relatives and friends for over two years I
naturally lost no time in trying again to get in touch with them;
though I did heed my conservator's request that I first give him two or
three days in which to acquaint intimates with the new turn my affairs
had taken.
During the latter part of that first week I wrote many letters, so
many, indeed, that I soon exhausted a liberal supply of stationery.
This had been placed at my disposal at the suggestion of my
conservator, who had wisely arranged that I should have whatever I
wanted, if expedient. It was now at my own suggestion that the
supervisor gave me large sheets of manila wrapping paper. These I
proceeded to cut into strips a foot wide. One such strip, four feet
long, would suffice for a mere billet-doux; but a real letter usually
required several such strips pasted together. More than once letters
twenty or thirty feet long were written; and on one occasion the
accumulation of two or three days of excessive productivity, when
spread upon the floor, reached from one end of the corridor to the
other—a distance of about one hundred feet. My hourly output was
something like twelve feet, with an average of one hundred and fifty
words to the foot. Under the pressure of elation one takes pride in
doing everything in record time. Despite my speed my letters were not
incoherent. They were simply digressive, which was to be expected, as
elation befogs one's "goal idea." Though these epistolary monstrosities
were launched, few reached those to whom they were addressed; for my
conservator had wisely ordered that my literary output be sent in bulk
to him. His action was exasperating, but later I realized that he had
done me a great favor when he interposed his judgment between my
red-hot mentality and the cool minds of the workaday world. Yet this
interference with what I deemed my rights proved to be the first step
in the general overruling of them by tactless attendants and, in
particular, by a certain assistant physician.
I had always shown a strong inclination to superintend. In consequence,
in my elated condition it was but natural that I should have an excess
of executive impulses. In order to decrease this executive pressure I
proceeded to assume entire charge of that portion of the hospital in
which I happened at the moment to be confined. What I eventually issued
as imperative orders were often presented at first as polite
suggestions. But, if my suggestions were not accorded a respectful
hearing, and my demands acted upon at once, I invariably supplemented
them with vituperative ultimatums. These were double-edged, and
involved me in trouble quite as often as they gained the ends I sought.
The assistant physician in charge of my case, realizing that he could
not grant all of my requests, unwisely decided to deny most of them.
Had he been tactful, he could have taken the same stand without
arousing my animosity. As it was, he treated me with a contemptuous
sort of indifference which finally developed into spite, and led to
much trouble for us both. During the two wild months that followed, the
superintendent and the steward could induce me to do almost anything by
simply requesting it. If two men out of three could control me easily
during such a period of mental excitement, is it not reasonable to
suppose that the third man, the assistant physician, could likewise
have controlled me had he treated me with consideration? It was his
undisguised superciliousness that gave birth to my contempt for him. In
a letter written during my second week of elation, I expressed the
opinion that he and I should get along well together. But that was
before I had become troublesome enough to try the man's patience.
Nevertheless, it indicates that he could have saved himself hours of
time and subsequent worry, had he met my friendly advances in the
proper spirit, for it is the quality of heart quite as much as the
quantity of mind that cures or makes happy the insane.
The literary impulse took such a hold on me that, when I first sat down
to compose a letter, I bluntly refused to stop writing and go to bed
when the attendant ordered me to do so. For over one year this man had
seen me mute and meek, and the sudden and startling change from passive
obedience to uncompromising independence naturally puzzled him. He
threatened to drag me to my room, but strangely enough decided not to
do so. After half an hour's futile coaxing, during which time an
unwonted supply of blood was drawn to his brain, that surprised organ
proved its gratitude by giving birth to a timely and sensible idea.
With an unaccustomed resourcefulness, by cutting off the supply of
light at the electric switch, he put the entire ward in darkness.
Secretly I admired the stratagem, but my words on that occasion
probably conveyed no idea of the approbation that lurked within me.
I then went to bed, but not to sleep. The ecstasy of elation made each
conscious hour one of rapturous happiness, and my memory knows no day
of brighter sunlight than those nights. The floodgates of thought wide
open. So jealous of each other were the thoughts that they seemed to
stumble over one another in their mad rush to present themselves to my
re-enthroned ego.
I naturally craved companionship, but there were not many patients whom
I cared to talk with. I did, however, greatly desire to engage the
assistant physician in conversation, as he was a man of some education
and familiar with the history of my case. But this man, who had tried
to induce me to speak when delusions had tied my tongue, now, when I
was at last willing talk, would scarcely condescend to listen; and what
seemed to me his studied and ill-disguised avoidance only served to
whet my desire to detain him whenever possible.
It was about the second week that my reformative turn of mind became
acute. The ward in which I was confined was well furnished and as
homelike as such a place could be, though in justice to my own home I
must observe that the resemblance was not great. About the so-called
violent ward I had far less favorable ideas. Though I had not been
subjected to physical abuse during the first fourteen months of my stay
here, I had seen unnecessary and often brutal force used by the
attendants in managing several so-called violent patients, who, upon
their arrival, had been placed in the ward where I was. I had also
heard convincing rumors of rough treatment of irresponsible patients in
the violent ward.
At once I determined to conduct a thorough investigation of the
institution. In order that I might have proof that my intended action
was deliberate, my first move was to tell one or two fellow-patients
that I should soon transgress some rule in such a way as to necessitate
my removal to the violent ward. At first I thought of breaking a few
panes of glass; but my purpose was accomplished in another way—and,
indeed, sooner than I had anticipated. My conservator, in my presence,
had told the assistant physician that the doctors could permit me to
telephone him whenever they should see fit. It was rather with the wish
to test the unfriendly physician than to satisfy any desire to speak
with my conservator that one morning I asked permission to call up the
latter. That very morning I had received a letter from him. This the
doctor knew, for I showed him the letter—but not its contents. It was
on the letter that I based my demand, though in it my brother did not
even intimate that he wished to speak to me. The doctor, however, had
no way of knowing that my statement was not true. To deny my request
was simply one of his ill-advised whims, and his refusal was given with
customary curtness and contempt. I met his refusal in kind, and
presented him with a trenchant critique of his character.
He said, "Unless you stop talking in that way I shall have you
transferred to the Fourth Ward." (This was the violent ward.)
"Put me where you please," was my reply. "I'll put you in the gutter
before I get through with you."
With that the doctor made good his threat, and the attendant escorted
me to the violent ward—a willing, in fact, eager prisoner.
The ward in which I was now placed (September 13th, 1902) was furnished
in the plainest manner. The floors were of hard wood and the walls were
bare. Except when at meals or out of doors taking their accustomed
exercise, the patients usually lounged about in one large room, in
which heavy benches were used, it being thought that in the hands of
violent patients, chairs might become a menace to others. In the dining
room, however, there were chairs of a substantial type, for patients
seldom run amuck at meal time. Nevertheless, one of these dining-room
chairs soon acquired a history.
As my banishment had come on short notice, I had failed to provide
myself with many things I now desired. My first request was that I be
supplied with stationery. The attendants, acting no doubt on the
doctor's orders, refused to grant my request; nor would they give me a
lead pencil—which, luckily, I did not need, for I happened to have
one. Despite their refusal I managed to get some scraps of paper, on
which I was soon busily engaged in writing notes to those in authority.
Some of these (as I learned later) were delivered, but no attention was
paid to them. No doctor came near me until evening, when the one who
had banished me made his regular round of inspection. When he appeared,
the interrupted conversation of the morning was resumed—that is, by
me—and in a similar vein. I again asked leave to telephone my
conservator. The doctor again refused, and, of course, again I told him
what I thought of him.
My imprisonment pleased me. I was where I most wished to be, and I
busied myself investigating conditions and making mental notes. As the
assistant physician could grant favors to the attendants, and had
authority to discharge them, they did his bidding and continued to
refuse most of my requests. In spite of their unfriendly attitude,
however, I did manage to persuade the supervisor, a kindly man, well
along in years, to deliver a note to the steward. In it I asked him to
come at once, as I wished to talk with him. The steward, whom I looked
upon as a friend, returned no answer and made no visit. I supposed he,
too, had purposely ignored me. As I learned afterwards, both he and the
superintendent were absent, else perhaps I should have been treated in
a less high-handed manner by the assistant physician, who was not
absent.
The next morning, after a renewal of my request and a repeated refusal,
I asked the doctor to send me the "Book of Psalms" which I had left in
my former room. With this request he complied, believing, perhaps, that
some religion would at least do me no harm. I probably read my favorite
psalm, the 45th; but most of my time I spent writing, on the flyleaves,
psalms of my own. And if the value of a psalm is to be measured by the
intensity of feeling portrayed, my compositions of that day rightly
belonged beside the writings of David. My psalms were indited to those
in authority at the hospital, and later in the day the supervisor—who
proved himself a friend on many occasions—took the book to
headquarters.
The assistant physician, who had mistaken my malevolent tongue for a
violent mind, had placed me in an exile which precluded my attending
the service which was held in the chapel that Sunday afternoon. Time
which might better have been spent in church I therefore spent in
perfecting a somewhat ingenious scheme for getting in touch with the
steward. That evening, when the doctor again appeared, I approached him
in a friendly way and politely repeated my request. He again refused to
grant it. With an air of resignation I said, "Well, as it seems useless
to argue the point with you and as the notes sent to others have thus
far been ignored, I should like, with your kind permission, to kick a
hole in your damned old building and to-morrow present myself to the
steward in his office."
"Kick away!" he said with a sneer. He then entered an adjoining ward,
where he remained for about ten minutes.
If you will draw in your mind, or on paper, a letter "L," and let the
vertical part represent a room forty feet in length, and the horizontal
part one of twenty, and if you will then picture me as standing in a
doorway at the intersection of these two lines—the door to the dining
room—and the doctor behind another door at the top of the
perpendicular, forty feet away, you will have represented graphically
the opposing armies just prior to the first real assault in what proved
to be a siege of seven weeks.
The moment the doctor re-entered the ward, as he had to do to return to
the office, I disappeared through my door—into the dining room. I then
walked the length of that room and picked up one of the heavy wooden
chairs, selected for my purpose while the doctor and his tame charges
were at church. Using the chair as a battering-ram, without malice—joy
being in my heart—I deliberately thrust two of its legs through an
upper and a lower pane of a four-paned plate glass window. The only
miscalculation I made was in failing to place myself directly in front
of that window, and at a proper distance, so that I might have broken
every one of the four panes. This was a source of regret to me, for I
was always loath to leave a well-thought-out piece of work unfinished.
The crash of shattered and falling glass startled every one but me.
Especially did it frighten one patient who happened to be in the dining
room at the time. He fled. The doctor and the attendant who were in the
adjoining room could not see me, or know what the trouble was; but they
lost no time in finding out. Like the proverbial cold-blooded murderer
who stands over his victim, weapon in hand, calmly awaiting arrest, I
stood my ground, and, with a fair degree of composure, awaited the
onrush of doctor and attendant. They soon had me in hand. Each taking
an arm, they marched me to my room. This took not more than half a
minute, but the time was not so short as to prevent my delivering
myself of one more thumb-nail characterization of the doctor. My
inability to recall that delineation, verbatim, entails no loss on
literature. But one remark made as the doctor seized hold of me was
apt, though not impromptu. "Well, doctor," I said, "knowing you to be a
truthful man, I just took you at your word."
Senseless as this act appears it was the result of logical thinking.
The steward had entire charge of the building and ordered all necessary
repairs. It was he whom I desired above all others to see, and I
reasoned that the breaking of several dollars' worth of plate glass
(for which later, to my surprise, I had to pay) would compel his
attention on grounds of economy, if not those of the friendly interest
which I now believed he had abandoned. Early the next morning, as I had
hoped, the steward appeared. He approached me in a friendly way (as had
been his wont) and I met him in a like manner. "I wish you would leave
a little bit of the building," he said good-naturedly.
"I will leave it all, and gladly, if you will pay some attention to my
messages," was my rejoinder.
"Had I not been out of town," he replied, "I would have come to see you
sooner." And this honest explanation I accepted.
I made known to the steward the assistant physician's behavior in
balking my desire to telephone my conservator. He agreed to place the
matter before the superintendent, who had that morning returned. As
proof of gratitude, I promised to suspend hostilities until I had had a
talk with the superintendent. I made it quite plain, however, that
should he fail to keep his word, I would further facilitate the
ventilation of the violent ward. My faith in mankind was not yet wholly
restored.
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