V
After remaining at home for about a month, during which time I showed
no improvement mentally, though I did gain physically, I was taken to a
private sanatorium. My destination was frankly disclosed to me. But my
habit of disbelief had now become fixed, and I thought myself on the
way to a trial in New York City, for some one of the many crimes with
which I stood charged.
My emotions on leaving New Haven were, I imagine, much the same as
those of a condemned but penitent criminal who looks upon the world for
the last time. The day was hot, and, as we drove to the railway
station, the blinds on most of the houses in the streets through which
we passed were seen to be closed. The reason for this was not then
apparent to me. I thought I saw an unbroken line of deserted houses,
and I imagined that their desertion had been deliberately planned as a
sign of displeasure on the part of their former occupants. As citizens
of New Haven, I supposed them bitterly ashamed of such a despicable
townsman as myself. Because of the early hour, the streets were
practically deserted. This fact, too, I interpreted to my own
disadvantage. As the carriage crossed the main business thoroughfare, I
took what I believed to be my last look at that part of my native city.
From the carriage I was carried to the train and placed in the smoking
car in the last seat on the right-hand side. The back of the seat next
in front was reversed so that my legs might be placed in a comfortable
position, and one of the boards used by card-playing travelers was
placed beneath them as a support. With a consistent degree of suspicion
I paid particular attention to a blue mark on the face of the railroad
ticket held by my custodian. I took it to be a means of identification
for use in court.
That one's memory may perform its function in the grip of Unreason
itself is proved by the fact that my memory retains an impression, and
an accurate one, of virtually everything that befell me, except when
under the influence of an anesthetic or in the unconscious hours of
undisturbed sleep. Important events, trifling conversations, and more
trifling thoughts of my own are now recalled with ease and accuracy;
whereas, prior to my illness and until a strange experience to be
recorded later, mine was an ordinary memory when it was not noticeably
poor. At school and in college I stood lowest in those studies in which
success depended largely upon this faculty. Psychiatrists inform me
that it is not unusual for those suffering as I did to retain accurate
impressions of their experiences while ill. To laymen this may seem
almost miraculous, yet it is not so; nor is it even remarkable.
Assuming that an insane person's memory is capable of recording
impressions at all, remembrance for one in the torturing grip of
delusions of persecution should be doubly easy. This deduction is in
accord with the accepted psychological law that the retention of an
impression in the memory depends largely upon the intensity of the
impression itself, and the frequency of its repetition. Fear to speak,
lest I should incriminate myself and others, gave to my impressions the
requisite intensity, and the daily recurrence of the same general line
of thought served to fix all impressions in my then supersensitive
memory.
Shortly before seven in the morning, on the way to the sanatorium, the
train passed through a manufacturing center. Many workmen were lounging
in front of a factory, most of them reading newspapers. I believed
these papers contained an account of me and my crimes, and I thought
everyone along the route knew who I was and what I was, and that I was
on that train. Few seemed to pay any attention to me, yet this very
fact looked to be a part of some well-laid plan of the detectives.
The sanatorium to which I was going was in the country. When a certain
station was reached, I was carried from the train to a carriage. At
that moment I caught sight of a former college acquaintance, whose
appearance I thought was designed to let me know that Yale, which I
believed I had disgraced, was one of the powers behind my throne of
torture.
Soon after I reached my room in the sanatorium, the supervisor entered.
Drawing a table close to the bed, he placed upon it a slip of paper
which he asked me to sign. I looked upon this as a trick of the
detectives to get a specimen of my handwriting. I now know that the
signing of the slip is a legal requirement, with which every patient is
supposed to comply upon entering such an institution—private in
character—unless he has been committed by some court. The exact
wording of this "voluntary commitment" I do not now recall; but, it
was, in substance, an agreement to abide by the rules of the
institution—whatever they were—and to submit to such restraint as
might be deemed necessary. Had I not felt the weight of the world on my
shoulders, I believe my sense of humor would have caused me to laugh
outright; for the signing of such an agreement by one so situated was,
even to my mind, a farce. After much coaxing I was induced to go so far
as to take the pen in my hand. There I again hesitated. The supervisor
apparently thought I might write with more ease if the paper were
placed on a book. And so I might, had he selected a book of a different
title. One more likely to arouse suspicions in my mind could not have
been found in a search of the Congressional Library. I had left New
York on June 15th, and it was in the direction of that city that my
present trip had taken me. I considered this but the first step of my
return under the auspices of its Police Department. "Called Back" was
the title of the book that stared me in the face. After refusing for a
long time I finally weakened and signed the slip; but I did not place
it on the book. To have done that would, in my mind, have been
tantamount to giving consent to extradition; and I was in no mood to
assist the detectives in their mean work. At what cost had I signed
that commitment slip? To me it was the act of signing my own
death-warrant.
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