by the kentuckiana digital library (http://kdl.kyvl.org/) note: images of the original pages are available through the kentuckiana digital library. see http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc= kyetexts;xc= &idno=b - - &view=toc the lifted bandage by mary raymond shipman andrews author of "the perfect tribute," etc. new york charles scribner's sons the man let himself into his front door and, staggering lightly, like a drunken man, as he closed it, walked to the hall table, and mechanically laid down his hat, but still wearing his overcoat turned and went into his library, and dropped on the edge of a divan and stared out through the leaded panes of glass across the room facing him. the grayish skin of his face seemed to fall in diagonal furrows, from the eyes, from the nose, from the mouth. he sat, still to his finger-tips, staring. he was sitting so when a servant slipped in and stood motionless a minute, and went to the wide window where the west light glared through leafless branches outside, and drew the shades lower, and went to the fireplace and touched a match. wood caught and crackled and a cheerful orange flame flew noisily up the chimney, but the man sitting on the divan did not notice. the butler waited a moment, watching, hesitating, and then: "have you had lunch, sir?" he asked in a tentative, gentle voice. the staring eyes moved with an effort and rested on the servant's face. "lunch?" he repeated, apparently trying to focus on the meaning of the word. "lunch? i don't know, miller. but don't bring anything." with a great anxiety in his face miller regarded his master. "would you let me take your overcoat, judge?--you'll be too warm," he said. he spoke in a suppressed tone as if waiting for, fearing something, as if longing to show sympathy, and the man stood and let himself be cared for, and then sat down again in the same unrestful, fixed attitude, gazing out again through the glittering panes into the stormy, tawny west sky. miller came back and stood quiet, patient; in a few minutes the man seemed to become aware of him. "i forgot, miller. you'll want to know," he said in a tone which went to show an old bond between the two. "you'll be sorry to hear, miller," he said--and the dull eyes moved difficultly to the anxious ones, and his voice was uninflected--"you'll be sorry to know that the coroner's jury decided that master jack was a murderer." the word came more horribly because of an air of detachment from the man's mind. it was like a soulless, evil mechanism, running unguided. miller caught at a chair. "i don't believe it, sir," he gasped. "no lawyer shall make me. i've known him since he was ten, judge, and they're mistaken. it's not any mere lawyers can make me believe that awful thing, sir, of our master jack." the servant was shaking from head to foot with intense rejection, and the man put up his hand as if to ward off his emotion. "i wish i could agree with you," he said quietly, and then added, "thank you, miller." and the old butler, walking as if struck with a sickness, was gone. the man sat on the edge of the divan staring out of the window, minute after minute; the november wind tossed the clean, black lines of the branches backward and forward against the copper sky, as if a giant hand moved a fan of sea-weed before a fire. the man sat still and stared. the sky dulled; the delicate, wild branches melted together; the diamond lines in the window blurred; yet, unmoved, unseeing, the eyes stared through them. the burr of an electric bell sounded; some one came in at the front door and came to the door of the library, but the fixed figure did not stir. the newcomer stood silent a minute, two minutes; a young man in clerical dress, boyish, with gray, serious eyes. at length he spoke. "may i come in? it's dick." the man's head turned slowly and his look rested inquiringly on his nephew. it was a minute before he said, as if recognizing him, "dick. yes." and set himself as before to the persistent gazing through the window. "i lost you at the court-house," the younger man said. "i didn't mean to let you come home alone." "thank you, dick." it seemed as if neither joy nor sorrow would find a way into the quiet voice again. the wind roared; the boughs rustled against the glass; the fire, soberly settled to work, steamed and crackled; the clock ticked indifferently; there was no other sound in the room; the two men were silent, the one staring always before him, the other sitting with a hand on the older man's hand, waiting. minutes they sat so, and the wintry sky outside darkened and lay sullenly in bands of gray and orange against the windows; the light of the logs was stronger than the daylight; it flickered carelessly across the ashiness of the emotionless face. the young man, watching the face, bent forward and gripped his other hand on the unresponsive one in his clasp. "uncle," he asked, "will it make things worse if i talk to you?" "no, dick." nothing made a difference, it seemed. silence or words must simply fall without effect on the rock bottom of despair. the young man halted, as if dismayed, before this overpowering inertia of hopelessness; he drew a quick breath. "a coroner's jury isn't infallible. i don't believe it of jack--a lot of people don't believe it," he said. the older man looked at him heavily. "you'd say that. jack's friends will. i've been trained to weigh evidence--i must believe it." "listen," the young man urged. "don't shut down the gates like that. i'm not a lawyer, but i've been trained to think, too, and i believe you're not thinking squarely. there's other evidence that counts besides this. there's jack--his personality." "it has been taken into consideration." "it can't be taken into consideration by strangers--it needs years of intimacy to weigh that evidence as i can weigh it--as you--you know best of all," he cried out impulsively, "if you'll let yourself know, how impossible it was. that jack should have bought that pistol and taken it to ben armstrong's rooms to kill him--it was impossible--impossible!" the clinched fist came down on the black broadcloth knee with the conviction of the man behind it. the words rushed like melted metal, hot, stinging, not to be stopped. the judge quivered as if they had stung through the callousness, touched a nerve. a faint color crawled to his cheeks; for the first time he spoke quickly, as if his thoughts connected with something more than gray matter. "you talk about my not allowing myself to believe in jack. you seem not to realize that such a belief would--might--stand between me and madness. i've been trying to adjust myself to a possible scheme of living--getting through the years till i go into nothingness. i can't. all i can grasp is the feeling that a man might have if dropped from a balloon and forced to stay gasping in the air, with no place in it, nothing to hold to, no breath to draw, no earth to rest on, no end to hope for. there is nothing beyond." "everything is beyond," the young man cried triumphantly. "'the end,' as you call it, is an end to hope for--it is the beginning. the beginning of more than you have ever had--with them, with the people you care about." the judge turned a ghastly look upon the impetuous, bright face. "if i believed that, i should be even now perfectly happy. i don't see how you christians can ever be sorry when your friends die--it's childish; anybody ought to be able to wait a few years. but i don't believe it," he said heavily, and went on again as if an inertia of speech were carrying him as an inertia of silence had held him a few minutes before. "when my wife died a year ago it ended my personal life, but i could live jack's life. i was glad in the success and honor of it. now the success--" he made a gesture. "and the honor--if i had that, only the honor of jack's life left, i think i could finish the years with dignity. i've not been a bad man--i've done my part and lived as seemed right. before i'm old the joy is wiped out and long years left. why? it's not reasonable--not logical. with one thing to hold to, with jack's good name, i might live. how can i, now? what can i do? a life must have a _raison d'être._" "listen," the clergyman cried again. "you are not judging jack as fairly as you would judge a common criminal. you know better than i how often juries make mistakes--why should you trust this jury to have made none?" "i didn't trust the jury. i watched as i have never before known how to watch a case. i felt my mind more clear and alert than common." "alert!" he caught at the word. "but alert on the side of terror--abnormally clear to see what you dreaded. because you are fair-minded, because it has been the habit of your life to correct at once any conscious prejudice in your judgment, you have swayed to the side of unfairness to yourself, to jack. uncle," he flashed out, "would it tear your soul to have me state the case as i see it? i might, you know--i might bring out something that would make it look different." almost a smile touched the gray lines of his face. "if you wish." the young man drew himself into his chair and clasped his hands around his knee. "here it is. mr. newbold, on the seventh floor of the bruzon bachelor apartments, heard a shot at one in the morning, next his bedroom, in ben armstrong's room. he hurried into the public hall, saw the door wide open into ben's apartment, went in and found ben shot dead. trying to use the telephone to call help, he found it was out of order. so he rushed again into the hall toward the elevator with the idea of getting dr. avery, who lived below on the second floor. the elevator door was open also, and a man's opera-hat lay near it on the floor; he saw, just in time, that the car was at the bottom of the shaft, almost stepping inside, in his excitement, before he noticed this. then he ran down the stairs with jack's hat in his hand, and got dr. avery, and they found jack at the foot of the elevator shaft. it was known that ben armstrong and jack had quarrelled the day before; it was known that jack was quick-tempered; it is known that he bought that evening the pistol which was found on the floor by ben, loaded, with one empty shell. that's the story." the steady voice stopped a moment and the young man shivered slightly; his look was strained. steadily he went on. "that's the story. from that the coroner's jury have found that jack killed ben armstrong--that he bought the pistol to kill him, and went to his rooms with that purpose; that in his haste to escape, he missed seeing that the elevator was down, as mr. newbold all but missed seeing it later, and jumped into the shaft and was killed instantly himself. that's what the jury get from the facts, but it seems to me they're begging the question. there are a hundred hypotheses that would fit the case of jack's innocence--why is it reasonable to settle on the one that means his guilt? this is my idea. jack and ben armstrong had been friends since boyhood and jack, quick-tempered as he was, was warm-hearted and loyal. it was like him to decide suddenly to go to ben and make friends. he had been to a play in the evening which had more or less that _motif_; he was open to such influences. it was like the pair of them, after the reconciliation, to set to work looking at jack's new toy, the pistol. it was a brand-new sort, and the two have been interested always in guns--i remember how i, as a youngster, was impressed when ben and jack bought their first shot-guns together. jack had got the pistol at mellingham's that evening, you know--he was likely to be keen about it still, and then--it went off. there are plenty of other cases where a man has shot his friend by accident--why shouldn't poor jack be given the benefit of the doubt? the telephone wouldn't work; jack rushed out with the same idea which struck mr. newbold later, of getting dr. avery--and fell down the shaft. "for me there is no doubt. i never knew him to hold malice. he was violent sometimes, but that he could have gone about for hours with a pistol in his pocket and murder in his heart; that he could have planned ben armstrong's death and carried it out deliberately--it's a contradiction in terms. it's impossible, being jack. you must know this--you know your son--you know human nature." the rapid _résumé_ was but an impassioned appeal. its answer came after a minute; to the torrent of eager words, three words: "thank you, dick." the absolute lack of impression on the man's judgment was plain. "ah!" the clergyman sprang to his feet and stood, his eyes blazing, despairing, looking down at the bent, listless figure. how could he let a human being suffer as this one was suffering? quickly his thoughts shifted their basis. he could not affect the mind of the lawyer; might he reach now, perhaps, the soul of the man? he knew the difficulty, for before this his belief had crossed swords with the agnosticism of his uncle, an agnosticism shared by his father, in which he had been trained, from which he had broken free only five years before. he had faced the batteries of the two older brains at that time, and come out with the brightness of his new-found faith untarnished, but without, he remembered, scratching the armor of their profound doubt in everything. one could see, looking at the slender black figure, at the visionary gaze of the gray wide eyes, at the shape of the face, broad-browed, ovalled, that this man's psychic make-up must lift him like wings into an atmosphere outside a material, outside even an intellectual world. he could breathe freely only in a spiritual air, and things hard to believe to most human beings were, perhaps, his every-day thoughts. he caught a quick breath of excitement as it flashed to his brain that now, possibly, was coming the moment when he might justify his life, might help this man whom he loved, to peace. the breath he caught was a prayer; his strong, nervous fingers trembled. he spoke in a tone whose concentration lifted the eyes below him, that brooded, stared. "i can't bear it to stand by and see you go under, when there's help close. you said that if you could believe that they were living, that you would have them again, you would be perfectly happy no matter how many years you must wait. they are living as sure as i am here, and as sure as jack was here, and jack's mother. they are living still. perhaps they're close to you now. you've bound a bandage over your eyes, you've covered the vision of your spirit, so that you can't see; but that doesn't make nothingness of god's world. it's there--here--close, maybe. a more real world than this--this little thing." with a boyish gesture he thrust behind him the universe. "what do we know about the earth, except effects upon our consciousness? it's all a matter of inference--you know that better than i. the thing we do know beyond doubt is that we are each of us a something that suffers and is happy. how is that something the same as the body--the body that gets old and dies--how can it be? you can't change thought into matter--not conceivably--everybody acknowledges that. why should the thinking part die then, because the material part dies? when the organ is broken is the organist dead? the body is the hull, the covering, and when it has grown useless it will fall away and the live seed in it will stand free to sunlight and air--just at the beginning of life, as a plant is when it breaks through earth in the spring. it's the seed in the ground, and it's the flower in the sunlight, but it's the same thing--the same life--it is--it _is_." the boy's intensity of conviction shot like a flame across the quiet room. "it is the same thing with us too. the same spirit-substance underlies both worlds and there is no separation in space, only in view-point. life goes on--it's just transfigured. it's as if a bandage should be lifted from our eyes and we should suddenly see things in whose presence we had been always." the rushing, eager voice stopped. he bent and laid his hand on the older man's and stared at his face, half hidden now in the shadows of the lowering fire. there was no response. the heavy head did not lift and the attitude was unstirred, hopeless. as if struck by a blow he sprang erect and his fingers shut hard. he spoke as if to himself, brokenly. "he does not believe--a single word--i say. i can't help him--i _can't_ help him." suddenly the clinched fists flung out as if of a power not their own, and his voice rang across the room. "god!" the word shot from him as if a thunderbolt fell with it. "god! lift the bandage!" a log fell with a crash into the fire; great battling shadows blurred all the air; he was gone. the man, startled, drew up his bent shoulders, and pushed back a lock of gray hair and stared about, shaking, bewildered. the ringing voice, the word that had flashed as if out of a larger atmosphere--the place was yet full of these, and the shock of it added a keenness to his misery. his figure swung sideways; he fell on the cushions of the sofa and his arms stretched across them, his gray head lying heedless; sobs that tore roots came painfully; it was the last depth. out of it, without his volition, he spoke aloud. "god, god, god!" his voice said, not prayerfully, but repeating the sound that had shocked his torture. the word wailed, mocked, reproached, defied--and yet it was a prayer. out of a soul in mortal stress that word comes sometimes driven by a force of the spirit like the force of the lungs fighting for breath--and it is a prayer. "god, god, god!" the broken voice repeated, and sobs cut the words. and again. over and over, and again the sobbing broke it. as suddenly as if a knife had stopped the life inside the body, all sound stopped. a movement shook the man as he lay face down, arms stretched. then for a minute, two minutes, he was quiet, with a quiet that meant muscles stretched, nerves alert. slowly, slowly the tightened muscles of the arms pushed the shoulders backward and upward; the head lifted; the face turned outward, and if an observer had been there he might have seen by the glow of the firelight that the features wet, distorted, wore, more than all at this moment, a look of amazement. slowly, slowly, moving as if afraid to disturb something--a dream--a presence--the man sat erect as he had been sitting before, only that the rigidity was in some way gone. he sat alert, his eyes wide, filled with astonishment, gazing before him eagerly--a look different from the dull stare of an hour ago by the difference between hope and despair. his hands caught at the stuff of the divan on either side and clutched it. all the time the look of his face changed; all the time, not at once, but by fast, startling degrees, the gray misery which had bound eyes and mouth and brow in iron dropped as if a cover were being torn off and a light set free. amazement, doubting, incredulous came first, and with that eagerness, trembling and afraid. and then hope--and then the fear to hope. and hunger. he bent forward, his eyes peered into the quiet emptiness, his fingers gripped the cloth as if to anchor him to a wonder, to an unbelievable something; his body leaned--to something--and his face now was the face of a starved man, of a man dying from thirst, who sees food, water, salvation. and his face changed; a quality incredible was coming into it--joy. he was transformed. lines softened by magic; color came, and light in the eyes; the first unbelief, the amazement, shifted surely, swiftly, and in a flash the whole man shone, shook with rapture. he threw out before him his arms, reaching, clasping, and from his radiant look the arms might have held all happiness. a minute he stayed so with his hands stretched out, with face glowing, then slowly, his eyes straining as if perhaps they followed a vision which faded from them--slowly his arms fell and the expectancy went from his look. yet not the light, not the joy. his body quivered; his breath came unevenly, as of one just gone through a crisis; every sense seemed still alive to catch a faintest note of something exquisite which vanished; and with that the spell, rapidly as it had come, was gone. and the man sat there quiet, as he had sat an hour before, and the face which had been leaden was brilliant. he stirred and glanced about the room as if trying to adjust himself, and his eyes smiled as they rested on the familiar objects, as if for love of them, for pleasure in them. one might have said that this man had been given back at a blow youth and happiness. movement seemed beyond him yet--he was yet dazed with the newness of a marvel--but he turned his head and saw the fire and at that put out his hand to it as if to a friend. the electric bell burred softly again through the house, and the man heard it, and his eyes rested inquiringly on the door of the library. in a moment another man stood there, of his own age, iron-gray, strong-featured. "dick told me i might come," he said. "shall i trouble you? may i stay with you awhile?" the judge put out his hand friendlily, a little vaguely, much as he had put it out to the fire. "surely," he said, and the newcomer was all at once aware of his look. he started. "you're not well," he said. "you must take something--whiskey--miller----" the butler moved in the room making lights here and there, and he came quickly. "no," the judge said. "i don't want anything--i don't need anything. it's not as you think. i'll tell you about it." miller was gone; dick's father waited, his gaze fixed on the judge's face anxiously, and for moments no word was spoken. the judge gazed into the fire with the rapt, smiling look which had so startled his brother-in-law. at length: "i don't know how to tell you," he said. "there seem no words. something has happened, yet it's difficult to explain." "something happened?" the other repeated, bewildered but guarded. "i don't understand. has some one been here? is it about--the trial?" "no." a slight spasm twisted the smiling lines of the man's mouth, but it was gone and the mouth smiled still. a horror-struck expression gleamed for a second from the anxious eyes of the brother-in-law, but he controlled it quickly. he spoke gently. "tell me about it--it will do you good to talk." the judge turned from the fire, and at sight of his flushed cheeks and lighted eyes the other shrank back, and the judge saw it. "you needn't be alarmed," he said quietly. "nothing is wrong with me. but something has happened, as i told you, and everything--is changed." his eyes lifted as he spoke and strayed about the room as if considering a change which had come also to the accustomed setting. a shock of pity flashed from the other, and was mastered at once. "can you tell me what has happened?" he urged. the judge, his face bright with a brightness that was dreadful to the man who watched him, held his hand to the fire, turning it about as if enjoying the warmth. the other shivered. there was silence for a minute. the judge broke it, speaking thoughtfully: "suppose you had been born blind, ned," he began, "and no one had ever given you a hint of the sense of vision, and your imagination had never presented such a power to your mind. can you suppose that?" "i think so--yes," the brother-in-law answered, with careful gentleness, watching always the illumined countenance. "yes, i can suppose it." "then fancy if you will that all at once sight came, and the world flashed before you. do you think you'd be able to describe such an experience?" the voice was normal, reflective. many a time the two had talked together of such things in this very room, and the naturalness of the scene, and of the judge's manner, made the brother-in-law for a second forget the tragedy in which they were living. "why, of course," he answered. "if one had never heard of such a power one's vocabulary wouldn't take in the words to describe it." "exactly," the judge agreed. "that's the point i'm making. perhaps now i may tell you what it is that has happened. or rather, i may make you understand how a definite and concrete event has come to pass, which i can't tell you." alarm suddenly expressed itself beyond control in the brother-in-law's face. "john, what do you mean? do you see that you distress me? can't you tell clearly if some one has been here--what it is, in plain english, that has happened?" the judge turned his dreamy, bright look toward the frightened man. "i do see--i do see," he brought out affectionately. "i'll try to tell, as you say, in plain english. but it is like the case i put--it is a question of lack of vocabulary. a remarkable experience has occurred in this room within an hour. i can no more describe it than the man born blind could describe sight. i can only call it by one name, which may startle you. a revelation." "a revelation!" the tone expressed incredulity, scarcely veiled scorn. the judge's brilliant gaze rested undisturbed on the speaker. "i understand--none better. a day ago, two hours ago, i should have answered in that tone. we have been trained in the same school, and have thought alike. dick was here a while ago and said things--you know what dick would say. you know how you and i have been sorry for the lad--been indulgent to him--with his keen, broad mind and that inspired self-forgetfulness of his--how we've been sorry to have such qualities wasted on a parson, a religion machine. we've thought he'd come around in time, that he was too large a personality to be tied to a treadmill. we've thought that all along, haven't we? well, dick was here, and out of the hell where i was i thought that again. when he talked i thought in a way--for i couldn't think much--that after a consistent voyage of agnosticism, i wouldn't be whipped into snivelling belief at the end, by shipwreck. i would at least go down without surrendering. in a dim way i thought that. and all that i thought then, and have thought through my life, is nothing. reasoning doesn't weigh against experience. dick is right." the other man sat before him, bent forward, his hands on his knees, listening, dazed. there was a quality in the speaker's tone which made it necessary to take his words seriously. yet--the other sighed and relaxed a bit as he waited, watched. the calm voice went on. "the largest event of my life has happened in the last hour, in this room. it was this way. when dick went out i--went utterly to pieces. it was the farthest depth. out of it i called on god, not knowing what i did. and he answered. that's what happened. as if--as if a bandage had been lifted from my eyes, i was--i was in the presence of things--indescribable. there was no change, only that where i was blind before i now saw. i don't mean vision. i haven't words to explain what i mean. but a world was about me as real as this; it had perhaps always been there; in that moment i was first aware of it. i knew, as if a door had been opened, what heaven means--a condition of being. and i knew another thing more personal--that, without question, it was right with those i thought i had lost and that the horror which seemed blackest i have no need to dread. i cannot say that i saw them or heard or touched them, but i was with them. i understand, but i can't make you understand. i told dick an hour ago that if i could believe they were living, that i should ever have them again, i should be perfectly happy. that's true now. i believe it, and i am--perfectly happy." the listener groaned uncontrollably. "i know your thought," the judge answered the sound, and his eyes were like lamps as he turned them toward the man. "but you're wrong--my mind is not unhinged. you'll see. after what i've gone through, after facing eternity without hope, what are mere years? i can wait. i know. i am--perfectly happy." then the man who listened rose from his chair and came and put a hand gently on the shoulder of the judge, looking down at him gravely. "i don't understand you very well, john," he said, "but i'm glad of anything--of anything"--his voice went suddenly. "will you wait for me here a few minutes? i'm going home and i'll be back. i think i'll spend the night with you if you don't object." "object! wait!" the judge looked up in surprise, and with that he smiled. "i see. surely. i'd like to have you here. yes, i'll certainly wait." outside in the hall one might have heard the brother-in-law say a low word or two to miller as the man helped him on with his coat; then the front door shut softly, and he was gone, and the judge sat alone, his head thrown back against his chair, his face luminous. the other man swung down the dark street, rushing, agitated. as he came to the corner an electric light shone full on him and a figure crossing down toward him halted. "father! i was coming to find you. something extraordinary has happened. i was coming to find you." "yes, dick." the older man waited. "i've just left charley owen at the house--you remember charley owen?" "no." "oh, yes, you do--he's been here with--jack. he was in jack's class in college--in jack's and ben armstrong's. he used to go on shooting trips with them both--often." "i remember now." "yes, i knew you would." the young voice rushed on. "he has been away just now--down in florida shooting--away from civilization. he got all his mail for a month in one lump--just now--two days ago. in it was a letter from jack and ben armstrong, written that night, written together. do you see what that means?" "what!" the word was not a question, but an exclamation. "what--dick!" "yes--yes. there were newspapers, too, which gave an account of the trial--the first he'd heard of it--he was away in the everglades. he started instantly, and came on here when he had read the papers, and realized the bearing his letter would have on the trial. he has travelled day and night. he hoped to get here in time. jack and ben thought he was in new york. they wrote to ask him to go duck-shooting--with them. and, father--here's the most startling point of it all." as the man waited, watching his son's face, he groaned suddenly and made a gesture of despair. "don't, father--don't take it that way. it's good--it's glorious--it clears jack. my uncle will be almost happy. but i wouldn't tell him at once--i'd be careful," he warned the other. "what was it--the startling point you spoke of?" "oh--surely--this. the letter to charley owen spoke of jack's new pistol--that pistol. jack said they would have target-shooting with it in camp. they were all crack shots, you know. he said he had bought it that evening, and that ben thought well of it. ben signed the letter after jack, and then added a postscript. it clears jack--it clears him. doesn't it, father? but i wouldn't tell my uncle just yet. he's not fit to take it in for a few hours--don't you think so?" "no, i won't tell him--just yet." the young man's wide glance concentrated with a flash on his father's face. "what is it? you speak queerly. you've just come from there. how is he--how is my uncle?" there was a letterbox at the corner, a foot from the older man's shoulder. he put out his hand and held to the lid a moment before he answered. his voice was harsh. "your uncle is--perfectly happy," he said. "he's gone mad." [illustration: the new york hospital, duane street and broadway the building to the left was erected in for the exclusive use of patients suffering from mental disorders.] a psychiatric milestone bloomingdale hospital centenary - "cum corpore ut una crescere sentimus, pariterque senescere mentem." --lucretius privately printed by the society of the new york hospital anniversary committee howard townsend bronson winthrop r. horace gallatin preface the opening of bloomingdale asylum on june , , was an important event in the treatment of mental disorders and in the progress of humanitarian and scientific work in america. hospital treatment for persons suffering from mental disorders had been furnished by the new york hospital since its opening in , and the governors had given much thought and effort to securing the facilities needed. the treatment consisted, however, principally in the administration of drugs and the employment of such other physical measures as were in vogue at that time. little attempt was made to study the minds of the patients or to treat them by measures directed specifically to influencing their thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and what treatment of this character there was had for its object little more than the repression of excitement and disordered activity. the value and importance of treatment directed to the mind had, indeed, been long recognized, but in practice it had been subordinated to treatment of the actual and assumed physical disorders to which the mental state of the patient was attributed, and, in the few hospitals where persons suffering from mental disorders were received, means for its application were almost or quite entirely lacking. the establishment of bloomingdale asylum for the purpose of ascertaining to what extent the recovery of the patients might be accomplished by moral as well as by purely medical treatment marked, therefore, the very earliest stages of the development in america of the system of study and treatment of mental disorders which with increasing amplification and precision is now universally employed. a hundred years of growth and activity in the work thus established have now been accomplished, and it seemed fitting to the governors of the hospital that the event should be commemorated in a way that would be appropriate to its significance and importance. it was decided that the principal place in the celebration should be given to the purely medical and scientific aspects of the work, with special reference to the progress which had been made in the direction of the practical usefulness of psychiatry in the treatment of illness generally, and in the management of problems of human behavior and welfare. arrangements were made for four addresses by physicians of conspicuous eminence in their particular fields, and invitations to attend the exercises were sent to the leading psychiatrists, psychologists, and neurologists of america, and to others who were known to be specially interested in the field of study and practice in which the hospital is engaged. it was felt that, in view of the place which france and england had held in the movement in which bloomingdale asylum had its origin, it would add greatly to the interest and value of the celebration if representatives of these countries were present and made addresses. how fortunate it was, then, that it became possible to welcome from france dr. pierre janet, who stands pre-eminent in the field of psychopathology, and from england dr. richard g. rows, whose contributions to the study and treatment of the war neuroses and to the relation between psychic and physical reactions marked him as especially qualified to present the more advanced view-point of british psychiatry. the other two principal addresses were made by dr. adolf meyer, who, by reason of his scientific contributions and his wonderfully productive practical work in clinical and organized psychiatry and in mental hygiene, is the acknowledged leader of psychiatry in america, and by dr. lewellys f. barker, who, because of his eminence as an internist and of the extent to which he has advocated and employed psychiatric knowledge and methods in his practice, has contributed greatly to interesting and informing physicians concerning the value and importance of psychiatry in general medical practice. the addresses given by these distinguished physicians, representing advanced views in psychiatry held in europe and america, were peculiarly appropriate to the occasion and to the object of the celebration. they were supplemented by an historical review of the origin and development of the hospital and of its work by mr. edward w. sheldon, president of the society of the new york hospital, and by a statement concerning the medical development, made by dr. william l. russell, the medical superintendent. the greetings of the new york academy of medicine were presented in an interesting address by dr. george d. stewart, president of the academy. of scarcely less significance and interest than the addresses was the pageant presented on the lawn during the intermission between the sessions, depicting scenes and incidents illustrating the origin and development of the hospital, and of psychiatry and mental hygiene. the text and the scenes displayed were prepared by dr. charles i. lambert, first assistant physician of the hospital, and by mrs. adelyn wesley, who directed the performance and acted as narrator. the performers were persons who were connected with the hospital, twenty-two of whom were patients. the celebration was held on may , . the weather was exceptionally clear, with bright sunshine and moderate temperature. the grounds, in their spring dress of fresh leaves and flowers, were especially beautiful. this added much to the attractiveness of the occasion and the pleasure of those who attended. luncheon was served on the lawn in front of the brown villa and the pageant was presented on the adjoining recreation grounds. the beauty of the day and the surroundings, the character of the addresses and of the speakers, the remarkable felicity and grace with which they were introduced by the president, the dignity and noble idealism of his closing words, and the distinguished character of the audience, all contributed to make the celebration one of exceptional interest and value to those who were present, and a notable event in the history of the hospital. for the purpose of preserving, and of perhaps extending to some who were not present, the spirit of the occasion, and of placing in permanent form an account of the proceedings and the addresses which were made, this volume has been published by the society of the new york hospital. william l. russell. contents page preface vii invocation rev. frank h. simmonds historical review edward w. sheldon, esq. president of the society of the new york hospital "the contributions of psychiatry to the understanding of life problems" adolf meyer, m.d. director of the henry phipps psychiatric clinic, johns hopkins hospital, and professor of psychiatry, johns hopkins university, baltimore, maryland "the importance of psychiatry in general medical practice" lewellys f. barker, m.d. professor of clinical medicine, johns hopkins medical school, baltimore, maryland greetings from the new york academy of medicine george d. stewart, m.d. president of the academy "the biological significance of mental illness" richard g. rows, m.d. director of the section on mental illnesses of the special neurological hospital, tooting, london, england "the relation of the neuroses to the psychoses" pierre janet, m.d. professor of psychology, college de france "the medical development of bloomingdale hospital" william l. russell, m.d. medical superintendent the tableau-pageant names of those who attended the exercises appendix i communications from dr. bedford pierce medical superintendent of the retreat, york, england extract from minutes of board of directors of the retreat, april , . transcript from the visitors book of the retreat, - . appendix ii a letter on pauper lunatic asylums from samuel tuke to thomas eddy, . appendix iii thomas eddy's communication to the board of governors, april, . appendix iv extracts from the minutes of the board of governors in relation to action taken respecting thos. eddy's communication dated april, . appendix v address to the public by the governors, . appendix vi board of governors of the society of the new york hospital, and . appendix vii organization of bloomingdale hospital, and . illustrations new york hospital and lunatic asylum, _frontispiece_ facing page bloomingdale asylum, bloomingdale asylum, bloomingdale hospital, the tableau-pageant thomas eddy the society of the new york hospital [illustration: bloomingdale asylum as it appeared when it was opened in . it was located near the seven mile stone on the bloomingdale road, now th street and broadway.] bloomingdale hospital centenary the one hundredth anniversary of the establishment of bloomingdale hospital as a separate department for mental diseases of the society of the new york hospital was celebrated at the hospital at white plains on thursday, may , . the addresses were given in the assembly hall. mr. edward w. sheldon, the president of the society, acted as chairman. morning session the exercises opened with an invocation by the reverend frank h. simmonds, rector of grace episcopal church at white plains: oh, most mighty and all-merciful god, whose power is over all thy works, who willest that all men shall glorify thee in the constant bringing to perfection those powers of thine which shall more and more make perfect the beings of thy creation, we glorify thee in the gift of thy divine son jesus christ, the great physician of our souls, the sun of righteousness arising with healing in his wings, who disposeth every great and little incident to the glory of god the father, and to the comfort of them that love and serve him, we render thanks to thee and glorify thy name, this day, which brings to completion the hundredth anniversary of this noble institution's birthday. oh, thou, who didst put it into the hearts and minds of men to dedicate their lives and fortunes to the advancement of science and medicine for the sick and afflicted, we render thee most high praise and hearty thanks for the grace and virtue of the founders of this institution--men whose names are written in the golden book of life as those who loved their fellow men. we praise thee for such men as thomas eddy, james macdonald, pliny earle, and these endless others, who from age to age have held high the torch of knowledge and have kept before them the golden rule of service. inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. be pleased, oh merciful father, to bless this day and gathering. lift up and enlighten our hearts and minds to a higher perception of all that is noble, all that is true, all that is merciful. awaken our dull senses to the full knowledge of light in thee, and may all that is said and done be with the guiding of thy holy spirit. we pray for the continued blessing of this institution and hospital, and on all those who are striving to bring out of darkness those unhappy souls, into the pure light of understanding. bless the governors, physicians, and nurses, direct their judgments, prosper their undertakings, and dispose their ministry that the world may feel the blessing and comfort of life in the prevention of disease and the preservation of health. and may we all be gathered in this nation to a more perfect unity of life and purpose in the desire to spend and be spent in the service of our fellow men. we ask it all in the name and through the mediation of thy son jesus christ, our lord. amen. address by mr. edward w. sheldon mr. sheldon it is with profound gratification that the governors welcome your generous presence to-day on an occasion which means so much to us and which has perhaps some general significance. for we are met in honor of what is almost a unique event in our national history, the centennial anniversary celebration of an exclusively psychopathic hospital. a summary of its origin and development may be appropriate. a hundred and fifty years ago the only institutions on this side of the atlantic which cared for mental diseases were the pennsylvania hospital, chartered in , a private general hospital which had accommodations for a few mental cases, and the eastern state hospital for the insane, at williamsburg, virginia, a public institution incorporated in . no other one of the thirteen colonies had a hospital of any kind, general or special. with a view of remedying this deplorable lack in new york, steps were taken in to establish an adequate general hospital in the city of new york. this resulted in the grant, on june , , of the royal charter of the society of the new york hospital. soon afterward the construction of the hospital buildings began on a spacious tract on lower broadway opposite pearl street, in which provision was also to be made for mental cases; but before any patients could be admitted, an accidental fire, in february, , consumed the interior of the buildings. reconstruction was immediately undertaken and completed early in the spring of . but by that time the revolutionary war was in full course, and the buildings were taken over by the continental authorities as barracks for troops, and were surrounded by fortifications. when the british captured the city in september, , they made the same use of the buildings for their own troops, who remained there until . a long period of readjustment then ensued, and it was not until january, , that the hospital was at last opened to patients. in september, , the governors directed the admission of the first mental case, and for the hundred and twenty-nine years since that time the society has continuously devoted a part of its effort to the care of the mentally diseased. after a few years a separate building for them was deemed desirable, and was constructed. the state assisted this expansion of the hospital by appropriating to the society $ , a year for fifty years. this new building housed comfortably seventy-five patients, but ten years later even this proved inadequate in size and undesirable in surroundings. in the meanwhile a wave of reform in the care of the insane was rising in europe under the influence of such benefactors as philippe pinel in france, and william and samuel tuke in england. thomas eddy, a philanthropic quaker governor of the society, who was then its treasurer and afterward in succession its vice-president and president, becoming aware of this movement, and having made a special study of the care and cure of mental affections, presented a communication to the governors in which he advocated a change in the medical treatment, and in particular the adoption of the so-called moral management similar to that pursued by the tukes at the retreat, in yorkshire, england. this memorable communication was printed by the governors, and constitutes one of the first of the systematic attempts made in the united states to put this important medical subject on a humane and scientific basis. to carry out his plan, mr. eddy urged the purchase of a large tract of land near the city and the erection of suitable buildings. he ventured the moderate estimate that the population of the city, then about , , might be doubled by , and quadrupled by . in fact, it was more than doubled in those first twenty years, and sextupled in the second twenty. he was justified, therefore, in believing that the hospital site on lower broadway would soon be surrounded by a dense population, and quite unsuited for the efficient care of mental diseases. the governors gave these recommendations immediate and favorable consideration. various tracts of land, containing in all about seventy-seven acres, and lying on the historic harlem heights between what are now riverside drive and columbus avenue, and th and th streets, were subsequently bought by the society for about $ , . to aid in the construction and maintenance of the necessary hospital buildings, the legislature, by an act reciting that there was no other institution in the state where insane patients could be accommodated, and that humanity and the interest of the state required that provision should be made for their care and cure, granted an additional annual appropriation of $ , to the society from until . the main hospital, built of brownstone, stood where the massive library of columbia university now is, and the brick building still standing at the northeast corner of broadway and th street was the residence of the medical superintendent. the only access to this site by land was over what was known as the bloomingdale road, running from broadway and d street through the bloomingdale district on the north river to th street, and from that fact our institution assumed the name of bloomingdale asylum, or, as it is now called, bloomingdale hospital. this beautiful elevated site overlooking the hudson river and the harlem river was admirably fitted for its purpose. the spacious tract of land, laid out in walks and gardens, an extensive grove of trees, generous playgrounds and ample greenhouses, combined to give the spot unusual beauty and efficiency. this notable work finished, the governors of the society issued on may , , an "address to the public"[ ] which marks so great an advance in psychiatry in our country that it deserves study. the national character of the institution was indicated in the opening paragraph, where it announced that the asylum would be open for the reception of patients from any part of the united states on the first of the following june. accommodation for patients was provided, and to these new surroundings were removed on that day all the mental cases then under treatment at the new york hospital on lower broadway. in this retired and ideal spot the work of bloomingdale hospital was successfully prosecuted for three-quarters of a century. but the seven miles that separated it from the old hospital was steadily built over, and before fifty years had gone the growth of the city had passed the asylum grounds. foreseeing that they could not maintain that verdant oasis intact for many years longer, the governors, in , bought this -acre tract on the outskirts of the village of white plains. after prolonged consideration of the time and method of development of the property, final plans were adopted in december, , construction was begun may , , and two years later, under the direction of our medical superintendent, dr. samuel b. lyon, all the patients were moved from the old to this new bloomingdale. the cost of the new buildings was about $ , , . from time to time the original bloomingdale site was sold and now supplies room, among other structures, for columbia university, barnard college, the cathedral of st. john the divine, st. luke's hospital, the woman's hospital, and the national academy of design. with the proceeds of those sales of the old bloomingdale, not only was the cost of the new bloomingdale met, but the permanent endowment of the society was substantially increased, and thomas eddy was proved to have been both a wise humanitarian and a far-sighted steward of charitable funds. in their "address to the public" to which i have referred, issued when bloomingdale hospital was opened in , the governors of the society spoke of the new conception of moral treatment of the mentally afflicted which had been established in several european hospitals and which was supplanting the harsh and cruel usage of former days, as "one of the noblest triumphs of pure and enlightened benevolence." in that same spirit those founders dedicated themselves to the conduct of this institution. their devotion to the work was impressive. looking back on those early days we see a constant personal attention to the details of institutional life that commands admiration. the standards then set have become a tradition that has been preserved unbroken for a hundred years. humane methods of care, the progressively best that medical science can devise, the utilization of a growingly productive pursuit of research, have consistently marked the administration of this great trust. the governors of to-day are as determined as any of their predecessors to maintain that ideal of "pure and enlightened benevolence." new paths are opening and larger resources are becoming available. under the guidance of our distinguished medical superintendent, with his able and devoted staff of physicians, a broader and more intensive development is already under way. animated by that resolve and cheered by that prospect, we may thus confidently hope, as we begin the second century of bloomingdale's career, for results not less fruitful and gratifying than those which we celebrate to-day. footnotes: [footnote : address of the governors of the new york hospital, to the public, relative to the asylum for the insane at bloomingdale, new york, may th, . reprinted by bloomingdale hospital press, white plains, may , . see appendix v, p. .] address by dr. adolf meyer _the chairman_: in celebrating our centenary we are naturally dealing also with the larger subject of general psychiatry. our success in this discussion should be materially promoted by the presence with us of dr. adolf meyer, professor of psychiatry in the medical school of johns hopkins university, and director of the phipps psychiatric clinic, of baltimore. before taking up this important work in that famous medical centre, dr. meyer was actively engaged for several years in psychopathic work in new york. he will speak to us on "the contributions of psychiatry to the understanding of life problems." dr. meyer when dr. russell honored me with the invitation to speak at this centenary celebration of the renowned bloomingdale hospital, my immediate impulse was to choose as my topic a phase of psychiatric development to which this hospital has especially contributed through our greatly missed august hoch and his deeply appreciated coworker amsden. i have in mind the great gain in concreteness of the physician's work with mind and the resulting contribution of psychiatry to a better knowledge of human life and its problems. the great gain this passing century is able to hand on to its successor is the clearer recognition of just what the psychiatrist actually works with and works on. of all the divisions of medicine, psychiatry has suffered longest from man's groping for a conception of his own nature. psychiatry means, literally, the healing of souls. what then do we actually mean by soul or by psyche? this question has too long been treated as a disturbing puzzle. to-day we feel that modern psychiatry has found itself--through the discovery that, after all, the uncritical common-sense view of mind and soul is not so far remote from a critical common-sense view of the individual and its life activity, freed from the forbidding and confusing assumptions through which the concept of mind and soul has been held in bewildering awe. strange to say, good old aristotle was nearer an understanding than most of the wise men and women that have succeeded him for these more than two thousand years. he saw in the psyche what he called the form and realization or fulfilment of the human organism; he would probably now say with us, the activity and function as an individual or person. through the disharmonies and inevitable disruption of a self-disorganizing civilization, the greek and roman world was plunged into the dark centuries during which the perils of the soul and the sacrificial attainment of salvation by monastic life and crusades threatened to overshadow all other concern. this had some inevitable results: it favored all those views through which the soul became like a special thing or substance, in contrast to and yet a counterpart of the physical body. as long as there was no objective experimental science, the culminating solution of life problems had to be intrusted to that remarkable development of religious philosophy which arose from the blending of hebrew religion and tradition and the loftiest products of the greek mind, in the form which st. paul and the early church fathers gave to the teachings of christ. from being the form and activation, or function, of the organism in life, the soul feature of man was given an appearance in which it could neither be grasped nor understood, nor shaped, nor guided by man when it got into trouble. from the middle ages there arose an artificial soul and an artificial world of souls presented as being in eternal conflict with the evil of the flesh--_and thus the house of human nature was divided against itself_. science of the nineteenth century came nearer bringing mind and body together again. the new astronomical conception of the world and the growing objective experimental science gradually began to command confidence, and from being a destroyer of excessively dogmatic notions, science began to rise to its modern constructive and creative position. but the problem of _mind_ remained on a wrong basis and still does so even with most scientists. too much had been claimed for the psyche, and because of the singling out of a great world of spirit, the world of fact had been compromised and left cold and dry and unattractive and unpromising. no doubt it was necessary that the scientist should become hardened and weaned from all misleading expectation, and shy of all the spurious claims of sordid superstition and of childish fancy. he may have been unduly radical in cutting out everything that in any way recalled the misleading notions. in the end, we had to go through a stage of psychology without a "soul," and lately even a psychology without "consciousness," so that we might be safe from unscientific pretensions. all the gyrations no doubt tended to retard the wholesome practical attack upon the problems in the form in which we find them in our common-sense life. the first effort at a fresh start tried to explain everything rather one-sidedly out of the meagre knowledge of the body. spinoza had said in his remarkable ethics (iii, prop. ii, schol.): "nobody has thus far determined what the body can do, _i.e._, nobody has as yet shown by experience and trial what the body can do by the laws of nature alone in so far as nature is considered merely as corporeal and extended, and what it cannot do save when determined by mind." this challenge of spinoza's had to be met. with some investigators this seemed very literally all there was to be done about the study of man--to show how far the body could explain the activity we call "the mind." the unfortunate feature was that they thought they had to start with a body not only with mind and soul left out but also with practical disregard of the whole natural setting. they studied little more than corpses and experimental animals, and many a critic wondered how such a corpse or a frog could ever show any mind, normal or abnormal. to get things balanced again, the vision of man had to expand to take a sane and practical view of all of human life--not only of its machinery. the human organism can never exist without its setting in the world. all we are and do is of the world and in the world. the great mistake of an overambitious science has been the desire to study man altogether as a mere sum of parts, if possible of atoms, or now of electrons, and as a machine, detached, by itself, because at least some points in the simpler sciences could be studied to the best advantage with this method of the so-called elementalist. it was a long time before willingness to see the large groups of facts, in their broad relations as well as in their inner structure, finally gave us the concept and vision of integration which now fits man as a live unit and transformer of energy into the world of fact and makes him frankly a consciously integrated psychobiological individual and member of a social group. it is natural enough that man should want to travel on the road he knows and likes best. the philosopher uses his logic and analysis and synthesis. the introspectionist wants to get at the riddle of the universe by crawling into the innermost depth of his own self-scrutiny, even at the risk--to use a homely phrase--of drawing the hole in after him and losing all connection with the objective world. the physicist follows the reverse course. he gives us the appreciation of the objective world around and in us. the chemist follows out the analytic and synthetic possibilities of his atoms and elements, and the biologist the growth and reproduction and multiplication of cells. each sees an open world of possibilities and is ready to follow as far as facts will carry and as far as the imagination will soar. each branch has created its rules of the game culminating in the concept of objective science, and the last set of facts to bring itself under the rules of objective science, and to be accepted, has been man as a unit and personality. the mind and soul of man have indeed had a hard time. to this day, investigators have suffered under the dogma that mind must be treated as purely subjective entity, something that can be studied only by introspection, or at least only with ultra-accurate instruments--always with the idea that common sense is all wrong in its psychology. undoubtedly it was, so long as it spoke of a mind and soul as if what was called so had to be, even during life, mysterious and inaccessible, something quite different from any other fact of natural-history study. the great step was taken when all of life was seen again in its broad relations, without any special theory but frankly as common sense finds it, viz., as the activities and behavior of definite individuals--very much as aristotle had put it--"living organisms in their 'form' or activity and behavior." psychology had to wake up to studying other minds as well as one's own. common sense has always been willing to study other persons besides our own selves, and that exactly as we study single organs--viz., for what they are and do and for the conditions of success and failure. nor do we have to start necessarily from so-called elements. progress cannot be made merely out of details. it will not do merely to pile up fragments and to expect the aggregates to form themselves. it also takes a friend of facts with the capacity for mustering and unifying them, as the general musters his army. biology had to have evolutionists and its darwin to get on a broad basis to start with, and human biology, the life of man, similarly had to be conceived in a new spirit, with a clear recognition of the opportunities for the study of detail about the brain and about the conditions for its working and its proper support, but also with a clear vision of the whole man and all that his happiness and efficiency depend upon. all this evolution is strongly reflected in the actual work of psychiatry and medicine. for a time, it looked to the physician as if the physiology and pathology of the body had to make it their ambition to make wholly unnecessary what traditional psychology had accumulated, by turning it all into brain physiology. the "psychological" facts involved were undoubtedly more difficult to control, so much so that one tried to cut them out altogether. as if foreshadowing the later academic "psychology without soul and consciousness," the venerable superintendent of utica, dr. gray, was very proud when in he had eliminated the "mental and moral causes" from his statistics of the utica state hospital, hiding behind the dogma that "mind cannot become diseased, but only the body." to-day "mental and moral causes" are recognized again in truer form--no longer as mere ideas and uninvestigated suppositions taken from uncritical histories, but as concrete and critically studied life situations and life factors and life problems. our patients are not sick merely in an abstract mind, but by actually living in ways which put their mind and the entire organism and its activity in jeopardy, and we are now free to see how this happens--since we study the biography and life history, the resources of adaptation and of shaping the life to success or to failure. the study of life problems always concerns itself with the interaction of an individual organism with life situations. the first result of a recognition of this fact was a more whole-hearted and practical concept of personality. in i put together for the first time my analysis of the neurotic personality, which was soon followed by a series of studies on the influences of the mental factors, and in a paper on "what do histories of cases of insanity teach us concerning preventive mental hygiene during the years of school life?" all this was using for psychiatry the growing appreciation of a broad biological view-point in its concrete application. it was a reaction against the peculiar fear of studying the facts of life simply and directly as we find and experience them--scoffed at because it looked as if one was not dealing with dependable and effective data. many of the factors mentioned as causes do not have the claimed effects with sufficient regularity. it is quite true that not everybody is liable to any serious upset by several of the handicaps sometimes found to be disastrous during the years of development; but we have learned to see more clearly why the one person does and the other does not suffer. evidently, not everybody who is reserved and retiring need be in danger of mental disorder, yet there are persons of just this type of make-up that are less able than others to stand the strains of isolation, of inferiority feeling, of exalted ambitions and one-sided longings, intolerable desires, etc. the same individual difference of susceptibility holds even for alcohol. with this recognition we came to lay stress again on the specific factors which make for the deterioration of habits, for tantrums with imaginations, and for drifting into abnormal behavior, and conditions incompatible with health. it was at this point that our great indebtedness to the bloomingdale hospital began. dr. august hoch, then first assistant of the bloomingdale hospital, began to swing more and more toward the psychobiological trend of views, and with his devoted and very able friend amsden he compiled that remarkable outline,[ ] which was the first attempt to reduce the new ideals of psychobiology to a practical scheme of personality study--that clear and plain questionnaire going directly at human traits and reactions such as we all know and can see at work without any special theories or instruments. after studying in each patient all the non-mental disorders such as infections, intoxications, and the like, we can now also attack the problems of life which can be understood only in terms of plain and intelligible human relations and activities, and thus we have learned to meet on concrete ground the real essence of mind and soul--the plain and intelligible human activities and relations to self and others. there are in the life records of our patients certain ever-returning tendencies and situations which a psychiatry of exclusive brain speculation, auto-intoxications, focal infections, and internal secretions could never have discovered. much is gained by the frank recognition that man is fundamentally a social being. there are reactions in us which only contacts and relations with other human beings can bring out. we must study men as mutual reagents in personal affections and aversions and their conflicts; in the desires and satisfactions of the simpler appetites for food and personal necessities; in the natural interplay of anticipation and fulfilment of desires and their occasional frustration; in the selection of companionship which works helpfully or otherwise--for the moment or more lastingly throughout the many vicissitudes of life. all through we find situations which create a more or less personal bias and chances for success or failure, such as simpler types of existence do not produce. they create new problems, and produce some individuals of great sensitiveness and others with immunity--and in this great field nothing will replace a simple study of the life factors and the social and personal life problems and their working--the study of the real mind and the real soul--_i.e._, human life itself. looking back then this practical turn has changed greatly the general view as to what should be the chief concern of psychology. one only need take up a book on psychology to see what a strong desire there always was to contrast a pure psychology and an applied psychology, and to base a new science directly on the new acquisitions of the primary sciences such as anatomy and histology of the nervous system. there was a quest for the elements of mind and their immediate correlation with the latest discoveries in the structure of the brain. the centre theory and the cell and neurone theory seemed obligatory starting-points. to-day we have become shy of such postulates of one-sided not sufficiently functional materialism. we now call for an interest in psychobiological facts in terms of critical common sense and in their own right--largely a product of psychiatry. there always is a place for elements, but there certainly is also a place for the large momentous facts of human life just as we find and live it. thus psychiatry has opened to us new conceptions and understandings of the relation of child and mother, child and father, the child as a reagent to the relations between mother and father, brothers and sisters, companions and community--in the competitions of real concrete life. it has furnished a concrete setting for the interplay of emotions and their effects. it has led us from a cold dogma of blind heredity and a wholesale fatalistic asylum scheme, to an understanding of individual, familiar, and social adjustments, and a grasp on the factors which we can consider individually and socially modifiable. we have passed from giving mere wholesale advice to a conscientious study of the problems of each unit, and at the same time we have developed a new and sensible approach to mental hygiene and prevention, as expressed in the comprehensive surveys of state and community work and even more clearly in the development of helps to individuals in finding themselves, and in the work in schools to reach those who need a special adaptation of aims and means. to the terrible emergency of the war it was possible to bring experienced men and women as physicians and nurses, and how much was done, only those can appreciate who have seen the liberality with which all the hospitals, and bloomingdale among the first, contributed more than their quota of help, and all the assistance that could possibly be offered to returning victims for their readjustment. it is natural enough that psychiatry should have erred in some respects. we had forced upon us the herding together of larger numbers of patients than can possibly be handled by one human working unit or working group. the consequence was that there arose a narrowing routine and wholesale classifications and a loss of contact with the concrete needs of the individual case; that very often progress had to come from one-sided enthusiasts or even outsiders, who lost the sense of proportion and magnified points of relative importance until they were supposed to explain everything and to be cure-alls. we are all inclined to sacrifice at the altar of excessive simplicity, especially when it suits us; we become "single-taxers" and favor wholesale legislation and exclusive state care when our sense for democratic methods has gone astray. human society has dealt with the great needs of psychiatry about as it has dealt with the objects of charity, only in some ways more stingily, with a shrewd system and unfortunately often with a certain dread of the workers themselves and of their enthusiasm and demands. law and prejudice surrounded a great share of the work with notions of stigma and hopelessness and weirdness--while to those who see the facts in terms of life problems there can be but few more inspiring tasks than watching the unfolding of the problematic personality, seeking and finding its proper settings, and preventing the clashes and gropings in maladjustments and flounderings of fancy and the faulty use and nutrition of the brain and of the entire organism. what a difference between the history of a patient reported and studied and advised by the well-trained psychiatrist of to-day and the account drawn up by the statistically minded researcher or the physician who wants to see nothing but infections or chemistry and hypotheses of internal secretion. what a different chance for the patient in his treatment, in contrast to what the venerable galt of virginia reports as the conception of treatment recommended by a great leader of a hundred years ago: "mania in the first stage, if caused by study, requires separation from books. low diet and a few gentle doses of purging physic; if pulse tense, ten or twelve ounces of blood [not to be given but to be taken!]. in the high grade, catch the patient's eye and look him out of countenance. be always dignified. never laugh at or with them. be truthful. meet them with respect. act kindly toward them in their presence. if these measures fail, coercion if necessary. tranquillizing chair. strait waistcoat. pour cold water down their sleeves. the shower bath for fifteen or twenty minutes. threaten them with death. chains seldom and the whip never required. twenty to forty ounces of blood, unless fainting occurs previously; ... etc." to-day an understanding of the life history, of the patient's somatic and functional assets and problems, likes and dislikes, the problem presented by the family, etc.! so much for the change within and for psychiatry. how about psychiatry's contribution beyond its own narrower sphere? it has led us on in philosophy, it has brought about changes in our attitude to ethics, to social study, to religion, to law, and to life in general. psychiatric work has undoubtedly intensified the hunger for a more objective and yet melioristic and really idealistic philosophical conception of reality, such as has been formulated in the modern concept of integration. philosophical tradition, logic, and epistemology alike had all conspired to make as great a puzzle as possible of the nature of mental life, of life itself, and of all the fundamental principles, so much so that as a result anything resembling or suggesting philosophy going beyond the ordinary traditions has got into poor repute in our colleges and universities and among those of practical intelligence. the consequence is that the student and the physician are apt to be hopeless and indifferent concerning any effort at orderly thinking on these problems.[ ] most of us grew up with the attitude of a fatalistic intellectual hopelessness. how could we ever be clear on the relation of mind and body? how could mind and soul ever arise out of matter? how can we harmonize strict science with what we try to do in our treatment of patients? how can we, with our mechanistic science, speak of effort, and of will to do better? how can we meet the invectives against the facts of matter on the part of the opposing idealistic philosophies and their uncritical exploitations in "new thought"--_i.e._, really the revival of archaic thought? it is not merely medical usefulness that forced these broad issues on many a thinking physician, but having to face the facts all the time in dealing with a living human world. the psychopathologist had to learn to do more than the so-called "elementalist" who always goes back to the elements and smallest units and then is apt to shirk the responsibility of making an attempt to solve the concrete problems of greater complexity. the psychiatrist has to study individuals and groups as wholes, as complex units, as the "you" or "he" or "she" or "they" we have to work with. we recognize that throughout nature we have to face the general principle of unit-formation, and the fact that the new units need not be like a mere sum of the component parts but can be an actually new entity not wholly predictable from the component parts and known only through actual experience with the specific product. hydrogen and oxygen, it is true, can form simple mixtures, but when they make an actual chemical integration we get a new specific type of substance, water, behaving and dividing according to its own laws and properties in a way not wholly predictable from just what we know of hydrogen and oxygen as such. analogy prompts us to see in plants and animals products of physics and chemistry and organization, although the peculiarity of the product makes us recognize certain specificities of life not contained in the theory of mere physics and chemistry. all the facts of experience prompt us to see in mentation a biological function, and we are no longer surprised to find this product of integration so different from the nature and functions of all the component parts. all the apparent discontinuities in the intrinsic harmony of facts, on the one hand, and the apparent impossibility of accounting for new features and peculiarities of the new units, are shown to be a general feature of nature and of facts: integration is not mere summation, but a creation of ever-new types and units, with superficial discontinuities and with their own new denominators of special peculiarities; hence there is no reason to think of an insurmountable and unique feature in the origin of life, nor even of mentally integrated life; no need of special mystical sparks of life, of a mysterious spirit, etc.; but--and this is the important point--also no need of denying the existence of all the evidence there may be of facts which we imply when we use the deeply felt concepts of mind and soul. in other words, we do not have to be mind-shy nor body-shy any longer. the inevitable problem of having to study other persons as well as ourselves necessarily leads us on to efforts at solution of other philosophical problems, the problem of integrating materialism and idealism, mechanism and relative biological determinism and purpose, etc. man has to live with the laws of physics and chemistry unbroken and in harmony with all that is implied in the laws of heredity and growth and function of a biological organism. yet what might look like a limitation is really his strength and safe foundation and stability. on this ground, man's biological make-up has a legitimate sphere of growth and expansion shared by no other type of being. we pass into every new moment of time with a preparedness shown in adaptive and constructive activity as well as structure, most plastic and far-reaching in the greatest feat of man, that of imagination. imagination is not a mere duplication of reality in consciousness and subjectivity; it is a substitute in a way, but actually an amplification, and often a real addition to what we might otherwise call the "crude world," integrated in the real activities of life, a new creation, an ever-new growth, seen in its most characteristic form in choice and in any new volition. hence the liberating light which integration and the concepts of growth and time throw on the time-honored problem of absolute and relative determinism and on the relation of an ultra-strict "science" with common sense. in logic, too, we are led to special assertions. we are forced to formulate "open definitions," _i.e._, we have to insist on the open formulation of tendencies rather than "closed definitions." we deal with rich potentialities, never completely predictable. this background and the demands of work in guiding ourselves and others thus come to lead us also into practical ethics, with a new conception of the relation of actual and experimental determinism and of what "free will" we may want to speak of, with a new emphasis on the meaning of choice, of effort, and of new creation out of new possibilities presented by the ever-newly-created opportunities of ever-new time. we get a right to the type of voluntaristic conception of man which most of us live by--with a reasonable harmony between our science and our pragmatic needs and critical common sense. the extent to which we can be true to the material foundations and yet true to a spiritual goal, ultimately measures our health and natural normality and the value of our morality. _nature shapes her aims according to her means._ would that every man might realize this simple lesson and maxim--there would be less call for a rank and wanton hankering for relapses into archaic but evidently not wholly outgrown tendencies to the assumption of "omnipotence of thought," revived again from time to time as "new thought." psychiatry restores to science and to the practical mind the right to reinclude rationally and constructively what a narrower view of science has, for a time at least, handed over unconditionally to uncritical fancy. but the only way to make unnecessary astrology and phrenology and playing with mysticism and with oliver lodge's fancies of the revelation of his son raymond, is to recognize the true needs and yearnings of man and to show nature's real ways of granting appetites and satisfactions that are wholesome. hereby we have indeed a contribution to biologically sound idealism: a clearer understanding of how to blend fact and ambition, nature and ideal--an ability to think scientifically and practically and yet idealistically of matters of real life. to come back to more concrete problems again, a wider grasp of what psychiatry may well furnish us helps toward a new ethical goal in our social conscience. the nineteenth century brought us the boon and the bane of industrialism. more and more of the pleasures and satisfactions of creation and production and of the natural rewards of the daily labor drifted away from the sight and control of the worker, who now rarely sees the completed result of his work as the farmer or the artisan used to do. few workers have the experience of getting satisfaction from direct pride in the end result; as soon as the product is available, a set of traders carries it to the markets and a set of financiers determines, in fact may already have determined, the reward--just as the reward of the farmer is often settled for him by astounding speculations long before the crop is at hand. there is a field for a new conscience heeding the needs of fundamental satisfactions of man so well depicted by carlton parker, and psychiatric study furnishes much concrete material for this new conscience in industrial relations--with a better knowledge of the human needs of all the participants in the great game of economic life. psychiatry gives us also a new appreciation of the religious life and needs of our race. man's religion shows in his capacity to feel and grasp his relations and responsibility toward the largest unit or force he can conceive, and his capacity for faith and hope in a deeper and more lasting interdependence of individual and race with the ruler or rules of the universe. whatever form it may take expresses his capacity to feel himself in humility and faith, and yet with determination, a more or less responsible part of the greatest unit he can grasp. the form this takes is bound to vary individually. as physicians we learn to respect the religious views of our fellow beings, whatever they may be; because we are sure that we have the essentials in common; and with this emphasis on what we have in common, we can help in attaining the individually highest attainable truth without having to be destructive. we all recognize relations that go beyond individual existence, lasting and "more than biological" relations, and it is the realization of these conceptions intellectually and emotionally true to our individual and group nature that constitutes our various religions and faiths. emphasizing what we have in common, we become tolerant of the idea that probably the points on which we differ are, after all, another's best way of expressing truths which our own nature may picture differently but would not want to miss in, or deny to, the other. one of the evidences of the great progress of psychiatry is that we have learned to be more eager to see what is sane and strong and constructively valuable even in the strange notions of our patients, and less eager to call them queer and foolish. a delusion may contain another person's attempt at stating truth. the goal of psychiatry and of sound common sense is truth free of distortion. many a strange religious custom and fancy has been brought nearer our understanding and appreciation since we have learned to respect the essential truth and individual and group value of fancy and feeling even in the myths and in the religious conceptions of all races. among the most interesting formulations and potential contributions of psychiatry are those reaching out toward jurisprudence. psychiatry deals pre-eminently with the variety and differences of human personalities. to correct or supplement a human system apparently enslaved by concern about precedent and baffling rules of evidence inherited from the days of cruel and arbitrary kings, the demand for justice has called for certain remedies. psychiatry still plays a disgraceful rôle in the so-called expert testimony, largely a prostitution of medical authority in the service of legal methods. yet, out of it all there has arisen the great usefulness of the psychiatrist in the juvenile and other courts. there it is shown that if psychiatry is to help, it should be taken for granted that the person indicted on a charge should thereby become subject to a complete and unreserved study of all the facts, subject to cross-examination, to be sure, but before all accessible to complete and unreserved study. this would mean a substantial participation of law in the promotion of knowledge of facts and constructive activity, and a conception of indeterminate sentence not merely in the service of leniency but in the service of the best protection of the public, and, if necessary, lasting detention of those who cannot be reformed, before they have had to do their worst. whoever is clearly indicted for breaking the laws of social compatibility should not merely invite a spirit of revenge, but should, through the indictment, surrender automatically to legalized authority endowed with the right and duty of an unlimited investigation of the facts as they are. looking back then, you can see how the history of the human thought about what we call mind and psyche displayed some strange reactions of the practical man, the scientist, the philosopher, and theologian toward one of the most important and practical problems. it is difficult to realize what it means to arrive at ever-more-workable formulations and methods of approach. we do not have to be mind-shy _or_ body-shy any longer. to-day we can attack the facts as we find them, without that disturbing obsession of having to translate them first into something artificial before we can really study them and work with them. since we have reached a sane pluralism with a justifiable conviction of the fundamental consistency of it all, a satisfaction with what we modestly call formulation rather than definition and with an appreciation of relativity, we have at last an orderly and natural field and method from which nobody need shy. the century that has passed since the inspiration of a few men of the society of the new york hospital to provide for the mentally sick has cleared the atmosphere a great deal. we can start the second century freer and unhampered in many ways. much has been added, and more than ever do we appreciate the position of just such a hospital as that of bloomingdale as a centre of healing and as a leader of public opinion and as a contributor to progress. the bloomingdale hospital has a remarkable function. it is a more or less privileged forerunner in standards and policies. without having to carry the burdens of the whole state with its sweeping and sometimes distant power and its forced economy, a semiprivate hospital like bloomingdale aims to minister to a slightly select group, especially those who are in the difficult position of greater sensitiveness but moderate means in days of sickness. it serves the part of our community which more than any other sets the pace of the civilization about us--the intelligent aspiring workers who may not have reached the goal of absolute financial independence. it creates the standard of which we may dream that it might become the standard of the whole state. when we review the roster of superintendents--from john neilson to pliny earle and from charles nichols, tilden brown, and samuel lyon down to the present head, our highly esteemed friend and coworker william l. russell--and the names of the members of the staff, many of whom have reached the highest places in the profession, and last, but not least, the names of the governors of the society of the new york hospital, we cannot help being impressed by the forceful representation of both the profession and the public, and we recognize the wide range of influence. instead of depending on frequently changing policies regulated from the outside under the influence of the greater and lesser lights and exigencies of state and municipal organization, the new york hospital has its self-perpetuating body of governors chosen from the most public-spirited and thoughtful representatives of our people. bloomingdale thus has always had a remarkable board of governors, who, from contact with the general hospital and with this special division, are in an unusual position to see the practical aspects of the great change that is now taking place. you see how the division of psychiatry has developed from practically a detention-house to an asylum, and finally to a hospital with all the medical equipment and laboratories of the general hospital. and you begin to see psychiatry, with its methods of study and management of life problems as well as of specific brain diseases, infections, and gastrointestinal and endocrine conditions, become more and more helpful, even a necessity, in the wards and dispensary of the general hospital on th street. the layman cannot, perhaps, delve profitably into the details of such a highly and broadly specialized type of work. but he can readily take a share in the best appreciation of the general philosophy and policy of it all. the shaping of the policy of a semiprivate hospital is not quite as simple as shaping that of a state hospital with its well-defined districts and geographically marked zones of responsibility. bloomingdale has its sphere of influence marked by qualitative selection rather than by a formal consideration. it does not pose as an invidious contrast to the state hospital, and yet it is intended to solve in a somewhat freer and more privileged manner the problem of providing for the mentally sick of a more or less specific hospital constituency, the constituency of the new york hospital; and since it reaches the most discriminating and thinking part of our population, it has the most wonderful opportunity to shape public opinion. like all psychiatrical institutions, it has to live down the traditional notions of the half-informed public; it has to make conspicuous the change of spirit and the better light in which we see our field and responsibilities. this organization can show that it is not mere insanity but the working out of life problems that such a hospital as this is concerned with. the conditions for which it cares are many. some of them are all that which tradition and law stamp as insanity. but see what a change. seventy-five per cent of the patients are voluntary admissions; and more and more will be able to use the helps when they begin to feel the need, not merely when it becomes an enforced necessity. by creating for this hospital a liberal foundation, by completing its equipment so as to make possible a free exchange of patients and of workers from the hospital in the city and this place in the country, much has been done and more will be done to set a living example of the very spirit of modern psychopathology and psychiatry. we know now that from to per cent of the patients of the gynecologist, the gastroenterologist, and the internist generally would be better treated if a study of the life problems were added to that of the special organs and functions. to meet this need it should be possible to have enough workers in this branch of the hospital to take their share of the consulting and co-operation work in the wards and dispensary of the general hospital, and perhaps even in the schools provided for the same type of people from which you draw your patients. the grouping of the patients can be such that the old prejudices need not reach far into the second century of the life of the hospital. with a man of the vision and practical experience of dr. russell, there is no need for an outsider to conjure up a picture of special practical achievements as i have done of the more general principles to-day. an institution is more than a human life. many ambitions combine and become part of a group spirit permeating the organization and reaching their fulfilment in the succession of leaders. the life and growth and happy self-realization of an institution is not the bricks and mortar--it is a living and elastic entity--never too stable, never too finished, a growing and plastic plant--to use a metaphor that has slipped in perhaps without arousing all the implications the term plant might carry and does carry. some years ago my wife celebrated her birthday and told her colored cook jocosely: "geneva, i am a hundred years old to-day." the cook's jaw dropped and then she suddenly remarked: "lord! you don't look dat ole." that is the way i feel about bloomingdale hospital as we see it to-day pulsating with ever-fresh life and ever-fresh problems! how different from a simple human being, after all! the heart and wisdom of many a man and woman has gone into the perpetuation of what a few thoughtful men started in and the result is that it is ever renewing its youth. many a dream has been realized and many a dream has given way to another. here and there the past may make itself felt too much. but the spirit and its growth show in recruiting ever-new lives to meet the present day and the days to come, and this all the more so if we can show the younger generation that every effort is likely to have its reasonable direct support. we all want a man like dr. william l. russell to have the fullest opportunity to bring to its best expression the rich and well-tried wisdom of over twenty-five years of devoted work in the field. this is no doubt a time of stress when many personal and general sacrifices may be needed to bring about the fruition and culmination of the labors of the present generation. yet is it not a clear opportunity and duty, so that those who are growing up in the ranks to-day may really be encouraged to get a solid training, always animated by the conviction that one can be sure of the practical reward for toiling through the many years of preparation in a psychiatric career, whether it be as a physician or as a nurse or as an administrator? i cannot help feeling as i stand here that i am in a way representing not only my own sentiments and convictions but those of our dear old friend hoch. we all wish that he might be with us to express himself the warm feelings toward the bloomingdale hospital and its active representatives, from the managers to the humblest workers. hoch in his modesty could probably not have been brought to state fully and frankly his own share in the achievements of this hospital. but i know how much he would have liked to be here to express especially the warmth of appreciation we all entertain of what our friend william l. russell means to us and has meant to us all through the nearly twenty-five years of our friendship and of working together. we delight in seeing him bring to further fruition the admirable work he did at willard, and later for all the state hospitals; and that which we see him do at all times for sanity in the progress of practical psychiatry, and now especially in the guidance of this institution. we delight in seeing his master mind given more and more of a master's chance for the practical expression of his ideals and convictions concerning the duties and opportunities of such a hospital as bloomingdale. our thanks and best wishes to those who invited us to stand here to-day at the cradle of a second century of bloomingdale hospital! it is a noteworthy gathering that joins here in good wishes to those who have shaped this ever-new bloomingdale. with a tribute to our thoughtful and enthusiastic friend in internal medicine, lewellys f. barker, to our english coworker, richard g. rows, to the illustrious champion of french psychopathology, pierre janet, to our friend and leader in practical psychiatry, william l. russell, to our friends and coworkers of the bloomingdale staff, and especially also to the board of governors who shape the policy and control the finances, and exercise the leadership of public opinion, i herewith express my sincerest thanks and best wishes. footnotes: [footnote : a guide to the descriptive study of the personality, with special reference to the taking of anamneses of cases with psychoses, by dr. august hoch and dr. george s. amsden.] [footnote : see, for instance, moebius, the hopelessness of all psychology, reviewed in the psychological bulletin, vol. iv, , pp. - .] address by dr. lewellys f. barker _the chairman_:--the johns hopkins medical school lends us also to-day dr. lewellys f. barker, its professor of clinical medicine. dr. barker has done so much to define and settle the contradictions of mind and matter, and has clarified so much, and in fields so varied, as teacher, research worker, and practitioner, that we welcome this opportunity of listening to his discussion of "the importance of psychiatry in general medical practice." dr. barker we have met to-day to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the founding of a hospital that, in its simpler beginnings and in its evolution to the complex and highly organized activities of the present, has served an eminently practical purpose and has played an important rôle in the development of the science and art of psychiatry in america. i desire, as a representative of general medicine, and, especially, of internal medicine, to add, on this occasion, my congratulations to those of the spokesmen of other groups, and, at the same time to express the hope that this institution, historically so significant for the century just past, may maintain its relative influence and reputation in the centuries to come. the interest taken in psychiatry by the general practitioner and by the consulting internist has been growing rapidly of late. some of the reasons for this growth of interest and heightening of appreciation i have drawn attention to on an earlier occasion.[ ] psychiatry as a whole was for a long time as widely separated from general medicine as penology is to-day, and for similar reasons. it was a long time before persons that manifested extraordinary abnormalities of thought, feeling, and behavior were regarded as deserving medical study and care, and even when a humanitarian movement led to their transfer from straight-jackets, chains, and prison cells to "asylums for the insane," these institutions were, for practical reasons, so divorced from the homes of the people and from general hospitals that psychiatry had, and could at the time have, but little intercourse with general medicine or with general society. mental disorders were moral and legal problems rather than biological, social, and medical problems. their genesis was wholly misunderstood, and legal, medical, social, religious, and philosophic prejudices went far toward preventing any rational scientific mode of approach to the questions involved or any formulation of investigative procedures that promised to be fruitful. even to-day the same prejudices are all too inhibitory; but thanks to the unprecedented development of the natural sciences during the period since this hospital was founded, we are witnessing, in our time, a rapid transformation of thought and opinion concerning both the normal and the disordered mind, a transformation that is reaching all circles of human beings, bidding fair to compel the strongholds of tradition and prejudice to relax, and inviting the whole-hearted co-operation of workers in all fields in a common task of overcoming some of the greatest difficulties by which civilization and human progress are confronted. and though the brunt of this task is borne and must be borne by the shoulders of medical men, physicians assume the burden cheerfully, now that they know that they can count upon the intelligent support and the cordial sympathy of an ever-enlarging extra-medical aggregate. no better illustration could be given, perhaps, of the change in the status of psychiatry in this country and in the world than the contents of the programme of our meeting to-day at which a distinguished investigator from london tells us of the biological significance of mental disorders, an eminent authority from paris explains the relationship between certain diseases of the nervous system and these disorders, and a leading psychiatrist of this country speaks upon the contributions of psychiatry to the understanding of the problems of life. psychiatry, like each of the other branches of medicine, has come to be recognized as one of the subdivisions of the great science of biology, free to make use of the scientific method, in duty bound to diffuse the knowledge that it gains, and privileged to contribute abundantly to the lessening of human suffering and the enhancement of human joys. general practitioners of medicine and medical specialists--at least the more enlightened of them--welcome the developing science of psychiatry, are eager to hasten its progress, and will gladly share in applying its discoveries to the early diagnosis, the cure, and the prevention of disease. that the majority of medical and surgical specialists and even most of the widely experienced general practitioners, though constantly coming in contact with major and minor psychic disturbances, are, however, still far from realizing the full meaning and value of the principles and technic of modern psychology and of the newer psychiatry must, i fear, be frankly admitted.[ ] but dare we blame these practitioners for their ignorance of, apathy regarding, and even antipathy to, the psychic and especially the psychotic manifestations of their patients? ought we not rather to try to understand the reasons for this ignorance, this apathy, and this aversion, all three of which seem astonishing to many of our well-trained psychologists and psychopathologists? are there not definite conditions that explain and at least partially excuse the defects in knowledge and interest and the errors in attitude manifested by those whom we would be glad to see cognizant and enthusiastically participant? psychiatrists, who have taught us to understand and rescue various types of "sinners" and "social offenders" will, i feel sure, avoid any moralistic attitude when discussing the shortcomings of their brethren in the general medical profession, and will, instead, seek to discover and to remove their causes. as an internist who values highly the gifts that modern psychology and psychiatry have been making to medicine, i have given some thought to the conditions and causes that may be responsible for these professional delinquencies that you deplore. though this is not the time nor the place fully to discuss them, the mere mention of some of the causes and conditions will, perhaps, contribute to comprehension and pardon, and may serve to stimulate us all to livelier corrective activity. let me enumerate some of them: ( ) a social stigma still attaches, despite all our efforts to abolish it, to mental disorders and has, to a certain extent, been transferred to those that study and treat patients manifesting these disorders. ( ) the organization of our general education is very defective since it fails to make clear to each student man's place in the universe and any orderly view of the world and man; it fails adequately to enlighten the student regarding the processes of life as adaptations of organisms to their environment, man, himself, being such an organism reacting physically and psychically to his surroundings in ways either favorable or unfavorable to his own preservation and that of his species; it fails to teach the student that the human organism represents a bundle of instincts each with its knowing, its feeling, and its striving component, that what we call "knowledge" and what we call "character" are gradual developments in each person, and that if we know how they have developed in a particular person we possess clues to the way that person will react under a given stimulus, that is to say, what he will think, how he will feel, and how he will act; and it fails, again, properly to instruct students regarding the interrelationships of members of different social groups (familial, civic, economic, occupational, ethical, national, racial, etc.); in other words, our general educational organization is as yet far from successful in inculcating philosophical, biological, psychological, and sociological conceptions that are adequate symbols of reality. ( ) though our medical schools have made phenomenal advances in the organization and equipment of their institutes and in provision for teaching and research in a large number of preclinical and clinical sciences, they have up to now almost wholly ignored normal psychology, psychiatry, and mental hygiene. the majority of the professors in these schools are so absorbed by the morphological, physical, and chemical aspects of their subjects, that students rarely get from them any inkling of the psychobiological aspect, any adequate knowledge of human motives, or any satisfactory data regarding human behavior, normal or abnormal.[ ] it is only recently and only in a few schools that psychiatric clinics have been established as parts of the teaching hospitals, that medical students have been able to come into direct contact over an appreciable period of time with the objects of psychiatric study, that the psychic manifestations of patients have received any direct and particular attention in the general medical and surgical wards, and that there has been any free and constant reciprocal exchange of thought and opinion between students of the somatic on the one hand and students of the psychic on the other. ( ) the language of the psychiatrist is unique and formidable. the names he has applied to motives and impulses, to symptoms and syndromes, are foreign to the tongue of the general practitioner who is so awed by them that he withdraws from them and remains humbly reticent in a state of enomatophobia; or, if he be more tough-minded, he may be amused by, or contemptuous of, what he refers to as "psychiatric jargon" or "pseudoscientific gibberish." there is, furthermore, a dearth of concise, authoritative, well-written text-books on psychiatry, and the general medical journals rarely print psychiatric papers designed to interest the average practitioner. the most widely diffused psychiatric reports of our time are the sensational news items of the daily press. ( ) the overemphasis of psychogenetic factors to the apparent neglect of important somatogenic factors by some psychiatrists has tended to arouse suspicion regarding the soundness of the opinions and methods of psychiatric workers in the minds of men thoroughly imbued with mechanistic conceptions and impressed with the results of medical researches based upon them. the ardor of the psychoanalysts, also, though in part doubtless justified by experience, has, it is to be feared, excited a certain amount of antipathy among the uninitiated. ( ) the fears of insanity prevalent among the laity and the repugnance of patients to any idea that they may be "psychotic" or "psychoneurotic" (words that, in their opinion, refer to "imaginary symptoms," or to symptoms that they could abolish if they would but "buck up" and exert their "wills") undoubtedly exert a reflex influence upon practitioners who put the "soft pedal" on the psychobiological reactions and "pull out the stop" that amplifies the significance of any abnormal physical findings. ( ) psychotherapy, to the mind of the average medical practitioner, is (or has been) something mysterious or occult. he uses much psychotherapy himself but it is nearly always applied unconsciously and indirectly through some form of physical or chemical therapy that he believes will cure. he is usually quite devoid of insight into the effect of his own expressed beliefs and bodily attitudes upon the adjusting mechanisms of his patients. conscious and direct psychotherapy is left by the average practitioner to new thoughters, christian scientists, quacks, and charlatans. if he were to use psychotherapy consciously and were to receive a professional fee for it he would feel that he was being paid for a value that the patient had not received. a highly respected colleague once privately criticised a paper of mine (read before the association of american physicians) on the importance of psychotherapy. "what you said is true," he remarked; "we all use psychotherapy but we are a little ashamed of it; and it is better not to talk about it." even he did not realize that every psychotherapy is also a physical therapy. ( ) the rise of specialism, through division of labor and intensification of interests restricted to limited fields, in practical medicine, the necessary result and to a large extent also a cause of the rapid growth of knowledge and technic has brought with it many advantages, but also some special difficulties, among them (a) the impossibility any longer of any single practitioner, unaided, to study and treat a patient as well as he can be studied and treated by a co-ordinated group whose special analytical studies in single domains are adequately synthesized by a competent integrator, and (b) in the absence of such group work, the tendency to one-sided study, partial diagnosis, and incomplete and unsatisfactory therapy. through the rise of specialism, it is true, psychiatry itself has arisen and the psychiatrist, like the skilled integrating internist, is interested in the synthesis of the findings in all domains, for only through such synthetic studies, such integration of the functional activities of the whole organism, is it possible to gain a global view of the patient as a person, to make a complete somatic, psychic, and social diagnosis, and to plan a regimen for him that will ensure the best adjustment possible of his internal and external relationships.[ ] working in a diagnostic group myself as an integrating internist, i have been much helped by the reports of personality studies made by skilful psychiatrists; these are linked with the special reports on the several bodily domains (cardiovascular, respiratory, hæmic, dental, digestive, urogenital, locomotor, neural, metabolic, and endocrine) in order finally to arrive at an adequately co-ordinated and (subordinated) total diagnosis from which the clues for an appropriate therapeutic regimen can safely be drawn. if group practice is to grow and be successful in this country, as i think likely, groups must see to it that psychiatry, as well as the other medical and surgical specialties, is properly represented in their make-up.[ ] from now on, too, general practitioners should, as southard emphasized, be urged to be at least as familiar with the general principles and methods of the psychiatrist as they are with those of the gynecologist, the dermatologist, and the pædiatrist.[ ] well organized group-diagnosis and general will then help to counteract the inhibiting influence of earlier isolated specialism upon the appreciation of psychiatry. this enumeration of some of the causes of the ignorance and apathy (existent hitherto) in the general profession regarding psychiatry may perhaps suffice as explanation. these causes are, fortunately, rapidly being removed. we are entering upon an era in which psychiatry will be recognized as one of the most important specialties in medicine, an era that will demand alliance and close communion among psychiatrists, internists, and the representatives of the various medical and surgical specialties. the internist and the psychiatrist will ever have a common interest in the obscure problems of etiology and pathogenesis of diseases and anomalies that are accompanied by abnormalities of thought, feeling, and behavior. progress in this direction is bound to be slow for the studies are exceptionally complex and there are many impediments to be removed. though the problems are deep and difficult, they are doubtless soluble by the mind of man, and they exert an uncommon fascination upon those who visualize them. causes may be internal or external, and are often a combination of both. the tracing of the direct and indirect relationships between these causes and the abnormal cerebral functioning upon which the disturbances of psychobiological adjustment seem to depend is the task of pathogenesis. the internist who has studied the infantile cerebropathies with their resulting imbecilities, syphilis followed by general paresis, typhoid fever and its toxic delirium, chronic alcoholism with its characteristic psychoses, cerebral thrombosis with its aphasias, agnosias, and apraxias, thalmic syndromes due to vascular lesions with their unilateral pathological feeling-tone, frontal-lobe tumors with joke-making, uncus tumors with hallucinations of taste and smell, lethargic encephalitis with its disturbance of the general consciousness and its psychoneurotic sequelæ (lesions in the globus pallidus and their motor consequences), pulmonary tuberculosis with its euphoria, and endocrinopathies like myxoedema and exophthalmic goitre with their pathological mental states, is encouraged to proceed with his clinical-pathological-etiological studies in full assurance that they will steadily contribute to advances in psychiatry. the eclectic psychiatrist who is examining mental symptoms and symptom-complexes ever more critically, who is seeking for parallel disturbances in physiological processes and who considers both psychogenesis and somatogenesis in attempting to account for psychobiological maladjustments will welcome, we can feel sure, any help that internal medicine and general and special pathology can yield. these studies in pathogenesis and etiology are fundamentally necessary for the development of a rational therapy and prophylaxis. already much that is of applicable value in practice has been achieved. the internist shares with the psychiatrist the desire that knowledge of the facts regarding care, cure, and prevention of mental disorders may become widely disseminated among medical men and at least to some extent among the laity. experts in psychiatry firmly believe that at least half of the mental disturbances now prevalent could have been prevented, if, during the childhood and adolescence of those afflicted, the facts and principles of existing knowledge and the practical resources now available could have been applied. we have recently had an excellent illustration of the benefits of applied psychiatry in the remarkable results achieved during the great war through the activities of the head of the neuropsychiatric division of the surgeon general's office and his staff[ ] and those of the senior consultant in neuropsychiatry and his divisional associates in the american expeditionary force. in no other body of recruits and in no other army than the american was a comparable success arrived at, and the credit for this is due to american applied psychiatry and its wisely chosen official representatives. the active campaign for the preservation of the mental health of our people and for a better understanding and care of persons presenting abnormal mental symptoms carried on during the past decade by the national committee for mental hygiene marks a new epoch in preventive medicine.[ ] the prevention of at least a large proportion of abnormal mental states through the timely application of the principles of mental hygiene is now recognized as a practically realizable ideal. many important reforms are now in process throughout the united states, no small part of them directly attributable to the active efforts of our leading psychiatrists and to our national committee's [transcriber's note: original reads 'committe's'] work. the old "asylums" are being changed into "hospitals." psychiatric clinics are becoming attached to teaching hospitals and psychiatric instruction in the medical schools is being vastly improved. the mental symptoms of disease now receive attention in hospitals and in private practice and at a much earlier stage than formerly. even the courts, the prisons, and the reformatories are awakening to the importance of scientific psychiatry; before long penology may be brought more into accord with our newer and juster conceptions of the nature and origin of crime, dependency, and delinquency. that schools of hygiene and the public health services must soon fall into line and consider mental hygiene seriously is obvious. the objection sometimes made that the practical problems are too vague, not sufficiently concrete, to justify attack by public health officials is no longer valid. in no direction, probably, could money and energy be more profitably spent during the period just ahead than in the support of a widely organized campaign for mental hygiene.[ ] psychiatrists can count upon internists and general practitioners to aid them in educating the public regarding the nature and desirability of this campaign. man is now consciously participating in the direction of his own evolution. to cite england's poet laureate, who, you will recall, is a physician: "the proper work of his (man's) mind is to interpret the world according to his higher nature, and to conquer the material aspects of the world so as to bring them into subjection to the spirit." footnotes: [footnote : in an address at the seventieth annual meeting of the american medico-psychological association, , entitled "the relations of internal medicine to psychiatry."] [footnote : _cf._ polon (a.) "the relation of the general practitioner to the neurotic patient," mental hygiene, new york, , iv, - .] [footnote : _cf._ paton (s.) human behavior in relation to the study of educational, social, and ethical problems. new york, . charles scribner's sons, p. .] [footnote : _cf._ meyer (a.), "progress in teaching psychiatry," journal a.m.a., chicago, , lxix, - ; see also his, "objective psychobiology, or psychobiology with subordination of the medically useless contrast of medical and physical," journal a.m.a., chicago, , lxv, - ; and, "aims and meanings of psychiatric diagnosis," am. journal of insanity, baltimore, , lxxiv, - .] [footnote : _cf._ "the general diagnostic survey made by the internist cooperating with groups of medical and surgical specialists," new york medical journal, , , , ; also, "the rationale of clinical diagnosis," oxford medicine, , vol. i, - ; also, "group diagnosis and group therapy," journal iowa state medical society, - , des moines, .] [footnote : _cf._ southard (e.e.), "insanity versus mental disease"; the duty of the general practitioner in psychiatric diagnosis, journal american medical association, lxxi, - , chicago, .] [footnote : _cf._ bailey (p.), "the applicability of findings of neuro-psychiatric examinations in the army to civil problems," mental hygiene, new york, , iv, ; also "war and mental diseases," am. j. pub. health, ix, , boston, .] [footnote : _cf._ salmon (t.w.), "war neuroses and their lesson," new york medical journal, cix, , ; also, "the future of psychiatry in the army," mil. surgeon, xlvii, , washington, . _cf._ "origin, objects, and plans of the national committee for mental hygiene" (publication no. , of the national committee, new york city); and, "some phases of the mental hygiene movement and the scope of the work of the national committee for mental hygiene," in trans., xv, internal. congr. for hygiene and demography, iii, - , ( ), washington .] [footnote : _cf._ russell (w.l.) "community responsibilities in the treatment of mental disorders." canad. j. ment. hygiene, , i --. hincks (c.m.), "mental hygiene and departments of health," am. j. pub. health, boston, ix, , ; haines (t.h.), "the mental hygiene requirements of a community: suggestions based upon a personal survey," mental hygiene, iv, - , new york, . beers (c.w.), "organized work in mental hygiene," mental hygiene, , new york, , also, williams (f.e.), "progress in mental hygiene," modern hospital, xiv, , chicago, .] _the chairman_: we had hoped to receive to-day the greetings of our sole elder sister among american institutions, the pennsylvania hospital, of philadelphia, which since its foundation in has pursued a career much like our own, treating mental cases in the general hospital from the very beginning, and since maintaining a separate department for mental diseases in west philadelphia. dr. owen copp, the masterly physician-in-chief and administrator of that department, was to have been here, but unfortunately has been detained. our morning exercises having come to an end, dr. russell asks me to say that your inspection of the occupational buildings and other departments of the hospital is cordially invited; a pageant illustrative of the origin and aspirations of the hospital will be given on the adjoining lawn; and that after the pageant our guests are desired to return to the assembly hall, where we shall have the privilege of listening to addresses by dr. richard g. rows, of london, and dr. pierre janet, of paris, who have come across the atlantic especially to take part in this anniversary celebration. address by dr. george d. stewart [illustration: bloomingdale asylum as it appeared in when it was discontinued and replaced by bloomingdale hospital at white plains, new york.] afternoon session _the chairman_: for the first seventy-five years of its existence the new york hospital was the nearest approach to an academy of medicine that the city possessed. when the now famous new york academy of medicine was established in , a friendly and cordial co-operation between the two institutions arose, and while the activity of this co-operation is not as pronounced as it was, we still cherish in our hearts a warm regard for that ancient ally in the cause of humanity. its president, dr. george d. stewart, the distinguished surgeon, has come to extend the greetings of the medical profession of new york city. dr. stewart the emotions that attend the birthday celebrations of an individual are often a mixture of joy and sadness, of laughter and of tears. in warm and imaginative youth there is no sadness and there are no tears, because that cognizance of the common end which is woven into the very warp and woof of existence is then buried deep in our subconscious natures, or if it impresses itself at all, is too volatile and fleeting to be remembered. but as the years fall away and there is one less spring to flower and green, the serious man "tangled for the present in some parcels of fibrin, albumin, and phosphates" looks forward and backward and takes in both this world and the next. in the case of institutions, however, the sadness and the tears do not obtain--for a century of anniversaries may merely mean dignified maturity, as in the case of bloomingdale, with no hint of the senility and decay that must come to the individual who has lived so long. this institution was founded one hundred years ago to-day; the parent, the new york hospital, has a longer history. bloomingdale, as a separate and independent concern, had its birthday a century ago. it is curious to let the mind travel back, and consider what was happening about that time. just two years before the news had flashed on the philosophical and scientific world that oersted, a danish philosopher, had caused a deflection of the magnetic needle by the passage near it of an electric current. the relation between the two forces was then and there confirmed by separate observations all over the civilized world. this discovery probably created more interest at that time than professor einstein's recent announcement which, if accepted, may be so disturbing to the principia of newton and to our ideas of time and space. there can be no doubt that the practical significance of oersted's experiment was much more widely appreciated than the theory of einstein, for an understanding of the latter is confined, we are told, to not many more men than was necessary to save sodom and gomorrah. its immense practical significance, however, could have been foreseen by no man, no matter with what vision endowed. just two years prior to the founding of this institution the first steamboat had crossed the atlantic and in the same year that great conqueror, who had so disturbed the peace of the world which was even then as now slowly recovering from the ravages of war, breathed his last in saint helena, yielding to death as utterly as the poorest hind. in , bedlam hospital in south london was converted into an asylum for the insane who were at the time called "lunatics." the name bedlam is a corruption of the hebrew "bethlehem"--meaning the house of bread--and while the name popularly came to signify a noisy place it was the beginning of really scientific treatment for the tragically afflicted insane. while the treatment of the insane in europe was being steadily raised to a higher plane of efficiency, america has also reason to be proud of her record in this respect. during all the years that have followed, bloomingdale has been an important factor in the medical world of new york. there are two phases of its existence which might be emphasized--first, it was founded by physicians; even then and, of course, long before doctors had proven that they were in the forefront in the promotion of humanitarian activities. medicine has always carried on its banners an inscription to the brotherhood of man. it is worthy of note that when pinel and tuke had begun to regard mental aberration as a disease and to provide scientific hospital treatment therefor, american physicians, prepared by study and experimentation, were ready to accept and apply the new teachings. a second phase of great importance is that institutions like bloomingdale have promoted the study of psychology far more than any other factor, particularly because in them the personality stripped of some of its intricacies, the diseased personality, permits analysis, which the normal complex has so long defied. that it is high time that mankind was undertaking this knowledge of himself is particularly emphasized by the unrest and aberrance of human behavior now startling and disturbing the whole world. if mankind does not take up this self study as trotter has said, nature may tire of her experiment man, that complex multicellular gregarious animal who is unable to protect himself even from a simple unicellular organism, and may sweep him from her work-table to make room for one more effort of her tireless and patient curiosity. psychology should be taught to every doctor and to every lettered man. digressing for a moment, to every one capable of understanding it, there should be imparted a knowledge of that simple economic law announced from the garden of eden after the grounds had been cleared and the gates closed: "by the sweat of thy brow thou shalt earn thy bread." the economic phase indeed constitutes a highly important aspect of modern psychology, for abnormal elements are antisocial, and from pickpockets to anarchists flourish on the soil of pauperism. the key-note of the future is responsibility. to the educated and enlightened man who still asks, "am i my brother's keeper?" cain has bequeathed a drop of his fratricidal blood; and he who spurns to do his share of the world's work, electing instead to fall a burden upon the community, deserves the fate of the barren fig-tree. however, amidst the social unrest, buffeted and perplexed by the cross currents of our time, we should not be pessimistic but should look forward with courage, parting reluctantly with whatever of good the past contained and living hopefully in the present. as ellis says: "the present is in every age merely the shifting point at which past and future meet, and we can have no quarrel with either. there can be no world without traditions; neither can there be any life without movement. as heraclitus knew at the outset of modern philosophy, we cannot bathe twice in the same stream, though as we know to-day, the stream still flows in an unending circle. there is never a moment when the new dawn is not breaking over the earth, and never a moment when the sunset ceases to die. it is well to greet serenely even the first glimmer of the dawn when we see it, not hastening toward it with undue speed, nor leaving the sunset without gratitude for the dying light that once was dawn." so to-day i bring to you from the new york academy of medicine felicitations on your one hundredth anniversary and greetings to your guests who have come from all over the world to join in your birthday celebration. address by dr. richard g. rows _the chairman_: besides the royal charter, the new york hospital is indebted to great britain for invaluable encouragement and financial aid in our natal struggle in colonial days. dr. rows has added charmingly to that debt by journeying from london to take part in these exercises. his subject will be, "the biological significance of mental illness." as director of the british neurological hospital for disabled soldiers and sailors, at tooting, he is giving the community and the medical world the benefit of his rich professional experience in the trying years of war as well as in peace, and gaining fresh laurels as he marches, like wordsworth's warrior, "from well to better, daily self-surpast." dr. rows i must first express to you my keen appreciation of the high honor you have conferred on me by inviting me to come from england to address you on the occasion of the centenary celebration of the opening of this hospital. it is perhaps difficult for us to realize what resistances lay in the way of reform at that time, resistances in the form of long-established but somewhat limited views as to the nature of mental illnesses, as to whether the sufferer was not reaping what he had sown in angering the supreme powers and in making himself a fit habitation for demons to dwell in; in the form of a lack of appreciation of the need of sympathy for those who, while in a disturbed state, offended against the social organism or in the form of an exaggerated fear which compelled the adoption of vigorous methods of protecting the social organism against those who exhibited such anti-social tendencies. the men and women of the different countries of the world who recognized this and made it the chief of their life's duties to spread a wider view of such conditions and to insist that the unfortunate people should be regarded and treated as fellow human beings will ever command our admiration. by the courtesy of dr. russell i have had an opportunity of seeing the pamphlet in which are recorded the efforts of mr. thomas eddy in the year to move his colleagues to consider this matter.[ ] the result of those efforts was the establishment of an institution on bloomingdale road. various changes followed until we arrived at the bloomingdale hospital of to-day with its large and trained staff of medical officers, who, while still recognizing the difficulties of the task, are imbued with a hope of success which has arisen on a basis of wider knowledge, but which was unknown to many of their predecessors. to have the opportunity of joining with you in celebrating the big advance made a hundred years ago, of exchanging ideas with you with regard to the difficulties which still confront us, whether in america or in england, and which demand a united effort on the part of all who are interested in the scientific investigation of the subject, cannot fail to afford one the liveliest satisfaction. in the brief history of the hospital prepared by dr. russell we find the recommendations of another reformer, dr. earle, who in was evidently still not satisfied with the treatment provided for the sufferers from mental illness. both mr. eddy and dr. earle were influenced by their observation that even in those suffering from mania much of their behavior could not be described as irrational. if you will allow me i will quote a sentence of two from each. mr. eddy said: "it is to be observed that in most cases of insanity, from whatever cause it may have arisen or to whatever it may have proceeded, the patient possesses small remains of ratiocination and self-command; and although they cannot be made sensible of the irrationality of their conduct or opinions, yet they are generally aware of those particulars for which the world considers them proper objects of confinement." with reference to treatment dr. earle said: "the primary object is to treat patients, so far as their condition will possibly permit, as if they were still in the enjoyment of the healthy exercise of their mental faculties." to superficial observation these suggestions might well have appeared as the phantasies of dreamers and perhaps at the present day their importance is not always fully appreciated. recent advances in knowledge, however, have led us beyond the moral treatment recommended a hundred years ago and have enabled us to see that a more important truth underlay these suggestions. we are all familiar with the frequent difficulty we encounter in our efforts to discover the actual mental disturbance which is supposed to exist in our patients. it is often a question of wit against wit as between patient and doctor, and not infrequently a rational and intelligent conversation may be maintained on an indifferent subject. the fact too that the disturbance is so frequently only temporary suggests that the loss of rational control is a less serious phenomenon than was generally supposed and we know that the control can be frequently restored by a period of rest or by a helpful stimulus. quite recently a patient who in hospital had been confused, undisciplined, abusive, and threatening, was removed to a house of detention. the shock of finding himself, as he said, amongst a lot of lunatics, led him to face reality from a fresh point of view. he admitted that it had taught him a lesson and when he revisited the hospital, if not entirely grateful to us for the experience, he evidently bore no ill will. but not only is it necessary to recognize what rational powers remain to the patient, we must also inquire how much in their disturbed mental activity can be considered a rational reaction to the stimuli which have operated, and still may be operating, on them. in connection with this i would suggest that there are two aspects to be considered. first, what is the standard according to which we are to judge them? secondly, to what extent are the reactions of the patient abnormal in kind to the driving stimulus? they may perhaps be reckoned abnormal in degree, but, to what extent, if at all, are they abnormal in kind? it may be readily admitted that the behavior of those suffering from mental illness offends against conventional usages and is anti-social. it must also be recognized that amongst human beings living in aggregates some conventional usages must be evolved and insisted on in order to insure the greatest good of the greatest number. these usages are regarded not merely as protective measures for the body corporate, but they are also supposed to indicate a beneficial standard for the individual. but such a standard being adopted, observation is liable to be limited so much to results without sufficient attention being given to the causes which had led to those results. by the recent advances in scientific knowledge and in methods of investigation we have been led to see that the conditions under consideration cannot be understood without a study of the mechanisms on which mental activity depends and without discovering the psychic and physical causes, arising from without and from within, which have disturbed the function of these mechanisms. we have learned that these illnesses do not arise from one cause alone and that they are the result of influences to which we all may be subject to some degree. the originator of these modern methods, prof. freud, has stimulated us to regard the ordinary symptoms of mental illnesses as directing posts indicating lines to be investigated, and he and others have suggested various methods which may usefully be employed. it is essential that we carefully distinguish what are primary from what are secondary symptoms. two thousand years ago a physician, [transcriber's note: original reads 'physican'] areteus, pointed out that mania frequently commenced as melancholia, and he drew attention to the extreme frequency of an initial depression in cases of mental illnesses. but he did not offer any explanation of this initial state. such an initial state may perhaps be, to a certain extent, understood if we assume that the first evidences of mental disturbance consist in some difficulty in carrying out ordinary mental processes, some difficulty in exercise of the function of perceiving, thinking, feeling, judging, and acting, and that any disturbance of the harmonious activity of these functions must give rise to an emotional condition of anxiety and depression. some such disharmony will, by adequate investigation, be found in a large number of cases to exist in the early states of the illness and will be appreciated by the patient before there occur any obvious signs, any outward manifestations of disability. but in any disharmony which may occur it must be recognized that the mental mechanisms affected are those with which the patient was originally endowed, which he has gradually trained throughout his past experience and which he has employed more or less successfully up to the time the illness commenced. there is no new mechanism introduced to produce a mental illness, but a putting out of gear of those common to the race and their disturbance is the result of the action of influences which may befall any one of us, unbearable ideas with which some intense emotional state is intimately associated. the normal function of these mechanisms, simple at first and remaining fundamentally unaltered, although possibly much modified gradually by added experiences from within and without, depends on the maintenance of a harmonious balance between stimuli received and emotional reaction and motor response to those stimuli so that the feeling of well-being may arise. if from any cause there occurs a failure to appreciate the stimuli clearly, if the emotional reactivity be disturbed, if the sense of value becomes biassed in one direction or another so that the response is recognized by the patient as abnormal there will result a disharmony and a feeling of ill-being of the organism. under these conditions the processes of facilitation along certain definite lines and inhibition of all other lines--processes which are essential to clear consciousness--will become difficult or perhaps impossible and a mental illness will develop. in the slighter degrees the disharmony may be known to the patient without there being any outward manifestation to betray the conflict going on within. in the severe degrees the mental activity of the patient may be under the control of some dominant emotional state so that it may be impossible for him to adapt himself to his surroundings in a normal manner although his behavior may not appear so irrational when we know the stimuli affecting him. within these extremes we discover all degrees of disturbance, and all varieties of signs and symptoms may be encountered. but the signs which become obvious to superficial observation are, to a large extent, secondary products. the primary symptoms are felt by the patient as a disturbance of the capacity to perceive, to think, to feel, to judge, and to act, and with these disabilities there will be associated a certain degree of confusion and anxiety which cannot fail to appear as the result of such alterations of function. the obvious signs may represent merely a more intense degree of the primary affection, disturbed capacity together with some confusion and anxiety; or they may represent efforts on the part of the patient to overcome or to escape from the disturbance or to explain it to himself. and now the total lack of knowledge of the processes on which mental activity depends, the altered standard of judgment due to some degree of dissociation, and the necessity of obtaining relief in some way or other will have much to do with determining the character of the symptoms with which we are all familiar. so many factors are concerned in the production of these secondary characters that it is difficult to assign to the symptoms their true value or to decide whether they possess much value at all with regard to the fundamental disturbance which constituted the primary illness. so often they appear to be mere rationalizations, mere false judgments on the part of the patient; they thus form subjects for investigation rather than fundamental constituents of the illness. we, therefore, must not accept the outward and visible signs at their face value but attempt to discover what past experiences in the life of the patient have led to such disturbance of function, to such a change in his mental activity. it will possibly be of some assistance to provide one or two examples in order to demonstrate the importance of the past experiences as agents capable of producing such alterations. the first case will illustrate the results produced by the development of a dominant emotional tendency during early childhood. the patient up to the fifth year of her life had been an ordinary, normal child, attached to her mother, fond of her nurse, interested in her toys. during the next two years she endured much bad treatment at the hands of a new nurse which produced such an impression on her that she felt she was a changed child. this nurse, described to me by the patient as a handsome woman, having met the inevitable man, used frequently to meet him clandestinely. the child was neglected, was sometimes left alone, on one occasion in a graveyard, but she was forbidden to mention the subject to any one under threats of being carried away by a "bogey-man." the child became very frightened by this, to such an extent that one night she had a severe nightmare in which a "bogey-man" came to carry her away. at the end of two years a profound change had taken place in her which she now describes thus: "i was a changed child; i was separated from my mother and could no longer confide in her nor did i wish to do things for her as i had done before; i could not enjoy my toys; i had no confidence in myself; i was not like other children." and from that time on, as girl and as woman, she has never felt that she has been like others of her sex. such a condition, being started and confined by repetition, interfered with her free development and it was remarkable how many incidents occurred in her life to confirm the disability, but the germ of her serious breakdown thirty years later was laid in her fifth and sixth years. the second case is that of a patient who, as a child, had some convulsive attacks. she was therefore considered delicate and was thoroughly spoiled. when nearly thirty she lived through a sexual experience which caused extreme anxiety; she broke down and was admitted to an asylum. after admission she looked across the dormitory and saw a head appearing above the bed-clothes, the hair of which had been cut short for hygienic reasons. with a memory of her sexual indiscretion still vivid in her mind she jumped to the conclusion that she was in a place where men and women were crowded together in the same room. she got out of bed, refused to return to it, fought against the nurses and was transferred to a single room, with the mattress on the floor and the window shuttered. she wondered where she was and came to the conclusion that she was in a horse-box. then arose a feeling of terror that she would be at the disposal of the grooms when they returned from work. the sound of heavy footsteps of the patients passing along the corridor to the tea-room suggested that the grooms were returning and that her room would soon be invaded. the feeling of terror increased and she tried to hide in the corner, drawing the mattress and clothes over her. and so on. months later when i had my first interview with her, her sole remark during the hour was "how can i speak in a place like this?" this was repeated almost without intermission throughout the hour. it formed a good example of the origin of the process of perseveration, a process frequently adopted by the patient to guard against the disclosure of a troublesome secret. if we attempt to trace out some of the mechanisms employed in these two cases we shall see that in response to definite stimuli each reacted in a manner which cannot be considered abnormal in kind. it was normal reaction for the child to be distressed at being separated from her mother in such a way, to be frightened by being left in the graveyard alone, or at the threat of her being carried away by a "bogey-man" if she dared to mention anything of the clandestine meetings to her mother. it was not very abnormal that after her sexual experience the other patient while still in a confused state caused by the intense emotional condition of anxiety, should, on seeing a head with the hair cropped short, jump to the conclusion that there was a man in a bed in the same ward with herself, or that she should feel frightened and wish to leave the room. the mental activity in each case depended on mental content, that is, memory of past experiences with their intense emotional states which acted as the driving force and also made the recall of the experience go extremely easy. the further developments after being placed in the single room with mattresses on the floor and the window shuttered were rationalizations also based on mental content, _i.e._, on the memory of rooms somewhat similar to that in which she found herself and of the use of such rooms. it is interesting to note also in the first case that in her wildest delirium during an acute attack she lived through episodes of her past life. one example may be given. in the course of her delirium she thought that a "blackbird" had flown to her, touched her left wrist and taken away all her vitality. this depended on an experience of her going to germany when a girl and meeting a young german officer whom she did not like. a few years later she went to germany and met the officer again. without going into full details i may say that on one occasion when walking with him he seized her left wrist with his right hand and attempted to kiss her; she struggled fiercely and ran from him. here we see that not only is her delirium based on a past experience, but that the whole memory is symbolized in the "blackbird" which was the emblem of the german nation in whose army the officer was then serving. connected with this there was also another unpleasant episode which dated from her tenth year. much of her delirium was worked out in such a way that most of the details could be traced back to experiences of her earlier life. but however absurd her statement regarding her being touched by a "blackbird" and all her vitality removed might appear to superficial observation, it must be admitted that when we know the mental content of that patient, we cannot but see that at any rate it was not so irrational. and not only was this recognized by the doctor, but, and this is much more important, by the patient herself. it is, therefore, the mental content which must be discovered before doctor or patient can understand the disability and before any common ground between the two can be found. and when the mental content is known it will be easy to recognize the affective condition of the patient to be a normal response. it will also be specific and if intense will dominate the patient. "why is it i can never feel joy as i used to do?" was the pathetic inquiry of the patient dominated by a feeling of misery and fear. was it not for the reason that being dominated by misery and fear, joy could find no place? the emotion of misery because of its intensity could more or less inhibit the feeling of joy, but joy could not inhibit the misery. no repetition of the memory of the unpleasant experiences with their associated emotion of misery and fear led to the formation of a habit of mind and feeling. and when once such a habit of mind is established it is remarkable by what a host of stimuli received in ordinary daily life the cause of the disturbance can be recalled. this question of stimuli deserves further notice. it is not so difficult to realize the mechanism by which a stimulus which clearly crosses the threshold of consciousness can lead to a given reaction. but it is perhaps difficult to imagine how so many stimuli which do not cross the threshold of consciousness or which, if they do, are not recognized by the patient at the time as having any reference whatever to the special memory can yet set the memory mechanism into action. the result may not be seen till after the relapse of some considerable period of time, as in the case of a man who for years had been disturbed by terrific nightmares, based on the idea of snakes coming out of the ground and attacking him. he complained one day that he was much worse, that three nights before he had had the worst nightmare of his life. on being questioned as to what could have suggested snakes to him he could not tell. a few minutes later he said: "i think i know the cause now. i spent the evening before i had that nightmare with a sergeant who had returned from the service in india." this friend amongst other things had mentioned that whenever they were about to bivouac they had to search every hole under a stone and every tuft of grass to see that there were no snakes there. this, which had been received as an ordinary item of information, had been the stimulus which had set his memory mechanism into action and the nightmare between two and three o'clock in the morning had been the result. the result in many instances is evidenced by an emotional state alone and the actual memory of the original experience may not come into consciousness. many examples of this might be given. the sound of a trolley wheel on a tram wire in one case gave rise to terror instead of its normal reaction, viz., that of satisfaction at getting to the destination quickly and without effort. this terror was produced because the sound on the wire resembled that of a shell which came over, blew in a dugout, killed three men, and buried the patient. no memory of this incident came into consciousness, only a terror similar to that experienced at the time of the original incident was experienced. or, the time four o'clock in the afternoon could act as a stimulus to arouse an emotional state of misery similar to that experienced at the same time of day during an illness some years previously. or, passing the house of a doctor when on a bus could produce a sudden outburst of anxiety, giddiness, and confusion; the patient had been taken into that house at the time of an epileptic attack. or, showing photographs of the front could lead to an epileptic attack which was based on the memory of the time when the patient was wounded in the head; this has occurred on two separate occasions separated by an interval of some months. or, noticing a familiar critical tone in a remark made at a dinner-table could lead to an acute change of feeling so that the subject who, before dinner, had felt she would like to play a new composition on the piano so as to obtain the opinion of the guest who had exhibited the critical tone, after dinner felt incapable of doing so. her feelings had been hurt on many former occasions by critical remarks made by him in that tone. the critical remarks were not called to memory but there arose the feeling that under no circumstances could she play that piece to him. of special importance also are the experiences of childhood. an unhappy home or unjust treatment as a child may warp the development of the personality, lead to a lack of self-confidence, to the predominance of one emotional tendency, and so prevent that balanced equilibrium which will allow a rapid and suitable emotional reaction such as we may consider normal. this may lead to a failure of development or a loss of the sense of value, because the existence of one dominating emotional tendency so often produces a prejudiced view which may render a just appreciation of our general experience almost impossible and may seriously disturb our mental activity. and if, as bianchi suggests, all mental activity depends on a series of reflex actions, or, as bechterew and pavlov have insisted, a series of conditioned reflexes becomes established, it will assist us to understand how such stimuli can give rise to mental disturbances, to mental illnesses. we shall see that there may be something of real importance underlying such remarks as "i felt i was a changed child"; or "it is because of the treatment i received from my father that i have taken life so seriously." "i have never imagined that what i went through in my childhood could so influence me now"; or "i have never had confidence in myself and often when i have appeared vivacious and interested i have had an awful feeling of incapacity and dread within myself." the outward and obvious manifestations, therefore, are not necessarily a true index of our mental and emotional conditions. this is true of all mental illnesses, even the most severe. one patient who had been in an asylum more than ten years illustrated this in a most striking manner. his outward manifestations led one to feel that he thought he possessed the institution in which he was confined and also the surrounding property and that the authorities were a set of usurpers and thieves who kept him incarcerated in order that they might enjoy what was really his money and his property. on one occasion i said to him, "george, what is that incident in your life which you cannot forget and which has troubled you so seriously?" the reply was a flood of abuse. i put the question to him several times without getting any further answer, but when i came to leave the ward, george came up behind me and whispered over my shoulder, "who told you about it?" no abuse, no shouting as usually occurred, but a whisper, "who told you about it?" was not george running away from a memory with its emotion which was unbearable to an idea which allowed him to be angry with others instead of with himself? many examples of this might be given and really might be found by us in our own experience. it is the mental content which is important, a mental content which can be recalled by various stimuli, and which will be more persistently with us the more intense is the emotion associated with it. but the basis of the condition is not completely understood when we have apparently arrived at the psychic cause of the disturbance. it is recognized that the emotions are accompanied by physical changes, changes which are specific for each emotional state. the physical changes which normally are associated with fear differ from those of joy or anger. this has been appreciated for a long time but recent researches have recalled other reactions to us. reactions in the internal glands which further knowledge will probably prove to be of great importance, in fact to form an integral part of the sum of activities, connect with mental processes. the secretions of the glands exert an influence on the sensibility and reaction of the organs connected with psychic phenomena and their functions themselves are affected by reactions occurring in the nervous system. revival of a memory may thus affect the functions of these glands, and the changes produced in them may react on the sensibility and reactivity of the nervous mechanisms. if this be so, it will be evident that the organism works as a whole, that a disturbance of one organ may interfere with the function of another and that in the repetition of all these influences we may find an explanation of the chronicity of many of these illnesses. a study of the activities and interactivities of all the organs of the body is therefore essential and must be made before we shall understand the biological significance of mental illness. footnotes: [footnote : see appendix iii, p. .] address by dr. pierre janet _the chairman_: our country may be hesitating a little--i hope it will not be for long--in joining a league of nations to prevent war, but there can be no doubt of our immediate readiness to co-operate internationally to prevent and reduce disease. our distinguished guest from gallant france, dr. pierre janet, professor in the college of france, evidently feels confident of our sympathy and willingness to collaborate in this latter respect, for he has ventured across the ocean, with madame janet, in response to our urgent invitation. his introduction to an audience of american psychiatrists would be quite out of place. his fame as a pathological psychologist has circled the world. in the science of medicine he is a modern titan. for to-day's address he has chosen as a subject, "the relation of the neuroses to the psychoses." dr. janet mr. president, my dear colleagues, ladies, and gentlemen: the americans and the french have met on the battle-fields and they have faced together the same sufferings for the defense of their common ideal of civilization and liberty; it is right that they should meet likewise where science stands up for the protection of health and human reason, and that they should celebrate together the festivals of peace. the president and the organizers of this congress have greatly honored me in asking me to represent france at the celebration of the centenary of the bloomingdale hospital; but above all they have procured me a great pleasure in offering me the opportunity of coming again to this beautiful land, of meeting once more friends who had welcomed us kindly in former days; our old friends of past happy days who have become still dearer to us since they have been tried during the bad days. allow me, in the first place, to present you with the best wishes of the french government who have had the kindness to charge me to interpret the sentiments of sympathy which they feel for all manifestations tending to render the relations that unite our two countries closer and more fruitful. the academy of moral and political sciences has equally charged me to assure you that it is happy to be represented by one of its members at the commemoration of the centenary of bloomingdale hospital that has so brilliantly and generously continued the tradition of pinel and esquirol. the academy takes a lively interest in the psychological and moral studies of this congress that seek the cure of diseases of the mind and the lessening of mental disorders. the medico-psychological society, the society of neurology, the society of psychology, the society of psychiatry of paris are happy to take part in these festivals and are desirous of associating still more closely their work to that of the scientific societies of the united states. the celebration of the centenary of a lunatic asylum gives birth to-day to a national festivity in which all civilized nations participate. this is a fact that would have well astonished the first founders of lunatic asylums, the pinels, the esquirols, the william tukes, and the first organizers of bloomingdale. the public opinion respecting the diseases of the mind, the care to be given to lunatics, is vastly different to what it was a century ago. this transformation of ideas has taken place, in a great measure, as a result of the studies devoted to neuroses and that is why it seems to me interesting to present you to-day with a few reflections on the connections which unite neuroses and psychoses; for it is the discovery of these connections that has shown to the man sound in mind, or who imagines himself to be so, how near he always was to being a lunatic and how wise it was always to consider the lunatic as a brother. formerly a lunatic was considered as a separate being, quite apart from other members of society. the old prejudices which banished the patient from the tribe as a useless and dangerous individual had diminished no doubt with respect to the diseases of the body, which were more and more regarded as frequent and natural things to which each of us might be exposed. but these prejudices persisted with respect to some sexual diseases that were still considered ignominious and chiefly with respect to diseases of the mind. no doubt some intelligent and charitable physicians took interest in the lunatic, endeavored to spare him many sufferings, to defend him, to take care of him. but the people feared the lunatic and despised him as if he had been struck by some malediction which excommunicated him. i have seen lately a patient's parents upset with emotion, as they had to cross the gardens of the asylum to visit their daughter, at the single thought that they might catch sight of a lunatic. this individual, in fact, had lost in the eyes of the public the particular quality of man, reason, which, it appears, distinguishes us from beasts; he seemed still living, but he was morally dead; he was no longer a man. no doubt it was a dreadful misfortune when some member of a family became insane, but this terrible calamity, which nothing could make one anticipate or avoid, was happily exceptional, like thunderbolts. the other men and even the members of the family presented nothing similar and regarded themselves with pride as very different to this wretched being transformed into a beast. this victim of heavenly curse was pitied, settled comfortably in a nice pavilion at bloomingdale and never more spoken of. people still preserve on this point ideas similar to those they had formerly about tuberculosis, known only under the form of terrible but exceptional pulmonary consumption. now it has at last been understood that there are slight tuberculoses, curable, but tremendously frequent. it will be the same with mental disorders; one day it will be recognized that under diverse forms, more or less attenuated they exist to-day on all sides, among a crowd of individuals that one does not feel inclined to consider as insane. little by little, in fact, men have had to state with astonishment that all lunatics were not at bloomingdale. outside the hospital, in the family of the unfortunate lunatic, or even in other groups, one observed strange complaints, moanings relating to lesions which were not visible, inability to move notwithstanding the apparent integrity of the organs, contradictory and incomprehensible affirmations; in one word, abnormal behaviors, very different to normal behaviors, regularized by the laws and by reason. what was the meaning of these queer behaviors? at first they were very badly understood; they were supposed to have some connection with being possessed (with the devil), with miasmata, vapors, unlikely perturbations of the body and animal spirits that circulated in the nerves. one spoke, as did still prof. pomme at the end of the eighteenth century, "of the shrivelling up of the nerves."[ ] but above all, one preserved the conviction that these queer disorders were very different to the mental disorders of lunacy. these peculiar individuals had, it was said, all their reason; they remained capable of understanding their fellow creatures and of being understood by them; they were not to be expelled from society like the poor lunatics; therefore their illness should be anything but the mental disorders of lunacy. physicians, as it is just, watched their patients and only confirmed their opinion by fine scientific theories. they christened these new disorders by the name of neuroses, reserving the name of psychoses for the mental disorders of lunatics. during the whole of the nineteenth century the radical division of neuroses and psychoses was accepted as a dogma; on the one side, one described epilepsies, hysterias, neurasthenias; on the other, one studied manias, melancholias, paranoias, dementias, without preoccupying oneself in the least with the connections those very ill-defined disorders might have the ones with the others. this division was accentuated by the organization of the studies and the treatment of the patients. the houses that received the neurotic patients and the insane were absolutely distinct. the physicians who attended the ones and the others were different, and even supplied by different competitions. in france, even now, the recruiting of asylum house pupils and hospital house pupils, the recruiting of asylum doctors and that of hospital doctors, give an opportunity for different competitions. one might almost say that these two categories of house pupils and doctors have quite a different education. the result was that the examination of the patients, the study thereof, and even their treatment, were for the most part often conceived in quite a different manner. for example, neuroses were studied publicly; the examination was on elementary sensibilities, the movements of the limbs, and especially reflexes; the insane were more closely examined in the mental point of view, in conversations held with them by the physician alone. their arguments, their ideas were noted more than their elementary movements. strange to say, just when the psycho-therapeutic treatments by reasoning and moralizing with the patients were being developed, they stood out the contrary of what one might have supposed--that this treatment should be applied to neurotic patients alone. it was admitted that lunatics were probably not able to feel this moral and rational influence; they were treated by isolation, shower-baths, and purgatives. this complete division did not fail to bring about singular and unfortunate consequences. in a hospital such as la salpetrière the tic sufferers, the impulsive, those beset with obsessions, the hysterical with fits and delirium were placed near the organic hemiplegics and the tabetics who did not resemble them in the least, and completely separated from the melancholic, the confused, the systematical raving, notwithstanding evident analogies. if charcot who, moreover, has brought about so much progress in these studies, committed some serious errors in the interpretation of certain phenomena of hysteria, is it not greatly due to his having studied these neurotic patients with the neurology methods without ever applying psychiatry methods? is it not strange to refuse psychological treatment precisely to those who present psychological disorders to the highest degree, and to place the insane who thinks and suffers altogether outside of psychology? in fine, this distinction between the neurotic sufferer and the mental sufferer was mostly arbitrary and depended more than was believed on the patient's social position and fortune. important and rich families could not be resigned to see one of their members blemished by the name of lunatic, and the physician very often qualified him as neurasthenic to please the family. a few years ago this distinction of the patients and of the physicians gave rise to a very amusing controversy in the newspapers. the professor of the clinic for diseases of the nervous system asserted that neurotic sufferers should be patients set apart for neurologist physicians alone, whereas the alienist should content himself with real lunatics. the professor of the clinic for mental diseases protested with much wit and claimed the right of attending equally the neurotic patients. all this proved a great confusion in the ideas. notwithstanding these difficulties, charcot's studies themselves on hysterical accidents began to make people's minds uneasy and to modify conceptions of neuroses. they showed that neurotic sufferers presented disorders in their thoughts, that many of their accidents, in all appearance physical, were in connection with ideas, with the _conviction_ of paralysis, of illness, with the remembrance of such or such an event which had determined some great emotion. without doubt, this interpretation of hysteria, which i have myself contributed to extend, must never be exaggerated, and it must not be concluded from this that every neuropathic accident always and solely depends on some remembrance or some emotion. in my opinion, this is only exact in a very limited number of cases; and then it only explains the particular form of such or such an accident and not the entire disease. without doubt it seems to me exaggerated to-day to see in neuroses those psychological disorders alone, whereas the disorders of the circulation, the disorders of internal secretions, the disorders of the functions of the sympathetic which will be spoken of just here must also have a great importance. but, however, this observation proved very useful at that moment. a remembrance, an emotion, are evidently psychological phenomena, and to connect neuropathic disorders with facts of the kind is to include the study thereof with that of mental disorders. at this time, in fact, they began to repeat on all sides a notion that had already been indicated in a more vague manner; it is that neuroses were at the root, were in reality diseases of the mind. if such is the case, what becomes of the classical distinction between neuroses and psychoses? no one can deny that the latter are above all diseases of the mind and we have here to review the reasons which seem to justify their complete separation. will it be said that with psychoses the disorders of the mind last very much longer? but some patients who enter the asylum with a certificate of insanity are very frequently cured in a few months and some neuropathic disorders may last years. i could name you patients who since thirty years keep the same obsessions, and who at the age of fifty still ask themselves questions upon their pact with heaven, as they did at the age of twenty. shall we speak of the consciousness the patient has of his state? but this consciousness may be complete in certain melancholies and very incomplete in certain impulsions. is it necessary to insist on the presence or absence of anatomical lesions which one tries to ascertain at the post-mortem examination? shall we say with sandras, axenfeld, huchard, hack, tuke, that neuroses are diseases without lesions? one finds lesions in general paralysis which is ranged with insanity and we find some also in epilepsies which are considered as neuroses; one no more finds lesions in melancholic conditions than in conditions of obsessions. besides, as i have often repeated, this absence of lesions is of no importance; it is quite in keeping with our ignorance. every one admits that organic alterations more or less momentary, but actually not suspected, must exist in neuroses as in other diseases. neuroses as well as psychoses are much more likely to be diseases with unknown lesions than diseases without lesions, and it is impossible to take this characteristic into account to distinguish the ones from the others. in reality, the notion of lunatic has lost its former superstitious signification and it has taken no precise medical signification. that word is now the term of the police language. it indicates only an embarrassment felt by the police before certain persons' conduct. when an individual shows himself to be dangerous for others, the public administration has the habit of defending us against him by the system of threats and punishments. as a rule, in fact, when a normal mind is in question, threats can stop him before the execution of crime, and punishments, when crime has been committed, can prevent him from beginning again; that is the psychological fact which has given birth to the idea of responsibility. but in certain disorders it becomes evident that neither threats nor punishments have a favorable effect, for the individual seems to have lost the phenomenon of responsibility. when an individual shows himself to be dangerous for others or for himself, and that he has lost his responsibility, we can no longer employ the ordinary means of defense; we are obliged to defend ourselves against him, and defend him against himself by special means which it is useless to apply to other men; we are obliged to modify legal conduct toward him. all disorders of the mind oblige us to modify our social conduct toward the patient, but only in a few cases are we obliged to modify at the same time our legal conduct; and these are the sort of cases that constitute lunacy. this important difference in the police point of view is of no great importance in the psychological point of view nor in the medical point of view, for the danger created by the patient is extremely varied. it is impossible to say that such or such a disorder defined by medicine leaves always the patient inoffensive and that such another always renders him dangerous. there are melancholies, general paralytics, insane who are inoffensive, and whom one should not call lunatics; there are impulsive psychasthenics who are dangerous and whom one shall have to call lunatics. the danger created by a patient depends a great deal more upon the social circumstances in which he lives than upon the nature of his psychological disorders. if he is rich, if he has no need to earn his living, if he is surrounded by devoted watchfulness, if he lives in the country, if his surroundings are simple, the very serious mental disorders he may have do not constitute a danger. if he is poor, if he has to earn his living, if he lives alone in a large town and his position is delicate and complex, the same mental disorders, exactly at the same degree, will soon constitute a danger, and the physician will be forced to place him in an asylum with a good certificate. this is a practical distinction, necessary for order in towns, which has no importance in the point of view of medical science.[ ] if we put these accidental and slightly important differences on one side, we certainly see a common ground in neuroses and psychoses. the question is always an alteration in the conduct, and, above all, in the social conduct, an alteration which tends, if i am not mistaken, toward the same part of the conduct. the conduct of living beings is a special form of reaction by which the living being adapts himself to the society to which he belongs. the primitive adaptations of life are characterized by the organization of internal physiological functions. later on they consist in external reactions, in displacements, in uniform movements of the body which either keep him from or draw him near to the surrounding bodies. the first of these movements are the reflex movements, then are developed those combinations of movements which we called perceptive or suspensive actions in keeping with perceptions. later came the social acts, the elementary intellectual acts which gave birth to language, the primitive voluntary acts, the immediate beliefs, then the reflected acts, the rational acts, experimental, etc. as i said formerly, there is, in each function, quite a superior part which consists in its adaptation to the particular circumstance existing at the present moment. the function of alimentation, for instance, has to exercise itself at this moment when i am to take aliments on this table in the midst of new people, that is to say, among whom i have not yet found myself in this circumstance, wearing a special dress and submitting my body and my mind to very particular social rites. in reality it is nevertheless the function of alimentation, but it must be noted that the act of dining, when wearing a dress suit and talking to a neighbor, is not quite the same physiological phenomenon as the simple secretion of the pancreas. certain patients lose only the superior part of this function of alimentation which consists in eating in society, in eating in new and complex circumstances, in eating while being conscious of what one is doing, and in submitting to rules. although the physiologist does not imagine that these functions are connected with the exercise of sexual functions in humanity, there is a pathology of the betrothal and of the wedding-tour. it is just on this superior part of the functions, on their adaptation to present circumstances, that the disorders of conduct (self-government) which occupy us to-day bear. if one is willing to understand by the word "evolution" the fact that a living being is continually transforming himself to adapt himself to new circumstances, neuroses and psychoses are disorders or halts in the evolution of functions, in the development of their highest and latest part.[ ] this halt in evolution can be connected with different physiological causes, hereditary weaknesses of origin, infections, intoxications, disorders of internal secretions, disorders of the sympathetic system. these diverse etiologies will most likely be of use later to distinguish between forms of these diseases; but to-day the common character of neuroses and psychoses is that this diminution of vitality bears upon the highest functions of self-government. whatever be the disorders you may consider, aboulias, hysterical accidents, psychasthenic obsessions, periodical depressions, melancholics, systematized deliriums, asthenic insanity, you will always find a number of facts resulting from this general perturbation. in plenty of cases, the acts, far from being diminished, appear exaggerated; the patient moves about a great deal, he accomplishes acts of defense, of escape, of attack, he speaks enormously, he seems to evoke many remembrances and combine all sorts of stories during interminable reveries. but pray examine the value and the level of all these acts; they are mere gestures, shocks of limbs, laughter, sobs, reactions simply reflex or perceptive, in connection with immediate stimulation, with inhibition, without choice, without adaptation by reflection. the thoughts that fill these ruminations are childish and stupid, just as the acts are vulgar and awkward; there is a manifest return to childhood and barbarism. the behavior of the agitated individual is well below that which he should show normally. it is easy to explain these facts in the language we have adopted. the agitation consists in an activity, more less complete, in inferior tendencies very much below those the subject should normally utilize. it is that in reality the agitation never exists alone, it is accompanied by another very important phenomenon which it dissimulates sometimes, i mean the depression characterized by the diminution or the disappearance of superior actions, appertaining to the highest level of our hierarchy. it is always observed that with these patients certain actions have disappeared, that certain acts executed formerly with rapidity and facility can no longer be accomplished. the patients seem to have lost their delicacy of feeling, their altruism, their intelligent critique. the stopping of tendencies by stimulation, the transformation of tendencies into ideas, the deliberation, the endeavor, the reflection; in one word, both the moral effort and the call upon reserves for executing painful acts are suppressed. there exists visibly a lowering of level, and it is right to say that these patients are below themselves. the two phenomena, agitation and depression, are almost always associated in neuroses as well as in psychoses. it is likely that their union depends upon some very general law, relating to the exhaustion of psychological forces. it is probable that the superior phenomena exact under a form of concentration, of particular tension, much more power than acts of an inferior order, although the latter seem more violent and more noisy. "when the force primitively destined to be spent for the production of a certain superior phenomenon has become impossible, derivations happen, that is to say, that this force is spent in producing other useless and especially inferior phenomena."[ ] a very great number of phenomena observed in neuroses and psychoses are in connection with depression and agitation. convulsive attacks, diverse fits of agitation, prove to us that before the fit there existed disproportion between the quantity and the tension of the psychological forces, and that the spending of forces during the fit re-establishes the equilibrium. but at the same time, after this spending, one observes a notable lowering of the mental level, a real psycholepsy. it is very likely that studies of this kind will produce some day the key of the epilepsy problem, for vertigos and certain epileptic fits are certainly phenomena of relaxation, the meaning of which we do not comprehend because we do not study sufficiently the state of psychological tension before and after the accidents. the difficulty of accomplishing superior acts, the exhaustion resulting from their accomplishment, renders them fearful to the patient who has the fear, the phobia of these acts, just as he has the terror of that depression which gives the feeling of the diminution of life. the shrinking of activity and conscience, phobias, negativisms, generally take their starting point in this fear of exhaustion caused by some difficult action. in other cases the patient feels incapable of accomplishing correctly the reflected acts necessary to social and moral life, and feeling no longer protected by reflection, he is afraid of willing or believing something, as one is afraid of walking in a dangerous path, when one cannot see. the vertigo of life produces itself like the vertigo of heights, when one is not sure of oneself. depressed patients have felt, wrongly or rightly, a certain excitation after a certain action. through some curious mechanism, certain acts, instead of exhausting them, have raised their psychological tension. the need, the desire to raise themselves inspires them with the wish to renew such acts, and we behold the impulsions to absorb poisons, impulsions to command, to theft, to aggression, to extraordinary acts, varied impulsions which play a great part in psychoses as well as in neuroses. i shall not insist any more on a very interesting phenomenon in connection with the oscillations of the mind and which still plays a great part in these diseases. i am speaking of the change of feeling which may accompany the same action in the course of the oscillations of the mind. at the level with the reflected action, more or less complete, the thought of an action which appears important and of which one often thinks, determines interrogations, doubts, scruples. if the individual descends one degree, if he becomes quite incapable of reflecting and therefore of doubting, the same action he continues to think about may present itself under the form of an impulsion more or less irresistible. there are patients who in the first stage have the fear and horror of committing an act and who in the second stage are driven to accomplish it. in other cases a subject may make use of an action as a means of exciting and raising himself; he seeks it, and the thought of this action is accompanied by love and desire. let him become depressed and he will no longer be able to accomplish this same action without exhausting himself; he is then reduced to dread it and take an aversion to it. that which was an object of love becomes an object of hatred. thence these turnings of mind that are so often to be observed in the course of neuroses and psychoses. in a score of my observations the frenzy of persecution and hatred presents itself as an evolution of those obsessions of love and domination. these are very curious facts that one observes in the oscillations of the mind, in particular when the psychasthenic depression becomes more serious and transforms itself in psychasthenic delirium, which is more frequent than one generally imagines. as a rule the properly so-called psychasthenic has only disorders of the reflection; he doubts but he does not rave. but under different influences, his depression may augment, and when he drops below reflection he has no longer the doubts, the hesitations, he no longer shows manias of love and of direction, he transforms his obsessions into deliriums and often his loves into hatreds. these are a few examples of the perturbations of conduct common to neurotic sufferers and the diseased in mind. one perceives that the same laws relating to the diminution of force and the lowering of the psychological tension intervene in the same way with the one as with the others. the distinctions, which have been established for social reasons and practical conveniences, no longer exist when one tries to find, by analysis of the symptoms, the nature of neuroses and psychoses. the latter reflection shows us, however, that in certain cases, at least, there is a certain difference in degree between neuroses and psychoses. the evolution of the human mind has been formed by degrees, by successive stages, and we possess in ourselves a series of superposed layers which correspond to diverse stages of the psychological development; when our forces diminish we lose successively these diverse layers commencing with the highest. it is the superior floors of the buildings that are reached first by the bombardments of the war and the cellars are not destroyed at first; they acquire even more importance, as people are beginning to inhabit them. well, according as the depression descends more or less deeply, the disorders which result from the loss of the superior functions and the exaggerated action of the inferior ones become more and more serious and are appreciated differently. the superior psychological functions are, in my opinion, experimental tendencies and rational tendencies. they are tendencies to special actions in which man takes in account remembrances of former acts and of their results, in which he enforces on himself by a special effort obedience to logical and moral laws. a little fatigue and a slight degree of exhaustion are sufficient for such an action to become difficult and impossible to prolong for a long time. furthermore, the disorders of the experimental conduct or of the rational conduct are very frequent. these disorders only reach the superior actions which are not absolutely necessary to the conservation of social order. they can be easily repaired by inferior acts: if the man does not obey pure moral principles, at least he can conduct himself in appearance in an analogous manner through fear of the prison. also, these disorders of the superior functions are considered as slight; they are called errors, or faults, and it is admitted that the subjects remain normal beings. at the other extremity of the hierarchical series of tendencies the acts are simply reflex. when the disease descends to this level, when the elementary acts can no longer be executed correctly, we do not hesitate either, and we consider these disorders (related with known lesions) as organic diseases of the nervous system. but between these two terms we note disorders in behavior which are more difficult to interpret. these disorders are too grave and too difficult to modify by our usual processes of education and punishment for us to consider them as mere errors or as moral faults; they are variable; they are not accompanied by actually visible lesions and we have trouble in classing them among the acknowledged deteriorations of the organism. there is the province of neuroses and psychoses, intermedium between that of rational errors and that of organic diseases of the nervous system. it corresponds to the disorders of medium psychological functions, to the group of these operations which establish a union more or less solid between the language and the movements of limbs and which give birth to our wills and beliefs. can one establish, in this group, a distinction between neuroses and psychoses that rests on some more precise notion and that is not limited to distinguishing them in a legal point of view? a more profound knowledge of the mechanisms of the will and belief would perhaps permit us to do so. we are capable of wills and beliefs of a superior order when we reach decision after reflection. the operation of reflection which hinders tendencies and maintains them in the shape of ideas, which compares ideas and which only decides after this deliberation, constitutes the highest form of the medium operations of the human mind. lower, still, there exists will and belief, but they are formed without reflection, without stoppage of ideas, without deliberation; they are the result of an immediate assent which transforms verbal formulas into wills and beliefs as soon as they strike the attention, as soon as they are accompanied by a powerful sentiment. the immediate assent is the inferior form of these tendencies. if one wished to establish a scientific distinction between neuroses and psychoses, i should say, in a summary fashion, that in neuroses the reflection alone is disturbed, that in psychoses the immediate assent itself is affected. the shrinkage of the conscience, doubts, aboulias, obsessions, scruples are always disorders of the reflected will and belief. on the contrary, irresistible impulsions, deliriums, indifferences which suppress desires and only allow elementary agitations to subsist, show alterations in the immediate assent, in the will, and the primitive belief and must be considered as psychoses. below could be placed the disorders of elementary intelligence, the disorder of the perceptive and social functions which characterize the mental deficiencies of imbeciles and idiots. one might also distinguish these disorders according to the degree of depth the destruction of the edifice has reached, according to the more or less distant state of evolution to which the patient goes back. but these psychological classifications are purely theoretical, and in practice many other factors intervene which oblige us to consider such a patient as incapable of doing any harm and such another as dangerous; this is the only difference to-day between neuroses and psychoses. later on, without doubt, we shall be able to substitute for these simply symptomatical and psychological diagnostics, some etiological and physiological diagnostics. we shall be able from the very outset to recognize that a disorder, in all appearance slight and which is not deeply set, presents a bad prognosis, and we shall be able to foresee a serious and deep psychosis in the future. to-day, without doubt, one can often distinguish from the outset the future general paralytic from the simple neurasthenic. but in the actual state of science this ability to distinguish is not frequent and the future evolution of a depressed state can scarcely be foreseen with precision. certain individuals pass in a few years from psychasthenic depression with doubts and obsessions to psychasthenic deliriums with stubbornness and negativism, then to asthenic insanity with irremediable and complete want of power. is it necessary to say that we made a mistake in our diagnostic and that from the first demential psychosis should have been recognized? i am not convinced of this: these diseases, excepting a few cases with rapid evolution, are not characterized from the outset. without doubt we must note that these depressions which disturb the reflective tendencies of young patients in full period of formation, are dangerous and can bring on still deeper depressions of the psychological tension. but that evolution is rarely fatal; it can very often be checked, and it seems to me fair to preserve the distinction between neuroses and psychoses considered as different degrees of psychological decadence. neuroses are, therefore, the intermedium between the errors and the faults which appeared to us almost normal, and alienation which seemed exceptional and distant from us. the first appearances of that depression which in a continuous manner descends to alienation are to be found already in the disorders of character which seemed to be quite insignificant. the miser, the misanthrope, the hypocrite are described by the writer before they are claimed by the physician. a great number of neuropathic disorders which i have described are related to the popular type of mother-in-law. this type is not necessarily that of a woman whose daughter has married, but the type of a depressed woman of about fifty, aboulic, discontented with herself and others, domineering, and jealous, because she suffers from the mania of being loved though she is incapable of acquiring any one's affection. all exhaustions, all moral failings have the closest connection with neuroses and psychoses. these reflections prove to us that the alienist physician should interest himself more and more in the treatment of neuroses even slight, to rectifying the disorders of temper, to the education of the young, to the direction of the moral hygiene of his country. on many of these points america leads the way; your works of social hygiene, the good battle you are righting against alcoholism, are examples for us. you are the new world, younger, not rendered so inactive by secular habits. you can act more easily than we. we may have the advantage, in the old world, of the experience of old people and the habit of observation, but we are slack in reform and action. "if youth had experience and old age ability," says one of our proverbs. we must remain united and join your strength to our experience for the greater progress of the studies which are dear to us and for the greater good benefit of our two countries. footnotes: [footnote : _cf._ janet, p., les névroses, , p. .] [footnote : _cf._ les médications psychologiques, , i, p. .] [footnote : "les nevroses," , p. .] [footnote : _cf._ janet, p., "obsessions et psychestenic," , vol. i, p. .] address by dr. william l. russell [illustration: bloomingdale hospital, white plains, new york, ] _the chairman_: the year is rich in anniversaries for the new york hospital. next october we plan to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the granting of our charter. to-day we are occupied with the bloomingdale centenary. a fortnight ago the twenty-fifth annual graduating exercises of our training school for nurses were held in this room. this year also marks the decennial of dr. russell's term of office as medical superintendent. when his devoted predecessor, dr. samuel b. lyon, asked in to be relieved from active duty and became our first medical superintendent emeritus, we were most fortunate in securing as his successor dr. russell. coming to this institution after a broad psychiatric and administrative experience, he has taken up our special problems with deep insight and gratifying success. he has selected for his subject this afternoon "the medical development of bloomingdale hospital." no one can speak with greater authority on a theme of which it may be said _quorum magna pars_--fortunately not only _fuit_--but _est_ and _erit_ as well. dr. russell the object of this celebration is not merely to glorify the past and least of all is it to laud the present. what we hope from it is that it will establish a milestone, not only to mark the progress thus far made but to point the way to a path of greater usefulness. the advances in medical science and practice and in the specialty of psychiatry during the past hundred years fill one with wonder and hope. it is worth while to review them merely to obtain this help. the outlook for the century to come is, however, so far as can be anticipated, still brighter. to review the past is, at a time like this, not unprofitable. it may prevent us, in our zeal for the new, from discarding what is valuable in the old, and from overvaluing some things which may have outlived their usefulness. we must be careful that we do not fall into errors similar to those from which the medical profession was rescued by the movement of which bloomingdale asylum was an offspring. it should be recalled that the establishment of the asylum was due to the initiative of the governors of the new york hospital, especially mr. eddy, rather than to the active interest and direction of physicians. the object of the establishment was, according to mr. eddy, to afford an opportunity of ascertaining how far insanity may be relieved by moral treatment alone, which, he says, "it is believed, will, in many instances, be more effective in controlling the maniacs than medical treatment." the moral management he referred to, though advocated by pinel and a few others, some of whom were benevolent and intelligent laymen, had not been accepted by physicians as a distinct form of medical treatment. few physicians of the period had accepted management of the mind as described and practised by pinel as being a distinct medical procedure, as having the same value in overcoming mental disorders as the drastic medical remedies which they were accustomed to employ, or as having any exclusive healing power. this is clearly shown by the case records of the mental department of the new york hospital which have been preserved since , and of those of bloomingdale asylum for some years after its opening in . it is plainly set forth in dr. rush's book on diseases of the mind, which was first published in and again in a fourth edition in . rush was physician to the pennsylvania hospital and his book was the principal, if not the only, one of the period by an american author. american physicians like their european brothers, had, as pinel observes, "allowed themselves to be confined within the fairy circle of antiphlogisticism, and by that means to be deviated from the more important management of the mind." rush believed that madness was a disease of the blood-vessels of the brain of the same nature as fever, of which it was a chronic form. "there is," he says, "not a single symptom that takes place in an ordinary fever, except a hot skin, that does not occur in an acute attack of madness." he found in his autopsy observations confirmation of this view and concludes that "madness is to phrenitis what pulmonary consumption is to pneumony, that is, a chronic state of an acute disease." the reason for believing that madness was a disease of the blood-vessels, which seemed to him most conclusive, was "from the remedies which most speedily and certainly cure it being exactly the same as those which cure fever or disease in the blood-vessels from other causes and in other parts of the body." the treatment he recommended and which was generally employed was copious blood-letting, blisters, purges, emetics, and other severe depleting measures. when bloomingdale asylum was established, therefore, the provision for moral treatment did not contemplate that this should be applied by the physician or that he should have full control of the resources by means of which it could be applied. the records do not indicate that either the physicians or the governors realized that this might be necessary or advantageous. the present system of administration in which the chief physician is also the chief executive officer of the institution was a result of an evolution which took many years to reach its full consummation. pinel, many years before bloomingdale asylum was opened, had shown by the most careful observation and practice that the management and discipline of the hospital was a most powerful agent in the treatment of the patients. the manner in which he was led to this conclusion is a remarkable example of the scientific method. when he became physician to the bicetre he found that the methods of classification and treatment recommended in the books seemed to be inadequate, and, desiring further information, he says: "i resolved to examine myself the facts which were presented to my attention; and, forgetting the empty honor of my titular distinction as a physician, i viewed the scene that opened to me with the eye of common sense and unprejudiced observation.... from systems of nosology, i had little assistance to expect; since the arbitrary distributions of sauvages and cullen were better calculated to impress the conviction of their insufficiency than to simplify my labor. i, therefore, resolved to adopt that method of investigation which has invariably succeeded in all the departments of natural history, viz., to notice successively every fact, without any other object than that of collecting materials for future use; and to endeavor, as far as possible, to divest myself of the influence, both of my own prepossessions and the authority of others. with this view, i first of all took a general statement of the symptoms of my patients. to ascertain their characteristic peculiarities, the above survey was followed by cautious and repeated examinations into the condition of individuals. all our new cases were entered at great length upon the journals of the house." having thus studied carefully the course of the disease in a number of patients who were subjected only to the guidance and control made possible by the management of the hospital under the direction of a remarkably highly qualified governor, it came to him with the force of a new discovery that this man who was not a physician was doing more for the patients than he was, and that insanity was curable in many instances by mildness of treatment and attention to the state of mind exclusively. "i saw with wonder," he says, "the resources of nature when left to herself, or skilfully assisted in her efforts. my faith in pharmaceutic preparations was gradually lessened, and my scepticism went at length so far as to induce me never to have recourse to them, until moral remedies had completely failed." so convinced did he become of the significance and importance of the management and discipline of the hospital in the treatment of the patients, that, when a few years later, he wrote his "treatise on insanity," he states that one of the objects of his writing it was, "to furnish precise rules for the internal police and management of charitable establishments and asylums; to urge the necessity of providing for the insulation of the different classes of patients at houses intended for their confinement; and to place first, in point of consequence, the duties of a humane and enlightened superintendency and the maintenance of order in the services of the hospitals." pinel's views had apparently not been fully understood or adopted by the physicians of america at the time bloomingdale asylum was planned and established. dr. rush did not mention him in his book, and mr. eddy, in his communication to the governors of the new york hospital, referred only to the writings of drs. creighton, arnold, and rush and the account of the york retreat by samuel tuke. when bloomingdale asylum was opened, the form of organization introduced was that under which the department at the new york hospital had been conducted. mr. laban gardner was made superintendent or warden with two men and three women keepers to aid him in the control and management of the seventy-five patients. there was an attending physician who visited once a week and a resident physician, neither of whom received salaries. there is nothing in the records to indicate that in the beginning, the governors of the hospital looked upon the moral treatment of the patients, which was the object for which the institution was established, as the task of the physicians. the aim was to furnish employment, diversion, discipline, and social enjoyment, without much attempt at precision or close medical direction and control. for a time the results were considered to be satisfactory. in , however, a joint committee of the board reported that they were impressed by the necessity of improving the moral treatment, and recommended that two discreet persons be appointed to take charge of such of the patients as might from time to time be in a condition to be amused or employed on the farm or in walking exercises in the open or in classes to be designated by the resident physician "with," however, "the approbation of the superintendent," who you will recall was not a physician. these patients were, the report recommends, to be particularly under the charge of the resident physician when thus employed or amused "out of the asylum." at this time, the attending and resident physicians were placed on a small salary, and the resident physician was instructed to "devote a greater portion of his time and attention to the moral part of the establishment and to communicate to the committee such improvements as his experience shall suggest to be useful and necessary in carrying into more complete effect the system of moral treatment and to report from time to time to the committee the effect of the measure adopted." this seems to have been the beginning of a realization that the moral management of the patients was inseparable from medical treatment and must necessarily be the task of the physician. seven years after this, in , the committee found it advisable to spread upon the minutes an "interpretation and regulations," relating to the superintendent and matron of the asylum and to the asylum physicians, to the effect that the committee understood that the regulations "placed the moral treatment on the physician alone, under the direction of the asylum committee, and that the responsibility remains with him alone, that this treatment commenced with the reception of the patient, the ward where he shall be placed, his exercises, amusement, admission of friends, the time of discharge from the house.... and that all orders to nurses and keepers which the physicians may think necessary to carry these orders into effect _shall be communicated through the superintendent_" (or warden). in , the resident physician, dr. james macdonald, who had just returned from europe after having spent a year in visiting the institutions for mental disorders there, made a report in which he rather significantly referred to the impracticability of making a sharp distinction between the medical and moral treatment of the patients, it being difficult to say where the one ended and the other began, or to put one into successful operation without bringing in the other. at this time the position of attending physician was abolished and the resident physician was made the chief medical officer of the asylum. it was not until that an amendment to the by-laws regulating the powers of the physician and the warden was adopted which gave to the physician the power of appointing and discharging at pleasure all the attendants on the patients, while to the warden was reserved the power of appointing and dismissing all other employees. fourteen years had thus elapsed since the opening of the asylum before the physician was given control of even the nursing service. the first annual report of the resident physician of the asylum to be published appeared in . in this, dr. william wilson makes a general statement in regard to the beneficial effects of the moral as well as the medical treatment pursued in the institution, and refers particularly to occupations, exercise in the open air, amusement, religious services, and he asks that a workshop be erected for the men. it is evident that by this time the authority of the physician in the management of the institution had been extended and it is perhaps significant that in his report of the following year dr. wilson refers to a plan for distribution of food which had been evolved in co-operation with the warden. under the direction of dr. pliny earle, who was appointed physician to the asylum in , treatment directed to the mind was further elaborated and systematized, and the place of the physician in the management of the hospital was more firmly established. this brief survey indicates how, in the development of the work of the institution, it required years of practical experience to show to the governors that, in order to secure for the patients the treatment which the asylum had been established to furnish, it was necessary to extend the powers and duties of the physician so that he could control and direct the internal management and discipline, and all the resources for social as well as individual treatment. this extension was continued until finally the present form of organization was adopted in which the chief physician is also the chief executive officer of the institution. this was, however, not fully accomplished until . it is now universally recognized that the physician must be the supreme head of the organization, and all american institutions and most, if not all, of those in other countries are now similarly organized. in the early development of bloomingdale asylum, this extension of the influence and authority of the physician is the outstanding medical fact. it did away with division of responsibility and removed from discussion the question of moral as distinct from medical treatment. thereafter a harmonious and effective application of all the resources of the institution to the problems of the patients became more easily and certainly possible. since then, the resources for treatment directed to the mind have been developed as steadily and fully as those required for the treatment of physical conditions. the use of the organized agencies which were regarded by the founders as the main reliance in moral treatment, namely occupations, physical exercises and games, diversion, social contacts, and enjoyment, and management of behavior has been greatly extended, and specialized departments have been created for their application with system and growing precision. great advances have also been made in the methods of examining the minds of the patients and of determining the mental factors in their disorders and the means of restoring their capacity for adjustment to healthy thinking and acting. psychiatry has been furnished with a body of well-arranged facts, and with a technic which is not inferior in system and precision to that of many other branches of medicine. in the study and management of the minds of the patients the physician is thus enabled to apply himself to the task as he does to any other medical problem. the advances in general medical science and practice have also necessitated great elaboration of the resources for the study and treatment of the physical condition of the patients. instruments of precision, laboratories, x-ray departments, dental and surgical operating rooms, massage and hydrotherapy departments, facilities for eye, throat, nose, and ear examinations and treatment, and all the other means of determining disease processes and applying proper treatment have been supplied and the methods and standards of modern clinical medicine and surgery are utilized. it can now be clearly seen that it is necessary to direct attention to the whole personality of the patient, including his original physical and mental constitution, the physical as well as the mental factors which may be operating to produce his disorder, and the environmental conditions to which he has been and may again be exposed. in the treatment of mental disorders it is necessary to beware of what pinel found to be the fault of the physicians and medical authors of his time, who he says were more concerned with the recommendation of a favorite remedy than with the natural history of the disease, "as if," he says, "the treatment of every disease without accurate knowledge of its symptoms involved in it neither danger nor uncertainty," and he quotes the following maxim of dr. gault: "we cannot cure diseases by the resources of art, if not previously acquainted with their terminations, when left to the unassisted efforts of nature." exclusive attention to the physical condition and factors, or to the mental condition and factors, or concentration on one theory or one form of treatment to the exclusion of all others is sure to lead to neglect of that careful general inquiry into the whole personality of the patient, into the conditions out of which his disorder arose, and into all the manageable factors in the situation which is so essential to intelligent and effective treatment. notwithstanding the great benefit which has been derived from physical measures in the study and treatment of mental disorders, and the well-founded hopes of greater advances in this direction, the main task still continues to be what pinel calls the management of the mind. experience and increasing knowledge show that this is a task which can only be successfully performed by the physician and by means of organized resources which are under medical direction and control. the hospital for mental disorders furnishes the means of providing social as well as individual treatment. it is a medical mechanism and for its proper management and use it is required of physicians that they accept the burden of much executive work and give their attention to many subjects and activities that may interfere seriously with what they have been taught to regard as more strictly professional interests. like pinel, one must be willing to forget the empty honor of one's titular distinction as a physician, and do whatever may be necessary to make the institution a truly medical agency for the healing of the sick. considerable progress has been made in developing executive assistants to relieve the physicians of much of the administrative work which requires little or no medical supervision and direction. special provision for the training of such executives has, however, received insufficient attention. this question might, with great advantage, be taken up by the hospitals and colleges. nothing would add more to the quality of the service which the hospitals render than to supplement the work of the physicians by that of well educated and highly trained executive assistants who would themselves find an extremely interesting and productive field for their efforts. a period has now been reached in this field of work when what amounts to a movement not inferior in significance and importance to that of a hundred years ago, seems to be in active operation. the character and scope of this movement and the lines of its progress have, to some extent, been indicated in the illuminating formulations which have been presented here to-day. the medical study and treatment of the mind is no longer so exclusively confined within the walls of institutions nor to the type or degree of disorder which necessitates compulsory seclusion. psychiatry is extending out from the institutions into the communities by means of out-patient clinics and social workers, through newly created organized agencies, through informed individuals, physicians, nurses, and lay workers, and through the general spread of psychiatric knowledge. this process is being expedited by the efforts of organized bodies such as the national and state committees and societies for mental hygiene, and the public is rapidly learning what can properly be expected of institutions, officials, physicians, nurses, and other responsible individuals in whom special knowledge and ability are supposed to be found. as in the prevention of tuberculosis, so, in the prevention of mental disorders, the informed public is likely to start a campaign which the medical profession may have to make haste to follow in order to maintain its needed leadership. although much is yet required to improve the facilities necessary in carrying on the present work, it seems to us that at such a time a further extension of the activities of an institution such as bloomingdale hospital may be necessary to enable it to fulfil its possibilities for greater usefulness. to extend the work our experience indicates that a department in the city at the general hospital would be of great advantage. during the past few years the oversight of discharged patients has grown to such an extent that it seems as though some organized method of carrying it on may soon become necessary. this and out-patient work generally could be best attended to in a city department. much emergency work and preliminary observation and the treatment of certain types of cases now frequently subjected to unfortunate delays, neglect, and unskilful treatment would also be thus provided for. it can be seen too that developments in construction and organization which would furnish organized treatment for types of disorders which are not so incapacitating as the pronounced psychoses might be of advantage in the treatment of both adults and children. the property on which the hospital is located is large enough to permit of further extensions and developments which could be as closely connected with, or as widely separated and distinguished from, the present provision as circumstances required. in this way much needed provision for the treatment of persons suffering from the psychoneuroses and minor psychoses could be furnished. better provision for a further period of readjustment after a patient is ready to leave the hospital but not yet ready to face the risk of ordinary conditions in the community is a felt want. a group of supervised homes or an occupational colony might best serve this purpose. the more extensive use of the hospital as a teaching centre is also a subject for consideration. a school for nurses is now conducted, and much instruction is given in the occupational departments. more, however, could be done, especially in medical teaching, which could be best carried on in a department in the city and would tend to advance the standard of medical service throughout the hospital. the lines of further development are, perhaps, not yet perfectly clear in all directions. it seems certain, however, that they will lead toward a broader field of usefulness, in which the hospital will be regarded as a responsible agency for dealing with psychiatric problems in the community which it serves and will take part with other agencies in extending psychiatric knowledge and in applying it to prevention, and to the management of mental disorders as an individual and social problem beyond the walls of the institution. we hope that this meeting will prove a real starting point for this development. we are greatly indebted to those who have taken part in it both as speakers and as audience. we are especially indebted to those who came across the sea to be with us. it is peculiarly fitting that representatives of france and of england should have been here, for to pinel, the frenchman, and to tuke, the englishman, are due more than to any others whose names we know the foundations of the modern institutional treatment of mental disorders. _the chairman:_ this, ladies and gentlemen, concludes our exercises. as the representative of the governors, i find it quite impracticable, in supplementing what dr. russell has just said, to express adequately our admiration of and gratitude to these eminent scientists and apostles of light for their presence here and for their inspiring addresses. these, if i may be permitted to appraise them, seem to make a notable addition to medical literature, and, with the permission of their authors, we purpose, for our own gratification and for the benefit of the profession, to have all of the addresses preserved in a volume recording this centenary celebration. in due course a copy of this volume will be sent to each of our guests. the celebration itself, i think you will all agree with me, has been a moving one, with an underlying note of philanthropic endeavor as high as the stars. you heard its refrain in the pageant on the lawn this afternoon. as i have listened to-day to these words of profound wisdom, uttered in so noble a spirit of human ministry, my mind has gone back to the sentence from cicero's plea for ligarius,[ ] which formed the text for dr. samuel bard's eloquent appeal in , mentioned this morning, for the establishment of the new york hospital, and which may be freely rendered, "in no act performed by man does he approach so closely to the gods as when he is restoring the sick to the blessings of health." and surely when that restoration to health consists in "razing out the written trouble of the brain" and reviving in the patient the conscious exercise of divine reason, it is difficult to imagine a more godlike act. footnotes: [footnote : homines enim ad deos nulla re proprius accedunt, quam salutem hominibus dando.] the tableau-pageant [illustration: scene from the tableau pageant presented on the grounds of bloomingdale hospital, may , ] synopsis while the symbolic father time bears witness, the muse of history, as the narrator, after alluding to the remote past, briefly summarizes the incidents leading up to the establishment of the society of the new york hospital by royal charter in . the succeeding scenes are self-revealing. the familiar picture of pinel at salpetrière depicts conditions in that period. several portraits of personalities intimately associated with the early history of bloomingdale hospital follow. these, together with an episode from the life of dorothy dix, stimulate our imagination with reference to the revival of interest in the care of the mentally ill in the first half of the last century. the closing scenes suggest the great advance which has taken place during the century, and the part that work and play take to-day in re-establishing and maintaining life's balances. finally, in symbolic processional, tribute is paid to hygeia, the goddess of health and happiness. characters and scenes in tableau-pageant music: orchestra overture _prologue_ the muse of history (narrator): adelyn wesley spirit of the past (time): dr. d. austin sniffen music: orchestra "amaryllis" scene i court of king george iii.--granting of the charter characters: king george iii queen charlotte prince of wales court chamberlain court ladies emissaries cherokee chief gavot minuet through dramatic license, this scene takes place in the court of king george iii. colonial emissaries, accompanied by a north american indian, attend, and are graciously granted by the king a royal charter establishing the society of the new york hospital, along with a seal, insignia, and a money gift. a bit of color and romance attaches to the cherokee's appearance in the scene. music: orchestra "god save the king" "minuet don juan" "largo" "amaryllis" scene ii pinel Ã� la salpetriÃ�re [transcriber's note: original reads 'salpteriÃ�re'] characters: pinel patients aides and attendants a courtyard scene in salpetrière in . hopelessness and chained despair are pictured. pinel enters, is saddened and indignant at the sight of so much unnecessary suffering, and instantly orders the chains to be struck off. the historic episode closes in a graphic tableau depicting the gratitude of the released. music: orchestra "kammenoi ostrow" scene iii portraits--personalities of the past thomas eddy, of the board of governors, - . dr. james macdonald, first resident physician, - . dr. pliny earle,[transcriber's note: original reads 'early'] organizer, - . miss eliza macdonald, daughter of dr. macdonald, unveils the portrait of her father. music: orchestra "long, long ago" scene iv dorothy lynde dix before a legislative committee characters: [this instance of 'characters:' added by transcriber] dorothy l. dix members of the committee chairman miss dix appears before a committee of the legislature and is heard in an impassioned appeal on behalf of adequate provision and care for the mentally ill. the scene closes with the committee indicating their approval and congratulating miss dix on her successful effort. music: orchestra "maryland, my maryland" "columbia, the gem of the ocean" scene v occupational-recreational activities men's crafts women's crafts men's sports women's sports maypole dance supplementing the general medical work, the therapeutic value of organized occupational and recreational activities is gaining increasing recognition. those arts and crafts lending themselves to graphic presentation are here selected: dyeing, weaving, spinning, basketry, caning, modelling, painting, pottery, metal work, net making, gardening, etc.: and similarly, in the recreative activities, tennis, golf, hockey, baseball, croquet, bowling, skiing, and skating. a maypole dance closes the scene. music: orchestra "boccherina" "henry viii, maypole dance" scene vi inspirations characters: hygeia la belle france britannia columbia the closing scene is in the nature of a processional symbolizing international unity of purpose and a determination to pursue, until finally attained, the goal of health and happiness, personified by the goddess hygeia. music: orchestra "marseillaise" "god save the king" "battle hymn of the republic" "the star spangled banner" "tammany" names of those who attended the exercises[ ] e. stanley abbot, m.d. philadelphia, pa. louise acton white plains, n.y. elizabeth i. adamson, m.d. white plains, n.y. william h. alleé, m.d. ridgefield, conn. thaddeus h. ames, m.d. new york city. mrs. george s. amsden white plains, n.y. mrs. isadora anschutz white plains, n.y. grosvenor atterbury new york city. pearce bailey, m.d. new york city. amos t. baker, m.d. bedford hills, n.y. mrs. amos t. baker bedford hills, n.y. lewellys f. barker, m.d. baltimore, md. clifford w. beers new york city. christopher c. beling, m.d. newark, n.j. harrison betts, m.d. yonkers, n.y. anna t. bingham, m.d. new york city. mrs. martha bird middletown, n.y. charles e. birch, m.d. white plains, n.y. j. fielding black, m.d. white plains, n.y. mrs. j. fielding black white plains, n.y. g. alder blumer, m.d. providence, r.i. leonard blumgart, m.d. new york city. j. arthur booth, m.d. new york city. miss helen booth new york city. s.m. boyd scarsdale, n.y. mrs. s.m. boyd scarsdale, n.y. mrs. sidney c. borg new york city. rose bell bradley new york city. v.c. branham, m.d. new york city. holly brown white plains, n.y. helen brown, m.d. new york city. sanger brown, d, m.d. new york city. miss elizabeth o. buckingham chicago, ill. alfred c. buckley, m.d. frankford, philadelphia, pa. alice gates bugbee, m.d. white plains, n.y. jesse c.m. bullowa, m.d. new york city. william browning, m.d. brooklyn, n.y. marie von h. byers new york city. karl m. bowman, m.d. white plains, n.y. mrs. karl m. bowman white plains, n.y. edna l. byington white plains, n.y. c.n.b. camac, m.d. new york city. c. macfie campbell, m.d. boston, mass. mrs. c. macfie campbell, m.d. boston, mass. robert carroll, m.d. asheville, n.c. mrs. robert carroll asheville, n.c. louis casamajor, m.d. new york city. ross mcc. chapman, m.d. towson, md. helen childs white plains, n.y. mrs. anne choate pleasantville, n.y. e.h. clarke new york city. miss marjory clark, r.n. new york city. joseph collins, m.d. new york city. michael collins white plains, n.y. arthur s. corwin, m.d. rye, n.y. mrs. margaret cornwell new rochelle, n.y. henry a. cotton, m.d. trenton, n.j. edith cox white plains, n.y. c. burns craig, m.d. new york city. henry w. crane new york city. raymond s. crispell, m.d. new york city. mrs. seymour cromwell mendham, n.y. hugh s. cummings, m.d., surgeon-general u.s. public health service washington, d.c. charles l. dana, m.d. new york city. thomas k. davis, m.d. new york city. henderson brooke deady, m.d. new york city. john w. dean white plains, n.y. mrs. aline s. devin eliot, maine. allen ross diefendorf, m.d. new haven, conn. william elliott dold, m.d. astoria, l.i., n.y. george drake white plains, n.y. john w. draper, m.d. new york city. nataline dullas white plains, n.y. charles s. dunlap, m.d. new york city. mrs. alfred f. denike white plains, n.y. r. condit eddy, m.d. new rochelle, n.y. joseph p. eidson, m.d. white plains, n.y. mrs. emma eldridge tuckahoe, n.y. charles a. elsberg, m.d. new york city. william else, m.d. new york city. everett s. elwood, secretary state hospital commission albany, new york. mrs. ezra h. fitch new york city. ralph p. folsom, m.d. new york city. harold e. foster, m.d. boston, mass. diana fowler white plains, n.y. florence fuller white plains, n.y. isaac j. furman, m.d. new york city. leslie gager, m.d. new york city. william c. garvin, m.d. kings park, n.y. arnold gesell, m.d. new haven, conn. bernard glueck, m.d. new york city. j. riddle goffe, m.d. new york city. s. philip goodhart, m.d. new york city. miss annie w. goodrich, r.n. new york city. phyllis greenacre, m.d. baltimore, md. menas s. gregory, m.d. new york city. miss pauline p. gunderson white plains, n.y. louis j. haas white plains, n.y. thomas h. haines, m.d. new york city. miss dorothy hale new york city. miss natalie hall white plains, n.y. robert b. hammond, m.d. white plains, n.y. miss elisa hansen white plains, n.y. milton a. harrington, m.d. alfred, n.y. isham g. harris, m.d. brooklyn, n.y. george a. hastings new york city. winifred hathaway new york city. edna haverstock white plains, n.y. c. floyd haviland, m.d. middletown, conn. f. ross haviland, m.d. brooklyn, n.y. charles e. haynes, m.d. new york city. eunice w. haydon new york city. miss katherine f. hearn, r.n. white plains, n.y. edna hemingson white plains, n.y. george w. henry, m.d. white plains, n.y. mrs. george w. henry white plains, n.y. marcus b. heyman, m.d. new york city. beatrice m. hinkle, m.d. new york city. l.e. hinsie, m.d. new york city. p.f. hoffman, m.d. white plains, n.y. john f. holden, m.d. white plains, n.y. hubert s. howe, m.d. new york city. thomas howell, m.d. new york city. j. ramsay hunt, m.d. new york city. helen hunt white plains, n.y. miss augusta m. huppuch new york city. richard h. hutchings, m.d. utica, n.y. frank n. irwin, m.d. new york city. martha joffe white plains, n.y. walter b. james, m.d. new york city. mrs. walter james white plains, n.y. professor pierre janet, m.d. paris, france. madame pierre janet paris, france. m.e. jarvis, m.d. new york city. rev. oscar jarvis white plains, n.y. walter jennings cold spring harbor, l.i., n.y. miss gudron johannessen, r.n. white plains, n.y. miss marguerite jewell white plains, n.y. miss florence m. johnson. new york city. kenneth b. jones, m.d. thiells, n.y. miss minnie jordan, r.n. new york city. mrs. de lancey a. kane new rochelle, n.y. lilian a. kelm new york city. james p. kelleher, m.d. new york city. foster kennedy, m.d. new york city. marion e. kenworthy, m.d. new york city. john joseph kindred, m.d. astoria, l.i., n.y. george w. king, m.d. secaucus, n.j. hermann g. klotz, m.d. white plains, n.y. george w. kline, m.d. boston, mass. george h. kirby, m.d. new york city. henry klopp, m.d. allentown, pa. augustus s. knight, m.d. new york city. frank henry knight, m.d. white plains, n.y. mary s. kirkbride albany, n.y. walter m. kraus, m.d. new york city. edward j. kempf, m.d. new york city. alexander lambert, m.d. new york city. charles i. lambert, m.d. white plains, n.y. mrs. charles i. lambert white plains, n.y. arthur g. lane, m.d. greystone park, n.j. g. alfred lawrence, m.d. new york city. w.a. lawrence, m.d. white plains, n.y. ruth w. lawton white plains, n.y. helen letson white plains, n.y. samuel leopold, m.d. philadelphia, pa. maurice j. lewi, m.d. new york city. mrs. maurice j. lewi new york city. miss ella h. lowe white plains, n.y. walter e. lowthian, m.d. white plains, n.y. f.r. lyman, m.d. hastings-on-hudson, n.y. samuel b. lyon, m.d. new york city. winslow lyon new york city. william h. mccastline, m.d. new york city. john t. mccurdy, m.d. new york city. carlos f. macdonald, m.d. new york city. d.w. mcfarland, m.d. greens farms, conn. miss eliza macdonald flushing, l.i., n.y. john w. mackintosh white plains, n.y. daniel w. maloney white plains, n.y. grace f. marcus, m.d. white plains, n.y. l. markham, m.d. amityville, n.y. miss anna maxwell, r.n. new york city. john f.w. meagher, m.d. brooklyn, n.y. adolf meyer, m.d. baltimore, md. carlos j. miller, m.d. white plains, n.y. henry w. miller, m.d. brewster, n.y. mrs. r. van c. miller new york city. george w. mills, m.d. central islip, n.y. henry moffett, m.d. yonkers, n.y. mrs. maude g. moody new york city. miss madeline moore white plains, n.y. joseph w. moore, m.d. beacon, n.y. eugene t. morrison, m.d. new rochelle, n.y. miss cecil morrison white plains, n.y. richard w. moriarty, m.d. white plains, n.y. herman mortensen, r.n. white plains, n.y. walter w. mott, m.d. white plains, n.y. florence munn white plains, n.y. theodore w. neumann, m.d. central valley, n.y. ethan a. nevin, m.d. newark, n.j. miss christine m. nuno new york city. george o'hanlon, m.d. new york city. james m. o'neill harrison, n.y. herman ostrander, m.d. kalamazoo, mich. mary f. o'grady white plains, n.y. flavius packer, m.d. riverdale, n.y. mrs. flavius packer riverdale, n.y. irving h. pardee, m.d. new york city. jason s. parker, m.d. white plains, n.y. frederick w. parsons, m.d. buffalo, n.y. miss margaret patin white plains, n.y. stewart paton, m.d. princeton, n.j. christopher j. patterson, m.d. troy, n.y. guy payne, m.d. cedar grove, n.j. arthur m. phillips, m.d. new york city. charles w. pilgrim, m.d., chairman, state hospital commission, n.y. central valley, n.y. mason pitman, m.d. riverdale-on-hudson, n.y. miss leah pitman white plains, n.y. miss adele s. poston, r.n. white plains, n.y. howard w. potter, m.d. thiells, n.y. wilson m. powell new york city. mrs. margaret j. powers new york city. miss nina prey new york city. w.b. pritchard, m.d. new york city. morton prince, m.d. boston, mass. rose pringle, m.d. white plains, n.y. sylvanus purdy, m.d. white plains, n.y. paul r. radosvljevich, m.d. new york city. e. benjamin ramsdell, m.d. new york city. edwin g. ramsdell, m.d. white plains, n.y. mortimer w. raynor, m.d. new york city. lawrence f. rainsford, m.d. rye, n.y. mrs. lawrence f. rainsford rye, n.y. henry a. riley, m.d. new york city. miss elise reilly white plains, n.y. frank w. robertson, m.d. new york city. m.a. robinson, m.d. new york city. william c. roden, r.n. white plains, n.y. a.j. rosanoff, m.d. kings park, n.y. miss catherine ross, r.n. white plains, n.y. john t.w. rowe, m.d. new york city. richard g. rows, m.d. london, england. frederick d. ruland, m.d. westport, conn. william l. russell, m.d. white plains, n.y. mrs. william l. russell white plains, n.y. earnest f. russell, m.d. new york city. paul l. russell white plains, n.y. mrs. paul l. russell white plains, n.y. walter g. ryon, m.d. poughkeepsie, n.y. miss helen k. ryce poughkeepsie, n.y. miss helen sayre white plains, n.y. thomas w. salmon, m.d. new york city. mrs. thomas w. salmon new york city. irving j. sands, m.d. brooklyn, n.y. james p. sands, m.d. philadelphia, pa. william c. sandy, m.d. new york city. miss e. saul new york city. william g. schauffler, m.d. princeton, n.j. paul schlegman, m.d. white plains, n.y. h. ernest schmid, m.d. white plains, n.y. miss gertrude schmid white plains, n.y. augusta scott, m.d. new york city. major louis l. seaman, m.d. new york city. edward w. sheldon new york city. george sherrill, m.d. stamford, conn. miss eloise shields, r.n. white plains, n.y. lewis m. silver, m.d. new york city. mrs. a. slesingle new york city. mrs. anna c. schermerhorn new york city. rev. frank h. simmonds white plains, n.y. clarence j. slocum, m.d. beacon, n.y. mrs. clarence j. slocum beacon, n.y. augustine j. smith new york city. miss m. smith, r.n. titusville, pa. philip smith, m.d. new york city. rev. george h. smyth scarsdale, n.y. d. austin sniffen, d.d. white plains, n.y. john d. southworth, m.d. new york city. edith e. spaulding, m.d. new york city. m. allen starr, m.d. new york city. samuel a. steele white plains, n.y. william steinach, m.d. new york city. george s. stevenson, m.d. new york city. adolf stern, m.d. new york city. emil strateman white plains, n.y. israel strauss, m.d. new york city. frank k. sturgis new york city. miss mary ruth swann, r.n. washington, d.c. c.c. sweet, m.d. ossining, n.y. sarah swift white plains, n.y. william b. terhune, m.d. new haven, conn. william j. tiffany, m.d. new york city. walter clark tilden, m.d. hartsdale, n.y. frederick tilney, m.d. new york city. walter timme, m.d. new york city. howard townsend new york city. e. clark tracy, m.d. white plains, n.y. walter l. treadway, m.d. washington, d.c. miss gertrude trefrey, r.n. white plains, n.y. miss mary g. urquhart white plains, n.y. j.l. van demark, m.d. albany, n.y. t.j. vosburgh, m.d. white plains, n.y. henry j. vier, m.d. white plains, n.y. emory m. wadsworth, m.d. brooklyn, n.y. miss lillian d. wald, r.n. new york city. professor howard c. warren princeton, n.j. mrs. caroline e. washburn white plains, n.y. miss martha washburn white plains, n.y. g.f. washburne, m.d. hastings-on-hudson, n.y. chester waterman, m.d. new york city. james j. waygood, m.d. white plains, n.y. mrs. james j. waygood white plains, n.y. r.g. wearne, m.d. new york city. edward w. weber, m.d. white plains, n.y. israel s. wechsler, m.d. new york city. miss kathryn i. wellman. white plains, n.y. mrs. adelyn wesley new york city. lt. col. arthur w. whaley, m.d. new york city. mrs. arthur w. whaley new york city. miss margaret wheeler short hills, n.j. payne whitney new york city. frankwood e. williams, m.d. new york city. rodney r. williams, m.d. poughkeepsie, n.y. o.j. wilsey, m.d. amityville, n.y. john e. wilson, m.d. new york city. miss a. wilson new york city. j.m. winfield, m.d. brooklyn, n.y. g. howard wise new york city. miss frances e. wood white plains, n.y. robert c. woodman, m.d. middletown, n.y. robert s. woodworth, ph.d. new york city. rev. john c. york brooklyn, n.y. edwin g. zabriskie, m.d. new york city. charles c. zacharie, m.d. white plains, n.y. footnotes: [footnote : if any names are omitted it is because these names and addresses were not obtained.] appendices appendix i communications from dr. bedford pierce, medical superintendent of the retreat, york, england may th, . dear dr. russell: i have read with much pleasure your pamphlet giving the history of bloomingdale hospital. the reproduction in facsimile of thomas eddy's communication[ ] is especially interesting and it will be placed with the records of the early days of the retreat. we have looked through the minutes, which are complete from the opening of the retreat in , and also examined a large number of original letters of william and samuel tuke respecting the institution, but have not succeeded in tracing the letter from s. tuke to william eddy, to which you refer. as you are probably aware, s. tuke was the grandson of william tuke, the founder, and when he published the history of the retreat in he was but twenty-eight years of age. this book had a far-reaching influence on the treatment of the insane, and it is remarkable that a man untrained in medicine and without university education should have been able to write it. the book is now very rare, but as we have three duplicate copies, i am authorized by the directors of the retreat to present your hospital with one of them. i have already sent you a copy of an address of my own dealing with psychiatry in england at about the time your hospital was instituted. the use of the term "moral treatment" as opposed to treatment of physical disease has in recent years become especially interesting. it is clear that tuke and pinel foresaw that psychotherapeutic treatment is necessary, and their efforts were directed towards providing effective "sublimation" of misdirected psychical energy. one is pleased to see in your report the extent to which organized occupations are developed at bloomingdale--a pleasure not unmixed with envy at seeing the picture of the men's occupational pavilion, and the prospective erection of a similar building for women. in the early days of the retreat large numbers of visitors came from all parts of the world. there is a gap in the visitors' book between - , and the list of visitors is not complete. we have copied out the names of the american visitors, together with an entry by john w. francis, m.d., in . it is interesting to note that an american woman friend, hannah field, was accompanied to the retreat by elizabeth fry. in a party of north american indians visited the retreat and signed the visitors' book with pictorial representations of their names. these we have had photographed and i send the prints herewith. may i congratulate you on the centenary of your hospital and also congratulate you and the governors on its remarkable development and progress. here at the retreat we carry on using the original buildings still, striving to give our patients modern treatment in premises now almost ancient, but which do not appear so out of date in this city of york. york congratulates new york upon its wonderful prosperity, and we gladly recognize its development in the practice of psychiatry fully corresponds with its development in other directions. i remain, yours sincerely, bedford pierce. extract from minutes of board of directors of the retreat the retreat, york meeting of directors held on april the th, copy of minute no. at this meeting of the directors and agents of york retreat we hear with pleasure that the bloomingdale hospital, the section of the society of the new york hospital devoted to the treatment of mental diseases, is to celebrate next month the centenary of its foundation. the facsimile reproduction of the letter of thomas eddy which has been presented to the retreat library is specially interesting to us as it acknowledges the pioneer work at the retreat and specially refers to correspondence with samuel tuke. we have pleasure in sending to the governors of the bloomingdale hospital a copy of samuel tuke's classical work "the description of the retreat" in the belief that the principles therein set forth are of lasting importance. we send our hearty congratulations to the bloomingdale hospital on its century of good work and wish it every success in the future. signed, charles weomans, _chairman_. oscar f. rumlen, _treasurer_. * * * * * transcript from the visitors book of the retreat early american visitors . mon th. _abrm. barker_, new bedford, massachusits, a young man (a friend) on a tour; has been in russia, denmark, sweden & holland. (in william tuke's writing) . nov. . _john w. francis_, m.d. of n. york. j.w. francis is not wholly ignorant of the state of the lunatic asylums in north america, and he has visited almost all the institutions for the insane that are established in england. he now embraces this opportunity of stating that after an examination of the retreat for some hours, he should do injustice to his feelings were he not to declare that this establishment far surpasses anything of the kind he has elsewhere seen, and that it reflects equal credit on the wisdom and humanity of its conductors. perhaps it is no inconsiderable honour to add that institutions of a similar nature and on the same plan are organizing in different parts of the united states. the new world cannot do better than imitate the old so far as concerns the management of those who labour under mental infirmities. j.w.f. . mon . _sharon carter_, philadelphia. . mon. _wm. s. warder_, from philadelphia. . mon . rev. thomas h. gallaudet, who visits europe for the purpose of qualifying himself to superintend an asylum for the deaf and dumb, proposed to be established in hartford, connecticut, of the united states of america. . mon th. _archibald gracie_, junr., new york. . april th. _george f. randolph_, philadelphia. _john hastings_, baltimore. . mon th. _charles longstreth_, from philadelphia. . mon th. _jacob smedley_, from philadelphia. . mon. _henry kollock_, of savannah, georgia. _dr. wm. parker_, savannah. _g.c. versslanchi_, of new york. . / . _hannah field_, north america, with elizabeth fry. . mo. _g.j. browne_, united states of america (cincinnati). [illustration: [*handwriting: thy assured friend, thomas eddy*] in thomas eddy, one of the governors of the society of the new york hospital, presented a communication in which he advocated the establishment in the country of a branch for the moral treatment of the insane. this led to the establishment of bloomingdale asylum.] footnotes: [footnote : bloomingdale hospital press.] appendix ii a letter on pauper lunatic asylums[ ] the governors of the new york hospital, conceiving that the very judicious remarks and sentiments contained in the following letter, might be highly useful to the community, as well as to the institution with which they are connected, have requested the same to be published. the work alluded to in the letter, called, "practical hints on the construction and economy of pauper asylums," is believed to be one of the most valuable and interesting works of the kind ever published. this work was sent by the author to one of the governors, and is now deposited in the hospital library. it is very desirable that it should be republished in this country; but as such republication would be expensive, on account of the few copies that would be wanted, the governors have directed, that if any person, or trustees of any public institution, in any part of the united states, should be desirous of obtaining a copy of this very valuable work, with a view to aid them in erecting a similar asylum, or the improvement of any already established, that a manuscript copy shall be furnished them, upon an application to the subscriber, thomas eddy. new-york, th month, th, . york, mo. th, . to thomas eddy, our mutual friend, l. murray, has put into my hands a letter and pamphlet, lately received from thee, respecting the erection of an asylum for lunatics near new-york.[ ] he has wished me to make any remarks which may occur to me on the perusal; but, having just published a few hints on the construction and economy of pauper lunatic asylums, which contain much of the information thou requests, i shall have but little to add. those hints, however, relating to institutions for the poorest class of society, must be applied with some modifications to establishments for persons of different pervious habits, and for whom a greater portion of attendance can be afforded. the great objects, however, which are stated in the hints to be so important for the comfort of lunatics, apply equally to those of all ranks and classes. from the sum you propose to receive from the patients, intended to occupy the new building, i conclude you are providing for patients of the middle ranks of life, a class hardly less to be commiserated, when thus afflicted, than the very poorest, since the expense and difficulty of private management, may bring to ruin a respectable family, as well as expose it to great personal dangers. there would, i think, be considerable objection to the accumulation of patients of this class, in three contiguous rooms, as proposed in the hints for pauper lunatics. you purpose building for patients, and as you probably intend to accommodate both sexes, the number of each sex may be very suitable for the accommodation of three contiguous rooms, which, of course, need not be so large as those in the wakefield asylum. it would be difficult to offer a detailed plan, without knowing more than we do of your local circumstances, and the classes of patients you purpose to admit. i doubt, however, whether you can do better than to adopt the general form of the wakefield asylum, and as you are providing for only a small number, it deserves consideration whether all the rooms might not be advantageously placed on the ground floor. this plan affords great facilities to easy inspection, and safe communication with airing grounds, and the roof might project so far over the building, as to form an excellent collonnade for the patients; which seems peculiarly desirable under an american sun. with these views, i send a sketch drawn by the architect whose plan is to be adopted at wakefield; and though it may not be, in many respects, adapted to your particular wants, yet i hope it will not be altogether useless. should it be thought too expensive, i think the rooms, , , and , might be dispensed with, and rooms marked "attendants, sick and bath," might be appropriated to the patients during the day. the attendants room is not a requisite, though it has been thought that it would be more agreeable to patients of superior rank, not to have the society of a servant. this, however, chiefly applies to the convalescents, and these might occupy the room marked 'sick', whilst the middle class, and the attendants, would be in the centre, marked "attendants." a sick and bath room might probably be obtained in the galleries: if you are inclined for the sake of appearance, to make the centre building two stories high, you might bring the wings nearer to the centre, and accommodate most of the convalescent patients with bed rooms in the upper story. in this case, perhaps it would be desirable to give the wings a radiating form. you will however be best able to modify the sketch to your particular wants, if the general idea should meet your approbation. i observe with pleasure, that one leading feature of your new institution, is the introduction of employment amongst the patients, an object which i am persuaded is of the utmost importance in the moral treatment of insanity. it is related of an institution in spain, which accommodated all ranks, and in which the lower class were generally employed, that a great proportion of these recovered, whilst the number of the grandees was exceedingly small. it will however, require great address to induce patients to engage in manual labour, who have not been accustomed to it previously to their indisposition, and it must be admitted, that where the reluctance on the part of the patient is great, the irritation which compulsory means are likely to excite, will probably be more injurious to the patient, than the exercise will be beneficial. the employment of insane persons should, as far as it is practicable, be adapted to their previous habits, inclinations and capacities, and, though horticultural pursuits may be most desirable, the greatest benefit will, i believe, be found to result from the patient being engaged in that employment in which he can most easily excel, whether it be an active or a sedentary one. if it be the latter, of course sufficient time should be allotted to recreation in the air. some persons imagine, that exercises of diversion, are equally beneficial with those that are useful. the latter appear to me to possess a decided preference, by imparting to the mind that calm feeling of satisfaction, which the mere arts of amusement, though not to be neglected, can never afford. to the melancholy class, this is an important distinction between amusing and useful employments, and labour is to be prefered for the maniacal class as less calculated to stimulate the already too much excited spirits. it is proposed that the new asylum should be placed a few miles from the city. the visitors to it, (i do not mean the medical ones) will, i presume, be residents in new-york, and from what i have seen of the zeal of persons under such appointments in this country, it appears desirable, to render the performance of this duty, so important for the welfare of asylums, as easy as it can be with propriety. one mile perhaps would not be objectionable, and might probably afford as good air and retirement, as a greater distance. i need hardly say, i was much gratified to find by the pamphlet, that the importance of moral treatment in the cure of insanity, was duly appreciated in america. when we consider, as lord bacon observes, speaking of common diseases, that "all wise physicians in the prescription, of their regimen to their patients, do ever consider accidentia animi, as of great force to further or hinder remedies or recoveries;" it is difficult to account for the general neglect of moral considerations in the treatment of deranged mind. i hope, however, though in many instances medicine may not be employed with advantage, and its indiscriminate use has been seriously injurious, that we shall not abandon it as altogether useless, in what we term disease of the mind. all the varieties, included under this general term, have been produced by physical causes: by external accidents, by intoxication, the improper use of medicines, repelled eruptions, obstructed secretions, &c. in some instances, dissection has discovered, after death, the cause of the mental affection, and though, in many instances, no physical cause can be detected, yet, when it is considered, how limited are the investigations of the anatomist, and that the art is so imperfect, that diseases occasioning instant death, cannot always be discovered on the most minute dissection, it is not unreasonable to suppose, that the body is in all cases the true seat of the disease. all i would infer from this speculation is, the importance of having judicious medical attendants, to watch the progress of the disorder, to be ready to apply their art as bodily symptoms may arise, and to ascertain, with greater precision than has hitherto been done, "how and how far the humours and effects of the body, do alter and work upon the mind; and how far the passions and apprehensions of the mind, do alter and work upon the body." even if the disease is not confined to the corporal organs of mind, but extends to the pure and eternal intelligence, medical aid may still be useful from the well known reciprocal action of the two parts of our system upon each other. i hope my unknown friend will excuse the length and freedom of this letter: its length has much exceeded my intentions, yet i may have omitted information which the experience of the retreat might afford, and which would have been useful to promoters of the new-york asylum, should this be the case, i shall be glad to answer, as well as i am able, any questions which they may propose; and, with the best wishes for the success of their benevolent and important undertaking, i remain, respectfully, thy friend, samuel tuke. footnotes: [footnote : a letter on pauper lunatic asylums, by samuel tuke, new york, . reprinted bloomingdale hospital press, june , .] [footnote : appendix iii.] appendix iii thomas eddy's communication to the board of governors, april, [ ] of the numerous topics of discussion on subjects relating to the cause of humanity, there is none which has stronger claims to our attention, than that which relates to the treatment of the insane. though we may reasonably presume, this subject was by no means overlooked by the ancients, we may fairly conclude, it is deservedly the boast of modern times, to have treated it with any degree of success. it would have been an undertaking singularly interesting and instructive, to trace the different methods of cure which have been pursued in different ages, in the treatment of those labouring under mental derangement: and to mark the various results with which they were attended. the radical defect, in all the different modes of cure that have been pursued, appears to be, that of considering mania a _physical_ or _bodily_ disease, and adopting for its removal merely physical remedies. very lately, however, a spirit of inquiry has been excited, which has given birth to a new system of treatment of the insane; and former modes of medical discipline have now given place to that which is generally denominated _moral management_. this interesting subject has closely engaged my attention for some years, and i conceive that the further investigation of it may prove highly beneficial to the cause of humanity, as well as to science, and excite us to a minute inquiry, how far we may contribute to the relief and comfort of the maniacs placed under our care. in pursuing this subject, my views have been much extended, and my mind considerably enlightened, by perusing the writings of doctors creighton, arnold, and rush; but, more particularly, the account of the retreat near york, in england. under these impressions i feel extremely desirous of submitting to the consideration of the governors, a plan to be adopted by them, for introducing a system of moral treatment for the lunatics in the asylum, to a greater extent than has hitherto been in use in this country. the great utility of confining ourselves almost exclusively to a course of moral treatment, is plain and simple, and incalculably interesting to the cause of humanity; and perhaps no work contains so many excellent and appropriate observations on the subject, as that entitled, _the account of the retreat_. the author, samuel tuke, was an active manager of that establishment, and appears to have detailed, with scrupulous care and minuteness, the effects of the system pursued toward the patients. i have, therefore, in the course of the following remarks, with a view of illustrating the subject with more clearness, often adopted the language and opinions of tuke, but having frequently mixed my own observations with his, and his manner of expression not being always adapted to our circumstances and situation, i have attempted to vary the language, so as to apply it to our own institution; this will account for many of the subsequent remarks not being noticed as taken from tuke's work. it is, in the first place, to be observed, that in most cases of insanity, from whatever cause it may have arisen, or to whatever extent it may have proceeded, the patient possesses some small remains of ratiocination and self-command; and although many cannot be made sensible of the irrationality of their conduct or opinions, yet they are generally aware of those particulars for which the world considers them proper objects of confinement. thus it frequently happens, that a patient, on his first introduction into the asylum, will conceal all marks of mental aberration; and, in some instances, those who before have been ungovernable, have so far deceived their new friends, as to make them doubt their being insane. it is a generally received opinion, that the insane who are violent, may be reduced to more calmness and quiet, by exciting the principle of _fear_, and by the use of chains or corporal punishments. there cannot be a doubt that the principle of fear in the human mind, when moderately and judiciously excited, as it is by the operation of just and equal laws, has a salutary effect on society. it is of great use in the education of children, whose imperfect knowledge and judgment, occasion them to be less influenced by other motives. but where fear is _too much_ excited, and especially, when it becomes the chief motive of action, it certainly tends to contract the understanding, weaken the benevolent affection, and to debase the mind. it is, therefore, highly desirable, and more wise, to call into action, as much as possible, the operation of superior motives. fear ought never to be induced, except when an object absolutely necessary cannot be otherwise obtained. maniacs are often extremely irritable; every care, therefore, should be taken, to avoid that kind of treatment that may have any tendency towards exciting the passions. persuasion and kind treatment, will most generally supersede the necessity of coercive means. there is considerable analogy between the judicious treatment of children and that of insane persons. locke has observed "the great secret of education is in finding out the way to keep the child's spirit easy, active and free; and yet, at the same time, to restrain him from many things he has a mind to, and to draw him to things which are uneasy to him." even with the more violent and vociferous maniacs, it will be found best to approach them with mild and soft persuasion. every pains should be taken to excite in the patient's mind a desire of esteem. though this may not be sufficiently powerful to enable them to resist the strong irregular tendency of their disease; yet, _when properly cultivated_, it may lead many to struggle to overcome and conceal their morbid propensities, or at least, to confine their deviations within such bounds as do not make them obnoxious to those about them. this struggle is highly beneficial to the patient; by strengthening his mind, and conducing to a salutary habit of self-restraint, an object, no doubt, of the greatest importance to the care of insanity by _moral means_. it frequently occurs, that one mark of insanity is a fixed false conception, and a total incapacity of reasoning. in _such_ cases, it is generally advisable to avoid reasoning[ ] with them, as it irritates and rivets their false perception more strongly on the mind. on this account, every means ought to be taken to seduce the mind from unhappy and favourite musings; and particularly with melancholic patients; they should freely partake of bodily exercises, walking, riding, conversations, innocent sports, and a variety of other amusements; they should be gratified with birds, deer, rabbits, etc. of all the modes by which maniacs may be induced to restrain themselves, regular employment is perhaps the most efficacious; and those kind of employments are to be preferred, both on a moral and physical account, which are accompanied by considerable bodily action, most agreeable to the patient, and most opposite to the illusions of his disease. in short the patient should be always treated as much like a rational being as the state of his mind will possibly allow. in order that he may display his knowledge to the best advantage, such topics should be introduced as will be most likely to interest him; if he is a mechanic or an agriculturalist, he should be asked questions relating to his art, and consulted upon any occasion in which his knowledge may be useful. these considerations are undoubtedly very material, as they regard the comforts of insane persons; but they are of far greater importance as they relate to the cure of the disorder. the patient, feeling himself of some consequence, is induced to support it by the exertion of his reason, and by restraining those dispositions, which, if indulged, would lessen the respectful treatment he wishes to receive, or lower his character in the eyes of his companions and attendants. even when it is absolutely necessary to employ coercion, if on its removal the patient promises to control himself, great reliance may frequently be placed upon his word, and under this engagement, he will be apt to hold a successful struggle with the violent propensities of his disorder. great advantages may also be derived, in the moral management of maniacs, from an acquaintance with the previous employment, habits, manners, and prejudices of the individual: this may truly be considered as indispensably necessary to be known, as far as can be obtained; and, as it may apply to each case, should be registered in a book for the inspection of the committee of the asylum, and the physician; the requisite information should be procured immediately on the admission of each patient; the mode of procuring it will be spoken of hereafter. nor must we forget to call to our aid, in endeavouring to promote self-restraint, the mild but powerful influence of the precepts of our holy religion. where these have been strongly imbued in early life, they become little less than principles of our nature; and their restraining power is frequently felt, even under the delirious excitement of insanity. to encourage the influence of religious principles over the mind of the insane, may be considered of great consequence, as a means of cure, provided it be done _with great care and circumspection_. for this purpose, as well as for reasons still more important, it would certainly be right to promote in the patient, _as far as circumstances would permit_, an attention to his accustomed modes of paying homage to his maker. in pursuing the desirable objects above enumerated, we ought not to expect too suddenly to reap the good effects of our endeavours; nor should we too readily be disheartened by occasional disappointments. it is necessary to call into action, as much as possible, every remaining power and principle of the mind, and to remember, that, "in the wreck of the intellect, the affections very frequently survive." hence the necessity of considering _the degree_ in which the patient may be influenced by moral and rational inducements. the contradictory features in their characters, frequently render it exceedingly difficult to insure the proper treatment of insane persons; to pursue this with any hopes of succeeding, so that we may in any degree ameliorate their distressed condition, renders it indispensably necessary that attendants only should be chosen who are possessed of good sense, and of amiable dispositions, clothed, as much as possible, with philosophical reflexion, and above all, with that love and charity that mark the humble christian. agreeably to these principles, i beg leave to suggest the following regulations to be adopted, in accomplishing the objects in view. st. no patient shall hereafter be confined by chains. nd. in the most violent states of mania, the patient should be confined in a room with the windows, etc., closed, so as nearly to exclude the light, and kept confined if necessary, in a straight jacket, so as to walk about the room or lie down on the bed at pleasure; or by strops, etc., he may, particularly if there appears in the patient a strong determination to self-destruction, be confined on the bed, and the apparatus so fixed as to allow him to turn and otherwise change his positions. rd. the power of judicious kindness to be generally exercised, may often be blessed with good effects, and it is not till after other moral remedies are exercised, that recourse should be had to restraint, or the power of fear on the mind of the patient; yet it may be proper sometimes, by way of punishment, to use the shower bath. th. the common attendants shall not apply any extraordinary coercion by way of punishment, or change in any degree the mode of treatment prescribed by the physician; on the contrary, it is considered as their indispensable duty, to seek by acts of kindness the good opinion of the patients, so as to govern them by the influence of esteem rather than of severity. th. on the first day of the week, the superintendent, or the principal keeper of the asylum, shall collect as many of the patients as may appear to them suitable, and read some chapters in the bible. th. when it is deemed necessary to apply the strait-jacket, or any other mode of coercion, by way of punishment or restraint, such an ample force should be employed as will preclude the idea of resistance from entering the mind of the patient. th. it shall be the duty of the deputy-keeper, immediately on a patient being admitted, to obtain his name, age, where born, what has been his employment or occupation, his general disposition and habits, when first attacked with mania; if it has been violent or otherwise, the cause of his disease, if occasioned by religious melancholy, or a fondness for ardent spirits, if owing to an injury received on any part of the body, or supposed to arise from any other known cause, hereditary or adventitious, and the name of the physician who may have attended him, and his manner of treating the patient while under his direction. th. such of the patients as may be selected by the physician, or the committee of the asylum, shall be occasionally taken out to walk or ride under the care of the deputy-keeper; and it shall be also his duty to employ the patients in such manner, and to provide them with such kinds of amusements and books as may be approved and directed by the committee. th. the female keeper shall endeavour to have the female patients constantly employed at suitable work; to provide proper amusements, books, etc., to take them out to walk as may be directed by the committee. th. it shall be the indispensable duty of the keepers, to have all the patients as clean as possible in their persons, and to preserve great order and decorum when they sit down to their respective meals. th. it shall be the duty of the physician to keep a book, in which shall be entered an historical account of each patient, stating his situation, and the medical and moral treatment used; which book shall be laid before the committee, at their weekly meetings. the sentiments and improvements proposed in the preceding remarks, for the consideration of the governors, are adapted to our present situation and circumstances; but a further and more extensive improvement has occurred to my mind, which i conceive, would very considerably conduce towards affecting the cure, and materially ameliorate the condition, and add to the comfort of the insane; at the same time that it would afford an ample opportunity [transcriber's note: original reads 'apportunity'] of ascertaining how far that disease may be removed by moral management alone, which it is believed, will, in many instances, be more effectual in controlling the maniac, than medical treatment especially, in those cases where the disease has proceeded from causes operating directly on the mind. i would propose, that a lot, not less than ten acres, should be purchased by the governors, conveniently situated, within a few miles of the city, and to erect a substantial building, on a plan calculated for the accommodation of fifty lunatic patients; the ground to be improved in such a manner as to serve for agreeable walks, gardens, etc., for the exercise and amusement of the patients: this establishment might be placed under the care and superintendence of the asylum committee, and be visited by them once every week: a particular description of patients to remain at this rural retreat; and such others as might appear suitable objects might be occasionally removed there from the asylum. the cost and annual expense of supporting this establishment, are matters of small consideration, when we duly consider the important advantages it would offer to a portion of our fellow-creatures, who have such strong claims on our sympathy and commiseration. but, it is a fact that can be satisfactorily demonstrated, that such an establishment would not increase our expenses; and, moreover, would repay us even the interest of the money that might be necessary to be advanced, for the purchase of the ground and erecting the buildings. the board of patients (supposing fifty) would yield two hundred dollars per week, or ten thousand four hundred dollars per annum. supposing the ground, building, etc., to cost $ , , the interest on this sum at per cent. would be $ , , there would yet remain $ , , for the maintenance and support of the establishment; a sum larger than would be required for that purpose. we had lately in the asylum, more than ninety patients; and, at that time, had repeated applications to receive an additional number; the committee however, concluded, that as the building was not calculated to accommodate more than seventy-five, it would be an act of injustice to take in any more; they, therefore, concluded to reduce the number of seventy-five, and strictly to refuse receiving any beyond that number. this may serve clearly to show, that we might safely calculate, that we should readily have applications to accommodate one hundred and twenty-five patients. this succinct view of the subject may suffice, at this time, as outlines of my plan; and which is respectfully submitted to the governors, for their consideration. footnotes: [footnote : "hints for introducing an improved mode of treating the insane in the asylum"; read before the governors of the new york hospital on the th of fourth-month, . by thomas eddy, one of the asylum committee. new york, . reprinted bloomingdale hospital press, .] [footnote : the following anecdotes illustrate the observation before made, that maniacs frequently retain the power of reasoning to a certain extent; and that the discerning physician may oftimes successfully avail himself of the remains of this faculty in controlling the aberrations of his patient:--a patient in the pennsylvania hospital, who called his physician his father, once lifted his hand to strike him. "what!" said his physician, (dr. rush), with a plaintive tone of voice, "strike your father?" the madman dropped his arm, and instantly showed marks of contrition for his conduct. the following was related to me by samuel coates, president of the pennsylvania hospital:--maniac had made several attempts to set fire to the hospital: upon being remonstrated with, he said, "i am a salamander"; "but recollect," said my friend coates, "all the patients in the house are not salamanders;" "that is true," said the maniac, and never afterwards attempted to set fire to the hospital.] appendix iv extracts from the minutes of the board of governors in relation to action taken respecting thos. eddy's communication dated april, _april , ._ a communication was received from thos. eddy suggesting several improvements in the mode of treating insane persons, which is referred to dr. hugh williamson, george newbold, william johnson, peter a. jay, and john r. murray--resolved that the treasurer have fifty copies of the report printed for use of the governors. _july , ._ the committee on the communication from thos. eddy, relative to the treatment of insane patients, report attention to the subject and that in their opinion it is advisable to have a few acres of land purchased in the vicinity of the city for the better accommodation of this unhappy class of our fellow creatures--the committee are continued. on motion resolved that thomas eddy, john a. murray, and john aspinwall, be a committee to look out for a suitable spot of land, and to make a purchase, if in their opinion it shall become necessary. _ th month (august) st, ._ the committee on the communication from thomas eddy, made the following report, which was intended to have been laid before the last meeting of the board; which was now accepted, and ordered to be inserted in the minutes. "the committee appointed to consider the expediency of erecting another building for the accommodation of insane persons report: that another building for the use of those unfortunate persons who have lost the use of their reason, is not only advisable, but seems to be absolutely necessary. that though there are at present more patients in the asylum, by nearly one third, than can with perfect safety, and the best hopes of recovery, be lodged there; many more insane persons, perhaps twenty within a few months, have by their friends been soliciting a place in that building--in speaking of the want of safety, the committee only mean to express an opinion, that when two or more insane persons, from the want of room are lodged together in one cell, the life of the weaker must be somewhat endangered by the stronger, who in a high paroxysm of insanity might strangle him in his sleep, or otherwise destroy him. that such additional building, from the want of room, cannot possibly be erected near the hospital, in this city. that there are many reasons for believing that the recovery from a state of insanity would be greatly promoted, by having a considerable space of ground adjoining the asylum or public building, in which many of the patients might have the privilege of walking, or taking other kinds of exercise. that considering the various kinds of insanity, your committee, are clearly of the opinion, that two buildings should be erected at the distance of at least one hundred yards from each other. the sedate or melancholy madman should not have his slumbers broken by living under the same roof with disorderly persons, who by singing, or other noisy proceedings, will not suffer their neighbours to sleep. that for the above and similar considerations, it would be advisable, to purchase, within a few miles of this city, at least twenty acres of land, detached from private buildings, in a healthy and pleasant situation, where the water is good and where materials for buildings may be obtained on easy terms: and the portage of fuel not expensive. your committee are aware that a smaller lot of ground might suffice for all the buildings that are now required, or all this corporation may, in a short time, be enabled to complete. but they count it advisable to prepare for a period that must certainly come; a period in which such a lot will be needed, and not easily obtained, for it is evident from the topography, and geographical position of this city, that the time must come, when new york will be not only the greatest city in the united states, or in america; but must rival the most distinguished city's in the old continent. wherefore it is recommended, that a committee be appointed, who shall examine the sundry places, corresponding with the above description, that may be purchased. and that they report the means of making the purchase, and of erecting such buildings, as seem at this time to be required." the committee to whom was referred, to purchase a suitable lot of land for the erection of a house for the accommodation of maniacs, report that they have purchased acres of land, being part of the estate belonging to gerard depeyster at bloomingdale, at the rate of $ . per acre, payable per cent down, ½ per cent on st november and ¾ per cent on st february next, with interest. thomas eddy, chairman august st, whereupon resolved that the report of the committee be accepted, and they are instructed to take the titles, after p.a. jay shall have examined the records, and be satisfied that the property is free of incumbrance. appendix v address to the public by the governors [ ] the governors of the new-york hospital have the satisfaction to announce to the public, the completion of the asylum for the insane; and that it will be open for the reception of patients, from any part of the united states, on the first day of june. this asylum is situated on the bloomingdale road, about seven miles from the city hall of the city of new-york, and about three hundred yards from the hudson river. the building is of hewn free-stone, feet in length, and sixty-feet deep, and is calculated for the accommodation of about two hundred patients. its site [transcriber's note: original reads 'scite'] is elevated, commanding an extensive and delightful view of the hudson, the east river, and the bay and harbour of new-york, and the adjacent country, and is one of the most beautiful and healthy spots on new-york island. attached to the building are about seventy acres of land, a great part of which has been laid out in walks, ornamental grounds, and extensive gardens. this institution has been established by the bounty of the legislature of the state of new-york, on the most liberal and enlarged plan, and with the express design to carry into effect that system of management of the insane, happily termed _moral treatment_, the superior efficacy of which has been demonstrated in several of the hospitals of europe, and especially in that admirable establishment of the society of friends, called "the retreat," near york, in england. this mild and humane mode of treatment, when contrasted with the harsh and cruel usage, and the severe and unnecessary restraint, which have formerly disgraced even the most celebrated lunatic asylums, may be considered as one of the noblest triumphs of pure and enlightened benevolence. but it is by no means the intention of the governors to rely on moral, to the exclusion of medical treatment. it is from a judicious combination of both, that the greatest success is to be expected in every attempt to cure or mitigate the disease of insanity. in the construction of the edifice and in its interior arrangements, it has been considered important to avoid, as far as practicable, consistently with a due regard to the safety of the patients, whatever might impress their minds with the idea of a prison, or a place of punishment, and to make every thing conduce to their health and to their ease and comfort. the self-respect and complacency which may thus be produced in the insane, must have a salutary influence in restoring the mind to its wonted serenity. in the disposition of the grounds attached to the asylum, everything has been done with reference to the amusement, agreeable occupation, and salutary exercise of the patients. agricultural, horticultural, and mechanical employments, may be resorted to, whenever the inclination of the patient, or their probable beneficial effects may render them desirable. to dispel gloomy images, to break morbid associations, to lead the feelings into their proper current, and to restore the mind to its natural poise, various [transcriber's note: original reads 'varius'] less active amusements will be provided. reading, writing, drawing, innocent sports, tending and feeding domestic animals, &c. will be encouraged as they may be found conducive to the recovery of the patients. a large garden has been laid out, orchards have been planted, and yards, containing more than two acres, have been inclosed for the daily walks of those whose disorder will not allow more extended indulgence. the plants of the elgin botanic garden, presented to this institution by the trustees of columbia college, have been arranged in a handsome green-house, prepared for their reception. the apartments of the house are adapted to the accommodation of the patients, according to their sex, degree of disease, habits of life, and the wishes of their friends. the male and female apartments are entirely separated, so as to be completely secluded from the view of each other. care has been taken to appoint a superintendent and matron, of good moral and religious characters, possessing cheerful tempers, and kind dispositions, united with firmness, vigilance and discretion. a physician will reside in the house, and one or more physicians, of established character and experience, will attend regularly, and afford medical aid in all cases where the general health, or the particular cause of the patient's insanity, may require it. the relations or friends of patients will be at liberty, if they prefer it, to employ their own physicians, who will be allowed to attend patients, subject to the general regulations of the house. the institution will be regularly visited and inspected by a committee of the governors of the hospital, who will, as often as they may think it advantageous, be attended by some of the physicians of the city of high character and respectability. the charges for board and the other advantages of the institution, will be moderate, and proportioned to the different circumstances of the patients, and the extent of the accommodations desired for them. patients at the expense of the different towns of the state, will be received at the lowest rate. application for the admission of patients into the asylum, must be made, at the new york hospital, in broadway, where temporary accommodation will be provided for such patients as may require it, previously to their being carried to the asylum out of town. a committee of the governors will, when necessary, attend at the hospital in broadway, for the purpose of admitting patients into the asylum, and to agree on the terms and security for payment to be given. _by order of the board of governors._ matthew clarkson, _president._ thomas buckley, _secretary._ _new-york, th may, ._ n.b. the friends of the patients are requested to send with them an account of their cases, stating the probable causes of their insanity, the commencement and peculiar character of the disorder. it is desirable that this statement, where it is practicable, should be drawn up by a physician. applications from abroad, for information relative to the admission of patients, may be made by letters addressed to thomas buckley, secretary of the new-york hospital. footnotes: [footnote : address of the governors of the new york hospital to the public, relative to the asylum for the insane at bloomingdale. new york, may th, . reprinted bloomingdale hospital press, may .] appendix vi board of governors of the society of the new york hospital and matthew clarkson, president thomas eddy, vice president thomas franklin jonathan little thomas buckley william johnson andrew morris john r. murray john b. lawrence george newbold ebenezer stevens peter a. jay najah taylor cadwallader d. colden robert h. bowne robert i. murray thomas c. taylor john adams, treasurer john mccomb benjamin w. rogers, assistant treasurer william bayard nathan comstock duncan p. campbell rev. f.c. schaeffer john clark, jr. william edgar, jr. hermann h. cammann henry w. deforest richard trimble howard townsend george f. baker augustine j. smith charles s. brown edward w. sheldon, president bronson winthrop frank k. sturgis david b. ogden joseph h. choate, jr. henry g. barbey cornelius b. bliss, jr. paul tuckerman, treasurer william woodward arthur iselin payne whitney, vice president g. beekman hoppin lewis cass ledyard, jr. henry r. taylor r. horace gallatin walter jennings bloomingdale committee thomas eddy cadwallader d. colden thomas c. taylor john adams thomas buckley john b. lawrence frank k. sturgis augustine j. smith henry r. taylor henry g. barbey walter jennings howard townsend appendix vii organization of bloomingdale hospital and superintendent or warden housekeeper keepers, men keepers, women chambermaids cooks baker assistant baker dairymaid washerwoman assistant washerwoman yard keeper waitresses gardener farmer assistant farmer total number of patients officers and employees: men women --- total patients: men women --- total _general administration_: medical superintendent steward - _clinical and laboratory service:_ physicians: resident consultants dentist assistant apothecary technicians stenographers - _nursing service_: director, assistant, and instructor nurses, attendants, and pupils maids and porters - _occupational therapy_ _physical training_ _hydrotherapy and massage_ _dietary department_ _housekeeping and laundry departments_ _financial, purchasing, and supplies_ _engineering department_ _building department_ _industrial department_ _farm and grounds_ _miscellaneous_ chaplain, librarian, watchmen, telephonists, postal clerk, barber. statistics: - number of cases admitted to , number discharged recovered to , number discharged improved to , copyright (c) lidija rangelovska. please see the accompanying rtf (rich text format) file for this ebook. images generously made available by the internet archive/canadian libraries) a letter to _the lord chancellor_. a letter to the right honorable the lord chancellor, on the nature and interpretation of unsoundness of mind, and _imbecility of intellect_. by john haslam, m.d. late of pembroke hall, cambridge. _london:_ published by r. hunter, st. paul's church yard. *** . printed by g. hayden, little college street, westminster. a letter. my lord, the present address originates in an anxious wish for the advancement of medical knowledge, where it is connected with those maladies of the human mind, that are referable to the court, wherein your lordship has so long administered impartial justice. the disorders which affect the body are, in general, the exclusive province of the medical practitioner; but, by a wise provision, that has descended to us from the enlightened nations of antiquity, the law has considered those persons, whose intellectual derangement rendered them inadequate to the governance of themselves in society, or incapable of managing their affairs, entitled to its special protection. if your lordship should feel surprized at this communication, or deem my conduct presumptuous, the thirst of information on an important subject is my only apology; and i have sought to allay it in the pure stream that issues from the fountain-head, rather than from subordinate channels or distant distributions. although personally a stranger to your lordship, nearly thirty years of my life have been devoted to the investigation and treatment of insanity: of which more than twenty have been professionally passed in the largest receptacle for lunatics;--and the press has diffused, in several publications, my opinions and experience concerning the human mind, both in its sound state and morbid condition. the medical profession, of which i am an humble member, entertains very different notions concerning the nature of unsoundness of mind, and imbecility of intellect;--and this difference of opinion has been displayed on many solemn occasions, where medical testimony has been deposed. if a physician were to attempt to search into the existing records and procedures on insanity, to collect its legal interpretation, such investigation would probably be a waste of his time, the source of abundant, and perhaps of incurable error; but to these inconveniences he will not be subjected in attentively considering your lordship's judgments, of which i have availed myself on the present occasion, and which, having been taken down at the time they were delivered, may be presumed not materially incorrect. the documents to which i refer are the judgments of the d april, , and the th december, , on the portsmouth petitions, together with the minutes of conference between your lordship and certain physicians, on the th january, . in the judgment on the petition of , it is stated by your lordship,[a] "i have searched, and caused a most careful search to be made into all the records and procedures on lunacy which are extant. i believe, and i think i may venture to say, that originally commissions of this sort were of two kinds; a commission aiming at, and enquiring whether, the individual had been an idiot ex nativitate, or whether, on the other hand, he was a lunatic. the question whether he was a lunatic, being a question, admitting in the solution of it, of a decision that imputed to him at one time an extremely sound mind, but at other times, an occurrence of insanity, with reference to which, it was necessary to guard his person and his property by a commission issuing. it seems to have been a very long time before those who had the administration of justice in this department, thought themselves at liberty to issue a commission, when the person was represented as not being idiot ex nativitate, as not being lunatic, but as being of unsound mind, importing by those words, the notion, that the party was in _some such state_, as was to be contra-distinguished from idiotcy, and as he was to be contra-distinguished from lunacy, and yet such as made him a proper object of a commission, in the nature of a commission to inquire of idiotcy, or a commission to inquire of lunacy. from the moment that that had been established, down to this moment, it appears to me to have been at the same time established, that _whatever_ may be the degree of weakness or imbecility of the party to manage his own affairs, if the finding of the jury is only that he was of an extreme imbecility of mind, that he has an inability to manage his own affairs: if they will not proceed to _infer_ from _that_, in their finding, upon oath, that he is of unsound mind, they have not established, by the result of the inquiry, a case upon which the chancellor can make a grant, constituting a committee, either of the person or estate. all the cases decide that mere imbecility will not do; that an inability to manage a man's affairs will not do, unless that inability, and that incapacity to manage his affairs _amount_ to evidence that he is of unsound mind; and he must be found to be so. now there is a great difference between inability to manage a man's affairs, and imbecility of mind taken as _evidence_ of unsoundness of mind. the case of charlton palmer, in which this was very much discussed, was the case of a man stricken in years, and whose mind was the mind of a child;--it was, _therefore_, _in that sense_, imbecility, and inability to manage his affairs, which _constituted_ unsoundness of mind." the introduction of the term _unsoundness_, to denote a particular state of disordered mind, which is supposed to differ from idiotcy and lunacy, has been the source of considerable perplexity to medical practitioners; and, in my own opinion, opens an avenue for ignorance and injustice. the application of figurative terms, especially when imposed under a loose analogy, and where they might be supplied by words of direct meaning, always tends to error and confusion. when medical persons depose that the mind of an individual is unsound, (which character of intellect, if accredited by the jury, would induce them to find the commission,) they ought, at the same time, to define precisely what they mean by such term:--and the jury, when they "proceed to infer" this unsoundness, ought to be in possession of sufficient and well-defined premises, to warrant such inference. but where are these materials to be found? there is a strong presumption that this unsoundness remains an unsolved problem to the present hour, and it is exemplified in the difference of sentiment that prevailed on a late occasion,[b] between the most eminent of the medical profession; where the same opinions and conduct impressed certain physicians, that this nobleman was of sound mind, and others that his mind was thoroughly unsound: so that the jury were to _proceed to make their inference_ from the opposite testimony, deposed by the medical evidence, or to proceed to hold such evidence in little esteem from its contrariety on a subject which these physicians professed to illustrate. the term unsoundness, applied to designate a certain state of the human mind, hitherto undescribed, has not originated with medical persons; to them, therefore, we cannot refer for the solution of its import, and there can be no analogy between the definite unsoundness of animal and vegetable substances, and any condition of the intellect. timber is said to be unsound, and although we may be little acquainted with the cause by which it is produced, yet its actual state of rottenness is evident:--a horse is unsound, in consequence of some morbid affection that can be pointed out by the veterinarian:--a dentist can detect an unsound tooth:--a physician, from certain well marked symptoms, concludes that the lungs or liver of an individual are unsound:--particular doctrines are held to be unsound, because they deflect from such as are orthodox, and it is presumed there may be an unsound exposition of the law. the human mind, however, is not the subject of similar investigation; we are able to discover no virus by which it is contaminated--no spreading rottenness--no morbid leaven that ferments, or canker that corrodes it. although we may apply the word unsoundness, in a figurative or metaphorical sense, to the human mind, yet we cannot detect in it any of the marks or indications that characterize the unsoundness of substances acknowledged to be in that state: it is, therefore, under this conviction, and with the view of increasing our knowledge of the human intellect, that, on the behalf of the members of the medical profession, i venture to solicit your lordship, on the first opportunity that may occur, to elucidate the nature of this unsoundness of mind, so that physicians may be enabled thoroughly to ascertain its existence, and conscientiously depose to that effect, and also that it may be recognized by the jury, when they "proceed to make their inference," in order that, by their return, your lordship may appoint the proper committees of the person and property. respecting the human intellect, two very opposite opinions prevail among physiologists and metaphysicians. one party strenuously contends that the phenomena of mind result from the peculiar organization of the brain, although they confess themselves to be as "entirely ignorant how the parts of the brain accomplish these purposes, as how the liver secretes bile, how the muscles contract, or how any other living purpose is effected."--the other maintains that we become intelligent beings through the medium of a purer emanation, which they denominate spirit, diffused over, or united with, this corporeal structure. the former of these suppositions is held by many grave and pious persons to be incompatible with the doctrines of the christian religion; and if i am not mistaken, your lordship, on a late occasion, after having perused a work attempting to establish such principles, did incline, by "rational doubts," to suspect that these opinions were "directed against the truth of scripture." it is particularly fortunate that the arguments concerning the nature of unsoundness of mind and imbecility do not involve either of these presumptions:--if the most decided victory over their opponents were to be conceded to the fautors of organization, no advantage could be derived from their philosophy by lawyer or physician, whose object is to ascertain the existing state of an individual's mind, and not to detect the morbid alterations of the cerebral structure by the scrutiny of dissection: nor is it necessary, for the elucidation of the present subject, to contend for the pre-eminence of the spiritual doctrine, as it would be extremely difficult, and perhaps irreverent, to suppose, that this immaterial property, this divine essence, that confers perception, reverts into memory, and elaborates thought, can be susceptible of unsoundness. these high attributes, proudly distinguished from perishable matter;--this sanctuary, which "neither moth nor rust doth corrupt," cannot undergo such subordinate changes, without an obvious degradation. to the furtherance of that pure and substantial justice, which it has been the tenor of your lordship's ministry to award, these metaphysical disquisitions will in no manner contribute; nor will they assist the medical practitioner in the attainment of his object, which is to ascertain the competence of an individual's mind, to conduct himself in society, and to manage his affairs. by the abstract term mind, is to be understood the aggregate of the intellectual phenomena, which are manifested or displayed to the observer by conversation and conduct; and these are the only tests by which we can judge of an individual's mind. the boasted deciphering of the human capacities or moral propensities, by the appearances of the physiognomy, or by craniological surveys--the mysterious pastimes of anatomical prophets, will never be accredited in a court of justice while your lordship guides the helm. by conversation, is of course included the conveyance of thought by writing, which, on many occasions, is a more accurate criterion of the state of mind than oral expression. your lordship seems to consider that we have derived some advantages by the issue of a commission to ascertain this _unsoundness_ of mind, and without such due consideration, it is presumed you would not have adopted it; but the citation of your own accurate phraseology, as it appears in your judgment of , on the portsmouth petition, will best illustrate the subject. "it seems to have been a very long time before those who had the administration of justice in this department thought themselves at liberty to issue a commission, when the person was represented as not being idiot ex nativitate, as not being lunatic, but as being of unsound mind, importing, by these words, the notion, that the party was in _some such state_, as was to be contra-distinguished from idiotcy, and as was to be contra-distinguished from lunacy, and yet _such_ as made him a proper object of a commission in the nature of a commission to inquire of idiotcy, or a commission to inquire of lunacy." these words clearly imply a morbid state of intellect, which is neither idiotcy nor lunacy, termed _unsound mind_, and yet the legal remedy for the protection of the person and property of the possessor of this _unsound mind_ does not differ from that which is applied to idiot and lunatic. the process of law is the same. this undescribed state of unsoundness is contra-distinguished from idiotcy and lunacy; but we are left in the dark concerning the peculiar circumstances by which it is contra-distinguished, and under such defect the advantages of introducing a new and undefined term are not apparent. for what purpose "those who had the administration of justice in this department thought themselves at liberty" so to act, is not explained: but your lordship having adopted such practice, and highly commended the authority from whence it has been derived, can, doubtless, afford the necessary elucidation. for those venerable authorities of the law, who have preceded your lordship in this department of the administration of justice, i feel impressed with the utmost deference and respect; and these grateful sentiments will be rendered more intense whenever their reasons are promulgated. medical practitioners, who have devoted their lives to the consideration and treatment of insanity, are disposed to doubt concerning the existence of any intrinsic or positive unsoundness of mind, as contra-distinguished from idiotcy and lunacy. those who have accumulated the largest sum of experience in disorders of the intellect, have viewed the various forms under which they are manifested, as equally conducing to render an individual incapable of conducting himself and managing his affairs, whether the mental affection be termed madness, melancholy, insanity, mental derangement, non compos mentis, idiotcy, or lunacy; and, if it were necessary, a more ample catalogue might be introduced. physicians may, perhaps, be advantageously occupied in establishing nice shades of difference in the symptoms of mental disorder; and, if we do not already possess sufficient, may create new terms expressive of these modifications: and such extension of the nosological volume may have its practical utility: but the lawyer can have no interest in such speculations, he only looks to the medical evidence to demonstrate the existence of that _morbid_ condition of intellect that renders the individual incompetent to conduct himself in society, and to manage his affairs. speaking generally, the state of idiotcy is well understood, although cases of an intricate nature may occasionally occur: but there is considerable probability, that the interpretation that has adhered to the term lunacy, more especially in the estimate of the lawyer, has been the source of considerable error, and has also tended to introduce the middle and undefined epithet of unsoundness. the old physicians, for whom modern practitioners entertain less reverence than lawyers feel for their predecessors, concurred, that lunatics were not only persons of disordered mind, but that their intellectual aberrations corresponded with certain changes of the moon: and this lunar hypothesis which had beguiled the medical profession, will furnish a sufficient apology for its adoption by the lawyer. it is a necessary consequence, if the moon, at certain periods, shed a baneful influence on the human intellect, that the intermediate periods would be exempt from its contamination; or, speaking more technically, at certain phases of that luminary, a person would be visited by an insane paroxysm, and at others, experience a lucid interval. the belief in these alternations of insanity and reason, is perspicuously stated in your lordship's judgment of , on the portsmouth petition. "the question whether he was a lunatic, being a question admitting, in the solution of it, of a decision that imputed to him, at one time, an _extremely sound mind_, but at other times, an occurrence of insanity, with reference to which it was necessary to guard his person and his property by a commission issuing." notwithstanding it must be admitted that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy;" yet, in the present times, our faith in the influence of the lunar aspects has considerably abated, and we employ the term lunatic as a familiar expression, to denote a person of insane mind, without any reference to its derivation, or supposed ascendency of the moon, which my own observations have tended to disprove:--but as the phrase lucid interval is, in its legal sense, connected with lunatic, some investigation of its meaning becomes absolutely necessary. if it were the real character of lunacy, after the visitation of the paroxysm, to leave the patient in the possession of an _extremely sound mind_, this disorder would be rendered much less formidable than we now consider it, and might in its effects be compared to those violent storms of thunder and lightning that purify the atmosphere and dispense salutary refreshment; and it is not improbable, that some, gifted by nature with mediocrity of talent, but of a philosophical turn and aspiring pretensions, might regard the occurrence of such paroxysm as a desideratum, rather than an evil, on account of the _extreme soundness_ they would experience afterwards: it is moreover evident, that however degraded the lunatic may be in the estimation of vigorous and enlightened intellects, yet this depreciated object, by the enjoyment of occasional periods of bright understanding, has abundant cause for taunt and triumph over the victim of unsoundness; whose state is "contra-distinguished from lunacy," and as far as has been hitherto ascertained, does not revel in the luxury of a lucid interval. but these vicissitudes of intellectual obscurity and lustre have no real existence;--they are not the offsprings of observation and experience, but the abortions of hypothesis and precipitate deduction. lunatics, from the excitation of various causes, become at times more violent or desponding, and these exacerbations are often succeeded by tranquillity and cheerfulness, they are more tractable, and less impelled to urge the subjects of their prevailing delusions: but this apparent quietude or assumed complacency, does not imply a renunciation of their perverted notions, which will be found predominant whenever they are skilfully questioned. inexperienced persons judge of the insane state from the passions or feelings that usually accompany this disorder, and infer its aggravation from the display of boisterous emotions or afflicting apprehensions: the medical practitioner considers these sallies as the mere concomitants of a perverted intellect. this view of the subject is justified by a fact, of too much importance to be omitted on the present occasion. many lunatics, whose dangerous propensities it has been prudent to control by a stricter restraint, and for a lengthened period, eventually become harmless, and are safely permitted to enjoy many indulgences incompatible with their former state: yet these persons retain their original delusions, although they have acquired the habit of arresting the impulses which these delusions prompted. it may therefore be inferred, that a lucid interval is equivalent to the complete recovery of the patient, and implies the absolute departure of _all_ those delusions from his mind, that constituted his lunacy:--leaving him in a condition to sustain a thorough examination, not shrinking from particular subjects, nor "blenching," though "tented to the quick;"--and clearly perceiving by contrast the delusions that had prevailed, and the reason that has supervened. the term interval, by which the duration of rational discourse and conduct is to be estimated, although of sufficiently precise meaning, is yet susceptible of the most extended signification; and we speak with equal correctness when we say the interval of a moment and of a thousand years. the time necessary to comprise a lucid interval has not, to the best of my belief, been limited by medical writers or legal authorities; it must however comprehend a portion sufficient to satisfy the inquirer, that the individual, whose intellect had been disordered, does not any longer retain any of the symptoms that constituted his malady; and this presumes on the part of the examiner an intimate knowledge of the unfounded prejudices, delusions, or incapacities with which the mind of the party had been affected, and also deliberate and repeated investigations to ascertain that they are wholly effaced. imbecility. there is another subject connected in a legal point of view with the nature of the human mind, and with the state of its morbid conditions, on which i respectfully solicit your lordship's elucidation. in your lordship's judgment of , on the portsmouth petition, it is laid down that "from the moment that (meaning this questionable and disputed unsoundness) had been established, down to this moment, it appears to me however to have been at the same time established, that _whatever_ may be the degree of weakness or imbecility of the party,--_whatever_ may be the degree of incapacity of the party to manage his own affairs, if the finding of the jury is only that he was of an extreme imbecility of mind, that he has an inability to manage his own affairs; if they will not proceed to infer from that, in their finding upon oath, that he is of _unsound mind_, they have not established by the result of the inquiry, a case upon which the chancellor can make a grant, constituting a committee either of the person or estate. all the cases decide that mere imbecility will not do: that an inability to manage a man's affairs will not do, unless that inability and that incapacity to manage his affairs, amount to evidence that he is of _unsound mind_: and he must be found to be so." a conclusion is here drawn that the establishment of _unsoundness_ necessarily involves, that the extreme degree of imbecility and incapacity of mind does not constitute this unsoundness: that is,--they may exist in the extreme degree, (or citing the words employed,) in any degree whatever, which implies the ne plus ultra, without any resulting unsoundness. this is a dictum, which proceeding from your lordship, the highest authority, is intitled to the utmost deference:--but it is not an inference from any acknowledged premises, nor established by the intervention of any corroborating argument. the very existence of this intrinsic unsoundness, is "down to the present moment" unproved, and all that can be inferred in this state of the question, is the accredited maxim that "nil agit exemplum litem quod lite resolvit." by the common consent of philosophers and physicians, mental imbecility in the extreme degree is termed idiotcy; and this state may exist "ex nativitate," or supervene at various periods of human life. when a child proceeds from infancy to adolescence, and from that state advances to maturity, with a capacity of acquiring progressively the knowledge which will enable him to conduct himself in society and to manage his affairs,--so that he is viewed as a responsible agent and considered "inter homines homo," such a being is regarded of _sound_ capacity or intellect:--but if in his career from infancy to manhood it is clearly ascertained that education is hopeless,--that the seeds of instruction take "no root, and wither away,"--that he is deficient in the capacity to attain the information requisite to pilot himself through the world and manage his concerns, such a person would be deemed an idiot, and it might be safely concluded that his intellect was _unsound_, by wanting those capacities that constitute the sound mind. according to your lordship's exposition he could not be pronounced _unsound_, because this word implies "_some such state_, as is to be _contra-distinguished_ from idiotcy." in order that a definite signification may be affixed to the expression "_some such state_," it will not, i trust, be deemed indecorous to ask, what particular condition of morbid intellect is to be understood by this "some such state?" the solution of this difficulty would be most acceptable to the practitioners of medicine, and in my own humble opinion of great relief to the jury, who are called upon to "proceed to infer" this state of unsoundness without any other premises than the words "_some such state_." although we are distinctly told by your lordship, that the extreme degree of imbecility or incapacity will not constitute this "_some such state_" that may be denominated unsoundness; yet i feel highly satisfied with the force and precision by which it is expressed in the words "_whatever degree_," which if a scale were constructed on which imbecility might be estimated, would imply the ultimate gradation; and whenever any subject can be regulated by definite quantity, expressed in numbers, it conveys the most certain information. your lordship may however judge of the surprize and disappointment i felt when i arrived at the following sentence in the same judgment, "all the cases decide that mere imbecility will not do; that an inability to manage a man's affairs will not do, unless that inability and that incapacity to manage his affairs amount to evidence that he is of unsound mind, and he must be found to be so." this, my lord, is an ample confession that there is a degree of mental weakness that _does_ amount to unsoundness, and in this opinion all philosophers and medical practitioners will unhesitatingly concur: but at the same time this admission wholly upsets the former doctrine, that no degree of imbecility "whatever" can constitute this required unsoundness. in your lordship's judgment on the portsmouth petition, delivered the th december, , it is stated, "it may be very difficult to draw the line between such weakness, which is the proper object of relief in this court, and such as amounts to insanity," and in the next sentence, "this is the doctrine of lord hardwicke, and i follow him in saying it is very difficult to draw the line between such weakness which is the proper object of relief in this court, and such as amounts to insanity." this is a second corroboration of an opinion that destroys the former doctrine. finally in the "minutes of conference between your lordship and certain physicians, held on the th january, , in the portsmouth case," there is an endeavour to explain the nature of _unsoundness_, and of imbecility or weakness;--but it is insufficient to direct the physician to any clue whereby his doubts can be solved, and unfortunately relapses into the original contradictory statement. "the commission which is usually termed a commission of lunacy, and which because it has that name, i observe many persons are extremely misled with respect to the nature of it, and which produced on a former occasion, with respect to this nobleman, a great mass of affidavits, in which they stated he was not an object of a commission of lunacy.--i say that these words are not much understood.--the law acknowledges the state of idiotcy, and the state of lunacy, which properly understood, is a very different thing from that sort of unsoundness of mind which renders a man incapable of managing his affairs or his person.--and it has now been long settled, not that a commission of lunacy is to be issued; but that a commission is to issue in the nature of a writ de lunatico inquirendo, and then the object of the commission is perfectly satisfied, if the jury shall find upon satisfactory evidence, that the party is of unsound mind, and incapable of managing his own affairs.--the finding of him incapable of managing his own affairs, is not sufficient to authorize further proceedings, but there must be a finding that he is of _unsound_ mind, and unable to manage his affairs:--incapacity to manage his affairs being considered as evidence of unsound mind:--yet there may be, (and that every man's mind will suggest) instances of incapacity to manage a man's affairs, and yet _no_ unsoundness of mind." that many persons are extremely misled with respect to a commission of lunacy, and too frequently concerning all other subjects, is fully admitted: and it is equally clear that the great mass of affidavits produced in , in favor of lord portsmouth's soundness of intellect (for i have attentively perused the whole catalogue) did not go into the investigation of the supposed difference between this hypothetical unsoundness and lunacy; but attested, as far as his lordship's conversation and conduct had been the subject of their observation and judgment, that he was not a man labouring under any infirmity, or morbid state of mind, that ought, by any legal restraint, to disqualify him from the management of himself and his affairs. with such opinions i have no concern; they can only be regarded as negative evidence, and cannot operate against manifold overt acts of insanity. in the progress of this respectful address, after numerous but unsuccessful endeavours to grapple with this _sort_ of unsoundness, suspicions have arisen that i have been pursuing a phantom;--at times i have fondly imagined it within my immediate grasp, but it has always evaded my seizure with unaccountable dexterity:--it even now appears that i could "clutch" it, as your lordship distinctly asserts that, "lunacy _properly understood_ is a _very different thing_ from that _sort_ of _unsoundness_ which renders a man incapable of managing his affairs or his person." this is at once coming manfully to the point; for the disclosure (whenever it may take place) of the circumstances that constitute lunacy properly understood, which means as it _ought_ to be understood, a very different thing from this sort of unsoundness, will be the solution of this desideratum,--and this development will impose a considerable weight of obligation on the medical profession. it now only remains to consider the last material sentence, delivered by your lordship at this conference, and which to my limited comprehension, appears, in the same breath, to affirm and deny the same position. "the finding of him incapable of managing his own affairs, is not sufficient to authorize further proceedings, but there must be a finding that he is of _unsound_ mind, and unable to manage his affairs:--incapacity to manage his affairs, being considered as evidence of unsound mind." with the citation of this memorable sentence,--unadulterated by any comment, i shall conclude this address to your lordship, submitting at the same time my own impressions on the subject:--that, to search for its correct exposition is reverential to the law: to crave its elucidation from its exalted minister is an act of respectful deference:--this solicitude is increased from the consideration that the written opinion of the medical practitioner is deposed on oath, and that he is examined by the commissioners and jury under the same awful responsibility:--therefore, when the solemnity of that obligation is contemplated, the anxiety for accurate information will scarcely require an apology. i am, my lord, with the utmost respect, your lordship's very obedient servant, john haslam. _no. , hart street, bloomsbury, may, ._ _works by the same author._ observations on madness and melancholy. illustrations of madness, with a plate. on the moral management of the insane. medical jurisprudence, as it relates to insanity. a letter to the governors of bethlem hospital. sound mind, or the physiology of intelligent beings. *** a new edition of the observations on madness and melancholy, with considerable additions, will shortly appear. *** printed by g. hayden, little college street, westminster. footnotes: [a] the following citation was introduced, with some comments, in my work on medical jurisprudence, as it relates to insanity, according to the law of england, , which is now out of print. [b] lord portsmouth's commission. [transcriber's note: other than one correction (p. , 'ideot' to 'idiot' in 'when the person was represented as not being idiot ex nativitate'), all archaic and unusual spelling (e.g. idiotcy) has been left as in the original.] none letters of a lunatic, or a brief exposition of my university life, during the years - . by g. j. adler, a. m., professor of german literature in the university of the city of new-york, member of the american oriental, and of the american ethnological societies, &c., &c. spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici? horat. ars poet. v. . [greek: mê ny toi ou chraismê skêptron kai stemma theoio]! iliad i. v. . printed for the author. . prefatory note to the public. in a recent publication on german literature, i hinted to the reader my design of giving an account of an event in my personal history, which i alleged to be the cause of an absentment from my proper place of study, and consequently of an injustice to my public. i now proceed to fulfil my promise, by offering to my personal friends, and to such as are interested in matters of academic education and morality, a few of the many letters written by me during the past year. i might have added others, both of an anterior and of a more recent date. the question however was not to write a volume, but simply a brief exposition, of a page or two from my life in connection with a public institution of the metropolis, and thus to bring a matter of private and iniquitous dispute before the forum of the public, after having vainly sought redress in private. my main object was of course to vindicate and defend my character, my professional honor and my most sacred rights as a rational man and as a public educator, against the invasions of narrow-minded and unjust aggressors, whose machinations have for several years been busily at work in subverting what other men have reared before them, in retarding and impeding what the intelligence of our age and country is eager to accelerate and to promote. the much agitated question of university reform and of the liberty of academic instruction, which of late years has engaged the attention of some of the best intellects on both sides of the atlantic, and which within a month past has again occupied the public mind, and even called forth legislative intervention may, however, perhaps likewise receive some additional light from the following pages, which i now submit, not from any motive of vanity, or from the expectation of self-aggrandisement or of histrionic applause; but from a sense of duty to the cause of liberal culture and of sound morality, to which i have devoted many a year of laborious effort and of earnest thought. new-york university, } g. j. a. _june_, . } letter i. new-york university, sept. th, . rev. isaac ferris, d. d. dear sir,--i deem it a duty of justice towards myself, as well as to the honor of the institution of which i am an officer and yourself the newly-elected head, to bring to your consideration a few circumstances from the history of our incidental intercourse during the past winter, which at the time of occurrence, struck me with painful surprise, and which i cannot suffer to pass without my most earnest protestations. st, during the earlier part of the winter, in passing out of my lecture-room one morning, i met you in the hall of the university with a pale face, asking me in the most uncalled-for and singular manner the strange question:--"_are you my superior?_"--the reply, which i ought to have written on the spot to such an enquiry, i would now make by saying, that such an idea never occurred to me, and that, as i had never seen any thing of your presence in the actual performance of duty in the university at the time of my instruction to the students, such an idea _never could have suggested itself_ to me. the question of superiority or inferiority being, moreover, of a relative nature and one that (in our profession) can only be settled by actual services rendered to the cause of letters and by actual acknowledgements obtained in a proper manner and from competent judges, it would be folly for me or for any one else to attempt to place it on any other ground; and for that reason i never touch it, although i am always ready to acknowledge both moral and intellectual superiority, wherever i become aware of its existence. d, on a second occasion, i met you by accident in the hall before my door, when to my equal surprise, you informed me by indefinite murmurs and in the same painful half-way-utterance, "_that i had the chapel_," and "_that i was in the next church_," pointing to dr. hutton's. this cannot possibly be the case, as i am not of your persuasion in matters of religion, and if i am to communicate any instruction in the institution, it must be done in the usual way. d, during the horrid disorders within the institution the past winter, i repeatedly heard vociferous declamations in the adjoining room, and at one time the famous words of patrick henry were declaimed by mr. bennet (i think) of the last class: "_give me liberty, or give me death!_" fearfully emphasized, and _your own voice echoed_: "_death you shall have!_" as at that particular time i underwent the crucifixion of college-disorder, at the same time receiving occasional intimations that either in my speculations or in my instruction _i was going too far_, and that on that account it was necessary for me to leave, i cannot possibly be mistaken in supposing, _that both that horrible word of yours_, as well as the frequent scandalous vociferations were intended as an insult for me; (and, _if that is so_, i would most respectfully beg leave to reciprocate the compliment). th, at the dinner of the alumni my attention along with that of all the rest of the assembled guests was directed towards you, at the time you rose to speak. while yet standing, you turned towards me with a peculiar expression of countenance (which i beg you to allow me to reciprocate) and in an under-tone (distinctly audible to me) asked the guests of the opposite side of the room (between whom and yourself there appears to have been a collusion): _shall i have to become the step-father of that man?_ and again in the same tone and with the same expression of countenance: "_next year i shall see another man in that man's place!_" the subsequent exchange of salutations _over prof._ martin was ironical on your part, and independently of the rudeness of the act, wholly out of place. no one else present was treated in the same way.--in regard to the last expression, with which you honored me on that occasion, i would say, that by the repetition of the scenes of immorality and disorder of which this building was the theatre (in the most odious sense of that term) during the past year, such an event might be possible, not however without some troublesome resistance on my part and _the prospect of another change_.--in regard to the first question, i will myself take the responsibility of a reply, by frankly informing you, that, although i do not feel the slightest inclination to question the responsible honor of your office, and with due deference to the reputation for moral integrity (of your _scholarship_ i have never seen any proof), which must have secured the same to you, i nevertheless most emphatically decline such paternal supervision--having for many years past been myself of full age, and even won a place _as a man_ among the men and scholars of our land. and this i purpose to maintain, whether i am in the university, or out of it. i must, therefore, beg you _to take back the offensive words at the next dinner as publicly as they were uttered_, or else i shall be obliged to take measures in defence of my honor, which, painful and disagreeable as they would be to me, would nevertheless be a necessary duty of self-protection. as for my peculiar views and position with reference to questions of scholarship and education, i have undergone no change of opinion whatever, nor could i undergo one, unless it were the necessary consequence of a rational conviction; and i shall have my hands full for some years to come, to write out and publish what i have but imperfectly and in a desultory manner indicated in my lectures and conversations; and while i am convinced that in many respects i have (as is usual) been voluntarily and involuntarily misunderstood, i am sure, that in the main i am right, and entitled to a hearing or a reading, whether, as has been intimated to me, i go too far or not.--in regard to the many scandalous interruptions by spectral noises (by day and by night), of which i well remember the chief authors, and in regard to my other persecutions, i am aware, that they can only be the subject of commiseration and of merited contempt, and that under the given circumstances, it would be difficult to obtain redress or justice. i shall, however, procure some legal advice on the subject. allow me, in conclusion, sir, to assure you of the absence of all hostile personal feeling on my part. i have said what my duty imperatively demands, and my silence would have made me a villain, justly liable to perpetual abuse. i am, dear sir, with the most distinguished consideration, yours, &c. g. j. adler. letter ii. new-york university, sept. th, . to his honor, the mayor } of the city of new-york.} dear sir,--i deem it my duty as a citizen of new-york, and a member of a literary institution, of which your honor is _ex-officio_ an officer, to apprize you of a fact of my personal history during the past winter, which as it is intimately connected with the maintenance of social order, should not for one moment be passed over by the authorities of the municipal corporation. i have for a number of years past been connected with the university of the city of new-york, first as a resident graduate and lately as the professor of a modern language, and have ever since my connection with the institution resided in the building on washington square, spending most of my time in authorship and instruction in a room, which for several years i have occupied for that purpose. in consequence of some bad feeling towards me on the part of certain enemies of mine, who of late have done all in their power to annoy me, the quiet of my residence has been disturbed in a scandalous manner, by day and at all hours of the night, for weeks and months together, so as to inflict on me the torments of perpetual interruption not only in my work during the day, but of rest during the night, until my health was completely shattered; and in this miserable manner i have lost nearly the whole of last winter without accomplishing any of my purposes with satisfaction or comfort. this outrageous annoyance has been the source of severe loss to me not only in regard to my health, but also in a pecuniary point of view. my salary in the institution being altogether inadequate for my support, i have been engaged for a number of years past in preparing works for publication, and this winter the ruin of my health from the causes already mentioned has also threatened me with the ruin of my income. as this villainous business has proceeded in part from the institution itself, or rather from individuals personally hostile to me and to my purposes, i deem an address to your honor so much the more in place, as i believe it to be officially your duty to interpose your municipal authority in matters of this kind, and to reprimand or punish men for the immorality of so flagrant a disturbance of the peace. as my ears have almost daily been wounded by disorderly noises, not only from students, but (and mostly) from other persons, who ought to blush for such base conduct, i cannot say, that i am unacquainted with the authors of the nuisance, and could easily designate to you at least half a dozen. such cries as "go on! stop!--out of the institution with that man!--kill him!" besides multitudes of vulgar chuckles, screams and other horrid vociferations have been heard by me from well-known voices, until at times i felt as if i could support the vexation no longer. numberless insults in the street and even menaces were constantly thrown out by a low gang, who were evidently hired for the vile purpose, and i have seen things, which i never witnessed before either in europe or america. a certain firm of this city seems to have commenced the nefarious hostilities. i have suffered encroachments on my personal safety to which no american citizen ought for one moment to submit. as i cannot afford, nor feel inclined to lose my time and health any longer, i would respectfully submit to your honor's consideration _my claim to the protection of the laws of the city_ in this respect, to which as an american citizen i am entitled, and the necessity of a sterner maintenance of order by the police of the city. disagreeable and painful as it is for any one to come into hostile collision with fellow-citizens, there are nevertheless cases, in which such enmities may be innocently contracted, and holding mine to be of such a nature, i may confidently expect the ready and effectual interposition of your honor and of the honorable members of the common council, to whom the order and honor of the city must ever be dear, in a matter that seems to me to involve one of the most cherished principles of our republican freedom, viz., the personal safety and peaceable domicile of every member of our community, of every citizen of this vast republic. to sum up my complaints briefly, they are as follows:-- st, personal hostility towards me in the institution itself; dly, horrid footsteps, noises and loud conferences under my window by day and by night; dly, menacing insults from low people in the street, without the slightest provocation on my part. trusting that your honor may find an early occasion to give me an opportunity for finding my firm conviction true, that the majesty of the law is capable of being upheld by its representatives in the community, and that i may have a different tale to tell respecting the morality of the city and my own sense of personal safety, i am your honor's most respectful and obedient servant. g. j. adler. letter iii.--(answer to no. i.) rev. dr.---- dear sir,--understanding that you are a friend of professor adler, of this university, and know his brother, i take the liberty of calling your attention to his present condition.--during the last winter he gave various indications of a disordered mind, and these have become more decided during the past summer. i am distressed to see his haggard look, and have feared unhappy results. he is unfitted for the business of teaching, and his friends would do well to get him another institution, adapted to such, away from study. i think there should be no delay in the matter.--we all esteem dr. adler highly, and would be delighted with his restoration to the full use of his fine intellectual powers. may i solicit your fraternal aid in this case, and please let me hear from you at an early day. i am with great regard, yours, university of the city of } new-york, _sept_. th, ' .} (signed) isaac ferris. epilogomena to letter iii. as the above letter was handed to my personal friends for the purpose of conveying the desired intelligence, and sent to me, when the report of my illness and mental derangement was found to be groundless and false, there can be no impropriety or breach of courtesy or justice in its publication. the serious consequences to which it gave rise, the deprivation of my liberty for six entire months, and the suspension of my functions as an academic instructor (though not of my activity as an author, which under the most inauspicious circumstances was still continued) alike demand, that it should be made known in connection with my own communications before and during my imprisonment. a comment or two will exhibit the contents of the doctor's epistle in their proper light. st, the dr's. letter is itself a contradiction and an egregious symptom of insanity on his part, which is, moreover, confirmed by his previous conduct from his first entrance into the institution. in comparing the university with the lunatic asylum, i find that the former during the winter of -' (i may add, ever since my return from europe in ) was a far more disorderly and irrational place than the latter, where the occasional confusion or the perpetual (sane and insane) perversity of men is the lamentable, but natural and necessary (consequently _irresponsible_) result, of an internal physical or intellectual disorder or defect, which is moreover susceptible of classification and of a psychological exposition, while in the former it was "got up" for the particular purpose of subjugation or of expulsion, and where consequently it was the result of _responsible_ perversity and malice, _susceptible of moral reprobation_. d, the allegation of my being "unfitted for the business of teaching," and of the propriety of finding me "another institution, adapted to such, away from study," is an absurd and a libelous perversion of the truth, which it is scarcely worth while to refute. from the year , the year of my matriculation at the institution, to the present hour i have had no other profession, except that of having appeared in the additional capacity of an author. even during my undergraduate career i taught successfully the various disciplines of our academic course, with the approbation and to the satisfaction of the faculty, members of which examined and admitted to promotion several of my private scholars, who had been expressly referred to me for tuition in the classics, in mathematics, in philosophy, &c.--of my courses of instruction since my official and regular connection with the institution (which dates from the year ) in the language and in the literature which i was more especially appointed to profess, it is not necessary to speak here, the university itself having offered but little inducement and no emolument or honor to the cultivation of the modern languages. in all the professional services, however, which i have had occasion to render to the institution of late years, my qualifications and my efficiency could never have been honestly or honorably questioned. i have prepared my own text-books, which have found their way into most of the literary and educational institutions of this continent to some extent into europe even. one of them was begun at the very time, when "the indications of a disordered mind had become more decided," and was completed with scarcely a day's intermission of my work at the lunatic asylum, where i subsequently improved my leisure (as far as my shattered health would permit) by zealously engaging in some preliminary studies for a history of modern literature.--it is equally needless to expatiate on my extensive acquaintance, direct and indirect, with academic men and methods both in the united states and in europe, where within a few years past i spent an entire year in the pursuit of literary and philosophical studies at two of its most prominent universities.--_to my morality, both private and social, and to my religion, no one but a hyper-puristic religionist or a calvinistic tyrant could possibly object._--the real objection, and the cause of my being unfitted for the business of instruction must therefore be looked for elsewhere. from various indications and from several catastrophes in my personal history, brought about by sectarian jealousy and fanatical intrigue, from certain significant changes in the faculty of the institution, and from innumerable efforts to subject me to a creed, or to the social control of certain religious parties, i should infer that it manifestly and palpably resided in a mistrust of what is vulgarly termed "the soundness of my views" on certain questions, never discussed in respectable literary institutions, and beyond their jurisdiction, or in other words _in a suspicion of heresy_.--i claim, however, in opposition to all these pretensions, which i deem an absurdity, my right (which is _inalienable_ and _imprescriptible_) to my moral and intellectual culture, commenced under the auspices and fostering care of my alma mater herself (during a former administration) and continued and perfected by years of serious and earnest effort in america and europe, since. _i recognize no sectarian guidance or control whatever in any of the independent sciences, cultivated from time immemorial at academic institutions, much less in the science of sciences, the very law and indispensable condition of which is absolute freedom from all external authority or restraint._ the law of intellectual freedom, of which the reader will find a short exposition in the concluding document of this pamphlet (which i have extracted and translated from a distinguished authority on the "philosophy of right") is recognized by the spirit and the letter of the constitution and by the political and social history of the united states, by the revised statutes of the state of new-york, by all the leading universities _of protestant and catholic europe_, and by a number of similar institutions in america, among which stands, "professedly" at least, the university of the city of new-york. the attempts of certain parties in connection with the institution and _ab extra_ to "smother" (to use one of their own cant words) and to crush my independence by gravely endeavoring to _coerce me into an alliance with a questionable religionism, which is abhorrent to my ideas, my habits and my sentiments, and by fomenting internal disorders for the purpose of effecting an exclusion_, are an unconstitutional, an unjust, an iniquitous invasion of my most sacred rights as a man, an american citizen, a scholar and a professor. i repel, therefore, dr. ferris' insinuation as a maliciously astute and as a false one, which of itself declares the dr. _incompetent to decide upon the merits of a real scholar, and utterly unfit for the important trust of presiding over the interests of any other but a sectarian institution of the narrowest description, of the most painfully exclusive moral perversity_. to this i may add, that in consideration of the many and various disciplines, earnestly and steadily cultivated by me for several years past, such as intellectual philosophy, the learned and modern languages, linguistics and the history of literature generally, i could in academic justice _demand the right_ to instruct in any one of the departments for which i was fitted. that such a right exists, and that it is applicable to my case, the reader may learn from sir william hamilton's essays on university education, recently republished in america, to which i refer _passim_. i can therefore confidently challenge not only the chancellor, but, in case of a concurrence in his sentiments, the entire faculty of the university to the following proposition:--in case my capacity to teach or lecture academically is questioned, i propose to take, and i demand one of the following chairs; _where under suitable auspices and with proper and regular provisions for the maintenance of order, i could at once begin_:-- st, the latin language and literature.-- d, the greek ditto, ditto.-- d, moral and intellectual philosophy, either systematically or historically.-- th, history or the general history of literature (of which i have at present a text-book in preparation).-- th, linguistics or the classification of languages, including general grammar.-- th, the history of modern (european) languages and literatures.-- th, the elements of the sanscrit, of which i still have a mss. grammar, compiled by myself for my private use, during the winter of .--i omit mentioning the remaining academic disciplines, for which i have no particular taste, but which i still could teach, and for which i could prepare the text-books, if it were necessary to do so. d, the alleged indications of insanity were _utterly unfounded_ at the time they were made. i had recovered my usual health and spirits immediately after the commencement of last year, about the beginning of july ' , when those who had flagrantly disturbed the quiet of my residence in and about the university building had vanished into the country. of the winter of -' i only recollect, that subsequently to the dismissal of my class, which i could not in honor consent to hear any longer, i made a fruitless attempt to continue my private studies, and to finish a commentary on a greek drama which i had begun at the commencement of the term, and that the ominous symptoms of _external insanity_ about me soon increased to such an alarming extent, that i was forced to lay aside my pen, unable to endure the outrage and annoyance any longer; that gangs of scandalous ruffians in the shape of boys, girls, men and women, many of whom i knew by their voices, kept up at certain intervals, by day and by night, a nefarious system of mystification and of nuisance from january to the end of june, in the council-room of the institution, in the hall, before my door, in front of my window, and on the parade ground; that in consequence of all this my rest at night was completely broken, until i could only sleep by day; that after a while i was confined to my bed most of the time, and that i frequently did not rise for breakfast till o'clock, p. m.; that it was painful and disgusting for me to be awake, and that all i read for several successive months was "hegel's logic" for two or three hours a day, and that for some time i only eat once a day. in may, i think, i fled to a neighboring state and university, partly with the intention of changing my place of residence.--as a psychologist i was well aware, that sleep was a sovereign preventive, as well as a remedy for all the disorders of the mind, especially for those which might arise from external causes such as those i have just described; i therefore anticipated and _prevented_ the unhappy consequences which the dr. seems to have expected from the outrageous nuisance of his cherished institution, where such scenes of scandal only _date from the time his prospective and his actual entrance on the duties of his office_, and really seem to have been made to order, i know not for whose benefit (certainly not for mine). _during the summer i was_, in consequence of the happy reaction and repose, _unusually gay and regular in my work_. i then wrote an introduction to schiller's maid of orleans, another one to goethe's iphigenia, and a third to tieck's puss in boots, all of which have since been published in my new manual of german literature. i deny, therefore, having ever given any symptoms of insanity whatsoever at any time of the year, while i admit that a renewal of the scandal (which the parties concerned have endeavored to revive since my release this spring, but which i checked by a speedy notice to the police court and to some of my friends), in the autumn might have led to such calamitous results. neither my kant, nor my rauch, nor my hegel, nor any other philosopher or psychologist could for one moment be induced to admit, _that the presence of external causes and tendencies to intellectual derangement were necessarily attended or followed by the malady itself_. this would be an egregious logical fallacy, to which no intelligent physician in or out of the lunatic asylum could for one moment subscribe, without justly incurring the risk of being charged with an inexcusable lack of professional knowledge and experience or what is still worse, with a criminal connivance at an unjust and inquitous conspiracy against the reputation and the life of an american citizen. to the charge of the folly of suffering so long and so severely from so gross a system of disorder which might have speedily been checked by the extra-academic authorities of the city, i can only reply, that the confusion and the consequent embarrassment was so great, that it was impossible for me at the time to come to any decision as to the course to be pursued. the most advisable policy would have been, to have left entirely, and to have directed the correction or the punishment from a distance. the following letters, written from the lunatic asylum (_between which and the university there was a manifest internal harmony, and which was evidently commissioned to complete the work of humiliation and of subjugation_), may serve to elucidate the facts of the case with some additional particulars. to the above mentioned causes of the ruin of my health, i may add, that during the same winter i had an opportunity of witnessing a resurrection of "salem witchcraft," practiced on me by a certain lady, a mother in israel of this city, who was manifestly in connection with the ultra-calvinistic faction of the university, which is the one to which dr. ferris is indebted for his elevation. i moreover discovered in the same connection, one of the two sources, from which the low insults in the street, at certain well-known hours of my walks, in certain places and directions, (to which i made allusion in my letter to the mayor of the city,) had emanated, and i received some additional light on certain events of my personal history, to which i allude in letter no. .--a father in israel, a gray-headed sinner in my opinion, likewise informed me _that they had the irish to defend them_.--i venture to assert that few of my countrymen, except perhaps the lowest rabble, would ever lend their aid to such nefarious purposes. from all that i have had occasion to observe of social disorder and discontent in the city for several years past, i am sure that there are men who foment intestine commotions, who shamelessly and openly conspire against the honor and the interests, if not against the property and lives of their fellow-citizens, and whom the state ought to prosecute and punish as offenders against a clearly defined law of the statute-book. my sanity at the time of arrest i can establish:-- st, by the testimony of those who saw me daily, and more especially, by that of a young man, who came to see me frequently, after the reception of dr. ferris' letter, and who in fact brought it from the office. dly, by the testimony of a distinguished physician, who about a week before, dressed a slight wound on one of my eye-brows, received from a fall against my sofa in the dark. dly, by the fact, that i was quietly and constantly engaged in writing, and in daily communication with the printer, who stereotyped my "hand-book of german literature." _symptoms of unusual excitement, in consequence of such an outrage, are no proof of derangement._ letter iv. bloomingdale asylum, _dec. th_, . to----, washington, d. c. dear sir, for several years past, i have repeatedly been on the point of making an effort to resuscitate a slight, but to me no less cherished acquaintance, by giving you some account of my doings and purposes, which, i have sometimes flattered myself, might not be without interest both to yourself and to such of your co-adjutors in washington, as have enlisted with you in the noble cause of extending and diffusing knowledge among men. of the proceedings of your institution i have occasionally informed myself, both from the pamphlets and reports periodically submitted to the public, and more especially from the volumes of regular "transactions," in the archæological and linguistical parts of which, i have taken so much the greater interest, as of late years my own attention has at times been almost exclusively directed to the same field of investigation. it is true, i have as yet neither been able nor willing to give any positive result of my studies. i have hardly done anything more than "to break the ice." this, however, i may safely say to have done, having not only had the best opportunities, (since i saw you last in ) of surveying the field in the time-honored centres of intellectual light on the other side of the atlantic, but having also since my return, as a member of several learned associations, had special occasion and incitement to keep alive my interest in these engaging pursuits. and if there be any truth in the ancient adage: [greek: archê hêmisy pantos], i may perhaps even entertain the hope (_non invitá minervâ_) of some future concentration of my somewhat desultory excursions in these regions of light (where ignorance indeed, but ignorance alone, sees only darkness) to some radiant focal point. there are a number of subjects, closely connected with the inquiries, that come under the cognizance of the historico-philosophical section of your institute, which, i see, are agitated anew by the _savants_ of the old world, and which to the resolution of certain problems, relating to the primitive history of this continent, are equally important here, perhaps entitled to our special consideration. recent investigations would seem to show, for example, that our genial and acute du ponceau had by no means said the last word on the subject he has so learnedly reported. several new works on the origin and classification of languages, that have made their appearance in berlin, &c., since the day of humboldt's attempt, would seem to invite to similar efforts on our side, and with special reference to the immensity of our cis-atlantic field, which ought to be [greek: kat' exochên] adopted as our own. having most of these materials at hand, i have sometimes been tempted myself to try, whether by an _exposition of the present state_ of that science, as cultivated by the germans particularly, a new impulsion might not be imparted to it among ourselves. some such purpose has been among the tasks, which i had proposed to myself for the present winter. the sudden suspension of my studies, and the consequent uncertainty of my affairs, however, have so seriously deranged my plans, that now i almost despair of being able to accomplish any of my more immediate and necessary purposes.--you will undoubtedly be surprised to learn, that i have been an inmate of the lunatic asylum, at bloomingdale, for now nearly three months; your surprise will be still greater, when you come to learn, by what sort of machinations i have been brought here. for several years past, i have been made the object of a systematic and invidious persecution, in consequence of which i have been obliged to shift my residence from one place to another, to spend my means in involuntary exile and unnecessary travelling, and altogether to lead a life of a discouraging uncertainty. shortly after my visit to washington, ( ), where i saw you last, i was driven away from new-york, while yet absorbed in the midst of an arduous undertaking, (my large german and english dictionary, which in consequence of my forced removal from the place of printing, i had to finish at an inconvenient distance), under circumstances of the most aggravated insults and abuses, (such as i had never dreamt men capable of,) and about six months after its completion the same miserable clique had already "finished" me in boston and a regular "_hedjra_" to europe was the consequence.[ ]--i spent a year in london, paris and berlin, in a miserable struggle to repair my shattered health, (i had a cough, contracted from sheer vexation, while in the clutches of the miserable wretches, who seemed to be determined to vex me out of existence, which clung to me a year and ever and anon returns again,) and what was still more difficult, to forget the loathsome reminiscences of the immediate past by bringing myself in contact with the sanatory influences of the literature and art of the old world; partly with the intention of remaining there. i returned, however, in the hope of finding my difficulties subsided. but the same odious conspiracy, which had even contrived to mar my comfort and happiness in one place on the other side, (in paris, where i spent the greater part of an academic year, at the university and libraries, in various studies,) had, as i found to my surprise, kept up a malevolent espionage over my peregrinations even, and i have since been subjected to a series of vexations and intrigues, which at times made me regret that i had not preferred any lot in a foreign land and among entire strangers to such an ignoble re-establishment at home. a personal attachment of former years was made use of to harass and lacerate my feelings, and an underhanded, venomous persecution, (which the parties, who were the authors, and who were in alliance with certain ecclesiastical tricksters, did not even blush to own), followed me at every step. the scum of new-york in the shape of negroes, irishmen, germans, &c., were hired, in well-organized gangs, to drop mysterious allusions and to offer me other insults in the street, (and thus i was daily forced to see and hear things in new-york, of which i had never dreamt before,) while a body of proselyting religionists were busy in their endeavors to make me a submissive tool of some ecclesiastical party or else to rob me of the last prospect of eating a respectable piece of bread and butter. this odious vice of certain countrymen of yours was in fact the prolific source of all the difficulties i complain of, and it is remotely the cause of my confinement here. [ ] the details of this scandalous act of vandalism, which though it nearly cost me my life, i did not even mention in the preface to my large german and english lexicon, finished in the course of the same year, are too diffuse and complicated, to be noticed here. as the leading personages of this drama, however, were the representatives of powerful and influential ecclesiastical organizations, and as shortly before, repeated and desperate proselyting efforts had been made by some of these men, and by their miserable underlings, i cannot possibly be wrong in designating the vile commotion, by which i was swept from my post, _as the venomous explosion of ignoble and of bigoted elements_, which have in fact been the prolific source of all the confusion i complain of now. i distinctly remember the treacherous and inquisitorial anxiousness of a certain (now) president of a prominent university, (with whom i was reading logic,) to become acquainted with german metaphysics, the mysterious meetings of a certain ecclesiastical committee, the efforts of a certain temperance coterie at a certain hotel, and a dozen other despicable conclaves and combinations, whose machinations were too palpable to be mistaken or forgotten. i also know, that a certain philosophy to which i was known to be particularly partial, is looked upon with jealous suspicion by certain superficial and insignificant pretenders to that science, whose ignorance and malice forges weapons of destruction out of the noblest and sublimest conceptions that have ever emanated from the intellect of man. to all these ambitious and noisy enemies of intellectual freedom, _whose littleness asperses, calumniates and levels whatever is gigantic and sublime_, i would here say, once for all, that if they could but rationally comprehend this goethe, this jean paul, this fichte, kant and hegel, whom they regard with so much horror, their _moral regeneration_ would almost be beyond a doubt, and if they could think and write like them, their title to enduring fame would never need an advocate or petty trickster to defend it. in the course of this last year, however, these manoeuvres assumed a still more startling and iniquitous shape than before. hitherto my _domicile_ had been safe and quiet. for, although meddlesome attempts had been made to force certain associations on me and to cut me off from others, i had still been left sufficiently unmolested to accomplish some study without any flagrant interruptions. this last resource of self-defence and happiness was destroyed me at the beginning of last winter. new appointments at the university, (some of them degradations to me, at any rate, employed for _humiliating_ purposes,) and the petty jealousies, nay even animosities, which among men of a certain order of intellect are the natural consequence of such changes, soon introduced disorder into the institution, fostered a spirit of rebellion against me, and before the end of the first term of the present year, my course of instruction was entirely broken up. the difficulty (which in fact was wholly due to a shameless inefficiency of discipline,) was enveloped in a sort of mummery, the sum and substance of which, however, was plainly this: "that if i remained in the institution in the unmolested enjoyment of a peaceful life of study, my independent progress would be an encroachment on certain colleagues of mine;" and this was in fact, thrown out as a hint for me to leave. the rent of my private room in the building had _already been nearly doubled_ by prof. j. ---- for the same reason. as the university, however, had contributed but an insignificant item to my support, i neither considered it necessary to remove from the building, which is accessible to all classes of tenants, nor did i make much account of a self-made suspension of my course, although i grieved to think of the means that had been used to superinduce such a necessity. prof. l----, who has always exhibited a pettiness of disposition, altogether unworthy of a man of science, had _openly before my eyes_ played the confidant and supporter of a disorderly student, who on my motion was under college discipline, and the meetings of the faculty were made so disgusting to me, that i could no longer attend to make my reports. new methods of annoyance were devised. the council-room of the institution, next door to mine, was converted into an omnibus for noisy meetings of every description--religious gatherings in the morning--ominous vociferations during recitation time--obstreperous conclaves of students in the afternoon--and violent political town gatherings in the evening. besides all this, the menials of the institution were corrupted into unusual insolence towards me, (among them my special attendant,) and the vexations of this description became so annoying to me, that for some time i had actually to do my own chamber-work. i had almost forgotten to mention certain mysterious _desk_-slammings in the council-room, and equally significant and intimidating _door_-slammings, particularly at a room opposite mine, which communicates (i believe) with a private part of the building, now occupied by a dentist, (that sublime science having also found its way into our college,) at unseasonable hours of the night, sometimes accompanied with various remarks, one of which now occurs to me: "oh, you are not one of us!" (sung in operatic style.) the quiet of my residence was, moreover, destroyed by horrid vociferations at all hours of the night, before my very door, and regularly under my window, and these were made not only by students, (of which there were only a few, _supported in their insubordination_) but by an extra-academic body of men and women, certain zealous religionists and their impenitent coadjutors, evidently the abettors of my in-door enemies, _and by two of my colleagues_. a night or week of such proceedings would be enough to set a man crazy. what must be their effect if they continue for months? and yet expressions like the following were perpetually ringing in my ears:--"go on!" "you _are_ the man!" "you are _not_ the man!" "go on! no, stop!" (by the same voice in the same breath.) "out of the institution with that man!" (by the laurelled valedictorian of last year.), "stand up!" (by prof. c----, close to my door.) "he started with nothing!" (by the same voice in the same place). "pray!" (by ditto.) "you have finished!" "go away!" "thank god, that that man is out of the institution!" (by a lady member of a certain religious fraternity, on terms of intimacy with a certain prominent politician of the neighborhood.) "pursue him, worm that never d-i-e-s!" (theatrically shrieked by the same voice.) "you are a dead man! dead, dead, dead, dead!" (by the voice of a certain popular preacher.) "he is deceived, he is deceived!" (by the spokesman of a body of theological students in front of the neighboring seminary, as i was passing.) and at times even: "die!" "break!" (on the supposition that i was in embarrassed circumstances.) "_whore!_" even was one of the delectable cries! to these i should add the mysterious blowings of noses (both within _sight_ and _hearing_,) frightfully significant coughs, horse-laughs, shouts and other methods of demonstration, such as striking the sidewalk in front of my windows with a cane, usually accompanied with some remark: "i understand that passage so!" for example. a clique in the historical society, (where i had been several times insulted at the meetings,) and several religious coteries and secret organizations were evidently largely concerned in the business. to these noises and sounds corresponded an equally ingenious series of sights, so arranged as to leave no doubt whatever, but that the impressions of my sense of hearing were no delusion, and that there was no mistake about the authors. my spirits and health were completely shattered by the close of winter, and i crawled out a miserable existence, being confined to my bed most of the time, unable to do anything but to read an hour or two a day. the summer season emptied the university and the city, and i was relieved from the pressure. the repose was like a gift from heaven. a stout resolution soon consigned the terrors of the past to a _provisional_ oblivion. i collected myself, recovered my usual composure and bodily strength, made arrangements for two additional text-books to my series, at which after the st of july i began to work steadily, in the hope of getting out of my pecuniary difficulty which the recent events of my life had entailed. one of these is now ready for publication and will appear in a short time. after i had fairly recovered the proper balance of mind, i wrote to the mayor of the city, and to dr. ferris, the chancellor of our university. to the former i complained of persecution _ab extra_, which might be stopped by police intervention, of the latter i demanded explanations for personal vexations and insults. besides having connived at, nay participated in the disorders of the institution, and besides having employed the menials of the establishment to enforce a ridiculous submission to an unconstitutional authority, the dr. had in the presence of the alumni of the institution, convened at a banquet in the astor house, openly insulted me by saying; "_shall i have to become the step-father to that man?_" and again: "_next year i shall see another man in that man's place!_" both these expressions were used by the dr. as he stood before the assembled guests, while making a short speech. in uttering them, he looked at me with a supercilious grin, and the question was addressed to the opposite side of the house, between which and the speaker there was a manifest collusion. my letter consisted of a protestation against the scandalous disorders of the institution in general, and a request that the dr. would retract the obnoxious offer of an unacceptable paternity as publicly as it was made, to include also a recantation of the words: "_death you shall have!_" uttered near the door that connects my room with that of the dr's., _in his own voice_ and in connection with a declamation of patrick henry's famous speech, "give me liberty or &c." this letter of mine was answered by spectral demonstrations (not unlike those of ghost-rappers,) in the chancellor's room (next to my private study) between and o'clock on the night after its delivery, and by the insolent behavior of the university scullion, who on the following day after many other impertinences told me: "_you must not speak so to the chancellor, my son!_" no other reply was made, and no further notice taken of my complaint. and yet my deportment towards dr. ferris had never been disrespectful, while his whole course towards me had been singularly provoking and offensive. he seemed to be ignorant of the fact, that i was both an alumnus and an officer of the institution, and that as such i expected to be regarded in the light of a gentleman and of a scholar. by ignoring my protestations the dr. treated me like a freshman, while his goings in and out of the building and his degrading alliance with the menials of the institution, who were the accomplices of the disorder, gave him the character rather of a mechanic's "boss" watching over an apprentice than of a dignified president of a respectable literary institution. i had by that time, (the middle of september last,) almost wholly recovered my health; the horrid recollections of last winter having been supplanted by the amenities of my summer studies in solitude; and i had nearly completed one of the new text-books i had agreed to prepare. a week glided away--and two--the session commenced--i was quietly engaged in my own business, without making any overtures to commence my public duties. in fact, i hesitated about commencing at all. about the first of october, a young man, a nephew of mine, brought me a telegraphic despatch from a distant city, requesting a confirmation or denial of the report there circulated, that i was dangerously ill, unconscious of myself, &c., and in immediate imperative need of friendly aid, being neither mentally nor bodily able to take care of myself. as there was a mistake in the name of the enquirer, i considered the matter a hoax, got up for mischief or the amusement of some inquisitive party, and retorted an abrupt telegraphic: "_none of your business, sir!_" a few days after, i received a letter of complaint from my brother-in-law, of----, stating that the telegraphic enquiry had been made by himself, and with the kindest regard to my comfort; that a letter from dr. ferris to a brother divine of that city had been the cause of the sudden consternation among my relatives there. the dr.'s letter was itself enclosed, having been surrendered to the party for whose benefit it was composed. in this letter the dr. declares me _incompetent for the business of instruction_, alleges, that during the last winter i had given various symptoms of a disordered mind, which during the summer had increased (?!!) to such an extent, as to give serious alarm to the humane feelings of the dr., and in consideration of which, he advises my friends "to take me at once away from study, to some institution adapted to such." on the morning of the receipt of this intelligence (the th of oct., i think,) i had just arranged my papers for my day's work, and in the best spirits and in excellent health, (deducting a cough which during the infamies of last winter i had contracted,) was about to begin preparing some copy for the printer. this strange way of answering a just complaint and grave accusations very naturally brought back the recollections of all the contumelies and horrors of last winter, than which the reign of terror has nothing more startling, save perhaps only the guillotine or the inquisition. the patience of job could not have held out any longer. i went at once in search of the dr., and finding him in conversation with prof. loomis, in the lecture room of the latter, asked him whether he had written the letter i held in my hands. his cool reply in the affirmative was itself an insult, made as it was in a manner, which confirmed my previous grounds of offence and the impression, that the dr. would not remember that i was not an undergraduate in search of a step-father, but a gentleman and an officer of the college. impatience and anger could not be restrained, and i told him that _he was a ---- and a ----!_ and read his epistle publicly in the recitation-room of one of my colleagues, and in the hall of the university, at the same time inveighing in somewhat violent terms against the disorders of last winter. the result was general amazement.--my conduct may be considered too hasty by many. it is true i might have acted more rationally and calmly. as it is, however, so flagrant an outrage deserved exposition, and the production of _such_ a statement made after _such_ provocations is not only a justifiable act of self-defence, _but a merited punishment of intrigue and falsehood_, _which i shall never have occasion to regret_. few men after such scenes would have stopped short at mere words. from the "_take care!_" of proff. l. ---- and j. ----, (who were criminally involved in the conspiracy of ' ,) i inferred, that something was coming; indeed, i myself inquired, whether they were going to let such a grave matter rest without notice, as they had done with all my lenient protestations. two days after, on coming home from a walk, i was arrested by two officers of the police, consigned to a low prison for several hours, and without trial, (which was said to be over,) and without any legal counsel, _converted into an insane man by the oath of two physicians_, (one of them quite a young man,) who pretended to found their opinion on an examination of about ten minutes, and since then i have lived among lunatics in the asylum, from which i date this letter. my asseverations and objections before the justice were in vain. dr. ferris and a wall-street broker cosily persuaded the judge in my presence, "to make me comfortable!" i have since finished the volume i had begun, though my absentment from my library obliged me to leave it less perfect than i had intended to make it. for this purpose i was rational enough, it seems. i venture, moreover, to assert, that in all other respects (save only the obstinate affirmation of the _reality_ of the scenes of last winter, which i am absurdly expected to deny,) my conduct _since_ my imprisonment here has been found to be that of a man in the full possession of all his intellectual powers. nor can the physician at the head of this institution conscientiously confirm either the sentence of the judge, or the affidavit of his professional brethren. i look upon it as perjury and a miserable shift to evade the real case of complaint, if any there be. a rational trial before a tribunal, where each side of the question could have been produced, would have been the part of honorable men, conscious of their own rectitude, and of the justice of their cause. but what aggravates these proceedings, is the strange expectation that i should humbly acquiesce in the supposititious incrimination of having been too unsafe to be left at large, of having been really incapable mentally and physically to take care of myself--and the still more singular menace of _swearing me perpetually crazy, and of effecting a permanent abridgment of my liberty_, in case i should attempt to defend myself, either legally or with my pen, against so palpable and serious infraction of the dearest rights of an american citizen. the scenes of last winter, of which i have given you but an imperfect outline, which were got up for the purpose of consolidating the power and preponderance of my adversaries, and of frustrating my efforts to defend my position in my usual way, i. e., by giving positive proof of my ability by actual services to the cause of academic education--_these scenes of scandal and of terror i am expected to call a delusion of my senses, and thus to falsify my personal history_, _accuse my consciousness of mendacity, and literally to aid and abet the iniquity of my aggressors_. the day before my arrest, _i was solicited_ by a number of students to commence my course, which i consented to do by the beginning of the following week, and as this year i had already the proof-sheets of several disquisitions on german literature in my hands, i could have begun publicly and under the most favorable auspices. but it would seem that these gentlemen were determined that i should _not_ begin, and that they adopted this most admirable and effectual method of anticipating my perfectly regular and legitimate movements. indeed, by the enquiry, "_what are you going to do?_" i have already been desired to infer, that an entire abandonment of my profession was expected of me. its exercise had already been rendered as difficult as possible, several members of the council having for several years past virtually superseded me by encouraging two other men on the same spot, which i in all honor was entitled to occupy myself, and which contained hardly room enough for one. what would humboldt, grimm, ampère, burnouf, and some of our other friends on the other side of the water say to such proceedings? i am reduced to penury, when from my public position i might be expected to be independent, i am deprived of the liberty of academic instruction by the terrorism of a narrow-minded clique, while successfully and diligently engaged in adding fresh honor to my post, i am bereft of freedom altogether by men, who owe their power to the fortuitous concurrence of local and sectarian influences, who are utter strangers to the large humanity of liberal culture, and who are too ignorant to decide upon the merits of a man of letters, being themselves destitute of both name and place among those who represent the literary and scientific enlightenment of our age and country. but i have wearied your patience already too long. i should like to have my case properly understood at washington, and you will pardon my having burdened you with so much of the detail. in regard to my future movements i am uncertain. supposing even my liberation to be near at hand, it will be difficult to commence in the midst of winter in the city, where all educational arrangements are made in the autumn. this fact was well known to those who have tied my hands. several educational works i am anxious to complete, one particularly, at which i was interrupted a year ago this month. i am, with great consideration, most respectfully and truly yours, g. j. adler. letter v. bloomingdale asylum, nov. th, . my dear sir, in reply to yours of the th inst., i can say what i might have said on the first day of my confinement; that neither the chancellor nor any one else at the university can have or ever could have any apprehension whatever of being molested by me in any place or in any manner whatever, _provided they mind their own business_ and cease to give me any further provocation. the chancellor's conduct was pre-eminently odious, and beneath the dignity of his office. his letter, which i still hold in my hands, is as ludicrous as it is false. he is certainly very much mistaken in supposing that by his tiny authority he can so easily crush a scholar and a professor of my reputation and "standing." "proud of my connection with the university and anxious to secure my co-operation," when but a month before he solicited the "fraternal aid" of a distant brother divine in his attempt to ship me out of the city as a sick man, of a distempered mind, concerning whom he was most deeply and devoutly concerned, and (what is still more strange,) of a man whom he pronounces "unfitted for the business of instruction?" this is his own language and this is the whole discovery, the _dénouement_ of the dirty transactions by which i was harassed last winter. i admit that my conduct may be regarded as too hasty. i might have defended myself in a calmer, more dignified and more effectual manner. as it is, however, i shall make no apology and i still think, that a month's imprisonment in the tombs or a severe castigation of a tangible description last winter would have conferred a lasting moral benefit on certain persons in that institution. in making this remark, i by no means intend to throw out any menace, nor would i myself like the office of knout-master-general either to his imperial majesty at st. petersburgh, or to his excellency the governor, or to the president of the united states; but i refer simply to the moral good that would undoubtedly have accrued to the souls of certain students and professors at the university during the last winter from a dose or two of the "good old english discipline." as to the infamous and unearthly noises that worried and distracted me for at least six months, the ruin of my health and the entire suspension of my studies were too grave a result to be easily overlooked or forgotten, and the ignoble and bigoted clique at the bottom of that brutal terrorism have certainly not failed to leave a lasting impression of their power on my mind. no denial or assurance to the contrary will ever invalidate the evidence of my senses. what i saw with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears at the time i complained, is as true as are the phenomena of my present experience. the guillotine alone was wanting to cap the climax of those high-handed proceedings. it was a repetition of the same narrow vandalism which in exiled me out of the city, and in made me leave america in disgust. while i therefore disclaim cherishing or ever having cherished the remotest desire to molest the peace or safety of any member of the faculty--the fear of corporal punishment betrays a bad conscience on the part of my adversaries and is a virtual admission of their guilt, or else it is a fiction invented to patch up a hopeless case;--i would at the same time assure all those concerned in this business, that i am not an advocate of nonresistance or of tame submission to such a gross injustice, and that in case of need i can wield a pen to defend my rights before an intelligent public, the opinion of which in matters of this kind, in america particularly, is after all the last and highest instance of appeal. the case is therefore perfectly plain. i deny having ever given any just cause of apprehension to any man in the institution. the very supposition is an absurdity. _they_ are the iniquitous aggressors throughout. they have to endeavored to crush my intellectual independence by carrying the principle of conformity to a ridiculous extent, and by enforcing a submission to which no man of honor without the loss of all his intellectual powers could submit.--i told the chancellor on the spur and in the excitement of the moment what i thought of the falsehoods contained in his epistle and of his previous conduct which, if he is a gentleman, he is bound to justify. he gravely ignored the letter of complaint i had addressed to him a month before, or rather answered it by spectral demonstrations the night after its reception. such mummery and such terrorism, practiced on an officer of a literary institution by a fellow-officer is surely out of place and dr. ferris has not yet learnt (it seems) the meaning of an a. m. and of certain other rights of academic men, (to say nothing of the courtesy customary among men of letters of every age and in all civilized countries), to introduce or suffer such singular proceedings in a respectable institution. as for myself i do not intend to be intimidated in the least, and if my life and health last, i shall find the means of defending both my honor and my position as a gentleman and a scholar. it is all idle to attempt to crush or gag a man by terror. the humbug of the spirit-rappers is no greater than the jugglery of door-and-desk-slamming, of vociferations and mystifications so successfully employed at the university during the whole of last winter. as it regards therefore my alleged insanity on these points, i must confess, that if a _denial_ of the _reality_ of this terrorism by which the university (and certain societies) have carried on their nefarious business of subjugation, be required of me, then i can _never_ become rational again without adding falsehood to cowardice. it smacks too much of the outrage of ' , when i was _compelled_ to admit the most damnable affronts as delusive impressions of my senses and when other men's infernal-pit-iniquity was alleged to be the offspring of my own tobacco-fume! this is subjectivism with a vengeance! it is too big a pill to swallow. it produces rather too great an excess of abdominal convulsions, as the doctors would say. if by my conduct i have incurred any censure or violated any law, or menaced the safety or the life or property of any man in or out of the institution, why in the name of reason and of common sense do not these gentlemen proceed in the regular way, to secure exemption from the fear of danger? could they not have legally coerced me to keep the peace? or could they not (a still more rational course) have requested a committee of the council to meet for the purpose of examining and adjusting a matter of such grave importance? could i not and can i not now expose the hollow misery of the sham, the real nature of which is as plain as the noon-day sun? the course they have adopted is surely derogatory to the moral integrity of the parties concerned, and my stay among lunatics and maniacs is an unpardonable abuse of an excellent institution. the day before my arrest, eight young gentleman volunteered to commence the study of the language which i more especially profess and i had engaged to begin with a public lecture in the monday following. these proceedings rob me now, for this winter at least, of the only advantage, which my connection with the institution affords me, and it is manifest enough that the difficulty was "got up" for the express purpose of anticipating and of frustrating my preparations for the present semestre. it still seems to me, that these gentlemen incriminate themselves in two ways:-- st, by desiring me to remove out of the building, they incur the suspicion of being themselves the authors or abettors of the nuisance i complain of. i would propose to have some one stay with me and to retain and pay for my study as usual. in that event i should have a witness and the detection and punishment of the offenders would exonerate all those who in case of my removal would have part of the criminal credit of molesting the private residence of a professor and a scholar. d, the fear of personal injury from the hands of one, who for many years past has been known to be a man of peaceable and unexceptionable behavior and who never attacked or struck any man in his life, appears to have its origin in a consciousness of guilt and to be a virtual admission of it. do they perhaps think their conduct so outrageous, that the meekness of moses could no longer endure it without resentment? i grant that a passionate man would be likely to take a more substantial revenge. i myself however have no inclination to degrade myself in any such way.--my confinement is on a false pretense, and if any made affidavit to my insanity, they most assuredly must have perjured themselves. whatever i did, i have been provoked to do by what i deem a stupidity and _a flagrant invasion of the rights and privileges of an academic instructor, which no language can castigate with adequate severity_. i am most respectfully and truly your obedient servant. d. a. & co., new-york. g. j. a. vi. the law of intellectual freedom. "all property or rather all substantial determinations, which relate to my personal individuality and which enter into the general constitution of my self-consciousness, as for example, my personality proper, my freedom of volition in general, my morality, my religion are _inalienable_ and the right to them is _imprescriptible_." "that that which the mind is _per se_ and by its very definition should also become an actual existence and _pro se_, that consequently it should be a person, capable of holding property, possessed of morality and religion--all this is involved in the idea of the mind itself, which as the _causa sui_, in other words, as a free cause, is a substance, _cujus natura non potest concipi nisi existens_. (spinoza, eth. s. . def. .)." "this very notion, that it should be what it is _through itself alone_ and as the self-concentration or endless self-retrosusception out of its mere natural and immediate existence contains also the possibility of the opposition between what it is only _per se_ (i. e. substantially) and not _pro se_ (i. e. subjectively, in reality) and _vice versa_ between what is only _pro se_ and not also _per se_ (which in the will is the bad, the vicious);--and hence too the _possibility_ of the _alienation_ of one's personality and of one's substantial existence, whether this alienation be effected implicitly and unconsciously or explicitly and expressly. examples of the alienation of personality are slavery, vassalage, disability to hold property, the unfree possession of the same, &c., &c." "instances of the abalienation of intelligent rationality, of individual and social morality and of religion occur in the beliefs and practices of superstition, in ceding to another the power and the authority of making rules and prescriptions for my actions (as when one allows himself to be made a tool for criminal purposes), or of determining what i am to regard as the law and duty of conscience, religious truth, &c." "the right to such inalienable possessions is imprescriptible, _and the act by which i become seized of my personality and of my substantial being, by which i make myself an accountable, a moral and a religious agent, removes these determinations from the control of all merely external circumstances and relations, which alone could give them the capacity of becoming the property of another_. with this abnegation of the external, _all questions of time and all claims based upon previous consent or acquiescence fall to the ground_. this act of rational self-recovery, whereby i constitute myself an existing idea, a person of legal and moral responsibility, _subverts the previous relation and puts an end to the injustice which i myself and the other party have done to my comprehension and to my reason, by treating and suffering to be treated the endless existence of self-consciousness as an external and an alienable object_."[ ] [ ] i emphasize this important clause for the particular benefit of those who in my personal history have had the absurd expectation that i should continue to entertain a respectful deference to a certain phase of religionism, which upon a careful and rational examination i found to be worthless and which is repugnant to my taste and better judgment, and of others who with equal absurdity are in the habit of exacting ecclesiastical tests (i will not say religious, for such men show by their very conduct that their enlightenment in matters of the religion of the heart is very imperfect) for academic appointments;--as if the science and the culture of the nineteenth century were still to be the handmaid of the church, as they were in the middle age; _as if philosophy and the liberal arts could ever thrive and flourish in the suffocating atmosphere of the idols of the cave, the idols of the tribe, and the idols of the market-place!_ "this return to myself discloses also the contradiction (the absurdity) of my having ceded to another my legal responsibility, my morality and my religion at a time when i could not yet be said to possess them rationally, and which as soon as i become seized and possessed of them, can essentially be mine alone and can not be said to have any outward existence." "it follows from the very nature of the case, that the slave has an absolute right to make himself free; that if any one has hired himself for any crime, such as robbery, murder, &c. this contract is of itself null and void and that every one is at full liberty to break it." "the same may be said of _all religious submission to a priest, who sets up for my father confessor_ (_step-father_, &c.); for a matter of such purely internal interest must be settled by every man himself and alone. a religiosity, a part of which is deposited in the hands of another is tantamount to none at all; for the spirit is one, and it is he that is required to dwell in the heart of man; the union of the _per_ and _pro se_ must belong to every individual apart." transcriber's notes: passages in italics are indicated by _underscores_. passages in small caps are replaced by either title case or all caps, depending on how the words were used. punctuation was not corrected except for the quotation mark on page , and the parenthesis on page , as cited below. likewise, inconsistencies in hyphenation have not been corrected. each instance of the oe ligature was replaced with "oe". on page , "necessaay" was replaced with "necessary". on page , "of" was inserted between "city" and "new york". on page , "the" was inserted before "city of". on page , "catastrophies" was replaced with "catastrophes", and "pretentions" was replaced with "pretensions". on page , "the the" was replaced with "the". on page , "hemsy" was replaced with "hêmisy". on page , "destoyed" was replaced with "destroyed". on page , the quotation mark after "you are a dead man!" was moved to after "dead, dead, dead, dead!", and an extra quotation mark was deleted after "certain popular preacher." on page , "aad" was replaced with "and". on page , "af" was replaced with "of". on page , "all this in involved" was replaced with "all this is involved", and an open parentheses was placed before "i. e. subjectively,". http://www.freeliterature.org (images generously made available by the internet archive.) the little demon by feodor sologub authorised translation by john cournos and richard aldington alfred a. knopf new york mcmxvi translators' preface "_the little demon" is a successful and almost imperceptible merging of comedy with tragedy. it is in fact a tragedy in which the comic forms an integral part and is not sandwiched in superficially merely to please the reader. the method resembles in a measure that of gogol's "dead souls," with which "the little demon" was compared upon its first appearance in_ . _it is a work of art--and it is a challenge; and this challenge is addressed not to russia alone, but to the whole world._ "_what a sad place russia is!" exclaimed pushkin when gogol read his story to him. but what the world knows to-day is that gogol gave us a portrait of the human soul, and that only the frame was russian. prince kropotkin assures us that there are chichikovs in england, and professor phelps of yale is equally emphatic about their presence in america._ _and this is also true of peredonov, of "the little demon."_ _in spite of its "local colour" and its portrayal of small town life in russia, this novel has the world for its stage, and its chief actor, peredonov, is a universal character. he is a russian--an american--an englishman. he is to be found everywhere, and in every station of life. both translators agree that they have even met one or two peredonovs at london literary teas--and not a few volodins, for that matter._ _certainly there is a touch of peredonov in many men. it is a matter of degree. for the extraordinary thing about this book is that nearly all the characters are peredonovs of a lesser calibre. their peredonovism lacks that concentrated intensity which lifts the unfortunate peredonov to tragic--and to comic--heights in spite of his pettiness; or perhaps because his pettiness is so gigantic._ _"the little demon" is a penetration into human conscience, and a criticism of the state of petty "provinciality" into which it has fallen._ "_the kingdom of god is within you." so is the kingdom of evil. that is the great truth of "the little demon." and in peredonov's case, the inner spirit takes possession of external objects, and all the concrete things that his eyes see become symbols of the evil that is within himself. more than that: this spirit even creates for him a "little grey, nimble beast"--the nedotikomka--which is the sum of the evil forces of the world, and against which he has to contend._ _the author enters his "hero's" condition so deeply that even people and objects and scenery are rendered, as it were, through peredonov's eyes--and the mood created by this subjective treatment helps to inveigle the reader into comprehending the chief character._ _the beautiful sasha-liudmilla episode relieves the peredonovian atmosphere as a dab of vermilion relieves grey. but what the author shows us is that even such an idyllic love episode is affected by contact with this atmosphere, and that its beauty and innocence become obscured under the tissue of lies as under a coat of grey dust. this, as well as other aspects of "the little demon," are dealt with at length in my article on feodor sologub in "the fortnightly review" (september, ), and if i refrain from going over the ground again, it is because i hope that the tale is simple and clear enough to provide its own comment._ _finally, i may be pardoned for speaking of the difficulties of translating "the little demon." not only is the original extraordinarily racy in parts and rich in current russian slang--at times almost obscure in meaning, but the characters occasionally indulge in puns or speak in rhymes--rhyme-speaking is not uncommon among the peasant classes in russia. in every case the translators have striven to give the english equivalent; where the difficulty was of a nature rendering this impossible, the translators have had to make use of absolutely unavoidable footnotes. the translators have also made every effort to preserve the mood of sologubian descriptive prose, which is not always an easy matter, when you consider the natural pliancy of russian and the comparatively rigid nature of english._ _john cournos_ _december_ author's preface to the second russian edition, _this novel, "the little demon," was begun in_ _and finished in_ . _it originally appeared in_ _in the periodical "voprosi zhizni," but without its final chapters. it was first published in its complete form in march,_ , _in the "shipovnik" edition._ _there are two dissenting opinions among those i have seen expressed in print as well as among those i have chanced to hear personally:_ _there are some who think that the author, being a very wicked man, wished to draw his own portrait, and has represented himself in the person of the instructor peredonov. to judge from his frankness it would appear that the author did not have the slightest wish to justify or to idealise himself, and has painted his face in the blackest colours. he has accomplished this rather astonishing undertaking in order to ascend a kind of golgotha, and to expiate his sins for some reason or other. the result is an interesting and harmless novel._ _interesting, because it shows what wicked people there are in this world. harmless, because the reader can say: "this was not written about me."_ _others, more considerate toward the author, are of the opinion that the peredonovstchina portrayed in this novel is a sufficiently widespread phenomenon._ _others go even further and say that if every one of us should examine himself intently he would discover unmistakable traits of peredonov_. _of these two opinions i give preference to the one most agreeable to me, namely, the second. i did not find it indispensable to create and invent out of myself; all that is episodic, realistic, and psychologic in any novel is based on very precise observation, and i found sufficient "material" for my novel around me. and if my labours on this novel have been rather prolonged, it has been in order to elevate to necessity whatever is here by chance; so that the austere ananke should reign on the throne of aisa, the prodigal scatterer of episodes._ _it is true that people love to be loved. they are pleased with the portrayal of the nobler, loftier aspects of the soul. even in villains they want to see a spark of nobility, "the divine spark," as people used to say in the old days. that is why they do not want to believe the picture that confronts them when it is true, exact, gloomy, and evil. they say: "it is not about me."_ _no, my dear contemporaries, it is of you that i have written my novel, about the little demon and his dreadful nedotikomka, about ardalyon and varvara peredonov, pavel volodin, darya, liudmilla, and valeria routilov, aleksandr pilnikov and the others. about you._ _this novel is a mirror--very skilfully made. i have spent a long time in polishing it, i have laboured over it zealously._ _the surface of my mirror is pure. it has been remeasured again and again, and most carefully verified; it has not a single blemish._ _the monstrous and the beautiful are reflected in it with equal precision._ author's preface to the fifth russian edition, _i once thought that peredonov's career was finished, and that he was not to leave the psychiatric hospital where he was placed after cutting volodin's throat. but latterly rumours have begun to reach me to the effect that peredonov's mental derangement has proved to be only temporary, and that after a brief confinement he was restored to freedom. these rumours sound hardly plausible. i only mention them because even in our days the unplausible happens. indeed, i have read in a newspaper that i am preparing to write a sequel to "the little demon."_ _i have heard that varvara has apparently succeeded in convincing someone that peredonov had cause for behaving as he did--that volodin uttered more than once objectionable words, and had betrayed objectionable intentions--and that before his death he said something amazingly insolent which led to the fatal catastrophe. i am told that varvara has interested the princess volchanskaya in this story, and the princess, who earlier had neglected to put in a word for peredonov, is now taking a keen interest in his fate._ _as to what happened to peredonov after he had left the hospital, my information is rather vague and contradictory. some people have told me that peredonov has entered the police department, as he had been advised to do by skouchayev, and has served as a councillor in the district government. he has distinguished himself in some way or other, and is making a fine career._ _i have heard from others, however, that it was not ardalyon borisitch who served in the police, but another peredonov, a relative of our peredonov. ardalyon borisitch himself did not succeed in entering the service, or else he did not wish to; instead, he has taken up with literary criticism. his articles reveal those qualities which distinguished him before._ _this rumour strikes me as being even more unlikely than the first._ _in any case, if i should succeed in receiving precise information about the latest doings of peredonov, i will try to relate it in all its adequate detail._ dialogue to the seventh russian edition, may "_my soul, why are you thus dismayed?"_ "_because of the hate that surrounds the name of the author of 'the little demon.' many people who disagree upon other things are agreed on this._" "_accept the malice and the abuse submissively._" "_but is not our labour worthy of gratitude? why then this hate?_" "_this hate is rather like fear. you waken the conscience too loudly, you are too frank."_ "_but isn't there some use in my truth?"_ "_you want compliments! but this is not paris."_ "_oh, no, it is not paris!"_ "_my soul, you are a true parisienne, a child of european civilisation. you have come in a charming dress and in light sandals to a place where they wear smocks and greased boots. do not be astonished if the greased boot sometimes steps rudely on your tender foot. its possessor is an honest fellow."_ "_but what a morose, what an awkward fellow!"_ author's introduction to the english edition _it is quite natural for the author of a novel to experience pleasure and pride upon learning that his work is about to become accessible to a new circle of readers. upon learning, however, that mr. john cournos was translating my novel,_ "_the little demon," into english i experienced not a little apprehension. in days of anglo-russian rapprochement, in days of great stress, when a common danger unites the two great nations, it seemed to me perhaps unseasonable to acquaint england with this sombre picture. it occurred to me that there was a danger of my new readers accepting this novel as a precise and characteristic portrayal of russian life. but my friends told me that mr. john cournos was fulfilling his task with great love and care_, _and this gives me the hope that the true meaning of my work will be also understood in the translation, reproducing so accurately the original._ _in any case, i should like to warn my readers against the temptation of seeing only russian traits in this novel. the portrait of peredonov is an expression of the all-human inclination towards evil, of the almost disinterested tendency of a perverse human soul to depart from the common course of universal life directed by one omnipotent will; and, taking vengeance upon the world for its own grievous loneliness, to bring into the world evil and abomination, to mutilate the given reality and to defile the beautiful dreams of humanity._ _this inclination towards evil, raging in the hearts of mankind in all latitudes and longitudes, invests itself only outwardly with an appearance of selfish expedience. a soul marred by this tragic affliction, that of a morose separation from the world, is borne along by a sovereign justice, which rules worlds and hearts, upon disastrous paths, towards madness and towards death._ _the afflicted soul does not rejoice at its gains, to such a degree visionary, to such a degree worthless. a foreboding of ultimate destruction torments it with a gnawing sadness._ _where then, in what blessed land, is not man tormented with this agonising sadness, these true tokens of the same morose and sombre affliction? the russian "khandra" and the english spleen are the expression of one and the same malady of the spirit. even in more noble souls, these harsh visitors, so familiar to both englishmen and russians, have been created by the omnipotent will not without a beneficent design. they incessantly remind the soul, succumbing in the life struggle, that the enemy is near, cunning and strong._ _i would be glad if my new readers should appraise not only the detestable sinfulness and perversity of a soul warped by the force of evil, but also the great yearning of this soul--the evil evil atones to a certain degree in this truly human feeling; and in this feeling the afflicted man also communes with each one of us._ _this novel will not be accepted by you in condemnation of my country--my country has not a few enchantments, which make her beloved not only by her own, but also by the observant stranger. perhaps the attentive reader will find even in this sombre novel certain reflections of enchanting russian nature, and of the live russian soul._ _feodor sologub_ _january_ chapter i after mass the members of the congregation scattered to their homes. a few stopped to talk under the old maples and lindens near the white stone walls, within the enclosure. all were in holiday dress and looked at one another cheerily. it appeared as if the inhabitants of this town lived peacefully and amicably--even happily. but it was only in appearance. peredonov, a schoolmaster in the _gymnasia_, stood among his friends, and as he looked at them gravely out of his small, stealthy eyes, across the golden rims of his spectacles, he remarked: "princess volchanskaya herself made the promise to vara. 'as soon,' she said, 'as you marry him, i'll hunt up an inspector's job for him.'" "but how can you think of marrying varvara dmitrievna?" asked the red-faced falastov. "she's your first cousin." everyone laughed. peredonov's usually rosy, unconcerned, somnolent face showed anger. "second cousin," he said gruffly, as he looked angrily past his companions. "did the princess give you the promise herself?" asked routilov, a tall, pale, smartly dressed man. "she didn't give it to me, but to vara," answered peredonov. "of course, you are ready to believe all she tells you," said routilov with animation. "it's easy enough to make up a tale. why didn't you see the princess herself?" "this is how it was: i went with vara, but we didn't find her in, missed her by just five minutes," explained peredonov. "she had gone to the country, and wouldn't be back for three weeks or so. i couldn't wait for her, because i had to be back here for the exams." "it sounds suspicious," laughed routilov, showing his yellow teeth. peredonov grew thoughtful. his companions left him; routilov alone remained. "of course," said peredonov, "i can marry whom i like. varvara is not the only one." "you're quite right, ardalyon borisitch, anyone would be glad to marry you," routilov encouraged him. they passed out of the gate, and walked slowly in the unpaved and dusty square. peredonov said: "but what about the princess? she'll be angry if i chuck varvara." "what's the princess to you?" said routilov. "you're not going with her to a kitten's christening. she ought to get you the billet first. there'll be time enough to tie yourself up--you're taking things too much on trust!" "that's true," agreed peredonov irresolutely. "you ought to say to varvara," said routilov persuasively, "'first the billet, my dear girl, then i'll believe you.' once you get your place, you can marry whom you like. you'd better take one of my sisters--your choice of the three. smart, educated, young ladies, any one of them, i can say without flattery, a queen to varvara. she's not fit to tie their shoe-strings." "go on," shouted peredonov. "it's true. what's your varvara? here, smell this." routilov bent down, broke off a fleecy stalk of henbane, crumpled it up in his hand, together with the leaves and dirty white flowers, and crushing it all between his fingers, put it under peredonov's nose. the heavy unpleasant odour made peredonov frown. routilov observed: "to crush like this, and to throw away--there's your varvara for you; there's a big difference between her and my sisters, let me tell you, my good fellow. they are fine, lively girls--take the one you like--but you needn't be afraid of getting bored with any of them. they're quite young too--the eldest is three times younger than your varvara." routilov said all this in his usual brisk and happy manner, smiling--but he was tall and narrow-chested, and seemed consumptive and frail, while from under his new and fashionable hat his scant, close-trimmed bright hair stuck out pitifully. "no less than three times!" observed peredonov dryly, as he took off his spectacles and began to wipe them. "it's true enough!" exclaimed routilov. "but you'd better look out, and don't be slow about it, while i'm alive; they too have a good opinion of themselves--if you try later you may be too late. any one of them would have you with great pleasure." "yes, everyone falls in love with me here," said peredonov with a grave boastfulness. "there, you see, it's for you to take advantage of the moment," said routilov persuasively. "the chief thing is that she mustn't be lean," said peredonov with anxiety in his voice. "i prefer a fat one." "don't you worry on that account," said routilov warmly. "even now they are plump enough girls, but they have far from reached their full growth; all this will come in good time. as soon as they marry, they'll improve, like the oldest--well, you've seen our larissa, a regular fishpie!" "i'd marry," said peredonov, "but i'm afraid that vara will make a row." "if you're afraid of a row--i'll tell you what you ought to do," said routilov with a sly smile. "you ought to make quick work of it; marry, say, to-day or to-morrow, and suddenly show up at home with your young wife. say the word, and i'll arrange it for to-morrow evening? which one do you want?" peredonov suddenly burst into loud, cackling laughter. "well, i see you like the idea--it's all settled then?" asked routilov. peredonov stopped laughing quite as suddenly, and said gravely, quietly, almost in a whisper: "she'll inform against me--that miserable jade!" "she'll do nothing of the sort," said routilov persuasively. "or she'll poison me," whispered peredonov in fear. "you leave it all to me," routilov prevailed upon him, "i'll see that you are well protected----" "i shan't marry without a _dot,_" said peredonov sullenly. routilov was not astonished by the new turn in the thoughts of his surly companion. he replied with the same warmth: "you're an odd fellow. of course, my sisters have a _dot._ are you satisfied? i'll run along now and arrange everything. only keep your mouth shut, not a breath, do you hear, not to anyone!" he shook peredonov's hand, and made off in great haste. peredonov looked silently after him. a picture rose up in his mind of the routilov girls, always cheerful and laughing. an immodest thought squeezed a degrading likeness of a smile to his lips--it appeared for an instant and vanished. a confused restlessness stirred within him. "what about the princess?" he reflected. "the others have the cash without her power; but if i marry varvara i'll fall into an inspector's job, and later perhaps they'll make me a head-master." he looked after the bustling, scampering routilov and thought maliciously: "let him run!" and this thought gave him a lingering, vague pleasure. then he began to feel sad because he was alone; he pulled his hat down over his forehead, knitted his bright eyebrows, and quickly turned towards his home across the unpaved, deserted streets, overgrown with pearl grass and white flowers, and water-cress and grass that had been stamped down into the mud. someone called to him in a quick, quiet voice: "ardalyon borisitch, come in to us." peredonov raised his gloomy eyes, and looked angrily beyond the hedge. in the garden behind the gate stood natalya afanasyevna vershina, a small, slender, dark-skinned woman, black-browed and black-eyed, and all in black. she was smoking a cigarette, in a dark, cherry-wood mouthpiece, and smiling lightly, as though she knew something that was not to be said, but to be smiled at. not so much by words, as by her light, quick movements, she asked peredonov into her garden; she opened the gate and stood aside, smiled invitingly, and at the same time motioned persuasively with her hands, as if to say: "enter, why do you stand there?" and peredonov entered, submitting to her witching, silent movements. but he soon paused on the sand path where a few broken twigs caught his eye, and he looked at his watch. "it's time for lunch," he grumbled. though his watch had served him a long time, yet even now, in the presence of people, he would glance with satisfaction at its large gold case. it was twenty minutes to twelve. peredonov decided that he would remain for a short time. he walked morosely after vershina along the garden-path, past the neglected clumps of raspberry canes and currants with their red and black clusters. the garden was growing yellow and variegated with fruits and late flowers. there were many fruit and other trees and bushes; low-spreading apple trees, round-leafed pear trees, lindens, cherry trees with smooth, glossy leaves, plum trees and honeysuckle. the elderberry trees were red with berries. close to the fence was a dense growth of siberian geraniums--small pale-rose flowers with purple veins. thorny purple buds stood out with intense vividness among the bushes. a small, one-storey, grey, wooden house stood near by, and a path at its door opened out wide into the garden. it seemed charming and cosy. a part of the vegetable garden was visible behind it. the dry poppy heads rocked there, as well as the large, white-yellow caps of camomile. the yellow heads of sunflowers were beginning to droop with ripeness, while among the useful herbs, some hemlock lifted its white, and the hemlock geranium its pale purple umbrellas. here bright yellow buttercups and small slipper flowers also flourished. "were you at mass?" asked vershina. "yes, i was," answered peredonov gruffly. "i hear marta has just returned also," said vershina. "she often goes to our church. i often laugh at her. 'on whose account,' i say to her, 'do you go to our church?' she blushes and says nothing. let us go and sit in the summer-house," she added abruptly. in the garden, in the shade of the spreading maples, stood an old, grey little summer-house. it had three small steps and a mossy floor, low walls, six roughly-cut posts, a sloping slate roof with six angles. marta was sitting in the summer-house, still in her best clothes. she had on a brightly coloured dress with bows, which were very unbecoming to her. her short sleeves showed her sharp, red elbows and her large, red hands. in other respects marta was not unpleasant to look at. her freckles did not spoil her face; she was even considered something of a beauty, especially by her own people, the poles, of whom there were a number in the district. marta was rolling cigarettes for vershina. she was very anxious for peredonov to see her and admire her. this desire gave her ingenuous face an expression of agitated affability. it was not that marta was altogether in love with peredonov but rather that vershina wanted to get her a home--for her family was a large one. marta was anxious to please vershina, with whom she had lived several months, ever since the death of vershina's old husband; not only on her own account but on that of her young brother, a schoolboy, who was also living with vershina. vershina and peredonov entered the summer-house. peredonov greeted marta rather gloomily, and sat down. he chose a place where one of the posts protected his back from the wind and kept the draught out of his ears. he glanced at marta's yellow boots with their rose pompoms and thought that they were trying to entrap him into marrying marta. he always thought this when he met girls who were pleasant to him. he only noticed faults in marta--many freckles, large hands and a coarse skin. he knew that her father held a small farm on lease, about six versts from the town. the income was small and there were many children: marta had left her preparatory school, his son was at school, the other children were still smaller. "let me give you some beer," said vershina quickly. there were some glasses, two bottles of beer and a tin box of granulated sugar on the table, and a spoon which had been dipped in the beer lay beside them. "all right," said peredonov abruptly. vershina glanced at marta, who filled the glass and handed it to peredonov. a half-pleased, half-timorous smile passed over her face as she did this. "put some sugar into the beer," suggested vershina. marta passed peredonov the tin sugar-box. but peredonov exclaimed irritatedly: "no, sugar makes it disgusting!" "what do you mean?" said vershina, "sugar makes it delicious." "very delicious," said marta. "i say disgusting!" repeated peredonov, looking angrily at the sugar. "as you please," said vershina, and changing the subject at once, she remarked with a laugh: "i get very tired of cherepnin." marta also laughed. peredonov looked indifferent: he did not take any interest in other people's lives--he did not care for people and he never thought of them except as they might contribute to his own benefit and pleasure. vershina smiled with self-satisfaction and said: "he thinks that i will marry him." "he's very cheeky," said marta, not because she thought so, but because she wished to please and flatter vershina. "last night he looked into our window," related vershina. "he got into the garden while we were at supper. there was a rain-tub under the window, full of water. it was covered with a plank. the water was hidden. he climbed on the tub and looked in the window. as the lamp on the table was lighted he could see us, but we couldn't see him. suddenly we heard a noise. we were frightened at first and ran outside. the plank had slipped and he had fallen into the water. however, he climbed out before we got there and ran away, leaving wet tracks on the path. we recognised him by his back." marta laughed shrilly and happily like a good-natured child. vershina told this in her usual quick, monotonous voice and then was suddenly silent, and smiled at the corners of her mouth, which puckered up her smooth, dry face. the smoke-darkened teeth showed themselves slightly. peredonov reflected a moment and suddenly burst into a laugh. he did not always respond at once to what he thought was funny--his receptivity was sluggish and dull. vershina smoked one cigarette after another. she could not live without tobacco smoke under her nose. "we'll soon be neighbours," announced peredonov. vershina glanced quickly at marta, who flushed slightly and looked at peredonov with a timorous air of expectation, and then at once turned away towards the garden. "so you're moving?" asked vershina; "why?" "it's too far from the _gymnasia_," explained peredonov. vershina smiled incredulously. it's more likely, she thought, he wants to be nearer marta. "but you've lived there for several years," she said. "yes," said peredonov angrily. "and the landlady's a swine." "why?" asked vershina, with an ambiguous smile. peredonov grew somewhat animated. "she's repapered the rooms most damnably," he exclaimed, "one piece doesn't match another. when you open the dining-room door you find quite another pattern. most of the room has bunches of large and small flowers, while behind the door there is a pattern of stripes and nails. and the colours are different too. we shouldn't have noticed it, if falastov had not come and laughed. and everybody laughs at it." "it certainly must be ridiculous," agreed vershina. "we're not telling her that we're going to leave," said peredonov, and at this he lowered his voice. "we're going to find new apartments and we shall go without giving notice." "of course," said vershina. "or else she'll make a row," said peredonov, with a touch of anxiety in his eyes. "that means that we should have to pay her a month's rent for her beastly hole." peredonov laughed with joy at the thought of leaving the house without paying. "she's bound to make a demand," observed vershina. "let her--she won't get anything out of me," replied peredonov angrily. "we went to peter[ ] and we made no use of the house while we were away." "but you had rented it." "what then? she ought to make a discount; why should we have to pay for time when we weren't there? besides, she is very impertinent." "well, your landlady is impertinent because she's yours--your cousin is particularly quarrelsome," said vershina, with an emphasis on the "cousin." peredonov frowned and looked dully in front of him with his half-sleepy eyes. vershina changed the subject. peredonov pulled a caramel out of his pocket, tore the paper off and began to chew it. he happened to glance at marta and thought that she wanted a caramel. "shall i give her one or not?" thought peredonov. "she's not worth it. i suppose i ought to give her one to show that i'm not stingy. after all, i've got a pocketful." and he pulled out a handful of caramels. "here you are!" he said, and held out the sweets, first to vershina and then to marta. "they're very good bonbons," he said, "expensive ones--thirty kopecks a pound." each of the women took a sweet. "take more," he said, "i've lots of them. they're very nice bonbons--i wouldn't eat bad ones." "thank you, i don't want any more," said vershina in her quick, monotonous voice. and marta repeated after her the same words, but with less decision. peredonov glanced incredulously at marta and said: "what do you mean--you don't want them? have another." he took a single caramel for himself from the handful and laid the others before marta. she smiled without speaking and bent her head a little. "little idiot!" thought peredonov, "she doesn't even know how to thank one properly." he did not know what to converse about with marta. she had no interest for him, like all objects and people with which he had no well-defined relations, either pleasant or unpleasant. the rest of the beer was poured into peredonov's glass. vershina glanced at marta. "i'll get it," said marta. she always guessed what vershina wanted without being told. "send vladya--he's in the garden," suggested vershina. "vladislav!" shouted marta. "yes?" answered the boy from so close that it seemed as if he had been listening to them. "bring some more beer--two bottles," said marta, "they're in the box in the corridor." vladislav soon came back noiselessly, handed the beer to marta through the window and greeted peredonov. "how are you?" asked peredonov with a scowl. "how many bottles of beer have you got away with to-day?" vladislav smiled in a constrained way and said: "i don't drink beer." he was a boy of about fourteen with a freckled face like marta's, and with uneasy, clumsy movements like hers. he was dressed in a blouse of coarse linen. marta began to talk to her brother in whispers. they both laughed. peredonov looked suspiciously at them. whenever people laughed in his presence without his knowing the reason he always supposed that they were laughing at him. vershina felt disturbed and tried to catch marta's eye. but peredonov himself showed his annoyance by asking: "what are you laughing at?" marta started and turned towards him, not knowing what to say. vladislav smiled, looking at peredonov, and flushed slightly. "it's very rude," said peredonov, "to laugh like that before guests. were you laughing at me?" marta blushed and vladislav looked frightened. "oh! no," said marta. "we weren't laughing at you. we were talking about our own affairs." "a secret?" exclaimed peredonov angrily. "it is rude to discuss secrets before guests." "it isn't at all a secret," said marta, "but we laughed because vladya hasn't all his clothes on and feels bashful about coming in." peredonov was mollified and began to think of jokes about vladya and presently gave him a caramel. "marta, bring me my black shawl," said vershina. "and at the same time look into the oven to see how that pie's getting on." marta went out obediently. she understood that vershina wanted to talk with peredonov, and felt glad of the respite. "and you run away and play, vladya," said vershina, "there's nothing for you to chatter about here." vladya ran off and they could hear the sand crunching under his feet. vershina gave a quick, cautious side-glance at peredonov through the clouds of cigarette smoke she was ceaselessly puffing out. peredonov sat solemnly and gazed straight in front in a befogged sort of way and chewed a caramel. he felt pleased because the others had gone--otherwise they might have laughed again. though he was quite certain that they had not been laughing at him, the annoyance remained--just as after contact with stinging nettles the pain remains and increases even though the nettles are left behind. "why don't you get married?" said vershina very abruptly, "what are you waiting for, ardalyon borisitch. you must forgive me if i speak frankly, but varvara is not good enough for you." peredonov passed his hand over his slightly ruffled chestnut-brown hair and announced with a surly dignity: "there is no one here good enough for me!" "don't say that," replied vershina, with a wry smile. "there are plenty of girls better than she is here and every one of them would marry you." she knocked the ash off her cigarette with a decisive movement as if she were emphasising her remark with an exclamation point. "everyone wouldn't suit me," retorted peredonov. "we're not discussing everyone," said vershina quickly, "you're not the kind of man who'd run after a _dot_ if the girl were a fine girl. you yourself earn quite enough, thank god." "no," replied peredonov, "it would be more of an advantage for me to marry varvara. the princess has promised her patronage. she will give me a good billet," he went on with grave animation. vershina smiled faintly. her entire wrinkled face, dark as if saturated with tobacco smoke, expressed a condescending incredulousness. she asked: "did the princess herself tell _you_ this?" she laid an emphasis on the word "you." "not me, but varvara," admitted peredonov. "but it comes to the same thing." "you rely too much on your cousin's word," said vershina spitefully. "but tell me, is she much older than you? say, by fifteen years? or more? she must be under fifty." "nonsense," said peredonov angrily, "she's not yet thirty!" vershina laughed. "please tell me," she said with unconcealed derision. "surely, she looks much older than you. of course, it's not my business, it's not my affair. still, it is a pity that such a good-looking, clever young man should not have the position he deserves." peredonov surveyed himself with great self-satisfaction. but there was no smile on his pink face and he seemed hurt because everybody did not appreciate him as vershina did. "even without patronage you'll go far," continued vershina, "surely the authorities will recognise your value. why should you hang on to varvara? and none even of the routilov girls would suit you; they're too frivolous and you need a more practical wife. you might do much worse than marry marta!" peredonov looked at his watch. "time to go home," he observed and rose to say good-bye. vershina was convinced that peredonov was leaving because she had put to him a vital question and that it was only his indecision that prevented him from speaking about marta immediately. [ ] st. petersburg. chapter ii varvara dmitrievna maloshina, the mistress of peredonov, awaited him. she was dressed in a slovenly fashion, and her face was powdered and rouged. jam tarts were being baked in the oven for lunch: peredonov was very fond of them. varvara ran about the kitchen on her high heels, preparing everything for peredonov's arrival. varvara was afraid that natalya, the stout, freckled servant-maid, would steal one of the tarts and possibly more. that was why varvara did not leave the kitchen and, as she habitually did, was abusing the servant. upon her wrinkled face, which still kept the remains of beauty, there was a continual expression of discontented maliciousness. a feeling of gloom and irritation came over peredonov, as always happened when he returned home. he entered the dining-room noisily, flung his hat on the window-sill, sat down at the table and shouted: "vara! where's my food?" varvara brought in the food, skilfully limping in her narrow, fashionable shoes, and waited upon peredonov herself. when she brought the coffee peredonov bent down to the steaming glass and smelt it. varvara was disturbed and looked a little frightened; she asked: "what's the matter with you, ardalyon borisitch? does the coffee smell of anything?" peredonov looked morosely at her and said: "i'm smelling to see whether you haven't put poison in it!" "what's the matter with you, ardalyon borisitch?" said varvara again. "god help you, how did you get that into your head?" "you mixed hemlock with it, perhaps," he grumbled. "what could i gain by poisoning you?" asked varvara reassuringly. "don't make a fool of yourself." peredonov continued smelling the coffee, but eventually became reassured. "if it were poison," he said, "you'd be able to tell by the heavy smell, but you have to put your nose right into the steam!" he was silent a while and then suddenly said, spitefully and sarcastically: "the princess!" varvara looked distressed. "what about the princess?" asked varvara. "the princess," he said, "let her give me the job first and then i'll get married--you write her that." "but you know, ardalyon borisitch," varvara began in a persuasive voice, "that the princess had made her promise on condition that i marry first. otherwise, it is awkward for me to ask on your behalf." "write her that we're already married," said peredonov, rejoicing in his sudden inspiration. varvara was for a moment disconcerted, but quickly recovered herself, and said: "what's the use of lying, the princess might investigate. you'd better arrange the date for the marriage; it's time to begin making the dress." "what dress?" demanded peredonov, gruffly. "could anyone get married in these rags?" shouted varvara. "you had better give me some money, ardalyon borisitch, for the dress." "are you preparing yourself for your coffin?" asked peredonov. "you're a beast, ardalyon borisitch!" peredonov suddenly felt a desire to provoke her still further. he asked her: "varvara, do you know where i've been?" "where?" she inquired anxiously. "at vershina's," he said, and burst out laughing. "well, you were in nice company, i must say!" "i saw marta," peredonov continued. "she's covered with freckles," said varvara, spitefully. "and she's got a mouth that stretches from ear to ear. you might as well sew up her mouth, like a frog's." "anyway, she's handsomer than you," said peredonov. "i think i'll take her and marry her." "you dare marry her," shouted varvara, reddening and trembling with rage, "and i'll burn her eyes out with vitriol!" "i'd like to spit on you," said peredonov, quite calmly. "just try it!" said varvara. "well, i will," answered peredonov. he rose, and with a sluggish and indifferent expression, spat in her face. "pig!" said varvara, as quietly as if his spitting on her had refreshed her. and she began to wipe her face with a table napkin. peredonov was silent. latterly he had been more brusque with her than usual. and even in the beginning he had never been particularly gentle with her. encouraged by his silence, she repeated more loudly: "pig! you are a pig!" just then they heard in the next room the bleating of an almost sheep-like voice. "don't make such a noise," said peredonov. "there's someone coming." "it's only pavloushka," answered varvara. pavel vassilyevitch volodin entered with a loud, gay laugh. he was a young man who, face, manners and all, strangely resembled a young ram; his hair, like a ram's, was curly; his eyes, protruding and dull; everything, about him, in fact, suggested a lively ram--a stupid young man. he was a carpenter by trade. he had first studied in a manual training school, but now was an instructor of the trade in the local school. "how are you, old friend?" he said gaily. "you're at home, drinking coffee, and here am i! here we are together again!" "natashka, bring a third spoon," shouted varvara. "eat, pavloushka," said peredonov, and it was evident that he was anxious to be hospitable to volodin. "you know, old chap, i shall soon get an inspector's billet--the princess has promised vara." volodin seemed pleased and laughed. "and the future inspector is drinking coffee," he exclaimed, slapping peredonov on the back. "and you think it's easy to get an inspector's job," said peredonov. "once you're reported, that's the end of you." "and who's going to report you?" asked varvara. "there are plenty to do that," said peredonov. "they might say i'd been reading pisarev.[ ] and there you are!" "but, ardalyon borisitch, you ought to put pisarev behind your other books," advised volodin, sniggering. peredonov glanced cautiously at volodin and said: "perhaps i've never even had pisarev. won't you have a drink, pavloushka?" volodin stuck out his lower lip and made a significant face, like a man who was conscious of his own value, and bent his head rather like a ram: "i'm always ready to drink in company," he said, "but not on my lonesome!" and peredonov was also always ready to drink. they drank their vodka and ate the jam tarts afterwards. suddenly peredonov splashed the dregs of his coffee-cup on the wall-paper. volodin goggled his sheepish eyes, and gazed in astonishment. the wall-paper was soiled and torn. volodin asked: "what are you doing to your wall-paper?" peredonov and varvara laughed. "it's to spite the landlady," said varvara. "we're leaving soon. only don't you chatter." "splendid!" shouted volodin, and joined in the laughter. peredonov walked up to the wall and began to wipe the soles of his boots on it. volodin followed his example. peredonov said: "we always dirty the walls after every meal, so that they'll remember us when we've gone!" "what a mess you've made!" exclaimed volodin, delightedly. "won't irishka be surprised," said varvara, with a dry, malicious laugh. and all three, standing before the wall, began to spit at it, to tear the paper, and to smear it with their boots. afterwards, tired but pleased, they ceased. peredonov bent down and picked up the cat, a fat, white, ugly beast. he began to torment the animal, pulling its ears, and tail, and then shook it by the neck. volodin laughed gleefully and suggested other methods of tormenting the animal. "ardalyon borisitch, blow into his eyes! brush his fur backwards!" the cat snarled, and tried to get away, but dared not show its claws. it was always thrashed for scratching. at last this amusement palled on peredonov and he let the cat go. "listen, ardalyon borisitch, i've got something to tell you," began volodin. "i kept thinking of it all the way here and now i'd almost forgotten it." "well?" asked peredonov. "i know you like sweet things," said volodin, "and i know one that will make you lick your fingers!" "there's nothing you could teach me about things to eat," remarked peredonov. volodin looked offended. "perhaps," he said, "you know all the good things that are made in your village, but how can you know all the good things that are made in my village, if you've never been there?" and satisfied that this argument clinched the matter, volodin laughed, like a sheep bleating. "in your village they gorge themselves on dead cats," said peredonov. "permit me, ardalyon borisitch," said volodin. "it is possible that in your village they eat dead kittens. we won't talk about it. but surely you've never eaten _erli_?" "no, that's true," confessed peredonov. "what sort of food is that?" asked varvara. "it's this," explained volodin, "you know what _koutia_[ ] is?" "well, who doesn't know?" said varvara. "well, this is what it is," went on volodin. "ground _koutia,_ raisins, sugar and almonds. that's _erli_." and volodin began to describe minutely how they cook _erli_ in his village. peredonov listened to him in an annoyed way. "_koutia_," thought peredonov, "why does he mention that? does he want me to be dead?" volodin suggested: "if you'd like to have it done properly, give me the stuff, and i'll cook it myself for you." "turn a goat into a vegetable garden," said peredonov, gravely. "he might drop some poison-powder into it," thought peredonov. volodin was offended again. "now if you think, ardalyon borisitch, that i shall steal some of your sugar, you're mistaken. i don't want your sugar!" "don't go on making a fool of yourself," interrupted varvara. "you know how particular he is. you'd better come here and do it." "yes, and you'll have to eat it yourself," said peredonov. "why?" asked volodin, his voice trembling with indignation. "because it's nasty stuff." "as you like, ardalyon borisitch," said volodin, shrugging his shoulders. "i only wanted to please you, and if you don't want it, you don't want it." "now tell us about the reprimand the general gave you," said peredonov. "what general?" asked volodin, and flushed violently as he protruded an offended lower lip. "it's no use pretending. we've heard it," said peredonov. varvara grinned. "excuse me, ardalyon borisitch," said volodin, hotly. "likely enough you've heard about it, but you haven't heard the right story. now i'll tell you exactly what happened." "fire away," said peredonov. "it happened three days ago, about this time," began volodin. "in our school, as you know, repairs are going on in the workroom. and here, if you please, comes in veriga with our inspector to look around, and we are working in the back room. so far, good. it doesn't matter what veriga wanted or why he came--that's no concern of mine. suppose he is a nobleman? still he's no connection with our school. but that's no concern of mine. he comes in, and we don't take any notice of him and go on working. when suddenly they come into our room, and veriga, if you please, has his hat on." "that was an insult to you," said peredonov. "but you must know," interrupted volodin, eagerly. "there's an ikon in our room, and we had our hats off. and he suddenly appears like a mohammedan dog. and i up and said to him quietly, and with great dignity: 'your excellency,' i say to him, 'will you be good enough to take your hat off, because,' i say to him, 'there's an ikon in the room.' now, was that the right thing to say?" asked volodin, opening his eyes, questioningly. "that was clever, pavloushka," shouted peredonov. "he got what he deserved." "yes, that was quite proper," chimed in varvara. "people like that shouldn't be let off. you're a smart young fellow, pavel vassilyevitch." volodin, with an air of injured innocence, went on: "and then he says to me: 'each to his trade.' then he turns and goes out. that's all there was to it and nothing else." volodin nevertheless felt himself a hero. peredonov, to mollify him, gave him a caramel. a new visitor arrived--sofya efimovna prepolovenskaya, the wife of the forester, a fat woman, with a face half good-natured, half cunning--brisk in her movements. she sat down at the table and asked volodin slyly: "pavel vassilyevitch, why do you come so often to visit varvara dmitrievna?" "i don't come to visit varvara dmitrievna," answered volodin bashfully, "but to see ardalyon borisitch." "you haven't yet fallen in love with anyone?" asked prepolovenskaya with a laugh. everyone knew volodin was looking for a wife with a dowry, offered himself to many and was always rejected. prepolovenskaya's joke seemed to him out of place. in a manner resembling that of an injured sheep, he said in a trembling voice: "if i fell in love, sofya efimovna, that wouldn't concern anyone except my own self and her. and in such an affair you wouldn't be considered." but prepolovenskaya refused to be suppressed. "suppose," she said, "that you fell in love with varvara dmitrievna, who would make jam tarts for ardalyon borisitch?" volodin again protruded his lips and lifted his eyebrows. he was at a loss what to say. "don't be faint-hearted, pavel vassilyevitch," prepolovenskaya went on. "why aren't you engaged? you're young and handsome." "perhaps varvara dmitrievna wouldn't have me," said volodin, sniggering. "why shouldn't she? you're much too timid!" "and perhaps i wouldn't have her," said volodin, in desperation. "perhaps i don't want to marry other people's cousins; perhaps i have a cousin of my own in my village." he was already beginning to believe that varvara would marry him. varvara was angry; she considered volodin a fool, and moreover, his wages were only three-quarters of peredonov's. prepolovenskaya wanted to marry peredonov to her sister, the fat daughter of a priest. that is why she tried to create a quarrel between peredonov and varvara. "why are you trying to marry us?" asked varvara, in an irritated way. "you'd better try to marry your little fool of a sister to pavel vassilyevitch." "why should i take him from you?" said prepolovenskaya, jokingly. prepolovenskaya's jests gave a new turn to peredonov's slow thoughts, and the _erli_ had already taken possession of his mind. why did volodin advise such a dish? peredonov disliked thinking. he believed at once everything he was told; that was why he began to believe that volodin was in love with varvara. he thought: they would entangle varvara, and then when he left for the inspector's job, they would poison him on the way with _erlis,_ and volodin would take his place; he would be buried as volodin, and volodin would become inspector. a clever trick! there was a sudden noise in the passage. peredonov and varvara were frightened. peredonov fixed his screwed-up eyes on the door. varvara crept up to the parlour door, looked in, then, just as quietly, on tip-toe, balancing her arms and smiling in a distracted way, returned to the table. from the passage came a noise and shrill outcries as if two people were wrestling. varvara whispered: "that's ershova, frightfully drunk. natashka won't let her in and she's trying to get into the parlour." "what shall we do?" asked peredonov, fearfully. "i suppose we'd better go into the parlour," decided varvara, "so that she shan't get in here." they entered the parlour and closed the door tightly behind them. varvara went into the passage in the faint hope of restraining the landlady, or of persuading her to sit down in the kitchen. but the insolent woman kept pushing her way in, propped herself up against the door-post and poured out abusive compliments on the whole company. peredonov and varvara fussed about her and tried to make her sit down on a chair near the passage and farther from the dining-room. varvara brought her from the kitchen, on a tray, vodka, beer and some tarts, but the landlady would not sit nor drink anything and kept on edging towards the dining-room, but she could not exactly find the door. her face was red, her clothes were disordered, she was filthy and smelt of vodka, even at a distance. she shouted: "no! you must let me sit at your own table. i'll not have it on a tray. i want it on a tablecloth. i'm the landlady and i will be respected. never mind if i'm drunk. i'm at least honest and a good wife to my husband." varvara, smiling at once with contempt and fear, said: "yes, we know." ershova winked at varvara, laughed hoarsely and snapped her fingers defiantly. she became more and more arrogant. "cousin!" she shouted. "we know the sort of cousin you are. why doesn't the head-master's wife come to see you, eh?" "don't make so much noise," said varvara. but ershova began to shout even louder: "how dare you order me about? i'm in my own house and i can do what i please. if i like i can have you thrown out so that there'd not even be a smell of you left behind. only i'm too kind-hearted." meanwhile volodin and prepolovenskaya sat timidly at the window in silence. prepolovenskaya smiled slightly, looking at the shrew out of the corner of her eye, but pretended that she was looking into the street. volodin sat with an injured expression on his face. ershova eventually became more good-humoured and gave varvara a friendly slap on the shoulder, saying with a drunken smile: "now listen to me. put me at your table and treat me like a lady. then give me some _zhamochki_[ ], and treat your landlady decently. come, my dear girl!" "here are some tarts," said varvara. "i don't want tarts!" shouted ershova. "i want some _zhamochki_." and she waved her hands. "the masters have them, and i want some too." "i haven't any _zhamochki_ for you," answered varvara, growing bolder as the landlady became more good-tempered. "now here's some tarts. gorge yourself!" ershova suddenly perceived the door into the dining-room, and cried out furiously: "out of my way, viper!" she pushed varvara aside and threw herself towards the door. there was no time to restrain her. lowering her head and clenching her fists, she broke into the dining-room, throwing back the door with a crash. there she paused just inside the door and saw the soiled wall-paper. she uttered a long "whew" of astonishment. she stood with her hands on her hips and her legs crossed, shouting with rage: "then it's true that you're leaving!" "who put that into your head, irinya stepanovna?" said varvara, trembling. "we've no such idea. someone's been fooling you." "we're not going anywhere," declared peredonov. "we're quite contented here." the landlady did not listen to them, she walked up to the panic-stricken varvara, and shook her fist in her face. peredonov got behind varvara. he would have run away, but he wanted to see if varvara and the landlady would come to blows. "i will step on one of your legs," exclaimed the landlady, furiously, "and tear you in half with the other." "be quiet, irinya stepanovna," said varvara, persuasively. "we have visitors." "you can bring your visitors along too," said the landlady. "i'll do the same to them." she reeled and made a dash into the parlour, and suddenly changing her demeanour and tactics she said quietly to prepolovenskaya, bowing so low before her that she almost fell on the floor: "my dear lady, sofya efimovna, forgive a drunken old woman; i have something i'd like to say to you. you come to visit these people and yet you don't know that they're gossiping about your sister. and who to, d'you suppose? me! a bootmaker's drunken wife! and why? so i'd tell everyone--that's why!" varvara grew purple in the face and said: "i said nothing of the sort." "you didn't? do you mean to deny it, you mean cat?" shouted ershova, coming up to varvara, with clenched fists. "be quiet, will you?" muttered varvara, in confusion. "no," said the landlady, spitefully, "i won't be quiet," and she turned again to prepolovenskaya. "do you know what she says, the little beast? she tried to make out that your sister is carrying on with your husband!" sofya's sly eyes gleamed angrily at varvara; she rose and said with a feigned laugh: "thank you humbly, i didn't expect that." "liar!" screamed varvara, turning on ershova. ershova gave an angry exclamation, stamped her foot, shook her hand at varvara, and turned again to prepolovenskaya. "yes, and do you know what he says about you, ma'am? he makes out that you carried on before you met your husband. that's the sort of dirty people they are! spit in their mugs, my good lady! it's no use having anything to do with such low creatures!" prepolovenskaya flushed, and went silently into the passage. peredonov ran after her, trying to explain: "she's lying, don't believe her. i only said once before her that you were a fool and that was in a spiteful mood. but more than that, honest to god, i never said anything. she invented it." prepolovenskaya reassured him: "don't think about it, ardalyon borisitch, i can see myself that she's drunk and babbling. only, why do you permit this in your house?" "well, what's to be done with her?" asked peredonov. prepolovenskaya, confused and angry, was putting on her jacket. peredonov did not offer to help her. he kept on mumbling excuses, but she paid no attention to him. he returned to the parlour. ershova began to reproach him loudly, while varvara ran out on the verandah to try and mollify prepolovenskaya: "you know yourself what a fool he is, he sometimes says anything that comes into his head." "all right, all right! don't mention it," replied prepolovenskaya. "a drunken woman might babble anything." tall, dense nettles grew in the yard near the verandah. prepolovenskaya smiled slightly and the last shadow of displeasure vanished from her plump white face. she became affable again towards varvara. she would be revenged without an open quarrel. together they went into the garden to wait until the landlady's eruption was over. prepolovenskaya kept looking at the nettles which grew in abundance along the garden fence. she said at last: "you have enough nettles here. don't you find any use for them?" varvara laughed and answered: "what an idea! what could i do with them?" "if you don't mind, i'd like to take some with me, as i haven't any." "what will you do with them?" asked varvara, in astonishment. "oh, i'll find a use for them," said prepolovenskaya, smiling. "but, my dear, do tell me for what?" entreated varvara, inquisitively. prepolovenskaya, bending towards varvara, whispered in her ear: "by rubbing your body with nettles, you keep fat. that's why my genichka is so plump." it was well known that peredonov preferred fat women, and that he detested thin ones. varvara was distressed because she was thin and was growing still thinner. how could she get a little plumper?--was one of her chief worries. she used to ask everyone: "do you know any remedy for thinness?" and now prepolovenskaya was convinced that varvara would follow her suggestion and rub herself with nettles, and in this way be her own punisher. [ ] pisarev ( - ), a revolutionary writer and a precursor of nihilism. [ ] a kind of rice pudding eaten at funerals in russia. [ ] _zhamochki_, an apparently invented word, meaning something particularly nice to eat. chapter iii peredonov and ershova went out into the open. he growled: "come this way." she shouted with all her might, though gaily. they were apparently getting ready to dance. prepolovenskaya and varvara passed through the kitchen into another room, where they sat down at the window to see what would happen. peredonov and ershova embraced each other, and began to dance around the pear tree. peredonov's face remained dull as before and did not express anything. mechanically, as upon an automaton, his golden-rimmed spectacles sprang up and down his nose, and his hair flopped up and down on his head. ershova screamed, shouted, waved her arms, and at times reeled. she shouted to varvara, whom she espied at the window: "hey you, don't be such a lady, come out and dance. are you disgusted with our company?" varvara turned away. "the deuce take you! i'm dead tired," shouted ershova, and fell back on the grass, drawing down peredonov with her. they sat a while in each other's embrace, then got up and once more began to dance. this they repeated several times: now they danced, now they rested under the pear tree, upon the bench, or simply on the grass. volodin enjoyed himself thoroughly, as he watched the dancers from the window. he roared with laughter, made extraordinarily funny faces, and bent his body in two. he shouted: "they're cracked! how funny!" "accursed carrion!" said varvara angrily. "yes, carrion," agreed volodin with a grin. "just wait, my dear landlady, i'll show you something! let's go and make a mess in the parlour too. she won't come back again to-day anyhow, she'll tire herself out and go home to sleep." he burst into his bleating laughter and jumped about like a great ram. prepolovenskaya encouraged him: "yes, go ahead, pavel vassilyevitch, and make a mess. we don't care a rap for her! if she does come back we can tell her that she did it herself when she was drunk." volodin, skipping and laughing, ran into the parlour and began to smear and rub his boots on the wall-paper. "varvara dmitrievna, get me a piece of rope!" he shouted. varvara, waddling like a duck, passed through the parlour into the bedroom and brought back with her a piece of frayed, knotted rope. volodin made a noose, then stood up on a chair in the middle of the room and hung the noose on the lamp-bracket. "that's for the landlady," he explained. "so that when you leave she'll have somewhere to hang herself in her rage!" both women squealed with laughter. "now get me a bit of paper and a pencil," shouted volodin. varvara searched in the bedroom and discovered a pencil and a piece of paper. volodin wrote on it: "for the landlady," and pinned the paper on the noose. he made ridiculous grimaces all the time he was doing this. then he began to jump furiously up and down along the walls, kicking them every now and again with his boots, shaking with laughter at the same time. his squeals and bleating laughter filled the whole house. the white cat, putting back its ears in terror, peered out of the bedroom and seemed undecided where to run. peredonov at last managed to disengage himself from ershova and returned to the house. ershova really did get tired and went home to bed. volodin met peredonov with uproarious laughter: "we've made a mess of the parlour too! hurrah!" "hurrah!" shouted peredonov, bursting into a loud, abrupt laugh. the women also cried "hurrah," and a general gaiety set in. peredonov cried: "pavloushka! let's dance." "yes, let's, ardalyosha!" replied volodin, with a stupid grin. they danced under the noose and kicked up their legs awkwardly. the floor trembled under peredonov's heavy feet. "ardalyon borisitch's got a dancing fit," said prepolovenskaya with a smile. "that's nothing new, he has his little whims," grumbled varvara, looking admiringly at peredonov nevertheless. she sincerely thought that he was handsome and clever. his most stupid actions seemed to her perfectly fitting. to her he was neither ridiculous nor repulsive. "let's sing a funeral mass over the landlady," shouted volodin. "fetch a pillow here." "what will they think of next?" said varvara laughingly. she threw out from the bedroom a pillow in a dirty calico slip. they put the pillow on the floor to represent the landlady and began to chant over it with wild discordant voices. then they called in natalya, and made her turn the ariston[ ]; all four of them began to dance a quadrille with strange antics, kicking up their legs. after the dance peredonov felt generous. a dim, morose sort of animation lit up his plump face; he was inspired by a sudden, almost automatic decision, a consequence, perhaps, of his sudden muscular action. he pulled out his wallet, counted several notes, and with a proud self-laudatory expression, threw them towards varvara. "here you are, varvara!" he exclaimed. "get yourself a wedding dress!" the notes fluttered across the floor. varvara eagerly picked them up; she was not in the least offended at the way the gift was made. prepolovenskaya thought: "well, we shall see who's going to have him." and she smiled maliciously. volodin, of course, did not think of helping varvara to pick up the money. soon prepolovenskaya left. in the passage she met another visitor, grushina. marya ossipovna grushina was a young widow, with a prematurely faded appearance. she was thin--her dry skin was covered with small wrinkles which looked filled with dust. her face was not unpleasant, but her teeth were black and unbrushed. she had long hands, long grasping fingers and dirty finger-nails. at the first glance she not only looked dirty but gave the impression that she and her clothes had been beaten together. it really looked as if a column of dust would rise up into the sky if she were struck several times with a carpet beater. her clothes hung upon her in crumpled folds; she might have been just released from a tightly-bound bundle. grushina lived on a pension, on petty commissions, and by lending money on mortgages. her conversation was mostly on immodest lines, and she attached herself to men in the hope of getting a second husband. one of her rooms was always let to some one among the bachelor officials. varvara was pleased to see grushina. she had something to tell her. they began to talk immediately about the servant-maid in whispers. the inquisitive volodin edged closer to them and listened. peredonov sat morosely by himself in front of the table crumpling the corner of the tablecloth in his fingers. varvara was complaining to grushina about natalya. grushina suggested a new servant, klavdia, and praised her. they decided to go after her at once, to samorodina where she was living in the house of an excise officer, who had just been transferred to another town. varvara paused when she heard the maid's name; and asked in a doubtful voice: "klavdia? what on earth shall i call her,--klashka?" "why don't you call her klavdiushka?" suggested grushina. this pleased varvara. "klavdiushka, diushka!" she said with a crackling laugh. it should be observed that in our town a pig is called a "diushka." volodin grunted; everyone laughed. "diushka, diushenka," lisped volodin between the laughter, screwing up his stupid face and protruding his underlip. and he kept on grunting and making a fool of himself until he was told that he was a nuisance. then he left his chair, with an expression of injury on his face, and sat down beside peredonov. he lowered his large forehead like a ram and fixed his eyes on a spot on the soiled tablecloth. on the way to samorodina varvara decided that she would buy the material for her wedding dress. she always went shopping with grushina who helped her to make selections and to bargain. unseen by peredonov, varvara had stealthily stuffed grushina's deep pockets with sweets and tarts and other gifts for her children. grushina surmised that varvara was in great need of her services. varvara's narrow, high-heeled shoes would not allow her to walk much. she quickly became fatigued. it was for this reason that she usually took a cab, though the distances in our town are not great. latterly, she had frequented grushina's house. the cabbies had noticed this, for there were only about a score of them. when varvara entered a cab they never asked her where she wanted to go. they seated themselves in a drozhky and were driven to the house where klavdia was servant-maid, in order to make inquiries about her. the streets were dirty almost everywhere although it had rained only the day before. the drozhky no sooner rattled on to a solid paved part of the road than it plunged again into the clinging mud of the unpaved sections. but, by way of compensation, varvara's voice rattled on continuously, now and then accompanied by grushina's sympathetic chatter. "my goose has been to marfushka's again," said varvara. grushina answered in a sympathetic outburst: "that's how they're trying to catch him. and why not, he'd be a great catch, especially for marfushka. she never dreamt of anyone like him." "really, i don't know what to do," confessed varvara. "he's become so obstinate lately--it's simply awful. believe me, my head's in a constant whirl. he'll really marry and then there's nothing for me but the streets." "don't worry, darling varvara," said grushina consolingly. "don't think about it. he'll never marry anyone but you. he's used to you." "he sometimes goes off in the evening, and i can't get to sleep afterwards," said varvara. "who knows? perhaps he's courting some girl. sometimes i toss about all night. everyone has her eye on him--even those three routilov mares of women--but of course they'd hang around any man's neck. and that fat zhenka's after him too." varvara went on complaining for a long time, and all her conversation led grushina to think that varvara had some favour to ask of her, and she was gratified at the prospect of a reward. klavdia pleased varvara. the excise officer's wife strongly recommended her. they engaged her and told her to come that evening, as the excise officer was leaving at once. at last they came to grushina's house. grushina lived in her own house in a slovenly enough fashion. the three children were bedraggled, dirty, stupid and malicious, like dogs that have just come out of water. their confidences were just beginning. "my fool, ardalyosha," began varvara, "wants me to write to the princess again. it's a waste of time to write to her. she'll either not answer or she'll answer unsatisfactorily. we're not on very intimate terms." the princess volchanskaya, with whom varvara had lived in the past as a seamstress for simple domestic things, could have helped peredonov, since her daughter was married to the privy-councillor stchepkin, who held an important position in the department of education. she had already written in answer to varvara's petitions in the past year that she could not ask anything for varvara's fiancé, but she might for her husband, if the opportunity offered. this letter did not satisfy peredonov, since it expressed merely a vague hope, and did not definitely state that the princess would actually find varvara's husband an inspector's position. in order to clear up this doubt they had lately gone to st. petersburg; varvara went to the princess and later she took peredonov with her, but purposely delayed the visit so that they did not find the princess at home: varvara realised that at best the princess would merely have advised them to get married soon, making a few vague promises which would not have satisfied peredonov. and varvara decided not to let peredonov meet the princess. "i've no one to depend upon but you," said varvara. "help me, darling marya ossipovna!" "how can i help, my dearest varvara dmitrievna?" asked grushina. "of course you know i'm ready to do anything i can for you. shall i read your fortune for you?" varvara laughed and said: "i know how clever you are, but you must help me another way." "how?" asked grushina, with a tremulous, expectant pleasure. "that's very simple," replied varvara. "you write a letter in the princess's handwriting and i'll show it to ardalyon borisitch." "but, my dear, how can i do it?" said grushina, pretending to be alarmed. "what would become of me if i should be found out?" varvara was not in the least disconcerted by her answer, but pulled a crumpled letter out of her pocket, saying: "i've brought one of the princess's letters for you to copy." grushina refused for a long time. varvara saw clearly that grushina would consent, but that she was bargaining for a bigger reward, while varvara wanted to give less. she gradually increased her promises of various small gifts, among them an old silk dress, until grushina saw that varvara could not be persuaded to give any more. a stream of entreaties poured from varvara's mouth, and grushina finally took the letter, making it appear from the expression of her face that she did so out of pity. [ ] a musical instrument. chapter iv the billiard-room was full of tobacco-smoke. peredonov, routilov, falastov, volodin and mourin were there. the last of these was a robust landed proprietor of stupid appearance; he was the owner of a small estate and a good business man. the five of them, having finished a game, were preparing to go. it was dusk. the number of empty beer bottles on the soiled wooden table was increasing. the players had drunk a good deal during the game; their faces were flushed, and they were getting noisy. routilov alone kept his usual consumptive pallor. he really drank less than the others and his pallor was only increased by heavy drinking. coarse words flew about the room. but no one was offended; it was all said among friends. peredonov had lost, as nearly always happened. he played billiards badly. but his face kept its expression of unperturbed moroseness and he paid his due grudgingly. mourin shouted out: "bang!" and he aimed his billiard-cue at peredonov. peredonov exclaimed in fright and collapsed into a chair. the stupid idea that mourin wanted to shoot him glimmered in his dull mind. everyone laughed. peredonov grumbled in irritation: "i can't stand jokes like that." mourin was already regretting that he had frightened peredonov. his son was attending the _gymnasia_ and he considered it his duty to be affable to the _gymnasia_ instructors. he began to apologise to peredonov and treated him to hock and seltzer. peredonov said morosely: "my nerves are rather unstrung. i'm having trouble with the head-master." "the future inspector has lost," exclaimed volodin in his bleating voice. "he's sorry for his money." "unlucky in games, lucky in love," said routilov, smiling slightly and showing his decaying teeth. this was the last straw. peredonov had already lost money and had a fright and now they were taunting him about varvara. he exclaimed: "i'll get married and then varka can clear out!" his friends roared with laughter and continued provoking him: "you won't dare!" "yes i will dare: i'll get married to-morrow!" "here's a bet!" said falastov. "i'll bet ten roubles he doesn't do it!" but peredonov thought of the money; if he lost he would have to pay. he turned away and lapsed into gloomy silence. at the garden gates they parted and scattered in different directions. peredonov and routilov went together. routilov began to persuade peredonov to marry one of his sisters at once. "don't be afraid. i've prepared everything," he assured peredonov. "but the banns haven't been published," objected peredonov. "i tell you i've prepared everything," argued routilov. "i've found the right priest, who knows that you're not related to us." "there are no bride-men," said peredonov. "that's quite true, but i can get them. all i have to do is to send for them and they'll come to the church immediately. or i'll go after them myself. it wasn't possible earlier, your cousin might have found out and hindered us." peredonov did not reply. he looked gloomily about him, where, behind their drowsy little gardens and wavering hedges, loomed the dark shapes of a few scattered houses. "you just wait at the gate," said routilov persuasively, "i'll bring out the loveliest one--whichever one you like. listen, i'll prove it to you. twice two is four, isn't it?" "yes," assented peredonov. "well, as twice two is four, so it's your duty to marry one of my sisters." peredonov was impressed. "it's quite true," he thought, "of course, twice two is four." and he looked respectfully at the shrewd routilov. "well, it'll come to marrying one of them. you can't argue with him." the friends at that moment reached the routilovs' house and stopped at the gate. "well, you can't do it by force," said peredonov angrily. "you're a queer fellow," exclaimed routilov. "they've waited until they're tired." "and perhaps i don't want to!" said peredonov. "what do you mean by that? you are a queer chap. are you going to be a shiftless fellow all your life?" asked routilov. "or are you getting ready to enter a monastery? or aren't you tired of varya yet? think what a face she'll make when you bring your young wife home." peredonov gave a cackle, but immediately frowned and said: "and perhaps they also don't want to?" "what do you mean--they don't want to? you are an odd fellow," answered routilov, "i give you my word." "they'll be too proud," objected peredonov. "why should that bother you? it's all the better." "they're gigglers." "but they never giggle at your expense," said routilov comfortingly. "how do i know?" "you'd better believe me. i'm not fooling you. they respect you. after all you're not a kind of pavloushka, who'd make anybody laugh." "yes, if i take your word for it," said peredonov incredulously. "but no, i want to be convinced myself." "well, you are an odd fellow!" said routilov in astonishment. "but how would they dare laugh at you? still, is there any way i can prove it to you?" peredonov reflected and said: "let them come into the street at once." "very well, that's possible," agreed routilov. "all three of them," continued peredonov. "very well." "and let each one say how she'll please me." "why all this?" asked routilov in astonishment. "i'll find out what they want, and then you won't lead me by the nose." "no one's going to lead you by the nose." "perhaps they'll want to laugh at me," argued peredonov. "now if they come out and want to laugh, it is i who'll be able to laugh at them!" routilov reflected, pushed his hat on to the back of his head and then forward over his forehead, and said at last: "all right, you wait here and i'll go in and tell them--but you're certainly an odd fellow. you'd better come into the front garden or else the devil'll bring someone along the street and you'll be seen." "i'll spit on them," said peredonov. nevertheless, he entered the gate. routilov went into the house to his sisters while peredonov waited in the garden. all the four sisters were sitting in the drawing-room, which was situated in the corner of the house that could be seen from the garden. they all had the same features and they all resembled their brother; they were handsome, rosy and cheerful. they were larissa, a tranquil, pleasant, plump woman, who was married; the quick, agile darya, the tallest and the slenderest of the sisters; the mischievous liudmilla, and valeria who was small, delicate and fragile-looking. they were eating nuts and raisins. they were obviously waiting for something and were therefore rather agitated and laughed more than usual as they recalled the latest town gossip. they ridiculed both their own acquaintances and strangers. ever since the early morning they had been quite prepared to be married. it was only necessary for one of them to put on a suitable dress with a veil and flowers. varvara was not mentioned in the sisters' conversation, as though she did not exist. but it was sufficient that they, the pitiless gossips, who pulled everyone to pieces, should refrain from mentioning varvara; this complete silence showed that the idea of varvara was fixed like a nail in the mind of each. "i've brought him," announced routilov entering the drawing-room. "he's at the gate." the sisters rose in an agitated way and all began to talk and laugh at the same time. "there's only one difficulty," said routilov laughingly. "and what's that?" asked darya. valeria frowned her handsome, dark eyebrows in a vexed way. "i don't know whether to tell you or not," hesitated routilov. "be quick about it," urged darya. routilov in some confusion told them what peredonov wanted. the girls raised an outcry and they all began to abuse peredonov; but little by little their indignation gave place to jokes and laughter. darya made a face of grim expectation and said: "but he's waiting at the gate!" it was becoming an amusing adventure. the girls began to peep out the window towards the gate. darya opened the window and cried out: "ardalyon borisitch, can we say it out of the window?" the morose answer came back: "no!" darya quickly slammed down the window. the sisters burst into gay, unrestrained laughter, and ran from the drawing-room into the dining-room so that peredonov might not hear them. the members of this family were so constituted that they could easily pass from a state of the most intense anger into a state of merriment, and it was the cheerful word that usually decided a matter. peredonov stood and waited. he felt depressed and afraid. he thought he would run away, but could not decide. somewhere from afar the sounds of music reached him: the frail, tender sounds poured themselves out in the quiet, dark, night air, and they awoke sadness, and gave birth to pleasant reveries. at the beginning, peredonov's reveries took on an erotic turn. he imagined the routilov girls in the most seductive poses. but the longer he waited, the more irritated he became at being forced to wait. and the music, which had barely aroused his hopelessly coarse emotions, died for him. all around him the night descended quietly, and rustled with its ill-boding hoverings and whisperings. and it seemed even darker everywhere because peredonov stood in an open space lit up by the drawing-room lamp; its two streaks of light broadened as they reached the neighbouring fence, the dark planks of which became visible. the trees in the depth of the garden assumed dark, suspicious, whispering shapes. someone's slow, heavy footsteps sounded near-by on the street pavement. peredonov began to feel apprehensive that while waiting here he might be attacked, and robbed, even murdered. he pressed against the very wall in the shadow, and timidly waited. but suddenly long shadows shot out across the streaks of light in the garden, a door slammed, and voices were heard on the verandah. peredonov grew animated. "they are coming," he thought joyously, and agreeable thoughts about the three beauties stole softly once more into his mind--disgusting children of his dull imagination. the sisters stood in the passage. routilov walked to the gate and looked to see if anyone was in the street. no one was to be seen or heard. "there's no one about," he whispered loudly to his sisters, using his hands as a speaking-trumpet. he remained in the street to keep watch. peredonov joined him. "they're coming out to speak to you," said routilov. peredonov stood at the gate and looked through the chink between the gate and the gate-post. his face was morose and almost frightened, and all sorts of fancies and thoughts expired in his mind and were replaced by a heavy, aimless desire. darya was the first to come up to the open gate. "what can i do to please you?" she asked. peredonov was morosely silent. darya said: "i will make you the crispest pancakes piping hot--only don't choke over them." liudmilla cried over her shoulder: "i'll go down every morning and collect all the gossip to tell you. that will make us jolly." between the two girls' cheerful faces showed for a moment valeria's slender, capricious face, and her slight, frail voice was heard: "i wouldn't tell you for anything how i shall please you--you'd better guess yourself." the sisters ran away laughing. their voices and laughter ceased directly they were in the house. peredonov turned away from the gate; he was not quite satisfied. he thought: "they babbled something and then ran away." it would have been far better if they'd put it on paper. but he had already stood here waiting long enough. "well, are you satisfied?" asked routilov. "which one do you like best?" peredonov was lost in thought. of course, he concluded at last, he ought to take the youngest. a young woman is always better than an older one. "bring valeria here," he said decisively. routilov went into the house and peredonov again entered the garden. liudmilla looked stealthily out of the window, trying to make out what they were saying, without any success. but suddenly there were sounds of someone approaching by the garden path. the sisters kept silent and sat there nervously. routilov entered and announced: "he's chosen valeria, and he's waiting at the gate!" the sisters grew noisy at once and began to laugh. valeria went slightly pale. "well, well," she said ironically, "i needed him very badly." her hands trembled. all three of the sisters began to fuss about her and to put finery on her. she always spent a lot of time over her toilette--the other sisters hurried her. routilov kept continually babbling with pleasure and excitement. he was delighted that he had managed the matter so cleverly. "did you get the cabbies?" asked darya with a worried air. routilov answered with slight annoyance: "how could i? the whole town would have heard of it. varvara would have come and dragged him away by his hair." "well, what shall we do?" "why, we can go to the square in pairs and hire them there. it's quite simple. you and the bride go first. then larissa with the bridegroom--now, mind you, not all together or we shall be noticed in town. liudmilla and i will stop at falastov's. the two of them will go together and i will get volodin." once alone peredonov became immersed in pleasant reveries. he imagined valeria in all the bewitchment of the bridal night--undressed, bashful but happy. all slenderness and subtlety. he dreamed, and at the same time he pulled out of his pocket some caramels that had stuck there and began to chew them. then he remembered that valeria was a coquette. now she'll want expensive dresses, he thought. that meant that he would not only be unable to save money every month but that he would have to spend what he had saved. she would be hard to please. she would never even enter the kitchen. besides, his food might get poisoned; varvara, from spite, would bribe the cook. and on the whole, thought peredonov, valeria is a slender doll. it's difficult to know how to treat a girl like that. how could one abuse her? and how could one give her an occasional push? how could one spit on her? it would end in tears and she would shame him before the whole town. no, it was impossible to tie oneself to her. now liudmilla was simpler; wouldn't it be better to take her? peredonov walked up to the window and knocked with his stick on the pane. after a few moments routilov stuck his head out of the window. "what do you want?" he asked anxiously. "i've thought it over," growled peredonov. "well?" exclaimed routilov in apprehension. "bring liudmilla here!" said peredonov. routilov left the window. "he's a devil in spectacles," he grumbled to himself and went to his sisters. valeria was glad. "it's your happiness, liudmilla," she said cheerfully. liudmilla began to laugh. she threw herself back in a chair and laughed and laughed. "what shall i tell him?" asked routilov. "are you willing?" liudmilla could not speak for laughing, and only waved her hands. "of course she's willing," said darya for her. "you'd better tell him at once, or else he may go off in a huff." routilov entered the drawing-room and said in a whisper through the window: "wait, she'll be ready at once." "let her make haste," said peredonov angrily. "why are they so long?" liudmilla was soon dressed. she was entirely ready in five minutes. peredonov began to think about her. she was cheerful and plump. but she was a giggler. she would always be laughing at him. that was terrible. darya, though she was lively, was more sober. but she was quite handsome. he had better take her. he knocked once more on the window. "there! he's knocking again," said larissa. "i wonder if he wants you now, darya?" "the devil!" said routilov irritatedly, and ran to the window. "what now?" he asked in an angry whisper. "have you thought it over again?" "bring darya," answered peredonov. "well, just wait!" whispered routilov in a rage. peredonov stood there and thought of darya, and again his brief seductive vision of her was replaced by apprehension. she was too quick and impertinent. she would make life intolerable to him. "and what on earth's the good of standing here waiting," reflected peredonov, "i might get a cold. and you can't tell, there may be someone hiding in the ditch or behind the grass, who'll suddenly jump out and murder me." peredonov grew very depressed. then again none of them had any dowry to speak of. that could command no patronage in the department of education. varvara would complain to the princess. as it was the head-master was sharpening his teeth for peredonov. peredonov began to get vexed with himself. why was he here, entangling himself with the routilovs? it must be that routilov had bewitched him. yes, he must really have bewitched him! he must make a counter-charm at once. peredonov twirled round on his heels, spat on each side of him and mumbled: "_chure-churashki. churki-balvashki, buki-bukashkii, vedi-tarakashki. chure menya. chure menya. chure, chure, chure. chure-perechure-raschiure_."[ ] his face wore an expression of stern attention, as if at the carrying out of a dignified ceremony. after this indispensable action he felt himself out of danger of routilov's spells. he struck the window decisively with his stick and muttered angrily: "i've had enough of this! i won't be enticed any further. no, i don't want to get married to-day," he announced to routilov, whose head was thrust out of the window. "what on earth's the matter with you, ardalyon borisitch? why, everything's ready!" said routilov persuasively. "i don't want to," repeated peredonov with decision. "you'd better come along with me and have a game of cards." "the devil take you," exclaimed routilov. "he doesn't want to get married. he's funked it!" he announced to his sisters. "but i'll persuade the fool yet. he's asked me to play cards with him." all the sisters cried out at once, abusing peredonov loudly. "and you're going out with this blackguard?" asked valeria angrily. "yes, and i'll get even with him. he has not escaped us yet by any means," said routilov, trying to keep a tone of assurance, but feeling very awkward. the girls' anger with peredonov soon gave place to laughter. routilov left. the girls ran to the windows. "ardalyon borisitch," exclaimed darya. "why can't you make up your mind. you shouldn't do things like this!" "kislyai kislyaevitch! (sour sourson!)" exclaimed liudmilla, laughingly. peredonov was angry. in his opinion the sisters ought to have wept with disappointment that he had rejected them. "they're pretending," he thought, as he left the garden silently. the girls ran to the windows facing the street and shouted gibes after him until he was lost in the darkness. [ ] this is an exaggeration of a russian charm used against witchcraft. the word "chure" implies, "hence! away!" and is addressed to the evil spirits. the whole charm is a jargon practically untranslatable. chapter v peredonov felt depressed. he had no more caramels in his pocket and this added to his depression and distress. routilov was the only one to speak almost the whole way. he continued to laud his sisters. only once did peredonov break into speech, when he asked angrily: "has a bull horns?" "well, yes, but what of it?" asked the astonished routilov. "well, i don't want to be a bull," explained peredonov. "ardalyon borisitch," said routilov in tones of annoyance, "you will never be a bull, for you are a real swine." "liar," said peredonov morosely. "i'm not a liar--i can prove i'm not," said routilov spitefully. "go ahead and prove it." "just wait, i'll prove it," said routilov. they walked on silently. peredonov waited apprehensively and his anger with routilov tormented him. suddenly routilov asked: "ardalyon borisitch, have you got a _piatachek_?"[ ] "i have, but i won't give it to you," answered peredonov. routilov burst out laughing. "if you have a _piatachek_, then you are a swine," he exclaimed. peredonov in his apprehension grabbed his nose and exclaimed: "you're lying! i haven't a _piatachek_--i've got a man's face," he growled. routilov was still laughing. peredonov, angry and rather frightened, looked cautiously at routilov and said: "you've led me purposely to-day by the _durman_[ ] and you've _durmanised_ me so as to lure me for one of your sisters. as if one witch wasn't enough for me--you tried to make me marry three at once." "you are a queer fellow. and why didn't i get _durmanised?_" asked routilov. "you've got some way or other," said peredonov, "perhaps you breathed through your mouth instead of your nose, or you may have recited a charm. for my part, i don't know at all how to act against witchcraft. i don't know much about black magic. until i recited the counter-charm i was quite _durmanised_." routilov laughed. "well, and how did you make the exorcism?" he asked. but peredonov did not reply. "why do you tie yourself up with varvara?" asked routilov. "do you think that you'll be happier if she gets the inspectorship for you? she'll rule the roost then!" this was incomprehensible to peredonov. after all, he thought, she was really acting in her own interests. she herself would have an easier time if he became an important official, and she would have more money. that meant that she would be grateful to him and not he to her. and in any case she was more congenial to him than anyone else. peredonov was accustomed to varvara. something drew him to her--perhaps it was his habit, which was very pleasant to him, of bullying her. he would not find another like her however much he sought. it was already late. the lamps were lit at peredonov's house; the lighted windows were conspicuous in the dark street. the tea-table was surrounded with visitors: grushina--who now visited varvara every day--volodin, prepolovenskaya, and her husband konstantin petrovitch, a tall man, under forty, with a dull, pale face and black hair, a person of an amazing taciturnity. varvara was in a white party dress. they were drinking tea, and talking. varvara, as usual, was distressed because peredonov had not yet returned home. volodin, with his cheerful bleat, was telling her that peredonov had gone off somewhere with routilov. this only increased her distress. at last peredonov appeared with routilov. they were met with outcries, laughter, stupid coarse jokes. "varvara, where's the vodka?" exclaimed peredonov gruffly. varvara quickly left the table, smiling guiltily, and brought the vodka in a decanter of rudely cut glass. "let's have a drink," was peredonov's surly invitation. "just wait," said varvara; "klavdiushka will bring the _zakouska._[ ] you great lump," she shouted into the kitchen, "hurry up!" but peredonov was already pouring the liquor into the vodka glasses. he growled: "why should we wait? time doesn't wait!" they drank their vodka and helped it down with tarts filled with black currant jam. peredonov had always two stock entertainments for visitors--cards and vodka. but as they could not sit down to cards before the tea was served, only vodka remained. in the meantime the _zakouska_ also were brought in so that they could drink some more vodka. klavdia did not shut the door when she went out, which put peredonov into a bad humour. "that door is never shut!" he growled. he was afraid of the draught--he might catch cold. this was why his house was always stuffy and malodorous. prepolovenskaya picked up an egg. "fine eggs!" she said. "where do you get them?" peredonov replied: "they're not bad, but on my father's estate there was a hen that laid two large eggs every day all the year round." "that's nothing to boast of," said prepolovenskaya; "now in our village there was a hen that laid two eggs every day and a spoonful of butter." "yes, yes, we had one like that too," said peredonov, not noticing that he was being made fun of. "if others could do it, ours did it too. we had an exceptional hen." varvara laughed. "they're having a little joke," she said. "such nonsense makes one's ears wither!" said grushina. peredonov looked at her savagely and replied: "if your ears wither they'll have to be pulled off!" grushina was disconcerted. "well, ardalyon borisitch, you're always saying something nasty," she complained. the others laughed appreciatively. volodin opened his eyes wide, twitched his forehead and explained: "when your ears start withering it's best to pull them off, because if you don't they'll dangle and swing to and fro." volodin made a gesture with his fingers to indicate how the withered ears would dangle. grushina snapped at him: "that's the sort you are. you can't make a joke yourself. you have to use other people's." volodin was offended and said with dignity: "i can make a joke myself, maria ossipovna, but when we're having a pleasant time in company, why shouldn't i keep up someone else's joke? and if you don't like it, you can do what you please. give and take." "that's reasonable, pavel vassilyevitch," said routilov encouragingly. "pavel vassilyevitch can stand up for himself," said prepolovenskaya with a sly smile. varvara had just cut off a piece of bread and, absorbed by volodin's ingenious remarks, held the knife in the air. the edge glittered. peredonov felt a sudden fear--she might suddenly take it into her head to slash him. "varvara!" he exclaimed. "put that knife down!" varvara shivered. "why do you shout so? you frightened me," she said, and put the knife down. "he has his whims, you know," she went on, speaking to the silent prepolovensky, who was stroking his beard and apparently about to speak. "that sometimes happens," said prepolovensky; "i had an acquaintance who was afraid of needles. he was always imagining that someone was going to stick a needle into him and that the needle would enter his inside. just imagine how frightened he would get when he saw a needle----" and once he had begun to speak he was quite unable to stop, and went on telling the same story with different variations until someone interrupted him and changed the subject. then he lapsed again into silence. grushina changed the conversation to erotic themes. she began to relate how her deceased husband was jealous of her, and how she deceived him. afterwards she told a story she had heard from an acquaintance in the capital about the mistress of a certain eminent personage who met her patron while driving in the street. "and she cries to him: 'hullo, zhanchick!'" grushina related, "mind you, in the street." "i have a good mind to report you," said peredonov angrily. "is it actually permitted for such nonsense to be talked about important people?" grushina gabbled rapidly to try and appease him: "it's not my fault. that's how i heard the story. what i've bought i sell." peredonov maintained an angry silence and drank tea from a saucer, with his elbows resting on the table. he reflected that in the house of the future inspector it was unbecoming to speak disrespectfully of the higher powers. he felt annoyed with grushina. this feeling was intensified by his suspicion of volodin, who too frequently referred to him as "the future inspector." once he even said to volodin: "well, my friend, i see that you are jealous, but the fact is i'm going to be an inspector and you aren't!" volodin, with an insinuating look on his face, had replied: "each to his own. you're a specialist in your business and i in mine." "our natashka," said varvara, "went straight from us and got a place with the officer of the gendarmes." peredonov trembled, and his face had an expression of fear. "are you telling a lie?" he demanded. "why should i want to tell you a lie about that?" answered varvara. "you can go and ask him yourself, if you like." this unpleasant news was confirmed by grushina. peredonov was stupefied with astonishment. it was impossible to know what she might say, and then the gendarmes would take up the matter and report it to the authorities. it was a bad look-out. at the same second peredonov's eyes rested on the shelf under the sideboard. there stood several bound volumes: the thin ones were the works of pisarev and the larger ones were the "annals of the fatherland."[ ] peredonov went pale and said: "i must hide those books or i shall be reported." earlier peredonov had displayed these books ostentatiously to show that he was a man of emancipated ideas, though actually he had no ideas at all and no inclination towards reflection. and he only kept these books for show, not to read. it was now a long time since he had read a book--he used to say he had no time--he did not subscribe to a newspaper. he got his news from other people. in fact there was nothing he wanted to know--there was nothing in the outside world he was interested in. he used even to deride subscribers to newspapers as people who wasted both time and money. one might have thought that his time was very valuable! he went up to the shelf, grumbling. "that's what happens in this town--you may get reported any minute. lend a hand here, pavel vassilyevitch," he said to volodin. volodin walked towards him with a grave and comprehending countenance and carefully took the books that peredonov handed to him. peredonov, carrying a heap of books, went into the parlour, followed by volodin, who carried a large pile. "where do you mean to hide them, ardalyon borisitch "he asked. "wait and you'll see," replied peredonov with his usual gruffness. "what are you taking away there, ardalyon borisitch?" asked prepolovensky. "most strictly forbidden books," answered peredonov from the door. "i should be reported if they were found here." peredonov sat on his heels before the brick stove in the parlour. he threw down the books on the iron hearth and volodin did the same. peredonov began with difficulty to force book after book into the small opening. volodin sat on his heels just behind peredonov and handed him the books, preserving at the same time an air of profound comprehension on his sheepish face, his protruded lips and heavy forehead expressing his sense of importance. varvara looked at them through the door. she said laughing: "they've got a new joke!" but grushina interrupted her: "no, dearest varvara dmitrievna, you shouldn't say that. things might be very unpleasant if they found out. especially if it happens to be an instructor. the authorities are dreadfully afraid that the instructors will teach the boys to rebel." after tea they sat down to play stoukolka [_a card game_], all seven of them around the card-table in the parlour. peredonov played irritatedly and badly. after every twenty points, he had to pay out to the other players, especially to prepolovensky, who received for himself and his wife. the prepolovenskys won more frequently than anyone. they had certain signs, like knocks and coughs, by which they told each other what cards they held. that night peredonov had no luck. he made haste to win back his money, but volodin was slow in dealing and spent too much time in shuffling. "pavloushka, hurry up and deal," shouted peredonov impatiently. volodin, feeling himself the equal of anybody in the game, looked important and asked: "what do you mean by 'pavloushka'? is it in friendship? or how?" "of course, in friendship," replied peredonov carelessly. "only deal quicker." "well, if you say it in friendship then i'm glad, very glad," said volodin, laughing happily and stupidly as he dealt the cards. "you're a good fellow, ardasha, and i'm very fond of you. but if it weren't in friendship it would be another matter, but as it is in friendship i'm glad. i've given you an ace for it," said volodin and turned up trumps. peredonov actually had an ace, but it wasn't the ace of trumps and he had to sacrifice it. routilov babbled on incessantly; told all sorts of tales and anecdotes, some of an exceedingly indelicate character. in order to annoy peredonov, routilov began to tell him that his older pupils were behaving very badly, especially those who lived in apartments: they smoked, drank vodka and ran after girls. peredonov believed him, and grushina confirmed what routilov said. these stories gave her especial pleasure: she herself, after her husband's death, had wanted to board three or four of the students at her house, but the head-master would not give her the requisite permission, in spite of peredonov's recommendations--grushina's reputation in the town was not very good. she now began to abuse the landladies of the houses where the students had apartments. "they're bribing the head-master," she declared. "all the landladies are carrion!" said volodin with conviction; "take mine, for instance. when i took my room, mine agreed to give me three glasses of milk every evening. for the first two months i got it." "and you didn't get drunk?" asked routilov. "why should i get drunk?" said volodin in offended tones, "milk's a useful product. it's my habit to drink three glasses of milk every night. when all of a sudden i see that they bring me only two glasses. 'what's the meaning of this?' i ask; the servant says: 'anna mikhailovna says she begs your pardon because the cow, she says, doesn't give much milk now.' what's that to do with me? an agreement is more sacred than money. suppose their cow gave no milk at all--does that mean i'm not to have any milk? 'no,' i say. 'if there is no milk, then tell anna mikhailovna to give me a glass of water. i'm used to three glasses and i must have them.'" "our pavloushka's a hero," said peredonov. "tell them how you argued with the general, old chap." volodin eagerly repeated his story. but this time they laughed at his expense. he stuck out an offended underlip. after supper they all got drunk, even the women. volodin proposed that they should dirty the walls some more. they were delighted: almost before they had finished supper they acted on this suggestion and amused themselves prodigiously. they spat on the wall-paper, poured beer on it, and they threw at the walls and ceiling paper arrows whose ends were smeared with butter, and they flipped pieces of moist bread at the ceiling. afterwards they invented a new game which they played for money; they tore off strips of the wall-paper to see who could get the largest. but at this game the prepolovenskys won another rouble and a half. volodin lost. because of his loss and his intoxication he became depressed and began to complain about his mother. he made a dolorous face, and gesticulating ridiculously with his hand, said: "why did she bear me? and what did she think at the time? what's my life now? she's not been a mother to me, she only bore me. because whereas a real mother worries about her child, mine only bore me and sent me to a charitable home when i was a mere baby." "well, you've learnt something by it--it made a man of you," said prepolovenskaya. volodin bent his head, wagged it to and fro and said: "no, what's my life? a dog's life. why did she bear me? what did she think then?" peredonov suddenly remembered yesterday's _erli._ "there," he thought, "he complains about his mother, because she bore him. he doesn't want to be pavloushka. it's certain that he envies me. it may be that he's thinking of marrying varvara and of getting into my skin." and he looked anxiously at volodin. he must try to marry him to someone. * * * * * at night in the bedroom varvara said to peredonov: "you think that all these girls who are running after you are really good-looking? they're all trash, and i'm prettier than any of them." she quickly undressed herself and, smiling insolently, showed peredonov her rosy, graceful, flexible and beautiful body. though varvara staggered from drunkenness and her face would have repelled any decent man with its flabby-lascivious expression, she really had the beautiful body of a nymph, with the head of a faded prostitute attached to it as if by some horrible black magic. and this superb body was for these two drunken and dirty-minded people merely the source of the vilest libidinousness. and so it often happens in our age that beauty is debased and abused. peredonov laughed gruffly but boisterously as he looked at his naked companion. the entire night he dreamed of women of all colours, naked and hideous. * * * * * varvara believed that the friction with nettles, which she applied at prepolovenskaya's advice, helped her. it seemed to her that she got plumper almost at once. she asked all her acquaintances: "it's true, isn't it, that i'm a little fuller?" and she thought that now peredonov would surely marry her, seeing that she was plumper, and that he would receive the forged letter. peredonov's expectations were far from being so agreeable as hers. he had become convinced some time before that the head-master was hostile to him--and as a matter of fact the head-master considered peredonov a lazy, incapable instructor. peredonov imagined that the head-master told the boys not to respect him, which it is obvious was an absurd invention of his own. but it inspired peredonov with the idea that he must be on his guard against the head-master. from spite against the head-master he spoke slightingly of him more than once in the classes of the older students. this pleased many of the students. now that peredonov was hoping to become an inspector the head-master's attitude towards him seemed particularly unpleasant. let it be admitted that if the princess should so desire, her protection would override the head-master's unfriendliness, still it was not without its dangers. and there were other people in the town--as peredonov had lately noticed--who were hostile to him and wanted to hinder his appointment to the inspectorship. there was volodin; it was not for nothing that he continually repeated the words, "the future inspector." there have been occasions when people have assumed another man's name with great profit to themselves. of course, volodin would find it difficult to impersonate peredonov, but after all even such a fool as volodin might have the idea that he could. it is certain that we ought to fear every evil man. and there were still the routilovs, vershina with her marta, and his envious colleagues--all equally ready to do him harm. and how could they harm him? it was perfectly clear they could vilify him to the authorities and make him out to be an unreliable man. so that peredonov had two anxieties: one, to prove his reliableness and the other to secure himself from volodin--by marrying him to a rich girl. peredonov once asked volodin: "if you like, i'll get you engaged to the adamenko girl, or are you still pining for marta? isn't a month long enough for you to get consoled?" "why should i pine for marta?" replied volodin, "i've done her a great honour by proposing to her, and if she doesn't want me, what's that to me? i'll easily find someone else--there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it." "well, but marta's pulled your nose for you nicely," said peredonov tauntingly. "i've no notion what sort of a husband they're looking for," said volodin with an offended air. "they haven't even any dowry to speak of. she's after you, ardalyon borisitch." peredonov advised him: "if i were in your place i should smear her gates with tar." volodin grinned and calmed down at once. he said: "but if they catch me it might be unpleasant." "hire somebody; why should you do it yourself?" said peredonov. "and she deserves it--honest to god!" said volodin animatedly. "a girl who won't get married and yet lets young fellows in through the window! that means that human beings have no shame or conscience!" [ ] "piatachek" means a "five kopek piece" and also a "pig's snout." routilov puns on the word. [ ] _durman_, the thorn apple or datura, a very poisonous plant. the russians have a verb "durmanised," meaning bewitched or stupefied by the durman. [ ] zakouska, savoury salt eatables, rather like _hors d'oeuvres,_ eaten with vodka. [ ] a journal of revolutionary tendencies, suppressed in . chapter vi the next day peredonov and volodin went to see the adamenko girl. volodin was in his best clothes; he put on his new, tight-fitting frock-coat, a clean-laundered shirt and a brightly-coloured cravat. he smeared his hair with pomade and scented himself--he was in fine spirits. nadezhda vassilyevna adamenko lived with her brother in town in her own red-brick house; she had an estate not far from town which she let on lease. two years before she had completed a course in the local college and now she occupied herself in lying on a couch to read books of every description and in coaching her brother, an eleven-year-old schoolboy, who always protected himself against his sister's severities by saying: "it was much better in mamma's time--she used to put an umbrella in the corner instead of me." nadezhda vassilyevna's aunt lived with her. she was a characterless, decrepit woman with no voice in the household affairs. nadezhda vassilyevna chose her acquaintances with great care. peredonov was very seldom in her house and only his lack of real acquaintance with her could have given birth to his idea of getting her to marry volodin. she was therefore extremely astonished at their unexpected visit, but she received the uninvited guests quite graciously. she had to amuse them, and it seemed to her that the most likely and pleasant method of entertaining an instructor of the russian language would be to talk of educational conditions, school reform, the training of children, literature, symbolism and the russian literary periodicals. she touched upon all these themes, but received no response beyond enigmatic remarks, which showed that these questions had no interest for her guests. she soon saw that only one subject was possible--town gossip. but nadezhda vassilyevna nevertheless made one more attempt. "have you read the 'man in the case,' by chekhov?" she asked. "it's a clever piece of work, isn't it?" as she turned with this question to volodin he smiled pleasantly and asked: "is that an essay or a novel?" "it's a short story," exclaimed nadezhda. "did you say it was by mister chekhov?" inquired volodin. "yes, chekhov," said nadezhda and smiled. "where was it published?" asked volodin curiously. "in the 'russkaya misl,'" the young woman explained graciously. "in what number?" continued volodin. "i can't quite remember. i think it was in one of the summer numbers," replied nadezhda, still graciously but with some astonishment. a schoolboy suddenly appeared from behind the door. "it was published in the may number," he said, with his hand on the door-knob, glancing at his sister and her guests with cheerful blue eyes. "you're too young to read novels!" growled peredonov angrily. "you ought to work instead of reading indecent stories." nadezhda vassilyevna looked sternly at her brother. "it is a nice thing to stand behind doors and listen," she remarked, and lifting her hands crossed her little fingers at a right angle. the boy made a wry face and disappeared. he went into his own room, stood in the corner and gazed at the clock; two little fingers crossed was a sign that he should stand in the corner for ten minutes. "no," he thought sadly, "it was much better when mamma was alive. she only put an umbrella in the corner." meanwhile in the drawing-room volodin was promising his hostess that he would certainly get the may number of the "russkaya misl," in order to read mister chekhov's story. peredonov listened with an expression of unconcealed boredom on his face. at last he said: "i haven't read it either. i don't read such nonsense. there's nothing but stupidities in stories and novels." nadezhda vassilyevna smiled amiably and said: "you're very severe towards contemporary literature. but good books are written even nowadays." "i read all the good books long ago," announced peredonov. "i don't intend to begin to read what's being written now." volodin looked at peredonov with respect. nadezhda vassilyevna sighed lightly and--as there was nothing else for her to do--she began a string of small-talk and gossip to the best of her ability. although she disliked such conversation she managed to keep it up with the ease and buoyancy of a lively, well-trained girl. the guests became animated. she was intolerably bored, but they thought that she was particularly gracious and they put it down to the charm of volodin's personality. once in the street peredonov congratulated volodin upon his success. volodin laughed gleefully and skipped about. he had already forgotten all the other girls who had rejected him. "don't kick up your heels like that," said peredonov. "you're hopping about like a young sheep! you'd better wait; you may have your nose pulled again." but he said this only in jest, and he fully believed in the success of the match he had devised. * * * * * grushina came to see varvara almost every day. varvara was at grushina's even oftener, so that they were scarcely ever parted from each other. varvara was agitated because grushina delayed--she assured varvara that it was very difficult to copy the handwriting so that the resemblance would be complete. peredonov still refrained from fixing a date for the wedding. again he demanded his inspector's post first. recollecting how many girls were ready to marry him, he more than once, as in the past winter, said to varvara threateningly: "i'm going out to get married. i shall be back in the morning with a wife and then out you go. this is your last night here!" and having said this he would go--to play billiards. from there he would sometimes return home, but more often he would go carousing in some dirty hole with routilov and volodin. on such nights varvara could not sleep. that is why she suffered from headaches. it was not so bad if he returned at one or two--then she could breathe freely. but if he did not turn up till the morning then the day found varvara quite ill. at last grushina had finished the letter and showed it to varvara. they examined it for a long time and compared it with the princess's letter of last year. grushina assured her that the letter was so like the other that the princess herself would not recognise the forgery. although there was actually little resemblance, varvara believed her. she also realised that peredonov would not remember the princess's unfamiliar handwriting so minutely that he would see it was a forgery. "at last!" she said joyously. "i have waited and waited, and i'd almost lost patience. but what shall i tell him about the envelope if he asks?" "you can't very well forge an envelope; there's the post-mark," said grushina laughing as she looked at varvara with her cunning unequal eyes, one of them wider open than the other. "what shall we do?" "varvara dmitrievna darling, just tell him that you threw the envelope into the fire. what's the good of an envelope?" varvara's hopes revived. she said: "once we're married, he won't keep me any longer on the run. i'll do the sitting and he can do the running for me." * * * * * on saturday after dinner peredonov went to play billiards. his thoughts were heavy and melancholy. he thought: "it's awful to live among hostile and envious people. but what can one do--they can't all be inspectors! that's the struggle for existence!" at the corner of two streets he met the officer of the gendarmerie--an unpleasant meeting. lieutenant-colonel nikolai vadimovitch roubovsky, a medium-sized, stout man with heavy eyebrows, cheerful grey eyes, and a limping gait which made his spurs jingle unevenly and loudly, was a very amiable person and was therefore popular in society. he knew all the people in town, all their affairs and relations, and loved to hear gossip, but was himself as discreet and silent as the grave, and caused no one any unnecessary unpleasantness. they stopped, greeted each other and entered into conversation. peredonov looked frowningly on each side and said cautiously: "i hear that our natasha is with you now. you mustn't believe anything she tells you about me, because she's lying." "i don't listen to servants' gossip," said roubovsky with dignity. "she's really a bad one," said peredonov, paying no attention to roubovsky's remark; "her young man is a pole; very likely she came to you on purpose to get hold of some official secret." "please don't worry about that," said the lieutenant-colonel dryly. "i haven't any plans of fortresses in my possession." this introduction of fortresses perplexed peredonov; it seemed to him that roubovsky was hinting at something--that he thought of imprisoning peredonov in a fortress. "it's nothing to do with fortresses--it's a very different matter," he muttered. "but all sorts of stupid things are being said about me, for the most part from envy. don't believe any of them. they're informing against me in order to get suspicion away from themselves, but i can do some informing myself." roubovsky was mystified. "i assure you," he said, shrugging his shoulders and jingling his spurs, "that no one has informed against you. it is obvious that someone has been pulling your leg--people of course will talk nonsense sometimes." peredonov was mistrustful. he thought that the lieutenant-colonel was concealing something, and he suddenly felt a terrible apprehension. every time that peredonov walked past vershina's garden, vershina would stop him and with her bewitching gestures and words would lure him into the garden. and he would enter, unwillingly yielding to her quiet witchery. perhaps she had a better chance of succeeding in her purpose than the routilovs--for was not peredonov equally unrelated to them all, and therefore why should he not marry marta? but it was evident that the morass into which peredonov was sinking was so tenacious that no magic could ever have got him out of it into another. and now after this meeting with roubovsky, as peredonov was walking past vershina's, she, dressed in black as usual, enticed him in. "marta and vladya are going home for the day," she said, looking tenderly at peredonov with her cinnamon-coloured eyes through the smoke of her cigarette. "it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to spend the day with them in the village. a workman had just come in a cart for them." "there isn't enough room," said peredonov morosely. "i think you could manage it," said vershina, "and even if you have to squeeze in a little, it won't be a great hardship--you've only got six versts to go." meanwhile marta ran out of the house to ask vershina something. the excitement of getting off dissipated her usual languor and her face was livelier and more cheerful. they both tried to persuade peredonov to go. "you'll manage quite comfortably," vershina assured him; "you and marta can sit at the back, and vladya and ignaty in front. look, there's the cart in the yard now." peredonov followed them into the yard where the cart was standing. vladya was fussing about, putting various things in it. the cart was quite a large one, but peredonov morosely surveyed it and announced: "i'm not going. there isn't enough room. there are four of us and those things besides." "well, if you think it's going to be a tight squeeze," said varshina, "vladya can go on foot." "of course," said vladya, with a suppressed grin. "i'll start at once and i'll get there before you." then peredonov declared that the cart would jolt and that he did not like jolts. they returned to the summer-house. everything was ready, but ignaty was still in the kitchen eating slowly and solidly. "how does vladya get on with his lessons?" asked marta. she did not know what else to talk about with peredonov, and vershina had more than once reproached her for not knowing how to entertain him. "badly," said peredonov; "he's lazy and doesn't pay attention." vershina loved to grumble. she began to scold vladya. the boy flushed and smiled, and shrivelled into his clothes as if he were cold, lifting one shoulder higher than the other, as his habit was. "the year has only just begun," he said, "i've got plenty of time to catch up." "you ought to start from the very beginning," said marta in a very grown-up way, which slightly embarrassed her. "yes, he's always in mischief," said peredonov. "only yesterday, he was running about with some of the others as if they were street boys. he's impertinent too. last thursday he was quite cheeky to me." vladya suddenly flushed up with indignation, yet still smiled, and said: "i wasn't impertinent. i only told the truth. the other copy-books had five mistakes not marked, and all mine were marked. and i only got two though mine was better than the boys who got three." "and that wasn't the only time you were impertinent," persisted peredonov. "i wasn't impertinent, i only said that i would tell the inspector," said vladya heatedly. "vladya, you forget yourself!" said vershina angrily; "instead of apologising you're only repeating what you said." vladya suddenly remembered that he ought not to provoke peredonov, as he might marry marta. he grew even redder and in his confusion shifted his belt and said timidly: "i'm sorry. i only meant to ask you to make the correction." "be quiet, please!" interrupted vershina. "i can't stand such wrangling--i really can't," she repeated, and her thin body trembled almost imperceptibly. "you're being spoken to, so be silent," and vershina poured out on vladya many reproachful words, puffing at her cigarette and smiling her wry smile, as she usually did when she was talking, no matter what the subject was. "we shall have to tell your father, so that he can punish you," she concluded. "he needs birching," suggested peredonov, and looked angrily at the offending vladya. "certainly," agreed vershina. "he needs birching." "he needs birching," repeated marta and blushed. "i'm going with you to your father to-day," said peredonov, "and i'll see that he gives you a good birching." vladya looked silently at his tormentors, shrank within himself and smiled through his tears. his father was a harsh man. vladya tried to console himself with the thought that these were only threats. surely, he thought, they would not really spoil his holiday. for a holiday was a specially happy occasion and not a schoolday affair. but peredonov was always pleased when he saw boys cry, especially when he so arranged it that they cried and apologised at the same time. vladya's confusion, the suppressed tears in his eyes and his timid, guilty smile, all these gave peredonov joy. he decided to accompany marta and vladya. "very well, i'll come with you," he said to marta. marta was glad but a little frightened. of course she wanted peredonov to go with them, or it would perhaps be more truthful to say that vershina wanted it for her, and had instilled the desire into her by suggestion. but now that peredonov said that he would come, marta somehow felt uneasy on vladya's account--she felt sorry for him. vladya also became sad. surely peredonov was not going on his account? in the hope of appeasing peredonov, he said: "if you think, ardalyon borisitch, that it will be a tight squeeze, then i will go on foot." peredonov looked at him suspiciously and said: "that's all very well, but if i let you go alone, you'll run away somewhere. no, i think we had better take you to your father and he'll give you what you deserve!" vladya flushed once more and sighed. he began to feel uneasy and depressed, and indignant at this cruel, morose man. to soften peredonov's heart, he decided to make his seat more comfortable. "i'll make it so that you won't feel the jolts," he said. and he scurried hastily towards the cart. vershina looked after him, still smoking, with her wry smile, and said quietly to peredonov: "they're all afraid of their father. he's very stern with them." marta flushed. vladya wanted to take with him to the village his new english fishing-rod, bought with his saved-up money. and he wanted to take something else. but this would have occupied room in the cart and so vladya carried all his goods back into the house. the weather was moderate, the sun was beginning to decline. the road, wet with the morning rain, was free of dust. the cart rolled evenly over the fine stones, carrying its four passengers from the town; the well-fed grey cob trotted along as if their weight were nothing, and the lazy, taciturn driver, ignaty, drove the cob on a light rein. peredonov was seated beside marta. they had made him a wide seat, so that marta's was very uncomfortable. but he did not notice this. and even if he had noticed it, he would have thought it quite proper, since he was the guest. peredonov felt on very good terms with himself. he decided to talk very amiably to marta, to joke with her and to entertain her. this is how he began: "well, are you going to rebel soon?" "why rebel?" asked marta. "you poles are always getting ready to rebel--but it's useless." "i'm not thinking about it at all," said marta, "and there's no one among us who wants to rebel." "oh, you only say that--you really hate the russians." "we haven't any such idea," said vladya, turning to peredonov from the front seat. "yes, we know what sort of an idea you have about it," answered peredonov. "but we're not going to give poland back to you. we have conquered you. we have conferred many benefits on you and yet it's true that however well you feed a wolf he always looks towards the wood." marta said nothing. after a short silence peredonov said abruptly: "the poles have no brains." marta flushed. "there are all kinds of people among both russians and poles," she said. "no, what i say is true," persisted peredonov, "the poles are stupid. they only submit to force. take the jews--they're clever." "the jews are cheats--they're not clever at all," said vladya. "no, the jews are a very clever people. the jew always gets the best of a russian, but a russian never gets the best of a jew." "it isn't a great thing to get the best of other people," said vladya. "is mind only to be used for cheating?" peredonov looked angrily at vladya. "the mind is for learning, and you don't learn," he said. vladya sighed and turned away and began to watch the cob's even trotting. but peredonov continued: "the jews are clever in everything. clever in learning and in everything. if the jews were allowed to become professors, all professors would be jews. but the polish women are all sluts." he looked at marta and noted with satisfaction that she blushed violently. he became amiable: "now, don't think that i'm talking about you. i know that you would be a good housekeeper." "all polish women are good housekeepers," replied marta. "well, yes," said peredonov, "they're good housekeepers. they're clean on top, but their petticoats are dirty. but then you had mickiewicz.[ ] he's better than our pushkin. he hangs on my wall--pushkin used to hang there, but i took him down and hung him in the privy. he was a lackey." "but you're a russian," said vladya. "what's our mickiewicz to you? pushkin's a good poet and mickiewicz's a good poet." "mickiewicz is better," asseverated peredonov. "the russians are fools. they've invented only the samovar--nothing else." peredonov looked at marta, screwed up one eye and said: "you've got a lot of freckles. that's not pretty." "what can one do?" asked marta, smiling. "i've got freckles too," said vladya, turning round on his narrow seat and brushing against the silent ignaty. "you're a boy," said peredonov, "and so it doesn't matter. a man needn't be handsome; but it doesn't become a girl," he went on, turning to marta. "no one will want to marry you. you ought to bathe your face in cucumber-brine." marta thanked him for his advice. vladya looked smilingly at peredonov. "what are you grinning at?" said peredonov. "just wait till we're there--then you'll get what's waiting for you." vladya, shifting in his seat, looked attentively at peredonov and tried to find out if he were joking or speaking seriously. but peredonov could not bear to have anyone stare at him. "what are you eyeing me for?" he asked harshly. "there are no patterns on me. are you trying to cast a spell on me?" vladya was frightened and turned away his eyes. "i'm sorry," he added timidly, "i didn't do it on purpose." "and do you believe in the evil eye?" asked marta. "of course the evil eye is a superstition," said peredonov angrily. "but it's so awfully rude to stare at people." there was an awkward silence for the next few minutes. "you're very poor, aren't you?" said peredonov suddenly. "well, we're not rich," said marta, "but still we're not so poor. each one of us has a little something put aside." peredonov looked at her incredulously and said: "i'm sure you're poor. you go barefoot at home every day." "we don't do it from poverty," exclaimed vladya. "what then? from wealth?" asked peredonov, and burst into a laugh. "not at all from poverty," said vladya flushing. "it's very good for the health. it hardens one, and it's very pleasant in summer." "you're lying," said peredonov coarsely, "rich people don't go barefoot. your father has a lot of children and hasn't got tuppence to keep them on. you can't afford to buy so many boots." [ ] great polish poet ( - ) who "is held to have been the greatest slavonic poet with the exception of pushkin." chapter vii varvara had no knowledge of peredonov's trip. she passed an extremely distressing night. when peredonov returned to town in the morning he did not go home, but asked to be driven to church--it was time for mass. it seemed dangerous to him now not to go to church often--they might inform against him if he did not. at the church gate he met a pleasant-looking schoolboy, with a rosy, ingenuous face and innocent blue eyes. peredonov said to him: "hullo there, mashenka, hullo, girlie!" misha koudryavtsev flushed painfully. peredonov often teased him by calling him "mashenka"--misha did not understand why and could not make up his mind to complain. a number of his companions, stupid youngsters elbowing each other, laughed at peredonov's words. they too liked to tease misha. the church, dedicated to the prophet elias, an old structure built in the days of tsar mikhail, stood in the square, facing the school. for this reason, on church holidays, at mass and for vespers, the schoolboys had to gather here and to stand in rows on the left by the chapel of st. catherine the martyr, while behind them stood one of the assistant masters in order to keep discipline. here also in a row, nearer the centre of the church, stood the form masters, as well as the inspector and the head-master, with their families. it was usual for nearly all the orthodox schoolboys to gather here, except the few who were permitted to attend their parish churches with their parents. the choir of schoolboys sang well, and for this reason the church was attended by merchants of the first guild, officials and the families of landed gentry. there were only a few of the common folk--especially since, in conformity with the head-master's wish, mass was celebrated there later than in other churches. peredonov stood in his usual place, from which he could see all the members of the choir. screwing up his eyes, he looked at them and thought that they were standing out of their places. if he had been inspector he would have pulled them up. there was, for example, a smooth-faced boy, named kramarenko, a small, thin, fidgety youngster who was constantly turning this way and that way, whispering, smiling--and there was no one to keep him in order. it seemed to be no one's affair. "what confusion!" thought peredonov. "these choir-boys are all good-for-nothings. that dark youngster there has a fine, clear soprano--so he thinks he can whisper and grin in church." and peredonov frowned. at his side stood a late-comer, the inspector of the national schools, sergey potapovitch bogdanov, an oldish man with a brown, stupid face, who always looked as if he wanted to explain to somebody something which he could never make head or tail of himself. no one was easier to frighten or to astonish than bogdanov: no sooner did he hear anything new or disquieting than his forehead would become wrinkled from his inward, painful efforts and from his mouth would issue a string of incoherent and perplexed exclamations. peredonov bent towards him and said in a whisper: "one of your schoolmistresses walks about in a red shirt!" bogdanov was alarmed. his white adam's apple twitched with fear under his chin. "what do you say?" he whispered hoarsely. "who is she?" "the loud-voiced, fat one--i don't know what her name is," whispered peredonov. "the loud-voiced one, the loud-voiced one," repeated bogdanov in a confused way, "that must be skobotchkina. yes?" "yes, that must be the one," declared peredonov. "well! good heavens! who'd have thought that!" exclaimed bogdanov. "skobotchkina in a red shirt! well! did you see it with your own eyes?" "yes, i saw her, and they tell me she goes into school like that. and sometimes even worse; she puts on a sarafan[ ] and walks about like a common girl." "you don't say so! i must look into it! we can't have that! we can't have that! she'll have to be dismissed, dismissed, i say," babbled on bogdanov. "she was always like that." mass was over. as they were leaving the church, peredonov said to kramarenko: "here, you whippety-snippet! why were you grinning in church? just wait, i shall tell your father!" kramarenko looked at peredonov in astonishment and ran past him without speaking. he belonged to that number of pupils who thought peredonov coarse, stupid and unjust, and who therefore disliked and despised him. the majority of the pupils thought similarly. peredonov imagined that these were the boys who had been prejudiced against him by the head-master, if not personally, at least through his sons. peredonov was approached on the other side of the fence by volodin. he was chuckling happily, and his face was as cheerful as if it were his birthday; he wore a bowler hat and carried his cane in the fashionable way. "i've something to tell you, ardalyon borisitch," he said gleefully. "i've managed to persuade cherepnin, and very soon he's going to smear marta's gate with tar!" peredonov said nothing for a moment. he seemed to be considering something, and then suddenly burst into his usual morose laughter. volodin at once ceased grinning, assumed a sober look, straightened his bowler hat, looked at the sky, swung his stick and said: "it's a fine day, but it looks as if it will rain this evening. well, let it rain; i shall spend the evening at the future inspector's house." "i can't waste any time at home now," said peredonov, "i've got more important affairs to attend to in town." volodin looked as if he comprehended, though he really had no idea what business peredonov had to attend to. peredonov determined that he must, without fail, make several visits. yesterday's chance meeting with the lieutenant-colonel had suggested to him an idea which now seemed to him very important: to make the rounds of all important personages of the town to assure them of his loyalty. if he should succeed, then, in an emergency, peredonov would find defenders in the town who would testify to the correctness of his attitude. "where are you going, ardalyon borisitch?" asked volodin, seeing that peredonov was turning off from the path by which he usually went back from church. "aren't you going home?" "yes, i'm going home," answered peredonov, "but i don't like to go along that street now." "why?" "there's a lot of _durman_[ ] growing there, and the smell's very strong. i'm very much affected by it--it stupefies me. my nerves are on edge just now. i seem to have nothing but worries." volodin's face once more assumed a comprehending and sympathetic expression. on the way peredonov pulled off some thistle-heads and put them in his pocket. "what do you want those thistle-heads for?" asked volodin with a grin. "for the cat," answered peredonov gruffly. "are you going to stick them in its fur?" asked volodin. "yes." volodin sniggered. "don't begin without me," he cried. peredonov asked him to come in at once, but volodin declared that he had an appointment: he suddenly felt that it wasn't the right thing not to have appointments; peredonov's words about his affairs had inspired him with the idea that it would be well for him to visit the adamenko girl on his own, and to tell her that he had some new, splendid drawings which needed framing--perhaps she would like to look at them. "in any case," thought volodin, "nadezhda vassilyevna will ask me to have a cup of coffee." and so that was what volodin did. he suddenly invented another scheme: he proposed to nadezhda vassilyevna that her brother should take up carpentry. nadezhda vassilyevna imagined that volodin was in need of money, and she immediately consented. they agreed to work for two hours three times a week, for which volodin was to get thirty roubles a month. volodin was in raptures--here was some cash and the possibility of frequent meetings with nadezhda vassilyevna. peredonov returned home gloomy as usual. varvara, pale from her sleepless night, grumbled: "you might have told me yesterday that you weren't coming home." peredonov provoked her by saying maliciously that he had been on a trip with marta. varvara was silent. she held the princess's letter in her hand. it was a forged letter, but still----. she said to him at luncheon, with a meaning smile: "while you were gadding about with marfushka, i received an answer from the princess." "i didn't know you wrote to her." peredonov's face lighted up with a gleam of dull expectation. "well, that's good! didn't you yourself tell me to write?" "well, what did she say?" asked peredonov with some agitation. "here's the letter--read it for yourself." varvara fumbled for a long time in her pockets and finally found the letter and gave it to peredonov. he stopped eating and grabbed the letter eagerly. he read it and was overjoyed. here at last was a clear and definite promise. at the moment no doubts entered his mind. he quickly finished his luncheon and went out to show the letter to his acquaintances and friends. with a grim animation he entered vershina's garden. vershina, as nearly always, was standing at the gate smoking. she was very pleased: formerly, she had to lure him in, now he came in himself. vershina thought: "that comes of his going on a trip with marta; he spent some time with her and now he's come again. i wonder if he means to propose to her?" peredonov disillusioned her immediately by showing her the letter. "you kept disbelieving it," he said, "and here the princess has written. read that and see for yourself." vershina looked incredulously at the letter, quickly blew tobacco smoke on it several times running, made a wry smile and asked quietly and quickly: "but where's the envelope?" peredonov suddenly felt alarmed. he suspected that varvara was trying to deceive him and had written the letter herself. he must get the envelope from her at once. "i don't know," he said, "i must ask." he said good-bye to vershina and went quickly back to his own house. it was absolutely necessary for him to assure himself as soon as possible of the source of the letter--the sudden doubt tormented him. vershina, standing at the gate, looked after him with her wry smile, rapidly puffing out cigarette smoke, as if she were trying to finish the cigarette like a tiresome lesson. peredonov came running home with a frightened and tormented face, and while yet in the passage he shouted in a voice hoarse with agitation: "varvara! where's the envelope?" "what envelope?" asked varvara in a trembling voice. she looked at peredonov insolently and would have flushed had she not been already rouged. "the envelope, from the princess, of the letter you gave me to-day," explained peredonov, with a look half-frightened, half-malignant. varvara gave a forced laugh. "i burnt it. what good was it to me?" she said. "why should i keep it? i'm not making a collection of envelopes. you can't get any money for envelopes. you can only get money for empty bottles at a pub." peredonov walked gloomily about the rooms and growled: "there are all sorts of princesses--we know that. perhaps this princess lives here." varvara pretended not to understand his suspicions, but yet trembled violently. when, towards evening, peredonov strolled past vershina's cottage, she stopped him. "have you found the envelope?" she asked. "vara tells me she burnt it." vershina laughed, and the white, thin clouds of tobacco smoke wavered before her in the quiet, cool air. "it's strange," she said, "that your cousin is so careless. here's an important letter--and no envelope! you might have been able to tell from the post-mark when it was sent and where from." peredonov was extremely irritated. in vain vershina invited him into the garden; in vain she promised to look in the cards for him--peredonov left. nevertheless, he showed the letter to his friends and boasted. and his friends believed him. but peredonov did not know whether to believe or not. at all events, he decided to begin on tuesday his round of visits to important personages in the town to strengthen his position. he decided not to begin on monday, as it was an unlucky day. [ ] sarafan, national peasant-woman's costume. [ ] see note above. search for: thorn apple or datura. chapter viii as soon as peredonov left to play billiards varvara went off to see grushina. they argued for a long time, and at last decided to mend the matter with another letter. varvara knew that grushina had friends in peterburg. with their assistance it would be easy to get the letter posted in peterburg. just as on the first occasion, grushina for a long time pretended to have scruples. "oh, varvara dmitrievna darling!" she said. "even the first letter makes me tremble. i'm always afraid. whenever i see a police inspector near the house i almost faint. i think they're coming for me to take me to jail." for a whole hour varvara tried to persuade her. she promised her all sorts of gifts, and even offered a little money in advance. in the end grushina agreed. they decided to act in this way: first, varvara would say that she had replied to the princess's letter, thanking her; then, after several days, a letter would arrive, ostensibly from the princess. in that letter it would be even more definitely stated that there were certain positions in view, and that as soon as they were married it would be possible, with a little effort, to procure one for peredonov. this letter, like the first, would be written by grushina--then they would seal it up, put a seven kopeck stamp on it, grushina would enclose it in a letter to her friend in peterburg, who would drop it into a letter-box. presently varvara and grushina set out to a shop at the extreme end of the town and there bought a packet of narrow envelopes with a coloured lining, and some coloured paper, the last of the kind in the shop. this precaution had been suggested by grushina in order to help conceal the forgery. the narrow envelopes were chosen so that the forged letter could easily be enclosed in another envelope. when they got back to grushina's house they composed the princess's letter. when, in the course of a couple of days, the letter was ready, they scented it with chypre. the remaining envelopes and paper they burnt, so that no trace should be left. grushina wrote to her friend, telling her the precise day on which the letter was to be posted--they calculated for the letter to arrive on sunday, when peredonov was at home. this would be an additional proof of the letter's genuineness. on tuesday peredonov tried to get home earlier from school. circumstances helped him: his last lesson was in a class-room whose door opened into the corridor where the clock hung and where the school porter, an alert ex-sergeant, rang the bell at stated intervals. peredonov sent the porter into the office to get the class-book, and himself put the clock a quarter of an hour forward. no one noticed him. at home peredonov refused his luncheon and asked for dinner to be prepared later--he had certain business to attend to. "they tangle and tangle and i must untangle," said he angrily, thinking of the snares which his enemies were preparing for him. he put on a frock-coat which he seldom wore and in which he felt constrained and uneasy: his body had grown stouter with years, and the frock-coat sat badly on him. he was annoyed because he had no orders or decorations to wear. other people had them--even falastov of the town school had--and he, peredonov, had none. it was all the head-master's malice: not once had he been nominated. he was sure of his rank: this the head-master could not take away--but what was the use of that, if there were no visible signs of it? however, his new uniform would show his rank: it was pleasant to think that the epaulettes of this uniform would be according to the rank and not according to the class he taught. this would look important--the epaulettes like a general's and one large star. everyone in the street could see at once that a state councillor was walking by. "i shall have to order my new uniform soon," thought peredonov. he went into the street and only then he began to wonder with whom he should begin. it seemed to him that in his circumstances the most important people were the commissioner of police and the district attorney. it was obvious that he ought to begin with them or possibly with the marshal of the nobility. but at the thought of starting with them he was seized with apprehension. marshal veriga was after all a general who had a governorship in view. the commissioner of police and the district attorney were the terrible representatives of the police and the law. "at the beginning," thought peredonov, "i ought to begin with the lesser officials and then look about me and nose around--then it will be clear how they'll treat me and what they'll say about me." this is why peredonov decided that it would be wiser to begin with the mayor. although he was a merchant and had only been educated in the district school, still he went about everywhere and everyone came to his house. his position gave him the respect of the town, and even in other towns and in the capital he had quite important acquaintances. and peredonov resolutely turned in the direction of the mayor's house. the weather was gloomy, the leaves fell from the boughs submissively and wearily. peredonov felt somewhat apprehensive. in the mayor's house a smell of freshly-waxed parquet floors mingled with a barely perceptible and yet pleasant odour of food. it was quiet and depressing there. the mayor's children, a schoolboy and a growing girl--"she has a governess to look after her," her father used to say--were decorously in their rooms. there it was cosy, restful and cheerful; the windows looked out on the garden; the furniture was comfortable; there were all sorts of games in the rooms and in the garden. the children's voices sounded cheerfully. in the first-floor rooms, facing the street, where visitors were received, everything was affected and severe. the red wood furniture was like immensely magnified toy models; it was quite awkward for ordinary people to sit in--when you sat down you felt as if you had dropped on a stone, but the heavy host seemed to sit down quite comfortably. the archimandrite of the suburban monastery, who often visited the mayor, called these "soul-saving chairs," to which the mayor would answer: "yes, i don't like those womanish luxuries that you see in other houses. you sit down on springs and you shake--you shake yourself and the furniture shakes--what's the use of that? and in any case the doctors also don't approve of soft furniture." the mayor, yakov anikyevitch skouchayev, met peredonov on the threshold of his drawing-room. he was a tall, robust man with closely cropped dark hair; he comported himself with dignity and courtesy, though not altogether free from contemptuousness towards people of small means. peredonov sat down heavily in a broad chair and said in answer to his host's first polite questions: "i've come on business." "with pleasure. what can i do for you?" said the mayor politely. in his cunning little black eyes suddenly glimmered a spark of contempt. he thought that peredonov had come to borrow money, and decided that he could not let him have more than a hundred and fifty roubles. there were quite a number of officials in town who owed skouchayev more or less significant sums. skouchayev never referred to the loan, but he never extended further credit to the delinquent debtors. he always gave willingly the first time according to the standing and condition of the borrower. "you, as mayor, yakov anikyevitch, are the first personage in the town," said peredonov. "that's why i came to have a talk with you." skouchayev assumed an important air and inclined his head slightly as he sat in the chair. "all sorts of scandal are being spread about me," said peredonov morosely. "they invent things that never happened." "you can't gag other people's mouths," said the mayor. "and, in any case, in our little palestines it's well known that gossips have nothing to do except to wag their tongues." "they say i don't go to church, but that's not true," continued peredonov. "i do go; it's true i didn't go on st. elias' day, but that was because i had a stomach ache. otherwise i always go." "that's quite true," the host confirmed, "i happened to see you there myself, though i don't often go to your church, i usually go to the monastery. it's been a custom of our family for a long time." "all sorts of scandal are being spread about me," said peredonov. "they say that i tell the schoolboys nasty tales, but that's nonsense. of course, i sometimes tell them something amusing at a lesson, to make it interesting. you yourself have a boy at school. now, he hasn't told you anything of the sort about me, has he?" "that's quite true," agreed skouchayev. "nothing of the sort has happened. however, youngsters are usually cunning, they never repeat what they know they oughtn't to repeat. of course, my boy is still quite small. he's young enough to have repeated something silly, but i assure you he has said nothing of the sort." "and in the elder classes they know everything for themselves," went on peredonov. "but, of course, i never say anything improper there." "naturally," replied skouchayev, "a school is not a market place." "that's the kind of people they are here," complained peredonov. "they invent tales of things that never happened. that's why i've come to you--you're the mayor of the town." skouchayev felt very flattered that peredonov had come to him. he did not understand what it was all about, but he was shrewd enough not to show his lack of comprehension. "and there are other things being said about me," continued peredonov. "for one thing that i live with varvara--they say that she's not my cousin but my mistress. and she's only a cousin to me--honest to god! she's a very distant relative--only a third cousin; there's nothing against marrying her. indeed i'm going to marry her." "so-o. so-o. of course!" said skouchayev reflectively. "besides, a bride's wreath ends the matter." "it was impossible earlier," said peredonov. "i had important reasons. it was utterly impossible, or i should have married long ago, believe me." skouchayev assumed an air of dignity, frowned, and, tapping on the dark tablecloth with his plump white fingers, said: "i believe you. if that is so, it alters the case entirely. i believe you now. i must confess that it was a little dubious for you to live, if you will permit me to say so, with your companion without marrying her. it was very dubious, perhaps because--well, you know children are an impressionable race; they're apt to pick things up. it's hard to teach them what's good, but the bad comes easily to them. that's why it was really dubious. and besides, whose business is it? that's how i look at it. it flatters me that you've come to complain to me, because although i'm only one of the common folk--i didn't go beyond the district school--still i have the respect and confidence of society. this is my third year as mayor, so that my word counts for something among the burgesses." skouchayev talked and all the time entangled himself in his own thoughts, and it seemed as if he would never end his tongue-spinning. he stopped abruptly and thought irritatedly: "this is a waste of time. that's the trouble with these learned men. you can't understand what they want. everything's clear to him, to the learned man, in his books, but as soon as he gets his nose out of his books, he tangles up himself and tangles up other people." he fixed his eye on peredonov with a look of perplexity, his keen eyes grew dull, his stout body relapsed into the chair, and he seemed no longer the brisk man of action but simply a rather foolish old man. peredonov was silent for a while, as if he were bewitched by his host's last words. then, screwing up his eyes with an indefinable clouded expression, he said: "you're the mayor of the town, so you can say that it's all nonsense." "that is, in what respect?" inquired skouchayev cautiously. "well," explained peredonov, "if they should inform against me in the district--that i don't go to church or something or other--then if they should come and ask you might put in a word for me." "this we can do," said the mayor. "in any case, you can rely on us. if anything should happen, then we'll stand up for you--why shouldn't we put in a word for a good man? we might even send in a testimonial from the town council. that's all we can do. or perhaps, if you like, we can give you a personal recommendation from some prominent citizen. why not? we can do it, if it comes to the pinch." "so i may depend on you?" said peredonov gravely, as if replying to something not altogether pleasant to him. "there's the head-master always persecuting me." "you don't say so!" exclaimed skouchayev, shaking his head sympathetically. "i can't imagine how that can be, except from slanders. nikolai vlasyevitch, it seems to me, is a very reliable man, who wouldn't injure anyone for nothing. i can judge that from his son. he's a serious, rigid man, who allows no indulgences and makes no personal distinctions. in short, he's a reliable man. it couldn't be except from slanders. why are you at loggerheads?" "we don't agree in our views," explained peredonov. "and there are people in the school who are jealous of me--they all want to be inspectors. it's because princess volchanskaya has promised to get me an inspector's job, and so they're mad with jealousy." "so-o. so-o," said skouchayev cautiously. "but in any case, why should we go on with our tongues dry? let's have a snack and a drink." skouchayev pressed the button of the electric bell near the hanging lamp. "that's a handy trick!" said he to peredonov. "i think it wouldn't be bad for you to get into another official position. now, dashenka," he said to the pleasant looking maid-servant of heavy build who came in answer to the bell, "bring in some _zakouska_ and some coffee, piping hot kind--d'you understand?" "yes," replied dashenka, smiling, as she walked out with a remarkably light step considering her heaviness. "yes, in another department," skouchayev turned to peredonov again. "say, in the ecclesiastical. if you take holy orders, you would make quite a serious, reliable priest. i could help you into it. i have influential friends among the church dignitaries." skouchayev named several diocesan and suffragan bishops. "no, i don't want to be a priest," answered peredonov. "i'm afraid of the incense--it makes me feel sick and giddy." "well, if that's the case, why don't you join the police," advised skouchayev. "you might, for example, become a commissioner of police. do you mind telling me what your rank is?" "i'm a state councillor," said peredonov importantly. "well, well!" exclaimed skouchayev in surprise. "you certainly get high rank in your profession--and all that because you teach the youngsters? that shows knowledge is something! though nowadays there are certain gentlemen who attack it, still we can't do without it. though i only went to a district school, i am sending my boy to a university. when you send him to a _gymnasia_ you have to force him to go, sometimes with a birch, but he'll go to a university of his own free will. let me say that i never birch him, but if he gets lazy or does something naughty, i simply take him by the shoulders to the window--there are birch trees in the garden. i point to the trees--'do you see that?' i say to him. 'i see, papa,' he says; 'i won't do it again!' and true enough it helps--the youngster mends his ways as if he'd actually been whipped. ah, those children! those children!" concluded skouchayev with a sigh. peredonov remained two hours at skouchayev's. the business talk was followed by abundant hospitality. skouchayev regaled him--as he did everything else--very solidly, as if he were conducting an important affair. at the same time he tried to introduce some ingenious tricks into his hospitality. they brought punch in large glasses like coffee, and the host called it his "little coffee." the vodka glasses looked as if the foot had been broken off and the stem sharpened so that they would not stand upright on the table. "now i call these, 'pour in and pour out,'" exclaimed the host. then the merchant tishkov arrived, a small, grey-haired, brisk and cheerful man in very long boots. he drank a great deal of vodka and said all sorts of absurdities in rhyme[ ], briskly and gaily, and it was obvious that he was very satisfied with himself. peredonov decided at last that it was time to go home, and he rose to take his leave. "don't be in such a hurry," said the host, "stay a while." "stay a while and help us smile," said tishkov. "no, it's time to leave," replied peredonov with a preoccupied air. "it's time to leave or his cousin'll grieve," said tishkov and winked at skouchayev. "just now i'm a busy man," said peredonov. "he who's a busy man we praise him all we can," answered tishkov promptly. skouchayev escorted peredonov to the hall. they embraced and kissed each other at parting. peredonov was pleased with his visit. "the mayor's on my side," he thought confidently. when he returned to tishkov, skouchayev said: "they gossip about that youth." "they may gossip about that youth, but they don't know the truth," tishkov caught him up immediately, deftly pouring himself a glass of english bitter. it was evident that he was not paying attention to what was said to him, but that he only caught up words for the sake of rhyme. "he's not a bad fellow," said skouchayev. "he's a hearty chap and he's not a fool at drinking," continued skouchayev as he poured himself a drink, paying no attention to tishkov's rhyming. "if he's not a fool at drinking, then he's not an ass at thinking," shouted tishkov gaily, swallowing his drink at one gulp. "that he's fussing around with a mam'zell--what does that matter!" said skouchayev. "well, he's got a mam'zell, but she may be a damn sell," replied tishkov. "he who has not sinned against god is not responsible to the tsar." "against god we've all sinned; by love we're all pinned." "but he wants to hide his sin under a bridal-wreath." "they'll hide sin under a bridal wreath and tear each other with furious teeth." tishkov always talked in this way when the conversation did not concern his own affairs. he might have bored everybody to tears, but they had all got used to him and did not notice his brisk rhyming; but occasionally they let him loose on a new-comer. but it was all the same to tishkov whether they listened to him or not; he could not help catching up other people's words to make rhymes, and he acted with the infallibility of a shrewdly devised boring-machine. if you looked at his quick, precise movements, you might conclude that he was not a living person, that he was already dead or had never lived, and that he saw nothing in the living world and heard nothing but dead-sounding words. [ ] this rhyming fellow is not such a rare specimen as may seem to the english reader. the tendency to speak in rhymes is rather common among russian peasants. the _rayeshnik_ is an interesting native institution. he usually improvises rhymes at gatherings and entertainments in open places, especially at carnivals and fairs. there is also the _balagani d'yed_ (the tent grandfather), who appears in a tent in a long white beard of flax, and makes jests in rhymes. it is an institution that is gradually disappearing. chapter ix the next day peredonov went to see the district attorney avinovitsky. again it was a gloomy day. the wind came in violent blasts, and whirled clouds of dust before it. the evening was coming on, and everything was permeated with the dead melancholy light of bleak skies. a depressing silence filled the streets, and it seemed as if all these pitiful houses had sprung up to no purpose, as if these hopelessly decayed structures timidly hinted at the poor tedious life that lurked within their walls. a few people walked in the streets--and they walked slowly, as if they barely conquered the drowsiness that inclined them to repose. only children, eternal, unwearying vessels of divine joy, were lively, and ran about and played--but even they showed signs of inertia, and some sort of ugly, hidden monster, nestling behind their shoulders, looked out now and then with eyes full of menace upon their suddenly dulled faces. in the midst of the depression of these streets and houses, under estranged skies, upon the unclean and impotent earth, walked peredonov, tormented by confused fears--there was no comfort for him in the heights and no consolation upon the earth, because now, as before, he looked upon the world with dead eyes, like some demon who, in his dismal loneliness, despaired with fear and with yearning. his feelings were dull, and his consciousness was a corrupting and deadening apparatus. all that reached his consciousness became transformed into abomination and filth. all objects revealed their imperfections to him and their imperfections gave him pleasure. when he walked past an erect and clean column, he had a desire to make it crooked and to bespatter it with filth. he laughed with joy when something was being besmirched in his presence. he detested very clean schoolboys, and persecuted them. he called them "the skin scrubbers." he comprehended the slovenly ones more easily. there were neither beloved objects for him, nor beloved people--and this made it possible for nature to act upon his feelings only one-sidedly, as an irritant. the same was true of his meetings with people. especially with strangers and new acquaintances, to whom it was not possible to be impolite. happiness for him was to do nothing, and, shutting himself in from the world, to gratify his belly. "and now i must go against my will," he thought, "and explain matters." what a burden! what a bore! if he had an opportunity at least of besmirching the place he was about to visit--but even this consolation was denied to him. the district attorney's house only intensified peredonov's feeling of grim apprehension. and really, this house had an angry, evil look. the high roof descended gloomily upon the windows which came in contact with the ground. and its wooden border, and the roof itself had at one time been painted gaily and brightly, but time and the rains had turned the colouring gloomy and grey. the huge ponderous gates, towering above the house, and fitted as it were to repel hostile attacks, were always bolted. behind them rattled a chain and a huge dog howled in a hoarse bass at every passer-by. all around were uncultivated spots, vegetable gardens and hovels which stood awry. in front of the district attorney's house, was a long hexagonal space, the middle of which, somewhat deeper than the rest, was all unpaved, and overgrown with grass. at the house itself stood a lamp-post, the only one to be seen. peredonov slowly and unwillingly ascended the four high steps leading to the porch which was covered with a double-sloped roof, and pulled the begrimed handle of the bell. the bell resounded quite close to him, with a sharp and continuous tinkle. soon stealthy footsteps were heard. someone seemed to approach the door on tip-toes, and then remained standing there intensely still. very likely someone was looking at him through some invisible crevice. then there was the creak of iron hinges, and the door opened--a gloomy, black-haired, freckled girl stood on the threshold and looked at him with eyes full of suspicious scrutiny. "whom do you want?" she asked. peredonov said that he had come to see aleksandr alekseyevitch on business. the girl let him in. no sooner had he crossed the threshold than he made haste to pronounce a charm. and it was well that he did so: he had not yet had time to take off his coat when he heard avinovitsky's sharp, angry voice coming from the drawing-room. there was always something terrifying in the district attorney's voice--he could not speak otherwise. so even now he was already shouting in the drawing-room in his angry and abusive voice a greeting of welcome and joy that peredonov had at last thought of coming to him. aleksandr alekseyevitch avinovitsky was a man of gloomy appearance; and seemed by nature fitted to reprimand and overbear others. a man of impeccable health--he bathed from ice to ice--he appeared nevertheless lean because of his shaggy, overgrown black beard, with a tinge of blue in it. he brought uneasiness if not fear upon everyone, because he incessantly shouted at someone, and threatened someone with hard labour in siberia. "i've come on business," said peredonov confusedly. "have you come with a confession? have you killed a man? have you committed arson? have you robbed the post?" asked avinovitsky angrily as he admitted peredonov into the drawing-room. "or have you been the victim of a crime yourself, which is more possible in our town. ours is a filthy town and its police is even worse. i'm astonished that you don't find dead bodies every morning lying about the place. well, sit down. what is your business? are you the criminal or the victim?" "no," said peredonov, "i haven't done anything of the kind. now there's the head-master who'd undoubtedly like to settle my hash for me, but i haven't any such thing in mind." "so you haven't come with a confession?" asked avinovitsky. "no, i can't say that i have," mumbled peredonov timidly. "well, if that's the case," said the district attorney with savage emphasis, "then let me offer you something." he picked up a small handbell from the table and rang it. no one came. avinovitsky took the handbell in both hands, raised a furious racket, then threw the bell on the floor, stamped his feet and shouted in a savage voice: "malanya! malanya! devils! beasts! demons!" unhurried footsteps were heard and a schoolboy came in, avinovitsky's son, a stubby, black-haired boy of about thirteen years of age with an air of confidence and self-assurance. he greeted peredonov, picked up the bell, put in on the table and said quietly: "malanya is in the vegetable garden." avinovitsky recovered his calm for a moment, and looking at his son with a tenderness that did not altogether become his overgrown and angry face, he said: "now run along, sonny, and tell her to bring us something to drink and some _zakouska_." the boy leisurely walked out of the room. his father looked after him with a pleased and proud smile. but while the boy was still on the threshold avinovitsky suddenly frowned savagely and shouted in his terrible voice which made peredonov tremble: "look alive!" the schoolboy began to run and they could hear how impetuously he slammed the doors. avinovitsky, smiling with his heavy red lips, again renewed his angry-sounding conversation: "my heir--not bad, eh? what's he going to turn out like? what do you say? he may become a fool, but a knave, a coward or a rag--never!" "well--a----" mumbled peredonov. "people are trivial nowadays--they're a parody of the human race!" roared avinovitsky. "they consider health a trifle. some german invented under-waistcoats. now i would have sent that german to hard labour. imagine my vladimir suddenly in an under-waistcoat! why all summer he walked about in the village without once putting his boots on, and then think of him in an under-waistcoat! why, he even gets out of his bath and runs naked in a frost and rolls in the snow--think of him in an under-waistcoat. a hundred lashes for the accursed german!" avinovitsky passed from the german who invented under-waistcoats to other criminals. "capital punishment, my dear sir, is not barbarism!" he shouted. "science admits that there are born criminals. there's nothing to be said for them, my friend. they ought to be destroyed and not supported by the state. a man's a scoundrel--and they give him a warm corner in a convict prison. he's a murderer, an incendiary, a seducer, but the tax-payer must support him out of his pocket. no-o! it's much juster and cheaper to hang them." the round table in the dining-room was covered with a white tablecloth with a red border, and upon it were distributed plates with fat sausages and other salted, smoked, and pickled eatables, and decanters and bottles of various sizes and forms, containing all sorts of vodkas, brandies and liqueurs. everything was to peredonov's taste, and even the slight carelessness of their arrangement pleased him. the host continued to shout. apropos of the food, he began to abuse the shopkeepers, and then for some reason began to talk about ancestry. "ancestry is a big thing," he shouted savagely, "for the muzhiks to enter the aristocracy is stupid, absurd, impractical and immoral. the soil is getting poorer and the cities are filled with unemployed. then there are bad harvests, idleness and suicides--how does that please you? you may teach the muzhik as much as you like but don't give him any rank--it makes a peasantry lose its best members and it always remains rabble and cattle. and the gentry also suffer detriment from the influx of uncultured elements. in his own village he was better than others, but when he gets into a higher rank he brings into it something coarse, unknightly and plebeian. in the first case the most important things are gain and his stomach. no-o, my dear fellow, the castes were a wise institution." "here, for instance, our head-master lets all sorts of riff-raff into the school," said peredonov angrily. "there are even peasant children there and many commoners' children." "fine doings, i must say!" shouted the host. "there's a circular saying that we shouldn't admit all kinds of riff-raff, but he does as he likes," complained peredonov. "he refuses hardly anyone. life is rather poorish in our town, he says, and there are too few pupils as it is. what does he mean by few? it would be better if there were less. it's all we can do to correct the exercise-books alone. there's no time to read the school-books. they purposely write dubious words in their compositions--you have to look in grote to see how they're spelled." "have some brandy," suggested avinovitsky. "well, what is your business with me?" "i have enemies," growled peredonov, as he looked dejectedly into his glass of yellow vodka before drinking it. "there was once a pig who lived without enemies," said avinovitsky, "and he also was slaughtered. have a bit--it was a very good pig." peredonov took a slice of ham and said: "they're spreading all sorts of scandal about me." "well, as for gossip i can assure you that no town is worse," shouted the host. "what a town! no matter what you do, all the pigs begin to grunt at you at once." "princess volchanskaya has promised to get me an inspector's job, and suddenly they all begin to gossip. this might hurt my prospects. it all comes from envy. now there's the head-master, he's corrupted the entire school--the schoolboys, who live in apartments, smoke, drink and run after girls and even the town-boys are no better. he's done all the corrupting himself and now he persecutes me. it's likely that someone's carried tales to him about me. and then it goes still farther. it might reach the princess." peredonov dwelt long and incoherently on his apprehensions. avinovitsky listened with an angry countenance and punctuated his discourse with exclamations: "villains! scamps! children of herod!" "what sort of nihilist am i?" said peredonov. "it's ridiculous. i have an official cap with a badge, but i don't always wear it--and i sometimes wear a bowler. as for the fact that mickiewicz hangs on my wall, i put him there because of his poetry and not because he was a rebel. i haven't even read his 'kolokol.'"[ ] "well, you've caught that from another opera," said avinovitsky unceremoniously. "herzen published it and not mickiewicz." "that was another 'kolokol,'" said peredonov. "mickiewicz also published a 'kolokol.'" "i didn't know it--you'd better publish the fact. it would be a great discovery. you'd become celebrated." "it's forbidden to publish it," said peredonov angrily; "i'm not allowed to read forbidden books. and i never read them. i'm a patriot." after lengthy lamentations in which peredonov poured himself out, avinovitsky concluded that someone was trying to blackmail peredonov, and with this purpose in view was spreading rumours about him in order to frighten him and to prepare a basis for a sudden demand for money. that these rumours did not reach him, avinovitsky explained by the fact that the blackmailer was acting skilfully upon peredonov's immediate circle--because it was only necessary to frighten peredonov. avinovitsky asked: "whom do you suspect?" peredonov fell into thought. quite by chance grushina came into his mind, he recalled confusedly the recent conversation with her, during which he interrupted her by a threat of informing against her. the fact that it was he who had threatened to inform against grushina became in his mind a vague idea of informing in general. whether he was to inform against someone or whether they were to inform against him was not clear, and peredonov had no desire to exert himself to recall the matter precisely--one thing was clear, that grushina was an enemy. and what was worse she had seen where he hid pisarev. he would have to hide the books somewhere else. peredonov said at last: "well, there's grushina." "yes, i know, she's a first class rogue," said avinovitsky sharply. "she's always coming to our house," complained peredonov. "and always nosing around. she's very grasping--she takes all she can get. it's possible that she wants money from me in order to keep her from reporting that i once had pisarev. or perhaps she wants to marry me. but i don't want to pay her. and i have someone else i want to marry--let her inform against me--i'm not guilty. only it's unpleasant to me to have this gossip as it might prevent my appointment." "she's a well-known charlatan," said the district attorney. "she wanted to take up fortune-telling by cards here, and to get money out of fools. but i asked the police to stop it. at that time they were sensible and did what i told them." "even now she tells fortunes," said peredonov. "she spread out the cards for me and she always saw a long journey and an official letter for me." "she knows what to say to everybody. just wait, she'll set a trap for you and then she'll try and extort money from you. then you come to me and i'll give her a hundred of the hottest lashes," said avinovitsky, using his favourite expression. this expression was not to be taken literally, it merely meant an ordinary rebuke. thus avinovitsky promised his protection to peredonov, but peredonov left him agitated by vague fears inspired by avinovitsky's loud, stern speeches. * * * * * in this manner peredonov made a single visit every day before dinner--he could not manage more than one because everywhere he had to make circumstantial explanations. in the evening, as was his custom, he went to play billiards. as before, vershina enticed him in by her witching invitations, as before routilov praised his sisters to him. at home varvara used her persuasive powers to make him marry her sooner--but he came to no resolution. he indeed thought sometimes that to marry varvara would be the best thing he could do--but suppose the princess should deceive him? he would become the laughing-stock of the town, and this possibility made him pause. the pursuit of him by would-be brides, the envy of his comrades, more often the product of his imagination than an actual fact, all sorts of suspected snares--all this made his life wearisome and unhappy, like the weather which for several successive days had been bleak, and often resolved itself into slow and scant, but cold and prolonged rains. peredonov felt that life was becoming a detestable thing--but he thought that he would soon become an inspector, and then everything would take a turn for the better. [ ] alexander herzen's periodical, the "kolokol" (the bell), was suppressed in for its sympathy with the poles. chapter x on thursday, peredonov went to see the marshal of the nobility. the marshal's house reminded one of a palatial cottage in pavlovsk or in tsarskoye selo, with full conveniences even for winter residence. though there was no blatant display of luxury, the newness of many articles seemed unnecessarily pretentious. aleksandr mikhailovitch veriga received peredonov in his study. he pretended to hurry forward to greet his guest, and gave the impression that it was only his extreme busyness that kept him from meeting peredonov earlier. veriga held himself extraordinarily erect even for a retired cavalry officer. it was whispered that he wore corsets. his clean-shaven face was a uniform red, as if it were painted. his head was shorn by the closest-cutting clippers--a convenient method of minimising his bald patch. his eyes were grey, affable, but cold. in his manner he was extremely amiable to everyone, but his views were decided and severe. a fine military discipline was apparent in all his movements, and there was a hint in his habits of the future governor. peredonov began to explain his business to him across a carved oak table: "all sorts of rumours are being spread about me and, as a gentleman,[ ] i turn to you. all sorts of nonsense is being said about me, your excellency, none of which is true." "i haven't heard anything," replied veriga, smiling amiably and expectantly, and fixing his attentive grey eyes on peredonov. peredonov looked fixedly in one corner of the room and said: "i never was a socialist. but if it sometimes happened that i said something i oughtn't to say, you must remember that one is apt to be a little careless in one's young days. but i've given up thinking of such things altogether." "so you were quite a liberal?" asked veriga with an amiable smile. "you wanted a constitution, isn't that so? but we all wanted a constitution when we were young. have one of these." veriga pushed a box of cigars towards peredonov who was afraid to take one and refused. veriga lighted his own. "of course, your excellency," admitted peredonov, "in the university i, and only i, wanted a different kind of constitution from the others." "and what sort precisely?" asked veriga with a shade of approaching displeasure in his voice. "what i wanted was a constitution without a parliament," explained peredonov, "because in a parliament they only wrangle." veriga's eyes lit up with quiet amusement. "a constitution without a parliament!" he said reflectively. "do you think it's practical?" "but even that was a long time ago," said peredonov. "now i want nothing of the sort." and he looked hopefully at veriga. veriga blew a thin wisp of smoke from his lips, was silent a moment, and then said slowly: "well, you're a schoolmaster. and my duties in the district have something to do with the schools. now, in your opinion, to what kind of school would you give preference: to the parish church schools or to the so-called secularised district schools?" veriga knocked the ash from his cigar and fixed an amiable but very attentive gaze on peredonov. peredonov frowned, looked into the corners and said: "the district schools ought to be reorganised." "reorganised," repeated veriga in an indefinite tone. "so-o." and he fixed his eyes on the smouldering cigar, as if he were awaiting a long explanation. "the instructors there are nihilists," said peredonov. "the instructresses don't believe in god. they stand in church and blow their noses." veriga glanced quickly at peredonov and said with a smile: "but that's necessary sometimes, you know." "yes, but the one i mean blows her nose like a horn, so that the boys in the choir laugh," growled peredonov. "she does it on purpose. that's the sort skobotchkina is." "yes, that is unpleasant," said veriga, "but in skobotchkina's case it's due to a bad bringing up. she's a girl altogether without manners, but an enthusiastic schoolmistress. in any case it's not nice: she must be told about it." "and she walks about in a red shirt. and sometimes she even walks barefoot in a sarafan. she practises at the high-jumps with the little boys. it's too free in the schools," went on peredonov. "there's no discipline of any kind. they actually don't want to chastise the pupils. the muzhiks' children shouldn't be treated in the same way as the children of gentlemen--they have to be birched." veriga looked calmly at peredonov, then, as if feeling uneasy at peredonov's untactful remarks, he lowered his eyes, and said in a cold, almost gubernatorial tone: "i must say that i have noticed many good qualities in pupils from district schools. undoubtedly, in the great majority of cases, they do their work very conscientiously. of course, as everywhere, the children are sometimes guilty of offences. in consequence of a bad upbringing and of a poor environment, these offences can take a coarse form, all the more since among the russian village population the general feelings of duty, of honour and respect of private ownership are little developed. the school should concern itself with these offences attentively and sternly. when all methods of persuasion are exhausted and if the offence is a severe one, then of course it should follow that in order not to ruin the boy extreme measures must be taken. besides, this should apply to all children, even to those of gentlemen. in general, however, i agree with you that in schools of this kind training is not satisfactorily organised. madame shteven,[ ] in her extremely interesting book--have you read it?" "no, your excellency," said peredonov in confusion, "i never have the time. there's so much work in school. but i will read it." "well, that's not altogether necessary," said veriga with a smile, as if he were forbidding peredonov's reading it. "yes, madame shteven recounts with distress that two of her pupils, young men of seventeen, were sentenced to be birched by the district court. you see, they were proud young fellows--let me add that we all suffered while they suffered the execution of the sentence--this penalty was afterwards abolished. and, let me say that if i were in madame shteven's place i would like to let all russia know that this has happened: because, just imagine, they were sentenced for stealing apples. observe, for stealing! and what's more she writes that they were her very best pupils. yet they stole the apples! fine bringing up! it must frankly be admitted that we don't respect the rights of ownership." veriga rose from his place in agitation, made two steps forward, but controlled himself and immediately sat down again. "now when i am an inspector of national schools i shall do things differently," said peredonov. "have you that position in prospect?" asked veriga. "yes, princess volchanskaya has promised me." veriga assumed an expression of pleasure. "i shall be very glad to congratulate you. i have no doubt that in your hands things will be improved." "but, your excellency, in the town they're spreading all sorts of nonsense about me--you can't tell, someone in the district may inform against me and hinder my appointment, and i haven't done anything." "whom do you suspect in the spreading of these false rumours?" asked veriga. peredonov mumbled in confusion: "who should i suspect? i don't know, but they do gossip about me. and i have come to you because they might injure my position." veriga reflected that he would not know who was spreading the gossip, because he was not yet governor. he again assumed his role of marshal, and made a speech which peredonov listened to with fear and depression: "i appreciate the confidence which you have shown me in calling upon my"--(veriga wanted to say "patronage" but refrained)--"intervention between you and the society in which, according to your information, these detrimental rumours about you are being disseminated. these rumours have not yet reached me, and you may depend upon it that the calumnies, which are being spread in connection with you, dare not venture to rise from the low places of the town public, and, in other words, they will not go beyond the secret darkness in which they are confined. but it is very pleasant to me that you, who hold your official post by appointment, at the same time value so highly the importance of public opinion and the dignity of the position you occupy as a trainer of youth, one of those to whose enlightening solitude we, the parents, entrust our most priceless inheritance, namely, our children, the heirs of our name and of our labours. as an official you have your chief in the person of your honoured head-master, but as a member of society and as a gentleman you have always the privilege of counting on ... the co-operation of the marshal of nobility in questions concerning your honour and your dignity as a man and a gentleman." as he continued to speak, veriga rose and, pressing heavily on the edge of the table with the fingers of his right hand, looked at peredonov with that impersonally affable and attentive expression with which an orator looks at a crowd when pronouncing benevolent official speeches. peredonov rose also, and crossing his hands on his stomach, looked morosely at the rug under the marshals feet. veriga went on: "i am glad that you turned to me, because in our time it is especially useful to members of the official classes always and everywhere to remember above all things that they are gentlemen and to value their membership of this class--not only in the matter of privileges but also in responsibilities and in their dignity as gentlemen. gentlemen, in russia, as you know, are pre-eminently of the civil service. strictly speaking, all governmental positions, except the very lowest, it goes without saying, should be found only in gentlemen's hands. the presence of commoners in the government service constitutes of course one of the causes of undesirable occurrences such as that which has disturbed your tranquillity. intrigue and calumny, these are the weapons of people of lower breed, not brought up in fine gentlemanly traditions. but i hope that public opinion will make itself heard clearly and loudly on your behalf, and in this connection you can fully count on my co-operation." "i thank your excellency most humbly," said peredonov, "and i am glad that i can count on you." veriga smiled amiably and did not sit down, giving peredonov to understand that the interview was closed. as he finished his speech he suddenly realised that what he had said was out of place and that peredonov was nothing but a timorous place-seeker, knocking at doors in his search for patronage. as the footman in the hall helped him on with his coat he heard the sounds of a piano in a distant room. peredonov thought that in this house lived people of great self-esteem whose manner of life was really seigneurial. "he has a governorship in view," thought peredonov with a feeling of respectful and envious astonishment. on the stairs he met two of the marshal's boys returning from a walk with their tutor. peredonov looked at them with morose curiosity. "how clean they are!" he thought. "there's not a speck of dirt even in their ears. how alive they are, and they're trained to hold themselves straight as a taut fiddle-string. and they're never even whipped, if you please," thought peredonov. and he looked angrily after them as they ran up the stairs, chattering gaily. it astonished peredonov that the tutor treated them as equals--he did not frown at them nor did he scold them. * * * * * when peredonov returned home he found varvara in the drawing-room with a book in her hands, which was a rare occurrence. varvara was reading a cookery book, the only one she had, and which she sometimes looked into. the book was old, ragged and had black binding. the binding caught peredonov's eye, and it depressed him. "what are you reading, varvara?" he asked angrily. "what? can't you see? a cookery book," replied varvara. "i haven't time to read nonsense." "why a cookery book?" asked peredonov in fright. "what do you mean, why? i want to find some new dishes for you--you're always grumbling about the food," said varvara with a sort of sarcastic self-satisfaction. "i won't eat from a black book," announced peredonov decisively, and quickly tore the book from varvara's hands and took it into the bedroom. "a black book! the idea of preparing dinners from it!" the thought filled him with fear. it had come to that: he was to be ruined openly with black magic! "i must destroy this awful book," he thought, and paid no attention to varvara's grumbling. * * * * * on friday peredonov went to see the president of the district landlords' board. everything in this house pointed to a love of simplicity and good living, and to the fact that the occupants had public interest at heart. many objects of good furniture, reminding one of village life, were about, among other things a chair with a back made of a harness arch and hand supports resembling axe handles; an inkwell shaped like a horse-shoe; and an ash-pan that resembled a peasant's shoe. several corn measures containing samples of corn were lying about in the parlour--on the window-sills, on the tables, on the floor, while here and there were pieces of "hungry" bread[ ]--dirty lumps that resembled peat. in the drawing-room were designs and models of agricultural machines. several cases of books on rural economy and school matters encumbered the study. the table was covered with papers, printed forms, paste-board boxes containing cards of various sizes. there was much dust, and not a single picture. the master of the house, ivan stepanovitch kirillov, was very anxious, on the one hand, to be amiable--in the european fashion--on the other not to detract from his own dignity as a district landowner. he was a strange contradiction, as if welded from two halves. it was evident from all his surroundings that he did a great deal of work with intelligence. but to look at him you might imagine that his work in the district was only a temporary distraction and that his real cares were somewhere before him. this was evident in his eyes, which now and then stared into the distance--eyes alert yet inanimate in their tinny gleam. it was as if someone had taken out his live soul and put it into a long box, and had replaced it with a skilful, bustling machine. he was of low stature, thin, youngish--so youngish and ruddy that now and then he looked like a boy who had glued on a false beard and had assumed grown-up manners with complete success. his movements were quick but precise; when he greeted anyone he bowed elaborately, and he seemed to glide on the soles of his fancy boots. one's impulse was to call his clothes a "small costume": he wore a grey jacket, a shirt of unstarched batiste with turned-down collar, a blue cord tie, narrow trousers and grey socks. and his always courteous conversation was also ambiguous: he would speak quite gravely and then suddenly an ingenuous smile, like a child's, would appear, and then next moment he would be grave again. his wife, a quiet, sedate woman, who seemed older than her husband, came into the study a number of times while peredonov was there, and each time she asked her husband for some detailed information about the affairs of the district. their household in town was always confused--there were always visitors on business and constant teas. hardly had peredonov seated himself when they brought him a glass of lukewarm tea and some rolls on a plate. before peredonov arrived there was already a visitor there. peredonov knew him--but then who is not known to everyone in our town? everyone knows everyone else, but some have quarrelled and broken off the acquaintance. this was the district physician, georgiy semenovitch trepetov, a little man--even smaller than kirillov--with a pimply, insignificant, sharp-featured face. he wore blue spectacles, and he always looked under or to the side of them, as if it were an effort to look at his companion. he was unusually upright, and never gave a single kopeck for anyone else's benefit. he detested deeply everyone who was a government official: he would go so far as to shake hands at meeting but stubbornly refrained from conversation. for this he was reputed a shining light--like kirillov--although he knew very little and was a poor physician. he was all the time getting ready to lead the simple life, and with this intention he looked on at the muzhiks when they blew their noses and scratched the back of their heads and wiped their mouths with the back of their hands; when he was alone he sometimes imitated them, but he always put off his simplification till next summer. peredonov here also repeated his usual complaints against the town gossip, such as he had made during the last few days, and against the envious people who wanted to hinder his obtaining an inspector's position. at the beginning kirillov felt rather flattered by this attention. he exclaimed: "now you can see what goes on in provincial towns. i always said that the one deliverance for thinking people is to join hands--and i'm glad that you've come to the same conclusion." trepetov snorted angrily, as if affronted. kirillov looked at him timorously. trepetov said with contempt: "thinking people!" and then he snorted again. after a short silence he began again in his thin, indignant voice: "i don't know how thinking people can serve a musty classicism." kirillov said irresolutely: "but, georgiy semenovitch, you never realise that a man does not always choose his own profession." trepetov snorted contemptuously, which finally settled the amiable kirillov, and became immersed in a deep silence. kirillov turned to peredonov when he heard that he was talking of an inspector's position. kirillov looked worried. he imagined that peredonov wanted to be an inspector in our district. in the district council there had matured a project to establish the position of their inspector of schools, who was to be chosen by the council, the appointment to be approved by the educational commission. then, the inspector bogdanov, who had charge of the schools of three districts, would be transferred to one of the neighbouring towns, and the schools of our district would be turned over to the new inspector. for this position the members of the council had in view an instructor in a pedagogical seminary in the neighbouring town, safata. "i have patrons," said peredonov, "but i'm afraid that the head-master here will harm my chances--yes, and other people too. all sorts of nonsense is being spread about me. so that in case of any inquiries concerning me, i want to say now that all this talk is rubbish. don't you believe any of it." kirillov replied alertly: "i have no time, ardalyon borisitch, to give attention to all the town rumours and gossip; i'm up to my neck in work. if my wife didn't help me, i don't know what i should do. but i am fully convinced that all that is being said about you--though i assure you i haven't heard anything--is mere gossip. but the position you have in view doesn't depend on me alone." "they might ask you about it," said peredonov. kirillov looked at him in astonishment, and said: "of course they will. but the real point at issue is that we have in view ..." at this moment kirillov's wife appeared at the door and said: "stepan ivanitch, just a moment." the husband went to her. she whispered to him in a worried way: "i think you'd better not tell this creature that we have krasilnikov in view. i mistrust this creature--he will try to spoil krasilnikov's chances." "you think so?" whispered kirillov. "yes, yes, you may be right. it's an unpleasant business." he clutched his head. his wife looked at him with professional sympathy and said: "it is better to tell him nothing at all about it--as if there were no vacancy." "yes, yes, you're right," whispered kirillov. "but i must run along--it's discourteous." he ran back into his study and began to converse amiably with peredonov. "so you will--if ..." began peredonov. "please rest assured. please rest assured. i'll have it in view," said kirillov quickly. "we haven't yet fully decided this question." peredonov did not understand to what question kirillov referred, and he felt oppressed and apprehensive. kirillov went on: "we are establishing a school-map. we've had experts from peterburg. they've worked at it the whole summer. it cost us nine hundred roubles. we're preparing now for the district meeting. it's a remarkably efficient plan--all distances have been considered and all school points have been mapped out." and kirillov explained the school-map minutely and at length, that is, the apportioning the district into several small divisions, with a school in each, so that every village would have its school close at hand. peredonov understood nothing of this and became entangled with his dull thoughts in the wordy strands of the net which kirillov handled so deftly and quickly. at last he took his leave, hopelessly oppressed. in this house, he thought, they did not want to understand him or even to listen to what he had to say. the host babbled something unintelligible. trepetov snorted angrily for some reason or other. the hostess came in ungraciously and walked out again--strange people lived in this house, thought peredonov. a lost day! [ ] _dvoryanin_ actually means a nobleman, but certain professions--that of a schoolmaster, for instance--entitle a man to the rank of "dvoryanin." we have used the english word "gentleman," to avoid confusing the reader. [ ] madame shteven gave all her energy to the education of peasants, but her efforts were ultimately curtailed by the authorities. [ ] very inferior bread used during the famine. chapter xi on saturday peredonov prepared to visit the commissioner of police. "though he is not so big a bird as the marshal of the nobility," thought peredonov, "he might do me greater harm than anyone else. on the other hand he might help me a great deal with the authorities. the police are, after all, very important." peredonov took from its box his official cap with its badge. he decided that henceforth he would wear no other hat. it was all very well for the head-master to wear any hat he liked--he stood well with the authorities, but peredonov was still seeking his inspector's position; it was not enough for him to depend upon patrons, he must do something himself to show his mettle. already, several days earlier, before he had begun to go about among the authorities, he had thought of this, but somehow his hat only came to his hand. now peredonov arranged things differently: he threw his hat on top of the stove--to make certain that he would not pick it up by accident. varvara was not at home; klavdia was washing the floors. peredonov went into the kitchen to wash his hands. he saw on the table there a roll of blue paper from which a few raisins had fallen. this was a pound of raisins bought for the tea-cake to be baked at home. peredonov began to eat the raisins as they were, unwashed and unstoned. he quickly and avidly ate the whole pound as he stood at the table, keeping one eye on the door so that klavdia should not surprise him. then he carefully folded up the thick, blue paper and carried it into the front room under his coat and there put it in the pocket of his overcoat so that he could throw it away in the street and thus get rid of all traces of it. he walked out. soon klavdia went to get the raisins, and then began to hunt for them unsuccessfully in a frightened way. varvara returned and discovered the loss of the raisins and began to abuse klavdia: she was certain that klavdia had eaten them. * * * * * it was quiet in the streets with a slight breeze. there was only an occasional cloud. the pools were drying up. there was a pale glow in the sky. but peredonov's soul was heavily oppressed. on the way he went into the tailor's in order to hurry along the new uniform he had ordered three days ago. as he walked past the church he took his hat off and crossed himself three times elaborately and sweepingly, so that everyone should see how the future inspector walked past the church. he was not accustomed to do it before, but now he had to be on the look-out. it was possible that some spy was walking stealthily behind or was hiding around a corner or behind a tree and was watching him. the commissioner of police lived in a remote street of the town. in the gates, which were flung wide open, peredonov met a police constable--a meeting which now always made peredonov feel dejected. there were several muzhiks visible in the courtyard, but not the kind one meets everywhere--these were an unusually orderly and quiet sort. the courtyard was dirty. carts stood about covered with matting. in the dark corridor peredonov met another police constable, a small, meagre man of capable yet depressed appearance. he stood motionless and held under his arm a book in black leather binding. a ragged, barefoot girl ran out from a side door and helped peredonov off with his coat; as she led him into the drawing-room, she said: "please come in, semyon grigoryevitch will be here soon." the drawing-room ceiling was low and this oppressed peredonov. the furniture was huddled against the wall. rope-mats lay on the floor. to the right and to the left noises and whisperings could be heard behind the walls. pale women and scrofulous boys looked out from the doors, all with avid glistening eyes. among the whisperings certain questions and answers spoken in a louder tone could be heard: "i brought ..." "where shall i take this?" "where do you want this put?" "i've brought it from ermoshkin, sidor petrovitch." the commissioner soon appeared. he was buttoning up his uniform and smiling amiably. "pardon me for keeping you waiting," he said, as he pressed peredonov's hand in both his huge grasping hands. "i've had many business callers. our work is such that it won't bear delay." semyon grigoryevitch minchukov a tall, robust, black-haired man, with a thinness of hair on the top of his scalp, stooped slightly. his hands hung down and his fingers were like rakes. he often smiled in such a way as to suggest that he had just eaten something that was forbidden but very pleasant and was now licking his lips. his lips were bright red, thick; his nose fleshy; his face was eager, zealous but stupid. peredonov was perturbed by everything he saw and heard in this place. he mumbled incoherent words and as he sat on his chair he tried to hold his cap in such a way that the commissioner should see the badge. minchukov sat opposite him on the other side of the table, very erect, and kept his amiable smile, while his rake-like fingers quietly moved on his knees, opening and shutting. "they're saying i don't know what about me," said peredonov. "things that never happened. i can do some informing myself, but i don't want to. i'm nothing of what they say, but i know what _they_ are. behind your back they spread all sorts of scandal and then laugh in your face. you must admit that, in my position, this is very annoying. i have patronage, but these people go about throwing mud at me. all their following me about is useless. they only waste time and annoy me. wherever you go, the whole town knows about it. so i hope that if anything happens you'll support me." "of course, of course! with the greatest pleasure! but how?" asked minchukov, gesticulating with his large hands. "still the police ought to know whether you suspect anyone." "of course, it's really nothing to me," said peredonov angrily. "let them chatter if they like. but they might injure my position. they're cunning. you don't notice that they all chatter, like routilov, for instance. how do you know that he's not plotting to blow up the treasury? it's one way of shifting the blame." minchukov at first thought that peredonov was drunk and talking nonsense. then as he listened further he imagined that peredonov was complaining of someone who was spreading calumnies about him and that he had come to ask minchukov to take certain measures. "they're young people," continued peredonov, thinking of volodin, "and have a very good opinion of themselves. they're plotting against other people and are dishonest themselves. young people, as everyone knows, are liable to temptation. some of them are even in the police service, and they too are busybodies." for a long time he talked about young people but for some reason or other did not want to name volodin. at any rate, he wanted minchukov to understand that certain young police officials were not free from his suspicions. minchukov concluded that peredonov was hinting at two young officials in the police bureau--two very young men who were rather frivolous and were always running after girls. peredonov's confusion and manifest nervousness infected minchukov. "i'll look into the matter," he said with some anxiety. for a moment he was lost in thought and then again began to smile. "i have two quite young officials--their mothers' milk isn't dry on their lips. believe me, one of them is still put in the corner by his mother, honest to god!" peredonov broke into a cackling laugh. * * * * * in the meantime varvara had gone to grushina's house where she learned an astonishing piece of news. "varvara dmitrievna darling," said grushina rapidly, before varvara had time to cross the threshold, "i have a piece of news for you that will make you stare." "what is it?" asked varvara. "just think what low people there are in this world! what tricks they'll play to reach their purpose!" "what is the matter?" "just wait and i'll tell you." but first of all the cunning grushina gave varvara coffee; then chased her children out into the street, which made the elder of her girls unwilling to go. "ah, you little brat!" grushina shouted at her. "you're a brat yourself!" answered the little girl and stamped her foot at her mother. grushina caught the child by the hair, pushed her out the door and slammed it.... "the little beast!" she complained to varvara. "these children are a great worry. i'm alone with them and i never get any peace. if only they had their father!" "why don't you marry again, then they'd have a father," said varvara. "you never can tell how a man'll turn out, varvara dmitrievna darling. he might treat them badly." in the meantime the little girl ran back from the street and threw into the window a handful of sand which fell on to her mother's head and dress. grushina put her head out of the window and shouted: "wait till i catch you, you little devil, and see what you'll get!" "you're a devil yourself, you silly fool!" shouted the little girl from the street, jumping on one foot and clenching her dirty little fist at her mother. "you just wait!" shouted grushina. and she shut the window. then she sat down calmly as if nothing had happened and began to talk: "i have a piece of news for you, but i don't know if i ought to tell you. but don't worry, varvara dmitrievna darling, they won't succeed." "well, what is it?" asked varvara in affright, and the saucer of coffee trembled in her hand. "you know that a young student by the name of pilnikov has just entered the school and been put straight into the fifth form as if he'd come from rouban, for his aunt has bought an estate in our district." "yes, i know," said varvara, "i saw him when he came with his aunt. such a pretty boy, almost like a girl, and always blushing." "but, dearest, why shouldn't he look like a girl? he is a girl dressed up!" "what do you mean!" exclaimed varvara. "they've thought of it on purpose to catch ardalyon borisitch," said grushina quickly with many gesticulations, very happy that she had such important news to tell. "you see this girl has a first cousin, a boy, an orphan, who went to school at rouban. and this girl's mother took him away from rouban and used his papers to send the girl here. and you will notice that they have put him in a house where there are no other boys. he's there alone, so that the whole matter, they thought, would be kept secret." "and how did you find out?" asked varvara incredulously. "varvara darling, news gets about quickly. it was suspicious at once: all the other boys are like boys, but this one is so quiet and walks about as if he had just been dipped in the water. to look at he's a fine-looking fellow, red-cheeked and chesty, but his companions notice that he's very modest--they tell him a word and he blushes at once. they tease him for being a girl. they do it for a lark and don't realise that it's the truth. and just think how shrewd they've been--why, even the landlady doesn't know anything." "how did you find out?" repeated varvara. "but, varvara darling, what is there that i don't know! i know everyone in the district. why everyone knows that they have a boy at home the same age as this one. why didn't they send them to school together? they say that he was ill last summer and that he was to spend a year recuperating and then go back to school. but that's all nonsense. the real schoolboy is at home. and then everyone knows that they had a girl and they say that she was married and went off to the caucasus. but that's another lie--she didn't go away. she's living here disguised as a boy." "but what's the object of it?" asked varvara. "what do you mean, 'what's the object?'" said grushina animatedly. "to get hold of one of the instructors--there are plenty of them bachelors. or perhaps someone else. disguised as a boy, she could go to men's apartments, and there isn't much she couldn't do." "you say she's a pretty girl?" said varvara in apprehensive tones. "rather! she's a fabulous beauty!" said grushina. "she may be a little constrained now, but just wait, she'll get used to things and show her true colours. she'll turn plenty of heads in the town. and just think how shrewd they've been: as soon as i found out about this i tried to meet his landlady, or perhaps i should say her landlady." "it's a topsy-turvy affair. pah! god help us!" said varvara. "i went to vespers at the parish church on st. pantelemon's day. she's very pious. 'olga vassilyevna,' i say to her, 'why do you keep only one student in your house now?' 'it seems to me,' i say to her, 'that one is not enough for you.' and she says, 'why should i have any more? they're a great trouble.' and so i say, 'why, in past years you used to have two or three.' and then she says--just imagine, varvara darling--'they stipulated that sashenka alone should live in my house. they are well-to-do people,' she says to me, 'and they pay me a little more, as if they were afraid that the other boys would do him harm.' now what do you think of that?" "aren't they sly blighters," said varvara indignantly. "well, did you tell her that he was a wench?" "i said to her: 'olga vassilyevna, are you sure they haven't foisted a girl upon you instead of a boy?'" "well, and what did she say?" "she thought at first that i was joking, and she laughs. then i say to her more seriously, 'my dear olga vassilyevna,' i say, 'd'you know they say that this is a girl?' but she wouldn't believe me. 'nonsense,' she says, 'who put that into your head? i'm not blind.'" this tale left varvara dumbfounded. she believed the whole story just as she heard it, and she believed that an assault from yet another side was being prepared for her intended husband. she must somehow have the mask torn off this disguised girl as quickly as possible. for a long time they deliberated as to how this was to be done, but so far they could not think of any way. when varvara got home her annoyance was further increased by the disappearance of the raisins. when peredonov returned varvara quickly and agitatedly told him that klavdia had hidden away somewhere the pound of raisins and would not admit it. "and what is more," said varvara, "she suggests that they've been eaten by the master. she says that you were in the kitchen for some reason or other when she was washing the floors and that you stopped there for a long time." "i didn't stop there at all long," said peredonov glumly, "i only washed my hands there and i didn't see any raisins." "klavdiushka! klavdiushka!" shouted varvara, "master says he didn't even see the raisins--that means you must have hidden them somewhere." klavdia showed her reddened, tear-stained face from the kitchen. "i didn't take your raisins!" she shouted in a tear-choked voice. "i'll pay for them, but i didn't take them." "you'll pay for them all right," shouted varvara angrily. "i'm not obliged to feed you on raisins." peredonov burst out laughing and shouted: "diushka's got away with a whole pound of raisins!" "heartless wretches!" shouted klavdia, and slammed the door. after dinner varvara could not help telling peredonov what she had heard about pilnikov. she did not stop to reflect whether this would help her or do her harm, or how peredonov would act--she spoke simply from malice. peredonov tried to recall pilnikov to his mind, but somehow he could not clearly visualise him. until now, he had given little attention to this new pupil, and detested him for his prettiness and cleanness, and because he conducted himself so quietly, worked well, and was the youngest of the students in the fifth form. but now varvara's story aroused in him a mischievous curiosity. immodest thoughts slowly stirred in his obscure mind. "i must go to vespers," he thought, "and take a look at this disguised girl." suddenly klavdia came in rejoicing and threw on the table a piece of crumpled blue paper and exclaimed: "there! you blamed me for taking the raisins, but what's this? as if i needed your raisins." peredonov guessed what was the matter; he had forgotten to throw the paper bag away in the street and now klavdia had found it in his overcoat pocket. "oh! the devil!" he exclaimed. "what is it? where did you get it?" cried varvara. "i found it in ardalyon borisitch's pocket," said klavdia triumphantly. "he ate them himself and i'm blamed for it. everyone knows that ardalyon borisitch likes sweet things. but why should it be put on others when ..." "don't go so fast," said peredonov, "you're telling lies. you put it there yourself. i didn't touch them." "why should i do that, god forgive you!" said klavdia, nonplussed. "how did you dare to touch other people's pockets!" shouted varvara. "are you looking for money?" "i don't touch other people's pockets," answered klavdia angrily, "i took the coat down to brush it. it was covered with mud." "but why did you put your hand in the pocket?" "it fell out of the pocket by itself," said klavdia, defending herself. "you're lying, diushka," said peredonov. "i'm not a 'diushka'--what sneerers you are!" shouted klavdia. "the devil take you. i'll pay for those raisins and you can choke on them--you've gorged on them yourself and now i must pay for them. yes, i'll pay for them--you've no conscience, you've no shame, and yet you call yourself gentry!" klavdia went into the kitchen crying and abusing them. peredonov suddenly began to laugh and said: "she's very touchy, isn't she?" "yes, let her pay for them," said varvara. "if you let them, they'll eat anything, these ravenous devils." and for a long time afterwards they tormented klavdia with having eaten a pound of raisins. they deducted the price of the raisins from her wages and told the story to everyone who came to the house. the cat, as if attracted by this uproar, had left the kitchen, sidling along the walls, sat down near peredonov and looked at him with its avid, evil eyes. peredonov bent down to catch the animal, which snarled savagely, scratched peredonov's hand and ran and hid behind the sideboard. it peeped out from there and its narrow green eyes gleamed. "it might be a were-wolf!" thought peredonov in fear. in the meantime varvara, still thinking about pilnikov, said: "why do you spend all your evenings playing billiards? you might occasionally drop in at the students' lodgings. they know that the instructors rarely come to see them and that the inspector only comes once a year, so that all sorts of indecencies, card-playing and drunkenness go on. you might, for instance, call on this disguised girl. you'd better go late, about bed-time--that would be a good time to find her out and embarrass her." peredonov reflected a while and then burst out laughing. "varvara's certainly a sly rogue!" he thought, "she can teach me a thing or two." chapter xii peredonov went to vespers in the school chapel. there he placed himself behind the students and looked attentively to see how they behaved. it seemed to him that some of them were mischievous, talked, whispered and laughed. he noticed who they were and tried to memorise their names. there were a number of them and he reproached himself for not having brought a piece of paper and a pencil with him to write their names down. he felt depressed because the students behaved so badly and no one paid any attention to it, although the head-master and the inspector with their wives and children were present. as a matter of fact, the students were orderly and quiet--some of them crossed themselves absently, with their thoughts far away from the church, others prayed diligently. only very rarely did one of them whisper to his neighbour--two or three words perhaps, without turning their heads, and the other always replied as briefly and quietly, sometimes with no more than a quick movement, a look, a shrug or a smile. but these insignificant movements, unnoticed by the form master, aroused an illusion of great disorder in peredonov's dull, perturbed mind. even in his tranquil moments peredonov, like all coarse people, could not appraise small incidents: either he did not notice them at all or he exaggerated their importance. now that he was agitated by expectations, his perceptions served him even worse, and little by little the whole reality became obscured before him by a thin smoke of detestable and evil illusions. and after all, what were the students to peredonov even earlier? were they not merely an apparatus for the spreading of ink and paper by means of the pen, and for the retelling in ready-made language what had been said before in live human speech! in his whole educational career peredonov never for a moment reflected that the students were the same human beings as grown-ups. only bearded students with awakened inclinations towards women suddenly became in his eyes equal to himself. after he had stood behind the boys for some time and gathered enough of depressing reflections, peredonov moved forward toward the middle rows. there, on the very edge, to the right, stood sasha pilnikov; he was praying earnestly and often went down on his knees. peredonov watched him, and it gave him pleasure to see sasha on his knees like one chastised, and looking before him at the resplendent altar with a concerned and appealing expression on his face; with entreaty and sadness in his black eyes shaded by long intensely black eyelashes. smooth-faced and graceful, his chest standing out broad and high as he rested there, calm and erect on his knees, as if under some sternly observing eye, he appeared at that moment to peredonov altogether like a girl. peredonov now decided to go directly after vespers to pilnikov's rooms. they began to leave the church. it was noticed that peredonov no longer wore a hat but a cap with a badge. routilov asked laughingly: "ardalyon borisitch, how is that you're strolling about with your badge nowadays? that comes of having an inspectorship in view." "will the soldiers have to salute you now?" asked valeria with pretended ingenuousness. "what nonsense!" said peredonov angrily. "you don't understand, valerotchka," said darya. "why do you say soldiers! but ardalyon borisitch will get a great deal more respect from his pupils now than before." liudmilla laughed. peredonov made haste to take leave of them in order to get away from their sarcasms. it was too early to go to pilnikov and he had no desire to go home. peredonov walked about the dark streets wondering how he could waste an hour. there were many houses, and lights shone from many windows, sometimes voices could be heard from the open windows. the church-goers walked in the streets, and gates and doors could be heard opening and shutting. all around lived people, strange and hostile to peredonov, and it was possible that at this very moment some of them were devising evil against him. perhaps someone was wondering why he walked alone at this late hour and where he was going. it seemed to peredonov that someone was following him stealthily. he began to feel depressed. he walked on hurriedly and aimlessly. he thought that every house here had its dead. and that all who lived in the old houses fifty years ago were now dead. some of the dead he still remembered. when a man dies his house should be burnt afterwards, thought peredonov dejectedly, because it makes one feel horribly. * * * * * olga vassilyevna kokovkina, with whom sasha pilnikov lived, was a paymaster's widow. her husband had left her a pension and a small house, which was sufficiently large to accommodate two or three lodgers, but she gave preference to students. it so happened that the quietest boys were always placed at her house, those who studied diligently and completed their courses. at other students' lodgings there were a considerable number of boys who went from one school to another and always left their studies unfinished. olga vassilyevna, a lean, tall and erect old woman with a good-natured face, to which, however, she tried to give a stern expression; and sasha pilnikov, a well-fed youngster, carefully trained by his aunt, sat at the supper table. that evening it was sasha's turn to supply the jam, which he had bought in the village, and therefore he felt as if he were the host and ceremoniously attended to olga vassilyevna, and his black eyes shone brightly. a ring at the door was heard--and a moment afterwards peredonov appeared in the dining-room. kokovkina was astonished at such a late visit. "i've come to take a look at our pupil," he said, "and to see how he lives." kokovkina asked peredonov to take some refreshment, but he refused. he wanted them to finish their supper, so that he could be alone with his pupil. they finished their supper and went into sasha's room, but kokovkina did not leave them and talked incessantly. peredonov looked morosely at sasha, who was timidly silent. "nothing will come of this visit," thought peredonov with annoyance. the maid-servant for some reason or other called out for kokovkina. sasha looked dejectedly after her. his eyes grew dull, they were covered by his eyelashes--and it seemed that these eyelashes, which were very long, threw a shadow on his smooth and suddenly pallid face. he felt uneasy in the presence of this morose man. peredonov sat down beside him, put his arm awkwardly around him and without altering the immobile expression on his face asked: "well, sashenka, has the little girl said her prayers yet?" sasha, shamefaced and frightened, looked at peredonov and was silent. "well? eh?" asked peredonov. "yes," said sasha at last. "what red cheeks you've got," said peredonov. "well--a--you are a little girl? yes? a girl, you rogue!" "no, i'm not a girl," said sasha, and suddenly angry at his own timidity, he asked in a shrill voice, "how am i like a girl? that's the fault of your students who try to tease me, because i don't say nasty words; i'm not used to saying them. why should i say them?" "will mamma punish you?" asked peredonov. "i have no mother," said sasha. "my mother died long ago. i have only an aunt." "well then, will aunt punish you?" "of course she'll punish me if i use nasty words. it isn't nice, is it?" "and how will your aunt know?" "i don't like it myself," said sasha quietly. "and there are several ways aunt may find out. i might give myself away." "and which of your companions say nasty words?" asked peredonov. sasha again blushed and was silent. "well, go on," insisted peredonov. "you've got to tell me. you mustn't conceal things." "no one says them," said sasha in confusion. "but you yourself just complained." "i did not complain." "why do you deny it?" said peredonov angrily. sasha felt himself caught in a detestable trap. he said: "i only explained to you why some of my companions tease me with being a girl. but i didn't want to tell tales about them." "so that's it. and why so?" asked peredonov indignantly. "it isn't nice," said sasha with an annoyed smile. "well, i shall speak to the head-master and he'll make you tell," said peredonov spitefully. sasha looked at peredonov with anger in his eyes. "no, please don't tell him, ardalyon borisitch," he entreated. and from the agitated tones of his voice it could be perceived that he tried to entreat but that he wanted to shout fierce, insulting words. "no, i'll tell. then you'll see whether you can hide nasty things. you should have complained of them at once. but just wait, you'll get it." sasha rose and in confusion he shifted his belt. kokovkina entered. "your quiet one is a good boy, i must say," said peredonov malignantly. kokovkina was frightened. she quickly walked up to sasha and sat down at his side--in her agitation she always stumbled--and asked timorously: "what's the matter, ardalyon borisitch? what has he done?" "you'd better ask him," replied peredonov with morose spite. "what is it, sashenka? what have you done?" asked kokovkina, touching sasha's elbow. "i don't know," said sasha and began to cry. "well, what's the matter? what is it? why are you crying?" asked kokovkina. she laid her hands on the boy's shoulders and pulled him towards her; she did not notice that this disturbed him further. he stood there, stooping, and kept his handkerchief to his eyes. peredonov explained: "he's being taught nasty words in the _gymnasia_ and he won't say who it is. he oughtn't to conceal things. he not only learns nasty words himself but he shields the other boys." "oh, sashenka, sashenka. how could you do it? aren't you ashamed?" said kokovkina in a flustered way, as she released sasha. "i did nothing," replied sasha, crying. "i did nothing that was wrong. indeed, they tease me because i don't use bad words." "who says bad words?" asked peredonov again. "no one says them," exclaimed sasha in despair. "there, you see how he lies?" said peredonov. "he ought to be well punished. he must tell the truth as to who says these nasty words, because our _gymnasia_ might get a bad name and we could do nothing against it." "you had better let him go, ardalyon borisitch," said kokovkina. "how can he inform against his companions? they'd make his life unbearable if he did." "he's obliged to tell," said peredonov angrily. "because it would be very useful. we will take measures to stop it." "but they'll beat him," said kokovkina irresolutely. "they won't dare. if he's afraid, then let him tell in secret." "well, sashenka, tell in secret. no one will know that it's you." sasha cried silently. kokovkina drew him to her, embraced him, and for a long time whispered in his ear, but he shook his head negatively. "he doesn't want to," said kokovkina. "try a birch on him, then he'll talk," said peredonov savagely. "bring me a birch, i'll make him talk." "olga vassilyevna! but why?" exclaimed sasha. kokovkina rose and embraced him. "that's enough crying," she said gently but sternly, "no one shall touch you." "as you like," said peredonov. "but i must tell the head-master. i thought it might have been better to keep at home. perhaps your sashenka really knows more than he'll tell. we don't know yet why he's teased with being a girl--perhaps it's for something else entirely. perhaps it's not he who's being taught, but he who's corrupting others." peredonov left the room angrily. kokovkina followed him. she said reproachfully: "ardalyon borisitch, how can you worry a boy for i don't know what? it's as well that he doesn't understand what you say." "well, good-bye," said peredonov angrily. "but i shall tell the head-master. this must be investigated." he left. kokovkina went to console sasha. sasha sat gloomily at his window and looked at the starry sky. his black eyes were now tranquil and strangely sad. kokovkina silently stroked his head. "it's my fault," he said. "i told him why they were teasing me and he wouldn't let it drop. he's a very coarse man. not one of the students likes him." * * * * * the next day peredonov and varvara moved into their new house. ershova stood at the gate and exchanged violently abusive words with varvara. peredonov hid himself behind the furniture vans. as soon as they got in they had their new house blessed. it was necessary, according to peredonov's calculations, to show that he was one of the faithful. during this ceremony the fumes of incense made his head dizzy and induced in him a religious mood. one strange circumstance puzzled him. there came running from somewhere a strange indescribable creature--a small, grey and nimble _nedotikomka._[ ] it nodded, and it trembled, and circled round peredonov. when he stretched out his hand to catch it, it glided swiftly out of sight, hid itself behind the door or the sideboard, but reappeared a moment later, and trembled and mocked again--the grey, featureless, nimble creature. at last when the blessing was over peredonov, suspecting something, repeated a charm in a whisper. the nedotikomka hissed very, very quietly, shrivelled into a little ball and rolled away behind the door. peredonov gave a sigh of relief. "yes, it's good that it has rolled away altogether, but it's possible that it lives in this house somewhere under the floor and will come out again to mock at me." peredonov felt cold and depressed. "what's the use of all these unclean demons in the world?" he thought. when the ceremony was over and the visitors gone peredonov thought a longtime as to where the nedotikomka could have hidden itself. varvara left with grushina, and peredonov began to search and rummage among her things. "i wonder if varvara carried it away in her pocket," thought peredonov. "it doesn't need much room. it could hide in a pocket and stay there until its time comes to show itself." one of varvara's dresses attracted peredonov's attention. it was made up of flounces, bows and ribbons, as if made purposely to hide something. peredonov examined it for a long time, then by force and with the help of a knife he partly tore, partly cut away, the pocket and threw it on the stove, and then began to tear and cut the whole dress into small pieces. strange, confused thoughts wandered through his brain and his soul felt hopelessly gloomy. soon varvara returned--peredonov was still cutting the remains of the dress into shreds. she thought he was drunk and began to abuse him. peredonov listened for a long time and said at last: "what are you barking at, fool! perhaps you're carrying a devil in your pocket. i must think about it and see what's going on here." varvara was taken aback. gratified by the impression he had produced, he made haste to find his cap and went out to play billiards. varvara ran out into the passage and while peredonov was putting on his overcoat she shouted: "it's you, perhaps, who're carrying the devil in your pocket, but i haven't got any kind of devil. where should i get your devil? shall i order one for you from holland?" * * * * * the young official, cherepnin, the man about whom vershina had told the story of his looking into the window, had paid attentions to her when she first became a widow. vershina did not object to marrying a second time but cherepnin seemed to her utterly worthless. therefore he felt maliciously towards her. with great delight he fell in with volodin's suggestion of smearing vershina's gate with tar. he agreed, but later he felt some qualms. suppose they should catch him? it would be awkward; after all he was an official. he decided to shift the matter on to other shoulders. he bribed two young scapegraces with a quarter of a rouble and promised them another fifteen kopecks each if they would get it done--if they would do it one dark night. if anyone in vershina's house had opened the window after midnight he might have heard the rustle of light feet on the wood pavement, a quiet whispering and certain soft sounds giving the impression that the fence was being swept; then a slight clinking, a fast pattering of feet, going faster and faster, distant laughing and the angry barking of dogs. but no one opened the window. and in the morning ... the gate and the fence between the garden and the yard were covered with yellow-cinnamon coloured tar. indecent words were written in tar on the gates. passers-by stopped and laughed. the word soon went round and many inquisitive people came. vershina walked about quickly in the garden and smoked; her smile was even more wry than usual and she mumbled angrily. marta did not leave her room and wept bitterly. the maid-servant marya tried to wash off the tar and some words of abuse passed between her and the onlookers, who were laughing uproariously. that same day cherepnin told volodin what he had done. volodin wasted no time in telling peredonov. both of them knew the boys, who were well-known for their daring pranks. peredonov on his way to billiards stopped at vershina's. the weather was gloomy, so vershina and marta sat in the drawing-room. "your gates have been smeared with tar," said peredonov. marta blushed. vershina quickly related how they had got up in the morning and saw people laughing at the gate and how marya had washed the fence. "i know who did it," said peredonov. vershina looked questioningly at peredonov. "how did you find out?" she asked. "i found out all right." "tell us then who did it," said marta crossly. she had become altogether unattractive because she now had tear-stained eyes with red swollen eyelids. peredonov replied: "of course i'll tell you--i've come for that reason. such impertinent fellows ought to be punished. but you must promise not to say who told you." "but why, ardalyon borisitch?" asked vershina in astonishment. peredonov kept significantly silent. then he said in explanation: "they're such dare-devils that they might break my head if they found i'd given them away." vershina promised. "and don't you tell either," said peredonov to marta. "very well, i won't tell," marta agreed quickly because she wanted to know as quickly as possible who had done it. she thought they ought to be made to suffer a cruel and ignominious punishment. "no, you'd better swear," said peredonov cautiously. "well, honest to god, i won't tell anyone," said marta, trying to convince him. "but tell us quickly." vladya was listening behind the door. he was glad that he had not thought of going into the drawing-room: he would not be compelled to promise and he could tell it to anyone he liked. and he smiled with delight to think that he would be avenged on peredonov. "last night, about one o'clock, i was going home along your street," began peredonov, "and i heard someone moving by your gate. i thought at first it was thieves. 'what shall i do?' i thought, when suddenly i heard them running straight towards me. i pressed close against the wall and they didn't see me, but i recognised them. one had a brush and the other had a pail. they're well-known rascals, the sons of avdeyev, the blacksmith. they ran, and i heard one say to the other: 'we haven't wasted the night,' he said, 'we've earned fifty-five kopecks.' i wanted to catch one of them but i was afraid they would smear my face, and besides i had a new overcoat on." * * * * * no sooner had peredonov gone than vershina went to the commissioner of police with a complaint. the commissioner, minchukov, sent a constable for avdeyev and his sons. the boys came boldly, thinking they were suspected on account of previous pranks. avdeyev, a tall dejected old man, was, on the other hand, fully convinced that his sons were guilty of some fresh mischief. the commissioner told avdeyev of what his sons were accused, and avdeyev replied: "i can't control them. do what you like with them. i've already hurt my hands beating them." "it's not our doing," announced the elder boy nil, who had curly red hair. "no matter who does a thing we're blamed for it," said ilya the younger, whose hair was also curly but white. "we've once done something and now we have to answer for everything." minchukov smiled amiably, shook his head and said: "you'd better make a clean breast of it." "there's nothing to confess," said nil. "nothing? who gave you fifty-five kopecks for your work, eh?" and seeing from the boys' momentary confusion that they were guilty, minchukov said to vershina: "it's obvious that they did it." the boys renewed their denials. they were taken into a small room and whipped. not being able to endure the pain, they confessed. but even then they were unwilling to say who had given them the money. "we did it on our own," they said. they were whipped again until they confessed that cherepnin had given them the money. the boys were then turned over to their father. "well, we've punished them--that is their father punished them," said the commissioner to vershina, "and now you know who's responsible." "i won't let that cherepnin off easily," said vershina. "i'll prosecute him." "i shouldn't advise you to, natalya afanasyevna," said minchukov abruptly. "you'd better let the thing drop." "what! let such wretches go! no, never!" exclaimed vershina. "after all, you have had no real proof," said the commissioner quietly. "what do you mean by no proof, when the boys themselves have confessed it?" "that doesn't count, they might deny it before the judge and there'd be no one to flog them there." "how can they deny it? there are the constables who were witnesses," said vershina confidently. "where are your witnesses? when you beat a man he'll confess anything, even something that never happened. they're rascals, of course, and they got what they deserved. but you'll get nothing out of them in court." minchukov smiled and looked calmly at vershina. vershina left the commissioner very dissatisfied, but after reflection admitted to herself that it was difficult to accuse cherepnin, and that only publicity and scandal would come of it. [ ] _nedotikomka_, an invention of the author. the word means "the touch-me-not-creature." it is presumably an elemental, a symbol of the evil of the world. sologub begins one of his poems-- "the grey nedotikomka wriggles and turns, round and round me...." chapter xiii towards evening peredonov appeared before the head-master--to talk on business. the head-master, nikolai vlasyevitch khripatch had a certain number of rules which were sufficiently practical and not difficult to keep. he calmly fulfilled all the school laws and regulations and also kept to the rules of a generally-accepted mild liberalism. this was why the school authorities, the parents and the students were equally satisfied with the head-master. he had no moments of doubt, no indecisions and no hesitations--what was the use of them?--one could always rely on the decisions of the pedagogical council or on the instructions of the educational authorities. he was no less calm and correct in his personal relations. his very appearance gave the impression of good-nature and steadiness. he was short, robust, active, with keen eyes, and with a confident voice. he seemed a man who ordered his life well and who was always ready to improve. there were many books on the shelves in his study. he made notes from them. when he had accumulated a sufficient number of notes, he would put them in order and paraphrase them--that was how a text-book was compiled, published and circulated, of course not so successfully as the text-books of ushinsky and evtoushevsky but still they were not a failure. sometimes he put together, chiefly from foreign books, a compilation which was very respectable and quite unnecessary to anyone and published it in a periodical equally respectable and equally unnecessary. he had a number of children and all of them, boys and girls, already gave indication of various talents: some wrote verses, some drew, some made rapid progress in music. peredonov said morosely: "you're always down on me, nikolai vlasyevitch. perhaps someone has been slandering me to you, but i've done nothing of the kind." "i beg your pardon," the head-master interrupted him, "i don't understand what slanders you have in mind. in the management of the _gymnasia_ entrusted to me, i make use of my own observations, and i dare hope that my educational experience is sufficient to estimate with proper correctness what i see and what i hear, all the more in view of my close attention to my duties which i have made an unbreakable rule." khripatch said this quickly and decisively, and his voice sounded dry and clear, like the sharp noise given out by a zinc bar when bent. he went on: "as far as it concerns my personal opinion of you, i still continue to think that there are sad lapses in your professional activity." "yes," said peredonov morosely. "you've taken it into your head that i'm good for nothing. yet i'm always preoccupied with the _gymnasia."_ khripatch lifted his eyebrows in astonishment and glanced questioningly at peredonov. "you haven't noticed," continued peredonov, "that there's a possibility of a scandal in our _gymnasia._ no one has noticed it--i alone have detected it." "what scandal?" asked khripatch with a dry smile, pacing up and down his study. "you arouse my curiosity, though, to speak candidly, i hardly believe in the possibility of a scandal in our school." "yes, but you don't know who you have recently admitted to the school," said peredonov with such malevolence that khripatch paused and looked attentively at him. "i know all the new students perfectly well," he said dryly. "besides, it goes without saying that the new boys in the first form have never been excluded from another school, and the only one who has just entered the fifth form came to us with such recommendations that preclude all possibility of suspicion." "yes, but he shouldn't have come to us but to some other kind of institution," said peredonov morosely and as if reluctantly. "please explain, ardalyon borisitch," said khripatch. "i hope you don't mean to say that pilnikov ought to have been sent to a reformatory." "no, that creature should be sent to a pension where they don't learn ancient languages,"[ ] said peredonov maliciously, and his eyes gleamed with spite. khripatch put his hands into the pockets of his short jacket and looked at peredonov with unusual astonishment. "what pension?" he asked. "do you know what institutions are designated in that way? and if you do know, how could you venture to make such an unseemly suggestion?" khripatch flushed violently and his voice sounded drier and even more decisive. at another time these symptoms of the head-master's anger would have flustered peredonov. but this time he was not flustered. "of course, you think pilnikov's a boy," he said screwing up his eyes in derision, "but he's not a boy at all, but a girl, and what sort of a girl!" khripatch uttered a dry, abrupt laugh, but his laughter sounded affected, it was so loud and mechanical--he always laughed like that. "ha! ha! ha!" he laughed mechanically, and when he had finished laughing he sat down in the chair and threw his head back as if he had dropped exhausted from laughing. "you astonish me, my good ardalyon borisitch! ha! ha! ha! be so kind as to tell me upon what you base your supposition, if the premises which have led you to this conclusion are not secret! ha! ha! ha!" peredonov recounted everything that he had heard from varvara, and incidentally he dilated on the poor qualities of kokovkina. khripatch listened and now and then gave vent to his dry, mechanical laughter. "i'm afraid, my dear ardalyon borisitch, that your imagination has played pranks with you," he said, as he rose and caught peredonov by the sleeve. "i, as well as many of my esteemed friends, have children, we're not in our swaddling clothes. surely you don't think that we would have admitted a disguised girl as a boy?" "that's your opinion," said peredonov. "but if anything should happen who's going to be responsible?" "ha! ha! ha!" laughed khripatch. "what consequences are you afraid of?" "it'll demoralise the school," said peredonov. khripatch frowned and said: "you're presuming too far. all that you have told me so far doesn't give me the slightest cause for sharing in your suspicion." * * * * * that same evening peredonov rapidly went round to all his colleagues, from the inspector down to the form-masters, and told everyone that pilnikov was a girl in disguise. they all laughed and refused to believe him, but when he left several of them began to wonder if it were not true. the masters' wives believed it immediately. next morning many came to their classes with the thought that peredonov was possibly right. they did not speak of this openly, yet they no longer argued with peredonov and limited themselves to indecisive and ambiguous answers; each was afraid that he would be considered stupid if he argued about the matter, should it afterwards prove to be true. many would have liked to know what the head-master thought of it, but the head-master stopped in his own house more than usual. he came very late to the one lesson he gave that day to the sixth form, remained there hardly more than five minutes and then went to his study without speaking to anyone. at last, before the fourth lesson, the grey-haired divinity master and two other instructors went to the head-master's study on the pretext of business and the divinity master cautiously led up to the subject of pilnikov. but the head-master laughed so confidently and so indifferently that all three became convinced that the whole thing was an invention. the head-master quickly went on to other subjects, told a new piece of town news, complained about his bad headache and said that he would probably have to call in the _gymnasia_ doctor, evgeny ivanovitch. then he told them in a very good-natured voice that his lesson that day had only made his headache worse, for, as it happened, peredonov was in the next class and the students had for some reason or other laughed frequently and with extraordinary loudness. khripatch laughed dryly and said: "this year fate has not been kind to me--three times a week i am compelled to sit in a class-room next to ardalyon borisitch, and just imagine! there is constant boisterous laughter. one would think that ardalyon borisitch was not at all an amusing man and yet he always arouses merriment!" and without giving them time to comment on this, khripatch changed the subject. it was true that recently there had been a good deal of laughter at peredonov's classes--though they did not particularly please him. on the contrary, children's laughter annoyed peredonov, but he could not restrain himself from saying things which were malapropos and unnecessary: now he would tell a stupid anecdote, now he would try to subdue one of the most quiet boys by sneering at him. in his classes there were also a number of boys who were glad of every opportunity to create disorder--and at every one of peredonov's sallies they would roar with laughter. after school khripatch sent for the physician, picked up his hat and went into his garden which was situated between the school and the river-bank. the garden was large and shady. the little boys loved it. they were allowed to run about in it freely during recreation, but this was the reason why the assistant masters did not like it. they were afraid that something would happen to the boys. but khripatch insisted that the boys should spend their recreation time in the garden. this was necessary in order to make his reports appear more imposing. as he walked through the corridor he stopped outside the gymnasium hall for a while, and then walked in with bent head. from his cheerless face and slow walk, everyone knew that he had a headache. the fifth form was getting ready for its exercises. they stood in a row and the athletic instructor, a lieutenant of the local reserve battalion, was about to give a command, but, on seeing the head-master, he went forward to meet him. khripatch shook his hand and looking somewhat confusedly at the students asked: "are you satisfied with them? do they work well? do any of them get tired?" the lieutenant deep in his heart detested those students, who, in his opinion, had not and could never have a military bearing. if they had been cadets he would have told them at once what he thought of them, but it was not worth while to tell the unpleasant truth about these sluggards to the man on whom these lessons depended. and so with a smile on his thin lips he looked at the head-master in a friendly way and said: "oh, yes, they're fine boys." the head-master walked past some of the boys in the line and was about to leave when he stopped short as if he had suddenly remembered something. "and are you satisfied with the new boy? is he doing well? does he tire quickly?" he asked languidly and cheerlessly, putting his hand to his forehead. the lieutenant said for the sake of variety--the boy in any case was a stranger: "he's a little frail--he gets tired quickly." but the head-master seemed not to listen to him and he left the hall. the outdoor air rather refreshed khripatch. he returned in half an hour and again standing in the door looked on at the exercises. the boys were using various gymnastic appliances. two or three idle students who did not notice the head-master were leaning against the wall, taking advantage of the fact that the lieutenant was not looking at them. khripatch walked up to them. "but pilnikov," he said, "why are you leaning against the wall?" sasha flushed violently, straightened himself and said nothing. "if you get tired so quickly then perhaps the exercises are injurious to you," said khripatch sternly. "it's my fault, i'm not tired," said sasha timidly. "you must choose between two things," said khripatch, "either not to attend the gymnastic exercises or... in any case come in and see me after the exercises." he went away hurriedly and left sasha standing confused and frightened. "you're in for it," said the other boys to him. "he'll lecture you till evening." khripatch loved to deliver lengthy reprimands and the students dreaded his invitations above everything. after the exercises sasha timidly went to the head-master. khripatch received him promptly. he went close to sasha, looked intently into his eyes and asked: "tell me, pilnikov, do the gymnastic exercises really tire you? you look quite a healthy youngster but 'appearances are deceptive.' are you sure you haven't some illness? perhaps it's injurious for you to do these exercises." "no, nikolai vlasyevitch, i'm quite well," answered sasha, red with confusion. "however," said khripatch, "aleksey alekseyevitch was complaining about your languidness and that you get tired soon. and i myself noticed to-day that you had a tired look. or perhaps i was mistaken?" sasha did not know how to shield his eyes from khripatch's penetrating look. he muttered in a confused way: "i'm very sorry--i won't do it again--i was just a little lazy--really i'm quite well. i will work hard at the exercises." suddenly, quite unexpectedly to himself, he burst into tears. "you see," said khripatch, "it's obvious that you're tired: you cry as if i had given you a severe scolding. now, quiet yourself." he laid his hand on sasha's shoulder and said: "i called you in not to lecture you but to make things clear.... sit down, pilnikov, i can see you're tired." sasha quickly dried his wet eyes with his handkerchief and said: "i'm not a bit tired." "sit down, sit down," said khripatch, not unkindly, and pushed a chair over to sasha. "really i'm not tired, nikolai vlasyevitch," sasha assured him. khripatch took him by the shoulders and made him sit down, sat down himself opposite the boy and said: "let's talk the matter over quietly, pilnikov. you yourself cannot tell the actual condition of your health. you're very good and conscientious in all respects. that is why i can understand your wanting to be relieved from the gymnastic exercises. by the way, i've asked evgeny ivanovitch to come here to-day as i don't feel quite myself; he might incidentally look at you. i hope you have nothing against that?" khripatch looked at his watch and without waiting for an answer began to talk with sasha as to how he had spent the summer. evgeny ivanovitch sourovtsev, the school physician, a little dark alert man, soon appeared; he delighted in conversations on politics and news generally. his knowledge was not great but he attended his patients conscientiously, and as he preferred diet and hygiene to medicines he was generally successful in his cases. sasha was asked to undress. sourovtsev examined him attentively but found nothing wrong with him. as for khripatch he was now convinced that sasha was not a girl. though he was convinced of this even before, still he considered it proper that in the event of any possible inquiries from the district, the school physician could certify to the facts without further investigation. as khripatch let sasha go he said to him kindly: "now, we know that you're well, and i will tell aleksey alekseyevitch that he's not to let you off!" * * * * * peredonov had no doubt that the discovery of a girl among the students would turn the attention of the authorities to himself, and that, aside from promotion, he would be given a decoration. this encouraged him to look vigilantly after the conduct of the students. as the weather for some days now had been bleak and cold, there were few people in the billiard-room, so there was nothing for him to do but to walk about town and visit students' lodgings, and even those students who lived with their parents. peredonov chose the parents who were simple folk; he would come, he would complain about the boy, the boy would be whipped--and peredonov would be satisfied. in this way he first of all complained to yosif kramarenko's father, who kept a brewery in the town--he told him that yosif misbehaved in church. the father believed him and punished his son. the same fate befell several others. peredonov did not go to those who, he thought, would defend their sons--they might complain to the authorities. every day he visited at least one student's lodgings. he conducted himself then like an official, he reprimanded, gave orders and threatened. still the students felt themselves more independent in their own lodgings than at school, and at times they were rebellious. aside from this there was flavitskaya, a tall, loud-voiced, energetic woman, who, acting on peredonov's suggestion, beat severely her young lodger, vladimir boultyakov. on the following day peredonov would relate his exploits to his class. he did not name his victims but they usually gave themselves away by their embarrassment. [ ] this expression implies a house of ill-fame. chapter xiv rumours that pilnikov was a disguised girl soon spread about the town. among the first to hear of it were the routilovs. the inquisitive liudmilla always tried to see everything new with her own eyes. she had a burning curiosity about pilnikov. of course, she would have to see the masquerading trickster. she knew kokovkina, and so one evening liudmilla announced to her sisters: "i'm going to take a look at this girl." "busybody!" said darya indignantly. "she's got on her best clothes," said valeria with a restrained smile. they were annoyed because they had not thought of it first and it would be awkward for the three of them to go. liudmilla was dressed more elaborately than usual--she herself could not tell why. apart from other considerations, she liked to dress up. she dressed more lightly than her sisters: her arms and her shoulders were a little more bared, her dress a little shorter, her shoes a little lighter, her stockings a little thinner, more transparent and of a flesh colour. at home she liked to go about in a petticoat, without stockings, but with shoes on her bared feet--moreover her petticoat and her chemise were very charmingly embroidered. the weather was cold, windy, and the fallen leaves floated on the speckled pools. liudmilla walked quickly, and under her thin cloak she almost did not feel the cold. kokovkina and sasha were drinking tea. liudmilla looked at them with searching eyes--they were sitting quietly, drinking tea, eating rolls and chatting. liudmilla kissed kokovkina and said: "i've come on business, dear olga vassilyevna, but that can wait--first warm me up with a little tea. but who is this young man here?" sasha flushed and bowed uneasily. kokovkina introduced them. liudmilla sat down at the table and began to gossip in an animated way. the townspeople liked to see her because she could recount things prettily. kokovkina, who was a stay-at-home, was openly glad to see her, and welcomed her heartily. liudmilla chattered on merrily, laughed, and jumped up now and then to mimic someone and incidently to tease sasha. she said to kokovkina: "you must feel lonely, my dear, from sitting always at home with this grumpy little schoolboy. you might look in on us now and then." "but how can i?" answered kokovkina. "i'm too old to go visiting." "don't call it visiting," said liudmilla. "just come in when you like and make yourself at home. this infant needs no swaddling." sasha assumed an injured expression and blushed. "what a stick-in-the-corner he is," said liudmilla to annoy him, and nudged sasha. "you ought to talk to your visitors." "he's still only a youngster," said kokovkina. "he's very modest." "i'm modest too," said liudmilla with a smile. sasha laughed and said ingenuously: "really, are you modest?" liudmilla burst out laughing. her laughter, as always, was delightfully gay. as she laughed, she flushed very much and her eyes became mischievous and guilty, and their glance attempted to dodge those of her companions. sasha was flustered and tried eagerly to explain. "i didn't mean that--i wanted to say that you were very gay and not modest--and not that you were immodest." then feeling what he had said was not as clear as it might be, he grew more confused and blushed. "what impertinence!" exclaimed liudmilla laughing and flushing. "what a jewel he is!" "you've embarrassed my sashenka," said kokovkina, looking affectionately at both liudmilla and sasha. liudmilla, leaning forward with a cat-like movement, stroked sasha's head. he gave a loud, embarrassed laugh, turned from under her hands and ran into his room. "my dear, find me a husband," said liudmilla without any ado. "well, you've found a nice matchmaker, i must say!" said kokovkina with a smile, but it was evident from the expression of her face that she would have undertaken to make a marriage with great enjoyment. "how are you not a matchmaker and why shouldn't i make a bride?" said liudmilla. "surely you wouldn't be ashamed to make a marriage for me." liudmilla put her arms on her hips and danced a few steps in front of her hostess. "well," said kokovkina, "what a wood flower you are!" "you might do it in your spare time," said liudmilla with a laugh. "what sort of husband would you like?" asked kokovkina with amusement. "let him be--let him be dark--my dear, he must certainly be dark, very dark, dark as a--well, you have a model here--your student--his eyebrows must be black and his eyes languishing, and his eyelashes must be long--long, blue-black eyelashes--your schoolboy's certainly handsome--really handsome--i'd like one of his sort." soon liudmilla made ready to leave. it had grown quite dark. sasha went out to escort her. "only as far as the cabby," said liudmilla in a gentle voice, and looked at sasha with her caressing eyes, blushing guiltily. once on the street liudmilla became gay once more and began to cross-examine sasha. "well, are you always at your lessons? do you read much?" "yes, i love reading," replied sasha. "andersen's fairy-tales?" "no, not fairy-tales, but all sorts of books. i like history and poems too." "do you like poetry? and who's your favourite poet?" asked liudmilla gravely. "nadson, of course,"[ ] replied sasha, with the deep conviction of the impossibility of any other answer. "so, so!" said liudmilla encouragingly. "i like nadson too, but only in the morning. in the evening, my dear, i like to dress up. and what do you like to do?" sasha looked at her with his soft, dark eyes--they suddenly became moist--and he said quietly: "i like to caress." "well, you are a nice boy," said liudmilla, putting her arm on his shoulder. "so you like to caress? but do you like to splash[ ] in your bath?" sasha smiled. liudmilla went on: "in warm water?" "yes, in warm and in cold," said the boy shamefacedly. "and what sort of soap do you like?" "glycerine." "and do you like grapes?" sasha began to laugh. "you're a queer girl! it's a different thing and you ask as if it were the same. you can't take me in." "as if i wanted to!" said liudmilla laughing. "i know what you are--you're a giggler." "where did you get that?" "everyone says so," said sasha. "you're a little gossip," said liudmilla with assumed severity. sasha blushed again. "well, here's a cabby. cabby!" shouted liudmilla. "cabby!" shouted sasha also. the cabman came up in his shaky drozhky. liudmilla told him where to go. he thought a while and demanded forty kopecks. liudmilla said: "do you think it's far? that shows that you don't know the road." "well, how much will you give?" asked the cabman. "you can take which half you like." sasha laughed. "you're a cheerful young lady," said the cabby with a grin. "you might add another five-kopeck piece." "thank you for escorting me, my dear," said liudmilla, as she pressed sasha's hand tightly and seated herself in the drozhky. sasha ran back to the house thinking cheerfully about the cheerful maiden. * * * * * liudmilla returned home in a cheerful mood, smiling and thinking of something pleasant. the sisters awaited her. they sat at a round table in the dining-room, lit up by a hanging lamp. the brown bottle of cherry-brandy on the white tablecloth looked very cheerful; the silver paper round the bottle's neck glittered brightly. it was surrounded by plates containing apples, nuts, and sweets made of honey and nuts. darya was slightly tipsy. her face was red and her clothes were a little dishevelled; she was singing loudly. liudmilla as she came heard the last couplet but one of the well-known song: "her dress is gone, her reed is gone. naked, he leads her naked along the dune. fear drives out shame, shame drives out fear, the shepherdess is all in tears: 'forget what you have seen.'" larissa was also present. she was sprucely dressed. she was tranquilly cheerful and eating an apple, cutting off the slices with a small knife and was laughing. "well," she asked, "what did you see?" darya stopped singing and looked at liudmilla. valeria leaned her head on her hand with the little finger against her temple and smiled responsively at larissa. she was slender, fragile, and her smile was unreposeful. liudmilla poured herself a cherry-red liqueur and said: "it's all nonsense! he's a real boy and quite sympathetic. he's very dark and his eyes sparkle, but he's quite young and innocent." then she burst into a loud laugh. the sisters when they looked at her began to laugh also. "well, what's one to say? it's all peredonovian nonsense," said darya, and waved her hand contemptuously; she grew thoughtful for a moment, leaning her head on her hands, with her elbows on the table. "i might as well go on singing," she said, and began to sing with piercing loudness. there was an intensely grim animation in her squeals. if a dead man should be released from the grave on condition of his singing perpetually, he would sing in this way. but the sisters had already become used to darya's tipsy bawling, and at times even joined in with her in purposely ranting voices. "well, she's let herself loose," said liudmilla laughing. it was not that she objected to the noise, but she wanted her sisters to listen to her. darya shouted angrily, interrupting her song in the middle of a word: "what's the matter with you? i'm not interfering with you!" and immediately she took up the song at the very place she had left off. larissa said amiably: "let her sing." "it's raining hard on me, there's no roof for a girl like me--" bawled darya, imitating the sounds and drawing out the syllables as the simple folk-singers do to make a song more pathetic. for example, it sounded like this: "o-o-oh; it's a-rai-ai-ning ha-a-a-rd on me-e-e!" particularly unpleasant were the sounds stretched out where the accents did not fall. it produced a superlative impression: it would have brought a mortal depression on a new listener. a sadness resounding through our native fields and villages, a sadness consuming with a hideous flame the living word, debasing a once living song with senseless howling.... suddenly darya sprang up, put her hand on her hips and began to shout out a gay song,[ ] dancing and snapping her fingers: "go away, young fellow, go away-- i am a robber's daughter a fig for your good looks-- i'll stick a knife in your belly. i'll not have a muzhik. i'm going to love a bossiak."[ ] darya danced and sang, and her eyes seemed as motionless as the dead moon in its orbit. liudmilla laughed loudly--and her heart now felt faint, now felt oppressed, from gay joyousness or from the cherry-sweet cherry brandy. valeria laughed quietly with glass-sounding laughter, and looked enviously at her sisters; she wished she were as cheerful as they, but somehow she felt anything but cheerful--she thought that she was the last, the youngest, "the left-over"; hence her frailty and her unhappiness. and though she was laughing she was almost on the point of bursting into tears. larissa looked at her, and winked--and valeria suddenly grew more cheerful. larissa rose, and moved her shoulders--presently, in a single instant, all four sisters were whirling round madly, as in a mystic dance, and, following darya's lead, were shouting new _chastushki,_ one more gay and absurd than the other. the sisters were young, handsome, and their voices sounded loud and wild--the witches on the bald hill might have envied this mad whirl. all night liudmilla dreamt such sultry african dreams! now she dreamt that she was lying in a smotheringly hot room, and her bedcover slipping from her left her hot body naked--and then a scaly, ringed serpent crept into the room, and climbing up a tree coiled itself round the branches of its naked, handsome limbs.... then she dreamt of a hot summer evening by a lake under threatening, cumbrously-moving clouds--she was lying on its bank, naked, with a smooth golden crown across her forehead. there was a smell of tepid stagnant water and of grass withered by the heat--and upon the dark, ominous, calm water floated a white, powerful swan of regal stateliness. he beat the water noisily with his wings, and, hissing loudly, approached her and embraced her--and it felt delicious, and languorous and sad.... and both the serpent and the swan, in bending over her, showed sasha's face, almost bluely pale, with dark, enigmatically sad eyes--their blue-black eyelids, jealously covering their witching glance, descended heavily and apprehensively. then liudmilla dreamt of a magnificent chamber with low, heavy arches--it was crowded with strong, naked, beautiful boys--the handsomest of all was sasha. she was sitting high, and the naked boys in turn beat one another. and when sasha was laid on the floor, his face towards liudmilla, and beaten, he loudly laughed and wept--she was also laughing, as one laughs only in dreams, when the heart begins to beat intensely, and when one laughs long, unrestrainedly, the laughter of oblivion and of death.... in the morning after all these dreams liudmilla felt that she was passionately in love with sasha. an impatient desire to see him seized hold of her--but the thought that she would see him dressed made her sad. how stupid that small boys don't go about naked! or at least barefoot, like the streets gamins in summer upon whom liudmilla loved to gaze because they walked about barefoot, and sometimes showed their bared legs quite high. "as if it were so shameful to have a body," thought liudmilla, "that even small boys hide it!" [ ] simon yakovlevitch nadson ( - ), a poet of considerable merit, who was popular in spite of his monotony and melancholy. [ ] this word in russian is "poloskatsya" and is a pun on "laskatsya," which is to caress. [ ] the original word is "chastushka," which is a town song put to the tune of an old folk-song. this is a recent development of town life in russia. [ ] "bossiak" is literally "bare-foot," a vagabond. the "bossiak" has become quite a marked type in russia since gorky took to writing of him. the bossiak is often referred to in a satiric way in modern russian literature. chapter xv volodin went punctually to the adamenkos to give his lessons. his hopes that the young woman would invite him to take coffee were not realised. each time he came he was taken straight to the little shanty used for carpentry. misha usually stood in his linen apron at the joiner's bench, having got ready what was necessary for the lesson. he did obediently but unwillingly all that volodin told him to do. in order to work less, misha tried to drag volodin into conversation, but volodin wished to work conscientiously and refused to comply. "mishenka," he would say, "you had better do your work for a couple of hours and then, if you like, we can have a talk. then as much as you like, but now not a bit--business before everything." misha sighed lightly and went on with his work, but at the end of the lesson he had no desire to talk: he said he had no time and that he had much home work to do. sometimes nadezhda came to the lesson to see how misha was getting along. misha noticed--and made use of the fact--that in her presence volodin could much more easily be lured into conversation. when nadezhda saw that misha was not working she immediately said to him: "misha, don't be lazy!" and when she left she said to volodin: "i'm sorry that i've interrupted. if you give him a little leeway he gets very lazy." at the beginning volodin was mortified by nadezhda's behaviour; then he thought that she hesitated to ask him to take coffee in case there should be gossip. then he thought that she need not have come to look on at the lessons at all and yet she came--was it because she liked to see him? so volodin reasoned to his advantage from the fact that nadezhda from the very first had eagerly agreed that he should give lessons and had not stopped to bargain. he was encouraged in these suppositions by peredonov and varvara. "it is clear that she's in love with you," said peredonov. "and what better fiancé could she have?" added varvara. volodin tried to look modest and felt pleased with his prospects. once peredonov said to him: "you're a fiancé and yet you wear that shabby tie!" "i'm not her fiancé yet, ardasha," said volodin soberly, nevertheless trembling with pleasure. "but i can easily get a new tie." "buy yourself one with a pattern in it," advised peredonov. "so that it will be clear that love is burning within you." "better get a red one," said varvara, "and the fancier the better. and a tie-pin. you can buy a tie-pin cheaply and with a stone too--it will be quite _chic_." peredonov thought that possibly volodin had not enough money. or he might think of economising and buy a simple black one. and that would be fatal, thought peredonov: adamenko is a fashionable girl and if he should come to propose to her in any kind of a tie she might be offended and reject him. peredonov said: "only don't buy a cheap one. pavloushka, you've won from me enough money to pay for a tie. how much do i owe you? i think it's one rouble forty kopecks, isn't it?" "you're quite right about the forty kopecks," said volodin with a wry smile, "only it's not one rouble but two." peredonov knew himself that it was two roubles, but it was more pleasant to pay only one. he said: "you're a liar! what two roubles?" "varvara dmitrievna's my witness," said volodin. "you'd better pay, ardalyon borisitch," said varvara, "since you lost--and i remember that it was two forty." peredonov thought that as varvara was interceding for volodin, that meant that she was going over to his side. he frowned, produced the money from his purse and said: "all right, let it be two forty--it won't ruin me. you're a poor man, pavloushka. well, here it is." volodin took the money, counted it, then assumed an offended expression and bent down his thick forehead, stuck out his lower lip and said in a bleating, cracked voice: "ardalyon borisitch, you happen to be in debt to me and therefore you've got to pay, and that i happen to be poor has nothing to do with the matter. i haven't yet come down to begging my bread off anyone, and as you know the only poor devil is the one that hasn't any bread to eat, and as i eat bread, and butter with it, that means i'm not poor." and he became mollified and at the same time blushed with joy to think that he had answered so cleverly, and twisted his lips into a smile. * * * * * at last peredonov and volodin decided to go and fix up the match. they arranged themselves very elaborately and they had a solemn and more than usually stupid look. peredonov put on a white stock. volodin a vivid red tie with green stripes. peredonov argued thus: "as i am to do the match-making, mine is a sober role. i must live up to it. so i must wear a white tie, and you, the lover, should show your flaming feelings." with intense solemnity peredonov and volodin seated themselves in the adamenkos' drawing-room. peredonov sat on a sofa and volodin in an arm-chair. nadezhda looked at her visitors in astonishment. the visitors talked about the weather and various bits of news, with the look of people who had come upon a delicate affair and did not know how to approach it. at last peredonov coughed, frowned and began: "nadezhda vassilyevna, we've come on business." "on business," said volodin, making a significant face; and he protruded his lips. "it's about him," said peredonov, and pointed at volodin with his forefinger. "it's about me," echoed volodin, and pointed his own forefinger at his breast. nadezhda smiled. "please go on," she said. "i'm going to speak for him," said peredonov. "he's bashful, he can't make up his mind to do it himself. he's a worthy, non-drinking, good man. he does not earn much, but that's nothing. everyone needs a different thing--one needs money, another needs a man. well, why don't you say something?" he turned to volodin, "say something!" volodin lowered his head and spoke in a trembling voice, like a bleating ram: "it's true i don't earn high wages. but i shall always have my crumb of bread. it's true that i didn't go to a university, but i live as may god grant everyone to do. but i don't know anything against myself--and besides, let everyone judge for himself. but i, well, i'm satisfied with myself." he spread out his arms, lowered his forehead as if he were about to butt and grew silent. "and so, as you see," said peredonov, "he's a young man. and he shouldn't live like this. he ought to marry. in any case the married man is always better off." "and if his wife suits him, what can be better?" added volodin. "and you," continued peredonov, "are a girl. you also ought to marry." from behind the door there came a slight rustle, abrupt smothered sounds, as though someone were breathing or laughing with a closed mouth. nadezhda looked sternly in the direction of the door and said coldly: "you are too concerned about me," with an annoying emphasis on the word "too." "you don't want a rich husband," said peredonov, "you're rich yourself. you need someone to love you and gratify you in everything. and you know him, you could understand him. he's not indifferent to you and perhaps you're not indifferent to him either. so you see i have the merchant and you have the goods. that is, you are the goods yourself." nadezhda blushed and bit her lip to keep from laughing. the same sounds continued behind the door. volodin bashfully lowered his eyes. it seemed to him that his affair was going well. "what goods?" asked nadezhda cautiously. "pardon me, i don't understand." "what do you mean, 'you don't understand'?" asked peredonov incredulously. "well, i'll tell you straight. pavel vassilyevitch has come to ask for your hand and heart. i ask on his behalf." behind the door something fell to the floor and rolled and snorted and panted. nadezhda, growing red with suppressed laughter, looked at her visitors. volodin's proposal seemed to her a ridiculous impertinence. "yes," said volodin, "nadezhda vassilyevna, i've come to ask for your hand and heart." he grew red and rose from his chair--his foot awkwardly rumpled the carpet--bowed and quickly sat down again. then he got up again, put his hand on his heart and said as he looked tenderly at the girl: "nadezhda vassilyevna, permit me to say a few words! as i have loved you for some time you surely will not say 'no' to me?" he threw himself forward and let himself down on one knee before nadezhda and kissed her hand. "nadezhda vassilyevna, believe me! i swear to you!" he exclaimed, and lifted his hand high in the air and with a wild swing hit himself full on the chest so that the sound re-echoed through the room. "what's the matter with you! please get up," said nadezhda in embarrassment. "why are you doing this?" volodin rose and with an injured expression on his face returned to his seat. there he pressed both his hands on his chest and again exclaimed: "nadezhda vassilyevna, do believe me! until death, from all my soul." "i'm sorry," said nadezhda, "but i really can't. i must bring up my brother--even now he's crying behind the door." "bring up your brother," said volodin, protruding an offended lip. "i fail to see why that should prevent it." "no, in any case it concerns him," said nadezhda, rising hurriedly. "he must be asked. just wait." she quickly ran from the drawing-room, rustling with her bright yellow dress, caught misha by the shoulder behind the door and ran with him to his room; as she stood there by the door panting with running and suppressed laughter, she said in a breathless voice: "it's quite useless to ask you not to listen behind doors. must i really be very stern with you?" misha, catching her by the waist, with his head against her, laughed and shook with his efforts to suppress his laughter. she pushed misha into his room, sat down on a chair near the door and began to laugh. "did you hear what he's thinking of, your pavel vassilyevitch?" she said. "come with me into the drawing-room and don't you dare to laugh. i will ask you in their presence and don't you dare say 'yes.' do you understand?" "oo-hoo," blurted out misha, and stuck a corner of his handkerchief in his mouth to stop his laughing, but with little success. "cover your face with your handkerchief when you want to laugh," his sister advised him, and led him by his shoulder into the drawing-room. there she placed him in an arm-chair and sat down on a chair at his side. volodin looked offended and lowered his head like a little ram. "you see," she said, pointing at her brother, "i've barely dried his tears, poor boy! i have to be a mother to him, and he has a sudden idea that i'm going to leave him." misha covered his face with his handkerchief. his whole body shook. in order to hide his laughter he uttered a protracted moan: "oo-oo-oo." nadezhda embraced him, pinched his hand secretly and said: "well, stop crying, my dear, stop crying." misha for a moment unexpectedly felt touched and tears came into his eyes. he lowered his handkerchief and looked angrily at his sister. "the youngster might suddenly get into a fit," thought peredonov, "and begin to bite; human spit, they say, is poisonous." he moved closer to volodin, so that in case of danger he could hide behind him. nadezhda said to her brother: "pavel vassilyevitch asks for my hand." "hand and heart," corrected peredonov. "and heart," added volodin modestly but with dignity. misha covered his face with his handkerchief and choking with suppressed laughter said: "no, don't marry him. what would become of me?" volodin, hurt but agitated, said in a trembling voice: "i'm surprised, nadezhda vassilyevna, that you are asking your brother, who is besides quite a child. even if he were a grown-up young man you might speak for yourself. but at your asking him now, nadezhda vassilyevna, i am not only surprised but shocked." "to ask little boys seems ridiculous to me," said peredonov gravely. "whom have i to ask? it's all the same to my aunt, and as i'm responsible for his upbringing how can i marry you. perhaps you would treat him harshly. isn't it so, mishka, that you're afraid of his harshness?" "no, nadya," said misha, looking out with one eye from behind his handkerchief. "i'm not afraid of his harshness. why should i? but i am afraid that pavel vassilyevitch would spoil me and not allow you to put me in the corner." "believe me, nadezhda vassilyevna," said volodin, pressing his hands to his heart, "i won't spoil mishenka. i always think: 'why should a boy be spoiled?' he's well fed, well dressed, well shod, as for spoiling--no! i too can put him into the corner and not spoil him at all. i can do even more. as you're a girl, that is, a young lady, it's a little inconvenient to you, but i could easily birch him." "he's not only going to put me into a corner," said misha whimpering, having again covered his face with his handkerchief, "but he'll even birch me! no, that doesn't suit me. no, nadya, don't you dare to marry him." "well, do you hear? i decidedly can't," said nadezhda. "it seems very strange to me, nadezhda vassilyevna, that you're acting in this way," said volodin. "i come to you with all my affections and one might even say with fiery feelings, and you give your brother as an excuse. if you now give your brother as an excuse, another might give her sister, a third her nephew, or perhaps some other relative, and so no one would marry--so that the whole human race would come to an end." "don't worry about that, pavel vassilyevitch," said nadezhda, "the world is not threatened yet by such a possibility. i don't want to marry without misha's consent, and he, as you have heard, is not willing. besides, as it's clear that you have promised to beat him straight away, you might also beat me." "please, nadezhda vassilyevna, surely you don't think that i would permit myself such a disgraceful action," exclaimed volodin desperately. nadezhda smiled. "and i myself have no desire to marry," she said. "perhaps you think of entering a nunnery?" asked volodin in an offended voice. "more likely you'll join the tolstoyan sect," corrected peredonov, "and manure the fields." "why should i go anywhere?" asked nadezhda coldly, as she rose from her seat. "i'm perfectly well off here." volodin rose also, protruded his lips in a hurt way and said: "since mishenka feels this way towards me and you are on his side, then i suppose i'd better stop the lessons, for how can i go to the lessons if mishenka behaves towards me in this way?" "why not?" asked nadezhda. "that's quite another affair." peredonov thought he ought to make yet another effort to prevail upon the young woman: perhaps she would consent. he said to her gloomily: "you'd better think it over well, nadezhda vassilyevna--why should you do it post-haste? he's a good man. he's my friend." "no," said nadezhda. "what is there to think about? i thank pavel vassilyevitch very much for the honour, but i really can't." peredonov looked angrily at volodin and rose. he thought that volodin was a fool, he couldn't make the young woman fall in love with him. volodin stood beside his chair with lowered head. he asked reproachfully: "so that means it's all over, nadezhda vassilyevna? ah! if so," said he waving his hand, "then may god be good to you, nadezhda vassilyevna. it means that is my miserable fate. ah! a youth loved a maiden and she did not love him. god sees all! ah, well, i'll grieve and that's all." "you're rejecting a good man and you don't know what sort you may get," persisted peredonov. "ah!" exclaimed volodin once more and turned to the door. but suddenly he decided to be magnanimous and returned to shake hands with the young woman and even with the juvenile offender misha. * * * * * in the street peredonov grumbled angrily. all the way volodin complained bleatingly in an offended voice. "why did you give up your lessons?" growled peredonov. "you must be a rich man!" "ardalyon borisitch, i only said that if this is so i ought to give them up, and she said to me that i needn't give them up, and as i replied nothing then it follows that she begged me to continue. and now it all depends upon me--if i like, i'll refuse; if i like, i'll continue them." "why should you refuse?" said peredonov. "keep on going as if nothing had happened." "let him at least get something out of this--he'll have less cause for envy," thought peredonov. peredonov felt terribly depressed. volodin was not yet settled. "if i don't keep a look-out on him he may begin plotting with varvara. besides, it's possible that adamenko will have a grudge against me for trying to marry her to volodin. she has relatives in peterburg; she might write to them and hurt my chances." the weather was unpleasant. the sky was cloudy; the crows flew about cawing. they cawed above peredonov's head, as if they taunted him and foreboded new and worse disappointments. peredonov wrapped his scarf round his neck and thought that in such weather it was easy to catch cold. "what sort of flowers are those, pavloushka?" he asked as he pointed out to volodin some small yellow flowers by a garden fence. "that's _liutiki_,[ ] ardasha," said volodin sadly. peredonov recalled that many such flowers grew in his own garden, and what a terrible name they had! perhaps they were poisonous. one day varvara would take a handful of them and boil them instead of tea, and would poison him--then when the inspector's certificate arrived, she would poison him and make volodin take his place. perhaps they had already agreed upon it. it was not for nothing that he knew the name of this flower. in the meantime volodin was saying: "let god be her judge! why did she humiliate me? she's waiting for an aristocrat and it doesn't occur to her that there are all sorts of aristocrats--she might be miserable with one of them; but a simple, good man might make her happy. and now i'll go to church and put a candle for her health and pray: may god give her a drunken husband, who will beat her, who will squander her money and leave her penniless in the world. then she will remember me, but it will be too late. she will dry her tears with her hand and say, 'what a fool i was to reject pavel vassilyevitch. there's no one to direct me now. he was a good man!'" touched by his own words, a few tears came into volodin's eyes and he wiped them from his sheepish, bulging eyes with his hands. "you'd better break some of her windows one night," advised peredonov. "well, god be with her," said volodin sadly. "i might be caught. no, and what a miserable little boy that is! o lord, what have i done to him that he should think of harming me? haven't i tried hard for him, and look what mischief he's done me! what do you think of such an infant; what will become of him? tell me." "yes," said peredonov savagely, "you couldn't even manage the little boy. oh, you lover!" "well, what of that?" said volodin. "of course i'm a lover. i'll find another. she needn't think that i'll grieve for her." "oh, you lover," peredonov continued to taunt him. "and he put a new tie on! how can a chap like you expect to be a gentleman? lover!" "well, i'm the lover and you're the match-maker, ardasha," argued volodin. "you yourself aroused hopes in me and couldn't fulfil them. oh, you matchmaker!" and they began zealously to taunt one another and to argue as if they were discussing some important business matter. * * * * * nadezhda escorted her visitors to the door and returned to the drawing-room. misha was lying on the sofa laughing. his sister pulled him off the sofa by his shoulders and said: "but you have forgotten that you oughtn't to listen behind doors." she lifted her hands and made as if to cross her little fingers at an angle, a sign for him to go into the corner, but suddenly burst out laughing, and the little fingers did not come together. misha threw himself towards her. they embraced and laughed for a long time. "all the same," she said, "you ought to go in the corner for listening." "you ought to let me off," said misha. "i saved you from that bridegroom, so you ought to be grateful." "who saved whom? you heard how they were talking of giving you a birching. now go into the corner." "well, i'd better kneel here," said misha. he lowered himself on to his knees at his sister's feet and laid his head in her lap. she caressed him and tickled him. misha laughed, scrabbling with his knees on the floor. suddenly his sister pushed him from her and sat down on the sofa. misha remained alone. he stayed awhile on his knees, and looked questioningly at his sister. she seated herself more comfortably and picked up a book as if to read, but watched her brother over it. "well, i'm tired now," he said plaintively. "i'm not keeping you there, you put yourself there," answered nadezhda, smiling over her book. "well, i've been punished, let me go, please," entreated misha. "did i put you on your knees?" said nadezhda in a voice of assumed indifference. "why do you bother me?" "i'll not get up until you've forgiven me." nadezhda burst out laughing, put the book aside, and taking hold of misha's shoulders, pulled him to her. he gave a squeal and threw himself into her arms exclaiming: "pavloushka's bride!" [ ] _liutiki,_ a sort of buttercup. the word "liuti" means "cruel, ferocious, violent," which gives the point of peredonov's reflection. chapter xvi the dark-eyed boy occupied all liudmilla's thoughts. she often talked about him with her own family and with acquaintances, sometimes unseasonably. almost every night she saw him in a dream, sometimes quiet and ordinary but often in a wild and fantastic guise. her accounts of these dreams became so habitual with her that her sisters began to ask her every morning how she had dreamed of sasha. she spent all her leisure thinking about him. on sunday liudmilla prevailed on her sisters to ask kokovkina in after mass and to keep her a while. she wanted to find sasha alone. she herself did not go to church. she instructed her sisters: "tell her that i overslept myself." her sisters laughed at her plot but agreed to help her. they lived very amicably together. besides this suited them admirably--liudmilla would occupy herself with a boy and that would leave them the more eligible young men. and they did as they promised--they invited kokovkina to come in after mass. in the meantime liudmilla got ready to go. she dressed herself very gaily and handsomely and scented herself with soft syringa perfume, and she put a new bottle of scent and a small sprinkler into her white bead-trimmed hand-bag, and stood just behind the blind in the drawing-room so that she could see whether kokovkina was coming. she had thought of taking the scent before this--to scent the schoolboy so that he would not smell of his detestable latin, ink and boyishness. liudmilla loved perfumes, ordered them from peterburg and consumed a great deal of them. she loved aromatic flowers. her room was always full of some sweet scent--with flowers, with perfumes, with pines, and in the spring with birch-twigs. but here were the sisters, and kokovkina with them. liudmilla ran through the kitchen, across the vegetable garden, by the little gate, along a lane in order not to meet kokovkina. she smiled happily, walked quickly towards kokovkina's house and playfully swung her hand-bag and white parasol. the warm autumn day gladdened her and it seemed as if she were bringing with her and spreading around her her own spirit of gaiety. at kokovkina's the maid told her that her mistress was not at home. liudmilla laughed noisily and joked with the red-cheeked girl who opened the door. "but perhaps you're fooling me," she said; "perhaps your mistress is hiding from me." "he-he! why should she hide?" replied the maid with a laugh. "but you can come in if you don't believe me." liudmilla looked into the drawing-room and shouted playfully: "is there a live person in the place? ah, a student!" sasha looked out from his room and was delighted to see liudmilla, and seeing his joyous eyes liudmilla became even gayer. she asked: "and where's olga vassilyevna?" "she's not at home," replied sasha, "that is, she hasn't come back yet. she must have gone somewhere after church. here i'm back and she's not here yet." liudmilla pretended to be astonished. she swung her parasol and said as if in annoyance: "how can it be? everyone else is back from church. she's always at home, and then i come and she's out. is it because you make such a noise, young man, that the old woman can't sit at home?" sasha smiled quietly. he was delighted to hear liudmilla's voice, liudmilla's cheerful laughter. he was wondering at the moment how he could best offer to escort her--so that he would be with her even a few more minutes, to look at her and to listen to her. but liudmilla did not think of going. she looked at sasha with a shy smile and said: "well, why don't you ask me to sit down, you polite young man? don't you see that i'm tired! let me rest for a moment." and she entered the drawing-room laughing and caressing sasha with her quick, tender eyes. sasha grew red with confusion but was glad that she would remain longer with him. "if you like i'll scent you," said liudmilla gaily. "would you like it?" "what a person you are!" said sasha. "you suddenly want to suffocate[ ] me! why are you so cruel?" liudmilla burst out laughing and threw herself back in her chair. "you stupid! you don't understand. i don't mean to suffocate with the hands, but with scents." sasha said: "ah! scents! i don't mind that." liudmilla took the sprinkler from her hand-bag and turned before sasha's eyes the pretty little glass vessel, dark red with gold ornaments, with its rubber ball and bronze mouthpiece, and said: "do you see, i bought a new sprinkler and i forgot to take it out of my bag at home." then she took out a large scent-bottle with a varicoloured label--guerlain's roa-rosa. sasha said: "what a deep hand-bag you've got!" liudmilla answered: "well, you needn't expect anything else. i haven't brought you any ginger-bread." "ginger-bread!" repeated sasha in amusement. he looked on with curiosity as liudmilla uncorked the scent-bottle. he asked: "and how will you pour it out from that without a funnel?" "i expect you to get me a funnel," said liudmilla. "but i haven't one," said sasha. "do as you like, but you must get me a funnel," persisted liudmilla, laughing. "i would get one from milanya, only it's used for paraffin," said sasha. liudmilla again burst into gay laughter. "oh, you dull young man, get me a piece of paper, if you can spare it--and there's your funnel." "that's true," exclaimed sasha joyously, "it's easy to make one from paper. i'll get it at once." sasha ran into his room. "shall i take it from an exercise-book?" he shouted from his room. liudmilla replied: "you can tear it out from a book--a latin grammar if you like. i don't mind." "no, i'd better take it from the exercise-book," said sasha laughingly. he found a clean exercise-book, tore out the middle page and was about to run back to the drawing-room when he saw liudmilla at the door. "may i come in, master of the house?" she asked playfully. "please, i shall be very glad!" exclaimed sasha. liudmilla seated herself at his table and twisted a funnel from a piece of paper. with a preoccupied expression, she began to pour the scent from the bottle into the sprinkler. the paper funnel, at the bottom and the side, where the trickle of scent ran, became wet and dark. the aromatic liquid accumulated in the funnel and dripped into the sprinkler below. there was a warm, sweet aroma of rose mixed with a poignant odour of spirit. liudmilla poured half of the scent from the bottle into the sprinkler and said: "that'll be enough." and she began to screw the top on the scent-sprinkler. then she rolled up the piece of wet paper and rubbed it between the palms of her hands. "smell!" she said to sasha and put her palm to his face. sasha bent over, closed his eyes, and inhaled. liudmilla laughed, lightly touched his lips with her palm and held her hand to his mouth. sasha blushed and kissed her warm, scented hand with a gentle contact of his trembling lips. liudmilla sighed; a tender expression crossed her attractive face, and then changed to her habitual expression of careless gaiety. she said: "now, just keep still while i sprinkle you." and she pressed the rubber bulb. the aromatic spray-dust spurted out, spreading into minute drops upon sasha's blouse. sasha laughed as he turned obediently when liudmilla pushed him. "it smells nice, eh?" she asked. "very nice," replied sasha. "what sort of scent is it?" "what a baby you are!" said liudmilla in a teasing voice. "look on the bottle and you'll see." sasha looked at the label and said: "it smells of oil of roses." "oil!" she said reproachfully, and struck sasha lightly on the shoulder. sasha laughed, gave a slight scream and thrust out his tongue, curving it in the shape of a tube. liudmilla rose, and began to turn over sasha's school books. "may i look?" she asked. "of course," said sasha. "where are your ones and your noughts? show me." "i haven't yet had any such thing," said sasha with an injured look. "no, you're fibbing," asserted liudmilla. "i'm sure you get noughts. you must have hidden them." sasha smiled. "i'm sure you're bored with latin and greek," said liudmilla. "no," answered sasha, but it was evident that the mere conversation about school-books would bring upon him their habitual tediousness. "it is a little boring to learn mechanically," he admitted. "but i have a good memory. i only like solving problems--that i like." "come to me to-morrow after lunch," said liudmilla. "thank you, i will," said sasha blushing. he felt very happy that liudmilla had invited him. liudmilla asked: "do you know where i live? will you come there?" "yes, i know. i'll come there," said sasha happily. "now, be sure to come," repeated liudmilla sternly. "i'll wait for you, do you hear!" "but suppose i should have a lot of lessons?" asked sasha, more from scruple than from any idea that he would not come because of his lessons. "that's all nonsense. you must come," insisted liudmilla. "they won't give you a nought." "but why?" asked sasha laughingly. "because you've got to come. come, for i've something to tell you and something to show you," said liudmilla dancing about and humming a song, and lifting her skirt as she did so, and playfully sticking out her pink little fingers. "come to me, sweet one, sober one, golden one," she sang. sasha began to laugh. "you'd better tell me to-day," he entreated. "i mustn't to-day. and how can i tell you to-day? you won't come to-morrow if i do. you'll say there's nothing to come for." "very well, i'll come without fail, if they'll let me." "of course they'll let you. no one's holding you on a chain." when she said good-bye, liudmilla kissed sasha's forehead, and put her hand to his lips--he had to kiss it. and sasha was happy to kiss again her white, gentle hand--and a little shy. and why not? but liudmilla, as she left, smiled archly and tenderly. and she looked back several times. "how charming she is," thought sasha. he was left alone. "how soon she left," he thought. "she suddenly went and it's hard to realise that she's gone. she might have stayed a little longer." and he felt ashamed that he had not offered to escort her. "it wouldn't have been a bad idea to walk along with her," he thought. "shall i run after her? has she gone far, i wonder. perhaps if i run fast i might overtake her." "but perhaps she would laugh," he continued to himself. "and besides she might not like it." and so he could not make up his mind to go after her. he suddenly felt depressed and uneasy. the gentle tremor from the contact of her hand still remained on his lips, and on his forehead her kiss still burned. "how gently she kisses," sasha mused. "like a sweet sister." sasha's cheeks burned. he felt deliciously ashamed. vague reveries stirred within him. "if she were only my sister," thought sasha tenderly, "then i might go to her and kiss her and say an affectionate word. then i might call her 'liudmillotchka dearest,' or i might call her by some special pet-name: 'booba' or 'strekoza.' and she would respond. now that would be a joy. "but instead," thought sasha sadly, "she's a stranger. lovely, but a stranger. she came and she went. and it's likely she's not even thinking about me. and she's left behind her a sweet scent of rose and lilac, and the feeling of two gentle kisses--and a vague movement in the soul giving birth to a sweet vision as the waves gave birth to aphrodite." * * * * * soon kokovkina returned. "phew! how strong it smells here," she said. sasha blushed. "liudmillotchka was here," he said. "and she didn't find you at home, so she sat a while and sprinkled me with scent and left." "what tenderness!" said the old woman in astonishment, "and liudmillotchka too!" sasha laughed confusedly and ran into his own room. as for kokovkina, she thought that the routilov sisters were very gay and affectionate girls--and that they could captivate both the young and the old with their affectionate ways. * * * * * on the next day, from the morning onward, sasha felt happy because he had been invited to the routilovs. at home he waited impatiently for lunch. after lunch, blushing with embarrassment, he asked permission of kokovkina to go to the routilovs till seven o'clock. kokovkina was astonished but let him go. sasha ran off gaily. he had carefully combed his hair and put pomade on it. he felt happy and slightly nervous, as one is before something important and pleasant. it pleased him to think that he would come and kiss liudmilla's hand and that she would kiss his forehead--and then when he left the same kisses would be exchanged. he thought with delight of liudmilla's white gentle hand. all the three sisters met sasha in the hall. they liked to sit by the window and look out on the street and that was why they saw him from a distance. gay, well-dressed, chattering, they surrounded him with a noisy, impetuous gaiety--and he at once felt at ease with them and quite happy. "here he is, the mysterious young person!" exclaimed liudmilla. sasha kissed her hand and he did it gracefully and with great pleasure to himself. at the same time he kissed darya's hand and valeria's--it was impossible to pass them by--and found this also very agreeable. all the more, since all three of them kissed his cheek. darya kissed him loudly and indifferently, as though he were a board; valeria kissed him gently, lowering her eyes with a sidelong glance, smiled slightly and barely brushed him with her light lips--touching his cheek with the faint colour of an apple--while liudmilla gave him a gay, strong kiss. "he's my visitor," she announced, as she took sasha by the shoulders and led him to her room. darya was rather annoyed at this. "ah, so he's yours. well, you can go on kissing him!" she exclaimed. "you've found a treasure. as if anyone would want to take him away from you." valeria said nothing but only smiled--it was not interesting, after all, to talk with a mere boy! what could he understand? liudmilla's room was spacious, cheerful and very light, because of two large windows giving on to the garden; these were curtained with light, yellow tulle. there was a perfume in the room. everything was neat and bright. the chairs and the arm-chairs were covered with a golden yellow chintz, marked with a white almost indistinguishable pattern. various bottles of scents and scented waters, and small jars, boxes and fans and several russian and french books lay about the room. "i saw you in a dream last night," liudmilla began with a laugh. "you were swimming in the river and i was sitting on the bridge and i caught you with a fishing-rod." "and i suppose you put me in a little jar?" asked sasha jokingly. "why in a little jar?" "where, then?" "where? why, i simply pulled you by the ears and threw you back in the water." and liudmilla laughed for a long time. "you're a strange girl," said sasha. "but what is it you were going to tell me to-day?" but liudmilla went on laughing and did not reply. "i see you've fooled me," said he. "and you also promised to show me something," he said reproachfully. "i'll show you! would you like something to eat?" asked liudmilla. "i've had lunch," said sasha. "but you are a deceiver." "as if i needed to deceive you! but what a strong smell of pomade?" liudmilla suddenly exclaimed. sasha blushed. "i can't stand pomade," said liudmilla with annoyance. "you're smeared up like a young lady!" she ran her hand down his hair and struck his cheek with her grease-smeared palm. "please don't you dare to use pomade," she said. sasha felt flustered. "very well, i won't do it," he said. "how severe you are! but you scent yourself with perfumes!" "scents are one thing, but pomade is another, you stupid. a fine comparison!" exclaimed liudmilla. "i never pomade myself. why should one glue one's hair down! it's different with scents. now, let me scent you. would you like it? let us say lilac. would you like it?" "yes, i would like it," said sasha. it was pleasant to think that he would take that scent home again and astonish kokovkina. "who would like it?" asked liudmilla, taking the bottle and looking archly at sasha. "i'd like it," repeated sasha. "you like it--so you bark do you?"[ ] she teased him. sasha and liudmilla both laughed. "so you're not afraid that i'll suffocate you?" asked liudmilla. "do you remember how you were afraid yesterday?" "i wasn't afraid at all," replied sasha hotly. liudmilla, smiling and still teasing the boy, began to sprinkle him with lilac scent. sasha thanked her and once more kissed her hand. "and please you must get your hair cut," said liudmilla sternly. "what's the use of wearing long locks? you only frighten the horses." "all right, i'll have my hair cut," agreed sasha. "you're terribly severe! my hair is very short. not more than half an inch. the inspector never grumbled at me for it." "i like young people with short hair," said liudmilla impressively, and threatened him with her finger. "but i'm not an inspector, i've got to be obeyed!" * * * * * from that time on liudmilla made it a habit to go frequently to kokovkina--to see sasha. she tried, especially at the beginning, to go when kokovkina was not at home. sometimes she even tried little tricks to lure the old woman out of the house. darya once said to her: "ah, what a coward you are! you're afraid of an old woman. you'd better go when she's at home and take him out for a walk." liudmilla followed this advice and began to call at odd times. if she found kokovkina at home she would sit with her for a while and then take sasha out for a walk, in which case she always kept him for a short time only. liudmilla and sasha became friends with a gentle yet not tranquil friendship. without noticing it herself liudmilla had awakened in sasha premature though as yet vague inclinations and desires. sasha often kissed liudmilla's hands and her thin, supple wrists, covered with a soft elastic skin; through her thin yellow sleeve showed her frail, sinuous, blue veins. and above were her long slender arms which could be kissed to the very elbows when the sleeves were pushed back. sasha sometimes concealed from kokovkina the fact that liudmilla had been to the house. he didn't lie about it, but he kept silent. it was impossible for him to lie--as the maid-servant could easily have contradicted him. and to remain silent about liudmilla's visits was also difficult for sasha: liudmilla's laughter echoed in his ears. he wanted to talk about her. but to talk about her was somehow awkward. sasha quickly made friends with the other sisters also. he would kiss their hands and soon even began to call the girls "dashenka," "liudmillotchka" and "valerotchka." [ ] "doosheet" means "to scent" and also "to suffocate." [ ] there is a pun here. the phrase "ti zhelayesh" means, "you like, you want it." when split into three words, "ti zhe layesh," it means, "you do bark." chapter xvii liudmilla met sasha one day in the street and said to him: "to-morrow the head-master's wife is having a birthday party for her eldest daughter--is the old lady going?" "i don't know," said sasha. but already the hope stirred within him, not so much a hope as a desire, that kokovkina would go and liudmilla come and stay with him a while. in the evening he reminded kokovkina of the morrow's party. "i'd almost forgotten it," said kokovkina, "of course, i must go. she's such a charming girl." and, next day, as soon as sasha had returned from school, kokovkina went to the khripatch's. sasha was delighted with the idea that he had helped to get kokovkina out of the house that day. he felt certain that liudmilla would find time to come. so it happened--liudmilla came. she kissed sasha's cheek and gave him her hand to kiss, and again she laughed and he blushed. a moist, sweet and flower-like odour came from liudmilla's clothes--rose and orris, the fleshly and voluptuous orris blooming among roses. liudmilla brought a long narrow box wrapped up in thin paper through which showed dimly a yellow label. she sat down, put the box on her knees, and looked archly at sasha. "do you like dates?" she asked. "yes, i do," said sasha with an amused grimace. "well, i've got some here for you," she said with a serious air. she took the cover from the box and said: "take some." she herself took the dates one by one from the box and put them in sasha's mouth, making him kiss her hand after each. sasha said: "but my lips are sticky." "that doesn't matter much. kiss, it's good for your health," replied liudmilla gaily. "i don't object." "perhaps i'd better give you all the kisses at once," said sasha laughingly. and he stretched out his hand to take a date himself. "you'll cheat me! you'll cheat, me!" exclaimed liudmilla, and quickly shut the lid down, pinching sasha's fingers. "what an idea! i'm quite honest. i won't cheat you," said sasha reassuringly. "no, no, i don't believe you," asserted liudmilla. "well, if you like i'll give you the kisses beforehand," suggested sasha. "that looks more like business," said liudmilla. "here you are." she stretched out her hand to sasha. he took her long thin fingers, kissed them once and asked with a sly smile, without letting go of her hand: "and you'll not cheat me, liudmillotchka?" "do you think i'm dishonest!" answered liudmilla. "you can kiss without suspicion." sasha bent over her hand and gave it quick kisses; he covered her hand with loud kisses, pressing his open lips against her hand, and feeling happy that he could kiss her so often. liudmilla carefully counted the kisses. when she had counted ten, she said: "it must be very awkward for you to stand and bend over." "well, i'll make myself more comfortable," said sasha. he went down on his knees and kissed her hand with renewed zeal. sasha loved sweets. he was pleased that liudmilla had brought him some sweet things. for this he loved her still more tenderly. * * * * * liudmilla sprinkled sasha with lusciously aromatic scents. their aroma astonished sasha. it was at once overpoweringly sweet, intoxicating and radiantly hazy--like a sinful golden sunrise seen through an early white mist. sasha said: "what a strange perfume!" "try it on your hand," advised liudmilla. and she gave him an ugly, four-cornered jar, rounded at the edges. sasha looked at it against the light. it was a bright yellow liquid. it had a large, highly coloured label with a french inscription--it was cyclamen from piver's. sasha took hold of the flat glass stopper, pulled it out and smelled at the perfume. then he did as liudmilla liked to do--he put his palm on the mouth of the bottle, turned it over quickly and then turned it upright again. then he rubbed between his palms the few drops of cyclamen that remained and smelled his hand attentively. the spirit in the scent evaporated and the pure aroma remained. liudmilla looked at him with expectancy. sasha said indecisively: "it smells a little of insects." "don't tell lies, please," said liudmilla in vexation. she put some of the scent on her hand and smelled it. sasha repeated: "yes, of insects." liudmilla suddenly flared up, so that small tears glistened in her eyes. she struck sasha across the cheek and cried: "oh, you wicked boy! that's for your insects!" "that was a healthy smack," said sasha, and he laughed and kissed liudmilla's hand. "but why are you so angry, dearest liudmillotchka? what do you think it does smell of?" he was not at all angry at the blow--he was completely bewitched by liudmilla. "what does it smell of?" asked liudmilla, and caught hold of sasha by the ear. "i'll tell you what, but first i'm going to pull your ear for you." "oi-oi-oi! liudmillotchka darling, i won't do it again!" exclaimed sasha, frowning with pain and pulling away from her. liudmilla let go of the reddened ear, gently drew sasha to her, seated him on her knees and said: "listen--three scents live in the cyclamen--the poor flower smells of ambrosia--that is for working bees. you know, of course, that in russian this is called 'sow-bread.'" "sow-bread," repeated sasha laughingly. "that's a funny name." "now, don't laugh, you young scamp," said liudmilla as she caught hold of his other ear, and continued: "ambrosia, and the bees humming over it, that's the flower's joy. the flower also smells of vanilla. now this is not for the bees, but for him of whom they dream, and this is the flower's desire--the flower and the golden sun above it. the flower's third perfume smells of the sweet tender body for the lover, and this is its love--the poor flower and the heavy midday sultriness. the bee, the sun and the sultriness--do you understand, my dear?" sasha silently shook his head. his smooth face flamed and his long dark eyelashes trembled slightly. liudmilla looked dreamily into the distance and said: "it gives one joy--the gentle and sunny cyclamen--it draws one towards desires, which give sweetness and shame, and it stirs the blood. do you understand, my little sun, when it feels sweet and happy and sad and one wants to cry? do you understand? that's what it is." she pressed her lips in a long kiss on sasha's. liudmilla looked pensively in front of her. suddenly a smile came across her lips. she lightly pushed sasha away and asked: "do you like roses?" sasha sighed, opened his eyes, smiled tenderly and whispered: "yes." "large roses?" asked liudmilla. "yes, all sorts--large and small," replied sasha quickly, and he gracefully left her knees. "and so you like _rosotchki_[ ] (little roses)?" asked liudmilla gently, and her sonorous voice trembled from suppressed laughter. "yes, i like them," answered sasha quickly. liudmilla began to laugh. "you stupid, you like _rosotchki_ (strokes with a rod), and there's no one to whip you," she exclaimed. they both laughed and flushed. desires innocent by reason of their being aroused unavoidably, made the chief charm of their relation for liudmilla. they stirred one, and yet they were far from the coarse, repulsive attainment. * * * * * they began to argue as to who was the strongest. liudmilla said: "well, suppose you are the strongest, what then? the thing is, who's the quickest." "well, i'm also the quickest," boasted sasha. "so you're quick," exclaimed liudmilla teasingly. they discussed the matter at length. at last liudmilla suggested: "well, let's wrestle." sasha laughed and said: "well, you can't get the best of me!" liudmilla began to tickle him. "so that's your way," he exclaimed as he giggled, and he wriggled away from her and caught her around the waist. then a tussle began. liudmilla saw at once that sasha was the stronger. as she could not beat him by strength, she cunningly made the best of an opportune moment and tripped up sasha's foot--he fell and pulled liudmilla down with him. liudmilla easily freed herself and pressed him down on the floor. sasha cried: "that's not fair!" liudmilla put her knees on his stomach and held him on the floor with her hands. sasha made great efforts to get free. liudmilla began to tickle him again. sasha's loud laughter mingled with hers. she laughed so much that she had to let sasha go. she fell to the floor, still laughing. sasha jumped to his feet. he was red and rather provoked. "russalka (water nymph)!" he shouted. but the russalka was lying on the floor, laughing. liudmilla seated sasha on her knees. tired with the wrestling, they sat happily and closely, looking into each other's eyes and smiling. "i'm heavy for you. i shall hurt your knee. you'd better let me go." "never mind, sit still," replied liudmilla affectionately. "you yourself said you liked to caress." she stroked his head. he gently put his head against her. she said: "you're very handsome, sasha." sasha grew red and laughed. "what an idea!" said he. conversations and thoughts about beauty, when applied to himself, somehow perplexed him; he had never as yet been curious to find out whether people considered him handsome or a monster. liudmilla pinched sasha's cheek, which made him smile. a pretty red spot showed on his cheek. liudmilla pinched the other cheek also. sasha did not protest. he only took her hand, kissed it and said: "you've done enough pinching. it hurts me, and you'll make your fingers stiff." "it may be painful, but what a flatterer you've become." "i shall have to do my lessons," said sasha. "you must caress me a little while longer for good luck, so that i can get a five for my greek." "so you're sending me away," said liudmilla. she caught hold of his hand and rolled the sleeve above the elbow. "what are you doing?" asked sasha in confusion, blushing guiltily. but liudmilla looked at his arm admiringly and turned this way and that way. "what beautiful arms you've got!" she said clearly and happily, and suddenly kissed it near the elbow. sasha tried to drag his arm away. liudmilla held it and kissed it several more times. sasha became still and cast down his eyes. and a strange expression came over his clear, half-smiling lips--and under the shadow of his thick eyelashes his hot cheeks began to pale. * * * * * they said good-bye to each other. sasha escorted liudmilla as far as the gate. he would have gone further but she forbade it. he paused at the gate and said: "come again oftener, my dear, bring sweeter cakes, do you hear?" he used the familiar "thou" to her for the first time, and it sounded in her ear like a gentle caress. she embraced and kissed him impetuously, and ran away. sasha stood like one dazed. * * * * * sasha had promised to come. the appointed hour had passed by and sasha had not arrived. liudmilla waited impatiently--she fidgeted about and felt distressed and looked out of the window. whenever she heard steps in the street she put her head out of the window. her sisters teased her. she said angrily: "let me alone!" then she threw herself stormily at them with reproaches, because they laughed at her. it was already evident that sasha would not come. liudmilla cried with vexation and disappointment. darya continued to tease her. liudmilla spoke quietly between her sobs, and in the midst of her distress she forgot to be angry with them: "that detestable old hag wouldn't let him come. she keeps him tied to apron strings to make him learn greek." "yes, and he's a hobbledehoy, because he couldn't get away," said darya with rough sympathy. "she has tied herself up with a child," said valeria contemptuously. both sisters, though they laughed, sympathised with liudmilla. they loved each other, and they loved tenderly but not strongly: a superficial, tender love. darya said: "why are you crying? why should you weep your eyes out for a young milksop? well, you might say that the devil has bound himself to an infant!" "who's a devil?" shouted liudmilla angrily. "why you," answered darya calmly, "are young, but ..." darya did not end her sentence, but whistled piercingly. "nonsense," said liudmilla, and her voice sounded strangely. a strange, severe smile shone on her face through her tears, like a bright, flaming ray at sunset through the last drops of a weary rain. darya said in a rather annoyed way: "what do you find interesting in him? tell me, please." liudmilla, still with the same curious smile on her face, said slowly and pensively: "how beautiful he is! how many untouched possibilities he has!" "that's very cheap," said darya decidedly. "all small boys have them." "no, it isn't cheap," said liudmilla. "they're unclean boys." "and is he clean?" asked valeria; she pronounced the word "clean" rather contemptuously. "a lot you understand," said liudmilla, and again began to speak quietly and pensively. "he's quite innocent." darya smiled. "oh, is he?" said darya ironically. "the best age for a boy is fourteen or fifteen. he doesn't understand anything and yet he has a kind of intuition. and he hasn't a disgusting beard." "a wonderful pleasure!" said valeria with a contemptuous grimace. she was feeling sad. it seemed to her that she was small, weak and frail, and she envied her sisters--she envied darya her gay laughter and even liudmilla's tears. liudmilla said again: "you don't understand anything. i don't love him at all as you think. to love a boy is better than to fall in love with a commonplace face with moustaches. i love him innocently. i don't want anything from him." "if you don't want anything from him, why do you torment him?" said darya harshly. liudmilla grew red and a guilty expression came on to her face. darya took pity on her; she walked up to liudmilla, put her arms round her and said: "don't mind what we say--it's only our spitefulness!" liudmilla began to cry again, and pressing against darya's shoulder, said sadly: "i know there's nothing for me to hope for from him but if he would only caress me a little!" "what's the matter?" said darya as she walked away from liudmilla; she put her hands on her hips and sang loudly: "last night i left my darling ..." valeria broke into a clear, fragile laugh. and liudmilla's eyes looked gay and mischievous again. she walked into her room impetuously and sprinkled herself with korylopsis--the sweet, piquant, odour seized upon her seductively. she walked out into the street, in her best clothes, feeling distraught; and an indiscreet attractiveness was wafted from her. "perhaps i shall meet him," she thought. she did meet him. "well, you're a nice one," she exclaimed reproachfully and yet happily. sasha felt both confused and glad. "i had no time," he said. "there are too many lessons to do. really i had no time." "you're fibbing, little one, but come along." he resisted for a while, but it was clear that he was glad to let liudmilla take him away with her. and liudmilla brought him home. "i've found him," she said to her sisters triumphantly, and taking sasha by the shoulders, she led him into her room. sasha, putting his hands inside his belt, stood uneasily in the middle of the room, and felt both happy and sad. there seemed to be an odour of new pleasant scents there, and in this odour there was something that provoked and irritated the nerves like the contact of living rough little snakes. [ ] "rosotchki" means "little roses" and also "rods" and "strokes from a rod." chapter xviii peredonov was returning from the lodgings of one of his pupils. quite suddenly he was caught in a drizzling rain. he tried to think where he could shelter for a while, so as not to spoil his new silk umbrella in the rain. across the way was a detached, two-storeyed, stone house; on it was the brass plate of the notary public, goudayevsky. the notary's son was a pupil in the second form of the _gymnasia._ peredonov decided to go in. incidentally he would make a complaint against the notary's son. he found both parents at home. they met him with a good deal of fuss. everything was done there in that way. nikolai mikhailovitch goudayevsky was a short, robust, dark man, bald and with a long beard. his movements were impetuous and unexpected. he seemed not to walk but to flutter along. he was small like a sparrow, and it was always impossible to tell from his face and attitude what he would do the next minute. in the midst of a serious conversation he would suddenly throw out his knee, which would not so much amuse people as perplex them as to his motive. at home or when visiting he would sit quiet for a long time and then suddenly jump up without any visible cause, pace quickly up and down the room, and exclaim or knock something. in the street he would walk, then suddenly pause, or make some gesture or gymnastic exercise, and then he would continue his walk. on the documents which he drew up or attested goudayevsky liked to write ridiculous remarks, as, for example, instead of writing about ivan ivanitch ivanov that he lived on the moscow square in ermillova's house, he would write ivan ivanitch ivanov who lived on the market square in that quarter where it was impossible to breathe for the stench; and so forth; and he even made a note sometimes of the number of geese and hens kept by the man whose signature he was attesting. julia goudayevskaya was a tall, slim, bony woman, passionate and extremely sentimental, who, in spite of the disparity of their figures, resembled her husband in certain habits: she had the same impetuous and disproportionate movements, unlike those of other people. she was dressed youthfully and in colours, and whenever she made her quick movements the long variegated ribbons, with which she loved to adorn in abundance her dress and hair, flew in all directions. antosha, a slender, alert boy, bowed courteously. peredonov was seated in the drawing-room and he immediately began to complain of antosha: that he was lazy, inattentive, and did not listen in class but chattered and laughed, and was mischievous during recess. antosha was astonished--he did not know that he was considered such a wicked boy--and he began to defend himself hotly. both parents were annoyed. "will you be good enough to tell me," shouted the father, "in what precisely his mischievousness consists?" "nika, don't defend him," cried the mother. "he shouldn't get up to mischief." "but what mischief has he done?" enquired the father, running, almost rolling on his short legs. "he's generally mischievous. he raises a racket and he fights," said peredonov morosely. "he's always in mischief." "i don't fight at all," exclaimed antosha dolefully. "ask anyone you like. i haven't fought with anybody." "he doesn't let anyone pass," said peredonov. "very well, i'll go to the _gymnasia_ myself and i'll ask the inspector," said goudayevsky decisively. "nika, nika, why don't you believe him?" cried julia. "would you like to see antosha turn out a good-for-nothing? he needs a beating." "nonsense, nonsense!" cried the father. "i'll give him a beating without fail," exclaimed julia, as she caught her son by the shoulder and was about to drag him into the kitchen. "antosha!" she cried. "come along; i'll give you a whipping." "i'll not let you have him," cried the father, tearing his son away from her. his mother held on to him; antosha made despairing outcries, and the parents tustled with each other. "help me, ardalyon borisitch," cried julia. "hold this monster while i settle with antosha." peredonov went to help. but goudayevsky got his son away from julia, pushed her aside, sprang towards peredonov and cried threateningly: "don't you come here! when two dogs are fighting the third one had better keep away! yes, and i'll see to you!" red, unkempt, perspiring, he shook his fist in the air. peredonov retreated, muttering inaudible words. julia ran round her husband and tried to catch hold of antosha. his father hid him behind and pulled him by the arm, now to the right, now to the left. julia, her eyes gleaming, cried: "he'll grow up to be a cut-throat! he'll get into gaol! hard labour'll be his fate." "a plague on your tongue!" cried goudayevsky. "shut up, you wicked fool." "oh, you tyrant!" screamed julia, and running up to her husband hit him with her fist on the back and ran impetuously out of the drawing-room. goudayevsky clenched his fists and ran up to peredonov. "so you've come to raise a riot here!" he cried. "you say antosha's mischievous? you're a liar. he's not mischievous. and if he were, i should know it without you; and i don't want anything to do with you. you go about the town taking in fools. you beat their little boys, and expect to get a master's diploma for birching. but you've come to the wrong place. sir, i ask you to clear out!" as he was saying this he jumped towards peredonov and got him into a corner. peredonov was frightened and would have been glad to run away, but goudayevsky in his excitement did not notice that he was standing in his way. antosha seized hold of the tails of his father's frock-coat and began to tug at them. his father angrily turned on him and tried to kick him. but antosha quickly jumped aside without, however, letting go of his father's coat. "be quiet there," exclaimed goudayevsky. "don't forget yourself, antosha." "papotchka," cried antosha, continuing to tug at his father's coat-tails, "you are keeping ardalyon borisitch from going." goudayevsky quickly jumped to the side, antosha barely managed to escape him. "i beg your pardon," said goudayevsky and pointed to the door, "that's the way out, and i won't detain you." peredonov quickly left the room. goudayevsky put his fingers to his nose at him, then made a motion with his knee as if he were kicking him out. antosha sniggered. goudayevsky turned on him savagely: "antosha, don't forget yourself! don't forget to-morrow. i'm going to the _gymnasia,_ and if it's true i'll hand you over to your mother for a whipping!" "i wasn't mischievous. he's a liar," said antosha piteously and in a squeaking voice. "antosha, don't forget yourself," shouted his father. "you shouldn't say that he's a liar, but that he's made a mistake. only little boys tell lies--grown-ups make mistakes." in the meantime peredonov managed to find his way into the half-dark hall, discovered his overcoat with some difficulty and began to put it on. his fear and nervousness hindered him from finding his sleeve. no one came to his assistance. quite suddenly julia ran out from a side door, rustling her flying ribbons, and whispered excitedly in his ear, making wild gestures and standing on tip-toe. peredonov did not at first understand. "i'm so grateful to you," he heard at last. "it's so good of you to take such an interest in the boy. most people are so indifferent, but you understand a mother's difficulties. it is so hard to bring children up; you can't imagine how hard it is. i have only two and they give me no end of worry. my husband is a tyrant; he's a terrible, terrible man. don't you think so? you've seen for yourself." "yes," mumbled peredonov. "well, your husband--er--well, he shouldn't ... i give a good deal of attention to it and he ..." "oh, don't say any more," whispered julia, "he's a terrible man. he's bringing me down to my grave, and he'll be glad of it, and then he'll corrupt my children, my dear antosha. but i'm a mother, i won't give him up; i'll give him a beating all the same." "he won't let you," said peredonov, and jerked his head in the direction of the drawing-room. "wait till he goes to his club. he won't take antosha with him! he'll go and i shall keep quiet until then, as if i agreed with him; but once he goes i'll give antosha a beating and you will help me. you will help me, won't you?" peredonov reflected and then said: "very well, but how shall i know when to come?" "i'll send for you," whispered julia. "you wait, and as soon as he goes to his club i'll send for you." in the evening peredonov received a note from goudayevskaya. it ran: "most esteemed ardalyon borisitch, "my husband has gone to his club, and now i am free from his savagery until one o'clock. do me the kindness to come as soon as you can and help me with my misbehaving son. i realise that he must be rid of his faults while he's still young, for afterwards it may be too late. "with genuine respect, "julia goudayevskaya. "p.s.--please come as soon as possible, otherwise antosha will go to sleep and i shall have to wake him." peredonov quickly put on his overcoat, wrapped a scarf round his neck and prepared to go. "where are you going so late, ardalyon borisitch?" asked varvara. "i'm going on business," replied peredonov morosely, and left abruptly. varvara reflected sadly that again she would be unable to sleep for some time. if she could only hasten the marriage. then she could sleep both night and day--that would be bliss! * * * * * once in the street, peredonov was assailed by doubts. suppose it was a trap? and suppose it suddenly turned out that goudayevsky was at home, and they should seize him and beat him? wouldn't it be better for him to turn back. "no, i'd better go as far as the house, and then i shall see," peredonov decided. the night was quiet, cold and dark. it enveloped him on all sides and compelled him to walk slowly. fresh gusts of wind blew from the neighbouring fields. light, rustling noises could be heard in the grass along the fences, and everything around him seemed suspicious and strange--perhaps someone was following stealthily behind and watching him. all objects were strangely and unexpectedly concealed by the darkness, as if another different nocturnal life awoke in them, incomprehensible to man and hostile to him. peredonov walked quickly in the streets and mumbled: "you won't gain anything by following me. i'm not going on any bad business. i'm going in the interest of my work. so there!" at last he reached goudayevsky's house. a light was visible in one of the windows facing the street; the remaining four were dark. peredonov ascended the steps very quietly, stood a while and put his ears to the door and listened--everything was quiet. he lightly pulled the brass handle of the bell--a distant, faint tinkle of a bell was heard. but, faint though it was, it frightened peredonov, as if this sound would awaken all the hostile powers and make them come to this door. peredonov quickly ran down the steps and hid behind a post, pressing close against the wall. several moments passed. peredonov's heart jumped and beat heavily. presently light footsteps could be heard and the noise of a door opening. julia looked out into the street and her black, passionate eyes gleamed in the darkness. "who's there?" she asked in a loud whisper. peredonov stepped a little away from the wall and looked into the narrow opening of the door where it was dark and quiet, and asked also in a tremulous whisper: "has nikolai mikhailovitch gone?" "yes, he's gone, he's gone," she whispered joyously. peredonov glanced timidly around him and followed her into the dark passage. "i'm sorry i have no light," whispered julia, "but i'm afraid someone might see and they might gossip." she led peredonov up the staircase into a corridor, where a small lamp hung, throwing a dim light on the upper stairs. julia laughed quietly and joyously, and her ribbons trembled from her laughter. "yes, he's gone," she whispered gleefully, as she looked around and scrutinised peredonov with passionately burning eyes. "i was afraid he would remain at home to-night as he was in a great rage. but he couldn't do without his game of whist. i've even sent the maid away--there's only the baby's nurse in the house--otherwise we might be interrupted. for you know what sort of people there are nowadays." a heat came from julia--she was hot and dry, like a splinter. once or twice she caught peredonov by the sleeve, and these quick contacts seemed to send small dry fires through his whole body. they walked quietly and on tip-toe through the corridor, past several closed doors, and stopped at the last--it was the door of the children's room.... * * * * * peredonov left julia at midnight, when she began to expect her husband's return. he walked in the dark streets, morose and gloomy. it seemed to him that someone had been standing by the house and was now following him. he mumbled: "i went on account of my work. it wasn't my fault. she wanted it herself. you can't deceive me--you've got the wrong man." varvara was not yet asleep when he returned. her cards were lying in front of her. it seemed to peredonov that someone might step in when he entered. it was possible that varvara herself had let the enemy come in. peredonov said: "if i go to sleep you'll bewitch me with the cards. give me the cards, or you'll bewitch me." he took the cards away and hid them under his pillow. varvara smiled and said: "you're making a fool of yourself. i haven't the power to bewitch anyone, and as if i wanted it!" he felt vexed and frightened because she was smiling: that meant, he thought, that she might bewitch him even without cards. the cat was shrinking under the bed, and his green eyes sparkled--one might be bewitched by his fur, if it were stroked in the dark so that electric sparks flew from it. behind the chest of drawers the grey nedotikomka gleamed again--was it not varvara who called it up at nights with a slight whistle like a snore! peredonov dreamed a repulsive, terrible dream: pilnikov came, stood on the threshold, beckoned him and smiled. it was as if someone drew him towards pilnikov, who led him through dark, dirty streets while the cat ran beside and his green eyes gleamed and shone.... chapter xix peredonov's strange behaviour worried khripatch more and more. he consulted the school physician and asked him whether peredonov were not out of his mind. the doctor laughingly replied that peredonov had no mind to be out of, and that he was simply acting stupidly. there were also complaints. adamenko's was the first: she sent to the head-master her brother's exercise-book which had been given only one mark for a very good piece of work. the head-master, during one of the recesses, asked peredonov to come and see him. "yes, it's quite true, he does look a little mad," thought khripatch when he saw traces of perplexity and terror on peredonov's dull, gloomy face. "i've got a bone to pick with you," said khripatch quickly and dryly. "whenever i have to work in a room next to yours my head is split--there's such an uproar of laughter in your class. may i request you to give lessons of a less cheerful nature? 'to scoff and always scoff--don't you get tired?'"[ ] "it isn't my fault," said peredonov, "they laugh by themselves. it is impossible to mention anything from the grammar or the satires of kantemir without their laughing. they are a bad lot. they ought to be well scolded." "it's desirable and even necessary that the work in class should be of a serious character," said khripatch sarcastically. "and another thing----" khripatch showed peredonov two exercise-books and said: "here are two exercise-books from two students of one class on your subject: adamenko's and my son's. i have compared them and i am compelled to make the inference that you are not giving your full attention to your work. adamenko's last work which was done very satisfactorily was marked one, while my son's work, written much worse, was marked four. it is evident that you have made a mistake, that you have given one pupil's marks to another and vice versa. though it is natural for a man to make mistakes, still i must ask you to avoid such errors in future. it quite properly arouses dissatisfaction in the parents and in the pupils themselves." peredonov mumbled something inaudible. * * * * * from spite he began to tease the smaller boys who had been recently punished at his instigation. he was especially severe on kramarenko. the boy kept silent and went pale under his dark tan; his eyes gleamed. as kramarenko left the _gymnasia_ that day, he did not hasten home. he stood at the gates and watched the entrance. when peredonov went out kramarenko followed him at some distance, waiting till a few passers-by had got between him and peredonov. peredonov walked slowly. the cloudy weather depressed him. during the last few days his face had assumed a duller expression. his glance was either fixed on something in the distance or wandered strangely. it seemed as if he were constantly looking into an object. to his eyes objects appeared vague or doubled or meaningless. who was he scrutinising so closely? informers. they concealed themselves behind every object, they whispered and laughed. peredonov's enemies had sent against him a whole army of informers. sometimes peredonov tried quickly to surprise them. but they always managed to escape in time--as if they sank through the earth.... peredonov suddenly heard quick, bold footsteps on the pavement behind him, and looked around him in fright--kramarenko paused near him and looked at him decidedly, resolutely and malignantly, with burning eyes; pale, thin, like a savage ready to throw himself at an enemy. this look frightened peredonov. "suppose he should suddenly bite me?" he thought. he walked quicker, but kramarenko did not leave him; he walked slowly and kramarenko kept pace with him. peredonov paused and said angrily: "why are you following me, you little dark wretch? i'll take you to your father at once." kramarenko also paused and continued to look at peredonov. they stood facing one another on the loose pavement of the deserted street, beside the grey, depressing fence. kramarenko trembled and said in a hissing voice: "scoundrel!" he smiled and turned to go away. he made three steps, paused, looked around and repeated louder: "what a scoundrel! vermin!" he spat and walked away. peredonov looked after him and then turned homewards. confused and timorous thoughts crowded through his head. vershina called to him. she stood smoking behind the bars of her garden-gate, wrapped up in a large black shawl. peredonov did not at once recognise her. something malignant in her figure seemed to threaten him. she stood like a black sorceress and blew out smoke, as if she were casting a spell. he spat and pronounced an exorcism. vershina laughed and asked: "what's the matter with you, ardalyon borisitch?" peredonov looked vaguely at her and said at last: "ah, it's you! i didn't recognise you." "that's a good sign. it means i'll soon be rich," said vershina. this did not please peredonov, he wanted to be rich himself. "get away!" he exclaimed angrily. "why should you be rich--you'll always be what you are now." "never mind, i shall win twenty thousand," said vershina with a wry smile. "no, i shall win the twenty thousand," argued peredonov. "i shall be in one drawing and you'll be in another," said vershina. "you're lying," said peredonov angrily. "who ever heard of two people winning at once in the same town. i tell you i'm going to win it." vershina noticed that he was angry. she ceased to argue. she opened the gate to entice him in and said: "there's no reason for you to stand there. come in, mourin's here." mourin's name recalled something pleasant to peredonov--drink and _zakouska._ he entered. in the drawing-room, darkened by the trees outside, sat marta, looking very happy, with a red sash on and with a kerchief round her neck, mourin, more unkempt than usual, and very cheerful for some reason or other, and a grown-up schoolboy, vitkevitch. he paid attentions to vershina, and imagined that she was in love with him: he thought of leaving the school, marrying vershina and managing her estate. mourin met peredonov with exaggeratedly cordial exclamations, his expression became even gayer and his little eyes looked fat--all this did not go with his stout figure and untidy hair in which even some whisps of straw could be seen. "i'm attending to business," he said loudly and hoarsely. "i've business everywhere, and here these charming ladies are spoiling me with tea." "business?" replied peredonov gruffly. "what sort of business have you got? you are not in government service and you've got money coming in. now i have business." "well, what if you have, it's only getting other people's money," said mourin with a loud laugh. vershina smiled wryly and seated peredonov near the table. on a round table near the sofa glasses and cups of tea, rum and cranberry jam were crowded together with a filigree silver dish, covered with a knitted doyley, a small cake-basket of tea-cake and home-made gingerbread stuck with almonds. a strong odour of rum came from mourin's glass of tea, while vitkevitch put a good deal of jam into a small glass plate, shaped like a shell. marta was eating little slices of tea-cake with visible satisfaction. vershina offered peredonov refreshments--he refused to take tea. "i might be poisoned," he thought. "it's very easy to poison you--you simply drink and don't notice anything--there are sweet poisons--and then you go home and turn up your toes." and he felt vexed because they put jam before mourin, and when he came they didn't take the trouble to get a new jar of better jam. they hadn't cranberry jam only but several other kinds. vershina really did give a good deal of attention to mourin. seeing that she had little hope of peredonov, she was looking elsewhere for a husband for marta. now she was trying to catch mourin. half-civilised by his pursuit of hard-earned gains, this landed proprietor eagerly fell to the lure. marta pleased him. marta was happy because it was her constant desire to find a husband and to have a good house and home--that would be complete happiness. and she looked at mourin with loving eyes. the huge forty-years-old man, with his coarse voice and plain face, seemed to her in every movement a model of manly strength, cleverness, beauty and goodness. peredonov noticed the loving glances exchanged by mourin and marta--he noticed them because he expected marta to pay attention to him. he said gruffly to mourin: "you sit there like a bridegroom. your whole face is shining." "i have reason to be happy," said mourin in a brisk, cheerful voice. "i have managed my business very well." he winked at his hostesses. they both had gay smiles. peredonov asked gruffly, contemptuously screwing up his eyes: "what is it? have you found a bride? has she a big dowry?" mourin went on as if he had not heard these questions: "natalya afanasyevna there--may god be good to her--has agreed to take charge of my vaniushka. he'll live here as if he were in christ's bosom, and my mind will be at rest, knowing that he won't be spoiled." "he'll get into mischief with vladya," said peredonov morosely. "they'll burn the house down." "he wouldn't dare," shouted mourin. "don't you worry about that, my dear natalya afanasyevna, you'll find him as straight as a fiddle-string." to cut short this conversation, vershina said with her wry smile: "i should like to eat something tart." "perhaps you'd like some bilberries and apples--i'll get them," said marta quickly rising from her chair. "do, please." marta ran out of the room. vershina did not even look after her. she was used to taking marta's services for granted. she was sitting deep in her sofa puffing out blue curling clouds of smoke, and compared the two men talking to each other, looking at peredonov angrily and indifferently, at mourin gaily and animatedly. mourin pleased her more of the two. he had a good-natured face, while peredonov could not even smile. she liked everything in mourin--he was large, stout, attractive, spoke in an agreeable, low voice, and was very respectful to her. vershina even thought at certain moments that she ought to arrange the matter so that mourin should become engaged not to marta but to herself. but she always ended her reflections by magnanimously yielding him to marta. "anyone would marry me," she thought, "because i have money. i can choose almost anyone i like. if i liked, i could even take this young man," and she rested her glance, not without satisfaction, on vitkevitch's youthful, impudent, yet handsome face--a boy who spoke little, ate a great deal and looked continuously at vershina, smiling insolently. marta brought the bilberries and apples in an earthen-ware cup and began to relate how she had dreamed the night before that she had gone to a wedding as a brides-maid, where she ate pine-apples and pancakes with mead; on one pancake she had found a hundred-rouble note and she cried when they took it from her, and woke up in tears. "you should have hidden it on the quiet so that no one could see it," said peredonov rather gruffly. "if you can't even keep money in a dream, what sort of a housewife will you make?" "there's no reason to feel sorry for this money," said vershina. "there are many things seen in dreams!" "i feel as if i'd really lost the money," said marta ingenuously. "a whole hundred roubles!" tears appeared in her eyes, and she forced a laugh in order not to cry. mourin anxiously put his hands into his pocket and exclaimed: "my dear marta stanislavovna, don't feel so put out about it, we can soon mend the matter." he took a hundred-rouble note from his wallet, put it before marta on the table, and slapped his hand into her palm, shouting: "permit me! no one will take this away!" marta was about to rejoice but suddenly flushed violently and said in confusion: "oh, vladimir ivanovitch, i didn't mean that! i can't take it. really you are ..." "now, don't offend me by refusing it," said mourin with a laugh, not taking up the money. "let's say that your dream has become realised." "no, but how can i? i feel ashamed. i wouldn't take it for anything." marta resisted, looking with desirous eyes upon the hundred-rouble note. "why do you protest when it's given to you?" said vitkevitch. "it's good luck falling right into your hands," he continued with an envious sigh. mourin stood in front of marta and said in a persuasive voice: "my dear marta stanislavovna, believe me, i give it with all my heart--please take it! and if you don't want to take it for nothing, then take it for looking after vaniushka. as to my agreement with natalya afanasyevna, let that stand. but this is for you--for looking after vanya." "but how can i, it's too much," said marta irresolutely. "it's for the first half-year," and he bowed very low to marta. "don't offend me by refusing it. take it and be a sister to vaniushka." "well, marta, you'd better take it," said vershina. "and thank vladimir ivanitch." marta, flushing with shame and pleasure, took the money. mourin began to thank her ardently. "you'd better marry at once--it would be cheaper," said peredonov gruffly. "how generous he's got all of a sudden!" vitkevitch roared with laughter, which the others pretended they had not heard. vershina began to tell a dream of her own, but peredonov interrupted her before she had finished by saying good-bye. mourin invited him to his house for the evening. "i must go to vespers," said peredonov. "ardalyon borisitch has suddenly become very zealous in church-going," said vershina with a quick, dry laugh. "i always go," he answered. "i believe in god--unlike the others. perhaps i am the only one of that kind in the _gymnasia._ that's why i'm persecuted. the head-master is an atheist." "when you are free, let me know," said mourin. peredonov said, twisting his cap irritatedly in his hands: "i have no time to go visiting." but suddenly he recalled that mourin was very hospitable with food and drink, so he said: "well, i can come to you on monday." mourin showed great pleasure at this, and was about to ask vershina and marta also, but peredonov said: "i don't want any ladies. we might get a little tipsy and blurt out something which would be awkward in their presence." when peredonov left, vershina said sneeringly: "ardalyon borisitch is acting curiously. he would very much like to be an inspector, and it looks to me as if varvara were leading him by the nose. so he's up to all sorts of tricks." vladya--who had hidden himself while peredonov was there--came out and said with a malicious smile: "the locksmith's sons have found out from someone that it was peredonov who told about them." "they'll break his windows," exclaimed vitkevitch laughing gleefully. * * * * * everything in the street seemed hostile and ominous to peredonov. a ram stood at the cross-roads and looked stupidly at him. this ram so closely resembled volodin that peredonov felt frightened. he thought that possibly volodin had turned into a ram to spy upon him. "how do we know?" he thought. "perhaps it is possible; science has not discovered everything and it's possible someone does know something. now there are the french--a learned people, and yet magicians and mages have begun to spread there." and a fear took possession of him. "this ram might kick me," he thought. the ram began to bleat, and its bleat resembled volodin's laughter. it was sharp, piercing and unpleasant. then he met the officer of the gendarmerie. peredonov went up to him and said in a whisper: "you'd better watch adamenko. she corresponds with socialists. she's one of them." roubovsky looked at him in silent astonishment. peredonov walked on further and thought dejectedly: "why do i always keep coming across him? he must be watching me, and he has put policemen everywhere." the dirty streets, the gloomy sky, the pitiful little houses, the ragged, withered-looking children--all these breathed depression, neglect and a hopeless sadness. "it's a foul town," thought peredonov. "the people here are disgusting and malignant; the sooner i get to another town the better, where the instructors would bow down to one and the schoolboys will be afraid and whisper in fear: 'the inspector is coming.' yes! the higher officials always live differently in the world." "inspector of the second district of the rouban government," he mumbled under his nose. "the right honourable the state councillor, peredonov--that's the way! do you know who i am? his excellency, head-master of the national schools of the rouban government, the actual state councillor peredonov. hats off! hand in your resignation! get out! i'll manage you!" peredonov's countenance became arrogant. in his poor imagination he had already received his share of power. * * * * * when peredonov returned home, while he was taking off his overcoat, he heard shrill sounds from the dining-room--it was volodin laughing. peredonov's spirits fell. "he's managed to get here already," he thought. "perhaps he's now conspiring with varvara against me. that's why he's laughing; he's glad because varvara agrees with him." he walked angrily and dejectedly into the dining-room. the table was already set for dinner. varvara met peredonov with an anxious face. "ardalyon borisitch," she exclaimed, "think what's happened! the cat's run away." "well," exclaimed peredonov with an expression of fear in his face, "why did you let it go?" "you didn't expect me to sew his tail to my petticoat, did you?" asked varvara in irritation. volodin sniggered. peredonov thought it had perhaps gone to the officer of the gendarmerie to purr out all it knew about peredonov and about where and why he went out at night--she would reveal everything and would even mew a little more than had happened. more troubles! peredonov sat down on a chair at the table, bent his head, twirled the end of the tablecloth in his fingers and became lost in gloomy reflections. "cats always run back to their old home," said volodin, "because cats get used to a place and not to their master. a cat should be swung round several times and then taken to her new home. she mustn't be shown the way or otherwise she'll go back." peredonov listened and felt consoled. "so you think he's gone back to the old house, pavloushka?" he asked. "undoubtedly, ardasha," replied volodin. peredonov rose and shouted: "well, we'll have a drink, pavloushka!" volodin sniggered. "that's a possibility, ardasha," he said. "it's always possible to take a drink." "we must get that cat back," decided peredonov. "a treasure," replied varvara sarcastically. "i'll send klavdiushka for it after dinner." they sat down to dinner. volodin was in a cheerful mood and chattered and laughed a great deal. his laughter sounded to peredonov like the bleating of the ram he had met in the street. "why has he got evil intentions against me?" thought peredonov. "what does he want?" and peredonov thought that he would get volodin on his side. "listen, pavloushka," he said, "if you'll stop trying to injure me, then i'll buy you a pound of the best sugar-candy every week--you can suck it to my good health." volodin laughed, but immediately afterwards looked hurt and said: "ardalyon borisitch, i have no idea of injuring you, and i don't want your sugar-candy because i don't like it." peredonov became depressed. varvara said sneeringly: "you've made a big enough fool of yourself, ardalyon borisitch. how can he do you any injury?" "any fool can do you harm," said peredonov dejectedly. volodin thrust out an offended lip, shook his head and said: "if you have such an idea about me, ardalyon borisitch, then i can only say one thing: i thank you most humbly. if you think that way about me, what have i to say? what shall i understand by this, in what sense?" "take a drink, pavloushka, and pour me one too," said peredonov. "don't pay any attention to him, pavel vassilyevitch," said varvara consolingly. "he's only talking, his heart doesn't know what his tongue blabs." volodin said nothing, and preserving his injured look began to pour the vodka from the decanter into the glasses. varvara said sarcastically: "how is it, ardalyon borisitch, that you're not afraid to drink vodka when he pours it out? perhaps he's exorcising it--don't you see his lips moving?" peredonov's face bore an expression of terror. he caught the glass which volodin had filled and flung the vodka on to the floor, shouting: "chure me! chure--chure--chure![ ] a spell against the spell-weaver--may the evil tongue die of thirst, may the black eye burst. to him karachoun [death], to me chure-perechure!" then he turned to volodin with a malignant face, snapped his fingers and said: "that's for you. you're cunning, but i'm more cunning." varvara laughed uproariously. volodin bleating in an offended, trembling voice said: "it's you, ardalyon borisitch, who know and pronounce all sorts of magic words, but i never occupied myself with black magic. i hadn't any idea of bedevilling your vodka or anything else, but it's possible that it's you who've bewitched my brides from me." "what an idea!" said peredonov angrily. "i don't want your brides. i can get them by cleaner means." "you've cast a spell to burst my eyes," continued volodin, "but mind your spectacles don't burst sooner." peredonov caught his glasses in fear. "what nonsense!" he growled. "you let your tongue run away with you." varvara looked warningly at volodin and said crossly: "don't be spiteful, pavel vassilyevitch, eat your soup, or else it'll get cold. eat, you spiteful thing!" she thought that ardalyon borisitch had exorcised himself in time. volodin began to eat his soup. they were all silent for a while, and presently volodin said in a hurt voice: "no wonder i dreamed last night that i was being smeared with honey. did you smear me, ardalyon borisitch?" "that's not the way you ought to be smeared," said varvara still crossly. "why should i be? be good enough to tell me. i don't see why i should be," said volodin. "well, because you've got a nasty tongue," explained varvara. "you oughtn't to babble everything that comes into your mind immediately." [ ] a quotation from griboyedov's, "the misfortune of being too clever." [ ] see note above. search for "chure" implies, "hence! away!" chapter xx in the evening peredonov went to the club--he had been invited to play cards. goudayevsky, the notary, was also there. peredonov was frightened when he saw him, but goudayevsky conducted himself quietly and peredonov felt reassured. they played a long time and drank a good deal. late at night in the refreshment room goudayevsky ran up to peredonov and without any explanation hit him several times in the face, broke his glasses and quickly left the club. peredonov showed no resistance, pretended he was drunk, then fell to the floor, and began to grunt. they shook him and carried him home. the next day the whole town was talking about this scuffle. that same evening varvara found an opportunity to steal the first forged letter from peredonov. grushina had insisted on this so that no discrepancies might be found by comparing the two forgeries. peredonov carried this letter about with him, but on this evening he happened to leave it at home: while changing into his dress clothes, he had taken the letter from his pocket, put it under a text-book on the chest of drawers and promptly forgotten it. varvara burnt it over a candle at grushina's. when peredonov returned home late that night and varvara saw his broken spectacles, he told her that they had burst of themselves. she believed him and imagined that it was all the fault of volodin's evil tongue. peredonov also persuaded himself that it was due to volodin. the next day, however, grushina told varvara the details of the scuffle at the club. in the morning, when dressing, peredonov suddenly remembered the letter, looked for it unavailingly, and felt terrified. he shouted in a savage voice: "varvara! where's that letter?" varvara was disconcerted. "what letter?" she asked, looking at peredonov with frightened eyes. "the princess's!" shouted peredonov. varvara somehow collected herself. she said with an impudent smile: "how should i know where it is? you must have thrown it among the waste paper and klavdiushka has probably burnt it. you'd better look in your pockets for it, if it's still to be found." peredonov went to the _gymnasia_ in a gloomy state of mind. yesterday's unpleasantness came into his mind. he thought of kramarenko: how did this impudent boy dare to call him a scoundrel? that meant that he was not afraid of peredonov. perhaps the boy knew something about him and would inform against him. in class kramarenko stared at peredonov and smiled, which terrified peredonov even more. after the third class, peredonov was again called to see the head-master. he went, vaguely apprehending something unpleasant. rumours of peredonov's doings reached khripatch from all sides. that morning he had been told about last night's occurrence at the club. yesterday, also, after lessons, volodya boultyakov had come to see him--the boy who had been punished by his landlady at peredonov's request. to prevent a repetition of this visit with similar consequences the boy complained to the head-master. in a dry, sharp voice khripatch repeated to peredonov the reports that had reached him--from reliable sources, he added--of how peredonov had been going to his students' homes giving their parents and guardians false information about the children's conduct and progress, demanding that the boys should be whipped, in consequence of which certain disagreeable incidents had occurred among the parents, as, for instance, last night's affair at the club with the notary goudayevsky. peredonov listened fearfully and yet irritatedly. khripatch was silent. "what of that?" said peredonov in a surly voice. "it was he who struck me. is that the way to behave? he had no right to fly into my face. he doesn't go to church. he believes in a monkey and he's corrupting his son into the same sect. he ought to be reported--he's a socialist." khripatch listened attentively to peredonov and said insinuatingly: "all this is not our affair, and i don't understand at all what you mean by the original expression 'he believes in a monkey.' in my opinion there's no need to enrich the history of religion with newly-devised cults. as for the affront you received, you ought to have brought him before a court of magistrates. but the very best thing for you to do, is to leave the school. this would be the best way out for you personally and for the _gymnasia_." "i shall be an inspector," said peredonov angrily. "but until then," continued khripatch, "you should restrain yourself from these extraordinary visits. you will agree that such conduct is unbecoming to a schoolmaster, and it loses the master his dignity in the eyes of his pupils. to go about from house to house, whipping young boys--this you must agree ..." khripatch did not finish, and merely shrugged his shoulders. "but after all," said peredonov, "i did it for their good." "please don't let us argue about it," khripatch interrupted him sharply. "i request you most emphatically not to let this happen again." peredonov looked angrily at the head-master. that evening they decided to have a house-warming. they invited all their acquaintances. peredonov walked about the rooms to see that everything was in order and that there was nothing which could be the cause of his being informed against. he thought: "well, everything seems all right--there are no forbidden books visible, the ikon-lamps are alight, the royal portraits are hanging in the place of honour on the wall." suddenly mickiewicz winked at him from the wall. "he might get me into trouble," thought peredonov in fear. "i'd better take the portrait and put it in the privy and bring pushkin back here." "after all pushkin was a courtier," he thought, as he hung the portrait on the dining-room wall. then he remembered that they would play cards in the evening, so he decided to examine the cards. he took the opened pack of cards which had only been used once and looked through them as if he were trying to find something. the faces of the court cards did not please him--they had such big eyes. latterly when he was playing it seemed to him that the cards smiled like varvara. even the ordinary six of spades had an insolent and unfriendly look. peredonov gathered together all the cards he had and put out the eyes of all the kings, queens and knaves, so that they should not stare at him. he did this first with the cards that had already been used, and afterwards he unsealed the new packs. he did this with furtive glances around him, as if he were afraid that he would be detected. luckily for him, varvara was busy in the kitchen and did not come into the rooms,--how could she leave such an abundance of eatables: klavdia might help herself. when she wanted anything from one of the rooms, she sent klavdia. each time klavdia came into the room, peredonov trembled, hid the scissors in his pocket and pretended that he was dealing the cards for patience. while peredonov was in this way depriving the kings and queens of any possibility of their irritating him with their stares, an unpleasantness was approaching him from another side. the hat, which peredonov had thrown on the stove of his former house in order to keep from wearing it, had been found by ershova. she suspected that the hat had not been left there by a simple accident: her former tenants detested her and it was likely, ershova thought, that they had put a spell in the hat which would prevent others from taking the house. in fear and vexation she took the hat to a sorceress. the latter looked at the hat, whispered something over it mysteriously and severely, spat to each of the four quarters and said to ershova: "they've done you some harm and you ought to pay them back. a strong sorcerer has made the spell, but i am more cunning and i will outdo him and i'll get the better of him." and for a long time she recited her spells over the hat, and having received generous gifts from ershova she told her that she was to give the hat to a young man with red hair, and that he should take it to peredonov's house, give it to the first person he met there and then run away without turning round. as it happened, the first red-haired boy whom ershova met was one of the locksmith's sons, who had a grudge against peredonov for revealing their nocturnal prank. he took with great satisfaction the five-kopeck piece ershova gave him, and on the way he spat zealously into the hat on his own account. he met varvara herself in the dark hall of peredonov's house. he stuck the hat into her hand and ran away so quickly that varvara had not time to recognise him. peredonov had barely time enough to blind the last knave, when varvara entered his room, astonished and rather frightened, and said in a trembling voice: "ardalyon borisitch! look at this!" peredonov looked and almost fell over in his terror. the very hat which he had tried to get rid of was now in varvara's hands, all crumpled up, dusty, with scarcely a trace of its former magnificence. he asked, panting with fear: "where did it come from?" varvara recounted in a frightened voice how she had received the hat from a nimble boy who seemed to rise from the ground in front of her and then vanish into it again. she said: "it must be ershikha. she has thrown a spell on to your hat. there can't be any doubt about it." peredonov mumbled something incoherent, and his teeth chattered with fear. gloomy fears and forebodings tormented him. he walked up and down frowning and the grey nedotikomka ran under the chairs and sniggered. the guests arrived early. they brought many tarts, apples and pears to the house warming. varvara accepted everything gladly, saying, merely from politeness: "why did you take the trouble to bring such lovely things?" but if she thought that someone had brought something poor or cheap she felt angry. she was also displeased when two guests brought the same thing. they lost no time, but sat down at once to play cards. they played stoukolka. "good heavens!" exclaimed grushina suddenly. "i've got a blind king!" "and my queen has no eyes," said prepolovenskaya, examining her cards. "and the knave too!" the guests laughingly examined their cards. prepolovensky said: "i wondered why these cards kept catching each other. that's the reason. i kept feeling. why is it, i thought, that they have such rough backs? now i see it comes from these little holes. that's it--it's the backs that are rough!" everyone laughed except peredonov, who looked morose. varvara said with a smile: "you know my ardalyon borisitch has strange whims. he's always thinking of different tricks." "why did you do it?" asked routilov with a loud laugh. "why should they have eyes?" said peredonov morosely. "they don't need to see!" everyone roared with laughter, but peredonov remained morose and silent. it seemed to him that the blinded figures were making wry faces, mocking at him and winking with the gaping little holes in their eyes. "perhaps," thought peredonov, "they've managed to learn to see with their noses." he had bad luck, as he nearly always did, and it seemed to him that the faces of the kings, queens and knaves expressed spite and mockery; the queen of spades even gritted her teeth, evidently enraged by his blinding her. finally, after a heavy loss, peredonov seized the pack of cards and in his rage began to tear them to shreds. the guests roared with laughter. varvara said with a smile: "he's always like that--whenever he takes a drop he always does strange things." "you mean when he's drunk," said prepolovenskaya spitefully. "do you hear, ardalyon borisitch, what your cousin thinks of you?" varvara flushed and said angrily: "why do you twist my words?" prepolovenskaya smiled and was silent. a new pack of cards was produced in place of the torn pack, and the game was continued. suddenly a crash was heard--a pane of glass was broken and a stone fell on the floor near peredonov. under the window could be heard a whispering, laughter and then quickly receding footsteps. everyone jumped from his place in alarm; the women screamed--as they always do. they picked up the stone and examined it fearfully; no one ventured near the window--they first sent klavdia into the street, and only when she came back, saying that the street was deserted, did they examine the broken window. volodin suggested that the stone had been thrown by some schoolboys. his guess seemed a likely one, and everyone looked significantly at peredonov. peredonov frowned and mumbled something incoherently. the guests began to talk of the boys of the place, remarking how impudent and wild they were. it was, of course, not the schoolboys, but the locksmith's sons. "the head-master put the boys up to it," announced peredonov suddenly, "he's always trying to pick a quarrel with me. he's thought of this to annoy me." "well, that _is_ a fine idea," shouted routilov with a loud laugh. everyone laughed. grushina alone said: "well, what do you expect? he's such a poisonous man. anything might be expected of him. he doesn't do it himself, but puts his sons up to it." "it doesn't make any difference that they're aristocrats," bleated volodin in an injured tone. "anything might be expected from aristocrats." many of the guests then began to think that perhaps it was time they stopped laughing. "you seem to have bad luck with glass, ardalyon borisitch," said routilov. "first your spectacles were broken and now they've smashed your window." this evoked a new outburst of laughter. "broken windows mean long life," said prepolovenskaya with a restrained smile. when peredonov and varvara were going to bed that night, it seemed to him that varvara had something evil in her mind; he took from her the knives and forks and hid them under the mattress. he mumbled in a slow, dull way: "i know you: as soon as you marry me you'll inform against me in order to get rid of me. you'll get a pension and i'll be in petropavlosk jail working on the treadmill." that night peredonov's mind wandered. dim, terrible figures walked about noiselessly, kings and knaves, swinging their sceptres. they whispered to each other, tried to hide from peredonov, and stealthily crept towards him under the pillow. but soon they grew bolder and began to walk and run and stir around peredonov everywhere, upon the floor, upon the bed, upon the pillows. they whispered, they mocked at peredonov, thrust out their tongues at him, made terrible grimaces before him, stretching out their mouths into deformed shapes. peredonov saw that they were little and mischievous, that they would not kill him, but were only deriding him, and foreboding evil. but he felt a terrible fear--now he muttered exorcisms, fragments of spells he had heard in his childhood, now he began to curse them and to drive them from him, waving his arms and shouting in a hoarse voice. varvara woke and called out irately: "what are you making such a row about, ardalyon borisitch? you won't let me sleep." "the queen of spades is annoying me. she's got a quilted capote on," mumbled peredonov. varvara rose, grumbling and cursing, and gave peredonov some medicine. * * * * * in the local district newspaper a short article appeared recounting how a certain madame k. whipped schoolboys who lived in her house--sons of the best local gentry. the notary, goudayevsky, carried this news over the whole town and waxed indignant. and various other absurd rumours about the local _gymnasia_ went through the town: they talked about the girl who was dressed up as a schoolboy, later the name of pilnikov came gradually to be mentioned with liudmilla's. sasha's companions began to tease him about his love for liudmilla. at first he regarded their jests lightly, but later he would sometimes get indignant and defend liudmilla, trying to convince them that nothing of the sort had happened. this made him ashamed to go to liudmilla, and yet it drew him more strongly to her: confused, burning feelings of shame and attraction agitated him and vaguely passionate visions filled his imagination. chapter xxi on sunday when peredonov and varvara were lunching, someone entered the hall. varvara went up to the door stealthily, as was her habit, and looked out. with the same stealthiness she returned to the table and whispered: "the postman. we'd better give him a vodka--he's brought another letter." peredonov silently nodded,--he didn't grudge anyone a glass of vodka. varvara shouted: "postman! come in here." the postman entered the room. he rummaged in his bag and pretended to be searching for the letter. varvara filled a large vodka-glass and cut off a piece of pie. the postman watched her greedily. in the meantime peredonov was trying to think whom the postman resembled. at last he recalled--he was the same red-pimpled knave who had made him lose so heavily at cards. "he'll trick me again," thought peredonov dejectedly, and made a koukish[ ] in his pocket. the red-haired knave gave the letter to varvara. "it's for you," he said respectfully, thanked them for the vodka, drank it, grunted with satisfaction, picked up the piece of pie and walked out. varvara turned the letter and without opening it held it out to peredonov. "there, read it--i think it's from the princess," she said with a smile. "what's the good of her writing? it would be much better if she gave you the job instead." peredonov's hands trembled. he tore open the envelope and quickly read the letter. then he jumped up from his place, waved the letter and cried out: "hurrah! three inspector's jobs, and i can have which one i want. hurrah, varvara, we've got it at last!" he began to dance and twirl round the room. with his immovably red face and dull eyes he seemed like a monstrously large mechanical dancing doll. varvara smiled and looked at him happily. he shouted: "now it's decided, varvara--we'll get married." he caught varvara by the shoulders and began to whirl her around the table, stamping with his feet. "a russian dance, varvara!" he shouted. varvara put her arms akimbo and glided off into a dance, peredonov danced before her in the russian squat. volodin entered and bleated joyously: "the future inspector is hopping the _trepak!_"[ ] "dance, pavloushka!" cried peredonov. klavdia looked in at the door. volodin shouted at her, laughing and grimacing: "dance, klavdiusha, you too! all together! we'll make merry with the future inspector." klavdia gave a hoot and glided into the dance, moving her shoulders. volodin adroitly whirled round in front of her--now he squatted, now he whirled round, now he jumped forward, clapping his hands together. he was especially adroit when he lifted his knee and clapped his hands underneath the knee. the floor vibrated under their heels. klavdia was overjoyed to have such a clever partner. when they got tired they sat down at the table and klavdia ran off into the kitchen laughing gaily. they drank vodka and they drank beer. they jingled bottles and glasses, they shouted, laughed, waved their arms, embraced and kissed each other. afterwards peredonov and volodin went off to the summer-garden--peredonov was in a hurry to boast about the letter. in the billiard-room they found the usual company. peredonov showed his letter to his friends. it created a great impression. everyone examined it trustfully. routilov went pale, muttered something and spat. "the postman brought it when i was there!" exclaimed peredonov. "i unsealed the letter myself. that means that there's no mistake." his friends looked at him with respect. a letter from a princess! peredonov went impetuously from the summer-garden to vershina's. he walked quickly and evenly, swinging his arms measuredly and mumbling to himself; his face had no apparent expression of any kind--it was motionless like that of a wound-up doll--and a sort of avid fire gleamed dully in his eyes. * * * * * the day turned out clear and warm. marta was knitting a sock. her thoughts were confused and devout. at first she thought about sins, but later she turned her thoughts to something more pleasant and began to reflect about virtues. her thoughts became over-clouded with drowsiness and assumed the forms of definite images, and proportionately at their comprehensibility ceased to be expressible in words, their chimerical contours increased in clearness. the virtues stood up before her like big pretty dolls in white dresses, all shining and fragrant. they promised her rewards, and keys jingled in their hands, and bridal veils fluttered on their heads. one among them was curious and different from the others. she promised nothing but looked reproachfully, and her lips moved with a noiseless threat; it seemed that if she spoke a word one would feel terrible. marta guessed that this was conscience. she was in black, this strange painful visitor, with black eyes, and black hair--and she suddenly began to talk about something very quickly and glibly. she began to resemble vershina. marta started, answered something to her question, answered almost unconsciously and then drowsiness again overcame her. whether it was conscience, or whether it was vershina sitting opposite her, talking quickly and glibly but incomprehensibly, smoking something exotic, this person was assertive, quiet and determined that everything should be as she wanted it. marta tried to look this tedious visitor straight in the eyes but somehow she couldn't--the visitor smiled strangely, grumbled, and her eyes wandered off somewhere and rested on distant, unknown objects, which marta found fearful to look at.... loud talk awakened marta. peredonov stood in the summer-house and greeted vershina in a loud voice. marta looked around in fear. her heart beat, her eyes were still half-shut, and her thoughts were still wandering, where was conscience? or had she not been there at all? and ought she to have been there? "ah, you've been snoozing there," said peredonov to her. "you were snoring in all sorts of ways. now you're a pine."[ ] marta did not understand his pun, but smiled, guessing from the smile on vershina's lips that something had been said which had to be accepted as amusing. "you ought to be called sofya," continued peredonov. "why?" asked marta. "because you're sonya[ ] and not marta." peredonov sat down on the bench beside marta and said: "i have a very important piece of news." "what sort of news can you have?" said vershina. "share it with us." and marta immediately envied vershina because she had such a vast number of words to express the simple question: "what is it?" "guess!" said peredonov in a morose, solemn voice. "how can i guess what sort of news you have?" replied vershina. "you tell us, and then we shall know what your news is." peredonov felt unhappy because they did not want to try and guess his news. he sat there silently, hunched up awkwardly, dull and heavy, and looked motionlessly before him. vershina smoked and smiled wryly, showing her dark yellow teeth. "why should i guess your news this way?" she said after a short silence. "let me find it out in the cards. marta, bring the cards here." marta rose but peredonov gruffly stopped her: "sit still, i don't want them. find out without them, but don't bother me with the cards. but now you can't do it at my expense. i'll show you a trick that'll make you open your mouths wide." peredonov took his wallet quickly from his pocket and showed vershina a letter in an envelope, without letting it go from his hands. "do you see?" he said. "here's the envelope. and here's the letter." he took out the letter and read it slowly with a dull expression of gratified spite in his eyes. vershina was dumbfounded. to the very last she had not believed in the princess, but now she understood that the affair with marta was conclusively off. she smiled wryly and said: "well, you're in luck." marta with an astonished and frightened face, smiled in a flustered way. "well, what do you think now?" said peredonov maliciously. "you thought i was a fool, but i've come out best. you spoke about the envelope. well, here's the envelope. no, there's no mistake about it." he hit the table with his fist, neither violently nor loudly--and his movement and the sound of his words remained somehow strangely distant, as if he were foreign and indifferent to his own affairs. vershina and marta exchanged glances in a perplexed way. "why are you looking at each other?" said peredonov crossly. "there's nothing for you to look at each other about: everything's settled now and i shall marry varvara. there were a lot of little girls trying to catch me here." vershina sent marta for cigarettes and marta gladly ran from the summer-house. she felt herself free and light-spirited as she went over the little sandy paths strewn with the bright-coloured autumn leaves. near the house she met vladya barefoot--and she felt even gayer and more cheerful. "he's going to marry varvara, that's decided," she said happily in a low voice as she drew her brother into the house. in the meantime peredonov, without waiting for marta, abruptly took his leave. "i have no time," he said, "getting married is not making a pair of _lapti."_[ ] vershina did not detain him and said good-bye to him coldly. she was intensely vexed: until now she still had kept the frail hope that she would marry marta to peredonov and keep mourin for herself. and now the last hope had vanished. marta caught it hot that day! that made her cry. * * * * * peredonov left vershina and thought he would like to smoke. he suddenly saw a policeman--standing in the corner of the street, shelling dry sunflower seeds.[ ] peredonov felt depressed. "another spy," he thought, "they're watching so as to have some excuse for finding fault with me." he did not dare to light the cigarette which he had taken from his pocket, but walked up to the policeman and asked timidly: "mr. policeman, is one allowed to smoke here?" the policeman touched his cap and inquired respectfully: "why do you ask me, sir?" "a cigarette," explained peredonov, "may one smoke a cigarette here?" "there's been no law about it," replied the policeman evasively. "there hasn't been any?" repeated peredonov in a depressed voice. "no, there hasn't been any. we aren't ordered to stop gentlemen from smoking, and if such a rule has been passed i don't know about it." "if there hasn't been any, then i won't begin," said peredonov humbly, "i am a law-abiding person. i will even throw the cigarette away. after all, i'm a state councillor." peredonov crumpled up the cigarette and threw it on the ground, and already began to fear that he had said something inadvised, and walked rapidly home. the policeman looked after him in perplexity and at last decided that the gentleman "had had a drop too much," and, comforted by this, recommenced his peaceful shelling of sunflower seeds. "the street is standing up on end," muttered peredonov. the hill ran up a not very steep incline and then went down abruptly on the other side. at the crest of the street between two hovels was a sharp outline against the blue, melancholy evening sky. poor life seemed to have shut herself in within these quiet narrow limits and suffered keen torments. the trees thrust their branches over the fences, they peered over and obstructed the way, and there was a taunt and menace in their whispering. a ram stood at the cross-roads and looked dully at peredonov. suddenly the sound of bleating laughter came from round a corner; volodin appeared and went to greet peredonov. peredonov looked at him gloomily and thought of the ram which had been there a moment ago and had now disappeared. "that," he thought, "is certainly because volodin can turn himself into a ram. he doesn't resemble a ram for nothing, and it's difficult to tell whether he's laughing or bleating." these thoughts so preoccupied him that he did not hear what volodin was saying to him. "why are you kicking me, pavloushka?" he said dejectedly. volodin smiled and said bleatingly: "i'm not kicking you, ardalyon borisitch, i'm shaking hands with you. it's possible that in your village they kick with their hands, but in my village they kick with their feet. and even then it is not people but, if i may say so, ponies." "you'll butt me yet," growled peredonov. volodin was offended and said in a trembling voice: "i haven't grown any horns yet, ardalyon borisitch, but it's very likely you'll grow them before i do." "you've got a long tongue that babbles nonsense," said peredonov angrily. "if that's your idea of me, ardalyon borisitch," said volodin quickly, "then i'll be silent." and his face bore an injured expression and his lips protruded; nevertheless he walked at peredonov's side; he had not yet dined and he counted on having dinner with peredonov: luckily they had invited him that morning. an important piece of news awaited peredonov at home. while still in the hall it was easy to guess that something unusual had happened--a bustling could be heard in the rooms mingled with frightful exclamations. peredonov at once thought that the dinner was not ready, and that when they saw him coming they had been frightened and were now hurrying. it was pleasant to him to know that they were afraid of him! but it turned out to be quite another matter. varvara ran out into the hall and shouted: "the cat's been sent back!" in her excitement she did not notice volodin at first. as usual, her dress was untidy--a greasy blouse over a grey dirty skirt and worn-out house slippers. her hair was uncombed and tousled. she said to peredonov excitedly: "it's irishka again! she's played us a new trick out of spite. she sent a boy here again to throw the cat in here--and the cat has rattles on its tail and they keep on rattling. the cat has got under the sofa and won't come out." peredonov felt terribly alarmed. "what's to be done now?" he asked. "pavel vassilyevitch," said varvara, "you're younger, fetch the cat out from under the sofa." "we'll fetch him out, we'll fetch him out," said volodin with a snigger, and went into the parlour. somehow they managed to drag out the cat from under the sofa and took the rattles off his tail. peredonov found some thistle heads and began to stick them into the cat's fur. the cat spat violently and ran into the kitchen. peredonov, tired of his messing about with the cat, sat down in his usual position--his elbows on the arms of the chair, his fingers interlaced, his legs crossed, his face motionless and morose. * * * * * peredonov kept the princess's second letter more zealously than the first: he always carried it about with him in his wallet and showed it to everyone, looking mysterious as he did so. he looked vigilantly to see that no one took the letter away from him. he did not give it into anyone's hands, and after each showing he put it away in his wallet, which he put into the side-pocket of his frock-coat, buttoned up his coat and looked gravely and significantly at his companions. "why do you hide it away like that?" routilov once asked him laughingly. "as a precaution," said peredonov morosely, "who can tell? you might take it from me." "it'd be a case for siberia," said routilov with a contemptuous laugh, slapping peredonov on the back. but peredonov preserved an imperturbable dignity. in general he had lately been assuming an air of greater importance. he often boasted: "i'll be an inspector. you will go sour here, but i shall have two districts to begin with. and then perhaps three, oh--ho--ho!" he was quite convinced that he would receive his inspector's position very soon. more than once he said to the schoolmaster, falastov: "i'll get you too out of here, old chap." and the schoolmaster, falastov, was more respectful in his bearing to peredonov. [ ] koukish, a clenched fist with the thumb thrust between the first and second fingers. this gesture is a great insult in russia. to make it is as much as to say, "a fig for you!" [ ] a russian popular dance. [ ] "sosna" means "pine" and "so sna" "from sleep." peredonov puns on it. [ ] variation on the pun. "sonya" is another form of "sofya." [ ] _lapti_, rough shoes worn by the peasants. [ ] russians eat dried sunflower seeds as americans eat peanuts. chapter xxii peredonov began to attend church frequently. he always stood in a conspicuous place. at one time he crossed himself more often than was necessary, at another he stood like a person in a trance and looked stupidly before him. it seemed to him that spies were hiding behind the columns, and were peeping out from there, trying to make him laugh. but he did not yield. laughter, the quiet, faint laughter, the giggling and the whispering of the routilov girls, sounded in peredonov's ears, and grew at times to an extraordinary pitch--as if the cunning girls were laughing straight into his ears, to make him laugh and to disgrace him. but peredonov did not yield. at times a smoke-like, bluish nedotikomka appeared among the clouds of incense smoke; its eyes gleamed like little fires; with a slight rustle it lifted itself into the air, though not for long, but for the most part it rolled itself at the feet of members of the congregation, it jeered at peredonov and tormented him obtrusively. of course, it wanted to frighten him so that he would leave the church before mass was over. but he understood its cunning design--and he did not yield. the church service--so dear to many people not in its words and ceremonies but in its innermost appeal--was incomprehensible to peredonov. that is why it frightened him. the swinging of the censers frightened him as if it had been a mysterious incantation. "what's he swinging it so hard for?" he thought. the vestments of those serving the mass seemed to him coarse, vari-coloured rags--and when he looked at the array of priests he felt malignant, and he wanted to tear the vestments and break the sacred vessels. the church ceremonies and mysteries seemed to him an evil witchcraft, intended to subject the common people. "he's crumbled the wafer into the communion cup," he thought angrily of the priest. "it's cheap wine. they deceive the people to get more money for their church celebrations." the mystery of the eternal transformation of inert matter into a force breaking the fetters of death was for ever hidden from him. a walking corpse! the absurd mingling of unbelief in a living god and his messiah, with his absurd belief in sorcery! the people were leaving the church. the village schoolmaster, machigin, a simple young man, was standing near the girls, smiling and conversing freely with them. peredonov thought that it was not quite becoming for him to conduct himself so freely before the future inspector. machigin wore a straw hat. but peredonov remembered that in the summer he had seen him just outside the town wearing an official cap with a badge. peredonov decided to complain about it. as it happened, inspector bogdanov was also present. peredonov walked up to him and said: "your machigin has been wearing a cap with a badge. he's trying to look like a gentleman." bogdanov was alarmed, trembled, and his grey adam's apple quivered. "he has no right! no right whatever!" he exclaimed anxiously, blinking his red-rimmed eyes. "he has no right, but he's been wearing it," complained peredonov. "he ought to be stopped--i told you that long ago. or else any boor of a muzhik can wear a badge; and what will come of it?" bogdanov, who had been frightened by peredonov before, was even more alarmed. "how does he dare, eh?" he wailed. "i will call him up at once, at once. and i'll reprimand him most severely." he left peredonov and quickly ran off home. volodin walked at peredonov's side and said in a reproachful, bleating voice: "he's wearing a badge. what do you think of that! as if he had an official rank! why is it allowed!" "you mustn't wear a badge either," said peredonov. "i mustn't and i don't want to," said volodin. "still i sometimes put on a badge--only i know where and when one can do it. i go out of the town and i put it on there. it gives me great pleasure, and there's no one to stop me. and when you meet a muzhik you get more respect----" "a badge doesn't become your mug, pavloushka," said peredonov; "and keep farther off, you're making me dusty with your hoofs." volodin relapsed into an injured silence, but still walked beside him. peredonov said in a preoccupied way: "the routilov girls ought to be informed against too. they only go to church to chatter and to laugh. they rouge themselves, they dress themselves up and then go to church. and then they steal incense to make scents of--that's why they have such a strong smell." "what do you think of that?" said volodin shaking his head with his bulging, dull eyes. the shadow of a cloud ran quickly over the ground, and brought a feeling of dread on peredonov. sometimes the grey nedotikomka glimmered in the clouds of dust. whenever the grass stirred in the wind peredonov saw the nedotikomka running through it, feeding on the grass. "why is there grass in the town?" he thought. "what neglect; it ought to be rooted out." a twig stirred in the tree, it rolled up, cawed and flew away in the distance. peredonov shivered, gave a wild cry and ran off home. volodin ran after him anxiously, and, with a perplexed expression in his bulging eyes, clutched at his bowler hat and swung his stick. * * * * * that same day bogdanov asked machigin to come and see him. before entering the inspector's house machigin stood in the street with his back to the sun, took off his hat and combed his hair with his fingers, noticing from his shadow that his hair was unkempt. "explain yourself, young man. what are you thinking of, eh?" bogdanov assailed machigin with these words. "what is the matter?" asked machigin unconcernedly, playing with his straw hat and swinging his left foot. bogdanov did not ask him to sit down as he intended to reprimand him. "how is it, young man, how is it that you've been wearing a badge, eh? what made you infringe the rule?" he asked, assuming an expression of sternness and shaking his adam's apple. machigin flushed but answered boldly: "what of it? haven't i a right to?" "are you an official, eh? an official?" said bogdanov excitedly. "what sort of an official are you, eh? a copying clerk, eh?" "it's a sign of a schoolmaster's calling," said machigin, boldly, and suddenly smiled as he called to mind what the dignity of a schoolmaster's vocation was. "carry a stick in your hand, a stick. that's the sign of your schoolmaster's calling," said bogdanov shaking his head. "but please, sergey potapitch," said machigin in an injured tone, "what's the good of a stick? anyone can do that, but a badge gives a man prestige." "what sort of prestige, eh? what sort of prestige?" bogdanov shouted at him. "what sort of prestige do you want, eh? are you an official?" "oh, but forgive me, sergey potapitch," said machigin persuasively and reasonably. "among the ignorant peasant classes a badge immediately arouses a feeling of respect--they've been much more respectful lately." machigin stroked his red moustache in a self-satisfied way. "it can't be allowed, young man, it can't be allowed under any consideration," said bogdanov shaking his head stiffly. "but please, sergey potapitch, a schoolmaster without a badge is like the british lion without a tail," protested machigin. "he's only a caricature." "what's a tail got to do with it, eh? why drag in the tail, eh?" said bogdanov excitedly. "why are you mixing it up with politics, eh? what business is it of yours to discuss politics, eh? no, young man, you'd better dispense with the badge. for heaven's sake, give it up. no, it's impossible. how could it be possible. god preserve us, we can't tell who might find it out!" machigin shrugged his shoulders and was about to say something else, but bogdanov interrupted him--what bogdanov considered a brilliant idea flashed into his head. "but you came to me without the badge, without the badge, eh? you yourself feel that it's not the right thing to do." machigin was nonplussed for a moment, but found an answer even to this: "as we are rural schoolmasters we need this privilege in the country, but in town we are known to belong to the intellectual classes." "no, young man, you know very well that this is not allowed. and if i hear of it again we shall have to get rid of you." * * * * * from time to time grushina arranged evening parties for young people, from among whom she hoped to find another husband. to conceal her purpose she also invited married people. the guests came early to one of these parties. pictures covered in thick muslin hung on the walls of grushina's drawing-room. there was really nothing indecent in them. when grushina, with an arch, wanton smile, raised these curtains, the guests gazed at badly-drawn figures of naked women. "why is this woman so crooked?" asked peredonov morosely. "she's not crooked at all," grushina defended the picture warmly. "she's only bending over." "she is crooked," repeated peredonov, "and her eyes are not the same--like yours." "much you understand about it," said grushina offendedly. "these pictures are very good and very expensive. artists always prefer such models." peredonov suddenly burst out laughing: he recalled the advice he had given vladya a few days ago. "what are you neighing at?" asked grushina. "nartanovitch, the schoolboy, is going to singe marta's dress. i advised him to," he explained. "let him just do it! he's not such a fool," said grushina. "of course he'll do it," said peredonov confidently. "brothers always quarrel with their sisters. when i was a kid i always played tricks on my sisters--i pummelled the little ones and i used to spoil the older ones' clothes." "everyone doesn't," said routilov. "i don't quarrel with my sisters." "well, what do you do? kiss them?" asked peredonov. "you are a swine and a scoundrel, ardalyon borisitch, i'll give you a black eye," said routilov calmly. "i don't like such jokes," said peredonov, and moved away from routilov. "yes," thought peredonov, "he might really do it. he's got such a mean face." "she has only one dress, a black one," he went on, referring to marta. "vershina will make her a new one," said varvara with spiteful envy, "she'll make all her dowry for her. she's such a beauty that even the horses are frightened," she grumbled on quietly, looking maliciously at mourin. "it's time for you to marry too," said prepolovenskaya. "what are you waiting for, ardalyon borisitch?" the prepolovenskys already saw that after the second letter peredonov was determined to marry varvara. they also believed in the letter. they began to say that they had always been on varvara's side. there was no good in their quarrelling with peredonov--it was profitable to play cards with him. as for genya, there was nothing to do but to wait--they would have to look for another husband. "of course you ought to marry," said prepolovensky. "it will be a good thing in itself, and you'll please the princess; the princess will be pleased that you're married, and so you will please her and you'll do a good thing, yes, a good thing, and yes, really, you'll be doing a good thing and you'll please the princess." "yes, and i say the same thing," said prepolovenskaya. but prepolovensky was unable to stop, and seeing that everyone was walking away from him he sat down beside a young official and began to explain the same thing to him. "i've decided to get married," said peredonov, "only varvara and i don't know how to do it. i really don't know how to go about it." "it's not such a difficult business," said prepolovenskaya. "now, if you like, my husband and i will arrange everything. you just sit still and don't think about anything." "very well," said peredonov, "i'm agreeable. only everything must be done well and in proper style. i don't mind what it costs." "everything will be quite all right, don't worry about that," prepolovenskaya assured him. peredonov continued to state his conditions: "other people through stinginess buy thin wedding rings or silver ones gilt over, but i don't want to do that. i want pure gold ones. and i even prefer wedding bracelets to wedding rings--they are more expensive and more dignified." everyone laughed. "bracelets are impossible," said prepolovenskaya smiling slightly. "you must have rings." "why impossible?" asked peredonov in vexation. "simply because it's not done." "but perhaps it is done," said peredonov increduously. "i will ask the priest. he knows best." routilov advised him with a snigger: "you'd better order wedding belts, ardalyon borisitch." "i haven't got money enough for that," said peredonov, not noticing the smiles. "i'm not a banker. only the other day i dreamed that i was being married, and that i wore a velvet frock-coat and that varvara and i had gold bracelets. and behind us were two head-masters holding the crowns over us, singing 'hallelujah.'" "i also had an interesting dream last night," announced volodin. "but i don't know what it can mean. i was sitting, as it were, on a gold throne with a gold crown on, and there was grass in front of me and on the grass were little sheep, all little sheep, all little sheep, ba-a!--ba-a! and the little sheep walked about and moved their heads like this and kept on their ba-a! ba-a! ba-a!" volodin walked up and down the room, shaking his head, protruded his lips and bleated. the guests laughed. volodin sat down on a chair with an expression of bliss on his face, looked at them with his bulging eyes and laughed with the same sheep-like bleating laughter. "what happened then?" asked grushina, winking at the others. "well, it was all little sheep and little sheep, and then i woke up," concluded volodin. "a sheep has sheepish dreams," growled peredonov. "it isn't such great shakes being tsar of the sheep." "i also had a dream," said varvara with an impudent smile, "only i can't tell it before men. i'll tell it to you alone." "ah, my dear varvara dmitrievna, it's strange i had one too," sniggered grushina, winking at the others. "please tell us, we're modest men, like the ladies," said routilov. the other men also besought varvara and grushina to tell them their dreams. but the pair only exchanged glances, laughed meaningly and would not tell. they sat down to play cards. routilov assured everyone that peredonov played cards well. peredonov believed him. but that evening he lost as usual. routilov was winning. this elated him and he talked more animatedly than usual. the nedotikomka mocked at peredonov. it was hiding somewhere near by--it would show itself sometimes, peering out from behind the table or from behind someone's back, and then hide again. it seemed to be waiting for something. he felt dismayed. the very appearance of the cards dismayed him. he saw two queens in the place of one. "and where's the third," thought peredonov. he dully examined the queen of spades, then turned it round to see if the third queen was hiding on the back. routilov said: "ardalyon borisitch is looking behind the queen's shirt."[ ] they all laughed. in the meantime two young police officials sat down to play _douratchki.[ ]_ they played their hands very quickly. the winner laughed with joy and made a long nose at the other. the loser growled. there was a smell of food. grushina called the guests into the dining-room. they all went, jostling each other, and with an affected politeness. somehow they managed to seat themselves. "help yourselves, everyone," said grushina hospitably. "now then, my dears, stuff without fears to your very ears."[ ] "eat the cake for the hostess' sake," shouted mourin gleefully. he felt very gay, looking at the vodka and thinking about his winnings. volodin and the two young officials helped themselves more lavishly than anyone else, they picked out the choicest and most expensive things, and ate caviare greedily. grushina said with a forced laugh: "pavel ivanitch is drunk, but still knows the difference between bread and cake." as if she had bought the caviare for him! and under the pretext of serving the ladies she took the best dishes away from him. but volodin was not disconcerted and was glad to take what was left: he had managed to eat a good deal of the best things and it was all the same to him now. peredonov looked at the munchers and it seemed to him that everyone was laughing at him. why? for what reason? he ate piggishly and greedily everything that came to his hand. after supper they sat down to play cards again. but peredonov soon got tired of it. he threw down the cards and said: "to the devil with you! i have no luck. i'm tired! varvara, let's go home." and the other guests got up at the same time. volodin saw in the hall that peredonov had a new stick. he smiled and turned the stick over in front of him, asking: "ardasha, why are these fingers bent into a little roll? what does it mean?" peredonov angrily took the stick from him and put the handle with a koukish[ ] carved out of black wood on it to volodin's nose and said: "a fig with butter for you!" volodin looked offended. "allow me to say, ardalyon borisitch," he said, "that i eat bread with butter, but that i do not want to eat a fig with butter." peredonov, without listening to him, was solicitously wrapping up his neck in a scarf and buttoning up his overcoat. routilov said with a laugh: "why are you wrapping yourself up, ardalyon borisitch? it's quite warm." "health before everything," replied peredonov. it was quiet in the street--the street was stretched out in the darkness as if asleep and snored gently. it was dark, melancholy and damp. heavy clouds moved across the sky. peredonov growled: "they've let loose the darkness. why?" he was not afraid now--he was walking with varvara and not alone. soon a small, rapid, continuous rain began to fall. everything was still. and only the rain babbled something obtrusively and quickly, sobbing out incoherent, melancholy phrases. peredonov felt in nature the reflection of his own dejection, his own dread before the mask of her hostility to him--he had no conception of that inner life in all nature which is inaccessible to external decrees, the life which alone creates the true, deep and unfailing relations between man and nature, because all nature seemed to him permeated with petty human feelings. blinded by the illusions of personality and distinct existence he could not understand elemental dionysian exultations rejoicing and clamouring in nature. he was blind and pitiful, like so many of us. [ ] "roubaska" generally means "shirt," but also is used to express the "back" of a card. hence routilov's pun. [ ] diminutive of "dourak"--fool. a russian card game. [ ] see note above. search for the tendency to speak ... [ ] see note above. search for koukish, a clenched fist ... chapter xxiii the prepolovenskys undertook the arrangement of the wedding. it was decided that they should be married in a village six versts from the town. varvara felt uneasy about marrying in the town, after they had lived together so many years as relatives. the day fixed for the wedding was concealed. the prepolovenskys spread a rumour that it was to take place on friday, but it was really to be on wednesday. they did it to prevent curiosity seekers from coming to the wedding. varvara more than once said to peredonov: "ardalyon borisitch, don't you say a word of when the wedding is to be or they might hinder us." peredonov gave the expenses for the wedding unwillingly and with humiliations for varvara. sometimes he brought his stick with the koukish head and said to varvara: "kiss the koukish and i'll give you the money. if you don't, i won't." varvara kissed the koukish. "what of that, it won't split my lips," she said. the date of the wedding was kept secret even from the bride's-men until the day itself, so that they might not chatter about it. at first routilov and volodin were invited as bride's-men and both eagerly accepted; routilov looked for an amusing experience, while volodin felt flattered to play such an important role at such a distinguished event in the life of such an esteemed personage. then peredonov considered that one bride's-man was not enough for him. he said: "varvara, you can have one, but i must have two. one isn't enough for me--it will be difficult to hold the crown[ ] over me. i'm a tall man." and peredonov invited falastov as his second bride's-man. varvara grumbled: "to the devil with him! we've got two, why should we have any more?" "he's got gold spectacles. he'll look important," said peredonov. on the morning of the wedding peredonov washed in hot water, as he always did, to avoid catching cold, and then demanded rouge, explaining: "now i have to rouge myself every day or else they'll think i'm getting old and they won't appoint me as inspector." varvara disliked giving him any of her rouge, but she had to yield--and peredonov coloured his cheeks. he muttered: "veriga himself paints so as to look younger. you don't expect me to get married with white cheeks." then, shutting himself in his bedroom, he decided to mark himself, so that volodin could not change places with him. on his chest, on his stomach, on his forearms and in various other places he marked in ink the letter "p". "volodin ought to be marked too. but how can he be? he would see it and rub it off," thought peredonov dejectedly. then a new thought came into his mind--to put on a pair of corsets so that he should not be taken for an old man if he happened to bend over. he asked varvara for a pair of corsets, but varvara's corsets proved to be too tight--they would not come together. "they ought to have been bought earlier," he said savagely. "you never think of anything in time." "what man wears corsets?" said varvara. "no one does." "veriga does," said peredonov. "yes, veriga is an old man, but you, ardalyon borisitch, thank god, are in your prime." peredonov smiled with self-satisfaction, looked in the mirror and said: "of course, i shall live another hundred and fifty years." the cat sneezed under the bed. varvara said with a smile: "there, even the cat's sneezing! that shows it's true." but peredonov suddenly frowned. the cat now aroused dread in him and its sneezing seemed to him a sign of ominous cunning. "he'll sneeze something that's not wanted," he thought, and got under the bed and began to drive the cat out. the cat mewed savagely, pressed against the wall, and suddenly with a loud, piercing mew, jumped between peredonov's hands and ran out of the room. "a dutch devil," peredonov abused the animal savagely. "he's certainly a devil," affirmed varvara. "he's become altogether wild. he won't let himself be stroked, as if the devil had got into him." the prepolovenskys sent for the bride's-men early in the morning. at ten o'clock all had gathered at peredonov's. grushina also came, and sofya with her husband. they were handed vodka and the usual _zakouska._ peredonov ate little and thought dejectedly as to how he could distinguish himself from volodin. "he's curled like a sheep," he thought maliciously, and suddenly imagined that he too might comb his hair in a special way. he rose from the table and said: "you go on eating and drinking--i don't object; but i'll go to the hairdresser and i'll have my hair done in the spanish style." "what is the spanish style?" asked routilov. "wait and you'll see." when peredonov went to get his hair trimmed, varvara said: "he's always inventing new notions. he sees devils. if he only drank less gin, the cursed tippler!" prepolovenskaya said with a sly smile: "well, as soon as you are married, ardalyon borisitch will get his place and settle down." grushina sniggered. she was amused by the secrecy of this wedding, and she was excited by an intense desire to create an ignominious spectacle of some sort and yet not be mixed up with it. on the day before she had whispered in an underhand way to her friends the place and hour of the wedding. and early that morning she had called in the blacksmith's younger son, had given him a five-kopeck piece, and hinted to him that towards evening he should wait outside the town where the newly married couple would pass, to throw rubbish at them. the boy gladly agreed and gave his sworn promise not to betray her. grushina reminded him: "you did give away cherepnin when they beat you." "we were fools," said the boy. "now, let 'em hang us and we won't tell." and the boy, in confirmation of his oath, ate a small handful of loam. for this grushina added another three kopecks. at the hairdresser's peredonov demanded the barber himself. the barber, a young man who had lately finished a course at the town school and who had read books from the rural library, was just finishing cutting the hair of a landed proprietor. when he had finished, he came up to peredonov. "let him go first," said peredonov angrily. the man paid and left. peredonov sat down in front of the mirror. "i want my hair trimmed and properly arranged," said he. "i have an important affair on to-day, something special, and so i want my hair arranged in the spanish style." the boy apprentice, who stood at the door, snorted with amusement. his master looked sternly at him. he had never had occasion to trim anyone's hair in spanish style, and did not know what the spanish style was or even if there were such a style. but if the gentleman demanded such a thing, then it must be assumed that he knew what he wanted. the young hairdresser did not want to betray his ignorance. he said respectfully: "it's impossible to do it with your hair, sir." "why impossible?" said peredonov taken aback. "your hair is badly nourished," explained the hairdresser. "do you expect me to pour beer over it?" growled peredonov. "excuse me, why beer?" said the hairdresser affably. "when your hair is trimmed your head shows signs of baldness and what's left isn't enough to do the thing in the spanish style." peredonov felt himself crushed by the impossibility of having his hair trimmed in the spanish style. he said dejectedly: "well, cut it as you like." he began to wonder whether the hairdresser had been persuaded not to cut his hair in a distinguished style. he ought not to have spoken about it at home. evidently, while he was walking gravely and sedately along the street, volodin had run like a little sheep by back streets and had conspired with the hairdresser. "would you like a spray, sir?" said the hairdresser, having finished trimming his hair. "spray me with mignonette. the more, the better," demanded peredonov. "you might at least make up by spraying me with plenty of mignonette." "i'm sorry, but we don't keep mignonette," said the hairdresser in confusion. "how will opopanax do?" "you can't do anything i want," said peredonov bitterly. "go ahead, and spray me with whatever you've got." he returned home in vexation. it was a windy day. the gates kept banging, yawning and laughing in the wind. peredonov looked at them dispiritedly. how could he face the drive? but everything arranged itself. three carriages were waiting--they had to sit down and drive away at once, in order not to attract attention. many curiosity mongers might collect and follow them to the wedding, if the carriages waited about too long. they took their places and drove off: peredonov with varvara, the prepolovenskys with routilov, grushina with the other bride's-men. a cloud of dust rose in the square. peredonov heard a noise of axes. barely visible through the dust, a wooden wall loomed and grew. they were building a fortress. muzhiks, savage and morose-looking, glimmered in their red shirts through the dust. the carriages ran past; the terrible vision flashed by and vanished. peredonov looked around in terror, but nothing was visible, and he could not decide to tell anyone about his vision. a sadness tormented peredonov the whole way. everything looked hostilely at him. the wind blew ominously. the sky was black. the wind was in their faces and seemed to moan for something. the trees gave no shadow--they kept their shadows within themselves. but the dust rose, a long grey, half-transparent serpent. the sun hid behind the clouds--did it look out from under them? the road was undulating. unexpected bushes, copses and fields rose from behind low hillocks, and streams appeared under the hollow-sounding, wooden arched bridges. "the eye-bird flew by," said peredonov morosely, looking into the whitish, misty distance of the sky. "one eye and two wings, and nothing more." varvara smiled. she thought that peredonov had been drunk since the morning. but she did not argue with him--"for," she thought, "he might get angry and refuse to go to the wedding." all four of routilov's sisters were already in a corner of the church, hiding behind a column. peredonov did not see them at first, but later during the ceremony when they appeared from their ambush and came forward, he saw them and felt frightened. they actually did not do anything unpleasant, they did not demand (as he had been afraid at first) that he should chase varvara away and take one of them. they only kept laughing all the time. and their laughter, quiet at first, resounded louder and more evil in his ears all the time, like the laughter of untameable furies. there were practically no outsiders in the church. only two or three old women came from somewhere or other. and this was fortunate, for peredonov conducted himself curiously and stupidly. he yawned, mumbled, nudged varvara, complained about the smell of incense, wax and muzhiks. "your sisters are always laughing," he grumbled, turning to routilov. "they'll perforate their livers with laughing." besides that, the nedotikomka disturbed him. it was dirty and dusty and kept hiding under the priest's vestments. both varvara and grushina thought the church ceremonies amusing. they giggled continuously. the words about a woman cleaving to her husband evoked special merriment. routilov also giggled. he considered it his duty always and everywhere to amuse the ladies. volodin conducted himself sedately, and crossed himself, preserving an expression of profundity on his face. the church ceremonies did not suggest to his mind anything but that they were an established custom which ought to be fulfilled, and that the fulfilment of all ceremonies leads one to a certain inner convenience: he went to church on sundays, and he prayed, and was absolved, he had sinned and repented and again he was absolved. now this is excellent and convenient--all the more convenient because once outside the church he did not have to think about churchly matters, but was guided entirely by quite different and worldly rules. the ceremony was barely over and they had not yet had time to leave the church when suddenly a drunken crowd tumbled noisily into the church. it was mourin and his friends. mourin, dusty and tousled, as usual, embraced peredonov and shouted: "you can't hide it from us, old boy! we're such fast friends that you can't part us by pouring cold water on us. and yet you hid it from us, you tricky fellow!" exclamations came from all sides: "villain, you didn't invite us!" "but we're here all the same!" "yes, we found it out without you!" the new-comers embraced and congratulated peredonov. mourin said: "we missed the way because we stopped for a drink, or else we'd have conferred the pleasure of our company on you earlier." peredonov looked at them gloomily and did not reply to their congratulations. malevolence and fear tormented him. "they're always tracking me everywhere," he thought dejectedly. "you might have crossed your foreheads," he said angrily. "or possibly you were thinking evil against me." the visitors crossed themselves, laughed and joked. the young officials especially distinguished themselves. the deacon reproached them. among the visitors was a young men with red moustaches whom peredonov did not even know. he resembled a cat to an extraordinary degree. wasn't it their cat turned into human shape? it was not for nothing that this young man kept snarling--he had not forgotten his cattish habits. "who told you?" asked varvara angrily of the new guests. "a nice young woman told us," replied mourin. "but we have forgotten who it was." grushina turned around and winked at them. the new guests smiled back but did not give her away. mourin said: "as you like, ardalyon borisitch, but we're coming with you and you must give us champagne. don't be a skinflint. you can't pour cold water on such friends as we are, and yet you've tried to get married on the quiet." when the peredonovs returned from the wedding the sun had gone down, but the sky was all fiery and golden. but this did not please peredonov. he growled: "they've dabbed pieces of gold on the sky and they're falling off. who ever saw such a waste!" the locksmith's sons met them just outside the town in a crowd of other street boys. they ran alongside and hooted. peredonov trembled with fear. varvara uttered curses, spat at the boys, and showed them the koukish. the guests and the bride's-men roared with laughter. at last they reached home. the entire company tumbled into peredonov's house with a shout, a hubbub and whistling. they drank champagne, then took to vodka and began to play cards. they kept on drinking all night. varvara got tipsy, danced, and was happy; peredonov was also happy--volodin had not yet been substituted for him. as always, the visitors conducted themselves disrespectfully and indecently towards varvara; this seemed to her to be in the order of things. * * * * * after the wedding the peredonovs' existence changed very little. only varvara's attitude towards her husband became more assured and independent. she ran about less for her husband--but, through deep-rooted habit, she was still a little afraid of him. peredonov, also from habit, shouted at her as he used to do and sometimes even beat her. but he too scented the assurance she had acquired with her new position. and this depressed him. it seemed to him that if she was not so afraid of him as she had been, it was because she had strengthened her criminal idea to leave him and get volodin into his place. "i must be on my guard," he thought. varvara triumphed. she, together with her husband, paid visits to the town ladies, even to those with whom she was little acquainted. at these visits she showed a ridiculous pride and awkwardness. she was received everywhere though in many houses with astonishment. varvara had ordered in good time for these visits a hat from the best local modiste. the large vivid flowers set abundantly on the hat delighted her. the peredonovs began their visits with the head-master's wife. then they went to the wife of the marshal of the nobility. on the day that the peredonovs had prepared to make the visits--of which, of course, the routilovs knew beforehand--the sisters went to varvara nikolayevna khripatch, to see out of curiosity how varvara peredonov would conduct herself. the peredonovs soon arrived. varvara made a curtsy to the head-master's wife, and in a more than usually jarring voice said: "well, we've come to see you. please love us and be kind to us." "i'm very glad," replied the head-master's wife constrainedly. and she seated varvara on the sofa. varvara sat down with obvious pleasure in the place indicated, spread out her rustling green dress, and said, trying to appear at ease: "i've been a mam'zell until now, but now i've become a madam. we're namesakes--i'm varvara and you're varvara--and we've not been to each other's houses. while i was a mam'zell, i sat at home most of the time. what's the good of sitting by one's stove all the time! now ardalyon borisitch and i will live more socially. grant me a favour--we will come to you and you will come to us, mossure to mossure and madame to madame." "but i hear that you're not going to stay here long," said the head-master's wife. "i'm told that you and your husband are going to be transferred." "yes, the paper will come soon and then we shall leave here," replied varvara. "but as the paper has not yet come, we must stay here a little longer and show ourselves." varvara had hopes of the inspector's position. after the wedding she wrote a letter to the princess. she had not yet received an answer. she decided to write again at the new year. liudmilla said: "but we thought, ardalyon borisitch, that you were going to marry the young lady, pilnikov?" "what's the good of me marrying anyone else?" said peredonov. "i need patronage." "but how did your affair with mademoiselle pilnikov get broken off," liudmilla teased him. "didn't you pay her attentions? did she refuse you?" "i'll show her up yet," growled peredonov morosely. "that's an _idée fixe_ of ardalyon borisitch," said the head-master's wife with a dry laugh. [ ] crowns are held over the bride and bridegroom at russian weddings in church. chapter xxiv the peredonov's cat acted wildly, snarled and refused to come when called--it had become quite incorrigible. the animal alarmed peredonov. he sometimes pronounced exorcisms over it. "i wonder whether it will help," he thought. "there's strong electricity in a cat's fur. that's where the trouble is." once the idea came into his mind to have the cat shorn. no sooner thought of than done. varvara was not at home. she had gone to grushina's, after having put a bottle of cherry brandy into her pocket. there was no one to hinder her. peredonov tied the cat on a cord--he had made a collar out of a pocket handkerchief--and led the animal to the hairdresser. the cat mewed wildly, and struggled. sometimes it threw itself in desperation at peredonov--but peredonov kept it at a distance with his stick. a crowd of small boys ran behind him, hooting and laughing. passers-by paused to look. people looked out of their windows to see what the noise was about. peredonov morosely dragged the cat along on the cord without the least embarrassment. he succeeded in getting the cat to the hairdresser and said: "shave the cat, barber, the closer the better." the small boys crowded at the shop door, roaring with laughter and making faces. the hairdresser felt offended and grew red. he said in a slightly trembling voice: "i beg your pardon, sir, we don't undertake such jobs. and who ever heard of a shaved cat? it must be the very latest fashion which hasn't reached us yet." peredonov listened to him with stupefied disappointment. he shouted: "you'd better admit that you can't do it, incompetent!" and he walked away, dragging after him the cat, which mewed continuously. on the way he thought dejectedly that everywhere and always everyone laughed at him and no one wanted to help him. his sadness oppressed his heart. peredonov went with volodin and routilov to the summer-garden to play billiards. the marker said to them with embarrassment: "i'm sorry, gentlemen, you can't play to-day." "why not?" asked peredonov irritatedly. "well, i'm sorry to say there are no billiard balls," replied the marker. "someone pinched them when he wasn't looking," said the bar-tender sternly, leaning across the counter. the marker trembled and suddenly twitched his reddened ears, as a hare does, and whispered: "they were stolen." peredonov exclaimed in a frightened voice: "good lord! who stole them?" "it's not known," said the marker; "no one seemed to have been here, and then when i went to look for the balls they weren't there." routilov sniggered and exclaimed: "what a funny thing!" volodin assumed an injured look and scolded the marker: "if you allow the billiard balls to be stolen when you are somewhere else and the billiard balls disappear, then you ought to have provided others for us to have something to play with. we come here and want to play, and if there are no billiard balls, how can we play?" "don't whine, pavloushka," said peredonov, "it's bad enough without you. now, marker, you go and look for those balls, we must play--but meanwhile bring us a couple of beers." they began to drink the beer. but it was tedious. the billiard balls could not be found. they wrangled with one another and they cursed the marker. the latter felt guilty and said nothing. peredonov detected in this theft a new intrigue, hostile to himself. "why?" he thought dejectedly, and could not understand. he went into the garden, sat down on a bench near the pond--he had never sat there before--and fixed his eyes dully on the weed-clogged water. volodin sat down beside him and shared his grief, looking also at the pond with his sheepish eyes. "why is there such a dirty mirror here, pavloushka," said peredonov, pointing at the pond with his stick. volodin smiled and replied: "it's not a mirror, ardasha, it's a pond. and as there's no breeze just now the trees are reflected in it as if in a mirror." peredonov looked up; a fence on the other side of the pond separated the garden from the street. peredonov asked: "why is the cat on that fence?" volodin looked in the same direction and said with a snigger: "it was there, but it's gone." there really had been no cat--it was an illusion of peredonov's--a cat with wide green eyes, his cunning, tireless enemy. peredonov began to think about the billiard balls: "who needed them? has the nedotikomka devoured them? perhaps that's why i haven't seen it to-day," thought peredonov. "it must have gorged itself and be asleep somewhere now." peredonov went home dejectedly. the sunset was fading. a small cloud was wandering across the sky. she moved stealthily on her soft shoes, and peeped out at him. on her dark edges a reflection smiled enigmatically. above the stream, which flowed between the garden and the town, the shadows of the houses and the bushes wavered, whispered to each other, and seemed to be searching for someone. and on the earth, in this dark and eternally hostile town, all the people he met were evil and malicious. everything became mingled in a general ill-will towards peredonov, the dogs laughed at him and the people barked at him. * * * * * the ladies of the town began to visit varvara. some of them with an eager curiosity had managed to pay a visit on the second or third day, to see how varvara looked at home. others delayed a week or more. and still others did not come at all--as, for instance, vershina. the peredonovs awaited return visits every day with anxious impatience; they counted up those who had not yet come. they awaited the head-master and his wife with special impatience. they waited and were immensely agitated for fear that the khripatches should suddenly arrive. a week had passed. the khripatches had not yet come. varvara had got into a temper and began to pour out abuse. this waiting plunged peredonov into a deeply depressed state of mind. peredonov's eyes became entirely vacant. it was as if they were becoming extinguished, and sometimes they seemed like the eyes of a dead man. absurd fears tormented him. without any visible cause he began to be afraid of one or another object. an idea somehow came into his head--and tormented him for several days--that they would cut his throat; he was afraid of everything sharp and hid the knives and the forks. "perhaps," he thought, "they've been bewitched by whispered spells. it might happen that i might cut myself with them." "why are there knives?" he asked varvara. "chinamen eat with chopsticks." for a whole week after this they did not cook any meat, but lived on cabbage-soup and gruel. varvara, to get even with peredonov for the troubles he had caused her before their wedding, sometimes agreed with him and encouraged him to think that his fancies and superstitions had a basis in reality. she told him that he had many enemies and that they had every reason to envy him. more than once she told peredonov tauntingly that he had been informed against and slandered to the authorities and the princess. and she rejoiced at his visible fear. it seemed clear to peredonov that the princess was dissatisfied with him. why couldn't she have sent him for his wedding an ikon or cake. he thought: oughtn't he to earn her favour? but how? by falsehood? should he slander someone, calumniate someone, inform against someone? he knew that all women love tittle-tattle--and so couldn't he invent something, something pleasant and _risqué_ about varvara and write it to the princess? she would laugh and give him the place. but peredonov was not able to write the letter, and felt apprehensive about writing to a princess. and later he forgot all about this scheme. peredonov gave ordinary visitors vodka and the cheapest port-wine. but he bought a three-rouble bottle of madeira for the head-master. he considered this wine extremely expensive, kept it in his bedroom and showed it to his visitors, saying: "it's for the head-master!" routilov and volodin were once sitting at peredonov's. peredonov showed them the madeira. "what's the good of looking at the outside, it doesn't taste well," said routilov with a snigger, "you might treat us to some of your expensive madeira." "what an idea!" exclaimed peredonov angrily. "what should i give the head-master?" "the head-master could drink a glass of vodka," said routilov. "head-masters don't drink vodka, they have to drink madeira," said peredonov reasonably. "but suppose he likes vodka?" persisted routilov. "good heavens! you don't suppose a general would like vodka!" said peredonov with conviction. "all the same you'd better give us some of it," insisted routilov. but peredonov quickly took away the bottle and they heard the click of the lock on the little cupboard in which he kept the wine. when he came back to his guests he began to talk about the princess to change the conversation. he said quite gravely: "the princess! why she sold rotten apples in the market and managed to get hold of a prince." routilov burst out laughing and shouted: "do princes walk about markets?" "oh, she knew how to entice him in," said peredonov. "you're making it up, ardalyon borisitch, it's a cock-and-bull story," argued routilov. "the princess is a born lady." peredonov looked at him malignantly and thought: "he's defending her. that means he's siding with the princess. it's clear that she's bewitched him although she lives at a distance." and the nedotikomka wriggled about him, laughed noiselessly and shook all over with laughter. it reminded peredonov of various dreadful circumstances. he looked around timidly and whispered: "in every town there's a sergeant of the gendarmes in the secret service. he wears civilian clothes, sometimes he's in the civil service, sometimes he's a tradesman, or he does something else, but at night when everyone is asleep he puts on his blue uniform and suddenly becomes a sergeant of the gendarmes." "but why the uniform?" inquired volodin reasonably. "because no one dares to appear before the authorities without a uniform. you might get beaten for doing it." volodin sniggered. peredonov bent over him closer and whispered: "sometimes he even lives in the shape of a were-wolf. you may think it's simply a cat, but that's an error, it's really a gendarme running about. no one hides from a cat, and he listens to everything that's said." * * * * * at last, after a week and a half, the head-master's wife paid a visit to varvara. she arrived with her husband on a week-day at four o'clock, all dressed up, attractive-looking, bringing a perfume of violets with her--altogether unexpectedly for the peredonovs, who for some reason had expected the khripatches on a sunday, earlier in the day. they were dumbfounded. varvara was in the kitchen half-dressed and dirty. she rushed away to get dressed and peredonov received the visitors, looking as if he had been just awakened. "varvara will be here immediately," he mumbled, "she's dressing herself. she was working--we have a new servant who doesn't understand our ways. she's a hopeless fool." soon varvara came in, dressed somehow, with a flushed, frightened face. she extended to her visitors a dirty, damp hand, and said in a voice trembling with agitation: "you must forgive me for keeping you waiting--we didn't expect you on a week-day." "i seldom go out on a sunday," said madame khripatch. "there are drunkards in the street. i let my servant-maid have her day out." the conversation somehow started, and the kindness of the head-master's wife somewhat encouraged varvara. madame khripatch treated varvara with a slight contemptuousness, but graciously--as with a repented sinner who had to be treated kindly but who might still soil one's hands. she gave varvara several hints, as if incidentally, about clothes and housekeeping. varvara tried to please the head-master's wife, but her red hands and chapped lips still trembled with fear. this embarrassed madame khripatch. she tried to be even more gracious, but an involuntary fastidiousness overcame her. by her whole attitude she showed varvara that there could never be a close acquaintance between them. but she did this so graciously that varvara did not understand, and imagined that she and madame khripatch would become great friends. khripatch had the look of a man out of his element, but he concealed the fact skilfully and manfully. he refused the madeira on the ground that he was not used to drinking wine at that hour of the day. he talked about the local news, about the approaching changes in the composition of the district court. but it was very noticeable that he and peredonov moved in different circles of local society. they did not make a long visit. varvara was glad when they left; they just came and went. she said with relief as she took off her clothes: "well, thank god they've gone. i didn't know what to talk to them about. when you don't know people you can't tell how to get at them." suddenly she remembered that when the khripatches left they had not invited her to their house. this distressed her at first, but afterwards she thought: "they'll send a card with a note when to come. gentry like them have a time for everything. i suppose i ought to have a go at french. i can't even say 'pa' and 'ma' in french." when they got home the head-master's wife said to her husband: "she's simply pitiful, and hopelessly vulgar; it's utterly impossible to be on equal terms with her. there's nothing in her to correspond with her position." khripatch replied: "she fully corresponds with her husband. i'm impatiently waiting for them to take him away from us." * * * * * after the wedding varvara began to drink now and then--most frequently with grushina. once when she was a little tipsy prepolovenskaya was at her house and varvara blabbed about the letter. she didn't tell everything but she hinted sufficiently clearly. this was enough for the cunning sofya--it was a sudden revelation to her. "but why didn't i guess it at once," she mentally reproached herself. she told vershina in confidence about the forged letters--and from her it spread all over the town. prepolovenskaya could not help laughing at peredonov's credulousness whenever she met him. she said to him: "you're very simple, ardalyon borisitch." "i'm not simple at all," he replied, "i'm a graduate of a university." "you may be a graduate, but anyone who wants to can take you in." "i can take in everyone myself," argued peredonov. prepolovenskaya smiled slyly and left him. peredonov was dully perplexed. "what does she mean? it's out of spite," he thought. "everyone's my enemy." and he made a koukish after her. "you'll get nothing out of me," he thought, consoling himself, but he was tormented by dread. her hints did not seem very satisfactory to prepolovenskaya. but she did not want to tell him everything in plain words. why should she quarrel with varvara? from time to time she sent peredonov anonymous letters in which the hints were clearer. but peredonov misunderstood them. sofya once wrote him: "you had better see whether that princess, who wrote you the letter, doesn't live here." peredonov thought that perhaps the princess had really come to the town to watch his movements. "it's obvious," he thought, "that she's in love with me and wants to get me away from varvara." and these letters both frightened and angered him. he kept asking varvara: "where is the princess? i hear that she has come to the town." varvara, to get even with him for what had happened before the marriage, tormented him with vague hints, taunts and half-timid, malignant insinuations. she smiled insolently, and said to him in that strained voice which is usually heard from a person who lies knowingly without the hope of being believed: "how should i know where the princess lives now?" "you're lying--you do know!" said peredonov in terror. he did not know what to believe--the meaning of her words, or the lie betrayed in the sound of her voice--and this, like everything he did not understand, terrified him. varvara retorted: "what an idea! perhaps she left peter for somewhere else. she doesn't have to ask me when she goes away." "but perhaps she really has come here?" asked peredonov timidly. "perhaps she really has come here!" varvara mimicked him. "she's smitten with you and she's come here to see you." "you're a liar! is it likely that she'd fall in love with me?" varvara laughed spitefully. from that time peredonov began to look about attentively for the princess. sometimes it seemed to him that she was looking in at the window, through the door, eavesdropping, and whispering with varvara. * * * * * time passed by and the paper, announcing his appointment as inspector, so eagerly expected day after day, still did not come. he had no private information of the situation. peredonov did not dare to find out from the princess herself--varvara constantly frightened him by saying that the princess was a very great lady, and he thought that if he wrote to her it might cause him extreme unpleasantness. he did not know precisely what they could do to him if the princess complained of him, but this made him think of dreadful possibilities. varvara said to him: "don't you know aristocrats? you must wait until they act of themselves. but once you remind them, they get offended, and it'll be the worse for you. they're so touchy. they're proud, and they like to be taken at their word." and peredonov was still credulous. but he got angry with the princess. sometimes he even thought that the princess would inform against him in order to rid herself of her obligations to him. or else she would inform against him because he had married varvara when perhaps she herself was in love with him. that was why she had surrounded him with spies, he thought, who kept an eye on him everywhere. they had so hemmed him in that he had no air to breathe, no light. she was not an eminent lady for nothing. she could do whatever she liked. from spite he invented most unlikely stories about the princess. he told routilov and volodin that he had formerly been her lover and that she had given him large sums of money. "but i've drunk it all away," he said. "why the devil should i save it! she also promised me a pension for life, but she took me in over that." "and would you have accepted it?" asked routilov with a snigger. peredonov was silent. he did not understand the question. but volodin answered for him gravely and judiciously: "why not accept it, if she's rich? she's gratified herself with pleasures and she ought to pay for them." "if she were at least a beauty," said peredonov mournfully. "she's freckled and pug-nosed. she paid very well, otherwise i wouldn't even want to spit at the hag! she must attend to my request." "you're a liar, ardalyon borisitch," said routilov. "a liar! what an idea! do you suppose she paid me for nothing? she's jealous of varvara, and that's why she doesn't give me the job at once." peredonov did not feel any shame when he said that the princess paid him. volodin was a credulous listener, and did not notice the absurdities and contradictions in his stories. routilov protested, but thought that without fire there can be no smoke. he thought there must have been something between peredonov and the princess. "she's older than the priest's dog,"[ ] said peredonov convincingly, as if it were to the point; "but see that you don't blab about it, because it might come to her ears and do no good. she paints herself, and she tries to make herself as young as a sucking-pig by injecting things in her veins. and you know that she's old. she's really a hundred." volodin nodded his head and clicked his tongue affirmatively. he believed it all. it so happened that on the day after this conversation peredonov read krilov's fable, "the liar." and for several days afterwards he was afraid to go over the bridge, but crossed the river in a boat, for fear that the bridge should tumble down.[ ] he explained to volodin: "what i said about the princess was the truth, only the bridge might take a sudden notion not to believe my story, and tumble down to the devil." [ ] there is a popular russian tale about a priest who had a very old dog. it begins, "the priest had a dog ..." [ ] krilov's fable is of a returned traveller who tells his friend at home about a cucumber he saw at rome as large as a mountain. the incredulous friend tells him about one of the home wonders--a bridge which tumbles every liar who attempts to cross it into the river. the traveller gradually reduces the size of the cucumber, but even then he finally suggests that they find a place where they might ford the stream. chapter xxv rumours of the forged letters spread about the town. conversations about them preoccupied the townsmen and gave them great pleasure. nearly everyone took varvara's part and was glad that peredonov had been made a fool of. and all those who had seen the letters asserted as with one voice that they had guessed it at once. especially great was the rejoicing in vershina's house: marta, though she was going to marry mourin, had nevertheless been rejected by peredonov; vershina wanted mourin for herself but she had to yield him to marta; vladya had his obvious reasons for hating peredonov and for rejoicing at his discomfiture. though he felt vexed to think that peredonov would remain at the _gymnasia,_ still this vexation was outweighed by his pleasure at the fact that peredonov had been let down badly. and besides this, during the last few days there was a persistent rumour that the head-master had informed the director of the national schools that peredonov was out of his mind. and someone was going to be sent to examine him, after which he would be taken away. whenever her acquaintances met varvara they would refer more or less openly to her stratagem, accompanying their words with coarse jokes and impudent winks. she would smile insolently and would not admit it, but she did not deny it. others hinted to grushina that they knew of her share in the forgery. she was frightened and came to varvara, reproaching her for gossiping too much. varvara said to, her with a smile: "now, don't make such a fuss. i never had the least intention of telling anyone." "how did they find it out then?" asked grushina hotly. "of course i shouldn't tell anyone, i'm not such a fool." "and i haven't told anyone," asserted varvara. "i want the letter back," demanded grushina, "or else he'll begin to look at it closely and he'll recognise from the handwriting that it's a forgery." "well, let him find out!" said varvara. "why should i stop to consider a fool?" grushina's eyes gleamed and she shouted: "it's all very well for you who've got all you wanted, but i might be jailed on your account! no, i must have that letter, whatever you do. because they can unmarry you as well, you know." "that's all nonsense," replied varvara with her arms insolently akimbo. "you might announce it in the market-place, but you couldn't undo the marriage." "not nonsense at all," shouted grushina. "there is no law that permits you to marry through deception. if ardalyon borisitch should let the authorities know about this affair and the affair went up to the higher court they'd settle your hash for you." varvara got frightened and said: "now don't be angry--i'll get you the letter. there's nothing to be afraid of--i'll not give you away. i'm not such a beast as all that. i've got a soul too." "what's a soul got to do with it?" said grushina harshly. "a dog and a man have the same breath, but there is no soul. you live while you live." varvara decided to steal the letter, though this was difficult. grushina urged her to hurry. there was one hope--to take the letter from peredonov when he was drunk. and he drank a great deal now. he had even not infrequently appeared at the _gymnasia_ in a rather tipsy state and had made unpleasant remarks which had aroused repugnance in even the worst of the boys. * * * * * once peredonov returned from the billiard saloon more drunk than usual: they had baptised the new billiard balls. but he never let go of his wallet. as he managed to undress somehow, he stuck it under his pillow. he slept restlessly but profoundly, and during his sleep his mind wandered and he babbled about something terrible and monstrous. and these words inspired varvara with a painful apprehension. "well, it's nothing," she encouraged herself. "so long as he doesn't wake up." she had tried to waken him. she nudged him--he only muttered something and cursed violently, but did not awaken. varvara lit a candle and placed it so that the light should not fall into peredonov's eyes. numb with terror, she rose in the bed and slipped her hand under peredonov's pillow. the wallet was quite close but for a long time it seemed to elude her fingers. the candle burned dimly. its light wavered. timorous shadows ran on the walls and on the bed--evil little devils flashed by. the air was close and motionless. there was a smell of badly-distilled vodka. peredonov's snores and drunken ravings filled the bedroom. the whole place was like the incarnation of a nightmare. varvara took the letter with trembling hands and replaced the wallet. in the morning peredonov looked for his letter, failed to find it, and shouted in a fright: "where's the letter, varya?" varvara felt very much afraid but concealed it and said: "how should i know, ardalyon borisitch? you keep showing it to everyone, you must have dropped it. or else someone has stolen it from you. you have a lot of friends and acquaintances that you get drunk with at night." peredonov thought that the letter had been stolen by his enemies, most likely by volodin. the letter was now in volodin's hands and later he would get the other papers and the appointment into his clutches, and he would go away to his inspectorship while peredonov remained a disappointed beggar. * * * * * peredonov decided that he must defend himself. every day he wrote denunciations of his enemies: vershina, the routilovs, volodin, his colleagues, who, it seemed to him, had their eye on the same position. in the evening he would take these denunciations to roubovsky. the officer of the gendarmerie lived in a prominent place on the square near the _gymnasia._ many people observed from their windows how often peredonov entered the gates of the officer of the gendarmerie. but peredonov thought that he was unobserved. he had good reason to take these denunciations at night, by the back way through the kitchen. he kept the papers under his coat. it was noticeable at once that he was holding something. when it happened that he had to take his hand out to shake hands with someone, he clutched the papers under his coat with his left hand, and imagined that no one would guess that anything was there. when his acquaintances asked him where he was going he lied to them very clumsily, but was very satisfied himself with his awkward inventions. he explained to roubovsky: "they're all traitors. they pretend to be your friends so as to be more certain of deceiving you. but none of them stop to think that i know things about them that would send them all to siberia." roubovsky listened to him in silence. the first denunciation, which was patently absurd, he sent to the head-master, and he did the same thing with several others. he kept certain others in case he should need them. the head-master wrote to the director of national schools that peredonov was showing clear symptoms of mental disease. at home peredonov constantly heard ceaseless, exasperating and mocking rustlings. he said to varvara dejectedly: "someone's walking about on tip-toe. there are so many spies in the house, jostling each other. varya, you're not taking care of me." varvara did not understand the meaning of peredonov's ravings. at one time she taunted him, at another she felt afraid. she said to him malignantly and yet with fear: "you see all sorts of things when you're drunk." the door to the hall seemed especially suspicious to peredonov. it did not close tightly. the crevice between the two halves hinted at something that was hiding outside. wasn't it the knave who was peeping through it? someone's evil, penetrating eye gleamed behind it. the cat followed peredonov everywhere with its wide, green eyes. sometimes it blinked its eyes, sometimes it mewed fearfully. it was obvious that the animal wanted to catch peredonov at something, but it could not and was therefore angry. peredonov exorcised the cat by spitting, but the cat remained unmoved. the nedotikomka ran under the chair and in the corners, and squealed. it was dirty, evil-smelling, repulsive and terrifying. it was already quite clear that it was hostile to peredonov, and rolled in entirely on his account, and that it had not existed anywhere before. it had been created--and it had been bewitched. and this evil, many-eyed beast lived here to his dread and to his perdition--followed him, deceived him, laughed at him--now rolled upon the floor, now turned into a rag, a ribbon, a twig, a flag, a small cloud, a little dog, a pillar of dust in the street, and everywhere it crawled and ran after peredonov. it harassed him, it wearied him with its vacillating dance. if only someone would deliver him from it, with a word or with a downright blow. but he had no friends here, there was no one to come to save him. he must use his own cunning or the malicious beast would ruin him. * * * * * peredonov thought of a device. he smeared the entire floor with glue so that the nedotikomka should get stuck. what did stick to the floor was the soles of varvara's shoes and the hems of her dress, but the nedotikomka rolled on freely and laughed shrilly. varvara abused him loudly. persistent suspicions of being under constant persecution frightened him. more and more he became immersed in a world of wild illusions. this reflected itself in his face, which became a motionless mask of terror. in the evenings peredonov no longer went to play billiards. after dinner he shut himself in his bedroom, barricaded the room with various objects--a chair upon a table--and very carefully surrounded himself with crosses and exorcisms and sat down to write denunciations against everyone he could think of. he wrote denunciations not only against people but against playing-card queens. as soon as he had written one he would take it immediately to the officer of the gendarmerie. and in this way he spent every evening. everywhere card-figures walked before peredonov's eyes, as if they were alive--kings, queens and knaves. even the other cards walked about. these consisted of people with silver buttons: schoolboys and policemen. there was the ace of spades--stout, with a protruding stomach, almost entirely stomach. sometimes the cards became transformed into his acquaintances. living people were mixed up with these strange phantasms. peredonov was convinced that a knave was standing behind the door and that he had strength and power--something like a policeman's--and that he could take you away somewhere to some terrible jail. under the table sat the nedotikomka. and peredonov was afraid to glance either under the table or behind the door. the nimble eights of the pack, like little boys, mocked at peredonov--these were the phantasms of schoolboys. they lifted their legs with strange, stiff movements, like the legs of a compass, but their legs were shaggy and with hoofs. instead of tails they had whipping rods, which they swung with a swish, and at each flourish they gave a squeak. the nedotikomka grunted from under the table, and laughed at the play of these eights. peredonov thought with rage that the nedotikomka would not have dared to come to an official. "they surely wouldn't let it in," he thought enviously. "the lackeys would drive it out with their mops." at last peredonov could no longer stand its evil, insolently shrill laughter. he brought an axe from the kitchen and he split the table under which the nedotikomka was hiding. the nedotikomka squeaked piteously and furiously. it dashed out from under the table and rolled away. peredonov trembled. "it might bite," he thought, and screamed with terror and sat down, but the nedotikomka hid itself peacefully. not for long.... sometimes peredonov took the cards and with a ferocious expression on his face cut the heads off the court cards. especially those of the queens. in cutting the kings, he glanced around him so as not to be detected and not to be accused of a political crime. but even these executions did not help for long. visitors came, cards were brought and evil spies again took possession of the cards. peredonov already began to consider himself a secret criminal. he imagined that even from his student days he had been under the surveillance of the police. for some reason he thought that they were watching him. this terrified and yet flattered him. the wind stirred the wall-paper. it shook with a quiet, evil rustling. and soft half-shadows glided over their vividly coloured patterns. "there's a spy hiding behind the wall-paper," thought peredonov sadly. "evil people! no wonder they put the paper on the wall so unevenly and so poorly, for a skilful, patient, flat villain to creep in and hide behind. such things have happened even before." confused recollections stirred in his mind. someone had hidden behind the wall-paper; someone had been stabbed either with a poignard or an awl. peredonov bought an awl. and when he returned home the wall-paper stirred unevenly and restlessly--a spy felt his danger and was perhaps trying to creep in farther. a shadow jumped to the ceiling and there threatened and grimaced. peredonov was infuriated. he struck the wall-paper impetuously with the awl. a shiver ran over the wall. peredonov began to sing triumphantly and to dance, brandishing the awl. varvara came in. "why are you dancing by yourself, ardalyon borisitch?" she asked, smiling stupidly and insolently as always. "i've killed a beetle," explained peredonov morosely. his eyes gleamed in wild triumph. only one thing annoyed him; the disagreeable odour. the murdered spy stank putridly behind the wall-paper. horror and triumph shook peredonov--he had killed an enemy! he had hardened his heart to the very end of the deed. it was not a real murder--but for peredonov it was quite real. a mad horror had forged in him a readiness to commit the crime--and the deep, unconscious image of future murder, dormant in the lower strata of spiritual life, the tormenting itch to murder, a condition of primitive wrath, oppressed his diseased will. the ancient cain--overlaid by many generations--found gratification in his breaking and damaging property, in his chopping with the axe, in his cutting with the knife, in his cutting down trees in the garden to prevent the spies from looking out behind them. and the ancient demon, the spirit of prehistoric confusion, of hoary chaos, rejoiced in the destruction of things, while the wild eyes of the madman reflected horror, like the horror of the death agonies of some monster. and the same illusions tormented him again and again. varvara, amusing herself at peredonov's expense, sometimes hid herself behind the door of the room where he was sitting, and talked in assumed voices. he would get frightened, walk up quietly to catch the enemy--and find varvara. "whom were you whispering to?" he asked sadly. varvara smiled and replied: "it only seemed to you, ardalyon borisitch." "surely everything doesn't merely seem to me," muttered peredonov sadly. "there must be also truth upon the earth." even peredonov, in common with all conscious life, strove towards the truth, and this striving tortured him. he was not conscious that he, like all people, was striving towards the truth, and that was why he suffered this confused restlessness. he could not find the truth he sought, and he was caught in the toils and was perishing. * * * * * his acquaintances began to taunt him with being a dupe. with the usual cruelty of our town towards the weak, they talked of this deception in his presence. prepolovenskaya asked with a derisive smile: "how is it, ardalyon borisitch, that you haven't gone away to your inspector's job yet?" varvara answered for him with suppressed anger: "we shall get the paper soon, and we shall leave at once." but these questions depressed him. "how can i live, if the place isn't given to me?" he thought. he kept devising new plans of defence against his enemies. he stole the axe from the kitchen and hid it under the bed. he bought a swedish knife and always carried it about in his pocket. he frequently locked himself in his room. at night he put traps around the house and in the rooms and later he would examine them. these traps were, of course, so constructed that they could not catch anyone. they gripped but could not hold anyone, and it was easy to walk away with them. but peredonov had no technical knowledge and no common sense. when he saw each morning that no one was caught peredonov imagined that his enemies had tampered with the traps. this again frightened him. peredonov watched volodin with special attention. he frequently went to volodin when he knew that volodin would not be at home and rummaged among the papers to see if there were any stolen from himself. * * * * * peredonov began to suspect what the princess wanted--it was that he should love her again. she was repugnant to him, a decrepit old woman. "she's a hundred and fifty years old," he thought with vexation. "yes, she's old, but then how powerful she is!" and his repulsion became mingled with an allurement. "she's an almost cold little old woman, she smells slightly of a corpse," he imagined, and he felt faint with a savage voluptuousness. "perhaps it would be possible to arrange a meeting, and her heart would be touched. oughtn't i to send her a letter?" this time peredonov, with slight hesitation, composed a letter to the princess. he wrote: "i love you, because you are cold and remote. varvara perspires, it is hot to sleep with her, it is like the breath of an oven. i would like to have a cold and remote love. come here and respond to me." he wrote it and posted it--and then repented. "what will come of it?" he thought. "perhaps i ought not to have written. i should have waited until the princess came here." this letter was an accidental occurrence, like so much that peredonov did--he was like a corpse moved by external powers, and moved as if these powers had no desire to busy themselves with him for long: one would play with him and then cast him to another. soon the nedotikomka reappeared--for a long time it rolled around peredonov as if it were on the end of a lasso, and kept mocking him. and it was now noiseless, and laughed only with a shaking of its body. the evil, shameless beast flared up with dimly golden sparks--it threatened and burned with an intolerable triumph. and the cat threatened peredonov; its eyes gleamed and it mewed arrogantly and fiercely. "why are they so glad?" thought peredonov dejectedly, and suddenly understood that the end was approaching, that the princess was already here, close, quite close. perhaps she was in this very pack of cards. yes, undoubtedly she was the queen of spades or the queen of hearts. perhaps she was hiding in another pack, or in other cards, but he did not know what she looked like. the difficulty was that peredonov had never seen her. it would be useless to ask varvara--she would tell lies. at last peredonov thought he would burn the whole pack. let them all burn! if they creep into the cards to his ruin, then it's their own fault. peredonov chose a time when varvara was not at home. the stove in the parlour was alight--and he threw all the cards into the stove. with a crackling the marvellous pale red flowers opened out--they burned but were black at the edges. peredonov looked in horror at these flaming blossoms. the cards contracted, bent over and moved as if they were trying to escape from the stove. peredonov caught hold of the poker and began to beat the lighted cards with it. there was a shower of tiny bright sparks on all sides--and suddenly in a bright, wild riot of sparks the princess rose out of the fire, a little ash-grey woman, bestrewn with small dying sparks; she wailed piercingly in her shrill voice and hissed and spit on the flames. peredonov fell backward. he cried out in horror. the darkness embraced him, tickled him, and laughed with a thousand jarring little noises. chapter xxvi sasha was fascinated by liudmilla, but something prevented him from talking about her to kokovkina. he felt somehow ashamed, and sometimes he came to be afraid of her visits. his heart would feel faint and his eyebrows contract involuntarily when he saw her rose-yellow hat pass quickly under his window. nevertheless he awaited her with anxiety and impatience--he was sad when she did not come for a long time. contradictory feelings were mingled in his soul, feelings dark and vague--morbid because premature, and sweet because morbid. liudmilla had called neither yesterday nor to-day. sasha exhausted himself with waiting and had already ceased to expect her. suddenly she came. he grew radiant and rushed forward to kiss her hand. "well, have you forgotten me?" he reproached her. "i haven't seen you for two days." she laughed happily and a sweet, languid and piquant odour of japanese _funkia_ emanated from her, as if it came from her light hair. liudmilla and sasha went out for a walk in the town. they invited kokovkina but she would not go. "how could an old woman like me go out with you? i'd only get in your way. you'd better go out by yourselves." "but we'll get into mischief," laughed liudmilla. * * * * * the warm, languid air caressed them and called to remembrance the irrevocable. the sun, as if diseased, burned dimly and lividly in the pale, tired sky. the dry leaves lay humbly on the dark earth, dead. liudmilla and sasha went into a hollow. it was cool, refreshing, almost damp there--a tender autumn weariness reigned there within its shady slopes. liudmilla walked in front. she lifted her skirt. she showed her small shoes and flesh-coloured stockings. sasha looked on the ground, so as not to stumble over roots, and saw the stockings. it seemed to him that she had put on shoes without stockings. he flushed. he felt giddy. "if only i could fall suddenly before her," he thought, "snatch off her shoes, and kiss her delicate feet!" liudmilla instinctively felt sasha's passionate glance, his impatient desire. she laughed and turned to him with a question: "are you looking at my stockings?" "no, i--er----" mumbled sasha in confusion. "what dreadful stockings i've got on," said liudmilla laughing and not listening to him. "it almost looks as if i had put my shoes on my bare feet--they're absolutely flesh-coloured. don't you think they're dreadfully ridiculous stockings?" she turned her face to sasha and lifted the hem of her dress. "aren't they ridiculous?" she asked. "no, they're beautiful," said sasha, red with embarrassment. liudmilla pretended to be surprised, raised her eyebrows and exclaimed: "and what do you know about beauty?" liudmilla laughed and walked on. sasha, burning with confusion, walked uneasily after her, stumbling frequently. they managed to get through the hollow. they sat down on a birch trunk thrown down by the wind. liudmilla said: "my shoes are full of sand. i can't go on any further." she took off her shoes, shook out the sand and looked archly at sasha. "do you think it's a pretty foot?" she asked. sasha flushed even more and did not know what to say. liudmilla pulled off her stockings. "don't you think they're very white feet?" she asked and smiled strangely and coquettishly. "down on your knees! kiss them!" she said severely, and a commanding severity showed on her face. sasha went down on his knees quickly and kissed liudmilla's feet. "it's much nicer without stockings," said liudmilla as she placed her stockings in her pocket and stuck her feet into her shoes. and her face again became gay and calm as if sasha had not just been on his knees before her, kissing her naked feet. sasha asked: "won't you catch cold, dear?" his voice sounded tender and tremulous. liudmilla laughed. "what a notion! i'm used to it. i'm not so delicate as that." * * * * * liudmilla once came to kokovkina's just before dusk and called sasha: "come and help me put up a new shelf." sasha loved to knock nails in, and somehow he had promised to help liudmilla in arranging her room. and now he eagerly consented, glad that there was an innocent pretext to go to liudmilla's house. and now the innocent, pungent odour of essence of _muguet_ blew from liudmilla's greenish dress and gently soothed him. for the work liudmilla redressed herself behind a screen, and came out to sasha in a short, spruce skirt, and short sleeves, perfumed with the pleasant, languid, pungent japanese _funkia._ "oh, but how spruced up you are!" said sasha. "yes, i am," said liudmilla laughing. "look, my feet are bare," she said, drawling out her words in a half-ashamed, half-provoking way. sasha shrugged his shoulders and said: "you're always spruce. well, let's begin to work. have you got any nails?" "wait a bit," replied liudmilla. "sit still a moment with me. you seem as if you had come on business and found it a bore to talk to me." sasha flushed and said tenderly: "dear liudmillotchka, i would like to sit with you as long as you want, until you drove me out, but i've got my lessons to do." liudmilla sighed and said slowly: "you're getting handsomer, sasha." sasha reddened, laughed and protruded the end of his curled-up tongue. "what a thing to say! you might think i was a girl from the way you talk." "a beautiful face, but what kind of body? you might show it, at least to the waist," entreated liudmilla caressingly, and put her arm round his shoulder. "what an idea!" said sasha, ashamed and vexed at the same time. "why, what's the matter?" asked liudmilla in a different voice. "what have you got to hide?" "someone might come," said sasha. "who'll come in?" said liudmilla as gaily and carelessly as before. "we can lock the door and then no one will come in." liudmilla walked quickly up to the door and bolted it. sasha felt that liudmilla was serious. he flushed so deeply that little drops of perspiration came out on his forehead and he said: "we oughtn't to do it, liudmillotchka." "stupid! why not?" asked liudmilla in a persuasive voice. she pulled sasha to her and began to undo his blouse. sasha resisted and caught her wrists. his face looked frightened--and an equal shame possessed him, and these emotions made him feel suddenly weak. liudmilla contracted her eyebrows and began to undress him determinedly. she took off his belt and somehow pulled off his blouse. sasha resisted more and more desperately. they tussled with each other about the room, stumbling against tables and chairs. a pungent scent came from liudmilla, intoxicated sasha and weakened him. with a quick thrust against his chest liudmilla pushed sasha on to the sofa. a button flew off from the shirt she was pulling at. liudmilla bared sasha's shoulder, and began to pull his arm out of the sleeve. sasha resisted and accidently struck liudmilla's cheek with his hand. he did not want to strike her, but the blow fell hard on liudmilla's cheek. liudmilla shook, staggered, her cheeks went a violent red, but she did not let go of sasha. "you wicked boy to fight!" she exclaimed in a choking voice. sasha felt distressed, dropped his arms and looked guiltily at the white marks of his fingers on liudmilla's left cheek. liudmilla took advantage of his confusion. she quickly pulled the shirt from both shoulders to his elbows. sasha recovered himself, tried to get away from her but only made things worse--liudmilla pulled the sleeves off his arms and his shirt fell down to his waist. sasha felt cold, and a new flood of shame, hard and pitiless, made his head whirl. he was now naked to the waist. liudmilla held his arms tightly and patted his back with her trembling hand, looking at the same time into his downcast, strangely gleaming eyes under their blue-black eyebrows. suddenly these eyelashes trembled, his face was wrinkled by a pitiful, childish grimace, and he began to sob. "you wicked girl!" he exclaimed in a sobbing voice. "let me go!" "cry-baby!" said liudmilla angrily, and pushed him away. sasha turned away, drying his tears on the palms of his hands. he felt ashamed because he was crying. he tried to hold back his tears. liudmilla looked eagerly at his naked back. "how much beauty there is in the world!" she thought. "people hide so much beauty from themselves. why?" sasha, shrinking ashamedly with his naked shoulders, tried to put on his shirt, but it only became entangled in his trembling hands and he could not get his arms into the sleeves. sasha caught hold of his blouse--let the shirt remain as it was for the present. "oh, you're afraid for your property. no, i shan't steal it!" said liudmilla in a loud, angry voice, ringing with tears. she threw him the belt impetuously, and turned towards the window. much she wanted him, wrapped up in his grey blouse, the horrid boy! sasha quickly put on his blouse, somehow arranged his shirt and looked at liudmilla cautiously, indecisively and shamefacedly. he saw that she was wiping her cheeks with her fingers; he walked up to her timidly and looked into her face--and the tears which were trickling down her cheeks weakened him into pity--and he felt no longer ashamed and angry. "why are you crying, dear liudmillotchka?" he asked quietly. and suddenly he flushed--he remembered that he had struck her. "i hit you--forgive me! i didn't do it on purpose," he said timidly. "are you afraid you'll melt away, you silly boy, that you won't sit with your shoulders naked?" said liudmilla reproachfully. "or are you afraid that you'll get sunburnt, or your beauty and innocence be lost?" "but why do you want me to do it, liudmillotchka?" said sasha with a grimace of embarrassment. "why?" said liudmilla passionately, "because i love beauty. because i am a pagan, a sinner. i ought to have been born in ancient athens. i love flowers, perfumes, brightly coloured clothes, the naked body. they say there is a soul. i don't know, i've never seen it. and what is it to me? let me die altogether like an undine, let me melt away like a cloud under the sun. i love the body, the strong, agile, naked body, which is capable of enjoyment." "yes, but it can suffer also," said sasha quietly. "and to suffer is also good," whispered liudmilla. "there is sweetness in pain--if only to feel the body, to see its nakedness and bodily beauty." "but it is shameful to be without clothes," said sasha timidly. liudmilla impetuously threw herself on her knees before him. she kissed his hands and whispered breathlessly: "my dear, my idol, divine boy, just for a moment, only for a moment, let me see your beautiful shoulders." sasha sighed, looked down, flushed and took off his blouse awkwardly. liudmilla caught him with her warm hands and covered his shoulders, which trembled with shame, with kisses. "do you see how obedient i am?" said sasha with a forced smile, trying to get rid of his embarrassment with a jest. liudmilla quickly kissed his arms from the shoulders to the fingers, and sasha, immersed in passionate, grave thoughts, did not take them away. liudmilla's kisses were warm with adoration--and it was as if her lips were kissing not a boy but a boy-god in a mysterious worship of the blossoming body. darya and valeria were standing behind the door, looking through the keyhole in turns, jostling each other with impatience, and their hearts were sick with a passionate, burning agitation. * * * * * "it's time to dress," said sasha at last. liudmilla sighed, and with the same reverent expression helped him on with his clothes. "so you're a pagan?" asked sasha. liudmilla laughed. "and you?" she asked. "what a question?" said sasha with assurance. "i've learned the whole catechism." liudmilla laughed loudly. sasha looked at her smiling and asked: "if you're a pagan, why do you go to church?" liudmilla ceased laughing and reflected. "well," she said, "one has to pray. one has to pray, to weep, to burn a candle, and do something for the dead. and i love it all, the candles, the image-lamps, the incense, the vestments, the singing--if the singers are good--the ikons, with their trimmings and ribbons. yes, all that is beautiful. and i also love him ... you know ... the crucified one...." liudmilla pronounced the last words very quietly, almost in a whisper, blushed like a guilty person and cast down her eyes. "do you know i sometimes dream of him on the cross, and there are drops of blood on his body." * * * * * from that time on liudmilla more than once took sasha to her room and began to unbutton his blouse. at first he was ashamed to tears, but he soon got used to it. and already he looked clearly and calmly when liudmilla bared his shoulders and caressed his back. in the end he would take off his clothes himself. and liudmilla found it very pleasant to hold him half-naked on her knees, kissing him. * * * * * sasha was alone at home. he thought of liudmilla and of his naked shoulders under her passionate glances. "and what does she want?" he thought. and suddenly he grew livid and his heart beat rapidly. a tumultuous happiness seized him. he turned several somersaults, threw himself on the floor, jumped on the furniture--a thousand absurd movements threw him from one corner to another and his gay, clear laughter resounded through the house. kokovkina, who had returned home, heard this extraordinary din and went into sasha's room. she stood on the threshold in perplexity, shaking her head. "why are you making such a row, sashenka?" she said. "you might have an excuse to do it with other boys, but you're alone. you ought to be ashamed of yourself, young man--you're not a child any longer." sasha stood still and in his embarrassment seemed to lose the use of his hands--his whole body trembled with excitement. * * * * * once kokovkina came home and found liudmilla there. she was giving sasha sweets. "you're spoiling him," said kokovkina affectionately. "he loves sweets." "yes, and yet he calls me a wicked girl," complained liudmilla. "oh, sashenka, how could you!" said kokovkina reproachfully. "why did you say that?" "she's teasing me," said sasha falteringly. he looked at liudmilla with vexation and flushed. liudmilla laughed. "story-teller!" sasha whispered to her. "don't be rude, sashenka," said kokovkina, "it isn't nice!" sasha glanced at liudmilla with a smile and said quietly: "well, i won't do it again." * * * * * each time that sasha came now liudmilla locked the door and dressed him up in various costumes. their sweet shame was dressed up in laughter and jokes. sometimes liudmilla pulled sasha into corsets and dressed him in one of her gowns. in the low-cut dress sasha's full, gently-rounded arms and round shoulders looked very beautiful. his skin was yellowish, but of an even, soft complexion--a rare occurrence. liudmilla's skirt, sleeves and stockings were all becoming to sasha. dressed entirely in woman's clothes sasha sat down obediently and waved a fan. in this costume he really resembled a girl, and he tried to behave like one. there was only one flaw--sasha's short hair. liudmilla thought it would be ugly to put a wig on sasha's hair or to tie on a plait of hair. liudmilla taught sasha to curtsy. he did this awkwardly and shyly at first. but he was graceful in spite of his boyish angularity. blushing and laughing, he learned diligently to curtsy and he coquetted furiously. sometimes liudmilla seized his bare, graceful arms and kissed them. sasha did not resist, and looked laughingly at liudmilla. sometimes he held out his hands to her lips and said: "kiss them!" but he liked most of all other costumes, which liudmilla herself made, particularly the dress of a fisher-boy with bare legs, the tunic of a bare-foot athenian boy. liudmilla would dress him up and admire him. but she herself would go pale and look melancholy. * * * * * sasha was sitting on liudmilla's bed, playing with the folds of his tunic and dangling his naked legs. liudmilla stood in front of him and looked at him with an expression of happiness and surprise. "how stupid you are!" said sasha. "there's so much happiness in my stupidity," said liudmilla, pale and crying, and kissing sasha's hands. "why are you crying?" asked sasha, smiling unconcernedly. "my heart is stung with happiness. my breast is pierced with seven swords of happiness--how can i help crying?" "you are a little fool, really you're a little fool," said sasha with a laugh. "and you're wise!" replied liudmilla in sudden vexation and sighed, wiping her tears away. "understand, little stupid," she said in a quiet, persuasive voice, "that happiness and wisdom are only to be found in madness." "yes, yes?" said sasha incredulously. "you must forget and forget yourself and then you'll understand everything," whispered liudmilla. "in your opinion, do wise men think?" "and what else should they do?" "they simply know. it's given to them at once; they only have to look and everything's opened to them." * * * * * the autumn evening dragged along quietly. a barely audible rustle came now and then through the window when the wind moved the tree branches. sasha and liudmilla were alone. liudmilla had dressed him up as a bare-legged fisher-boy--in a costume of thin blue canvas. he was lying on a low couch and she sat on the floor by his bare feet, herself bare-foot and in a chemise. she sprinkled sasha's clothes and body with perfume--a dense, grassy smell like the motionless odour of a strangely blossoming valley locked in hills. large, bright roman pearls sparkled on liudmilla's neck, and golden, figured bracelets rang on her arms. her body was scented with orris--it was an overpowering, fleshly, provoking perfume, bringing drowsiness and langour, created from the distillations of slow waters. she languished and sighed, looking at his smooth face, at his bluish-black eyelashes and at his night-dark eyes. she laid her head on his bare knees, and her bright hair caressed his smooth skin. she kissed his body, and her head whirled from the strange aroma, mingling with the scent of young flesh. sasha lay there and smiled a quiet, indefinite smile. a vague desire awoke in him, and sweetly tormented him. and when liudmilla kissed his knees and feet the kisses aroused languorous, half-dreaming musings in him. he wanted to do something, something pleasant or painful, gentle or shameful--but what? to kiss her feet? or to beat her long, hard, with long flexible twigs, so that she would laugh with joy or cry with pain? perhaps she desired one or the other. but that was not enough. what then did she want? here they were both half-naked, and with their freed flesh was bound desire and a restraining shame--but what then was the mystery of the flesh? and how then could he bring his blood and his body as an exquisite sacrifice to her desires, and to his shame? and liudmilla languished and stirred at his feet, going pale from impossible desires, now growing cold. she whispered passionately: "am i not beautiful? haven't i burning eyes? haven't i wonderful hair? then caress me! take me close to you! tear off my bracelets, pull off my necklace!" sasha felt terrified, and impossible desires tormented him agonisingly. chapter xxvii peredonov awoke in the morning. someone was looking at him with huge, cloudy, four-cornered eyes. wasn't it pilnikov? peredonov walked up to the window and spat on the evil apparition. everything seemed bewitched. the wild nedotikomka squealed and the people and the beasts looked malignantly and craftily at peredonov. everything was hostile to him, he was one against all. during lessons at the _gymnasia_ peredonov slandered his colleagues, the head-master, the parents and the pupils. the students listened to him in astonishment. some, vulgarians by nature, truckled to peredonov and showed their sympathy with him. others remained gravely silent or defended their parents hotly, when peredonov assailed them. peredonov looked morosely and timorously on these boys, and avoided them, muttering something to himself. at some of the lessons peredonov amused his pupils by absurd comments. they were reading the lines from pushkin: "the sun rises in a cold mist; the harvest-fields are silent; the wolf goes out on the road with his hungry mate." "let us stop here," said peredonov. "this needs to be thoroughly understood. there's an allegory concealed here. wolves go in pairs, that is, the wolf with his hungry mate. the wolf is fed, but she is hungry. the wife should always eat after the husband. the wife should be subject to the husband in everything." pilnikov was in a cheerful mood, he smiled and looked at peredonov with his elusively fine, dark eyes. sasha's face annoyed and yet attracted peredonov. the cursed boy bewitched him with his artful smile. was it really a boy? or perhaps there were two of them: a brother and a sister. but it was difficult to tell who was there. or perhaps it was even possible for him to change himself from a boy into a girl. there must be some reason for his being so clean--when he changed his form he splashed in magical waters--otherwise how could he transform himself? and he always smelt of scents. "what have you scented yourself with, pilnikov?" asked peredonov. "was it patchkouli?"[ ] the boys laughed. sasha grew red at the insult, but said nothing. peredonov could not understand the disinterested desire to please, not to be repulsive to others. every such manifestation, even on the part of a boy, he considered a design against himself. he who was neatly dressed evidently was trying to gain peredonov's favour. otherwise, why should he go to so much trouble? neatness and cleanliness were repulsive to peredonov. perfumes seemed to him to be bad smells. he preferred the stink of a manured field--which he considered good for the health--to all the perfumes of the world. to be neatly dressed, washed, clean, all this required time and labour; and the thought of labour depressed and dejected peredonov. how good it would be to do nothing, and only eat, drink and sleep! sasha's companions teased him about his scenting himself with "patchkouli" and about liudmillotchka's being in love with him. this angered him, and he replied hotly that it was not true, she was not in love with him--that it was all an invention of peredonov, who had paid court to liudmilla and had been snubbed; this was why he was angry with her and was spreading all sorts of evil rumours about her. his companions believed him--they knew peredonov--but they did not stop teasing sasha; it was such a pleasure to tease someone. peredonov persisted in telling everyone about pilnikov's viciousness. "he's got himself mixed up badly with liudmillka," he said. the townspeople gossiped of liudmilla's affection for the schoolboy in a greatly exaggerated way, and with stupid, unseemly details. but there were only a few who believed this: peredonov had overdone it. ill-natured people--of whom there are not a few in our town--asked liudmilla: "what made you fall in love with a small boy? it's an insult to the cavaliers of our town." liudmilla laughed and said: "nonsense!" the townspeople regarded sasha with ugly curiosity. sasha sometimes reproached liudmilla because he was teased about her. it even happened that he slapped her, because she laughed so loudly. to put an end to this stupid gossip, and to save liudmilla from unpleasant scandal, all the routilovs and their numerous friends and relatives acted against peredonov and persuaded people that all his tales were the inventions of a madman. peredonov's wild actions compelled many people to believe this explanation. at the same time many denunciations of peredonov were sent to the director of the school district. from the district headquarters they sent an enquiry to the head-master. khripatch referred them to his previous reports, and added that the further presence of peredonov in the _gymnasia_ was a positive danger, as his mental disease was visibly increasing. peredonov was now entirely governed by wild illusions. the world was screened off from him by apparitions. his vacant, dull eyes wandered, and were unable to rest on objects as if he wanted to look beyond them on the other side of the objective world, and as if he sought for chinks of light between them. when he was alone he talked to himself and shouted senseless threats at some unknown person: "i will kill you! i will cut your throat! i'll caulk you up!" varvara listened with a smile. "make all the row you want," she thought malignantly. it seemed to her that it was only his rage; he must have guessed that they had fooled him and was angry. he wouldn't go out of his mind--a fool has no mind to go out of. and even if he did--well, madness cheers the stupid! * * * * * "do you know, ardalyon borisitch," said khripatch, "you look very unwell?" "i have a headache," said peredonov morosely. "do you know, my friend," continued the head-master in a cautious voice, "i would advise you not to come to the _gymnasia_ at present. you ought to attend to yourself--to give a little attention to your nerves, which are obviously a little unstrung." "not come to the _gymnasia!_ of course," thought peredonov, "that's the best thing to do. why didn't i think of it before! i'll look ill, and stay at home and see what will come of it." "yes, yes, i'd better not come. i am rather unwell," he said eagerly to khripatch. at the same time khripatch wrote again to the head office of the district and awaited from day to day the appointment of the physicians for an examination of peredonov. but the officials were very leisurely. that was because they were officials. peredonov did not go to the _gymnasia_ and awaited something. during the last few days he had clung more and more to volodin. directly he opened his eyes in the morning peredonov thought gloomily of volodin: where was he now? was he up to something? sometimes he had visions of volodin: clouds floated in the sky like a flock of sheep, and volodin ran among them, bleating with laughter, with a bowler hat on his head; sometimes he floated by in the smoke issuing from the chimneys, making monstrous grimaces and leaping in the air. volodin thought and told everyone with pride that peredonov had recently taken a great fancy to him--that peredonov simply could not live without him. "varvara has fooled him," explained volodin, "and he sees that i alone am his faithful friend--that's why he sticks to me." when peredonov went out of his house to look for volodin, the other met him on the way in his bowler hat, with his stick, jumping along gaily and laughing his bleating laugh. "why do you always wear a bowler?" peredonov once asked him. "well, why shouldn't i wear a bowler, ardalyon borisitch?" replied volodin gaily and shrewdly. "it's modest and becoming. i'm not allowed to wear a cap with a badge, and as for a top-hat, let the aristocrats stick to it, it doesn't become us." "you'll roast in your bowler," said peredonov morosely. volodin sniggered. they went to peredonov's house. "one has to do so much walking," complained peredonov. "it's good to take exercise, ardalyon borisitch," said volodin persuasively. "you work, you take a walk, you eat your meals, and you're healthy." "well, yes," said peredonov, "do you think that in two or three hundred years from now people will have to work?" "what else is there to do? if you don't work, you have no bread to eat. you buy bread with money and you have to earn the money." "but i don't want bread." "but there wouldn't be any rolls or tarts either," said volodin with a snigger. "no one would have any money to buy vodka, and there wouldn't be anything to make liqueurs of." "no, the people themselves won't work," said peredonov. "there'll be machines for everything--all you'll have to do is to turn a handle like an _ariston_[ ] and it's ready.... but it would be a bore to turn it long." volodin lapsed into thought, lowered his head, stuck out his lips and said, reflectively: "yes, that would be very good. only none of us will live to see it." peredonov looked at him malignantly and grumbled: "you mean you won't live to see it, but i shall." "may god grant you," said volodin gaily, "to live two hundred years, and then to crawl on all fours for three hundred." peredonov no longer pronounced exorcisms--let the worst come. he would triumph over everything; he had only to be on his guard and not yield. once at home, sitting in the dining-room and drinking with volodin, peredonov told him about the princess. the princess, according to peredonov, grew more decrepit and terrible from day to day; yellow, wrinkled, bent, tusked, evil, she incessantly haunted peredonov. "she's two hundred years old," said peredonov, looking strangely and gloomily before him, "and she wants me to make it up with her again. until then she won't give me a job." "she certainly wants a good deal," said volodin shaking his head. "the old hag!" peredonov brooded over murder. he said to volodin, frowning savagely: "i've got one hidden behind the wall-paper. and i'm going to kill another under the floor." but volodin was not afraid, and kept on sniggering. "do you smell the stench from behind the wall-paper?" asked peredonov. "no, i don't smell it," said volodin, still sniggering and grimacing. "your nose is blocked up," said peredonov. "no wonder it's gone red. it's rotting there behind the wall-paper." "a beetle!" exclaimed varvara with a boisterous laugh. peredonov looked dull and grave. * * * * * peredonov became more and more engulfed in his madness, and began to write denunciations against the court cards, the nedotikomka, the ram--that he, the ram, was an imposter who, representing volodin, was aiming for a high position, but was in reality only a ram; against the forest destroyers who cut down the birches, so that there were no twigs for turkish baths, and that it was impossible to bring up children, because they left only the aspens, and what use were they? when he met the schoolboys in the street, peredonov frightened the youngest and amused the older ones with his shameless and ridiculous words. the older ones walked after him in a crowd, scattering, however, when they saw one of the other masters; the younger ones ran away from him of their own accord. peredonov saw enchantments and sorceries in everything. his hallucinations terrified him and forced from him senseless moans and squeals. the nedotikomka appeared to him now blood-like, now flaming; it groaned and it bellowed, and its bellowing split his head with an unendurable pain. the cat grew to terrible dimensions, stamped with high boots and turned into a huge red bewhiskered person. [ ] a double meaning is implied in peredonov's use of the word, as the word "patchkatsya" means to soil oneself. [ ] a musical instrument. chapter xxviii sasha left home after lunch and did not return at the appointed time, at seven; kokovkina was worried: "may god preserve him from meeting one of his masters in the street at a forbidden time! he'll be punished and i shall feel uncomfortable," she thought. quiet boys always lived at her house and did not wander about at night. kokovkina went to look for sasha. where else could he be except at the routilovs'. as ill luck would have it, liudmilla that evening had forgotten to lock the door. kokovkina entered, and what did she see? sasha stood before the mirror in a woman's dress, waving a fan. liudmilla was laughing and arranging ribbons at his brightly-coloured belt. "good heavens!" exclaimed kokovkina in horror. "what's this? i was worried and came to look for him, and here he is acting a comedy. what a disgrace for him to dress himself in a skirt. and aren't you ashamed, liudmilla platonovna?" liudmilla was for a moment very embarrassed because of the suddenness of the thing, but soon recovered herself. she embraced kokovkina with a laugh, sat her in a chair and invented an explanation: "we are going to have a play at home--i shall be a boy and he'll be a girl and it'll be very amusing." sasha stood flushed and terrified, with tears in his eyes. "what nonsense!" said kokovkina angrily, "he ought to be studying his lessons and not waste his time play-acting. what will you think of next! dress yourself at once, aleksandr, and march home with me." liudmilla laughed loudly and gaily and kissed kokovkina--and the old woman thought that the happy girl was very child-like, and that sasha obediently carried out all her whims. liudmilla's laughter, at this moment, showed this to be only a simple childish prank, for which they would only have to be lectured a little. and kokovkina grumbled, assuming an angry face, but her feelings were already calmed down. sasha quickly redressed himself behind the screen, where liudmilla's bed stood. kokovkina took him off, and scolded him all the way home. sasha felt ashamed and frightened and did not attempt to justify himself. "and what will happen at home?" he thought timidly. at home, kokovkina treated him sternly for the first time: she ordered him to get down on his knees. but sasha had barely been in that position for a few moments when kokovkina, softened by his repentant face and silent tears, released him. she said grumblingly: "what a little lady-killer, you are! your perfumes can be smelt a mile off!" sasha gracefully bent over and kissed her hand--and the courtesy of the punished boy touched her even more. * * * * * in the meantime a storm was gathering over sasha. varvara and grushina composed and sent to khripatch an anonymous letter to the effect that the schoolboy, pilnikov, had been fascinated by the routilov girl, that he spent whole evenings with her rather questionably. khripatch collected a recent conversation. one evening at the house of the marshal of the nobility someone had thrown out an insinuation--which no one had taken up--about a girl who was in love with a schoolboy. the conversation had immediately passed to other subjects: in khripatch's presence, everyone, acting on the unwritten law of people accustomed to good society, considered this an extremely awkward theme for discussion, and they assumed that this topic was not to be mentioned in the presence of women and that the rumour itself was trivial and very unlikely. khripatch, of course, had noticed this but he was not so naive as to ask anyone. he was fully confident that he would know all about it soon, that all information came of itself in one way or another, but always in good season. well, here was a letter which contained the expected information. khripatch did not for a moment believe that pilnikov was guilty, and that his relations with liudmilla were improper. "this," he thought, "is one of peredonov's stupid inventions and is nourished by grushina's envy and spitefulness. but this letter shows that certain undesirable rumours are current, which might cast a reflection on the good name of the _gymnasia_ entrusted to me. and therefore measures must be taken." first of all khripatch invited kokovkina to discuss with him the circumstances which had helped to give rise to these rumours. kokovkina already knew what was the trouble. she had been informed even more bluntly than the head-master. grushina had waited for her in the street, entered into conversation, and told her that liudmilla had already managed to corrupt sasha. kokovkina was dumbfounded. when she got home she showered reproaches upon sasha. she was all the more vexed because this had happened almost before her eyes, and because sasha had gone to the routilovs' with her knowledge. sasha pretended not to understand anything and he asked: "what have i done wrong?" kokovkina was at a loss for a moment. "what wrong? don't you know yourself? didn't i find you in a skirt not long ago? have you forgotten, you shameless boy?" "yes, but what was especially wrong with that? and didn't you punish me for it? it wasn't as if i'd stolen the skirt!" "hark how he talks!" said kokovkina in a distraught way. "i punished you, but not enough apparently." "well, punish me again," said sasha defiantly, with the look of a person unjustly treated. "you forgave me yourself, and now it wasn't enough. i didn't ask you to forgive me--i would have knelt all the evening. and what's the good of scolding me all the time?" "yes, and everyone in town is talking about you and your liudmillotchka." "and what are they saying?" asked sasha in an innocently inquisitive tone of voice. kokovkina was again at a loss. "it's clear enough what they're saying! you know perfectly well what might be said of you. very little that's good, you may be sure. you're up to mischief with your liudmillotchka--that's what they're saying." "well, i won't get up to mischief again," sasha promised as calmly as if the conversation concerned a game of "touch." he assumed an expression of innocence, but his heart was heavy. he asked kokovkina what they were saying and was afraid that he would hear it was something unpleasant. what could they be saying? liudmillotchka's room faced the garden; it could not be seen from the street. besides, liudmillotchka always lowered the blinds. and if anyone had looked in, what could they say? perhaps something annoying and insulting. or perhaps they were only saying that he often went there. and here on the next day kokovkina received an invitation to go and see the head-master. the old woman was distraught. she did not even mention it to sasha, but at the appointed time went quickly on her errand. khripatch kindly and gently informed her of the anonymous letter he had received. she began to cry. "be calm, we're not accusing you of anything," said khripatch. "we know you too well. of course, you'll have to look after him a little more rigorously. but i want you to tell me now what actually has taken place." kokovkina came home with more reproaches for sasha. "i shall write to your aunt," she said, crying. "i haven't done anything. let aunt come, i'm not afraid," said sasha, and he began to cry also. the next day khripatch asked sasha to come and see him and asked him dryly and sternly: "i would like to know what sort of an acquaintance you have been cultivating in the town." sasha looked at the head-master with deceptive innocence and tranquil eyes. "what sort of an acquaintance?" he said. "olga vassilyevna knows that i only go to my companions and to the routilovs." "yes, precisely," continued khripatch. "what do you do at the routilovs?" "nothing in particular," replied sasha with the same innocent look, "we mostly read. the routilov sisters are fond of poetry. and i'm always home at seven o'clock." "perhaps not always?" asked khripatch, fixing on sasha a glance which he tried to make piercing. "yes, i was late once," said sasha with the calm frankness of an innocent boy. "and olga vassilyevna gave it to me. but after that i wasn't late again." khripatch was silent. sasha's calm answers left him rather nonplussed. in any case it would be necessary to give him a reprimand, but how and for what? he was afraid that he might suggest to the boy unwholesome thoughts which--so khripatch believed--he had not had before; or that he might offend the boy; but he wanted to remove any unpleasantness which might in the future come from this acquaintance. khripatch thought that an educator's business was a very difficult and responsible matter, especially if you have the honour of being the head of an educational establishment. this difficult, responsible business of an educator! this banal definition gave wings to khripatch's almost drooping thoughts. he began to talk quickly, precisely and uninterestingly. sasha caught only a phrase here and there: "your first duty as a pupil is to learn ... you should not be attracted by society however pleasant and irreproachable ... in any case i should say that the society of boys of your own age would be preferable ... you must keep high your own reputation and that of your educational institution.... finally, i may say candidly that i have reasons to suppose that your relations with young ladies have a character of great freedom unpermissible at your age, and altogether not in accordance with generally accepted rules of propriety." sasha began to cry. he felt distressed that anyone could think and talk of dear liudmillotchka as of a person with whom you could take improper liberties. "upon my word, there was nothing wrong," he assured the head-master. "we only read, went for walks and played--well, we ran sometimes--we did nothing else." khripatch slapped him on the back and said in a dry voice which he tried to make hearty: "listen, pilnikov...." (why shouldn't he sometimes call this boy sasha! was it because it was not official and there was, as yet, no ministerial circular?) "i believe you when you say that nothing wrong has happened, but all the same you had better put an end to your frequent visits. believe me, it would be better. i speak to you not only as your schoolmaster and official head, but also as your friend." nothing remained for sasha to do but to make his bow, to thank the head-master, and to obey. and sasha from this time on went to liudmilla's only for five or ten minutes at a time--but still he tried to go every day. it vexed him to be able to make only such short visits and he vented his annoyance on liudmilla herself. he often called her now "liudmillka," "silly fool," "balaam's ass," and he even struck her. but liudmilla only laughed at it all. * * * * * the report spread about town that the actors of the local theatre were going to organise a masked ball at the club house, with prizes for the best man's and the best woman's costumes. there were exaggerated rumours about the prize. it was said that the best-dressed lady would receive a cow and the best-dressed man a bicycle. these rumours excited the town people. each one was eager to win--the prizes were so considerable. the costumes were prepared in haste. no expense was spared. people hid their costumes even from their nearest friends so that their brilliant idea might not be stolen. when the printed announcement of the masked ball appeared--huge bills, pasted on fences and sent out to important tradesmen--it turned out that they were not giving a cow and a bicycle but only a fan to the lady and an album to the man. this vexed and disenchanted those who had been preparing for the ball. they began to grumble. they said: "it's a waste of money." "it's simply ridiculous--such prizes." "they ought to have let us know at once." "it's only in our town that the public can be treated like this." nevertheless all the preparations went on: it wasn't much of a prize, but still it would be flattering to win it. the amount of the prize did not interest either darya or liudmilla. much they wanted a cow! what a rarity a fan was! and who was going to award the prizes? we know what taste these judges have! but both sisters were captivated by the idea of sending sasha to the masked ball in a woman's dress, to fool the whole town and to arrange so that the lady's prize should go to him. valeria tired to look as if she agreed to it. it was liudmillotchka's little friend, he was not coming to see her, but she could not decide to quarrel with her two elder sisters. she only said with a contemptuous smile: "he won't dare." "well," said darya, "we shall dress him up so that no one will recognise him." and when the sisters told sasha about their project and liudmillotchka said to him: "we will dress you up as a girl," sasha jumped up and down and shouted with joy. he was delighted with the idea, especially as no one would know--it would be fine to fool everyone. they decided at once that they would dress sasha as a geisha. the sisters kept their idea in the strictest secrecy and did not even tell larissa or their brother. liudmilla herself made the costume from the design on the label of korilopsis: it was a long full dress of yellow silk on red velvet; she sewed a bright pattern on the dress, consisting of large flowers of fantastic shape. the girls made a fan out of thin japanese paper, with figures, on bamboo sticks, and a parasol out of thin rose silk with a bamboo handle. they bought rose coloured stockings and wooden slippers with little ridges underneath. the artist liudmilla painted a geisha mask: it was a yellowish but agreeable thin face, with a slight motionless smile, oblique eyes and a small, narrow mouth. they had only to get the wig from peterburg---black, with smooth, arranged hair. time was needed to fit the costume and sasha could only come in snatches and not every day. but they managed it. sasha ran off at night by way of the window, when kokovkina was asleep. it went off successfully. varvara also was preparing for the masked ball. she brought a stupid looking mask, and she didn't worry about costume--she dressed herself as a cook. she hung a skimmer at her waist and put a white cap on her head, her arms were bare to the elbow and very heavily rouged--a cook straight from the hearth--and the costume was ready. if she got the prize, so much the better; if she didn't, she could get on without it. grushina dressed herself as diana. varvara laughed and asked: "are you going to put on a collar?" "why a collar?" asked grushina in astonishment. "i thought you were going to dress up as the dog, dianka," explained varvara. "what a notion!" replied grushina with a laugh, "not dianka, but the goddess, diana." varvara and grushina dressed for the ball at grushina's house. grushina's costume was excessively scanty: bare arms and shoulders, bare neck, bare chest, her legs bare to the knee, light slippers, and a light dress of linen with a red border against the white flesh--it was quite a short dress, but broad with many folds. varvara said with a smile: "you aren't over-dressed!" grushina replied with a vulgar wink: "it'll attract the boys!" "but why so many folds?" asked varvara. "i can fill them with sweets for my devilkins," explained grushina. all of grushina that was so boldly displayed was handsome--but what contradictions. on her skin were flea-bites, her manners were coarse and her talk was insufferably banal. once more abused bodily beauty! * * * * * peredonov thought that the masked ball was planned on purpose to trap him. but he went, not in costume but in a frock coat, to see for himself how plots are devised. * * * * * the thought of the masked ball delighted sasha for many days. but later, doubts began to assail him. how could he get away from home, especially now after these recent annoyances. it would be a calamity if it were found out at the _gymnasia_ and he would be expelled. one of the form masters, a young man so liberal that he could not call the cat "vaska," but called it "the cat vassily," had recently made a significant observation to sasha when he gave out the marks. "look here, pilnikov, you'll have to pay more attention to your work." "but i haven't any twos," said sasha indifferently. his heart fell--what would he say next? no, nothing. he was silent and only looked sternly at sasha. on the day of the masked ball sasha felt that he would not have the courage to go. it was terrible. there was only one thing, the costume was ready at the routilovs'--should it all be for nothing? and should all the plans and dreams be in vain? and liudmillotchka would cry. no, he must go. his recently acquired habit of dissembling aided sasha from betraying his agitation before kokovkina. luckily, the old woman went to bed early. and sasha also went to bed early--to keep away suspicion he put his upper clothes on a chair near the door and placed his boots just outside the door. there was nothing for him to do now but to go--which was the most difficult part of the matter. he had only to follow the same path as when he went to have his costume fitted. sasha put on a light summer blouse--it hung in the wardrobe in his room--and light house shoes and he carefully crept out of the window into the street, choosing a moment when there were no footsteps or voices in hearing. a small drizzle was falling. it was muddy, cold and dark. every moment sasha was afraid he would be recognised. he took off his cap and shoes, threw them back into his room, turned up his trousers, and ran, jumping over the pavements, slippery with rain. it was difficult to see a face in the dark, especially of someone running, and whoever met him would think he was an ordinary boy sent on an errand. * * * * * valeria and liudmilla had made for themselves unoriginal but artistic costumes; liudmilla dressed herself as a gipsy, valeria as a spanish woman. liudmilla wore bright red rags of silk and velvet, while the thin, frail valeria wore black silk and lace, and had a black lace fan in her hand. darya did not make herself a new costume, she kept last year's, that of a turkish woman. she said: "it isn't worth while making a new one!" when sasha arrived all three girls began to dress him. the wig worried sasha most of all. "suppose it should come off?" he kept repeating timorously. at last they strengthened the wig with ribbons tied under the chin. chapter xxix the masked ball took place at the club house in the market square--a two-storied building of stone, painted bright red, resembling a barracks. it was arranged by gromov-chistopolsky, the actor-manager of the local theatre. the entrance, which was covered in by a calico canopy, was lighted by lamps. the crowd standing in the street criticised the arrivals, for the most part unfavourably, the more so since in the streets the costumes were almost hidden under outside wraps; the crowd judged chiefly by guesswork. the policemen zealously kept order in the street, while in the hall itself the commissioner of police and a police-inspector were present as guests. every guest received on entering two cards, one pink, for the best woman's costume; one green, for the man's, which were to be handed to the chosen persons. some asked: "and can we keep them for ourselves?" at the beginning the attendant at the ticket-office asked in astonishment: "why for yourselves?" "but suppose we think our own costumes the best?" was the reply. later the attendant ceased to be astonished at these questions, and being a young man with a sense of humour, said ironically: "help yourself! keep both if you like." it was dirtyish in the hall, and from the very beginning a number of the crowd were tipsy. in the close rooms, with their smoke-begrimed walls and ceilings, burned crooked lustres; they seemed huge, heavy and stifling. the faded curtains at the doors looked such that one hesitated to brush against them. here and there knots of people gathered, exclamations and laughter were heard--this was caused by certain costumes which attracted general attention. the notary goudayevsky went as an american indian. he had cock's feathers in his hair, a copper-red mask with absurd green designs on it, a leather jacket, a check plaid over his shoulder, and high leather boots with green tassels. he waved his arms, jumped about, and walked like an athlete, jerking up his naked knees exaggeratedly. his wife was dressed as an ear of corn. she had on a costume of brightly coloured green and yellow patches; ears of corn stuck out from her on every side. they caught everyone she passed and pricked them. she was jostled and pinched as she went along. she said angrily: "i'll scratch you!" everyone near laughed. some one asked: "where did she get so many corn stalks?" "she laid in a store last summer," was the answer. "she stole some every day from the fields!" several moustacheless officials, who were in love with goudayevskaya, and who had therefore been told by her how she would be dressed, accompanied her. they collected cards for her--rudely and almost by force. they simply took them away from some who were not very bold. there were other masked women who were zealously collecting cards through their cavaliers. others looked greedily at the cards which had not yet been given up, and asked for them. these received impertinent answers. one dejected woman, dressed as night--in a blue costume with a glass star and a paper moon on her forehead--said timidly to mourin: "do give me your card." mourin replied rudely: "what d'you mean? give you my card? i don't like your mug!" night muttered something angrily and walked away. she only wanted two or three cards to show at home, to prove that she had received some. modest desires often go unsatisfied. the schoolmistress, skobotchkina, dressed herself as a she-bear, that is, she simply threw a bearskin cross her shoulders and put on a bear's head as a helmet over the usual half-mask. this was generally speaking shapeless, but it suited her stout figure and stentorian voice. the bear walked with heavy footsteps, and bellowed so loudly that the lights in the lustres trembled. many people liked the bear, and she received quite a number of tickets. she was unable to keep the cards herself, and had not found a clever cavalier like others of the ladies; more than half of her tickets were stolen when she was being given vodka by some of the small tradesmen--they had a fellow-feeling for her sudden ability to display bearish manners. people in the crowd shouted out: "look how the bear swigs vodka!" skobotchkina could not decide to refuse vodka. it seemed to her that a she-bear should drink vodka when it was brought to her. a man dressed as an ancient german was conspicuous by his stature and fine build. he pleased many because of his robustness and because his powerful arms with their well-developed muscles were visible. women particularly walked after him, and all around him rose a whisper of admiration and of flattery. the ancient german was recognised as the actor, bengalsky, who is a favourite in our town. that was why he received a large number of tickets. many people argued thus: "if i can't get the prize, then at least let an actor (or an actress) get it. if any of us get it they will tire us out with boasting." grushina's costume was also a success--a scandalous success. the men followed her in a thick crowd, with laughter and indelicate observations. the women turned away in embarrassment. at last the commissioner of police walked up to grushina and said suavely: "madame, i'm afraid you must cover yourself." "why? there's nothing indecent to be seen about me," replied grushina vigorously. "madame, the ladies are offended," said minchukov. "what do i care for your ladies?" shouted grushina. "now, madame," insisted minchukov, "you must put at least a handkerchief on your chest and back." "suppose my handkerchief's dirty?" said grushina with a vulgar laugh. but minchukov insisted: "as you please, madame; but if you don't cover yourself a little, you'll have to go." grumbling violently, grushina went into the dressing-room and with the help of the attendant rearranged the folds of her dress across her chest and back. when she returned to the hall, though she looked more modest, she just as zealously sought for admirers. she flirted vulgarly with any man. then when people's attention was elsewhere she went into the refreshment-room to steal sweets. soon she returned to the hall, and showing volodin a couple of peaches, smiled impudently and said: "i got them myself!" and immediately the peaches were hidden in the folds of her costume. volodin's face lit up with joy. "well," he said, "if so, i'll go too." soon grushina got tipsy and began to behave boisterously--she shouted, waved her arms and spat. "dianka's getting very happy!" everyone said about her. such was the masked ball to which the foolish girls had enticed the scatter-brained schoolboy. the three sisters and sasha took two cabs and arrived rather late, on his account. their arrival in the hall was noticed. the geisha particularly pleased many people. the rumour went round that the geisha was kashtanova, the actress, very popular with the male portion of local society. and that was why sasha received a large number of cards. but in fact kashtanova was not there, for her little boy had fallen dangerously ill. sasha, intoxicated by his new situation, coquetted furiously. the more they stuck their cards into the geisha's little hand, the more gaily and provokingly gleamed the eyes of the coquettish geisha through the narrow slits of the mask. the geisha curtsied, lifted her small fingers, laughed in an intimate tone, waved her fan, struck first one man and then another on the shoulder, then hid her face behind her fan and frequently opened out her rose parasol. however, these not over-graceful actions attracted many who admired the actress kashtanova. "i will give my card to the most beautiful of ladies," said tishkov, and handed his card to the geisha with a gallant bow. he had taken a good deal to drink and his face was flushed; his motionlessly smiling face and awkward figure made him look like a doll. and he kept continually rhyming. valeria looked on at sasha's success, and felt envious and annoyed; she now wanted to be recognised and to have her costume and slender, graceful figure please the crowd, and be awarded the prize. and now she sadly thought that this was not possible, as all the three sisters had agreed to get cards only for the geisha, and even to give their own to her. they were dancing in the hall. volodin got tipsy very soon and began to dance the "squat" dance. the police stopped him. he said cheerfully and obediently: "well, if i mustn't, then i mustn't." but two other men who had followed his example and were dancing the "squat" dance refused to obey the order. "what right have you to stop us? haven't we paid our half-rouble?" they exclaimed and were escorted out. volodin went with them to the door, cutting capers, smiling and dancing. the routilov girls made haste to find peredonov to make a fool of him. he sat alone at the window and looked at the crowd with wandering eyes. all people and objects seemed to him senseless, inharmonious, and equally hostile. liudmilla, in her gipsy dress, went up to him and said in a guttural voice: "shall i tell your fortune, pretty gentleman?" "go to the devil!" shouted peredonov. the gipsy's sudden appearance frightened him. "give me your hand, dear gentleman, pretty gentleman. i can see from your face that you'll be rich. you'll be an important official," liudmilla importuned him, and took his hand. "well, see that you give me a good fortune," growled peredonov. "my sweet gentleman," began the gipsy, "you have many enemies, they'll inform against you, you will weep, you will die under a fence." "carrion!" shouted peredonov, and snatched his hand away. liudmilla quickly disappeared in the crowd. then valeria took her place. she sat down beside peredonov and whispered to him very tenderly: "i am a lovely spanish maid, and i love such men as you, but that your wife's a wretched jade, handsome gentleman, is true." "it's a lie, you fool," growled peredonov. valeria went on: "hotter than day, sweeter than night, is my keen seville kiss; spit in her dull eyes, my light, and see that you don't miss. varvara is your wife, you are handsome, ardalyon; she's a plague upon your life, you're as wise as solomon." "that's true enough," said peredonov, "but how can i spit in her eyes? she'll complain to the princess and i shan't get the place." "and why do you want the place? you're good enough without the place," said valeria. "yes, but how can i live if i don't get it?" said peredonov dejectedly. * * * * * darya stuck into volodin's hand a letter with a red seal on it. volodin unsealed the letter, bleating happily, read it and lapsed into thought--he looked proud and a little flurried. it was written briefly and clearly: "come, my darling, and meet me to-morrow night at eleven o'clock at the soldiers' baths. your unknown j." volodin believed in the letter, but the question was--was it worth going? and who was this "j"? was it some sort of jenny? or was it the surname which began with "j"? volodin showed the letter to routilov. "go, of course go," routilov urged him, "and see what happens. perhaps it's some rich catch, who's fallen in love with you and the parents are against it, so she's taken this way of speaking to you." but volodin thought and thought and decided that it was not worth while going. he said with an important air: "they're always running after me, but i don't want girls so loose that they run away from home." he was afraid that he would get a beating, for the soldiers' baths were situated in a lonely place on the outskirts of the town. * * * * * when the dense, noisy, uproariously gay crowd was pushing its way into every part of the club house, from the door of the dancing hall came a noise, laughter and exclamations of approval. everyone crowded in that direction. it was announced from one to another that a fearfully original mask had come in. a thin, tall man, in a greasy, patched dressing-gown, with a besom under his arm, with a hat in his hand, made his way through the crowd. he had a cardboard mask on,--a stupid face, with a small, narrow beard and side whiskers, and on his head was a cap with a round official badge. he kept repeating in an astonished voice: "they told me there was a masquerade[ ] here, but no one seems to be bathing." and he languidly swung a pail. the crowd followed him, exclaiming, and genuinely admiring his original idea. "he'll get the prize," said volodin enviously. like many others, he envied unthinkingly--he himself wore no costume, so why should he be envious? machigin was enthusiastic over this costume, the badge especially aroused his delight. he laughed uproariously, clapped his hands, and observed to acquaintances and to strangers: "a fine criticism! these officials always make a great deal of themselves--they wear badges and uniforms. well, here's a fine criticism for them--very clever indeed." when it got hot, the official in the dressing-gown began to fan himself with the besom, exclaiming: "well, here's a bath for you."[ ] those near laughed gleefully. there was a shower of cards into the pail. peredonov looked at the besom wavering above the crowd. he thought it was the nedotikomka. "she's gone green, the beast!" he thought in horror. [ ] masquerade. this word is used in russia to mean either a ball or a bath, owing to the fact that clothes are taken off on both occasions. [ ] referring to the fact that a besom is used in russian and turkish baths. chapter xxx at last the counting of the cards began. the stewards of the club composed the committee. a tensely expectant crowd gathered at the door of the judges' room. for a short time in the dancing-hall everything became quiet and dull. the music ceased. the company grew silent. peredonov felt sad. but soon an impatient hum of conversation began in the crowd. someone said in an assured tone that both prizes would go to actors. "you'll see," someone's irritated, hissing voice could be heard saying. the crowd was restless. those who had received only a few cards were vexed at this. those who had a larger number of cards were disturbed by the expectation of a possible injustice. suddenly a bell tingled lightly and nervously. the judges came out; they were veriga, avinovitsky, kirillov and other stewards of the club. the crowd's excitement passed through the hall--suddenly everyone was silent. avinovitsky shouted in a stentorian voice which was heard through the whole hall: "the album, the prize for the best man's costume, has been awarded, according to the majority of cards received, to the gentleman in the costume of an ancient german." avinovitsky lifted the album on high and looked savagely at the crowding guests. the huge german began to make his way through the crowd. the others looked hostilely at him and obstructed his passage. "don't jostle, please," shouted in a tearful voice the dejected woman in the blue costume, with the glass star and the paper moon--night. "he's got the prize and he thinks the women must fall at his feet!" shouted a viciously angry voice. "you won't let me pass yourself," said the german with suppressed annoyance. at last he managed somehow to get to the judges, and veriga presented him with the album. the band played a flourish. but the sound of the music was lost in the disorderly noise. people shouted abusive exclamations. they surrounded the german, jostled him and shouted: "take off your mask!" the german said nothing. it would not have been difficult for him to get through the crowd, but he obviously hesitated to use his full strength. goudayevsky caught hold of the album and at the same time someone quickly tore the mask from the german's face. the crowd cried out: "it is an actor!" their suppositions were justified: it was the actor, bengalsky. he shouted angrily: "yes, it is an actor! and what of it? you gave me the cards yourselves!" in answer came the virulent exclamation: "it's easy to slip in a few extra!" "you printed the cards." "there have been more cards given in than there are people here." "he brought fifty cards in his pocket." bengalsky flushed and shouted: "it's disgusting to talk like that. you can prove it if you like. you can count the cards and the number of people." veriga interposed, saying to those near him: "gentlemen, calm yourselves. there's been no cheating--you can take my word for it. the number of tickets has been carefully checked with the number of entries." the stewards, with the help of a few of the more sensible guests, somehow pacified the crowd. besides, everyone was anxious to know who would get the fan. veriga announced: "ladies and gentlemen, the largest number of cards for the best lady's costume has been received by the lady in the geisha's costume, who has therefore been awarded the prize--a fan. geisha, please come this way. the fan is yours. ladies and gentlemen, i humbly request you to make way for the geisha." the band again gave a flourish. the frightened geisha longed to run away. but she was jostled along and led forward. veriga, with an amiable smile, handed her the fan. the colours of the variegated costumes glimmered before sasha's eyes, which were half dimmed by fear and confusion. he would have to return thanks, he thought. the habitual politeness of a well-bred boy showed itself. the geisha made a curtsy, said something indistinctly, laughed slightly and lifted her fingers--and again in the room rose a furious uproar of whistling and abuse. everyone made a rush for the geisha. the savage and dishevelled ear of corn cried: "make a curtsy, you little beast!" the geisha threw herself towards the door, but her way was barred. from the crowd which seethed around the geisha came malignant outcries: "make her unmask!" "mask off!" "catch her! hold her!" "tear it off!" "take her fan away!" the ear of corn shouted: "do you know who got the prize? kashtanova, the actress! she stole someone else's husband, and yet she gets the prize! they don't give it to honest women, they give it to that creature!" and she threw herself towards the geisha, with piercing screams, clenching her bony fists. others came after her, mostly her cavaliers. the geisha fought them off desperately. a wild tussle began. the fan was broken, torn out of her hands, thrown on the floor and trodden upon. the crowd, with the geisha in the middle, swayed furiously across the room, sweeping onlookers from their feet. neither the routilovs nor the club stewards could reach the geisha. the geisha, strong and alert, screamed piercingly, scratched and bit her assailants. she held her mask on tightly now with one hand, now with the other. "they ought all to be beaten," screeched some spiteful little woman. the tipsy grushina, hiding behind the others, urged on volodin and other acquaintances. "pinch her! pinch the creature!" she shouted. machigin, holding his bleeding nose, jumped out from the crowd and complained: "she hit me straight in the nose with her fist!" a vicious young man caught the geisha's sleeve in his teeth and tore it in half. the geisha cried out: "help! save me!" and others began to tear her costume. here and there her body showed slightly. darya and liudmilla struggled desperately, trying to squeeze through to the geisha, but in vain. volodin plucked at the geisha so zealously, screamed and cut such capers that he hindered other people less drunk than himself and more spiteful: he did not attack her from spite but from drunken joy, imagining that some very amusing farce was going on. he tore one sleeve clean off the geisha's dress and he tied it round his head. "it'll come in useful," he shouted, laughing and grimacing. getting out of the thick of the crowd, he went on making a fool of himself in the open space, and danced over the pieces of the fan with wild squeals. there was no one to restrain him. peredonov looked at him in dread and thought: "he's dancing. he's glad for something. that's how he'll dance on my grave." at last the geisha tore herself away--the crowd about her could not withstand her quick fists and sharp teeth. the geisha dashed from the room. in the corridor the ear of corn rushed at the geisha again and caught hold of her dress. the geisha almost succeeded in tearing herself away, but she was again surrounded. the scuffle was renewed. "they're pulling her by the ears!" someone exclaimed. a little woman caught the geisha's ear and pulled it with loud triumphant cries. the geisha screamed and somehow tore herself away, after having hit the malicious little woman with her fist. at last, bengalsky, who had managed in the meantime to put on his ordinary dress, fought his way towards the geisha. he took the trembling geisha in his arms, covered her with his huge body and arms as far as he could and quickly carried her away, thrusting the crowd aside with his elbows and feet. the crowd shouted: "rotter! scoundrel!" they tugged at bengalsky and punched him in the back. he exclaimed: "i won't allow the mask to be torn from a woman. do what you like, i won't allow it." in this way he carried the geisha the entire length of the corridor, which culminated in a narrow door opening into the club dining-room. here veriga managed to hold back the crowd for a short time. with the resolution of a soldier he stood there and refused to allow anyone to pass. he said: "gentlemen, you can't go any farther." goudayevskaya, rustling with the remaining ears of corn of her costume, dashed at veriga, clenching her fists and screamed piercingly: "go away! let us pass!" but the general's imposingly cold face and his determined grey eyes kept her from doing anything more. she cried in helpless rage to her husband: "you might have boxed her ears--you gaping block-head!" "it was hard to get at her," the indian justified himself, gesticulating wildly--"pavloushka was in the way." "you ought to have hit pavloushka in the teeth and her in the ear--why did you stand on ceremony!" screamed goudayevskaya. the crowd pressed against veriga. they abused him fully. veriga stood calmly before the door and tried to persuade those nearest him to preserve order. the kitchen-boy opened the door behind veriga and whispered: "they've gone, your excellency." veriga walked away. the crowd broke into the dining-room, then into the kitchen--they looked for the geisha but did not find her. * * * * * bengalsky, carrying the geisha, ran through the dining-room into the kitchen. she lay tranquilly in his arms and said nothing. bengalsky thought he could hear the strong beating of the geisha's heart. on her tightly-clutching bare arms he noticed several scratches and near the elbow the blue-yellow stain of a bruise. in a hurried voice bengalsky said to the crowding servants in the kitchen: "quick, an overcoat, a dressing-gown, a sheet--anything! i must save this lady." an overcoat was thrown on sasha's shoulders, bengalsky somehow wrapped it round the geisha, and traversing the dark stairs, lighted by dim, smoky paraffin lamps, carried her into the yard and through a gate into the street. "take off the mask. you'll be more likely to be recognised with it on--and anyway it's quite dark here. i'll tell no one," said he rather inconsistently. he was curious. he knew for certain that it was not kashtanova, but who was it then? the geisha obeyed. bengalsky saw an unfamiliar, smooth face, on which fright was giving place to an expression of joy at an escaped danger. a pair of cheerful eyes gazed at the actor's face. "how can i thank you?" said the geisha in a clear voice. "what would have become of me, if you hadn't saved me?" "she's no coward. an interesting little woman!" thought the actor. "but who is she?" it was obvious that she was a new arrival; bengalsky knew the women of the district. he said quietly to sasha: "i must take you home at once. give me your address and i'll call a cabby." the geisha's face again became dark with fear. "you mustn't, you simply mustn't," she whispered. "i will go home alone. let me down here." "but how can you go home in such mud and with those wooden shoes. you'd better let me call a cab," said the actor persuasively. "no, i'll go by myself. for god's sake let me down," entreated the geisha. "i give you my word of honour i won't tell anyone," said bengalsky reassuringly. "i mustn't let you go, you'll catch cold. i'm responsible for you now, and i can't let you go. but tell me quickly--they might get after you even here. you saw what savages they are. they're capable of anything." the geisha trembled, quick tears suddenly trickled from her eyes. she said, sobbing: "terribly cruel people! take me to the routilovs for the present and i'll spend the night there." bengalsky called a cab. they got in and drove off. the actor looked intently at the geisha's face. there seemed to him to be something strange about it. the geisha turned her face away. the town-talk about liudmilla and a schoolboy suddenly occurred to bengalsky's mind. "ah-ha! you're a boy!" he said in a whisper, so that the cabby should not hear. "for god's sake!" said sasha growing pale with fear. and his smooth hands under the overcoat stretched themselves towards bengalsky with a movement of entreaty. bengalsky laughed quietly and whispered: "i won't tell anyone. don't be afraid. my business is to get you home safe, and beyond that i know nothing. but you're a daring kid. won't they find out at home?" "if you don't say anything no one will know," said sasha in a voice of gentle entreaty. "you can depend on me. i shall be silent as the grave," replied the actor. "i was a boy myself once; i was up to all sorts of pranks." * * * * * the clamour in the club had already begun to calm down, but the evening terminated in a new calamity. while they were tussling with the geisha in the corridor, the flaming nedotikomka, jumping on the lustres, laughed and insistently whispered to peredonov that he should strike a match and let loose her, the flaming but confined nedotikomka on these dingy, dirty walls, and, when she had gorged herself with the destruction of this building where such terrible and incomprehensible deeds were happening, then she would leave peredonov unmolested. and peredonov could not resist her importunate whisper. he entered the little dining-room which was next to the dancing-hall. it was empty. peredonov looked around, struck a match, put it to the window curtain at the floor and waited till the hangings caught fire. the flaming nedotikomka, like an active little snake, crept up the curtain, squealing softly and happily. peredonov walked out of the dining-room, closing the door behind him. no one noticed the incendiary. the fire was only seen from the street when the whole room was in flames. the fire spread quickly. the people escaped--but the club house was burnt down. on the next day the town talked of nothing but the geisha affair and the fire. bengalsky kept his word and told no one that the geisha was a disguised boy. as for sasha he had redressed himself that night at routilovs and, turning once more into a simple barefoot boy, ran home, crept through the window and went quietly to sleep. in the town, seething with slanders, in the town where everyone knew everything about everyone, sasha's nocturnal adventure remained a secret. for long, but, of course, not for always. chapter xxxi ekaterina ivanovna pilnikova, sasha's aunt and guardian, received simultaneously two letters about sasha--one from the head-master and the other from kokovkina. these letters greatly alarmed her. she put all her affairs aside and drove at once from her village through the muddy autumn roads to our town. sasha, who loved his aunt, met her with great joy. his aunt came with the intention of rating him soundly. but he threw himself on her neck with such gladness and kissed her hands so affectionately that she could not at first speak severely to him. "dear auntie, how good of you to come!" said sasha, and looked happily at her full, rosy face with its kind dimples on the cheeks and its grave, hazel eyes. "you'd better postpone your pleasure, i must scold you first," said his aunt in an irresolute voice. "i don't mind that," said sasha indifferently, "scold me, if you have anything to scold me for, but still i'm terribly glad to see you!" "terribly?" she repeated in a displeased voice. "i've been hearing terrible things about you." sasha lifted his eyebrows and looked at his aunt with innocent, uncomprehending eyes. "there's one master, peredonov, here," he complained, "who has invented the tale that i'm a girl. he's been annoying me, and then the head-master scolded me because i had got to know the routilov girls. as if i went there to steal things! and what business is it of theirs?" "he's quite the same child that he was before," thought his aunt in perplexity, "or has he become spoilt and corrupted so that he can deceive one even with his face?" she shut herself in with kokovkina and talked to her for a long time. she came out looking quite grave. then she went to the head-master. she returned quite upset. she showered reproaches on sasha. sasha cried but firmly assured her that it was all an invention, that he did not permit himself any liberties with the routilov girls. his aunt did not believe him. she scolded him, wept and threatened to give him a good whipping at once--that is to-day, as soon as she had seen these girls. sasha kept crying and assuring her that nothing wrong had happened, and that it was all very exaggerated. his aunt, angry and bloated with tears, went to the routilovs. as she waited in the routilovs' drawing-room, ekaterina ivanovna felt very agitated. she wanted to throw herself on the sisters at once with the severest reproaches which she had prepared beforehand. but their peaceful, pretty drawing-room aroused peaceful thoughts in her against her will, and softened her vexation. the unfinished embroidery left lying about, the keepsakes, the engravings on the walls, the carefully trained plants at the windows, the absence of dust and the home-like appearance of the room were not at all what one would expect in an unrespectable house; there was everything that is valued by housewives the world over--surely with such surroundings the young owners of such a drawing-room could not have corrupted her innocent young sasha. all the conjectures she had made about sasha seemed to her ridiculously absurd. on the other hand, sasha's explanations about his doings at the routilovs seemed reasonable; they read, chatted, joked, laughed and played--they wanted to get up an amateur play, but olga vassilyevna would not allow him to take part. the three sisters felt apprehensive. they did not yet know whether sasha's masquerading had remained a secret. but there were three of them and they all felt solicitous for one another. this gave them courage. all three of them gathered in liudmilla's room and deliberated in whispers. "we must go down to her," said valeria. "it's rude to keep her waiting." "let her cool off a little," replied darya indifferently, "or she'll go for us." the sisters scented themselves with clematis. they came in tranquil, cheerful, attractive, pretty as always; they filled the drawing-room with their charming chatter and gaiety. ekaterina ivanovna was immediately fascinated by them. "so these are the corrupters!" she thought, with vexation at the school pedagogues. but then she thought that perhaps they were assuming this modesty. she decided not to yield to their fascination. "you must forgive me, young ladies, but i have something serious to discuss with you," she said, trying to make her voice dry and business-like. the sisters made her sit down and kept up a gay chatter. "which of you----" ekaterina ivanovna began irresolutely. liudmilla, as if she were a graceful hostess trying to get a visitor out of a difficulty, said cheerfully: "it was i who spent most of the time with your nephew. we have similar views and tastes in many things." "your nephew is a very charming boy," said darya, as if she were confident that her praise would please the visitor. "really most charming, and so entertaining," said liudmilla. ekaterina ivanovna felt more and more awkward. she suddenly realised that she had no reasonable cause for complaint and this made her angry--liudmilla's last words gave her an opportunity to express her vexation--she said angrily: "he may be an entertainment to you but to him----" but darya interrupted her and said in a sympathetic voice: "oh, i can see that those silly peredonovian tales have reached you. of course, you know that he's quite mad? the head-master does not even allow him to go to the _gymnasia_ now. they're only waiting for an alienist to examine him and then he will be dismissed from the school." "but, allow me," ekaterina ivanovna interrupted her with increasing irritation. "i am not interested in this schoolmaster but in my nephew. i have heard that you--pardon me--are corrupting him." and having thrown out this decisive word in her anger with the sisters, ekaterina ivanovna at once saw that she had gone too far. the sisters exchanged glances of such well-simulated perplexity and indignation that cleverer people than ekaterina ivanovna would have been taken in--they flushed and exclaimed altogether: "that's pleasant!" "how terrible!" "that's something new!" "madam," said darya coldly, "you are not over choice in your expressions. before you make use of such words you should find out whether they are fitting!" "of course, one can understand that," said liudmilla, with the look of a charming girl forgiving an injury, "he's not a stranger to you. naturally, you can't help being disturbed by this stupid gossip. even strangers like ourselves were sorry for him and had to be kind to him. but everything in our town is made a crime at once. you have no idea what terrible, terrible people live here!" "terrible people," repeated valeria quietly, in a clear, fragile voice and shivered from head to foot as if she had come in contact with something unclean. "you ask him yourself," said darya. "just look at him; he's still a mere child. perhaps you have got used to his naïveté, but one can see better from the outside that he's quite an unspoiled boy." the sisters lied with such assurance and tranquillity that it was impossible not to believe them. why not? lies have often more verisimilitude than the truth. nearly always. as for truth of course it has no verisimilitude. "of course it is true that he was often here," said darya, "but we shan't let him cross our threshold again, if you object." "and i shall go and see khripatch to-day," said liudmilla. "how did he get hold of that notion? surely he doesn't believe such a stupid tale?" "no, i don't think he believes it himself," admitted ekaterina ivanovna. "but he says that various unpleasant rumours are going about." "there! you see!" exclaimed liudmilla happily. "of course he doesn't believe it himself. what's the reason of all this fuss then?" liudmilla's cheerful voice deceived ekaterina ivanovna. she thought: "i wonder what exactly has happened? the head-master does say that he doesn't believe it." the sisters for a long time supported each other in persuading ekaterina ivanovna of the complete innocence of their relations with sasha. to set her mind more completely at rest they were on the point of telling her in detail precisely what they did with sasha; but they stopped short because they were all such innocent, simple things that it was difficult to remember them. and ekaterina ivanovna at last came to believe that her sasha and the charming routilovs were the innocent victims of stupid slander. as she bade them good-bye she kissed them kindly and said: "you're charming, simple girls. i thought at first that you were--forgive the rude word--wantons." the sisters laughed gaily. liudmilla said: "no, we're just happy girls with sharp little tongues and that's why we're not liked by some of the local geese." when she returned from the routilovs sasha's aunt said nothing to him. he met her, feeling rather frightened and embarrassed and he looked at her cautiously and attentively. after a long deliberation with kokovkina the aunt decided: "i must see the head-master again." * * * * * that same day liudmilla went to see khripatch. she sat for some time in the drawing-room with the head-master's wife and then announced that she had come to see nikolai vassilyevitch on business. an animated conversation took place in khripatch's study--not because they had much to say to one another but because they liked to chatter. and they talked rapidly to each other, khripatch with his dry, crackling volubility, liudmilla with her gentle, resonant prattle. with the irresistible persuasiveness of falsehood, she poured out to khripatch her half-false story of her relations with sasha pilnikov. her chief motives were, of course, her sympathy with the boy who was suffering from this coarse suspicion, her desire to take the place of sasha's absent family. and finally he was such a charming, unspoiled boy. liudmilla even cried a little and her swift tears rolled down her cheeks to her half-smiling lips, giving her an extraordinary attractiveness. "i have grown to love him like a brother," she said. "he is a fine, lovable boy. he appreciated affection and he kissed my hands." "that was very good of you," said khripatch somewhat flustered, "and does honour to your kind feelings. but you have needlessly taken to heart the simple fact that i considered it my duty to inform the boy's relatives of the rumours that reached me." liudmilla prattled on, without listening to him, and her voice passed into a tone of gentle rebuke. "tell me what was wrong in our taking an interest in the boy? why should he suffer from that coarse, mad peredonov? when shall we be rid of him? can't you see yourself that pilnikov is quite a child, really a mere child?" she clasped her small, pretty hands together, rattled her gold bracelets, laughed softly, took her handkerchief out to dry her tears and wafted a delicate perfume towards khripatch. and khripatch suddenly wanted to tell her that she was "lovely as a heavenly angel," and that this unfortunate episode "was not worth a single instant of her dear sorrow." but he refrained. and liudmilla chattered on and on and dissolved into smoke the chimerical structure of the peredonovian lie. think of comparing the charming liudmillotchka with the crude, dirty, insane peredonov! whether liudmilla was telling the whole truth or romancing was all the same to khripatch; but he felt that if he did not believe liudmilla and should argue with her and take steps to punish pilnikov it might lead to an inquiry and disgrace the whole school district. all the more since this business was bound up with peredonov who would be found to be insane. and khripatch smiled, saying to liudmilla: "i'm very sorry that this should upset you so much. i didn't for a moment permit myself any disagreeable suspicions of your acquaintance with pilnikov. i esteem most highly those good and kindly motives which have inspired your actions, and not for a single instant have i considered the rumours that passed in the town and those that reached me as anything but unreasonable slanders which gave me deep concern. i was obliged to inform madame pilnikov, especially since even more distorted rumours might have reached her, but i had no intention of distressing you and had no idea that madame pilnikov would come and complain to you." "we've had a satisfactory explanation with madame pilnikov," said liudmilla. "but don't punish sasha on our account. if our house is so dangerous for schoolboys we won't let him come again." "you're very good to him," said khripatch irresolutely. "we can have nothing against his visiting his acquaintances in his leisure hours, if his aunt permits it. we are very far from wishing to turn students' lodgings into places of confinement. in any case, until the peredonov affair is decided, it would be better for pilnikov to remain at home." * * * * * the accepted explanation given by the routilov girls and by sasha received confirmation from a terrible event which happened in the peredonovs' house. this finally convinced the townspeople that all the rumours about sasha and the routilov girls were the ravings of a madman. chapter xxxii it was a cold, bleak day. peredonov had just left volodin. he felt depressed. vershina lured him into the garden. he yielded again to her witching call. the two of them walked towards the summer-house, over the moist footpaths which were covered by the dark, rotting fallen leaves. the summer-house felt unpleasantly damp. the house with its windows closed was visible through the bare trees. "i want you to know the truth," mumbled vershina, as she looked quickly at peredonov, and then turned away her black eyes. she was wrapped in a black jacket, her head was tied round with a black kerchief, and her lips, grown blue with the cold, were clenched on a black cigarette holder, and sent out thick clouds of black smoke. "i want to spit on your truth," replied peredonov. "nothing would please me better." vershina smiled wryly and said: "don't say that! i am terribly sorry for you--you have been fooled." there was a malicious joy in her voice. malevolent words flowed from her tongue. she said: "you were hoping to get patronage, but you were too trustful. you have been fooled, and you believed so easily. anyone can write a letter. you should have known with whom you were dealing. your wife is not a very particular person." peredonov understood vershina's mumbling speech with some difficulty; her meaning peered out through all her circumlocutions. vershina was afraid to speak loudly and clearly. someone might hear if she spoke loudly, and tell varvara, who would not hesitate to make a scene. and peredonov himself might get into a rage if she spoke clearly, and even beat her. it was better to hint, so that he might guess the truth. but peredonov did not rise to the occasion. it had happened before that he had been told to his face of the deception practised on him; yet he never grasped the fact that the letters had been forged, and kept on thinking that it was the princess who was fooling him, leading him by the nose. at last vershina said bluntly: "you think the princess wrote those letters? why, all the town knows that they were fabricated by grushina at your wife's request; the princess knows nothing about it. ask anyone you like; everyone knows--they gave the thing away themselves. and then varvara dmitrievna stole the letters from you and burnt them so as to leave no traces." dark, oppressive thoughts stirred in peredonov's brain. he understood only one thing--that he had been fooled. but that the princess knew nothing of it could not enter his head--yes, she knew. no wonder she had come out of the fire alive. "it's a lie about the princess," he said. "i tried to burn the princess, but did not succeed in burning her up; she spat out an exorcism." suddenly a furious rage seized peredonov. fooled! he struck the table savagely with his fist, tore himself from his place, and without saying good-bye to vershina walked home quickly. vershina looked after him with malignant joy, and the black clouds of smoke flew quickly from her dark mouth, and swirled away in the wind. rage consumed peredonov. but when he saw varvara, he was seized with a painful dread, which prevented him from uttering a word. on the next morning peredonov got ready a small garden knife, which he carefully kept in a leather sheath in his pocket. he spent the whole morning until luncheon at volodin's. he looked at volodin working, and made absurd remarks. volodin was glad, as usual, that peredonov fussed about him, and he accepted peredonov's silly talk as wit. that whole day the nedotikomka wheeled around peredonov. it would not let him go to sleep after lunch. it completely tired him out. when, towards evening, he had almost fallen asleep, he was awakened by a mischievous woman who appeared from some place unknown to him. she was pug-nosed, amorphous, and as she walked up to his bed she muttered: "the _kvass_ must be crushed out, the tarts must be taken out of the oven, the meat must be roasted." her cheeks were dark, but her teeth gleamed. "go to the devil!" shouted peredonov. the pug-nosed woman disappeared as if she had not been there at all. * * * * * the evening came. a melancholy wind blew in the chimney. a slow rain tapped on the window quietly and persistently. it was quite black outside. volodin was at the peredonovs'--peredonov had invited him early that morning to the supper. "don't let anyone in. do you hear, klavdiushka?" shouted peredonov. varvara smiled. peredonov muttered: "all sorts of women are prowling around here. a watch should be kept. one got into my bedroom; she asked to be taken on as cook. but why should i have a pug-nosed cook?" volodin laughed bleatingly and said: "there are women walking about in the street, but they have nothing to do with us, and we shan't let them join us at our table." the three of them sat down at the table. they began to drink vodka, and to eat tarts. they drank more than they ate. peredonov was gloomy. everything had already become a senseless and incoherent delirium for him. he had a painful headache. one picture repeated itself persistently--that of volodin as an enemy. one idea importuned and assailed him ceaselessly: it was that he must kill pavloushka before it was too late. and then all the inimical cunning would become revealed. as for volodin, he was rapidly becoming drunk, and he kept up an incoherent jabber, much to varvara's amusement. peredonov seemed restless. he mumbled: "someone is coming. don't let anyone in. tell them that i have gone away to pray at the _tarakani_[ ] monastery." he was afraid that visitors might hinder him. volodin and varvara were amused--they thought that he was only drunk. they exchanged winks, and walked out separately and knocked on the door, and said in different voices: "is general peredonov at home?" "i've brought general peredonov a diamond star." but the star did not tempt peredonov that evening. he shouted: "don't let them in! chuck them out! let them bring it in the morning. now is not the time." "no," he thought, "i need all my strength to-night. everything will be revealed to-night--but until then my enemies are ready to send anything and everything against me to destroy me." "well, we've chased them away. they'll bring it to-morrow morning," said volodin, as he seated himself once more at the table. peredonov fixed his troubled eyes upon him, and asked: "are you a friend to me or an enemy?" "a friend, a friend, ardasha!" replied volodin. "a friend with true love is like a beetle behind the stove," said varvara. "not a beetle but a ram," corrected peredonov. "well, you and i will drink together, pavloushka, only we two. and you, varvara, drink also--we'll drink together, we two." volodin said with a snigger: "if varvara dmitrievna drinks with us, it won't be two but three." "two, i say," repeated peredonov morosely. "husband and wife are one satan," said varvara, and began to laugh. volodin did not suspect to the last minute that peredonov wanted to kill him. he kept on bleating, making a fool of himself, and uttering nonsense, which made varvara laugh. but peredonov did not forget his knife the whole evening. when volodin or varvara walked up to that side where the knife was hidden, peredonov savagely warned them off. sometimes he pointed at his pocket and said: "i have a trick here, pavloushka, that will make you quack." varvara and volodin laughed. "i can always quack, ardasha," said volodin. "kra, kra. it's quite easy." red, and drunken with vodka, volodin protruded his lips and quacked. he became more and more arrogant towards peredonov. "you've been taken in, ardasha," he said with contemptuous pity. "i'll take you in," bellowed peredonov in fury. volodin appeared terrible to him and menacing. he must defend himself. peredonov quickly pulled out his knife, threw himself on volodin, and slashed him across his throat. the blood gushed out in a stream. peredonov was frightened. the knife fell out of his hands. volodin kept up his bleat, and tried to catch hold of his throat with his hands. it was evident that he was deadly frightened, that he was growing weaker, and that his hands would never reach his throat. suddenly he grew deathly pale, and fell on peredonov. there was a broken squeal--as if he choked--then he was silent. peredonov cried out in horror, and varvara after him. peredonov pushed volodin away. volodin fell heavily to the floor. he groaned, moved his feet, and was soon dead. his open eyes grew glassy, and their fixed stare was directed upwards. the cat walked out of the next room, smelt the blood, and mewed malignantly. varvara stood as if in a trance. klavdia upon hearing the noise, came running in. "oh, lord, they've cut his throat," she wailed. varvara roused herself, and with a scream rushed from the dining-room together with klavdia. the news of the event spread quickly. the neighbours collected in the street, and in the garden. the bolder ones went into the house. they did not venture to enter the dining-room for some time. they peeped in and whispered. peredonov was looking at the corpse with his vacant eyes, and listened to the whispers behind the door.... a dull sadness tormented him. he had no thoughts. at last they grew bolder, and entered. peredonov was sitting with downcast eyes, and mumbling incoherent, meaningless words. [ ] tarakan is russian for blackbeetle. generously made available by the internet archive.) observations on insanity. observations on insanity: with practical remarks on the disease, and an account of the morbid appearances on dissection. by john haslam, late of pembroke-hall, cambridge, member of the corporation of surgeons, and apothecary to bethlem-hospital. "of the uncertainties of our present state the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason." dr. johnson's rasselas. london: printed for f. and c. rivington, no. , st. paul's church-yard; and sold by j. hatchard, no. , piccadilly. . to the right worshipful the _president_, the worshipful the _treasurer, and governors_ of bethlem-hospital. my lords and gentlemen, the following observations are respectfully submitted to your notice, as the vigilant and humane guardians of an _institution_ which performs much good to society, by diminishing the severest amongst human calamities, by, my lords and gentlemen, your very obedient and humble servant, the author. preface. as the office i hold affords me abundant means of acquiring information on the subject of mental disorders, i should feel myself unworthy of that situation, were i to neglect any opportunity of accumulating such knowledge, or of communicating to the public any thing which might promise to be of advantage to mankind. the candid reader is therefore requested to accept this sentiment, as the best apology i can offer for the present production. it has been somewhere observed, that in our own country more books on insanity have been published than in any other; and, if the remark be just, it is certainly discouraging to him who proposes to add to their number. it must, however, be acknowledged, that we are but little indebted to those who have been most capable of affording us instruction; for, if we except the late dr. john monro's reply to dr. battie's treatise on madness, there is no work on the subject of mental alienation which has been delivered on the authority of extensive observation and practice. it is not intended to present the following sheets as a treatise, or compleat disquisition on the subject, but merely as remarks, which have occurred during the treatment of several hundred patients. as a knowledge of the structure, and functions of the body, have been held indispensably necessary in order to become acquainted with its diseases, and to a scientific mode of treating them; so it would appear, that he who proposes to write on madness should be well informed concerning the powers and operations of the human mind: but the various and discordant opinions, which have prevailed in this department of knowledge, have led me to disentangle myself as quickly as possible from the perplexity of metaphysical mazes. as some very erroneous notions have been entertained concerning the state of the brain, and more especially respecting its consistence in maniacal disorders, i have been induced to examine that viscus in those who have died insane, and have endeavoured with accuracy to report the appearances. it seemed proper to give some general history of these cases; perhaps the account which has been related of their erroneous opinions might have been spared, yet some friends whom i consulted expressed a wish that they had been more copiously detailed. of the difficulty of enumerating the remote causes of the disease i have been fully aware, and have mentioned but few, that i might be accused of the fewer mistakes. the prognosis contains some facts which, as far as i am informed, have not hitherto been made known, and appear to me of sufficient importance to be communicated to the public. as it is my intention at some future period to attempt a more finished performance on the subject of insanity, i shall feel grateful for any hints or observations, with which the kindness of professional gentlemen may supply me. bethlem-hospital, march , . observations on insanity. chap. i. readers in general require a definition of the subject, which an author proposes to treat of; it is the duty therefore of every writer, to define, as clearly as he is able, that which he professes to elucidate. a definition of a disease, should be a concentrated history, a selection of its prominent features and discriminative symptoms. of the definitions which have been given of this disease, some appear too contracted; and others not sufficiently precise. dr. mead, after having treated largely upon the subject, concludes, "that this disease consists entirely in the strength of imagination." if the disease consisted entirely in the strength of imagination, the imagination ought to be equally strong upon all subjects, which upon accurate observation is not found to be the case. had dr. mead stated, that, together with this increased strength of imagination, there existed an enfeebled state of the judgment, his definition would have been more correct. the strength, or increase of any power of the mind, cannot constitute a disease of it; strength of memory, has never been suspected to produce derangement of intellect; neither is it conceived, that great vigour of judgment can operate in any such manner; on the contrary it will readily be granted, that imbecility of memory must create confusion, by obstructing the action of the other powers of the mind; and that if the judgment be impaired, a man must necessarily speak, and generally act, in a very incorrect and ridiculous manner. dr. ferriar, whom, to mention otherwise than as a man of genius, of learning, and of taste, would be unjust; has adopted the generally accepted division of insanity, into mania and melancholy. in mania, he conceives "false perception, and consequently confusion of ideas, to be a leading circumstance." the latter, he supposes to consist "in intensity of idea, which is a contrary state to false perception." from the observations i have been able to make respecting mania, i have by no means been led to conclude, that false perception, is a leading circumstance in this disorder, and still less, that confusion of ideas must be the necessary consequence of false perception. by perception, i understand, with mr. locke, the apprehension of sensations; and after a very diligent enquiry of patients who have recovered from the disease, and from an attentive observation of those labouring under it, i have not frequently found, that insane people perceive falsely, the objects which have been presented to them. it is true, that they all have false ideas, but this by no means infers, a defect of the power by which sensations are apprehended in the mind. we find madmen equally deranged upon those ideas, which they have been long in the possession of, and on which the perception has not been recently exercised, as respecting those, which they have lately received: and we frequently find those who become suddenly mad, talk incoherently upon every subject, and consequently, upon many, on which the perception has not been exercised for a considerable time. it is well known, that maniacs often suppose they have seen, and heard those things, which really did not exist at the time; but even this i should not explain by any disability, or error of the perception, since it is by no means the province of the perception to represent unreal existences to the mind. it must therefore be sought elsewhere, probably in the senses, or in the imagination. i have known eight cases of patients, who insisted that they had seen the devil. it might be urged, that in these instances, the perception was vitiated; but it must be observed, that there could be no perception of that, which was not present and existing at the time. upon desiring these patients to describe what they had seen, they all represented him as a big, black man, with a long tail, cloven feet, and sharp talons, such as is seen pictured in books. a proof that the idea was revived in the mind from some former impressions. one of these patients however carried the matter a little further, as she solemnly declared, she heard him break the iron chain with which god had confined him, and saw him pass fleetly by her window, with a truss of straw upon his shoulder. it must be acknowledged, that in the soundest state of our faculties we sometimes perceive things which do not exist. if the middle finger be crossed over the forefinger, and a single pea be rolled under their extremities, we have the perception of _two_. by immersing one hand into warm, the other into cold water, and afterwards suddenly plunging them both into the same fluid, of a medium temperature, we shall derive the sensations of heat, and cold from the same water, at the same time. the power, by which the mind perceives its own creations and combinations is perhaps the same, as that by which it perceives the impressions on the senses from external objects. we possess the faculty of raising up of objects in the mind which we had seen before, and of prospects, on which we had formerly dwelt, with admiration and delight; and in the coolest state of our understanding we can even conceive that they lie before us. if the power which awakens these remembrances in a healthy state of intellect, should stir up distorted combinations in disease, they must necessarily be perceived; but their apprehension, by no means appears to imply a vitiated state of the faculty by which they are perceived. in fact, that which is represented to the mind, either by a defect or deception of the senses, or by the imagination, if it be sufficiently forcible and enduring, must necessarily be perceived. that "confusion of ideas" should be the necessary consequence of false perception, is very difficult to admit. perhaps much may depend, in the discussion of this point, on the various acceptations in which confusion of ideas may be understood. it has often been observed that madmen, will frequently reason correctly from false premises, and the observation is certainly true: we have indeed occasion to notice the same thing in those of the soundest minds. it is very possible for the perception to be deceived in the occurrence of a thing, which, although it did not actually happen, yet was likely to take place; and which had frequently occurred before. the reception of this as a truth in the mind, if the power of deducing from it the proper inferences existed, could neither create confusion, nor irregularity of ideas. melancholy, the other form in which this disease is supposed to exist, is made by dr. ferriar to consist in "intensity of idea." i shall shortly have an opportunity, in the definition i propose to give, of attempting to prove, that this division of insanity, is neither natural nor just, upon the ground that the derangement is equally complete in both forms of the disease. we ought to attend more to the state of the intellect, than to the passions which accompany the disorder. by intensity of idea, i presume is meant, that the mind is more strongly fixed on, or more frequently recurs to, a certain set of ideas, than when it is in a healthy state. but this definition applies equally to mania, for we every day see the most furious maniacs suddenly sink into a profound melancholy; and the most depressed, and miserable objects, become violent and raving. we have patients in bethlem hospital, whose lives are divided between furious, and melancholic paroxisms; and who, under both states, retain the same set of ideas. insanity may, in my opinion, be defined to be _an incorrect association of familiar ideas, which is independent of the prejudices of education, and is always accompanied with implicit belief, and generally with either violent or depressing passions_. it appears to me necessary, that the ideas incorrectly associated, should be _familiar_, because we can hardly be said to have our ideas deranged upon subjects, concerning which we have little or no information. a peasant, who had heard that superior comforts of life, with fewer exertions, were to be obtained by emigrating to america, might saddle his beast with an intention of riding thither on horse-back, without any other imputation than that of ignorance; but if an old and experienced navigator, were to propose a similar mode of conveyance, i should have little hesitation in concluding him insane. respecting the prejudices of education, it may be observed, that in our childhood, and before we are able to form a true, and accurate judgment of things, we have impressed upon our minds, a number of ideas which are ridiculous; but which were the received opinions of the place in which we then lived, and of the people who inculcated them; such is the belief in the powers of witchcraft, and in ghosts, and superstitions of every denomination, which grasp strongly upon the mind and seduce its credulity. there are many honest men in this kingdom who would not sleep quietly, if a vessel filled with quicksilver were to be brought into their houses; they would perhaps feel alarmed for the chastity of their wives and daughters; and this, because they had been taught to consider that many strange and unaccountable properties are attached to that metal. if a lecturer on chemistry were to exhibit the same fears, there could be no doubt that he laboured under a disorder of intellect, because the properties of mercury would be known to him, and his alarms would arise from incorrectly associating ideas of danger, with a substance, which in that state is innoxious, and whose properties come within the sphere of his knowledge. as the terms mania, and melancholy, are in general use, and serve to distinguish the forms under which insanity is exhibited, there can be no objection to retain them; but i would strongly oppose their being considered as opposite diseases. in both, the association of ideas is equally incorrect, and they appear to differ only, from the different passions which accompany them. on dissection, the state of the brain does not shew any appearances peculiar to melancholy; nor is the treatment which i have observed most successful, different from that which is employed in mania. chap. ii. symptoms of the disease. with most authors, this part of the subject has occupied the greatest share of their labour and attention: they have generally descended to minute particularities and studied discriminations. distinctions have been created, rather from the peculiar turn of the patients propensities and discourse, than from any marked difference, in the varieties, and species of the disorder: and it has been customary to ornament this part of the work with copious citations from poetical writers. as my plan extends only to a description of that which i have observed, i shall neither amplify, nor embellish my volume by quotations. in most public hospitals, the first attack of diseases is seldom to be observed; and it might naturally be supposed, that there existed in bethlem, similar impediments to an accurate knowledge of madness. it is true, that all who are admitted into it have been a greater, or less time afflicted with the complaint; yet from the occasional relapses to which insane persons are subject, we have frequent and sufficient opportunities of observing the beginning, and tracing the progress of this disease. among the incurables, there are some who have intervals of perfect soundness of mind; but who are subject to relapses, which would render it improper, and even dangerous, to trust them at large in society: and with those who are upon the curable list, a recurrence of the malady very frequently takes place. upon these occasions, there is ample scope for observing the first attack of the disease. to enumerate every symptom would be descending to useless minutiæ, i shall therefore content myself with describing the more general appearances. they first become uneasy, are incapable of confining their attention, and neglect any employment to which they have been accustomed; they get but little sleep, they are loquacious, and disposed to harangue, and decide promptly, and positively upon every subject that may be started. soon after, they are divested of all restraint in the declaration of their opinions of those, with whom they are acquainted. their friendships are expressed with fervency and extravagance; their enmities with intolerance and disgust. they now become impatient of contradiction, and scorn reproof. for supposed injuries, they are inclined to quarrel, and fight with those about them. they have all the appearance of persons inebriated, and people unacquainted with the symptoms of approaching mania, generally suppose them to be in a state of intoxication. at length suspicion creeps in upon the mind, they are aware of plots which had never been contrived, and detect motives that were never entertained. at last, the succession of ideas is too rapid to be examined; the mind becomes crouded with thoughts, and indiscriminately jumbles them together. those under the influence of the depressing passions, will exhibit a different train of symptoms. the countenance, wears an anxious and gloomy aspect. they retire from the company of those with whom they had formerly associated, seclude themselves in obscure places, or lie in bed the greatest part of their time. they next become fearful, and, when irregular combinations of ideas have taken place, conceive a thousand fancies: often recur to some former immoral act which they have committed, or imagine themselves guilty of crimes which they never perpetrated; believe that god has abandoned them, and with trembling, await his punishment. frequently they become desperate, and endeavour by their own hands to terminate an existence, which appears to be an afflicting and hateful incumbrance. the sound mind seems to consist in a harmonized association of its different powers, and is so constituted, that a defect, in any one, produces irregularity, and, most commonly, derangement of the whole. the different forms therefore under which we see this disease, might not, perhaps, be improperly arranged according to the powers which are chiefly affected. i have before remarked, that the increased vigor of any mental faculty cannot constitute intellectual disease. if the memory of a person were so retentive, that he could re-assemble the whole of what he had heard, read, and thought, such a man, even with a moderate understanding, would pass through life with reputation and utility. suppose another to possess a judgment, so discriminating and correct, that he could ascertain precisely, the just weight of every argument; this man would be a splendid ornament to human society. let the imagination of a third, create images and scenes, which mankind should ever view with rapture and astonishment, such a phænomenon would bring shakespear to our recollection. if in a chain of ideas, a number of the links are broken, the mind cannot possess any accurate information. when patients of this description are asked a question, they appear as if awakened from a sound sleep; they are searching, they know not where, for the proper materials of an answer, and, in the painful, and fruitless efforts of recollection, generally lose sight of the question itself. in persons of sound mind, as well as in maniacs, the memory is the first power which decays, and there is something remarkable in the manner of its decline. the transactions of the latter part of life are feebly recollected, whilst the scenes of youth, and of manhood, remain more strongly impressed. to many conversations of the old incurable patients to which i have listened, the topic has always turned upon the scenes of early days. in many cases, where the faculties of the mind have been injured by intemperance, the same withering of the recollection may be observed. it may perhaps arise, from the mind at an early period of life being most susceptible and retentive of impressions, and from a greater disposition to be pleased with the objects which are presented: whereas, the cold caution, and fastidiousness with which age surveys the prospects of life, joined to the dulness of the senses, and the slight curiosity which prevails, will, in some degree, explain the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of recalling the history of later transactions. insane people who have been good scholars, after a long confinement lose, in a wonderful degree, the correctness of orthography; when they write, above half the words are generally mis-spelt--they are written according to the pronunciation. it shews how treacherous the memory is without reinforcement. the same necessity of a constant recruit and frequent review of our ideas, satisfactorily explains, why a number of patients lapse nearly into a state of ideotism. these have, for some years, been the silent and gloomy inhabitants of the hospital, who have avoided conversation, and sought solitude; consequently have acquired no new ideas, and time has effaced the impression of those formerly stamped upon the mind. mr. locke well observes, "that there seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas, even of those which are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive; so that if they be not sometimes renewed, by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection on those kind of objects, which at first occasioned them; the print wears out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen." as it has been attempted to explain, how an imbecility or loss of memory will obstruct the operation of the other powers of the mind: the next object is to shew, how necessarily our ideas must be disarranged where the determination on their comparison is wrong, or where the mind determines, or judges, with little previous examination or comparison. an example or two will illustrate this more satisfactorily than any length of reasoning. i remember a patient who conceived, that, although dead men told no tales, yet their feeling was very acute. this assumed principle he extended to inferior animals, and refused to eat meat, because he could not endure to be nourished at the expence of the cruel sufferings, which beef steaks necessarily underwent in their cookery. another madman, who pretended to extraordinary skill in surgery, contrived to steal the wooden leg of an insane patient, and laid upon it for a considerable time, with a firm belief of hatching it into a limb of flesh and blood. if a man shall form such ideas, and conceive them to be true, either from a defect in the power of his judgment, or without any comparison or examination shall infer them to be so, such defect will afford a sufficient source of derangement. some who have perfectly recovered from this disease, and who are persons of good understanding and liberal education, describe the state they were in as resembling a dream; and, when they have been told how long they were disordered, have been astonished that the time passed so rapidly away. others speak of their disorder as accompanied with great hurry and confusion of mind, where the succession of ideas is so rapid and evanescent, that when they have endeavoured to arrest or contemplate any particular thoughts, they have been carried away by the tide, which was rolling after them. all patients have not the same degree of memory of what has passed during the time they were disordered: but for the most part they recollect those ideas which were transmitted through the medium of the senses, better than the combinations of their own minds. i have frequently remarked that, when they were unable to give any account of the peculiar opinions which they had indulged during a raving paroxysm of long continuance, they well remembered any coercion which had been used, or any kindness which had been shewn them. insane people are said to be generally worse in the morning; in some cases they certainly are so, but perhaps not so frequently as has been supposed. in many instances (and, as far as i have observed) in the beginning of the disease they are more violent in the evening, and continue so the greatest part of the night. it is however a certain fact, that the majority of patients of this description have their symptoms aggravated, by being placed in a recumbent posture. they seem themselves to avoid the horizontal position as much as possible when they are in a raving state: and when so confined that they cannot be erect, they will keep themselves seated upon the breech. many of those who are violently disordered will continue particular actions for a considerable time: some are heard to gingle the chain, with which they are confined, for hours without intermission; others, who are secured in an erect posture, will beat the ground with their feet the greatest part of the day. upon enquiry of such patients, after they have recovered, they have assured me, that these actions afforded them considerable relief. we often surprize persons who are free from intellectual disease in many strange and ridiculous movements, particularly if their minds be intently occupied:--this does not appear to be the effect of habit, but of a particular state of mind. madmen do not always continue in the same furious or depressed states: the maniacal paroxysm abates of its violence, and some beams of hope occasionally cheer the despondency of the melancholick patients. we have some unfortunate persons who are obliged to be secured the greatest part of their time, but who now and then become calm, and to a certain degree rational: upon such occasions, they are allowed a greater range, and are permitted to associate with the others. in some instances, the degree of rationality is more considerable; they conduct themselves with propriety, and in a short conversation will appear sensible and coherent. such remission, has been generally termed a _lucid interval_. when medical men are called upon to attend a commission of lunacy, they are always asked, whether the patient has had a _lucid interval_? a term of such latitude as _interval_ requires to be explained in the most perspicuous and accurate manner. in common language it is made to signify, both a moment and a number of years, consequently it does not comprize any stated time. the term _lucid interval_ is therefore relative. i should define a _lucid interval_ to be _a complete recovery of the patient's intellects, ascertained by repeated examinations of his conversation, and by constant observation of his conduct, for a time sufficient to enable the superintendant to form a correct judgment_. unthinking people are frequently led to conclude that, if during a conversation of a few minutes, a person under confinement shall betray nothing absurd or incorrect, he is well, and often remonstrate on the injustice of secluding him from the world. even in common society, there are many persons whom we never suspect from a few trifling topics of discourse to be shallow minded; but, if we start a subject, and wish to discuss it through all it's ramifications and dependances we find them incapable of pursuing a connected chain of reasoning. in the same manner, insane people will often, for a short time, conduct themselves, both in conversation and behaviour, with such propriety, that they appear to have the just exercise and direction of their faculties; but let the examiner protract the discourse, until the favourite subject shall have got afloat in the madman's brain, and he will be convinced of the hastiness of his decision. to those unaccustomed to insane people, a few coherent sentences, or rational answers would indicate a lucid interval, because they discover no madness; but he who is in possession of the peculiar turn of the patient's thoughts, might lead him to disclose them, or by a continuance of the conversation they would spontaneously break forth. a beautiful illustration of this is contained in the rasselas of dr. johnson: where the astronomer is admired as a person of sound intellect and great acquirements by imlac, who is himself a philosopher, and a man of the world. his intercourse with the astronomer is frequent; and he always finds in his society information and delight. at length he receives imlac into the most unbounded confidence, and imparts to him the momentous secret. "hear imlac what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. i have possessed for five years the regulation of weather, and the distribution of the seasons. the sun has listened to my dictates, and passed from tropic to tropic by my direction. the clouds at my call have poured their waters, and the nile has overflowed at my command. i have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervours of the crab. the winds alone of all the elemental powers have hitherto refused my authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctial tempests, which i found myself unable to prohibit or restrain. i have administered this great office with exact justice, and made to the different nations of the earth an impartial dividend of rain and sunshine. what must have been the misery of half the globe, if i had limited the clouds to particular regions, or confined the sun to either side of the equator?" a real case came under my observation a few months ago, and which is equally apposite to the subject. a young man had become insane from habitual intoxication, and during the violence of his complaint had attempted to destroy himself. under a supposed imputation of having unnatural dispositions he had amputated his penis, with a view of precluding any future insinuations of that nature. for many months after he was admitted into the hospital, he continued in a state which obliged him to be strictly confined, as he constantly meditated his own destruction. on a sudden he became apparently well, was highly sensible of the delusion under which he had laboured, and conversed as any other person upon the ordinary topics of discourse. there was, however, something in the reserve of his manner, and peculiarity of his look, which persuaded me that he was not well, although no incoherence of ideas could be detected in his conversation. i had observed him for some days to walk rather lame, and once or twice had noticed him sitting with his shoes off, rubbing his feet. on enquiring into the motives of his doing so, he replied, that his feet were blistered, and wished that some remedy might be applied to remove the vesications. when i requested to look at his feet, he declined it and prevaricated, saying, that they were only tender and uncomfortable. in a few days afterwards, he assured me they were perfectly well. the next evening i observed him, unperceived, still rubbing his feet, and then peremptorily insisted on examining them. they were quite free from any disorder. he now told me with some embarrassment, that he wished much for a confidential friend, to whom he might impart a secret of importance. upon assuring him that he might trust me, he said, that the boards on which he walked, (the second story) were heated by subterraneous fires, under the direction of invisible and malicious agents, whose intentions, he was well convinced, were to consume him by degrees. from these considerations i am inclined to think, that a _lucid interval_ includes all the circumstances which i have enumerated in my definition of it. if the person who is to examine the state of the patient's mind be unacquainted with his peculiar opinions, he may be easily deceived, because, wanting this information, he will have no clue to direct his enquiries, and madmen do not always, nor immediately intrude their incoherent notions into notice. they have sometimes such a high degree of controul over their minds, that when they have any particular purpose to carry, they will affect to renounce those opinions which shall have been judged inconsistent: and it is well known that they have often dissembled their resentment, until a favourable opportunity has occurred of gratifying their revenge. among the bodily particularities which mark this disease, may be observed the protruded, and oftentimes glistening eye, and a peculiar cast of countenance which, however, cannot be described. in some, an appearance takes place which has not hitherto been noticed by authors. this is a relaxation of the integuments of the cranium, by means of which they may be wrinkled, or rather gathered up by the hand to a considerable degree. it is generally most remarkable on the posterior part of the scalp; as far as my enquiries have reached, it does not take place in the beginning of the disease, but after a raving paroxysm of some continuance. it has been frequently accompanied with contraction of the iris. on the suggestion of a medical gentleman, i was induced to ascertain the prevailing complexion and colour of the hair in insane patients. out of who were examined, were of a swarthy complection, with dark, or black hair; the remaining were of a fair skin, and light, brown, or red haired. what connection this proportion may have with the complection and colour of the hair of the people of this country in general, and what alterations may have been produced by age or residence in other climates, i am totally uninformed. of the power which maniacs possess of resisting cold the belief is general, and the histories which are on record are truly wonderful. it is not my wish to disbelieve, nor my intention to dispute them; it is proper, however, to state, that the patients in bethlem hospital possess no such exemption from the effects of severe cold. they are particularly subject to mortifications of the feet; and this fact is so well established from former accidents, that there is an express order of the house, that every patient, under strict confinement, shall have his feet examined morning and evening by the keeper, and also have them constantly wrapped in flannel; and those who are permitted to go about are always to be found as near to the fire as they can get, during the winter season. having thus given a general account of the symptoms which i have observed to occur most commonly in persons affected with madness, i shall now lay before my readers a history of all the appearances which i have noticed on opening the heads of several maniacs, who have died in bethlem hospital. case i. j. h. a man twenty-eight years of age, was admitted a patient in may . he had been disordered for about two months before he came into the hospital. no particular cause was stated to have brought on the complaint. it was most probably an hereditary affection, as his father had been several times insane and confined in our hospital. during the time he was in the house, he was in a very low and melancholic state; shewed an aversion to food, and said he was resolved to die. his obstinacy in refusing all nourishment was very great, and it was with much difficulty forced upon him. he continued in this state, but became daily weaker and more emaciated until august st when he died. upon opening the head, the pericranium was found loosely adherent to the scull. the bones of the cranium were thick. the pia mater was loaded with blood, and the medullary substance, when cut into, was full of bloody points. the pineal gland contained a large quantity of gritty matter[ ]. the consistence of the brain was natural; he was opened twenty-four hours after death. case ii. j. w. was a man of sixty-two years of age, who had been many years in the house as an incurable patient, but with the other parts of whose history i am totally unacquainted. he appeared to be a quiet and inoffensive person, who found amusement in his own thoughts, and seldom joined in any conversation with the other patients: for some months he had been troubled with a cough, attended with copious expectoration, which very much reduced him; dropsical symptoms followed these complaints. he became every day weaker, and on july th, , died. he was opened eighteen hours after death. the pericranium adhered loosely to the scull; the bones of the cranium were unusually thin. there were slight opacities in many parts of the tunica arachnoides; in the ventricles about four ounces of water were contained--some large hydatids were discovered on the plexus choroides of the right side. the consistence of the brain was natural. case iii. g. h. a man twenty-six years of age, was received into the hospital july th, . it was stated that he had been disordered six weeks previous to his admission, and that he had never had any former attack. he had been a drummer with a recruiting party, and had been for some time in the habit of constant intoxication, which was assigned as the cause of his insanity. he continued in a violent and raving state about a month, during the whole of which time he got little or no sleep. he had no knowledge of his situation but supposed himself with the regiment, and was frequently under great anxiety and alarm for the loss of his drum, which he imagined had been stolen and sold. the medicines which were given to him he conceived were spirituous liquors, and swallowed them with avidity. at the expiration of a month, he was very weak and reduced; his legs became oedematous--his pupils were much diminished. he now believed himself a child, called upon the people about him as his playfellows, and appeared to recall the scenes of early life with facility and correctness. within a few days of his decease he only muttered to himself. august th, he died. he was opened six hours after death. the pericranium was loosely adherent. the tunica arachnoides had generally lost its transparency, and was considerably thickened. the veins of the pia mater were loaded with blood, and in many places seemed to contain air. there was a considerable quantity of water between the membranes, and as nearly as could be ascertained about four ounces in the ventricles, in the cavity of which, the veins appeared remarkably turgid. the consistence of the brain was more than usually firm. case iv. e. m. a woman, aged sixty, was admitted into the house, august th, ; she had been disordered five months; the cause assigned was extreme grief, in consequence of the loss of her only daughter. she was very miserable and restless; conceived she had been accused of some horrid crime, for which she apprehended she should be burned alive. when any persons entered her room she supposed them officers of justice, who were about to drag her to some cruel punishment. she was frequently violent, and would strike and bite those who came near her. upon the idea that she should shortly be put to death, she refused all sustenance; and it became necessary to force her to take it. in this state she continued, growing daily weaker and more emaciated, until october d, when she died. upon opening the head there was a copious determination of blood to the whole contents of the cranium. the pia mater was considerably inflamed; there was not any water either in the ventricles or between the membranes. the brain was particularly soft. she was opened thirty hours after death. case v. w. p. a young man aged twenty-five, was admitted into the hospital september , . he had been disordered five months, and had experienced a similar attack six years before. the disease was brought on by excessive drinking. he was in a very furious state, in consequence of which he was constantly confined. he got little or no sleep--during the greater part of the night he was singing, or swearing, or holding conversations with persons he imagined to be about him: sometimes he would rattle the chain with which he was confined for several hours together, and tore every thing to pieces within his reach. in the beginning of november the violence of his disorder subsided for two or three days, but afterwards returned; and on the th he died compleatly exhausted by his exertions.--upon opening the head the pericranium was found firmly attached; the pia mater was inflamed, though not to any very considerable degree; the tunica arachnoides in some places was slightly shot with blood; the membranes of the brain, and its convolutions when these were removed, were of a brown, or brownish straw colour. there was no water in any of the cavities of the brain, nor any particular congestion of blood in its substance--the consistence of which was natural. he was opened twenty hours after death. case vi. b. h. was an incurable patient, who had been confined in the house from the year , and for some years before that time in a private madhouse. he was about sixty years of age--had formerly been in the habit of intoxicating himself. his character was strongly marked by pride, irascibility, and malevolence. during the four last years of his life he was confined for attempting to commit some violence on one of the officers of the house. after this he was seldom heard to speak; yet he manifested his evil disposition by every species of dumb insult. latterly he grew suspicious, and would sometimes tell the keeper that his victuals were poisoned. about the beginning of december he was taken ill with a cough, attended with copious expectoration. being then asked respecting his complaints, he said he had a violent pain across the stomach, which arose from his navel string at his birth having been tied too short. he never spoke afterwards, though frequently importuned to describe his complaints. he died december , . upon dividing the integuments of the head, the pericranium was found scarcely to adhere to the scull. on the right parietal bone there was a large blotch, as if the bone had been inflamed: there were others on different parts of the bone, but considerably smaller. the glandulæ pacchioni were uncommonly large: the tunica arachnoides in many places wanted the natural transparency of that membrane: there was a large determination of blood to the substance of the brain: the ventricles contained about three ounces of water; the consistence of the brain was natural. he was opened two days after death. case vii. a. m. a woman aged twenty-seven, was admitted into the hospital august , ; she had then been eleven weeks disordered. religious enthusiasm, and a too frequent attendance on conventicles, were stated to have occasioned her complaint. she was in a very miserable and unhappy condition, and terrified by the most alarming apprehensions for the salvation of her soul. towards the latter end of september she appeared in a convalescent state, and continued tolerably well until the middle of november, when she began to relapse. the return of her disorder commenced with loss of sleep. she alternately sang, and cried the greatest part of the night. she conceived her inside full of the most loathsome vermin, and often felt the sensation as if they were crawling into her throat. she was suddenly seized with a strong and unconquerable determination to destroy herself; became very sensible of her malady, and said, that god had inflicted this punishment on her, from having (at some former part of her life) said the lord's prayer backwards. she continued some time in a restless and forlorn state; at one moment expecting the devil to seize upon her and tear her to pieces; in the next, wondering that she was not instigated to commit violence on the persons about her. on january , , she died suddenly. she was opened twelve hours after death. the thoracic and abdominal viscera were perfectly healthy. upon examining the contents of the cranium, the pia mater was considerably inflamed, and an extravasated blotch, about the size of a shilling, was seen upon that membrane, near the middle of the right lobe of the cerebrum. there was no water between the membranes, nor in the ventricles, but a general determination of blood to the contents of the cranium. the medullary substance when cut into was full of bloody points. the consistence of the brain was natural. case viii. m. w. a very tall and thin woman, forty-four years of age, was admitted into the hospital september , . her disorder was of six months standing, and eight years before she had also had an attack of this disease. the cause assigned to have brought it on, the last time, was the loss of some property, the disease having shortly followed that circumstance. the constant tenor of her discourse was, that she should live but a short time. she seemed anxiously to wish for her dissolution, but had no thoughts of accomplishing her own destruction. in the course of a few weeks she began to imagine, that some malevolent person had given her mercury with an intention to destroy her. she was constantly shewing her teeth, which had decayed naturally, as if this effect had been produced by that medicine: at last she insisted, that mercurial preparations were mingled in the food and medicines which were administered to her. her appetite was voracious notwithstanding this belief. she had a continual thirst, and drank very large quantities of cold water. on january , , she had an apoplectic fit, well marked by stertor, loss of voluntary motion, and insensibility to stimuli. on the following day she died. she was opened two days after death. there was a remarkable accumulation of blood in the veins of the dura and pia mater; the substance of the brain was loaded with blood. when the medullary substance was cut into blood oozed from it; and upon squeezing it a greater quantity could be forced out. on the pia mater covering the right lobe of the cerebrum, were some slight extravasations of blood. the ventricles contained no water; on the plexus choroides were some vesicles of the size of coriander-seeds, filled with a yellow fluid. the pericranium adhered firmly to the scull. the consistence of the brain was firmer than usual. case ix. e. d. a woman aged thirty-six, was admitted into the hospital february , : she had then been disordered four months. her insanity came on a few days after having been delivered. she had also laboured under a similar attack seven years before, which, like the present, supervened upon the birth of a child. under the impression that she ought to be hanged, she destroyed her infant, with the view of meeting with that punishment. when she came into the house, she was very sensible of the crime she had committed, and felt the most poignant affliction for the act. for about a month she continued to amend: after which time she became more thoughtful, and frequently spoke about the child: great anxiety and restlessness succeeded. in this state she remained until april , when her tongue became thickly furred, the skin parched, her eyes inflamed and glassy, and her pulse quick. she now talked incoherently; and, towards the evening, merely muttered to herself. she died on the following day comatose. she was opened about twenty-four hours after death. the scull was thick, the pericranium scarcely adhered to the bone, the dura mater was also but slightly attached to its internal surface. there was a large quantity of water between the dura mater and tunica arachnoidea; this latter membrane was much thickened, and was of a milky white appearance. between the tunica arachnoidea and pia mater, there was a considerable accumulation of water. the veins of the pia mater were particularly turgid. about three ounces of water were contained in the lateral ventricles: the veins of the membrane lining these cavities were remarkably large and turgid with blood. when the medullary substance of the cerebrum and cerebellum was cut into, there appeared a great number of bloody points. the brain was of its natural consistence. case x. c. m. a man forty years of age, was admitted into the hospital dec. , . it was stated, that he had been disordered two months previous to his having been received as a patient. his friends were unacquainted with any cause, which was likely to have induced the complaint. during the time he was in the house he seemed sulky, or rather stupid. he never asked any questions, and if spoken to, either replied shortly, or turned away without giving any answer. he appeared to take little notice of any thing which was going forward, and if told to do any little office, generally forgot what he was going about, before he had advanced half a dozen steps. he remained in this state until the beginning of may, , when his legs became oedematous, and his abdomen swollen. he grew very feeble and helpless, and died rather suddenly may th. he was opened about forty-eight hours after death. the pericranium and dura mater adhered firmly to the scull; in many places there was an opake whiteness of the tunica arachnoides. about four ounces of water were found in the ventricles. the plexus choroides were uncommonly pale. the medullary substance, afforded hardly any bloody points when cut into. the consistence of the brain i cannot describe better than by saying, it was doughy. case xi. s. m. a man thirty-six years of age, was admitted as an incurable patient in the year . of the former history of his complaint i have no information. as his habits, which frequently came under my observation, were of a singular nature, it may not here be improper to relate them. having at some period of his confinement been mischievously disposed, and, in consequence, put under coercion, he never afterwards found himself comfortable when at liberty. when he rose in the morning he went immediately to the room where he was usually confined, and placed himself in a particular corner, until the keeper came to secure him. if he found any other patient had pre-occupied his situation, he became very outrageous, and generally forced them to leave it. when he had been confined, for which he appeared anxious, as he bore any delay with little temper, he employed himself throughout the remainder of the day, by tramping or shuffling his feet. he was constantly muttering to himself, of which scarcely one word in a sentence was intelligible. when an audible expression escaped him it was commonly an imprecation. if a stranger visited him, he always asked for tobacco, but seldom repeated his solicitation. he devoured his food with avidity, and always muttered as he ate. in the month of july, , he was seized with a diarrhoea, which afterwards terminated in dysentery. this continued, notwithstanding the employment of every medicine usually given in such a case, until his death, which took place on september , of the same year. he was opened twelve hours after death. the scull was unusually thin; the glandulæ pacchioni were large and numerous: there was a very general determination of blood to the brain: the medullary substance, when cut, shewed an abundance of bloody points: the lateral ventricles contained about four ounces of water: the consistence of the brain was natural. case xii. e. r. was a woman, to all appearance about eighty years of age, but of whose history, before she came into the hospital, it has not been in my power to acquire any satisfactory intelligence. she was an incurable patient, and had been admitted on that establishment in february . during the time i had an opportunity of observing her, she continued in the same state: she appeared feeble and childish. during the course of the day, she sat in a particular part of the common-room, from which she never stirred. her appetite was tolerably good, but it was requisite to feed her. except she was particularly urged to speak she never talked. as the summer declined she grew weaker, and died october , , apparently worn out. she was opened two days after death. the scull was particularly thin; the pericranium adhered firmly to the bone, and the scull-cap was with difficulty separated from the dura mater. there was a very large quantity of water between the membranes of the brain: the glandulæ pacchioni were uncommonly large: the tunica arachnoidea was in many places blotched and streaked with opacities: when the medullary substance of the brain was cut into, it was every where bloody; and blood could be pressed from it, as from a sponge. there were some large hydatids on the plexus choroides: in the ventricles about a tea spoonful of water was observed: the consistence of the brain was particularly firm, but it could not be called elastic. there were no symptoms of general dropsy. case xiii. j. d. a man thirty-five years of age, was admitted into the hospital in october . he was a person of good education, and had been regularly brought up to medicine, which he had practised in this town for several years. it was stated by his friends, that, about two years before, he had suffered a similar attack, which continued six months: but it appears from the observations of some medical persons, that he never perfectly recovered from it, although he returned to the exercise of his profession. a laborious attention to business, and great apprehensions of the want of success, were assigned as causes of his malady. in the beginning of the year the disease recurred, and became so violent that it was necessary to confine him. at the time he was received into bethlem hospital, he was in an unquiet state, got little or no sleep, and was constantly speaking loudly: in general he was worse towards evening. he appeared little sensible of external objects: his exclamations were of the most incoherent nature. during the time he was a patient he was thrice cupped on the scalp. after each operation, he became rational to a certain degree; but these intervals were of a short continuance, as he relapsed in the course of a few hours. the scalp, particularly at the posterior part of the head, was so loose that a considerable quantity of it could be gathered up by the hand[ ]. the violence of his exertions at last exhausted him, and, on december , he died. he was opened about twenty-four hours after death. there was a large quantity of water between the dura mater and tunica arachnoidea, and also between this latter membrane and the pia mater. the arachnoid membrane was thickened and opake; the vessels of the pia mater were loaded with blood: when the medullary substance was cut into, it was very abundant in bloody points: about three ounces of water were contained in the lateral ventricles: the plexus choroides were remarkably turgid with blood: a quantity of water was found in the theca vertebralis: the consistence of the brain was natural. case xiv. j. c. a man aged sixty-one, was admitted into the hospital september , . it was stated that he had been disordered ten months. he had for thirty years kept a public house, and had for some time been in the habit of getting intoxicated. his memory was considerably impaired: circumstances were so feebly impressed on his mind, that he was unable to give any account of the preceding day. he appeared perfectly reconciled to his situation, and conducted himself with order and propriety. as he seldom spoke but when interrogated, it was not possible to collect his opinions. in this quiet state he continued about two months, when he became more thoughtful and abstracted, walked about with a quick step, and frequently started, as if suddenly interrupted. he was next seized with trembling, appeared anxious to be released from his confinement: conceived at one time that his house was filled with company; at another that different people had gone off without paying him, and that he should be arrested for sums of money which he owed. under this constant alarm and disquietude he continued about a week, when he became sullen and refused his food. when importuned to take nourishment, he said it was ridiculous to offer it to him, as he had no mouth to eat it: though forced to take it, he continued in the same opinion; and when food was put into his mouth, insisted that a wound had been made in his throat, in order to force it into his stomach. the next day he complained of violent pain in his head, and in a few minutes afterwards died. he was opened twelve hours after death. there was a large quantity of water between the tunica arachnoidea and pia mater; the latter membrane was much suffused with blood, and many of its vessels were considerably enlarged: the lateral ventricles contained at least six ounces of water: the brain was very firm. case xv. j. a. a man forty-two years of age, was first admitted into the house on june , . his disease came on suddenly whilst he was working in a garden, on a very hot day, without any covering to his head. he had some years before travelled with a gentleman over a great part of europe: his ideas ran particularly on what he had seen abroad; sometimes he conceived himself the king of denmark, at other times the king of france. although naturally dull and wanting common education, he professed himself a master of all the dead and living languages; but his most intimate acquaintance was with the old french; and he was persuaded he had some faint recollection of coming over to this country with william the conqueror. his temper was very irritable, and he was disposed to quarrel with every body about him. after he had continued ten months in the hospital, he became tranquil, relinquished his absurdities, and was discharged well in june . he went into the country with his wife to settle some domestic affairs, and in about six weeks afterwards relapsed. he was readmitted into the hospital august th. he now evidently had a paralytic affection, his speech was inarticulate, and his mouth drawn aside. he shortly became stupid, his legs swelled and afterwards ulcerated; at length his appetite failed him; he became emaciated, and died december th, of the same year. the head was opened twenty hours after death. there was a greater quantity of water between the different membranes of the brain than has ever occurred to me. the tunica arachnoidea was generally opake and very much thickened: the pia mater was loaded with blood, and the veins of that membrane were particularly enlarged. on the fore-part of the right hemisphere of the brain, when stripped of its membranes, there was a blotch, of a brown colour, several shades darker than the rest of the cortical substance: the ventricles were much enlarged, and contained, by estimation, at least six ounces of water. the veins in these cavities were particularly turgid. the consistence of the brain was firmer than usual. case xvi. j. h. a man aged forty-two, was admitted into the house on april , . he had then been disordered two months: it was a family disease on his father's side. having manifested a mischievous disposition to some of his relations, he was continued in the hospital upon the incurable establishment. his temper was naturally violent, and he was easily provoked. as long as he was kept to any employment he conducted himself tolerably well; but when unoccupied, would walk about in a hurried and distracted manner, throwing out the most horrid threats and imprecations. he would often appear to be holding conversations: but these conferences always terminated in a violent quarrel between the imaginary being and himself. he constantly supposed unfriendly people were placed in different parts of the house to torment and annoy him. however violently he might be contesting any subject with these supposed enemies, if directed by the keepers to render them any assistance, he immediately gave up the dispute and went with alacrity. as he got but little sleep, the greatest part of the night was spent in a very noisy and riotous manner. in this state he continued until april , when he was attacked with a paralytic affection, which deprived him of the use of the left side. his articulation was now hardly intelligible; he became childish, got gradually weaker, and died december , . he was opened twenty-four hours after death. there was a general opacity of the arachnoid coat, and a small quantity of water between that membrane and the pia mater: the ventricles were much enlarged and contained a considerable quantity of water, by estimation four ounces: the consistence of the brain was natural. case xvii. m. g. a woman about fifty years of age had been admitted on the incurable establishment in july . she had for some years before been in a disordered state, and was considered as a dangerous patient. her temper was violent; and if interrupted in her usual habits, she became very furious. like many others among the incurables, she was an insulated being: she never spoke except when disturbed. her greatest delight appeared to be in getting into some corner to sleep; and the interval between breakfast and dinner was usually past in this manner. at other times she was generally committing some petty mischief, such as slyly breaking a window, dirtying the rooms of the other patients, or purloining their provisions. she had been for some months in a weak and declining state, but would never give any account of her complaints. on january , , she died, apparently worn out. the head was opened three days after death. the pericranium adhered but slightly to the scull, nor was the dura mater firmly attached. there was water between the membranes of the brain; and the want of transparency of the tunica arachnoidea, indicated marks of former inflammation. the posterior part of the hemispheres of the brain was of a brownish colour. in this case there was a considerable appearance of air in the veins; the medullary substance, when cut, was full of bloody points: the lateral ventricles were small, but filled with water: the plexus choroides were loaded with vesicles of a much larger size than usual: the consistence of the brain was natural. case xviii. s. t. a woman aged fifty-seven, was admitted into the house january , . it was stated by her friends, that she had been disordered eight months: they were unacquainted with any cause, which might have induced the disease. she had evidently suffered a paralytic attack, which considerably affected her speech, and occasioned her to walk lame with the right leg. as she avoided all conversation, it was not possible to collect any further account of her case. three days after her admission, she had another paralytic stroke, which deprived her entirely of the use of the right side. two days afterwards she died. she was opened forty-eight hours after death. there was a small quantity of water between the tunica arachnoidea and pia mater, and a number of opake spots on the former membrane. on the pia mater covering the posterior part of the left hemisphere of the brain, there was an extravasated blotch, about the size of a shilling: the medullary substance was unusually loaded with blood: the lateral ventricles were large, but did not contain much water: the consistence of the brain was very soft. case xix. w. c. a man aged sixty-three, was admitted into the hospital january , . the persons, who attended at his admission, deposed, that he had been disordered five months; that he never had been insane before, and that the disease came on shortly after the death of his son. he was in a very anxious and miserable state. no persuasion could induce him to take nourishment; and it was with extreme difficulty that any food could be forced upon him. he paced about with an hurried step; was often suddenly struck with the idea of having important business to adjust in some distant place, and which would not admit of a moment's delay. presently after, he would conceive his house to be on fire, and would hastily endeavour to rescue his property from the flames. then he would fancy that his son was drowning, that he had twice sunk: he was prepared to plunge into the river to save him, as he floated for the last time: every moment appeared an hour until he rose. in this miserable state he continued till the th, when, with great perturbation, he suddenly ran into his room, threw himself on the bed, and in a few minutes expired. the head was opened twenty-four hours after death. the pericranium was but slightly adherent to the scull: the tunica arachnoidea, particularly where the hemispheres meet, was of a milky whiteness. between this membrane, which was somewhat thickened, and the pia mater, there was a very large collection of water: the pia mater was inflamed: the veins of this membrane were enlarged beyond what i had ever before observed: there was a striking appearance of air in the veins: the medullary substance of the brain, when cut into, bled freely, and seemed spungy from the number and enlargement of its vessels: in the ventricles, which were of a natural capacity, there was about half an ounce of water: the brain was of a healthy consistence. case xx. m. l. a woman aged thirty-eight, was admitted into the house june , . from the information of the people who had attended her, it appeared, that she had been disordered six weeks, and that the disease took place shortly after the death of her husband. at the first attack she was violent, but she soon became more calm. she conceived that the overseers of the parish, to which she belonged, meditated her destruction: afterwards she supposed them deeply enamoured of her, and that they were to decide their claims by a battle. during the time she continued in the hospital she was perfectly quiet, although very much deranged. she fancied that a young man, for whom she had formerly entertained a partiality, but who had been dead some years, appeared frequently at her bed-side in a state of putrefaction, which left an abominable stench in her room. soon after she grew suspicious, and became apprehensive of evil intentions in the people about her. she would frequently watch at her door, and, when asked the reason, replied, that she was fully aware of a design, which had been formed, to put her secretly to death. under the influence of these opinions she continued to her death, which took place on february , , in consequence of a violent rheumatic fever. she was opened twelve hours after death. there were two opake spots on the tunica arachnoidea: the pia mater was slightly inflamed: there was a general congestion of blood in the whole contents of the cranium: the consistence of the brain did not differ from what is found in an healthy state. case xxi. h. c. a woman of about sixty-five years of age, had been admitted on the incurable establishment in the year . i have not been able to collect any particulars of her former history. during the time i had an opportunity of seeing her, she continued in a very violent and irritable state: it was her custom to abuse every one who came near her. the greatest part of the day was passed in cursing the persons she saw about her; and when no one was near, she usually muttered some blasphemy to herself. she died of a fever on february , , on the fourth day after the attack. she was opened two days after death. the arachnoid membrane was, in many parts, without its natural transparency: the pia mater was generally suffused with blood, and its vessels were enlarged: the consistence of the brain was firm. case xxii. j. c. a man aged fifty, was admitted into the hospital august , . it was stated that he had been disordered about three weeks, and that the disease had been induced by too great attention to business, and the want of sufficient rest. about four years before, he had been a patient, and was discharged uncured. he was an artful and designing man, and with great ingenuity once effected his escape from the hospital. his time was mostly passed in childish amusements, such as tearing pieces of paper and sticking them on the walls of his room, collecting rubbish and assorting it. however, when he conceived himself unobserved, he was intriguing with other patients, and instructing them in the means, by which, they might escape. of his disorder he seemed highly sensible, and appeared to approve so much of his confinement, that when his friends wished to have him released, he opposed it, except it should meet with my approbation; telling them, in my presence, that although, he might appear well to them, the medical people of the house, were alone capable of judging of the actual state of his mind; yet i afterwards discovered, that he had instigated them to procure his enlargement, by a relation of the grossest falshoods and unjust complaints. in april , he was permitted to have a month's leave of absence, as he appeared tolerably well, and wished to maintain his family by his industry. for above three weeks of this time, he conducted himself in a very rational and orderly manner. the day preceding that, on which he was to have returned thanks, he appeared gloomy and suspicious, and felt a disinclination for work. the night was passed in a restless manner, but in the morning he seemed better, and proposed coming to the hospital to obtain his discharge. his wife having been absent for a few minutes from the room, found him, on her return, with his throat cut. he was re-admitted as a patient, and expressed great sorrow and penitence for what he had done; and said that it was committed in a moment of rashness and despair. after a long and minute examination, he betrayed nothing incoherent in his discourse. his wound, from which it was stated, that he had lost a large quantity of blood, was attended to by mr. crowther, the surgeon to the hospital. every day he became more dispirited, and at last refused to speak. he died may th, about ten days after his re-admission. his head was opened two days after death. there were some slight opacities of the tunica arachnoides, and the pia mater was a little inflamed: the other parts of the brain were in an healthy state, and its consistence natural. case xxiii. e. l. was a man about seventy-eight years of age; had been admitted on the incurable establishment january , . by report, i have understood that he was formerly in the navy, and that his insanity was caused by a disappointment of some promotion which he expected. it was also said that he was troublesome to some persons high in office, which rendered it necessary that he should be confined. at one time he imagined himself to be the king, and insisted on his crown. during the time i had an opportunity of knowing him, he conducted himself in a very gentlemanly manner. his disposition was remarkably placid, and i never remember him to have uttered an unkind or hasty expression. with the other patients he seldom held any conversation. his chief amusement was in reading, and writing letters to the people of the house. of his books he was by no means choice; he appeared to derive as much amusement from an old catalogue as from the most entertaining performance. his writings always contained directions for his release from confinement; and he never omitted his high titles of god's king, holy ghost, admiral and physician. he died june , , worn out with age. he was opened two days after death. the scull was thick and porous. there was a large quantity of water between the different membranes. the membrana arachnoidea was particularly opake: the veins seemed to contain air: in the medullary substance the vessels were very copious and much enlarged: the lateral ventricles contained two ounces of pellucid water: the consistence of the brain was natural. it has been stated by a gentleman of great accuracy, and whose situation affords him abundant opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of diseased appearances, that the fluid of hydrocephalus appears to be of the same nature with the water which is found in dropsy of the thorax and abdomen[ ]. that this is generally the case, there can be no doubt, from the respectable testimony of the author of the morbid anatomy. but in three instances, where i submitted this fluid to experiment, it was incoagulable by acids and by heat: in all of them its consistence was not altered even by boiling. there was, however, a cloudiness produced; and after the liquor had stood some time, a slight deposition took place of animal matter, which, prior to the application of heat or mineral acids, had been dissolved in the fluid. this liquor tinged green the vegetable blues: produced a copious deposition with nitrat of silver, and on evaporation afforded cubic crystals (nitrat of soda). from this examination it was inferred, that the water of the brain, collected in maniacal cases, contained a quantity of uncombined alkali and some common salt. what other substances may enter into its composition, from want of sufficient opportunity, i have not been enabled to determine. case xxiv. s. w. a woman thirty-five years of age, was admitted into the hospital june , . it was stated that she had been one month disordered, and had never experienced any prior affection of the same kind. the disease was said to have been produced by misfortunes which had attended her family, and from frequent quarrels with those who composed it. she was in a truly melancholy state; she was lost to all the comforts of this life, and conceived herself abandoned for ever by god. she refused all food and medicines. in this wretched condition she continued until july th, when she lost the use of her right side. on the th she became lethargic, and continued so until her death, which happened on august the d. she was opened two days after death. there was a large collection of water between the different membranes of the brain, amounting at least to four ounces: the pia mater was very much inflamed, and was separable from the convolutions of the brain with unusual facility: the medullary substance was abundantly loaded with bloody points: the consistence of the brain was remarkably firm. case xxv. d. w. a man about fifty-eight years of age, had been admitted upon the incurable establishment in . he was of a violent and mischievous disposition, and had nearly killed one of the keepers at a private madhouse, previously to his admission into the hospital. at all times he was equally deranged respecting his opinions, although he was occasionally more quiet and tractable: these intervals were extremely irregular as to their duration and period of return. he was of a very constipated habit, and required large doses of cathartic medicines to procure stools. on august , , he was in a very furious state; complained of costiveness, for which he took his ordinary quantity of opening physic, which operated as usual. on the same day he ate his dinner with a good appetite; but about six o'clock in the evening he was struck with hemiplegia, which deprived him completely of the use of his left side. he lay insensible of what passed about him, muttered constantly to himself, and appeared to be keeping up a kind of conversation. the pulse was feeble, but not oppressed or intermitting. he never had any stertor. he continued in this state until the th, when he died. he was opened twelve hours after death. there was some water between the tunica arachnoidea and pia mater: the former membrane was opake in many places; bearing the marks of former inflammation: in the veins of the membranes of the brain there was a considerable appearance of air, and they were likewise particularly charged with blood: the vessels of the medullary substance were numerous and enlarged. on opening the right lateral ventricle, which was much distended, it was found filled with dark and grumous blood; some had also escaped into the left, but in quantity inconsiderable when compared with what was contained in the other: the consistence of the brain was very soft. case xxvi. j. s. a man forty-four years of age, was received into the hospital june , . he had been disordered nine months previous to his admission. his insanity was attributed to a violent quarrel, which had taken place with a young woman, to whom he was attached, as he shortly afterwards became sullen and melancholy. during the time he remained in the house he seldom spoke, and wandered about like a forlorn person. sometimes he would suddenly stop, and keep his eyes fixed on an object, and continue to stare at it for more than an hour together. afterwards he became stupid, hung down his head, and drivelled like an ideot. at length he grew feeble and emaciated, his legs were swollen and oedematous, and on september th, after eating his dinner, he crawled to his room, where he was found dead about an hour afterwards. he was opened two days after death. the tunica arachnoidea had a milky whiteness, and was thickened. there was a considerable quantity of water between that membrane and the pia mater, which latter was loaded with blood: the lateral ventricles were very much enlarged, and contained, by estimation, about six ounces of transparent fluid: the brain was of its natural consistence. case xxvii. t. w. a man thirty-eight years of age, was admitted into the house may , . he had then been disordered a year. his disease was stated to have arisen, from his having been defrauded, by two of his near relations, of some property, which he had accumulated by servitude. having remained in the hospital the usual time of trial for cure, he was afterwards continued on the incurable establishment, in consequence of a strong determination he had always shewn, to be revenged on those people who had disposed of his property, and a declared intention of destroying himself. he was in a very miserable state, conceived that he had offended god, and that his soul was burning in hell. notwithstanding he was haunted with these dreadful imaginations, he acted with propriety upon most occasions. he took delight in rendering any assistance in his power to the people about the house, and waited on those who were sick, with a kindness that made him generally esteemed. at some period of his life he had acquired an unfortunate propensity to gaming, and whenever he had collected a few pence, he ventured them at cards. his losses were borne with very little philosophy, and the devil was always accused of some unfair interposition. on september , , he appeared jaundiced, the yellowness daily increased, and his depression of mind was more tormenting than ever. from the time he was first attacked by the jaundice he had a strong presentiment that he should die. although he took the medicines which were ordered, as a mark of attention to those who prescribed them, he was firmly persuaded they could be of no service. the horror and anxiety he felt was, he said, sufficient to kill him independantly of the jaundice. on the th he was drowsy, and on the following day died comatose. he was opened twenty-four hours after death. in some places the tunica arachnoides was slightly opake: the pia mater was inflamed; and in the ventricles were found about two tea-spoonsful of water tinged deeply yellow, and the vesicles of the plexus choroides were of the same colour: in the whole contents of the cranium there was a considerable congestion of blood: the consistence of the brain was natural: the liver was sound: the gallbladder very much thickened, and contained a stone of the mulberry appearance, of a white colour. another stone was also found in the duodenum. case xxviii. r. b. a man sixty-four years of age, was admitted into the hospital september , . he had then been disordered three months. it was also stated, that he had suffered an attack of this disease seven years before, which then continued about two months. his disorder had, both times, been occasioned by drinking spirituous liquors to excess. he was a person of liberal education, and had been occasionally employed as usher in a school, and at other times as a librarian and amanuensis. when admitted he was very noisy, and importunately talkative. during the greatest part of the day he was reciting passages from the greek and roman poets, or talking of his own literary importance. he became so troublesome to the other madmen, who were sufficiently occupied with their own speculations, that they avoided, and excluded him from the common room; so that he was, at last, reduced to the mortifying situation, of being the sole auditor of his own compositions. he conceived himself very nearly related to anacreon, and possessed of the peculiar vein of that poet. he also fancied that he had discovered the longitude, and was very urgent for his liberation from the hospital, that he might claim the reward, to which his discovery was intitled. at length he formed schemes to pay off the national debt: these, however, so much bewildered him that his disorder became more violent than ever, and he was in consequence obliged to be confined to his room. he now, after he had remained two months in the house, was more noisy than before, and got hardly any sleep. these exertions very much reduced him. in the beginning of january , his conceptions were less distinct, and although his talkativeness continued, he was unable to conclude a single sentence. when he began to speak, his attention was diverted by the first object which caught his eye, or by any sound that struck him. on the th he merely muttered; on the th he lost the use of his right side, and became stupid and taciturn. in this state he continued until the th, when he had another fit; after which, he remained comatose and insensible. on the following day he died. he was opened thirty-six hours after death. the pericranium adhered very loosely to the scull: the tunica arachnoidea was generally opake, and suffused with a brownish hue: a large quantity of water was contained between it and the pia mater: the contents of the cranium were unusually destitute of blood: there was a considerable quantity of water (perhaps four ounces) in the lateral ventricles, which were very much enlarged: the consistence of the brain was very soft. case xxix. e. t. a man aged thirty years, was admitted a patient july , . the persons who attended related, that he had been disordered eleven months, and that his insanity shortly supervened to a violent fever. it also appeared, from subsequent enquiries, that his mother had been affected with madness. he was a very violent and mischievous patient, and possessed of great bodily strength and activity. although confined, he contrived several times during the night to tear up the flooring of his cell; and had also detached the wainscot to a considerable extent, and loosened a number of bricks in the wall. when a new patient was admitted, he generally enticed him into his room, on pretence of being an old acquaintance, and, as soon as he came within his reach, immediately tore his clothes to pieces. he was extremely dexterous with his feet, and frequently took off the hats of those who were near him with his toes, and destroyed them with his teeth. after he had dined he generally bit to pieces a thick wooden bowl, in which his food was served, on the principle of sharpening his teeth against the next meal. he once bit out the testicles of a living cat, because the animal was attached to some person who had offended him. of his disorder he appeared to be very sensible; and after he had done any mischief, always blamed the keepers for not having secured him so, as to have prevented it. after he had continued a year in the hospital he was retained as an incurable patient. he died february , , in consequence of a tumor of the neck. he was opened two days after death. the tunica arachnoides was generally opake, and of a milky whiteness: the vessels of the pia mater were turgid, and its veins contained a quantity of air; about an ounce of water was contained in the lateral ventricles: the consistence of the brain was unusually firm and possessed of considerable elasticity: it is the only instance of this nature which has fallen under my observation. chap. iii. on the causes of insanity. when patients are admitted into bethlem hospital, an enquiry is always made of the friends who accompany them, respecting the cause supposed to have occasioned their insanity. it will readily be conceived that there must be great uncertainty attending the information we are able to procure upon this head: and even from the most accurate accounts, it would be difficult to pronounce, that the circumstances which are related to us have actually produced the effect. the friends and relatives of patients are, upon many occasions, very delicate upon this point, and cautious of exposing their frailties or immoral habits: and when the disease is a family one, they are oftentimes still more reserved in disclosing the truth. fully aware of the incorrect statement frequently made concerning these causes, i have been at no inconsiderable pains to correct or confirm the first information, by subsequent enquiries. the causes which i have been enabled most certainly to ascertain, may be divided into _physical_ and _moral_. under the first are comprehended _repeated intoxication_; _blows_ received upon the head; fever, particularly when accompanied with delirium; mercury largely or injudiciously administered; the suppression of periodical or occasional discharges and secretions; hereditary disposition, and paralytic affections. by the second class of causes, which i have termed _moral_, are meant those which are applied directly to the mind. such are the long endurance of grief, ardent and ungratified desires, religious terror, the disappointment of pride, sudden fright, fits of anger, prosperity humbled by misfortunes[ ]: in short, the frequent and uncurbed indulgence of any passion or emotion, and any sudden and violent affection of the mind. there are, doubtless, many other causes of both classes which may tend to produce the disease. those which have been stated are such as i am most familiar with; or, to speak more accurately, such are the circumstances most generally found to have preceded this affection. the greatest number of these moral causes may, perhaps, be traced to the errors of education, which often plant in the youthful mind those seeds of madness, which the slightest circumstances readily awaken into growth. it should be as much the object of teachers of youth, to subjugate the passions, as to discipline the intellect. the tender mind should be prepared to expect the natural and certain effects of causes: its propensity to indulge an avaricious thirst for that which is unattainable should be quenched: nor should it be suffered to acquire a fixed and invincible attachment to that which is fleeting and perishable. of the more immediate, or, as it is generally termed, the proximate cause of this disease, i profess to know nothing. whenever the functions of the brain shall be fully understood, and the use of its different parts ascertained, we may then be enabled to judge, how far disease, attacking any of these parts, may increase, diminish, or otherwise alter its functions. but this appears a degree of knowledge which we are not likely soon to attain. it seems, however, not improbable that the only source from whence the most copious and certain information can be drawn, is a laborious attention to the particular appearances which morbid states of this organ may present. from the preceding dissections of insane persons, it may be inferred, that madness has always been connected with disease of the brain, and of its membranes. these cases have not been selected from a variety of others, but comprize the entire number which have fallen under my observation. having no particular theory to build up, they have been related purely for the advancement of science and of truth. it may be a matter affording much diversity of opinion, whether these morbid appearances of the brain be the cause or the effect of madness: it may be observed, that they have been found in all states of the disease. when the brain has been injured from external violence, its functions have been generally impaired if inflammation of its substance, or more delicate membranes has ensued. the same appearances have for the most part been detected when patients have died of phrenitis, or in the delirium of fever: in these instances the derangement of the intellectual functions appears evidently to have been caused by the inflammation. if in mania the same appearances be found, there will be no necessity of calling in the aid of other causes to account for the effect; indeed it would be difficult to discover them. those who entertain an opposite opinion, are obliged to suppose, _a disease of the mind_. such a morbid affection, from the limited nature of my powers, perhaps i have never been able to conceive. possessing, however, little knowledge of metaphysical controversy, i shall only offer a few remarks upon this part of the subject, and beg pardon for having at all touched it. perhaps it is not more difficult to suppose that matter peculiarly arranged may _think_, than to conceive the union of an immaterial being with a corporeal substance. it is questioning the infinite wisdom and power of the deity to say, that he does not, or cannot arrange and organize matter so that it shall think. when we find insanity, as far as has hitherto been observed, uniformly accompanied with disease of the brain, is it not more just to conclude, that such organic affection has produced this incorrect association of ideas, than that a being, which is immaterial, incorruptible and immortal, should be subject to the gross and subordinate changes which matter necessarily undergoes? but let us imagine _a disease of ideas_. in what manner are we to effect a cure? to this subtle spirit the doctor can apply no medicines. but though so refined as to elude the force of material remedies, some may however think that it may be reasoned with. the good effects which have resulted from exhibiting logic as a remedy for madness, must be sufficiently known to every one who has conversed with insane persons, and must be considered as time very judiciously employed: speaking more gravely, it will readily be acknowledged, by persons acquainted with this disease, that if insanity be a disease of ideas, we possess no corporeal remedies for it: and that to endeavour to convince madmen of their errors, by reasoning, is folly in those who attempt it, since there is always in madness the firmest conviction of the truth of what is false, and which the clearest and most circumstantial evidence cannot remove. on the probable event of the disease. the prediction of the event in cases of insanity must be the result of accurate and extensive experience; and even then it will be a matter of very great uncertainty. the practitioner can only be led to suppose that patients of a particular description will recover, from knowing, that under the same circumstances, a certain number have been actually restored to health. the practice of an individual, however active and industrious he may be, is insufficient to accumulate a stock of facts, necessary to form the ground of a regular and correct prognosis: it is therefore to be wished, that those who exclusively confine themselves to this department of the profession, would occasionally communicate to the world the result of their observations. physicians attending generally to diseases, have not been reserved in imparting to the public the amount of their labours and success; but with regard to this disorder, those who have devoted their whole attention to its treatment have either been negligent or cautious of giving information respecting it. whenever the powers of the mind are concentrated to one object, we may naturally expect a more rapid progress in the attainment of knowledge; we have therefore only to lament the want of observations upon this subject, and endeavour to repair it. the records of bethlem hospital have afforded me some satisfactory information, though far from the whole of what i wished to obtain. from them and my own observations the prognosis of this disease is, with great diffidence, submitted to the reader. in our own climate women are more frequently affected with insanity than men. several persons who superintend private mad-houses have assured me, that the number of females brought in annually considerably exceeds that of the males. from the year , to , comprizing a period of forty-six years, there have been admitted into bethlem hospital women, and men. the natural processes which women undergo, of menstruation, parturition, and of preparing nutriment for the infant, together with the diseases to which they are subject at these periods, and which are frequently remote causes of insanity, may, perhaps, serve to explain their greater disposition to this malady. as to the proportion in which they recover, compared with males, it may be stated, that of women affected, were discharged cured; and that of the men, recovered. it is proper here to mention that in general we know but little of what becomes of those who are discharged, a certain number of those cured occasionally relapse; and some of those who are discharged uncured afterwards recover: perhaps in the majority of instances, where they relapse, they are sent back to bethlem. to give some idea of the number so readmitted, it may be mentioned, that, during the last two years, there have been admitted patients, of whom had at some former time been in the house. there are such a variety of circumstances, which, supposing they did relapse, might prevent them from returning, that it can only be stated, with confidence, that within twelve months (the time allowed as a trial of cure) so many have been discharged perfectly well. to shew how frequently insanity supervenes on parturition, it may be remarked, that, from the year to inclusive, patients have been admitted, whose disorder shortly followed the puerperal state. women affected from this cause recover in a larger proportion than patients of any other description of the same age. of these , have perfectly recovered. the first symptom of the approach of this disease, after delivery, is want of sleep; the milk is afterwards secreted in less quantity, and, when the mind becomes more violently disordered, it is totally suppressed. from whatever cause this disease may be produced in women, it is considered as very unfavourable to recovery, if they are worse at the period of menstruation, or have their catamenia in very small or immoderate quantities. at the first attack of the disease, and for some months afterwards, during its continuance, females most commonly labour under amenorrhoea. the natural and healthy return of this discharge generally precedes convalescence. from the following statement it will be seen, that insane persons recover in proportion to their youth, and that as they advance in years, the disease is less frequently cured. it comprizes a period of about ten years, viz. from to . in the first column the age is noticed, in the second the number of patients admitted; the third contains the number cured; the fourth those who were discharged not cured. age between number admitted. number discharged number discharged cured. uncured. and and and and and and ----- ----- ----- total admitted. total cured. total uncured. from this table it will be seen, that when the disease attacks persons advanced in life, the prospect of recovery is but small. from the very rare instances of complete cure, or durable amendment, among the class of patients deemed incurable, as well as from the infrequent recovery of those who have been admitted, after the complaint has been of more than twelve months standing, i am led to conclude, that the chance of cure is less, in proportion to the length of time which the disorder shall have continued. although patients, who have been affected with insanity more than a year, are not admissible into the hospital, to continue there for the usual time of trial for cure, namely, a twelvemonth, yet, at the discretion of the committee, they may be received into it from lady-day to michaelmas, at which latter period they are removed. in the course of the last ten years, fifty-six patients of this description have been received, of whom only one has been discharged cured. this patient, who was a woman, has since relapsed twice, and is, at present, in the hospital. when the reader contrasts the preceding statement with the account recorded in the report of the committee, appointed to examine the physicians who have attended his majesty, &c. he will either be inclined to deplore the unskilfulness or mismanagement which has prevailed among those medical persons who have directed the treatment of mania in the largest public institution, in this kingdom, of its kind, compared with the success which has attended the private practice of an individual; or, _to require some other evidence, than the bare assertions of the man pretending to have performed such cures_[ ]. it was deposed by that reverend and celebrated physician, that of patients placed under his care within three months after the attack of the disease, nine out of ten had recovered[ ]; and also that the age was of no signification, unless the patient had been afflicted before with the same malady[ ]. how little soever i might be disposed to doubt such a bold, unprecedented, and marvellous account, yet, i must acknowledge, that my mind would have been much more satisfied as to the truth of that assertion, had it been plausibly made out, or had the circumstances been otherwise than feebly recollected by that very successful practitioner. medicine has generally been esteemed a progressive science, in which its professors have confessed themselves indebted to great preparatory study, and long subsequent experience, for the knowledge they have acquired; but in the case to which we are now alluding, the outset of the doctor's practice was marked with such splendid success, that time and observation have been unable to increase it. this astonishing number of cures has been effected by the vigorous agency of remedies, which others have not hitherto been so fortunate as to discover; by remedies which, when remote causes have been operating for twenty-seven years, such as weighty business, severe exercise, too great abstemiousness and little rest, are possessed of adequate power directly to _meet and counteract_ such causes[ ]. it will be seen by the table that a greater number of patients have been admitted between the age of thirty and forty, than during any other equal period of life. there may be some reasons assigned for the increased proportion of insane persons at this age. although i have made no exact calculation, yet, from a great number of cases, it appears to be the time, when the hereditary disposition is most frequently called into action; or, to speak more plainly, it is that stage of life when persons, whose families have been insane, are most liable to become mad. if it can be made to appear, that at this period people are more subject to be acted upon by the remote causes of the disease, or that a greater number of such causes are then applied, we may be enabled satisfactorily to explain it. at this age people are generally established in their different occupations, are married, and have families; their habits are more strongly formed, and the interruptions of them are, consequently, attended with greater anxiety and regret. under these circumstances, they feel the misfortunes of life more exquisitely. adversity does not depress the individual for himself alone, but as involving his partner and his offspring in wretchedness and ruin. in youth, we feel desirous only of present good; at the middle age, we become more provident and anxious for the future; the mind assumes a serious character, and religion, as it is justly or improperly impressed, imparts comfort, or excites apprehension and terror. by misfortunes the habits of intoxication are readily formed. those, who in their youth have shaken off calamity as a superficial incumbrance, at the middle age feel it corrode and penetrate: and when fermented liquors have once dispelled the gloom of despondency, and taught the mind either to excite a temporary assemblage of cheerful scenes, or to disdain the terror of impending misery, it is natural to recur to the same, though destructive cause, to reproduce the effect. patients, who are in a furious state, recover in a larger proportion than those who are depressed and melancholick. an hundred violent, and the same number of melancholick cases were selected. of the former, sixty-two were discharged well; of the latter, only twenty-seven. when the furious state is succeeded by melancholy, and after this shall have continued a short time, the violent paroxysm returns, the hope of recovery is very slight. indeed, whenever these states of the disease frequently change, such alternation may be considered as unfavourable. where the complaint has been induced from remote physical causes, the proportion of those who recover is considerably greater, than where it has arisen from causes of a moral nature. in those instances where insanity has been produced by a train of unavoidable misfortunes, as where the father of a large family, with the most laborious exertions, ineffectually struggles to maintain it, the number who recover is very small indeed. paralytic affections are a much more frequent cause of insanity than has been commonly supposed. in those affected from this cause, we are, on enquiry, enabled to trace a sudden affection, or fit, to have preceded the disease. these patients usually bear marks of such affection, independent of their insanity: the speech is impeded, and the mouth drawn aside; an arm, or leg, is more or less deprived of its capacity of being moved by the will: and in by far the greatest number of these cases the memory is particularly affected. very few of these cases have received any benefit in the hospital; and from the enquiries i have been able to make at the private houses, where they have been afterwards confined, it has appeared, that they have either died suddenly from apoplexy, or have had repeated fits, from the effects of which they have sunk into a stupid state, and have gradually dwindled away. when the natural small-pox attacks insane persons, it most commonly proves fatal. when insanity supervenes on epilepsy, of where the latter disease is induced by insanity, a cure is very seldom effected: from my own observation, i do not recollect a single case of recovery. when patients during their convalescence become more corpulent than they were before, it is a favourable symptom; and, as far as i have remarked, such persons have very seldom relapsed. method of cure. this part of the subject may be divided into management, and treatment by medicine. as most men perceive the faults of others without being aware of their own, so insane people easily detect the nonsense of other madmen without being able to discover, or even to be made sensible of the incorrect associations of their own ideas. for this reason it is highly important, that he who pretends to regulate the conduct of such patients, should first have learned the management of himself. it should be the great object of the superintendant to gain the confidence of the patient, and to awaken in him respect and obedience: but it will readily be seen, that such confidence, obedience, and respect, can only be procured by superiority of talents, discipline of temper, and dignity of manners. imbecility, misconduct, and empty consequence, although enforced with the most tyrannical severity, may excite fear, but this will always be mingled with contempt. in speaking of the management of insane persons, it is to be understood that the superintendant must first obtain an ascendency over them. when this is once effected, he will be enabled, on future occasions, to direct and regulate their conduct, according as his better judgment may suggest. he should possess firmness; and, when occasion may require, should exercise his authority in a peremptory manner. he should never threaten, but execute: and when the patient has misbehaved, should confine him immediately. as example operates more forcibly than precept, i have found it useful, to order the delinquent to be confined in the presence of the other patients. it displays authority; and the person who has misbehaved becomes awed by the spectators, and more readily submits. it also prevents the wanton exercise of force, and those cruel and unmanly advantages which might be taken when the patient and keeper are shut up in a private room. when the patient is vigorous and powerful, two, or more should assist in securing him; by these means it will be easily effected; for, where the force of the contending persons is nearly equal, the mastery cannot be obtained without difficulty and danger. as management is employed to produce a salutary change upon the patient, and to restrain him from committing violence on others and himself, it may be proper here to enquire, upon what occasions, and to what extent, coercion may be used. the term coercion has generally been understood in a very formidable sense, and not without reason. it has been recommended, by very high medical authority, to inflict corporal punishment upon maniacs, with a view of rendering them rational by impressing terror[ ]. what success may have followed such disgraceful and inhuman treatment i have not yet learned, nor should i be desirous of meeting with any one who could give me the information. if the patient be so far deprived of understanding, as to be insensible why he is punished, such correction, setting aside its cruelty, is manifestly absurd. and if his state be such, as to be conscious of the impropriety of his conduct, there are other methods more mild and effectual. would any rational practitioner, in a case of phrenitis, or in the delirium of fever, order his patient to be scourged? he would rather suppose that the brain or its membranes were inflamed, and that the incoherence of discourse, and violence of action, were produced by such local disease. we have seen, by the preceding dissections, that the contents of the cranium, in all the instances that have occurred to me, have been in a morbid state. it should therefore be the object of the practitioner to remove such disease, rather than irritate and torment the sufferer. coercion should only be considered as a protesting and salutary restraint. in the most violent state of the disease, the patient should be kept alone in a dark and quiet room, so that he may not be affected by the stimuli of light or sound, such abstraction more readily disposing to sleep. as in this violent state there is a strong propensity to associate ideas, it is particularly important to prevent the accession of such as might be transmitted through the medium of the senses. the hands should be properly secured, and the patient should also be confined by one leg: this will prevent him from committing any violence. the straight waistcoat is admirably calculated to prevent patients from doing mischief to themselves; but in the furious state, and particularly in warm weather, it irritates and increases that restlessness, which patients of this description usually labour under. they then scorn the incumbrance of cloathing, and seem to delight in exposing their bodies to the atmosphere. where the patient is in a condition to be sensible of restraint, he may be punished for improper behaviour by confining him to his room, by degrading him, and not allowing him to associate with the convalescents, and by withholding certain indulgences he had been accustomed to enjoy. as madmen frequently entertain very high, and even romantic notions of honour, they are rendered much more tractable by wounding their pride, than by severity of discipline. speaking of the effects of management on a very extensive scale, i can truly declare, that by gentleness of manner, and kindness of treatment, i have never failed to obtain the confidence, and conciliate the esteem of insane persons, and have succeeded by these means in procuring from them respect and obedience. there are certainly some patients who are not to be trusted, and in whom malevolence forms the prominent feature of their character: such persons should always be kept under a certain restraint, but this is not incompatible with kindness and humanity. considering how much we are the creatures of habit, it might naturally be hoped, and experience justifies the expectation, that madmen might be benefited by bringing their actions into a system of regularity. it might be supposed, that as thought precedes action, that whenever the ideas are incoherent, the actions will also be irregular. most probably they would be so if uncontrouled; but custom, confirmed into habit, destroys this natural propensity, and renders them correct in their behaviour, though they still remain equally depraved in their intellects. we have a number of patients in bethlem hospital whose ideas are in the most disordered state, who yet act, upon ordinary occasions, with great steadiness and propriety, and are capable of being trusted to a considerable extent. a fact of such importance in the history of the human mind, might lead us to hope, that by superinducing different habits of thinking, the irregular associations may be corrected. it is impossible to effect this suddenly, or by reasoning, for madmen can never be convinced of the folly of their opinions. their belief in them is firmly fixed, and cannot be shaken. the more frequently these opinions are recurred to under a conviction of their truth, the deeper they subside in the mind and become more obstinately entangled: the object should therefore be to prevent such recurrence by occupying the mind on different subjects, and thus diverting it from the favorite and accustomed train of ideas. as i have been induced to suppose, from the appearances on dissection, that the immediate cause of this disease probably consists in a morbid affection of the brain, all modes of cure by reasoning, or conducting the current of thought into different channels, must be ineffectual, so long as such local disease shall continue. it is, however, likely that insanity is often continued by habit; that incoherent associations, frequently recurred to, become received as truths, in the same manner as a tale, which, although untrue, by being repeatedly told, shall be credited at last by the narrator, as if it had certainly happened. it should likewise be observed, that these incorrect associations of ideas are acquired in the same way as just ones are formed, and that such are as likely to remain, as the most accurate opinions. the generality of minds are very little capable of tracing the origin of their ideas; there are many opinions we are in possession of, with the history and acquisition of which, we are totally unacquainted. we see this in a remarkable manner in patients who are recovering: they will often say such appearances have been presented to my mind with all the force and reality of truth: i saw them as plainly as i now behold any other object, and can hardly be persuaded that they did not occur. it also does not unfrequently happen, that patients will declare, that certain notions are forced into their minds, of which they see the folly and incongruity, and complain that they cannot prevent their intrusion. it is of great service to establish a system of regularity in the actions of insane people. they should be made to rise, take exercise, and food, at stated times. independently of such regularity contributing to health, it also renders them much more easily manageable. as the patient should be taught to view the superintendant as a superior person, the latter should be particularly cautious never to deceive him. madmen are generally more hurt at deception than punishment; and whenever they detect the imposition, never fail to lose that confidence and respect, which they ought to entertain for the person who governs them. confinement is always necessary in cases of insanity, and should be enforced as early in the complaint as possible. by confinement, it is to be understood that the patient should be removed from home. during his continuance at his own house he can never be kept in a tranquil state. the interruptions of his family, the loss of the accustomed obedience of his servants, and the idea of being under restraint in a place where he considers himself the master, will be constant sources of irritation to his mind. it is also known, from considerable experience, that of those patients who have remained under the immediate care of their relatives and friends, very few have recovered. even the visits of their friends, when they are violently disordered, are productive of great inconvenience, as they are always more unquiet and ungovernable for some time afterwards. it is a well-known fact, that they are less disposed to acquire a dislike to those who are strangers, than to those with whom they have been intimately acquainted; they become therefore less dangerous, and are more easily restrained. it frequently happens, that patients who have been brought immediately from their families, and who have been said to be in a violent and ferocious state, become suddenly calm and tractable, when placed in the hospital. on the other hand, it is equally certain, that there are many patients, who have for a length of time conducted themselves in a very orderly manner under confinement, whose disorder speedily recurs after being suffered to return to their families. when they are in a convalescent state, the occasional visits of their friends are attended with manifest advantage. such an intercourse imparts consolation, and presents views of future happiness and comfort. many patients have received considerable benefit by change of situation, and this sometimes takes place very shortly after the removal. in what particular cases, or stages of the disease, this may be recommended, i am not enabled by sufficient experience to determine. medicine. it is only intended, in this part of the subject, to speak of those medicines which i have administered, by the direction of dr. monro, the present celebrated and judicious physician to bethlem hospital, (to whom i gratefully acknowledge many and serious obligations) without descending to a minute detail of the hospital practice, or of the order in which they are commonly exhibited. of the effects of such remedies, i am able to speak with considerable confidence, as they have come immediately under my own observation. bleeding.--where the patient is strong and of a plethoric habit, and where the disorder has not been of any long continuance, bleeding has been found of considerable advantage, and, as far as i have yet observed, is the most beneficial remedy that has been employed. the melancholic cases have been equally relieved with the maniacal by this mode of treatment. venesection by the arm is, however, inferior in its goods effects to blood taken from the head by cupping. this operation, performed in the manner to which i have been accustomed, consists in having the head previously shaven, and six or eight cupping glasses applied on the scalp; by these means any quantity of blood may be taken, and in as short a time, as by an orifice made in a vein by the lancet. when the raving paroxysm has continued for a considerable time, and the scalp has become unusually flaccid; or where a stupid state has succeeded to violence of considerable duration, no benefit has been derived from bleeding; indeed these states are generally attended by a degree of bodily weakness, sufficient to prohibit such practice independently of other considerations. the quantity of blood to be taken, must be left to the discretion of the practitioner: from eight to sixteen ounces may be drawn, and the operation occasionally repeated, as circumstances may require. in the few cases where blood was drawn at the commencement of the disease from the arm, and from patients who were extremely furious and ungovernable, it was covered with a buffy coat; but in other cases it has seldom or never such an appearance. in more than two hundred patients, male and female, who were let blood by venesection, there were only six, whose blood could be termed sizy. in some few instances hemoptysis has preceded convalescence, as has also a bleeding from, the hemorrhoidal veins. epistaxis has not, to my knowledge, ever occurred. purging.--an opinion has long prevailed, that mad people are particularly constipated, and likewise extremely difficult to be purged. from all the observations i have been able to make, insane patients, on the contrary, are of very delicate and irritable bowels, and are well and copiously purged by a common cathartic draught. that which is commonly employed in the hospital is prepared agreeably to the following formula. [prescription]. infusi sennæ [ounce] iss ad [ounce] ij. tincturæ sennæ [dram] i ad [dram] ij. syrupi spinæ cervinæ [dram] i ad [dram] ij. this seldom fails of procuring four or five stools, and frequently a greater number. in confirmation of what i have advanced respecting the irritable state of intestines in mad people, it may be mentioned, that the ordinary complaints with which they are affected, are diarrhoea and dysentery: these are sometimes very violent and obstinate. diarrhoea very often proves a natural cure of insanity; at least there is every reason to suppose that such evacuation has frequently very much contributed to it. the number of cases which might be adduced in confirmation of this observation is considerable, and the speedy convalescence after such evacuation is still more remarkable. in many cases of insanity there prevails a great degree of insensibility, so that patients have appeared hardly to feel the passing of setons, the application of blisters, or the operation of cupping. on many occasions i have known the urine retained for a considerable time, without the patient complaining of any pain, though it is well known that there is no affection more distressing than distention of the bladder. of this general insensibility the intestinal canal may be supposed to partake: but this is not commonly the case, and if it should, would be widely different from a particular and exclusive torpor of the primæ viæ. there are some circumstances unconnected with disease of mind, which might dispose insane persons to costiveness. i now speak of such as are confined, and who come more directly under our observation. when they are mischievously disposed, they require a greater degree of restraint, and are consequently deprived of that air and exercise, which so much contributes to regularity of bowels. it is well known, that those who have been in the habits of free living, and who come suddenly to a more spare diet, are very much disposed to costiveness. but to adduce the fairest proof of what has been advanced, i can truly state, that incurable patients, who have for many years been confined in the house, are subject to no inconveniences from constipation. many patients are averse to food, and where little is taken in, the egesta must be inconsiderable. to return from this degression: it is concluded, from very ample experience, that cathartic medicines are of the greatest service, and ought to be considered as an indispensable remedy in cases of insanity. the good sense and experience of every practitioner must direct him as to the dose, and frequency, with which these remedies are to be employed, and of the occasions where they would be prejudicial. vomiting.--however strongly this practice may have been recommended, and how much soever it may at present prevail, i am sorry that it is not in my power to speak of it favourably. in many instances, and in some where blood-letting has been previously employed, paralytic affections have within a few hours supervened on the exhibition of an emetic, more especially where the patient has been of a full habit, and has had the appearance of an increased determination to the head. it has been for many years the practice of bethlem hospital, to administer to the curable patients four or five emetics in the spring of the year; but, on consulting my book of cases, i have not found that patients have been particularly benefited by the use of this remedy. from one grain and half to two grains of tartarized antimony has been the usual dose, which has hardly ever failed of procuring full vomiting. in the few instances where the plan of exhibiting this medicine in nauseating doses was pursued for a considerable time, it by no means answered the expectations, which, by very high authority, had been raised in its favour. where the tartarized antimony, given with this intention, operated as a purgative, it generally produced beneficial effects. camphor.--this remedy has been highly extolled, and doubtless with reason, by those who have recommended it. my own experience merely extends to ten cases, a number from which no decisive inference of its utility ought to be drawn. the dose was gradually increased from five grains to two drams twice a day; and in nine cases the use of this remedy was continued for the space of two months. of the patients, to whom the camphor was given, only two recovered: one of these had no symptoms of convalescence for several months after the use of this remedy had been abandoned; the other, a melancholick patient, certainly mended during the time he was taking it; but he was never able to bear more than ten grains thrice a day. he complained that it made him feel as if he was intoxicated. cold bathing.--this remedy having for the most part been employed in conjunction with others, it becomes difficult to ascertain how far it may be exclusively beneficial in this disease. the instances where it has been separately used for the cure of insanity, are too few to enable me to draw any satisfactory conclusions. i may, however, safely relate, that, in many instances, paralytic affections have in a few hours supervened on cold bathing, especially where the patient has been in a furious state, and of a plethoric habit: in some of these cases vertigo has been induced, and in others a considerable degree of fever. if i might be permitted to give an opinion on this subject, the benefit principally derived from this remedy has been in the latter stages of the disease, and when the system had been previously lowered by evacuations. blisters have in several cases been applied to the head, and a very copious discharge maintained for many days, but without any manifest advantage. the late dr. john monro, who had, perhaps, seen more cases of this disease than any other practitioner, and who, joined to his extensive experience, possessed the talent of accurate observation, mentions, that he "never saw the least good effect of blisters in madness, unless it was at the beginning while there was some degree of fever, or when they have been applied to particular symptoms accompanying this complaint[ ]." in a few cases setons have been employed, but no benefit has been derived from their use, although the discharge was continued above two months. respecting opium, it may be observed, that whenever it has been exhibited during a violent paroxysm, it has hardly ever procured sleep; but, on the contrary, has rendered those who have taken it much more furious: and, where it has for a short time produced rest, the patient has, after its operation, awoke in a state of increased violence. finis. footnotes: [ ] this gritty matter, subjected to chemical examination, was found to be _phosphat of lime_. [ ] this appearance i have found frequently to occur in maniacs who have suffered a violent paroxysm of considerable duration: and in such cases, when there has been an opportunity of inspecting the contents of the cranium after death, water has been found between the dura mater and arachnoid membrane. [ ] morbid anatomy, page . [ ] "----nessun maggior dolore, "che ricordarsi del tempo felice "nella miseria." dante. [ ] vide report, part d, p. . [ ] report, p. . [ ] ibid. . [ ] report, p. . [ ] vide cullen, first lines, vol. iv. p. . [ ] vide remarks on dr. battie's treatise on madness. transcriber's notes: passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. the original text includes symbols that are represented in this text version as [precsription], [ounce], and [dram]. [transcriber's notes. unusual and inconsistent spelling, grammar and punctuation have been preserved. obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected and the text has been changed according to the errata listed at the end of the published text. _underscores_ are used to represent italics. small capitals have been converted to all capitals. the table of contents was added by the transcriber.] a sketch of the life of elizabeth t. stone, and of her persecutions, with an appendix of her _treatment and sufferings_ while in the charlestown mclean assylum, where she was confined under the pretence of insanity. : printed for the author. table of contents page preface. remarks. closing remarks to christians. errata. preface. feeling that the public is very much deceived concerning the treatment and situation of a poor afflicted class of the human family, who are placed in the mclean assylum at charlestown, by their relatives, and are left in the hands of strangers, subjected to the treatment of those whose hearts are hardened by being long accustomed to human suffering, and who are ignorant and unqualified, i will expose this matter to the public, in behalf of the afflicted, in connection with the _awful, brutal outrage_ that has been committed upon me in consequence of indisposition resulting from hard labor and persecution, so the public may be warned against placing their friends there, especially if they would not have them ill-treated or suffer unnecessarily. first, i shall give a short sketch of my life down to the time when i was carried to the hospital; then an account of the crime in connection with the treatment i received there, until i was taken out. i feel that this should particularly interest the christian world; but whether it is believed or not, i am determined to publish it, that the people of god may take care of their own people in time of persecution at the expense of one's life, whether father, mother, brother, or sister step in between. the unconverted do not understand _spirituality_, therefore a weak, persecuted christian should not be consigned to their hands. if others who have suffered this cruelty before me (as dr. fox says that both _male and female christians have been destroyed there before_) had published and exposed the wicked crime to the world, i might have been saved from suffering here and hereafter. it is covered up under the garb of "derangement," but i am willing to let the world know it, that others may be saved from these awful outrages of the wicked at the present day. i know that the world in general is ignorant of this crime--of the fact that doctors do possess knowledge of giving medicine to take away from a person the spirit of christ,--but i have suffered it. i was born in westford, mass. my father was a mechanic, and poor; my mother being often sick, with a family of boys and girls, we were all sent out young upon the world, to get our own living. i being the youngest girl, was left at home alone. the peculiar situation which i sustained in the family, being early disowned by my father as his lawful child, he being intemperate at the time, may be imagined. i was often the object of his wrath, though in his sober hours i was kindly treated by him, as he was a man of tender feelings. but my mother's affections were always alienated from me, and i always felt the want of a mother's love, and consequently became very unhappy. i determined to seek my own living and share the same fate of the rest of the family by buffeting a cold unfeeling world. at the age of fifteen i resorted to the factories in lowell, where i found employment and became expert at the business. knowing that i had myself to take care of and no one to depend upon, i was ambitious and often asked my overseer for the privilege of tending double work, which was often granted; and as i had the means of providing for my own wants and some to spare, i became restless and often wished i had the means to go to school, as my mother often told her children to get learning--it was what the world could not take from us; (but o, alas! mine has been taken from me by medicine, being given to me in an artful manner to harden my brains, and the brain is the seat of the mind and the mind is the store-house of knowledge) and i felt the want of it as i became advanced in years and went into society. i soon began to make arrangments to place myself at some school. i went home at the age of eighteen and went to the academy in westford three or four months, and then, in the year , the first of may, i started for new hampton in company with a young lady from boston, she being my only acquaintance. i found the school very pleasant, and the teachers were ardently pious. it was now that i felt that god had often called after me and i had refused to obey him for my teacher said without the mind was enlightened by the spirit of christ it was not prepared for knowledge. this increased the carnal state of my heart against religion, for it appeared to me like foolishness, for there was nothing but the simple religion of jesus christ, no disputing, no sectarian spirit, and i was surrounded by the prayers of my teachers and the pious scholars. but i withstood all the entreaties through the summer term. i was determined not to get religion when there was much said about it, for i looked upon it as excitement, as many others foolishly call it. there were about one hundred and five scholars, and at the end of the term all but three of us professed to have an interest in christ. during the vacation i could not throw off the conviction that had seized hold of my mind, that god in his mercy had spared my life, and permitted me to enjoy this last privilege. at the commencement of the fall term as usual, we all assembled on sunday morning--the professors in the hall above, while the unconverted were in the hall below--to hear the scriptures explained. miss. sleeper, one of the teachers, that assembled with us, came directly to me after the exercises were over and asked me if i felt as i did during the last term. i told her no. she said she was very glad of it and hoped i should not leave off seeking until i found the savior. i felt that i had committed myself, that i now could not draw back, that i must persevere on and let the world know that i needed a saviour to save me from acting out the wicked state of my heart. i could not throw it off. on monday evening all the unconverted were invited by our much loved teacher, miss. haseltine, to meet her at the hall. accordingly i went in company with several other young ladies. after reading the scriptures and addressing us very affectionately, she asked us to kneel down and join her in prayer. accordingly i did so, but i thought i was more hardened than ever; and felt ashamed that i was on my bended knees; but wishing to act from principle and to prove whether there was any reality in what my teacher said about religion, i was determined to persevere on, although it was contrary to my carnal state of heart. accordingly i told every one that i meant to know the real religion of jesus christ and live up to it, if it was what they said it was. i attended all the meetings and was willing to do any thing that i thought i ought to do; but i began to think that i had grieved the holy spirit and was about giving up seeking any longer until i should feel, as very often i did before in meetings and then i should have religion. this was on saturday, a fortnight after i was willing to own that i felt the need of an interest in christ. on my way home from school, a young lady overtook me and inquired what was the state of my feelings, i frankly told her what was my conclusion. she then told me how she found the saviour--how she sought three years; but all that time she said she was seeking conviction when she ought to have sought forgiveness and told me that i must seek for immediate forgiveness, and asked me if i was willing to. i told her that i would, for i found that i had been seeking conviction and was already convicted. accordingly i went home, and after dinner took my bible and retired alone to a grove not far distant, where i spent the afternoon in reading and praying, but did not find any change in my feelings. i was summonds to tea by the ringing of the bell. i went in and took my seat at the table, but while sitting there i thought i was acting foolishly, that i ought not to eat, drink, or sleep, until i found forgivness. i rose from the table and retired to my room and knelt down and asked god what i should do in order to be forgiven; then rose up and was sitting down by the table with my head upon my hand wondering what i should do, when something seemed to say to me, "open the door of your heart and admit me." i immediately thought i could not without i was better, but something said "_no, now_." i thought the next day being sunday, i would, after i had been to church; _but no_, the voice said _now_--that i said i would. if _christ_ would but receive me, i would _him_ just as i was. i thought _i would_. i rose and walked across the room, and was frightened to think what i had said; that i had entered into a covenant with god. at that time a young lady, mary ann burbank, entered the room and asked me if i was going to meeting, as it was customary to have a female prayer meeting at the hall on saturday evening. i told her yes. she said it was too late. i told her i was going, (i thought if they were just coming out i would go.) i put on my things, and she said she would go with me. accordingly we went out of the house together and said nothing to each other. i thought of nothing in particular; but as we were walking and had got a rod or two from the house, i thought how fast i was walking, and how earnest i was to get there. i spoke to miss burbank and said that i never went to a place with so much eagerness in my life. she asked me if i felt better. i told her that i never was so happy in my life. she said she was glad; she had been recently baptized. i had before not liked her very well, but now i loved her with all my heart, because she had owned the savior before the world. i immediately thought of the balls and parties that i had been to, and it seemed nothing to what it would be to get into a prayer meeting. it seemed that the bible i had never read and that i knew nothing about it and when i tried to think of it the passages flowed into my mind faster than i could repeat; the first passage i thought of was the greeks foolishness to the jews, but to them that believe christ the power of god unto salvation, and many others. it seemed that i stepped out of one world into another. i went into the hall and they were singing, and then they knelt down and prayed. a young lady prayed for me, seeing me on my knees. i longed to have her close her prayer to tell them what god had done for me. as we rose i opened my mouth and words flowed faster than i could speak, i blessed and praised god and asked them all to forgive me for the opposition that i had manifested towards them for their entreating me to be reconciled to god. there was great rejoicing over me. some wept, some prayed, and some sang. it was a happy time. some that were seeking seeing me so happy said they were determined to find the savior that night and two young ladies that boarded with me did, to the joy of their souls. i felt that i had a new life to live and was determined to live it. i loved all the people of god, and my feelings soon began to be tried by seeing the divisions that were among them; but i was determined not to have any thing to do with it, but meant to keep the faith as it was once delivered to the saints, that is, to keep the love previous to my conversion. i had always thought that immersion was right, and still thought so; but still i loved to hear sinners called to repentance, and to join in prayer with any one that told how christ saved them daily from sinning. i felt that i must own the savior in all my ways and words, for it was what i loved, and i hated the sin that was in my heart and often cried out, o wretched person that i am, who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death. i longed to be freed from sin. i soon began to think of becoming a missionary, that is, to go to the far distant heathen who had never heard of the gospel. i asked god what i should do. i was determined to do what god gave me to do at the expense of my life, for i counted not my life dear unto me, and soon the spirit led me in prayer for my parents, but how could they be converted without the way of salvation was explained to them? they did not attend public worship; they believed that they should be saved when they should die; but i had found a saviour that saved me here from sinning, for the love of god constrained me to lay down all earthly enjoyments when they came in contact with any thing that i must do for christ. i thought i would go to them and tell them, thinking they would believe me. accordingly on my return from school i visited my parents, but not until the spring, on fast day, with my youngest brother. we passed the day very agreeably. i told them that i had met with a change, but said but little, as i did not wish to argue the point, for they were both against me and said they thought i had got my brain _turned_ by studying too much. but i knew i must bear this and greater things if i wished to do my heavenly father's will, which was my meat and drink. i left home without praying for them, which i felt condemned for. i resolved if god would spare my life to go home again i would bear the cross of christ. during the winter my mind had been much tried about the two ordinances; and what to do, i did not know, for i wished to give a reasonable answer why i went with one class of god's people more than another. i boarded with a mr washburn, a very pious man belonging to the first congregational church in lowell.--i said nothing to him about forms and ceremonies, nor he to me; but i came to the conclusion to be an immersed congregationalist, because they admitted all to the communion that had professed the savior before the world. i concluded to return to school, and called upon mrs tilton, one of my acquiantance that belonged to the baptist church. she asked me why i had not been in to see her, and she thought my mind had been tried about baptism. i told her not in the least, for i always thought immersion was right but my mind was tried about the communion--why all the people of god could not come together. she said that she had a little book she would lend me to read. i took it and went home and read it; it was upon church and christian fellowship. i thought it explained it to my mind and told her i was thankful for it; but as i was to start for new hampton the next day could not be baptized there. i arrived at new hampton the second week in may, , and met once more my much loved teachers. during the summer term my mind was much taken up with my studies, and the religious state of feeling was very low. there were no conversions during this term. at the commencement of the fall term our teacher addressed us upon the subject and hoped that each one would do something to win sinners to christ. all felt it, and again god poured out his holy spirit and sinners were slain; my health was poor and i was about leaving school on account of my limited means. my teacher asked me if i was not going to be baptized before i left school, together with some other young ladies. i had always thought i was willing, should the opportunity be presented. here i had a trial, but went forward with some others, determined never to disobey god of keeping his commandments or doing whatever the love of god constrained me to do, however crossing it was to my carnal feelings. i returned to lowell and resumed my labor, still feeling determined to procure an education to go to the poor heathen to carry the news of salvation; but my means became limited and i was obliged to use prudence in reference to my dress and spending my time. my oldest sister proposed to have me come and work with her at the tailoress business in boston, and this sister i had ardently loved and looked up to for advice. but i was making very good wages at that time and thought it not best for me to go then; although i wanted a trade to help me along in case i should go among the poor and destitute. but as my sister nancy's health was not good at that time i proposed for her to go to boston and i would come in the fall or early in the winter, which was agreed to. i concluded to go to work with my sister until the slack time should come on in the winter, and then i thought i should go to charlestown seminary to finish my education, as we were all to board ourselves. accordingly i left the mill again and when i got to my sister's they were just on the point of separating. i stepped in between and proposed to reconcile matters for we all belonged to the baptist church, and for own character and the cause of christ i thought it best to keep together. but it was not possible, we could not agree, though sister mary and i had never before disagreed, and probably never should had it not been for sister nancy. it was a sore trial to me and i often thought that my last earthly friend was taken from me. i had loved sister mary until it had become a sin in the sight of a holy god, that i had been governed about my spiritual life by her in part, and that he saw fit to seperate us. through the invitation of my brother eben's wife i went to stay with her and had regular pay lest there should be any room for unpleasant feelings, i spent the winter with her at jamaica plain very happy, but i began to think that i was not living as i ought to; that i could be the means of doing more good by working in the mill and getting more money for the cause of christ and come in contact with more minds to pursuade them to become reconciled to god. but again i was tried about pursuing an education, not having means to do with. what to do i did not know, and at times was almost tempted to ask assistance of my brothers, but for fear of being refused i dared not, for they never seemed to take any interest in the welfare of their sisters. my oldest sister was often sick and was not helped by them: therefore i was determined to do what i could without asking help. i left my brother's in june , not decided what to do. aware that in some branches i was not qualified sufficiently to take a young ladies' school, i went home not decided what to do, but thought i would go with a young lady that i was acquainted with in westford under private instruction, and accordingly went and stayed with her till fall. a new precepter was about opening the academy in westford, and i resolved to go the winter term, and accordingly provided myself with a boarding place at mr niehols, where i found it very pleasant. they were both pious and i became very much attached to mrs n. and found the school very pleasant for the branches that i wished to pursue; but on account of a change in this family i was under the necessity of getting another boarding place; then i went to a mr george davis' where i had always been acquainted, and found every thing pleasant and was happy. but my health began to fail me, being troubled with the ticdoloreux. not having the means to continue any longer at school, so poor was my health at that time, i began to think of returning to lowell; but about this time a book was circulating, relative to the day of judgment being near at hand. i obtained it and read it, and found that it was nothing but explaining the scriptures according to my view in a historical manner, or the preaching the gospel in its purity. i felt prepared to meet christ, but was often asked what i thought of it? i told them it was a sweet subject to me, for i longed to be with him who had loved me and given himself for me and was willing to do all for him while i stayed upon the earth and did not know how i could alter my life if it was true, for if i was not prepared i should prepare myself. but i had already given my heart to the lord and was trying to live to his honor and glory. the subject was very much agitated in westford. i soon left and went to lowell, and tried to obtain a book, but could not, and no one seemed to know any thing about it. i went into the factory to work, but soon an old acquaintance, nancy sanborn, come to see me. she had always anticipated going off to teach. we proposed opening a school in lowell for young ladies, but my health was not good and i had nothing to do with, and something seemed to say to me, what you do, do quickly, for the end of all things is just at hand. i went to god in prayer to ask him what to do. i listened to the saviour's voice which constrained me to win souls to christ by living out my religion around me by the way of the spirit and not of learning; but at that time god had suffered me to be carried away into babylon and become a worshipper of the god of learning. my friend, nancy sanborn left me and returned home and i concluded to live in the factory for every plan that i laid seemed to be thwarted. i often had something given to me to do by god which i found was contrary to my carnal feelings. i boarded at this time with a mrs king, on the boot corporation.--my sister nancy wanted to come and board with me. we never had agreed from little children, and twice i had left the mill on her account and my boarding house, and as i always thought if it had not been for her i and my sister m. never would have disagreed. but i thought if it was in me i would conquer it at the expense of the last feeling i had in me; but here was another firey trial of my faith. i ever carried all my actions before the judgment seat of christ. i felt i was not my own, i was bought with a price--the precious blood of the lamb. my object was to get money to go to the west as a teacher to win souls to christ. my sister was taken sick and i staid out of the mill to take care of her. i was at this time tending double work. when the physician called upon her we were drawn in conversation about people in general taking too much medicine. i was innocent about giving any offence. i took the directions about my sister's medicine, and after the doctor had left the house spoke about her taking it. she said she should not take it and did not wish me to do any thing for her; but would say no more. i told her that it was foolish for me to stay out of the mill if she would not let me take care of her, and began to reason the case; but could not prevail upon her and feared that we should again fall out. i endeavored to keep my feelings under and try to do for her whether she would let me or not; but it did no good. my acquaintance was a circle of young ladies of respectability and we had prayer meetings and i had been very forward in them--i had had an evening school and opened it with prayer. to have a falling out with my sister would hurt the casuse of christ, which was dearer to me than my life. i keep it to myself and tried to get along, for when there is difficulty there is blame on both sides; but it kindled to a flame, yet i said but little about it. but i counted it all joy, for it humbled me, for my earthly character was like the apple of my eye to me, and i came to the conclusion that it was better to board apart. i therefore determined to change my boarding place, and say nothing about it to any one. i went to boston on a visit and engaged my boarding place before i went, at mrs lufkin's, a member of the first baptist church in lowell. on my visit to boston i met with a young lady at my brother's by the name of caroline dammers, that was out of employment, and had been for some time. i was informed that she was in a destitute situation and professed to be a follower of the lamb. i proposed for her to come up to lowell, and she would find employment there of some kind, thinking it was not right for any one to live so, for it was not setting a good example; and as she had no one to do for her, my religion led me to do all that i could for the friendless, feeling myself a stranger and a pilgrim here below. accordingly on my return she came and i soon found her a situation, and she being an orphan i thought i could help her, for pure religion is doing good for the widow and the orphan. i boarded at mrs lufkin's until warm weather and caroline dammers boarded with me and worked on the suffolk. it being too far for her to walk in warm weather i proposed to change my boarding place to make it nearer for her. mr lufkin's sister was about opening a boarding house on the boot corporation. i had become somewhat acquainted with her at her brother's and liked her very much while her brother's folks went on a visit to their friends. here was the only time that ever i was sick or needed any medical assistance. my stomach was a little nauseated and i sent for dr wheelock graves and he gave me an emetic: afterwards i called upon him once and got a receipe for a cough and paid him; this was in the summer of . my health was always delicate, but i was very careful what i did; very seldom went out evenings, not so much as to an evening meeting or to expose myself to the evening air in any way, hoping that at some future period i should be so situated as to be able to live more devoted to the blessed cause of christ; but i endeavored to show piety at home. i had embraced the views that the day of judgment was near at hand and i felt to double my diligence to obtain the means to spread the gospel. i loved god and the people of god, for where sin abounded grace much more abounded, i felt a desire that god would pour out his holy spirit and that sinners might be converted, and began to call upon the lord and to my surprise i found myself in a back-slidden state; that i had lost the liberty whereby christ had made me free. how i got back there i did not know, but the way i found the savior was by owning him before the world and i knew the only way was to go and sow to the spirit. i began to ask the lord what he would have me to do, and thing after thing was given me, but was accused of believing in miller's doctrine, as it is called. i found that it was about to bring upon me reproach and i denied it and then i was troubled. i could not rest day nor night, and i felt that i was not prepared to meet him, and i bowed myself before the lord and asked the lord what he would have me to do; and soon i was sent with message after message to the people of god where it was my usual custom to assemble, as it was the privilege of the females to give a word of exhortation. said nothing to any one, but was determined to do what the lord bid me, and to walk in the lord. my mind was unbiased by the errors in theology, or any creeds or doctrine of men. all i knew was the simple religion of jesus christ, and the bible was my guide. i must obey god and keep his commandments. at this time the subject of the union of christians was much agitated; the divisions of them had been a source of grief to me ever since i was converted, and the union of them was something sweet if there was any ground on which they could be united. elder holly was lecturing at this time upon it and showed by the bible the ground on which they could be united. i asked the lord what he would have me to do, and went to the bible for instruction. in revelations it says that whoever takes from the sayings of the prophecy of that book his part shall be taken out of the holy city, &c. rev. chap. th, th verses, i found that articles of faith both took from and added there unto and already i felt the plagues upon me. i cried unto the lord, for i could say with david, the pangs of hell got hold of me and death encompassed me round about. i called upon the lord and he heard me out of his holy habitation. i told no one of my situation for i thought it was the lord that was dealing with me and had got to have a trial of my faith, i felt that i was willing to die a martyr rather than to deny jesus christ before the world. it was the last idol i held in my heart i must give up. it was my earthly character; i must go without the camp and bear reproach for christ. i went to see my minister, and told him how the lord was dealing with me. i told him how the lord had shown me that articles of faith were a sin by the bible and that i did not want any thing to do with pursuasions. i wanted to keep god's commandments, for i hated the very garment that was spotted with the flesh; i would have my name taken off the church books, but not off his heart, for i loved the people of god. i wanted to go to the communion table and still held to the ordinance of baptism; but i wanted to get out of sin. he said if i did not walk with the church in peace, he must excommunicate me. i asked her forgivness if i had said anything that had injured his feelings, for i only wanted to get out of sin and i must work out my own salvation with fear and trembling. he then told me if i did not come back into the bosom of the true church he would excommunicate me and that would ruin my reputation. i told him that i was willing to die if i could but win souls to christ; but i hated sin, and therefore he must do as he thought best, as it was not flesh and blood that i had any thing to do with, neither were weapons carnal. this was at his house, i think in the month of june. i bid him a good morning and on my way home i felt to bless and praise god. on the next sabbath i attended church at elder cole's, the christian denomination. the word of the lord was sweet to me, as it was now i wanted the word of the lord to support me and to comfort me. i wanted to hear nothing but the sweets of redeeming love. in three weeks i went to see mr porter, he being my minister. i was excommunicated; but it brought me out in a happy state. i continued my labor, which was tending three looms; but often spoke of what the lord had done for me and how plain the bible was to me. i attended a meeting held at groton on the union of christians, to hear what was to be said. it was there where i received the baptism of the holy ghost, as previous to this i had been baptized with fire in coming out of the baptist church: for as i received christ so i walked in him, which was walking in the love; for cursed is he that doeth the work of the lord deceitfully, after the manner they called heresy. so worship i the god of my fathers. i often spoke of my spiritual life, and many observed that they never saw any one enjoy so much. i continued my labor and attended the appointed meetings with my own people that worshipped god according to my views, and i was received by them and went with no others, for the people of god should be peace makers and let every one worship god after their own way. there arose violent persecutions against me, but as my forerunner had suffered before me, so must i suffer. i often thought that i would give up my business and labor entirely for the lord; and then i thought what should i do for a home? i felt the want of one, and my youngest brother had been sick and i thought he might be embarrassed in his circumstances, and if i helped him in temporal things he would hear me in spiritual; and i was very anxious to help him, as he had done much for our parents when he was quite young, while my older brothers who were quite wealthy, did not help them, comparatively speaking. i had done much for this brother, feeling anxious to see him get along in the world, and therefore i was diligent to my labors. but i began to feel that i could not work any longer at present. the week before i was carried to the hospital i thought i would go to my minister and tell him my situation. i went to his house, but he was not at home. i then went and conversed with brother fiske who was knowing to my persecutions, and he advised me to go and see elder cole. i told him he was not at home, and i knew not what to do. i still continued my work and did not go home; it was not the place for me, as my parents were not spiritual minded, and in my weak state i felt i could not bear opposition, and i hated sin so i could not contend, for a child of contention is a child of hell. on sunday morning, nov. d, , while i was conversing with a very pious lady that slept with me about how god had dealt with me, and how i had disobeyed the spirit, being often called upon to speak, how awful it would be to be cast off from the lord, i told her that i was bound in the spirit, and asked her if i kept the commandments of god if he would cast me off? she said no. but here was the first of my weakness that gave place for satan to arrange his host to take me. why i gave up to such weakness i know not, nor can i account for it, except i had overdone myself. there was no distress of mind, and if there was, it was no reason why i should not have been treated with common humanity, for i offered no insult to any one, or treated any one ill. i only spoke of my own situation and asked them to do for me and not let me do wickedly. miss elza lufkin came into the room, the lady whom i boarded with, and asked me what was the matter. i began to talk to her about my situation and to tell her how good religion was, and asked her to have it. upon that she said many unkind things to me. i saw that she was angry with me. why she should treat me so i did not know, for i had been very careful to observe all regulations and rules of her house, and never spoke about temporal things, to find fault. she had opposed me in attending my appointed meetings, and thought that i might go to a meeting that was nearer; but i thought it was not right to go to any other than where i was received by relating my experience, and that i ought to be my own judge. but the way of the lord is contrary to the natural state of the heart. since i came out of the hospital miss lufkin has told me that she was never so angry in her life as she was with me. if my religion had displeased her she ought to have told me so when i was well, and i would have found another place, and not waited until i was in a weak state and then take the advantage of my weakness. my sister nancy came in to see me and began to scold me. i told her it was very wicked, she was not where she ought to be, or she could not do so. i arose and dressed myself and asked not to have any one of the unconverted come into my room. i sent for elder cole, but he not knowing my situation, sent word that it was not convenient. brother james came in to see me and asked me to go home. i thought it was not best in my weak state, for i felt that i had no home, as i was violently opposed by my parents. i felt unwilling to leave my work, as i was tending three looms, and had calculated to make out a certain sum of money by the first of february, for my brother james. i asked my sister to go and get me some assafoetida pills, i took three of them and went to bed and slept sound all night. in the morning i told my sister, who slept with me, i should not go in to work. she then began to scold, and shook me with anger, because i did not wish to rise. then i asked her to let me alone, and told her it was very wicked. at that time miss lufkin came into the room and told her to let me alone, upon that she did, and began to prepare to go to her work. i asked her not to come back, for i did not want her with me. i thought she was not a proper person to be with me, as she did not understand my spiritual life. i went down and took my breakfast and returned up stairs to avoid my sister's saying anything. soon my sister returned and i asked her to send for my minister. she said i should not see him nor any one of those people. i began to reason with her, and asked her why i could not see my own minister, and if i had not a right to choose my own people to worship god with; but i could not prevail upon her. i asked to see my brother james, but this request was not granted. i perceived my weakness was increasing and i thought the people of god ought to do for me. this was on monday. about o'clock in the afternoon dr. wheelock graves came in to see me, and sat about ten minutes and conversed mostly with my sister about mr. miller, saying that he ought to be horsewhipped or put in prison. i concluded that my brother and sister had been telling him that i was one of his converts, although my sister professes to be washed by the blood of the lamb. the doctor felt of my pulse. i told him he did not understand my situation. he prescribed nothing for me and left the room, my sister sat sewing and did nothing for me. at night after the girls came out of the mill there was a great rush into my room, which increased my excitement. my room was full, some saying one thing, some another, while others were laughing. i asked esther richer, who stood laughing, to go out, as she had opposed me much about attending meeting among the christian denomination. upon that a good sister in christ by the name of townsend, said she thought there were too many in my room, and then they all left me alone with my sister. i thought i had hindered her some by her taking her work home from the shop, and i offered to sew for her. she took the work out of my hand and told me to go to bed. my sister slept with me. i spoke to her in the night, and she scolded me for it. as soon as i heard miss lufkin up in the morning i went to the door and asked her to take care of me and not let me do wickedly for my sister was unkind to me. i felt the want of a kind friend. she said she would, and made a fire in my room. i thought that i would give the world for a kind friend to take me and do for me. again i plead to see elder cole, my minister, or some one of the church. she said it was all in vain for me to say anything about it. about noon elder cole came down to see me, hearing of my situation. he talked kindly to me; thought i had worked too hard and over exerted myself, and told me to take some valerian tea, said he would send dr. sprague to see me. miss lufkin said she thought dr. graves would tend me. i told them i did not wish dr. graves, for he knew nothing about me nor spirituality. i wanted dr. sprague, as he was knowing to my persecutions, and his wife was a dear sister to me in christ jesus. he had been down to see me, but was not admitted. i told elder cole i would do just as he told me. my sister had asked me if she should send for brother stephen? i told her no, for i did not wish him to know any thing about me, for he had so cruelly treated me, which before this i had kept to myself. likewise his wife had manifested the greatest hatred towards the present day reform of preparing to meet christ, and warning others to be also ready, although she belongs to a congregational church. but i had endeavored to keep the faith with her as with every one that professes to be a follower of the lamb. my sister took the advantage of my weakness, and unknown to me, sent for brother stephen to come and get me. this brother resides in boston. this was the third day from leaving my work; there had been nothing done for me, although i have since learned that many of my associates called and offered to do for me, but were not permitted. what kind of treatment is this in this gospel land of light and liberty? the spirit of the vilest persecutions began to be raised against me in that house, and now was a favorable opportunity for it to be completed. about o'clock brother stephen came in and asked me to go down and spend thanksgiving with them, as he was up on business, and asked nancy and brother james likewise. we all concluded to go; but i hesitated some, for i never had gone any where after i had met with a change of heart, without going to do god service, for i felt that i was not my own; i was bought with a price, the precious blood of the lamb. brother stephen said he would be there in half an hour. i went and prepared myself; took what work i thought i should want on a visit, and was sitting in my room when my brother stephen and dr. graves came in.--the doctor asked me if i was going on a visit with my brother?--i told him yes. they both went down stairs together into the front room, and i went down and took my leave of the family.--little did i think that dr. graves was called in to give a line to have me carried into an insane hospital--a poor girl that he knew nothing about, nor the peculiar circumstances of the family, that had always raised a report against me that i was deranged ever since i went to new hampton to school, because it was there that i met with a change. i have been particular in speaking of the manner of my life after i met with a change, but to describe all that i lived up under, would be more than i can write at this time. but truly i felt i had come up out of great tribulation, and was washed in the blood of the lamb. i had attained unto the power of christ's resurrection, my mind being unbiassed by any creed or doctrine of men. when i was converted i knew nothing but jesus and him crucified. i arrived at my brother's that night about o'clock. i met his wife as usual. after tea i retired to a room with my brother's wife, telling her of my persecutions, and how god had revealed himself to me. she said she thought it was wisdom in god not to reveal his glory to us while here in the body. she had felt so much the glory of god in her own soul that she had been almost overpowered. she thought that god had nothing more for me to do. what does such language imply? is there a person this side of the grave for whom god has nothing more to do? but i did not know then that man had the knowledge to take the holy spirit from a person by giving them medicine; but she had already conceived the wicked deed in her heart, and knew where the _awful crime_ could be done, and her very language expressed what she knew was about to be done to me, although i did not then suspect any evil. had it been said to me in any other place but a brother's house, and by a female, i should have suspected i was about to be murdered, or some other brutal outrage committed upon me. if i had been among the rude barbarians i should not have been so easily deceived; but i looked up to a sister to do for me, and asked her to let me stay with her, and i would sew or do any thing for her; but she appeared to be very angry with me every time that i spoke about what god had done for me. i said but little to any one when i retired, for sister nancy and sophia, brother stephen's wife, went with me into my room. in my usual manner before i laid my head upon my pillow, i knelt by my bed and silently offered my prayer to god. my sister nancy said "_see that_," and sophia answered "_i am sorry to see it_." i said nothing, but thought it very strange that in this christian land any one should be sorry to see another on their bended knees before an holy god, and especially one that knew me so well as a sister. i slept sound all knight, and felt much refreshed in the morning, and happy that i had got away from a house where i had been so persecuted. how little did i know where i was to be carried, and what was about to be done to me. o, that a dagger had been plunged into my heart in the midnight hour, for what i have suffered here is beyond the power of language to describe. and then every source of happiness is taken from me here and hereafter, to be forever tormented in fire. it may be looked upon as derangement or delusion, but as true as there is a god that sitteth upon his eternal throne, so true this awful crime has been done to me; and let any one reasonably look upon the treatment that i received, it will show it was nothing but a spirit of the vilest persecution. but my wicked relations that hated me without a cause are screened from the law of our country, and in part from public censure, together with the doctors; and it may be thrown back upon me that i am a poor deranged person; but god only knows the distress that my body is every moment in, and then that i never can be relieved. wednesday, the th, i passed as i usually did while on a visit to my brother's, not suspecting that they were looking upon me as a deranged person, and above all, knowing that horrid crime could be done to me and plunge me into everlasting misery, a poor innocent, unprotected sister, that had toiled late and early to get along. thursday, th nov., thanksgiving day of , i arose, took breakfast, and found brother stephen's wife in bed with the sick head-ache. the girls all seemed to be engaged, and i, of course, in my way to do for the sick wherever i was, waited upon her. brother eben, wife and children had come in to pass the day, from jamaica plain. i began to play with them, as i always did; but i observed they did not greet me with that affectionate liveliness they were accustomed to. i took no notice of it to let them know it. about o'clock, while i sat at my work in the parlour, my brother stephen came in and asked me to go to a ride with him. this surprised me, as our brothers were never very attentive to their sisters; but i thought he pitied me on account of my troubles, knowing the life that i had tried to live. i told him i did not care about going to ride, as it was not my health, but my spiritual life which he did not understand, and asked him to let me stay with sophia, and i would sew or do any thing for them; he said he wanted me to go and see a physician. i told him it was not a physician that i wished to see, i should rather see some minister, who would better understand my situation. he said i should not see any one. i then asked him to let me see mr. winslow, his own minister, as i always liked him very much, as he is a very spiritual minded man. he said no, i should not see him. he said the doctor was a pious man. i asked what church he belonged to; he answered mr. winslow's. i then said, well, i will go and see him, thinking it would do no harm. upon that, he said with a great degree of triumphant feeling, _that's the place for such ones as you are_. could a brother embue his hands in the blood of a sister's eternal life, to take the advantage of her weakness, put her under locks and keys, and hire men to do the awful crime; and is there such a house where this crime can be done and tolerated, by the public upholding men that are willing to be hired to do the greatest of all crimes, and poor beings cannot help themselves, nor any kind friend get to them to protect them? is this done in this free and happy land? because i differed from some of my family in my religious opinion must i be taken and imprisoned? but if that was all, i would not notice it any more than i ever did all their previous unkind treatment.--i had always done for myself from the time that i was in my th year, and received no assistance from any one of the family, and had endeavored to support a good character, although i was called to walk in the humble walks of life, and had often met with the cold neglect of the rich and popular class of the world because i was a poor factory girl. my brothers had never offered to do for me or to help me along. each one of us had to do for ourselves; but they might have treated me with common humanity. i never thought labor dishonored any one, but while i was on a visit to see my brother stephen, his wife requested me not to let any one know that i worked in a factory, which made me very unhappy; and because i went to great falls to work in the factory, brother stephen sent my things in a fictitious name, not wishing any one to know that he had a sister that worked in the factory, which caused me to be suspected of being a loose character. i was only in my th year, and a stranger to every one in the place.--god only knows what i had to live up under. but i said nothing to any one about it, only to my oldest sister, mary, as all my troubles i confided in her; but to return to my subject. soon as my brother left the room, i went into sophia's room and told her what my brother had said. she again said she thought _god had nothing more for me to do_; but what she meant i did not know.--after dinner, brother stephen came into the room and said, now elizabeth we will have that ride that we spoke of. i went and prepared myself, but again i went and talked with sophia, i told her it would do no good to go and see a physician, for they knew nothing about spirituality, and it would injure the cause of god. she said, _o no, god has nothing more for you to do; get your health and i will come and see you in two or three days_. i was not expecting to stop, but would go and see the doctor because i could not contend any more. after i got into the chaise with my brother, i began to reason with him upon the foolishness of going to see a physician. he said it was a young ladies' boarding place and the doctor was a pious man, and i could have any thing that i wanted. i told him i thought it very foolish to throw away so much money, as our parents were poor. better do good with it, for i knew what the world was; they cared for nothing if they could but get money, and i did not wish to be among strangers. he would not harken to what i said, but said he was willing to pay my board three or six months, or longer, and that's the place for such ones as i was. if i had been a disturber of the peace of any community or family, well he might have said so; but then we have laws in this country, by which a person may be tried, and made to suffer the penalty of the law they break. i was non-resistant. i said every thing that i could say. after we arrived there i was introduced to dr. bell, in his parlour. he asked me to relate my christian experience. (i wish the reader to mark the manner in which the doctor addressed me, for what has a physician to do with a person's christian experience?) in my usual manner i asked him if he had a change of heart? he said yes, to avoid an argument, i told him i never argued or disputed about religion. he said then he had not what the world called a change. i told him then he must excuse me from saying any thing about my christian experience, as he would not understand it. my brother began to urge me together with the doctor. i did not know why i must relate my christian experience to a doctor and an unconverted man at such a time, for it seemed to me like mockery. i refused again and again, but, _no_, i must relate it. being no longer able to withstand these entreaties i told what god had done for me to that time. spoke of being bound in the spirit and i felt a bondage of soul. he said he could give me something to relieve that bondage of soul and being bound in the spirit. i told him i should rather be with my own folks and i should rather not stop. upon that my brother and the doctor both began to urge me vehemently and said i had no respect to any one's judgment. i had always provided for myself, and why i should be so urged to stay at a boarding place when i did not wish to, i did not know; and i told the doctor i did not know what he had to do with my soul. but they both said so much i told them i would stay, as every thing in the room indicated respectability. they went out of the room, and while they were gone i thought it was no place for me, thinking it was a ladies' boarding place among the popular class, and was not the place for a christian in such a weak state. i went out and asked my brother to take me back with him. he seemed to be so angry with me he could hardly control his feeling. he put his hand upon my shoulder and gave me a push, and said he could not carry me back, but would come and see me the next day; i then returned into the parlor and began to take off my things when a tall, black eyed, masculine looking female came and took me by the arm and asked me if she should wait upon me up stairs. i thanked her and walked up stairs with her, thinking she was going to show me my sleeping room. she waited upon me into a long painted gallery with sleeping rooms on both sides, and she left the room. there were a number of ladies sitting around in the gallery. i went to the window to take a view of the prospect, and the iron grate met my eye. i turned to a lady and asked her if she would inform me what those iron grates were at the window for. she made me no reply. i turned to another and asked her, and she made no reply, but rose and went into her room. i asked her pardon, i did not intend any offence, i was a stranger there. i then went to the door to go down into the parlor where i came out; but i found the door locked. upon that i made the expression "_grated windows, and locked door_, where am i?" upon that, a female stepped out of her room. i perceived she was not such a person as i had ought to be with at that time. she took me by waist and said they were kind folks there. i asked her where i was, and wished to see the lady of the house, and asked her to let me alone; but no one would give me any answer. about dark the bell rung to call the ladies down to tea. a very modest young lady came out of her room and asked me if she should walk with me down to tea. i thanked her, and i was waited upon down into a large room where there was a large table set with all kinds of refreshments. the company presented a strange appearance, the peculiarity of their dress, and many things did not look right. i wondered how my brother came to place me among such creatures, in my weak state. i drank a cup of tea and left the room, thinking it was no place for me, for i had longsince left balls and parties, and scenes of mirthfulness. miss barber, the same one that had waited upon me up into the gallery, asked me where i was going. i told her i wished to retire to my room. she waited on me up into the same gallery. i went into one of the rooms and knelt down and asked god to deliver me from that place, and to return me to the people of god. soon mary brigham, the attendant, came into the gallery, i asked her many questions to find out where i was, and what kind of boarders they kept there; but she would make me no reply. i asked her if the hourly went into boston from there, but she made me no reply: she had the marks of a methodist. i thought if she loved god, if i talked of the love of god, i should draw her towards me. i told her how i loved god, and said many things about sanctification, but she made me no reply. i thought this was very strange treatment. i then asked her for something to take. she said the doctor never gave anything under two days. i told her it was necessary, and that i wanted some valerian tea; but she said i could not have any thing that night, and when the bell rang nine, she said it was the hour for the ladies to retire. i went to my room and asked miss brigham if my door fastened; she said yes. i asked her for the key; she said she locked the door and kept the key. after i had retired she came into my room and took my clothes out. i asked her what that was for; she said it was the rule of the house, and she locked me in alone. i did not sleep any all night, from the excitement of the day, and wondering what my brother should place me with such characters for. i came to the conclusion that it was a place where females of ill-fame boarded, with physicians to get help in time of trouble. in the morning when mary brigham came and unlocked my door, i told her i had not slept any all night.--she said, well, _that's nothing_. i asked her to let me see the doctor as soon as possible, for i wished to return in the first hourly. she made me no reply. i rose and went to the upper end of the gallery and asked miss brigham to excuse me from going to the table, as my dress was not adjusted, and had not brought my combs and hair brush with me, and asked her to let me have a cup of coffee there. she threw a hair comb into my lap and commanded me to come to the table; upon which i adjusted my dress as soon as possible and went to the table. every thing presented a strange appearance. great tin lid pots and a wooden waiter and broken dishes. a plate of crackers set on the end of the table where i sat; i went to take one, and one of the ladies spoke and said they were hers, but i might have one; i asked her to excuse me, and took a piece of bread. after breakfast i went to go into my room, as i had not slept any all night, and found my door locked; i went and sat down and asked if there was any christians there, when one lady said she was a baptist, and she knew a mary stone in boston. i told her it was my sister. i asked her to be my friend, and she said she would, and that i might lay down in her room. accordingly she went into her room with me and covered me up in her bed and shut the door; just as i had got into a sweet sleep, mary brigham came in and ordered me up. i rose and asked her to let me lay down in my room, as i had not slept any all night.--she said the ladies were not allowed to lay down in the day time. one of the ladies told me to ask the supervisor to let me have my room door open. what it meant to have a supervisor in a ladies' boarding house i knew not; but when she came in i found it was the same one that had waited upon me into the gallery. i asked her to be my friend, and told her she did not know how i did love god; she said she would be my friend, but she did not want any silly fancies. what she meant i did not know, for i did not know there was any fancy about christianity. i asked her if i could have a bowl of valerian tea and have my door open to lay down. she said yes, and told mary brigham to open my door; just as i had got into a sleep again, mary brigham and miss barber came and threw off the clothes. i being weak and excited got up and asked if my brother had come, for he said he would come and see me the next day. i wanted to get with some one that knew me, for such treatment as this i did not know what to make of. miss barber immediately left the room and they would give me no answer. i went to my room to lay down, but found my door locked and i could not have the privilege of laying down again that day. about o'clock dr. fox, the assistant physician, came in and began to converse with me; i told him it was not my reason that was effected, or any distress of mind, but i had undergone a cleansing or purifying by being washed in the blood of the lamb; that i had tasted of the good word, and the powers of the world to come, and that i was weak and wanted some valerian tea, or something to calm me; he said that i must not think i was so filled with the spirit; any minister would laugh at me. i repeated some passages of the scriptures to him; one was that st. paul says, "be ye filled with the fullness of god." he said it was because st. paul saw the lord jesus. i told him that made no difference, all had got to go the same way to heaven; that i stood upon the gospel, but i never disputed about religion. he said he would give me something to calm and strengthen me; but nothing was brought me until night, nor did my brother come to see me. after i had retired, mary brigham came into my room and said she had got some medicine for me. _i_ rose up and took it, thinking it was something to do me good. it was a pill and a little mug of mixture, and mary brigham went out and locked the door; but o, alas how little did i know where i was and what i was put into that house for. such a crime i never read of, and it is covered up under the garb of derangement, and i am the poor sufferer. as soon as i took it i was thrown into most violent pain and distress, beyond the power of language to describe, neither can i give any one an adequate idea. the medicine effected my brain, the back part of my head, hardened or petrified it, and the brain is the seat of the nerves, and any one can conceive of the distress that i must be thrown into all over in my body, every nerve in me drawing and straining convulsively. sometimes i was almost drawn back double and then forward, rolling in the bed from one side to the other in the greatest agony. when my door was unlocked in the morning i rose. i had wept bitterly all night. the thoughts of my situation, and for so strange a thing as it may appear, that medicine can be given to destroy the work of grace in a person, even so it can be done, and dr. bell and dr. fox both possess that knowledge of giving medicine to accomplish this awful outrage upon christianity; and it is done under the garb of derangement, and they are screened from public censure, and it is a greater crime than that they had tortured me to death any way that i ever read of. as i come out of my room a young lady asked me what made me weep; so i took her hand and asked her to tell me where i was, and what kind of people i was with. she asked me if i did not know, and i told her no. she then told me that i was in the insane assylum. i then knew that i was betrayed into the hands of the wicked to be destroyed. i told her that the medicine that they had given me was killing the spirit of christ in me; and that i was lost. i began to lose all idea of holiness. but i knew it would be covered up under the garb of derangement, and then i recollected what my brother stephen's wife said, "that god had nothing more for me to do." of course, if any one has not the spirit of christ, they cannot serve god. it is not only a belief, but they must have the spirit. dr. fox came in about o'clock; while i was laying on the bed he stood looking at me, with miss barber. my jaws were unlocked. he made the remark to miss barber that he did not know whether it was the fulfillment of the prophecy, "there shall be knashing of the teeth," or whether it was hallooing "glory to god," so much. oh, how little they knew of the reason of my losing my ballance. it was my exerting myself so much after i had become a spiritual being, having no kind friend to do for me. but i said nothing; i asked for the privilege of writing, which was granted. i wrote to brother stephen's wife, and asked her to come and see me that afternoon, as soon as she got the letter, for i could not believe that a female could be accessory to such a crime, although i well recollect how angry she appeared to be every time i spoke of what god had done for me. the doctor said he would send it. that day, saturday, passed away without bringing any one to see me. i thought of my kind christian friends, my loved friend nancy sanborn; but now forever separated from her, no more could we fondly anticipate going to the far west together, to be the instruments, in the hands of god, of expanding the immortal mind in knowledge, and teach the way of salvation to poor sinners. but now taken by the cunning craftiness of my relations, i was enclosed within bolted doors and grated windows, where i could not make my escape, nor my friends prevent the brutal outrage that they were committing upon me.--reader, for a moment imagine yourself in my situation. if you are not a christian you do not wish to undergo pain, neither do you desire to be miserable, nor to be separated from your friends, with entire strangers that you never saw before, for it is contrary to the laws that god has written in your nature. but i was a poor factory girl, without any rich father to protect me, or pious mother to plead my cause, and i could say with david, i was an alien from my mother's womb, to my mother's children, and in my weakness they sprang upon me. they would not let my christian friends do for me, neither would they do for me themselves. i had friends that would have gladly done for me; long and dear acquaintances, both christians and unconverted, who would have opened their doors to me before they would have seen me the third day of my illness turned out of doors by miss lufkin, in my weakness, because i wished to serve god in spirit and in truth, according to my profession, and carried off into a hospital or a devil's den here upon earth, for i call these insane assylums nothing less. but it is not the imprisonment or the cruel treatment that i received there that i speak of, for i would have borne that without a murmur. but it is the medicine they gave me that racked and tortured and killed the spirit of christ within me. it is that spirit that gives a person a hatred to sin, supports them up under any torture. christian reader, whatever name you may bear, it is you and you only that can truly feel for my distressed situation, deceived into that house in such an unlawful manner, even if i had been deranged. i had property, and i ought to have had a guardian appointed, and kind steps taken with me. but to return to my subject: a table was spread, and a party, the doctor being one of the number, sat down to play cards. the most unqualified language came out of their mouths. i could hear the groans of the distressed all around me, some weeping to see their friends, some for one thing, and some for another; and i in the most awful distress, without one kind friend to speak to me; an involuntary groan came with my breath. again the medicine was brought to me; i told the attendant it was destroying me, hardening my brain, and taking the spirit of christ from me; she said i must take it. i did not know what to do, i could not help myself; to resist i knew would not do, and yet having partly the spirit of christ, which is non-resistant, i took it, which increased my distress. i was again locked into my room and left to weep and roll in my bed all knight, thinking of my dear friends, _not relations_.--but oh, they would not have dared to have done the crime out of that house, under the pretence of insanity, to screen my wicked relations, that have been incensed against me ever since i met with a change of heart. sunday morning came, and thus, in one short week, was i brought to my sad fate, for the want of a kind christian friend to step in between me and my cruel persecutors, and wicked tyranical relations. this day passed away; the medicine was brought me to take twice a day, pills and a little mug of mixture; what it was i do not know, but i think i could tell the different kinds that i took if i could see them. monday, th, passed away without any one coming to see me. tuesday came, and i again asked the privilege of writing, which was granted. i wrote to my brother s. asked him to come and see me immediately, as he promised. the doctor said he would send it, but the day passed away without any one coming. my distress became more violent. i told the doctors they were taking from me my eternal happiness, by taking from me the spirit of christ. i was informed by one of the patients that they did not send the letters they gave me liberty to write. i conversed with dr. fox about my situation, and of the knowledge of this medicine, and why the world did not know it. he said that my brother knew all about it before i was brought there, and what i had got to suffer, and what my situation would be. reader, can you imagine what my sufferings were? no, you cannot. if you had witnessed them you might have then conceived of my dreadful agony. telling of my distress and lost condition, i was mocked and ridiculed. this week passed away. sunday came again, dec. . no one had come to see me. i was left mostly alone in the gallery. the attendant and some of the patients had gone to meeting. one of the attendants came in and talked with me; she spoke more kind to me than any one had since i come into the house. i told her my situation, and how i was a poor girl, and had from the age of done for myself, and had never been sick, or any expense to the family or any other one. she seemed to express a deal of sympathy for me. she said it was a house of distress. i asked her how long she had been there; she said, i think, from six to eight years. she said she wished she had seen me when i first had been brought into that house. i then asked her if she knew that christians could be destroyed there. she seemed not inclined to express her mind freely to me, but said that she had been tried much in her feelings, to see poor christians so troubled about their religion in that house, and if their friends knew what was best for them they would not bring them there. she desired me to control my feelings as much as possible. if i did not, i should be showered. i then enquired what that meant; she then described it to me, that i should be stripped of all my clothes, and cold water poured upon me, and i should be carried on to another gallery, where the society would not be so pleasant, neither the accommodations so good. i told her that my distress was so great that it was impossible. i then asked her how she could be knowing to such a crime and not to make it known to the world, for it was worse than murdering a person in this life. she said she supposed my folks knew all about it before i was brought there, but they would not be likely to tell me, and she bid me good bye. it seemed good to have any one speak kind to me, although i had then nearly lost all idea of holiness. when she left me, i laid myself down upon the floor, and wept bitterly; i then thought i would make way with myself, for i was betrayed; my relations had at last vented their revenge upon me, and now i was an outcast forever, and never more could be happy. i was now separated forever from my loved friends. i thought of a much loved friend, phebe weir, who knew me before i was converted, one that i used to talk much with about my spiritual life. o, that she could but behold me.--soon they returned from meeting, but to cease from weeping and groaning, was impossible, for every nerve in me was drawing and twinging as though they would break. christian reader, keep in mind that the spirit of christ was killed in me, or i could have blessed and praised god, amidst all this suffering. but this distress of body was caused by the medicine given to me, to take away the spirit of christ. it may appear like derangement, but what i tell you is the truth. monday, i had endeavored to keep in my room as much as possible, and to keep from groaning, though it come voluntary, for i dreaded to be carried on to another gallery, exposed and showered with cold water. but my sufferings would not cease in this world. i could not look forward to never ending eternity of happiness, for the idea of love had gone from me. i neither loved god, nor this world. my body was now, as it were, dead; my brain was becoming a mineral substance, all but my intellectual faculties. in the afternoon, miss barber came in, in her masculine manner, to all appearance to exult in human misery, and asked me to take her arm. i knew i was going on to another gallery. i said nothing, for it would be of no use; hearts that are so hardened in cruelty as they must be to do such crimes, would not listen to entreaty. accordingly i was led on to another gallery. here i found perfectly deranged people, and some appeared to be in a great deal of distress. esther benton, the attendant, at first, was quite kind to me, but soon she began to show her power. she knew well my situation, for she had seen others suffer similarly about their religion in that house, and i was regarded as a vagabond, as truly i am. but would i have willingly thrown myself away? is it not a law in nature that every body desires happiness? but alas, for the want of a kind friend, i am lost to all happiness here and hereafter. i cannot enjoy carnal nor spiritual things. i stayed in this gallery about a week, when miss barber came in one morning and said i must go down in the other gallery if i cried so. i told her to carry me, for it was the place of the greatest cruelty that i ever knew. how they could witness a poor female suffer as i did, and to be accessory to it, i thought of all the cruelty i ever read of i never read of any equal to this. she led me down among perfect maniacs, in a cold, dark, cheerless room, with no seat to sit on. again i talked with dr. fox, and told him that my brother told me it was a young ladies' boarding house, and the doctor was a pious man, and i expected to be taken under a godly influence, instead of being torn to pieces in this manner, by medicine. i thought eternal life was of more importance than this life, and we ought to seek the soul's salvation of each other. he said, _they did not do such things there_, it was a place to get health, and he laughed at me for coming there. i told him he might try to keep it covered up under the garb of derangement, but i believed it would yet be exposed, although i was the poor sufferer. he said both male and female had suffered it before me, and would not publish it because it would be looked upon as derangement, and no one would believe it. i then asked him if holiness was liable to become a disease and medical men knew it, ought they not to publish it to the world that every thing should be done for a person first by the people of god, before the medicine was given to them, and had such a crime ought to go under the garb of derangement, and poor creatures suffer forever in consequence of it. he seemed to think it was a very light thing, and laughed at me and said i had prayed too much. this is dr. fox, a member of the congregational church. is this not worse than any crime that ever was practised upon a poor helpless creature in any place of wickedness upon the face of the earth. i found the attendant, mrs. emerson, very kind to me uniformly, in this gallery, and she often spoke of the cruel treatment of that house.--i stayed in this gallery until about the th of dec., when miss barber came in and said that i must go to the cottage, or it might more properly be called a stone dungeon, where there are six cells, and some of them have a straw bed. the cell that i occupied had one; but oh, they might have shut me up in a stone dungeon and made me fast in the strap and buckle, and i would have praised god; but no, i could not pray to god, my brain was like a mineral substance. i was now enclosed in a stone dungeon, but i had a kind attendant by the name of sarah brown. if i spoke of my situation and of the sweets of redeeming love, i was mocked and laughed at by the doctors, and miss barber seemed to exult in my misery. i often plead to see some of my relations, especially brother stephen, who carried me there, but my request they refused. i often spoke to the trustees about my situation and the manner of my life, and how cruelly i was deceived into that house; but say what you will, it is regarded as derangement by them. i had been in this stone dungeon about three or four days, i come to the conclusion that i had nothing to live for; i was in distress of body, from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot. i was guilty of the blood of the covenant. i now did not love god or this world. my learning was now taken from me, that i had labored hard to acquire. my good name, which is better than precious ointment, was now gone. i had become an outcast of earth and heaven. my food tasteless; i had no longer any object to pursue. i accordingly made up my mind to take my life that night. for that purpose i tore a piece of the sheet off. i then thought of my hard labors and striving to get along, and my desire to set a bright example, and what had it profited me, that in my weakness i should be taken and shut up where no kind friend could approach to save me from the brutal outrage of man. i expected never again to see any one that i knew upon earth, and that while here i must be among the worst of characters. the attendant came in and bid me good night. i thought she was the last human being i should ever see; i had got to go into hell's torment if i lived; and to live any longer i thought there was no use. i laid down thinking i would wait until all was still. about o'clock, i judge, i rose and walked up and down my cell, thinking that my life had become a burden to me. i thought of my loved companions, my loved new hampton teachers, and that happy circle of acquaintances, and then how cruelly the cry had been raised about me of being insane, in order to get me shut up, where this awful crime could be done; how cruelly caroline dammers had incensed my brother stephen aguinst me, a young lady that i had done so much for; she had been down in the summer and talked to my brother's folks about my being so engaged in behalf of poor sinners, which was my meat and drink. if it was looked upon as derangement, it was something that made me happy and it did not lead me to do evil, but now i could not commit myself to god, neither did i think by putting an end to my life, that i should cease from one state of suffering and cruel tyranny. i put the string round my neck, and attached it to a hinge of the door. i gave my weight to the string, and began to lose all sense of feeling, the last i knew; the first thing i knew again, i found myself laying on the floor, in violent agony, hardly knowing anything. how long i had laid there i know not. the sweat was pouring out of me profusely. at first i could not move, but gradually come to. i recollected what i had attempted to do, and felt for the string and found it had broken, and that was the cause of my laying on the floor. i thought i would try the second time, and made the attempt, but was so weak that i could not manage. i began to feel a violent pain in my face, found my chin was badly cut, and thought probably my jaw was broken, for it hurt me to move it. i layed down and thought if it was broken it would be less painful to have it attended to, than to wait until morning. i called to the attendant, whose room was in the corner of the building. she came in and asked me what was the matter. i feigned ignorance. she said their was a great deal of blood upon the floor, and that my chin was badly hurt. she called miss barber, they examined and found it not broken; went out and left me alone again for the night, but i was so weak that i could not attempt my life again. the next day the mark was observed upon my neck, and it was suspected that i had attempted to make way with myself, and then i had the leather muff put on. but what they could wish to keep such a miserable suffering creature alive for, i did not know, but several of the attendants advised me not to take my life, but try to get out and publish it to the world.--i told them i would, for if others had published it before me, i might have been saved from suffering here and hereafter. although my account was sealed with god, yet i remembered the sweets of redeeming love, and how good it was to pray to god; but now through the instrumentality of the wicked, in my weakness, i must suffer forever. but the poor sons of god that have suffered this before me, probably have taken their lives, for dr. fox says that he has examined the bodies of those that have had the holy spirit taken away from them, as i have, and says the organs are the same, only they are contracted. i stayed in the dungeon until the month of march, weeping and groaning my hours away. about the last of march i was carried back from the dungeon to the gallery i left. miss emerson was my attendant. the day i was carried back was very cold, and miss barber ordered me to be locked up in my room, to exercise her authority over me. miss emerson was a good nurse. she said it was too cold for me to be there, coming out of such a warm room as the dungeon was. she went and asked miss barber to let me come out; but no, she must keep me locked up. miss emerson came in and told me i had better lay down, for she knew the change of air was too much for me, even if i sat out in the gallery, by the furnace, for this gallery is a cold comfortless place. towards night my distress increased, till it seemed as though every bone in me would fall apart. it seemed as though my breath would leave my body. miss emerson said she has told miss barber how cold i was, but she did not regard it. but i was not the only sufferer on account of their cruel treatment. others were suffering the like in different ways. i stayed in this gallery till about the last of july, weeping and rolling on the floor, in pain, not allowed to lay on my bed, and often stripped and showered, as i was told i should be, as a punishment for weeping, because i was in distress, and lost to eternal happiness, and deprived of my liberty, in the hands of tyrants. one day, while i was laying on the floor in agony, dr. bell came in and said that brother james had been there. i asked him what was the reason he did not let me see him, and he said he did not wish to see me; he was glad i was there, and wished i had been two years before. this added double grief, and dr. bell seemed delighted to tell me of it, to tantalize me, and that he was so completely held up in his cruelty. i told him that this brother did not know the agony that i was in, for i did not think he could have the heart to rejoice in my misery, and to wish i had this brutal act done to me two years before. this brother i had done for more or less from a child; he being the youngest, i had helped pay his board, his tuition, bought him books and clothes, and all the money that i had, i let him have to help him along; and could this be the way he was rewarding me for it? in this land of liberty where every one has a right to worship god as they please, must he rise against me and worse than murder me, because i worshipped god contrary to his views. he believes all will go to heaven whether they have in them the hope of glory or not. but he has a right to his belief. my religion would not have led me to be accessory to his imprisonment, and more especially to have medicine given him to rack and torture him. one day when the trustees were there, i addressed mr lowell about my situation; he gave a listening ear, when dr. bell stepped forward and said my physician said that i was a fit subject for the house. i told him i had no physician, for i never was sick but once in my life, and that was two years ago. he said he had a line from wheelock graves, and one from elder cole, my minister. this surprised me, that a leader of god's people, to lead them out of sin, should give a line for a poor girl to be carried into an insane assylum. he knew my case, and had heard me tell how god had dealt with me. but i told dr. bell i did not believe it, although it gave him the lie. i believed elder cole to be too good a man and friend to humanity to wish to destroy a young girl's character so much as to give a line for me to be carried into an insane assylum, the third day of my leaving my work. i asked mr. lowell to go and see my brother stephen; but it availed nothing, for they all understood the iniquity of that house. i had not seen any one since i had been there that i ever saw before, excepting a miss dutton, that i met at elder hime's meeting in boston, who was there a private attendant to a lady for a short time. in the month of may, catharine, brother eben's wife, came to see me, i told her as much as possible what i had suffered, and how destroyed i was, and asked her why she did not tell me where i was going, and what was to be done to me. she said she did not know it till i was just going out of the house, but i did not believe it, for her husband was one of the bondsmen. this brother's wife i had loved much for her strong virtuous principles and piety. how she could have been accessory to this treatment towards me, to screen them from public censure, i did not know; but the deed was done. she stopped about ten minutes, and said she would come and see me again. but the summer passed away without one coming to see me. i often plead with dr. bell to let me see some one, but i was told that they did not wish to see me. i of course thought they did not, for i always was despised by the whole family, for what i did not know. but i buried it all in my own heart, looking forward when i should be forced from this world of trouble and sorrow, for my forerunner was a man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief; and i must bear all things even as he bore it. i had friends that were dear to me, and i thought i should like to see them once more upon earth. the cruel mockery and ridicule that i had heaped upon me there was enough to cause any female to be sick of her life. they seemed to take delight in saying things to try me.--miss barber and dr. fox were in the gallery together, the doctor stood laughing at me, for i was in violent distress and crying. he said he thought i grew fat on it. miss barber said sneeringly, do you not expect to enter the pearly gates and walk the golden streets of the city of the new jerusalem? i had lost all idea of holiness, and i am utterly incapable of using good language. i thought of what i once was, and to be brought to this low degraded state, to suffer thus in a gospel land, grieved me. it is the practice for physicians from other assylums to visit there, and see all the patients. one day there was a dr. ray, with others from the maine assylum; dr. bell began to mock me about being married, knowing that all my affections were dead, to see what effect it would have upon me, holding my pulse at the time, and laughing at each other. to be made a subject of mockery before men in this obscene manner was too much, i appealed to his benevolence to spare me this cruel mockery; spoke of female character, and that i had done much to save females from the stream of pollution. my feelings were overcome, and i seized hold of a chair to save me from falling, but i was too far gone and fell upon the floor, and then a roar of laughter was set up by all. i went into my room and layed myself upon the bed. i thought of the poor slave, but oh, they do not know their happiness; gladly would i exchange situations with any one that ever suffered from the rude barbarian; and yet it is thrown back upon me that it is derangement, and my cruel torturers are held up and applauded. i sent a letter to brother eben's wife, to come; but i received no visit from her on account of her peculiar circumstances. i saw no one until the d of dec. i had been there then thirteen months, and had seen only brother eben's wife. i plead with my brother to let me go home; he said he was not willing, but i might come out to his house after his wife's health was better. i felt that i was such an outcast that i had no people to go to; but that a mother must have a mother's feelings, and i knew not who to look to in the world in my lost, ruined condition, but a parent. my brother seemed to feel for my ruined condition, and asked me why i did not tell what my situation was, for he knew nothing about it only what they told him. this brother had never opposed me in my religion, and i had always taken a very active part in his family devotion, as his wife is a member of a congregational church. i told him i plead with stephen not to leave me, not knowing that it was an insane assylum, or what was to be done to me. i told him how i was deprived the privilege of writing. he said he did not wish me treated ill, and wished me to come out to his house. i told him i wanted to go home. he stopped about an hour with me, and bid me good bye, and said he would come again. this was about the th of dec. i asked dr. bell to let me write to my brother, stating that i would go out to his house, for i wanted to get out of that place; he gave me a very short answer; he said he was not willing that i should write to my brother, or any other one. i then told him that my brother told me i could write to him anything that i wished. he said if my brother told me so, he was not willing; i did not rest at this, but constantly plead with him to grant me the privilege, but could not prevail upon him, for he said that my brother was glad i had not accepted his invitation. then i took the liberty of writing without his consent, and handed it to mr. appleton, one of the trustees, requesting him to prevail on dr. bell to let him take that letter to my brother, and wrote one to mr. appleton at the same time, stating the reason of taking that liberty. he told me he would talk with dr. bell about it. the next day i asked dr. bell if he had sent my letter; he said no; i asked him the reason; he said it was because he thought my brother would not grant my request. in my letter i requested my brother to let me have a change; if he thought it not proper to come to his house, to let me go any where else. i saw no one again until march, when my mother come to see me with brother e. i had written to have him come and see me, and what my situation was. little did i think but what my parent knew of my situation when i was first put in there. but i had been there about a year before they knew any thing about it. she stopped about an hour. at first she appeared to be quite affected; but my mother does not profess spirituality, and always opposed me about my religion, and often said, after i met with a change, that she thought i was deranged. of course she regarded me as a deranged person. i plead her to stay all night with me, but she returned with my brother that night, and said she would come on saturday. on saturday she came on the gallery to see me, about two o'clock, and returned with my brother at six; i wished her to stay all night with me, but she was not willing. i wanted my mother to tell my brother to take me out and let me go home with her. but i always was regarded with a great deal of coldness, and now i was looked upon as a poor deranged person, and therefore found but little sympathy. my mother left me without bidding me good bye, saying that she should see me again. brother eben came to see me, about four weeks after. still i plead with him to let me go home; but he wanted me to come out to his house. i felt that i did not want to go there, after he had said he was glad i did not accept his invitation. but he has since told me he never said so, and has shewn me a letter he wrote to me, saying that he wished me to write to him, and to come out to his house; but dr. bell advised him not to let me have the letter. on the th of april, brother william came to see me, from new york. this brother i had not seen but once for about twelve years. he was much affected to hear of my suffering; he said it had always been represented to him that i was a perfect deranged person. he come again the next day and took me out. i went to brother eben's that night, and the next day william carried me home. remarks. _upon the treatment of my brothers and sisters during my imprisonment, and the steps taken with me by them._ _secondly, remarks in general concerning the hospital and the officers of the institution._ firstly.--if my brothers and sisters desired my good by placing me in the insane assylum, and the doctors have taken the advantage of my weakness and my brother's ignorance of my true state at that time, and it has proved to be my everlasting ruin, by the doctors giving me that medicine which racked and tortured me and destroyed my phisical health and ease of body and mental happiness. their motive can be determined by their treatment and attention while there, and the manner of the treatment that i have received in hearing of my sufferings. for good motives always lead to good and kind actions. i have given in general a detail of the steps that were taken with me from the time of my leaving my labour on saturday, before i was carried to the hospital, on the thursday following, and after i was there, their attention to me. i appeal to the public mind if this was good, kind and just treatment; if it was only my earthly happiness destroyed i should rejoice amidst it all. i was taken out by my brother william, from new york; but now i have no society, i cannot resort to god and to god's people for comfort, and take happiness in the service of god, for i have not happiness within myself, as it is the spirit of christ that makes us happy, and enables us to look forward to never ending eternity of bliss. now that spirit is taken from me by medicine, and it leaves my body in distress, from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, without carnal love of this world, or the love of god. of course without the spirit of christ we cannot love god. i am thrown out upon the world without any thing to help myself with. my money that i labored hard for, late and early, confined to a factory life, is taken by my brothers. they are not willing to give me my own, or to help me. i am unable to work, my body is in such distress; and i have no spirit to support me under any thing, and am dependant upon the kindness of friends who have been deceived about me, by the false report that i was deranged, while all the time i was suffering the greatest cruelty that could be practised upon an immortal being. they feel distress for me, although it is a crime they never heard of before, and many of them wonder that i have a particle of reason left, and do not wonder at my altered looks and language, and feel that such a crime should be exposed to the world. it is not the popular clergy that will be seized upon and carried into that house and have this medicine forced down them, but the poor honest hearted christian that is despised and cast out, and trodden under foot like the despised nazarine. this havoc among the saints of god, by infidels, has been going on for years, undoubtedly, and when they have told of it on getting out of their power, it has been looked upon as derangement, and their account being sealed with god, they have not undertaken to publish it; but i will, whether it is or not; and if my brothers wilfully hired those doctors to give me that medicine, to take from me my eternal life, because i differed from them in my religion, may god bring it to light, and the guilty not go unpunished. females are engaged in this horrid crime, and do know that it can be done. relief barber, mary brigham and esther benton, who are engaged in the service of that house, and my brother's wife, were knowing to it before i was carried there. brothers eben, stephen, and james, are the ones that were concerned about my being carried there, and they are the ones that had ought to investigate my suffering. but, instead of that, they have not interested themselves in my sufferings or wants, and brother stephen and his wife came to brother eben's, where i was, and did not even send a request to my room to see me. i speak of this to show that my brothers do not feel for me as brothers should feel for a sister. so far as the natural heart is concerned, had my brothers regarded my character and my feelings, and the feelings of our aged parents, they would not have put me into an insane hospital without something being done for me first. i might mention about my clothes that i had sent me.--i was taken and shut up from them, and from the means to obtain things to make me comfortable, or hardly decent; but if my brothers and sisters thought my health was poor, and they desired my good, kind actions would have followed kind feelings. i have before remarked, would they not have sent me little nourishments, such as they do not have there, as friends generally do when they have a friend that is out of health. but i received nothing to remind me that i was not forgotten by them. kind reader, have you a wife, sister, or an unprotected daughter in this wide world, (however you may be situated, the same laws govern nature thro'ought the world,) would you see her deceived into a hospital the third day of leaving her work, having nothing done for her first, and then not permit her to see one of her kind friends? because god saw fit not to give me the abundance of this world was i any the less incapable of happiness here and hereafter? because i was a poor factory girl must i be treated in this brutal manner, in this boasted land of liberty? i always had done for myself, and was happy. i envied not the queen upon her throne. i sought enjoyment in expanding my immortal mind in knowledge, looking through nature up to nature's god, and cultivating the love of god richly in my heart. i was kept in the assylum sixteen long and weary months. my brothers say they come to the house; but they might as well have stayed away as to come, for all the good it did me, for i never saw them. they say dr. bell would not let them see me. what right had they to put me in such a place? the very face of it shows that there was some cruelty being practised upon me, that dr. bell did not want any one to know out of that house. it may be said that i had no home, and the woman that i boarded with would not have me in her house. could it be that eliza lufkin would turn me out of her house on the third day of my illness? had it been done openly, i should have had friends that would have done for me, for i feel that i could say with the apostle paul, that i had friends that would have plucked out their eyes to do for me. but not only was i taken in such an unlawful manner and imprisoned, but away from all my things, and no care taken of them; some entirely ruined for want of care, and some ruined by being worn almost out. who has worn them i cannot say; but my trunks were at my brother stephen's. if my brothers desired my good they would investigate my sufferings. i have proposed to them to have the doctors taken before a justice of the peace, produce the kind of medicine they gave me, and apply a chemical test and see what effect it would have upon the human system. if my brothers are innocent about my being ruined, i think they would do it, although it would not bring back to me my happy state; but it would expose the wickedness of the doctors in the charlestown hospital, and save others from suffering the same. i was far from being deranged; but i grant that i was in a weak state. but because i was weak, from over exertion, was that any reason why i should be imprisoned, and medicine given me to harden my brain, to rack and torture me? to give a person an idea of the distress of my body every moment, would be impossible; but well i might quote the language of chillian: my limbs are bowed, though not with toil, but rusted with a vile repose, for they have been a dungeon's spoil. _remarks upon the institution._--there is no dispute but what there should be such an institution as an insane assylum, but let it come under the jurisdiction of the legislature, and not have all the power consigned into the hands of a few individuals, over a distressed class of beings, a money-making system, at the expense of happiness, in a great measure. if it was thought best to have all power put into the hands of one individual, then we should have a king in this country, but it is not thought best. as that house is now, if any family difficulty breaks out between the members, the stronger can take the weaker, raise a cry that they are insane, deceive them in there, or take them by force, and deprive them of their liberty; and the poor individual is disarmed of the protection of the strong arm of our country's laws. it gives power to children over their parents, parents over children, brothers and sisters over each other, and neighbour over neighbour. a case of children rising against a parent took place while i was there. a poor widow woman having a family difficulty about property, her sons rose against her, got an officer and brought her to the assylum, and she worked for them all the time she was there. in my own case, i had property and ought to have a guardian appointed if i was incapable of taking care of myself. would it not be well to have it a law that no person should be carried into an insane hospital without the advice of a council of physicians, and not have it left to the judgment of one person, for it is not an uncommon thing for persons to be put in there who are not insane, and they cannot help themselves. the public is completely deceived about the situation of their friends after they are there. on visiting the building every thing presents a fair appearance; but in order to know the evil of any place you must first be in it. in the first place, i shall speak of what the poor patients have to suffer on account of the neatness of the interior of the building, as that is so often spoke of by visitors. a great deal of pains is taken in every thing of an outward appearance, while things that are not seen by visiters, are not regarded. the floors are, as it were, the god that they worship; they must be washed every day, and the poor patients suffer in being neglected during the time, which is very frequently the case, and if a poor patient steps upon the floor for sometime after, they have to take a severe reprimand, and are locked up in their room all day as a punishment, because the attendant is afraid the floor will have a mark upon it. it is all well enough to keep clean; but the happiness of the poor patient is not regarded. it is very tiresome to be confined to one room and not be permitted to walk in it. secondly, in cold weather the uncomfortableness of the gallery is very trying. some days not any fire, and deprived of every privilege but that of breathing, and if in violent pain and suffering the patients weep and make any complaint, they must be shut up in their room, or stripped of all their clothes and showered with cold water, and then carried to a stone dungeon. people are very much deceived when they call to see their friends; and the poor distressed patients are weeping their hours away to see them, and are shut out from all religious influence. closing remarks to christians. christian reader, whatever name you may bear, i address you, you who have got the spirit of christ witnessing with your spirit that you are born of god. you have read what i have stated and you may be ready to say you don't believe it; but lend me a listening ear with an enlightened understanding, both by the spirit and knowledge, for i have put forth this effort to make known this knowledge to the world, to save you from the awful outrage of the wicked at the present day, for you are liable yet to have the cry raised about you that you are insane and to be taken and imprisoned as i have been, where violence is used to force medicine down your throat which kills or destroys the spirit of christ in you. you are ignorant, i know, that this knowledge is upon the earth, and the bible does not give any account of it, excepting in heb. chapt. vi. verse , ; and st. paul does not say how it can be done. christian reader it is you that ought to be interested in what i say, and before you say that it is derangment, and give strength to the wicked in the greatest crime that can be committed upon an immortal being, condsider well what a crime you hold up. why should i wish to start such a thing before the world if it was not so? for gladly would i kneel and lift up my voice in prayer to god and leave behind the things that are behind and press on towards the mark for the prize. persecution to a christian is like water to a plant; what is called derangement by some, or delirious about religion, can be removed by medicine by the dr.'s at the charlestown hospital. the pains and distress of the operation cannot be found upon the annals of cruelty of any nation, and then the distressed situation it leaves one in,--neither love to god nor fellow beings. dear christian reader, what i tell you is the truth. ask yourself the question, what did dr. bell urge me to relate my christian experience for? why did he ask me how much i read the bible, more than any other book? what if one of our missionaries were taken and imprisoned, and when they should be taken out and come to tell of their sufferings and what was said to them before the medicine was given to them, would it not show that the crime was in accordance with the whole drift of their conversation. why did dr. fox say that i "must not think i was so filled with the spirit; any minister would laugh at me." i had not told him i was. why was i shut up and no one allowed to see me? reader, make it your own case to be put in prison in a well state of health among some of the worst characters, entire strangers, and about three months in a stone dungeon, a poor unprotected girl.--would it not almost make you deranged? had a poor persecuted christian ought to be consigned into the hands of unconverted rough men? what criminal ever was executed in our land but if they made the request to see some minister or pious friend it was allowed them; but no, i was a poor persecuted christian; i asked to see some minister, mr. winslow i particularly asked to see; but no, the last and fatal blow must be struck upon me. if i had violated the laws of our country, why not give me a lawful trial in a court of justice and let me suffer the penalty attached to the laws which i had violated? if i was in a weak state and tryed about my spiritual state, was it right to shut me up away from all my dear associates and godly influence? at first i thought i was in a house of ill-fame. o, god only knows what i suffered and what i afterwards had to go through. had i been deceived into _such_ a house it would have been nothing to what my situation is, and what my sufferings have been. dear christian reader, i will show you by the bible where i was when i was carried into charlestown hospital. when i was converted i had a strong hope to support me against the wind and tide of this world. as an anchor is to a ship so is a hope in christ jesus to a person in this world. they are saved from the pollution of the world through the washing of regeneration; saved from the corruption that is in their own heart and the temptations around them. there is but one religion that is good for any thing, or one's religion is as good as another's. but why is all this contention about religion? it must mean something. one soul saved from sinning by being washed in the blood of christ is of more value than all this world. dear reader, have patience and i will soon bring you to the point that i wish you to understand. if holiness is liable to become a disease, as they pretend to say it does, and man has found out how to give medicine to take away from a person what they call derangement and the agony is so great and then it leaves the person in a state of suffering here of body and without the spirit of christ, a person must suffer forever, for out of christ god is a consuming fire; but in christ a person can bless and praise god amidst the burning flames. when a person is converted they are turned from persuing the love of this world and seek after that holy love that is in them which is christ and let all their actions be constrained by that love. after a person is converted they commence running after a prize, which is christ, and in christ is all the godhead bodily, father, son and holy ghost. again, christ will thoroughly purge his floor, cast out unclean spirits out of your heart and you enter the second time without sin unto salvation. again to all who look for him he will appear the second time without sin unto salvation, change their vile bodies and make them like unto his most glorious body, or baptize them with fire and with the holy ghost, or being clothed upon with our house from heaven, which is eternal, immortal and full of glory. christian reader, i had embraced the views that are agitated at the present day, that the world is soon to be destroyed, or what is called miller's doctrine. all i aimed at was to get out of sin, or being obliged to go with the multitude to commit sin, as i hated wrong and unholy actions, and to get ready to go up to meet the lord in the air as every one that has this hope within himself purifies even as he is pure; for it is by grace which you are saved and not of yourself, it is the gift of god. what to me was gain i counted loss and dross; yea, dung, if i could but win christ. i so run as to obtain the prize in six years. the prize is winning christ, and in christ jesus is all the godhead bodily, the father, son and holy ghost. it is the crown which is immortal, eternal and full of glory. truly i was full of the holy ghost, entered into the holy city and had right to the tree of life, which the leaves thereof are for the healing of the nations. holiness belongs to the heart, not to days, months, or years. the people of god are to be the holy in all their actions and thoughts; they are saved from following sin by having the spirit of christ. christian reader, i know you must read this with mingled emotions; and it must wring your heart with grief to think that the son of god has been crucified; but it leaves the person that was in possession of this heavenly treasure of course to be forever in distress, for there remaineth no more sacrifice, which must add double grief to you in perusing these pages; or are you ready to throw it back upon me, saying it is all a delusion; that man cannot destroy the soul; man's power is not greater than god's. but, christian reader, it is knowledge that man has obtained of chemistry. by putting two substances together a third is produced unlike both. what the medicine is i know not, but i think i could tell it if i saw it.--christian reader, you have never thought it to be very strange that a person could be poisoned to death. in that case it seperates spirit from matter; and in this case it seperates god's holy spirit from matter, for you know it is not only a belief, for the devils believe and tremble. but it is having jesus in you, the hope of glory, a praying spirit; and i wish you to understand it is that praying spirit that can be taken from you by medicine. the medicine hardens or petrifies the brain. in my case it is the brain that lays in the back part of my head that is destroyed, where the faculties of affection are located; for the volume of nature and revelation agree. i refer now to the science of phrenology, as there is truth in it whether you believe it or not. the fifth chapt. of gallations tells what you are by nature, and what you must be in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. by sowing to the spirit, i crucified my affections and lusts, ceased to do the works of the flesh. you may think this is not in this world, but it is only winning the prize for the high calling which is in christ, or entering in upon the seventh sabbath.--as dr. bell has given me medicine that has killed that spirit in me i have no idea of holiness or hatred to sin, and i have no idea of worship, for we worship what we supremely love and bring all our actions to bear upon that object on which our affections are set.--but the idea of love is gone from me, and my body is void of happiness, both carnal and spiritual. let there be a mighty cry made by the public, and search into the iniquity of charlestown mclean assylum. i know it is held up by what is called the popular class, but it is a combination of men, a system that is worse than slavery, and any crime can be done there and covered up under the garb of derangement, and no one interfere. dear christian reader, i have put forth this appeal to let the christian world know that this knowledge is known upon the earth, and it is in the hands of the wicked. why is the public so silent upon the sufferings of a poor girl? if i had been taken by the uncivilized red man of the woods and not half so cruelly treated, the papers would have been full of it. if i had led a low, debasing life, and had been murdered like an ellen jewett, the public would have been roused and the papers would have been full of it from east to west, and from north to south; but a more horrid crime has been done. o! that a dagger _had been plunged_ into my heart _in the midnight hour_; it would have been but momentary suffering and then my immortal mind growing and expanding throughout the countless ages of eternity in the knowledge and wisdom of god. reader, you may be ready to throw it back upon me, saying it is derangement, i expect it; let me once have heard of such a thing and i don't know but i should have thought it derangement. but, christian reader, it is you and you only that can understand a part of my language, speaking about my spiritual life. all who formerly knew me, who see me now, say that some cruelty has been done to me. my old neighbors that knew me from a child, say that i am so altered they hardly know me. my old new hampton school mates that i have met with since i was taken out of the hospital, start back with surprise and say that they can hardly trace a look in me that i once had, and not a trait in my deportment that i once possessed. they say "that countenance that once was lit up with happiness is now marked with deep sorrow; those eyes that once sparkled with joy are now dead and sunken with grief, and the language, and the voice are so different that some destruction has come upon you;" and when i tell them what it is, my long imprisonment, sixteen months and twenty days, not allowed to see any one that i ever saw before, only three of my folks during the time, nor allowed to write; how my happiness is taken from me, my body racked and tortured, the distressed situation that i am in, they are bathed in tears. "o tell me not, elizabeth, that you are lost; you was once so happy in the love of god," and the deep loud sob bursts from their full hearts, "can this be elizabeth stone; can this crime be done and this cruelty practised here in the midst of us and covered up and nothing said about it?" is this the state of our country, that the rights of a poor female are trampled upon, and the laws of our country, where there has been so much blood spilt to work out the liberty of every free born son and daughter of america. and because i endeavor to make known to the world this crime, i am threatened with a second imprisonment, by my brother eben. if it is a crazy story surely it will do no harm, and if it is not, why had it not ought to come out. let a council of physicians be held upon my body and see if i am a person that can enjoy life. i think that minds that understand the organization of the human body and its functions will say that some outrage has been commited upon me. if i had lost my reason is it right to take the advantage of a crazy person and destroy happiness. charlestown mclean assylum is to a weak excited person as a grog-shop is to an intemperate man, or a house of ill-fame, to a licentious person; they can be completely ruined. i hope this will be looked into before another one is destroyed, and that those still remaining in that awful place of imprisonment, weeping their hours away, may be relieved by seeing their friends soon. may god awaken the mind of the public to the sufferings of the helpless. i am frequently asked the question, by those who hear of my sufferings, if i don't think i shall be happy after death. i will answer this here so every one may know what my dreadful situation is.--no! for reasons before stated. at the request of many of my friends, i have been examined by a magnetized somnambulist, and i am requested to state the result of the examination to the public. i was examined the first time by mr. fowler, the phrenologist, taking a lock of my hair to miss gleason. she stated that i had great distress in the back part of my head, my spinal marrow was dry; distress in my limbs, inclined to sit forwards; disagreable feeling at my stomach; nervous temperament; needed kind treatment, &c. the th of july i was examined again by miss gleason, being personally present. she was magnetized by mr. butrick, a stranger to me. i did not go into the room till after she was asleep. she stated about the same as she did the first time, but added that my brain looked dark; that i had been in such distress it was a wonder i had lived through it; and i still was in distress; my brain was drawn together and she clenched her hands together in order to convey the idea; she remarked upon my disposition, being very decided in my opinion; an enquiring mind, desiring to labor with my head rather than my hands, which had incensed my relations against me; and it would have been better for me if they had put me into the grave alive than carried me to the hospital. if i had never been carried there i should not have been as i am now; for the future i could not labor with my head. if i published my sufferings to the world it would not be believed because i could not now use language to express myself. she thought it would be investigated. july d, i was examined in public by mrs. pease, at the masonic hall, who was with mr. shattuck lecturing on magnetism. i was an entire stranger to them both. she stated that i was nervous, distressed in the back part of my head; that some powerful mineral medicine had been given to me, which had injured me; that i had been cruelly deceived. she described the medicine to be pills and a liquid, very dark and some colored resembling saffron; that it had injured my brain, and it never ought to have been given to me; and i had been injured by unkind treatment; my ambition led me to go beyond my strength in labor and reading, and _that_ medicine ought not to be given to any one, &c. many were present who had heard of my sufferings and were surprised to hear her tell it so exactly. may god bring to light this awful crime, for my sufferings do not end in this world, although the crime was done by others. in conclusion, before this work is attributed to insanity why will not the public demand an examination of the affairs and management of the mc'lean assylum, and see whether my charges be true or false. errata. in the th line first page, read "it" for "i." same page th line from the bottom, read "i" for "it." on th page, th and th lines, after "refused to obey him" read "for my teacher said without the mind was enlightened by the spirit of christ it was not prepared for knowledge." page th, d line, for "eliza dammus" read "caroline dammers." on th page, th line, read "david" instead of "daniel." on page d, th line, for "him" read "my mother." same page, th line, for "too" read "to come." same page, th line, for "noon" read "night." on th page, th line from bottom, for "non-spiritual" read "nor spiritual." on the th page, d line, read "from suffering, for matter cannot be annihilated; but i should to" &c. on th page, th line, instead of "and said they are," &c., read "and says the organs are," &c. same page, th line from the bottom, for "dr. fox," read "dr. bell." on st page, th line, for "dr. kay," read "dr. ray."