Alias Grace

by Margaret Atwood

  I can't say that I am afraid of him yet. It's too early to tell; too early to tell what he wants. No one comes to see me here unless they want something.

  I would like him to say what kind of a doctor he is if he's not the usual kind, but instead he says, I am from Massachusetts. Or that is where I was born. I have travelled a good deal since then. I have been going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. And he looks at me, to see if I understand.

  I know it is the Book of Job, before Job gets the boils and running sores, and the whirlwinds. It's what Satan says to God. He must mean that he has come to test me, although he's too late for that, as God has done a great deal of testing of me already, and you would think he would be tired of it by now.

  But I don't say this. I look at him stupidly. I have a good stupid look which I have practised.

  I say, Have you been to France? That is where all the fashions come from.

  I see I have disappointed him. Yes, he says. And to England, and also to Italy, and to Germany and Switzerland as well.

  It is very odd to be standing in a locked room in the Penitentiary, speaking with a strange man about France and Italy and Germany. A travelling man. He must be a wanderer, like Jeremiah the peddler. But Jeremiah travelled to earn his bread, and these other sorts of men are rich enough already. They go on voyages because they are curious. They amble around the world and stare at things, they sail across the ocean as if there's nothing to it at all, and if it goes ill with them in one place they simply pick up and move along to another.

  But now it's my turn to say something. I say, I don't know how you manage, Sir, amongst all the foreigners, you never know what they are saying. When the poor things first come here they gabble away like geese, although the children can soon speak well enough.

  This is true, as children of any kind are very quick to learn.

  He smiles, and then he does a strange thing. He puts his left hand into his pocket and pulls out an apple. He walks over to me slowly, holding the apple out in front of him like someone holding out a bone to a dangerous dog, in order to win it over.

  This is for you, he says.

  I am so thirsty the apple looks to me like a big round drop of water, cool and red. I could drink it down in one gulp. I hesitate; but then I think, There's nothing bad in an apple, and so I take it. I haven't had an apple of my own for a long time. This apple must be from last autumn, kept in a barrel in the cellar, but it seems fresh enough.

  I am not a dog, I say to him.

  Most people would ask me what I mean by saying that, but he laughs. His laugh is just one breath, Hah, as if he's found a thing he has lost; and he says, No, Grace, I can see you are not a dog.

  What is he thinking? I stand holding the apple in both hands. It feels precious, like a heavy treasure. I lift it up and smell it. It has such an odour of outdoors on it I want to cry.

  Aren't you going to eat it, he says.

  No, not yet, I say.

  Why not, he says.

  Because then it would be gone, I say.

  The truth is I don't want him watching me while I eat. I don't want him to see my hunger. If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything.

  He gives his one laugh. Can you tell me what it is, he says.

  I look at him, then look away. An apple, I say. He must think I am simple; or else it's a trick of some sort; or else he is mad and that is why they locked the door - they've locked me into this room with a madman. But men who are dressed in clothes like his cannot be mad, especially the gold watch-chain - his relatives or else his keepers would have it off him in a trice if so.

  He smiles his lopsided smile. What does Apple make you think of? he says.

  I beg your pardon, Sir, I say. I do not understand you.

  It must be a riddle. I think of Mary Whitney, and the apple peelings we threw over our shoulders that night, to see who we would marry. But I will not tell him that.

  I think you understand well enough, he says.

  My sampler, I say.

  Now it is his turn to know nothing. Your what? he says.

  My sampler that I stitched as a child, I say. A is for Apple, B is for Bee.

  Oh yes, he says. But what else?

  I give my stupid look. Apple pie, I say.

  Ah, he says. Something you eat.

  Well I should hope you would, Sir, I say. That's what an apple pie is for.

  And is there any kind of apple you should not eat? he says.

  A rotten one, I suppose, I say.

  He's playing a guessing game, like Dr. Bannerling at the Asylum. There is always a right answer, which is right because it is the one they want, and you can tell by their faces whether you have guessed what it is; although with Dr. Bannerling all of the answers were wrong. Or perhaps he is a Doctor of Divinity; they are the other ones prone to this kind of questioning. I have had enough of them to last me for a long while.

  The apple of the Tree of Knowledge, is what he means. Good and evil. Any child could guess it. But I will not oblige.

  I go back to my stupid look. Are you a preacher? I say.

  No, he says, I am not a preacher. I am a doctor who works not with bodies, but with minds. Diseases of the mind and brain, and the nerves.

  I put my hands with the apple behind my back. I do not trust him at all. No, I say. I won't go back there. Not to the Asylum. Flesh and blood cannot stand it.

  Don't be afraid, he says. You aren't mad, really, are you Grace?

  No Sir I am not, I say.

  Then there is no reason for you to go back to the Asylum, is there?

  They don't listen to reason there, Sir, I say.

  Well that is what I am here for, he says. I am here to listen to reason. But if I am to listen to you, you will have to talk to me.

  I see what he's after. He is a collector. He thinks all he has to do is give me an apple, and then he can collect me. Perhaps he is from a newspaper. Or else he is a travelling man, making a tour. They come in and they stare, and when they look at you, you feel as small as an ant, and they pick you up between finger and thumb and turn you around. And then they set you down and go away.

  You won't believe me, Sir, I say. Anyway it's all been decided, the trial is long over and done with and what I say will not change anything. You should ask the lawyers and the judges, and the newspaper men, they seem to know my story better than I do myself. In any case I can't remember, I can remember other things but I have lost that part of my memory entirely. They must have told you that.

  I would like to help you, Grace, he says.

  That is how they get in through the door. Help is what they offer but gratitude is what they want, they roll around in it like cats in the catnip. He wishes to go home and say to himself, I stuck in my thumb and pulled out the plum, what a good boy am I. But I will not be anybody's plum. I say nothing.

  If you will try to talk, he continues, I will try to listen. My interest is purely scientific. It is not only the murders that should concern us. He's using a kind voice, kind on the surface but with other desires hidden beneath it.

  Perhaps I will tell you lies, I say.

  He doesn't say, Grace what a wicked suggestion, you have a sinful imagination. He says, Perhaps you will. Perhaps you will tell lies without meaning to, and perhaps you will also tell them deliberately. Perhaps you are a liar.

  I look at him. There are those who have said I am one, I say.

  We will just have to take that chance, he says.

  I look down at the floor. Will they take me back to the Asylum? I say. Or will they put me in solitary confinement, with nothing to eat but bread?

  He says, I give you my word that as long as you continue to talk with me, and do not lose control of yourself and become violent, you shall remain as you were. I have the Governor's promise.

  I look at him. I look away. I look at him again. I hold the apple in my two hands. He waits.

  Fin
ally I lift the apple up and press it to my forehead.

  IV.

  YOUNG MAN'S FANCY

  Among these raving maniacs I recognised the singular face of Grace Marks - no longer sad and despairing, but lighted up with the fire of insanity, and glowing with a hideous and fiend-like merriment. On perceiving that strangers were observing her, she fled shrieking away like a phantom into one of the side rooms. It appears that even in the wildest bursts of her terrible malady, she is continually haunted by a memory of the past. Unhappy girl! When will the long horror of her punishment and remorse be over? When will she sit at the feet of Jesus, clothed with the unsullied garments of his righteousness, the stain of blood washed from her hand, and her soul redeemed, and pardoned, and in her right mind? ...

  Let us hope that all her previous guilt may be attributed to the incipient workings of this frightful malady.

  - Susanna Moodie,

  Life in the Clearings, 1853.

  It is of the greatest regret that we do not have the knowledge whereby we might cure these unfortunate afflicted. A surgeon can cut open an abdomen and display the spleen. Muscles can be cut out and shown to young students. The human psyche cannot be dissected nor the brain's workings put out on the table to display.

  When a child, I have played games with a blindfold obscuring my vision. Now I am like that child. Blindfolded, groping my way, not knowing where I am going, or if I am in the proper direction. Someday, someone will remove that blindfold.

  - Dr. Joseph Workman,

  Medical Superintendent,

  Provincial Lunatic Asylum, Toronto;

  Letter to "Henry," a young and troubled

  enquirer, 1866.

  One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted -

  One need not be a House -

  The Brain has Corridors - surpassing -

  Material Place -

  ...

  Ourself behind ourself, concealed -

  Should startle most -

  Assassin hid in our Apartment

  Be Horror's least....

  - Emily Dickinson, c. 1863.

  6.

  To Dr. Simon Jordan, M.D., Laburnum House, Loomisville,

  Massachusetts, The United States of America; from Dr. Joseph

  Workman, Medical Superintendent, The Provincial Lunatic

  Asylum, Toronto, Canada West.

  April 15th, 1859.

  Dear Dr. Jordan:

  I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 2nd Inst. and to thank you for the Letter of Introduction from my esteemed colleague, Dr. Binswanger of Switzerland; the establishment of whose new Clinic I have followed with great interest. Permit me to say, that as an acquaintance of Dr. Binswanger, you would be most welcome to inspect the Institution of which I am the Superintendent, at any time. I would be most pleased to show you over the premises myself, and to explain our methods to you.

  As you intend to establish an institution of your own, I should emphasize that sanitation and good drainage are of the first importance, as it is of no use to attempt to minister to a mind diseased, whilst the body is afflicted by infections. This side of things is too often neglected. At the time of my advent here, we had many Cholera outbreaks, perforating Dysentries, intractable Diarrhoeas, and the whole deadly Typhoid family, which were plaguing the Asylum. In the course of my investigations as to their source, I discovered a large and exceedingly noxious cesspool underlying every part of the cellars, in some places the consistency of a strong infusion of black tea, and in others like viscid soft soap, which was undrained due to the failure of the builders to connect the drains to the main sewer; in addition to which, the water supply for both drinking and washing was drawn through an intake pipe from the lake, in a stagnant bay, close by the pipe through which the main sewer discharged its putrid flow. It is no wonder that the inmates often complained that their drinking water tasted of a substance which few among them had ever experienced any great longing to consume!

  The inmates here are pretty evenly divided as to sex; as to symptoms, there is a great variety. Religious fanaticism I find to be fully as prolific an exciting cause of insanity as intemperance - but I am inclined to believe that neither religion nor intemperance will induce insanity in a truly sound mind - I think there is always a predisposing cause which renders the individual liable to the malady, when exposed to any disturbing agency, whether mental or physical.

  However, for information regarding the chief object of your enquiry, I regret that you must seek elsewhere. The female prisoner, Grace Marks, whose crime was murder, was returned to the Penitentiary at Kingston in August of 1853, after a stay of fifteen months. As I myself was appointed only some three weeks prior to her departure, I had little chance of making a thorough study of her case. I have therefore referred your letter to Dr. Samuel Bannerling, who attended her under my predecessor. As to the degree of insanity by which she was primarily affected, I am unable to speak. It was my impression that for a considerable time past she had been sufficiently sane to warrant her removal from the Asylum. I strongly recommended that in her discipline, gentle treatment should be adopted; and I believe she presently spends a part of each day as a servant in the Governor's family. She had, towards the latter end of her stay, conducted herself with much propriety; whilst by her industry and general kindness towards the patients, she was found a profitable and useful inmate of the house. She suffers occasionally under nervous excitement, and a painful overaction of the heart.

  One of the chief problems facing the superintendent of a publicly funded institution such as this, is the tendency on the part of prison authorities to refer to us many troublesome criminals, among them atrocious murderers, burglars and thieves, who do not belong among the innocent and uncontaminated insane, simply to have them out of the prison. It is impossible that a building constructed with a proper reference to the comfort and the recovery of the insane, can be a place of confinement for criminal lunatics; and certainly much less so for criminal impostors; and I am strongly inclined to suspect that the latter class are more numerous than may generally be supposed. Besides the evil consequences inevitably resulting to the patients from the commingling of innocent with criminal lunatics, there is reason to apprehend a deteriorating influence on the tempers and habits of the Keepers and Officers of the Asylum, unfitting them for the humane and proper treatment of the former.

  But as you propose to establish a private institution, you will, I trust, incur fewer difficulties of this nature, and will suffer less from the irritating political interference that frequently prevents their rectification; and in this, as in general matters, I wish you every success in your endeavours. Enterprises such as yours are unfortunately much required at present, both in our own country and in yours, as, due to the increased anxieties of modern life and the consequent stresses upon the nerves, the rate of construction can scarcely keep pace with the numbers of applicants; and I beg to proffer any small assistance, which it may lie within my power to bestow.

  Yours very truly,

  Joseph Workman, M.D.

  From Mrs. William P. Jordan, Laburnum House, Loomisville,

  Massachusetts, The United States of America; to Dr. Simon

  Jordan, care of Major C. D. Humphrey, Lower Union Street,

  Kingston, Canada West.

  April 29th, 1859.

  My Dearest Son:

  Your long-awaited note containing your present address and the instructions for the Rheumatism Salve arrived today. It was a joy to see your dear handwriting again, even so little of it, and it is good of you to take an interest in your poor Mother's failing constitution.

  I take this opportunity to write you a few lines, while enclosing the letter which arrived here for you the day after your departure. Your recent visit to us was all too brief - when may we expect to see you among your family and friends once more? So much travelling cannot be salutary, either for your peace of mind, or for your health. I long for the day when you choose to settle down among us, and to establ
ish yourself properly, in a manner fitting to you.

  I could not help but observe, that the enclosed letter is from the Lunatic Asylum in Toronto. I suppose you intend to visit it, although surely you must have seen every such establishment in the world by now and cannot possibly benefit from seeing another. Your description of those in France and England, and even of the one in Switzerland, which is so much cleaner, filled me with horror. We must all pray to have our sanity preserved; but I have grave doubts concerning your future prospects, should your proposed course of action be pursued. You must forgive me for saying, dear Son, that I have never been able to understand the interest you take in such things. No one in the Family has ever concerned himself with Lunatics before, although your Grandfather was a Quaker clergyman. It is commendable to wish to relieve human suffering, but surely the insane, like idiots and cripples, owe their state to Almighty Providence, and one should not attempt to reverse decisions which are certainly just, although inscrutable to us.

  In addition, I cannot believe a private Asylum could possibly be made to pay, as the relatives of Lunatics are notoriously neglectful once the afflicted person has been put away, and wish to hear or see nothing more of them; and this neglect extends to the settlement of their bills; and then there is the cost of food and fuel, and of the persons who must be put in charge of them. There are so many considerations to attend to, and surely the daily consorting with the insane would be far from conducive to a tranquil existence. You must think too of your future wife and children, who ought not to be placed in such close proximity to a pack of dangerous madmen.

  I know it is not my place to determine your path in life, but I strongly urge that a manufactury would be far preferable, and although the textile mills are not what they were, due to the mismanagement of the politicians, who abuse the public trust unmercifully and become worse with every passing year; yet there are many other opportunities at present, and some men have done very well at them, as you hear of new fortunes being made every day; and I am sure you have as much energy and sagacity as they. There is talk of a new Sewing Machine for use in the home, which would do exceedingly well if it might be cheaply produced; for every woman would wish to own such an item, which would save many hours of monotonous toil and unceasing drudgery, and would also be of great assistance to the poor seamstresses. Could you not invest the small inheritance remaining to you after the sale of your poor Father's business, in some such admirable but dependable venture? I am certain that a Sewing Machine would relieve as much human suffering as a hundred Lunatic Asylums, and possibly a good deal more.