“Hello, father,” she said.
“Hello, my dear,” he turned to Vincintelli, “Come to my office immediately.”
“Yes, Professor Shafer.”
“When are you leaving, father?” asked Kay.
“At four.” He hardly seemed to see her and she made no effort to say goodbye; only her young brow wrinkled a little as she glanced at her watch and went on out.
Professor Shafer and Dr. Vincintelli went to the Professor’s office in the same building.
“I will be gone three or four days,” said Professor Shafer, “Here are some last points for you to note: Miss Katzenbaugh [says] she wants to leave and since she’s not committed we can’t stop her—until her sister arrives from New York detain her on one pretext or another. It is clear paranoid schizophrenia, but when they refuse to commit what can we do?” He shrugged his shoulders and glanced at his paper. “The patient Ahrens is suicidal; watch him closely and remove all small objects from his room. You cannot be too careful—remember the golf balls we found in Mr. Capes at the autopsy—also, I think we can regard Mrs. O’Brien as well and discharge her. Talk to her and write to her family.”
“Very well, Professor,” said Vincintelli writing busily.
“Move Carstairs to ‘the Cedars.’ When there is a full moon he meows at night and keeps people awake. Finally, here are some prescriptions and routine notes that will explain themselves. There—” he sat back in his chair, “I think that is all. Is there anything you would like to ask me?”
Vincintelli nodded thoughtfully.
“About the Woods brothers,” he said.
“You are always worried about the Woods brothers,” said Dr. Shafer impatiently. “It is not a case that permits of much interesting prognosis. Their progress has been steadily down-hill.”
Vincintelli nodded in agreement. “Today,” he said, “I tried bringing them over to lunch. It was a failure—the brother who imagines himself a train announcer was shouting when he left.”
Professor Shafer looked at his watch. “I must leave in ten minutes,” he said.
“Let me recapitulate,” said Vincintelli, “their history. The Woods brothers are rich and prosperous stockbrokers; the eldest, Wallace, breaks down on the day after the market crash in twenty-nine and is sent here with his pockets full of ticker-tape. He develops a mania for cutting off people’s hair, and we have trouble every time he gets hold of a pair of shears. There was the unfortunate incident of Mrs. Reynard’s wig—not to mention the time he tried to get at your facial hair with a nail scissors.”
The professor passed his hand uncomfortably through his beard.
“The second brother, Walter, was in charge of the Foreign Bond Department. He broke down after the revolutions in South America and came here with the delusion that he could speak nothing but Spanish. The third brother, John, who specialized in railroad securities, was all right until the fall of 1931 when he fainted one day and woke up under the impression that he was the train announcer in the Grand Central Station. There is also a fourth brother, Peter, who is quite sane, carrying on the business.”
Professor Shafer looked at his watch again. “That is all quite correct, Dr. Vincintelli, but really I must leave you. If there is any special change of treatment you would recommend for them, we can take it up on my return.”
He began tucking papers into his briefcase, while Vincintelli regarded him rather glumly.
“But Professor—”
“It seems to me that we should conserve our interest for cases more promising than those of the Woods brothers,” and with that Professor Shafer hurried out.
While Vincintelli still sat there, a moody dissatisfaction in his eyes, a small red light glowed on his desk and Miss Shafer came into the room. The doctor stood up.
“Is father gone?” Kay asked.
“You can still catch him, I think.”
“It doesn’t matter. I just want to report that the press is broken in the book-bindery.”
He stared at her with open admiration.
“To look at you,” he said, “it is hard to believe that you are a full-fledged doctor.”
“Do you mean that to be a compliment?” she asked indifferently.
“Yes, a compliment to your youth. To be a doctor—there could be no higher calling. But to be a psychiatrist—” A light of exaltation came into his eyes, “that is to be among the peers, the samurai of the profession. And when some day you will see arise the splendid towers of our Institute for Psychiatric Research, which will parallel the Rockefeller Institute—”
“I think,” said Kay Shafer slowly, “and have thought for some time, that you yourself are in the early stages of manic-depressive psychosis.” As he stared at her she continued, “And I think that I will soon develop symptoms myself if I don’t get out of here. I should think father would see I haven’t any gift for it.”
Kay was twenty-three, with a tall graceful form apparent even under her rather severe white dress. She had brown eyes with active light in them and a serious face shot through with sudden moods of amusement. She was serious today, though, as she continued.
“What may be a fine place for a neurotic young doctor with exalted ambitions may not be a fine place for a girl with an interesting nose.”
A month ago Vincintelli had asked her to marry him and she had refused him with confirmatory laughter. Instinct warned him that it was not yet time to try again, but he kept anxiously remembering her pose of flight by the window.
“That’s because you haven’t yet been able to view your work professionally,” he suggested in a don’t-worry-little-girl tone. “If you see someone badly afflicted it depresses you—a natural feeling in a layman but not suitable to a nerve specialist. They are merely cases—even their sufferings have a different quality than ours. They suffer perhaps more but not as normal human beings suffer. It’s like reading into a plodding horse the sensibilities of an educated person.”
“It seems much the same to me,” Kay admitted. “I know that father can’t agonize over every case he treats, but it has made him hard. I simply say with all humility that I’m not fitted for the work.”
He came over and stood beside her, even put his hand tentatively on her bare forearm, but immediately withdrew it as if he sensed some hardening of the pores.
“Let me help you, Kay. If your life was joined to—”
He was interrupted by a click from Professor Shafer’s desk as the red light came on. Impatiently he moved away from Kay and called “Come in.” It was the Professor’s secretary.
“Mr. Peter Woods is here from New York, doctor.”
“Mr. Peter Woods—oh, yes,” Vincintelli straightened up; his features relaxed their intensity and an expression of genial urbanity had settled on his face as Mr. Peter Woods came into the room.
He was a tall young man of about thirty, with pleasant mien and manner, and the rather harassed face of one who bore heavy responsibilities.
“Dr. Vincintelli?” he said, “I understand that Professor Shafer is away.”
“Come in, Mr. Woods—I’m very happy to meet you. I’m sorry the Professor’s gone, but since I’ve occupied myself particularly with your brothers I hope I’ll be a satisfactory substitute. In fact—”
Peter Woods collapsed suddenly into the armchair beside the desk.
“I haven’t come about my brothers, Dr. Vincintelli, I’ve come about myself.”
Dr. Vincintelli gave a start, and turned quickly to Kay.
“That will be all, Miss Shafer,” he said. “I will talk to Mr. Woods.”
Only then did Peter Woods notice that there was another person in the room, and seeing that a pretty girl had heard his avowal he winced. Meanwhile Kay was studying him—certainly he was the most attractive looking man she had met since leaving medical school, but she was examining more carefully the flexing of his hands, the muscles of his face, the set of his mouth, searching for the “tension” which in its medical sense is one of the danger si
gns of mental troubles.
“I will see Mr. Woods alone,” repeated Dr. Vincintelli.
“Very well.”
When she had left the room, Vincintelli, his features sympathetically composed, sank back into Professor Shafer’s arm chair and folded his hands.
“Now, Mr. Woods, let me hear about it.”
The young man drew a long breath, then he too sat back in his chair concentrating.
“As you may know, I’m the youngest member of the firm,” he began. “Perhaps because of that I am less inclined to worry than my brothers, but frankly the stock-market crash didn’t bother me much. We were so rich in 1929—I didn’t think anybody ought to be as rich as we were. As things got worse I felt like hell about it but still I didn’t feel like my brothers did—and when they collapsed, one by one, I couldn’t understand it. It didn’t seem justified by the circumstances.”
“Go on, go on,” said Dr. Vincintelli, “I understand.”
“What bothered me personally was not the hard times—it was my brothers. Ever since Walter broke down a year ago I’ve lived with the idea that there was hereditary mental trouble in the family and it might hit me. That was all until last week.”
He drew a long breath.
“I came home from work last Friday to the penthouse where I live alone at 85th Street. I had been working very hard—I’d been up all night the night before, smoking a lot. As I opened the door on all that big silence I felt suddenly that the time had come—I was going insane.”
“Tell me all about it,” Dr. Vincintelli leaned forward in his chair. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“Well—I saw—I saw—”
“Yes,” said Dr. Vincintelli eagerly.
“I saw rings and circles before my eyes, revolving and revolving like suns and moons of all colors.”
Dr. Vincintelli sank back in his chair.
“Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” asked Peter Woods. “I’d never seen anything like that before.”
“No voices?” demanded Dr. Vincintelli, “No buzzing in your head?”
“Well, yes,” admitted Peter, “some buzzing, like a hangover.”
“No headaches? No feeling that maybe you weren’t who you thought you were? No feeling that you wanted to kill yourself? No terrible fears?”
“Well, I can’t say I had any of those—except the last—I had a terrible fear that I was going to go crazy.”
“I see,” said Dr. Vincintelli, pressing his fingers together. There was a moment’s silence—then he spoke up in a crisp decided voice. “Mr. Woods, the wisest thing you ever did in your life was to come voluntarily and put yourself under our care. You are a pretty sick man.”
“My God,” groaned Peter Woods, “Do you mean I may be like my brothers?”
“No,” said Dr. Vincintelli emphatically, “because in your case we’re going to catch it in time.”
Peter Woods buried his face in his hands.
***
It was the custom for such patients as were not under restraint to dine rather formally with the staff at a long table in the pleasant dining room—when they sat down Kay Shafer found herself sitting opposite Mr. Peter Woods.
Over the whole assemblage brooded a certain melancholy. The doctors kept up a sort of chatter, but most of the patients, as if exhausted by their day’s endeavor or depressed by their surroundings, said little but concentrated on their food or stared down into their plates. It was the business of Kay as of the other doctors to dissipate as much of this atmosphere as possible.
As she sat down she smiled and spoke to Peter Woods and he looked at her with a rather startled expression. After a minute he addressed a casual remark about the weather to Mr. Hughes, the patient sitting on his left, but receiving no answer he lowered his eyes and made no further attempt at conversation. After a minute Mr. Hughes spoke up suddenly.
“The last one to finish his soup,” he said, “is a rotten egg.”
No one laughed or seemed to have heard. The cadaverous woman on Peter Woods’ right addressed him.
“Did you just arrive?”
“Yes.”
“Do you play polo?” she asked.
“Why, a little.”
“We must play soon—perhaps tomorrow.”
“Why, thank you very much,” he said, looking surprised.
The woman leaned toward him suddenly.
“My heavens, this fish!”
Peter Woods looked down at his plate; there seemed nothing the matter with the fish.
“Why, it seems very nice.”
“Nice?” She shook her gaunt head. “Well, if you think it’s nice all I can say is you must be crazy.”
Kay saw him wince, look again at the fish, poke it reticently with his fork, even inhale it unobtrusively as if he thought his own judgment had become fallible.
Mr. Hughes spoke up again.
“The last one who finishes—” but Kay felt that this had gone far enough. She leaned forward and said to Peter Woods in a clear crisp voice that cut across Mr. Hughes’ remark:
“Do you know New Hampshire, Mr. Woods?”
“I’ve never been here before,” he answered.
“There are some fine walks and climbs around here with beautiful views,” Kay said.
“Dullest scenery in North America,” muttered the horsewoman, sotto voce.
Kay continued her conversation until Mr. Hughes interrupted.
“As a matter of fact I am a doctor,” he said irrelevantly, “one of the best doctors in the country.” He cast a look of jealousy at Dr. Vincintelli at the head of the table. “I wish they’d let me take charge of this place for about a week. I had a clinic of my own that makes this one look like a poor-house.”
He stared at his plate sadly.
“What was the matter?” Peter Woods asked with an effort. “Did it fail?”
“It failed,” said the doctor despondently, “Everything failed. I had to come here.”
“That was too bad.”
“Yes,” agreed the doctor absently, and then, “And I know why it failed.”
“Why?”
“Plot—I had powerful enemies. What do you suppose they used?”
“What?” asked Peter Woods.
“Mice. Filled the whole place with mice. Mice everywhere. Why, I used to see mice—”
Again Kay interrupted him.
“Now, Doctor Hughes, mustn’t tell Mr. Woods about that right now.”
The man sunk his voice to a whisper but Kay heard.
“She hates me,” he said. “Can’t stand it if I talk about mice.”
“Like horses?” the woman patient asked Peter Woods.
“Yes, I do.”
“Rode all my life but was thrown from a horse three years ago.” She hesitated. “But still keep my own stable. Only six now—three hunters that you’ll like. Show them to you tomorrow.”
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of moving chairs. Dr. Vincintelli rose and the table rose with him. Kay drew a long breath of relief. She had, to a certain extent, adjusted herself to the irrationalities and delusions of the patients, but tonight had been difficult and she had seemed to see it all through the eyes of the newest arrival. She liked him—she hoped that his brothers’ fate was not going to overtake him. It was all very depressing and it strengthened her desire to get away.
About nine-thirty when the patients had retired and she was starting across the grounds to her home, Dr. Vincintelli called after her and caught up with her.
“What did you make of Woods?” he asked. “I purposely placed him opposite you.”
Kay considered.
“Why, I can’t say I noticed anything. He seemed rather tired and rather embarrassed. Mr. Hughes and Miss Holliday were particularly annoying and absurd and after dinner that alcoholic Chetwind kept asking him how he’d like a highball.”
“I suppose they were showing off for a newcomer.”
“Well, it was a nuisance,
” Kay said.
The doctor was silent for a minute.
“It’s a much more serious case than it appears,” he said suddenly.
“Do you think so?” she asked, rather anxiously.
“I talked to him a long while this afternoon. Already he has certain delusions. He will follow the same course toward paranoid dementia that his brothers followed. He’s already receding from reality.” His tone changed, became almost elated. “But it’s wasteful to talk shop on a night like this.”
She was so absorbed in the tragedy of Peter Woods that she hardly knew when he took her arm—realized it only when he said her name in a tender voice. Then she broke sharply away from him.
“Kay, I want to tell you—”
“Be quiet!” she cried. “Even if I cared for you, which I don’t, I’d scarcely be in a receptive humor just after hearing a thing like this.”
“But can’t you make your work and your personal life into two separate—”
“I can’t become a monster overnight. Excuse me, I want to be alone.”
She ran on suddenly and left him standing there. Her eyes were full of tears for the unpreventable sadness in the world.
II
My schedule, thought Kay next morning, reads like a debutante’s date list—“see the dancing teacher—see the portrait painter—see the milliner”—except that the dancing teacher, the portrait painter and the milliner are no longer practicing their professions.
For a moment, standing by the summer window, she forgot them all and the same vague nostalgia for something she had never known had rushed over her. She wanted to be in a boat going to the South Seas, in a town car going to a ball—in an aeroplane going to the North Pole. She wanted to stand in a shop full of utterly useless and highly ornamental jim-cracks—ivory elephants—Algerian bracelets, ear rings, yes and nose rings—and say, “I’ll take this, I’ll take this, I’ll take this.” She wanted to buy out the cosmetics department of a drug store, and talk about trivialities to men who would think of her as decorative rather than competent.
Instead she had to see Mr. Kirkjohn the dancing teacher. Mr. Kirkjohn was a pleasant man in many respects—his only fault was his ambition. Mr. Kirkjohn wanted to go to Paris and walk down from the Arc de Triomphe to the Café de la Paix. A harmless enough aim in itself, but during his stroll Mr. Kirkjohn wanted to be entirely unclothed. Failing Paris, Mr. Kirkjohn wanted to be entirely unclothed wherever he was—unless he was alone, when he did not care. Kay’s visits to him were short and unfrequent, for no sooner did he see her than he reached for his tie.
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