"Where have you been all day? I was worried about you," Teddy continued. Teddy, all five-feet-ten of her, with broad shoulders, wide hips, and very small bust, was always a dominating figure, forever playing mother. Peggy couldn't see how Sybil could stand her. Peggy knew that Teddy was on tenterhooks to have a blow-by-blow description of Sybil's day. Well, it hadn't been Sybil's day, and Peggy had no intention of telling about it.
"Glad to see you, Dorsett," Laura Hotchkins said as she came up and joined them. "You said you weren't coming. I'm glad you were able to." Laura was another of Sybil's friends. Again Peggy kept her own counsel.
Teddy, Laura, and several other girls had clustered around Dorsett, all talking about Professor Klinger. All at once Dorsett took hold of a crayon pencil that was in her purse, pointed it against the wall and began, in an affected voice: "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you have to listen closely if you're going to listen at all. Art is in the great tradition of human experience, and unless you give it your undeevided attention, you are insulting the muse." The girls began to giggle. Peggy, making two large holes in a paper napkin, converted it into simulated eyeglasses, which she put on the edge of her nose. She squinted and said, "Sculpture is probably the oldest of the arts. As you know from other courses, its technical beginnings go back to the first prehistoric man who chipped an arrow head or carved a club or spear. As you also know, the relative permanence of stone, baked clay, or metal is, of course, a major factor in our dependence upon sculpture and inscriptions upon stone or clay as conveyors of historical record.
"In the long run, however, other kinds of written records finally undermined sculpture's supremacy and made painting of all kinds, at least in the West, the art having the widest use and popular appeal. And that is why I want you to concentrate on painting as if it is the most important thing in the world. Perhaps it is. But I mean the painting of Rubens, of Rembrandt, of the other masters. I don't mean the silly utterances of Picasso and other contemporaries. They're cheeldren prating in the cradle, babbling nothings that aren't so sweet. What they call experimentation is an excuse for empt-EE-NESS.
"Now, Miss Dorsett, you're a serious woman with great talent. Why must you paint in this seely tradition?"
Laura Hotchkins's giggle turned into an unrestrained laugh. Teddy guffawed.
Peggy went on, bringing the house down. What had started as a performance for a few had become a show for everybody. Her imitation of Professor Klinger became the high point of the evening. Amid applause, Peggy removed her simulated eyeglasses with great deliberateness, returned her pencil crayon to her purse, took several bows, and made a grand exit from the room.
It was a different Peggy who saw Dr. Wilbur two days later on Christmas day--a Peggy silent about the trip to Elizabeth and her triumph at the college social, a Peggy who in a low whisper iterated and reiterated: "The people, the people, the people."
"What people?" asked Dr. Wilbur, who was sitting beside Peggy on the couch.
"People? Yes, there are people," Peggy replied ominously. "They're waitin' for me."
"What are their names?"
"The glass," said Peggy, ignoring the question. "I can see the glass. I'm goin' to break the glass--and get away. I'm goin' to get away from it! I don't want to stay. I won't. I won't!"
"Get away from what?" Dr. Wilbur asked.
"The pain. It hurts," Peggy whispered. She began to sob.
"What hurts?"
"It hurts. It hurts. My head hurts. My throat hurts."
The words of agony poured forth. Then came the angry accusation: "You don't want me to get away." Growing defiant, she warned: "I'm goin' to break the glass and get away even if you don't want me to."
"Why don't you go through the door? Go on. Just open it."
"I can't," Peggy screamed. She pulled herself up from the couch and began pacing like a trapped, hunted animal.
"But you can," the doctor insisted. "It's right there. Go and open it!"
"I want to get out! I want to get out!" Peggy continued with sustained terror.
"All right. Just turn the knob and open the door!"
"No, I'm goin' to stay right here by the white house with black shutters and the doors with steps leadin' to it and the garage." Suddenly calm, Peggy said, "My daddy's car is in the garage."
"Where are you? In Willow Corners?" the doctor asked.
"I won't tell! I won't tell," Peggy chanted.
"Can you tell Dr. Wilbur?"
"Yes."
"Then will you tell Dr. Wilbur?"
"Yes."
"Then go ahead. Tell Dr. Wilbur!"
"Dr. Wilbur went away," was Peggy's wi/l reply.
"Dr. Wilbur is right here."
"No, she went away and left us in Omaha," Peggy insisted. "You're not Dr. Wilbur. Don't you know you're not? I've got to find her." The calm evaporated. Hysteria returned. Peggy pleaded, "Let me out!"
The plea seemed to have no relation to the particular room or the special moment. It was a plea rising from the past that for her was present, a past that reached out to her, encircled her, and kept her captive.
"Open the door," the doctor said firmly. "I can't get through the door. I'll never get through. Never."
"Is the door locked?"
"I can't get through." It was the whine of a hurt, lost child. "I've got to get out of here."
"Out of where, Peggy?"
"Out of wherever I am. I don't like the people, the places, or anything. I want to get out."
"What people? What places?"
"The people and the music." Peggy was breathless.
"The people and the music. The music goes round and round and round. You can see all the people. I don't like the people, the places, or anything. I want to get out. Oh, let me out! Please. Please!"
"Just turn the knob and open the door."
"No. I can't." Peggy's fury was suddenly directed at the doctor. "Why won't you understand?"
"Why don't you try? You haven't even tried. Why don't you turn around and open it?" the doctor insisted.
"It's got a door knob, and it won't turn. Can't you see that?"
"Try it."
"It's no use to try." There was momentary relaxation, but it was the relaxation of resignation, of doomed acceptance. "They won't let me do anything. They think I'm no good and that I'm funny and my hands are funny. Nobody likes me."
"I like you, Peggy."
"Oh, they won't let me do anything. It hurts. It hurts bad." Peggy was sobbing. "The people don't care."
"Dr. Wilbur cares. She asks you what's on your mind."
"Nobody cares," Peggy replied defiantly. "And the hands hurt."
"Your hands?"
"No, other hands. Hands comin' at you. Hands that hurt!"
"Whose hands?"
"I won't tell." Again there was that childlike chant. "I don't have to tell if I don't want to."
"What else hurts?"
"Music hurts." Peggy was speaking again in a low, breathy whisper. "The people and the music."
"What music? Why?"
"I won't tell."
Gently, Dr. Wilbur put her arm around Peggy and helped her back to the couch.
Moved, Peggy confided softly, "You see, nobody cares. And you can't talk to anybody. And you don't belong anywhere." There was a tranquil pause. Peggy then said: "I can see the trees, the house, the school. I can see the garage. I want to get into the garage. Then it would be all right. Then it wouldn't hurt so much. Then there wouldn't be so much pain."
"Why?"
"It hurts because you're not good enough."
"Why aren't you good enough? Tell Dr. Wilbur some more about how it hurts and what's the matter."
"Nobody loves me. And I want somebody to care a little bit. And you can't love somebody when they don't care."
"Go on. Tell Dr. Wilbur what the trouble is."
"I want somebody to love, and I want somebody to love me. And nobody ever will. And that's why it hurts. Because it makes a difference. And when n
obody cares, it makes you all mad inside and it makes you want to say things, tear up things, break things, get through the glass."
Suddenly Peggy grew silent. Then Peggy disappeared. Seated where Peggy had been was Sybil.
"I had another fugue?" Sybil asked as she quickly drew away from the doctor. She was frightened, anxious.
The doctor nodded.
"Well, it wasn't as bad as the last time," Sybil reassured herself as she looked around the room and saw nothing out of place, nothing broken.
"You mentioned music to me once, Sybil," the doctor replied in an effort to discover what Sybil knew about what Peggy had said. "Why don't you tell me a little more about it?"
"Well," Sybil replied with composure, "I took piano lessons, and Mrs. Moore, my piano teacher, used to say, "You have all the native ability. You have a good ear, nice hands. Your fingering is good. But you must practice more. You can do all this without practicing. What would you do if you did practice?"' But I didn't practice. And I didn't tell her that I didn't because mother was overcritical. Whenever I made a mistake while practicing, mother would holler, "That's not right. That's not right." I couldn't stand it, so I didn't practice when mother was around. But the minute she left the house, I'd drop whatever I was doing and dash to the piano. I could always work things out at the piano. If I didn't have that, the tension would have gotten me long before it did. When I started teaching, the first thing I bought was a piano."
"Umm," Dr. Wilbur replied. "Tell me, do you have any special feelings about glass?"
"Glass," Sybil echoed thoughtfully. "Mother had some lovely crystal. So did my grandmother. Both grandmothers, in fact--Grandma Dorsett and Grandma Anderson. Oh, I remember something. When I was about six, we were visiting the Andersons in Elderville, Illinois.
We went there for three weeks every summer until Grandma Anderson died. Well, this time my cousin Lulu and I were drying the dishes. She hurled a lovely crystal pickle dish through the French doors. She was a real brat. And then she told my grandmother and my mother and everybody else that I did it, that I broke the crystal dish. It wasn't fair. But I didn't say anything, just took it. My mother let me have it, but good."
"I see," said Dr. Wilbur. "Now tell me whether hands disturb you."
"Hands? Well, not particularly. My own hands are small and thin. My mother didn't think they were very attractive. She often said so."
"Did hands ever come at you? Someone else's hands?"
"Hands coming? I don't know what you mean." It was apparent that Sybil's discomfort suddenly was greatly intensified.
"I see," said the doctor. "Another question: does the sight of blood disturb you?"
"Well, yes. But doesn't it bother everybody? Grandma Dorsett had cancer of the cervix and bled. I saw that. And when I started to menstruate, I wondered about the blood like most girls. There's nothing very unusual about that."
"But tell me, did you ever see other blood as a child? The blood of a playmate perhaps?"
Sybil sat back and thought. "Well, let's see. Tommy Ewald. His father had a barn and kept horses. Tommy was his mother's favorite child. He died in the hayloft. We were playing. It was an accident. A gun went off. That's all I remember. There could have been blood in the hayloft. I haven't thought about Tommy in many years."
By February, 1955, the doctor was ready to tell Sybil about Peggy, who remembered what she had forgotten. There was no point in procrastinating any longer. But while the words were forming on the doctor's lips, Sybil's face went white, the pupils of her eyes became dilated even more than usual, and in a strained, unnatural voice she asked, "How do you know these things?" Wanting to tell her about her other self, the doctor could sense that she had become that self.
"Hi," Peggy said.
"Hi, dear," said the doctor.
"I'm goin' out now," Peggy told the doctor. "Right through the door. A long time ago Dr. Wilbur said I could."
And Peggy walked through the door that only minutes ago had been impenetrable, the tangible symbol of her captivity.
Dr. Wilbur, feeling that the diagnosis of dual personality had been confirmed beyond a shadow of doubt, could not take her mind off this unusual case. Peggy and Sybil, although existing in the same body, had different memories, different moods, different attitudes, different experiences. The experiences that they shared were perceived differently. Their voices, their diction, and their vocabularies were different. They presented themselves in different ways. Even their ages were different. Sybil was thirty-one, but Peggy ... the doctor couldn't decide whether Peggy was a precocious child or an immature adult. Peggy was unself-conscious in a little-girl way, not easily embarrassed. Instead, she got mad. Instead of being like Sybil, circuitous, she gave vent to undisguised terror. And unmistakably Peggy carried some terrible burden that Sybil refused to face.
Dr. Wilbur's mind teemed with speculations, insistent but inconclusive. She had never treated a dual personality. She would have to treat the disturbance as she would any other case. First you get to the roots of the disturbance; then you proceed from there.
The immediate problem was to tell Sybil about the diagnosis, a task more difficult than the doctor had first realized. When a situation arose with which Sybil was unable to cope, she seemed to let Peggy take over. To tell Sybil about Peggy would be to invite a dissociation that would bring Peggy back.
The evasions were so effective that the problem remained unresolved until March, 1955. At that time, however, an event took place that, changing the diagnosis, made Dr. Wilbur glad that she had not yet told Sybil.
6
Victoria Antoinette Scharleau
March 16, 1955. Dr. Wilbur took a moment between appointments to replace her pussy willows with the new spring flowers, anemones and jonquils, that she had just bought. Then, wondering whether it was Sybil or Peggy who was waiting, she opened the door to the anteroom.
The patient, sitting quietly, was absorbed in the pages of The New Yorker. When she saw the doctor, she got up at once, smiled, walked toward her, and said warmly, "Good morning, Dr. Wilbur."
It isn't Peggy, the doctor thought. Peggy doesn't sit still. Peggy doesn't read. Peggy's voice doesn't have that cultivated tone. It has to be Sybil. But never before has Sybil spoken to me before I have addressed her. Never has she smiled in this spontaneous way.
"How are you today?" the doctor asked. "I'm fine," was the reply. "But Sybil isn't. She was so sick she couldn't come. So I came instead."
For an instant the doctor was stunned. But for an instant only. The strange juxtaposition of "she" and "I" only reaffirmed her already dawning suspicions. I'm surprised, Dr.
Wilbur reflected, but why should I be? There were more than two personalities in the Christine Beauchamp case, which Dr. Morton Prince treated and about which he wrote. But then, he too, had been surprised. In fact, he had been astonished when he had found more than one. I suppose this comes as a surprise to every doctor, Dr. Wilbur reflected.
All this was running through Dr. Wilbur's mind at top speed while this new "I" was saying: "I must apologize for Sybil. She wanted to come, but couldn't get dressed, though she tried and tried. I watched her last night as she took out the navy blue skirt and the twin blue sweaters that she planned to wear here this morning. Last night she had every intention of coming, but this morning it was different. She sometimes suffers from a complete absence of feeling and a total inability to do anything. This morning, I'm afraid, was one of those times. But how gauche of me to start a conversation without introducing myself. I'm Vicky."
"Won't you come in, Vicky?" the doctor asked.
Vicky did not merely walk into the consulting room; she made an entrance, with finesse and elegance. While Sybil's movements were always constrained, hers were free and graceful.
She was wearing a dress of many colors: rose, violet, and pale green. It had a double top and a slightly gathered skirt that fell just below the knees. Green shoes heightened the effect.
"This is a lovely room
," she remarked casually. "A study in green. The tone must be soothing to your patients."
Then she walked to the couch and settled herself into a comfortable position. The doctor shut the door, joined her, lit a cigarette, and said: "Tell me, Vicky, how do you come to be here?"
"It's very simple," Vicky replied. "Sybil was sick. I put on her dress--not the blue outfit I was telling you about. It wouldn't have been appropriate because I have a lunch date.
As I was saying, I put on her dress, got on the bus, and came over."
"But how did you know where to come?" Vicky explained: "I know everything."
"Everything?" the doctor echoed.
"I know what everybody does."
There was a pause. The doctor tapped her cigarette against the side of an ashtray.
"You may think that is insufferable of me," Vicky went on. "I must admit it does sound presumptuous. But it won't seem so when you know the circumstances."
The circumstances? Perhaps this meant that Vicky had a clue to the total situation in this case. But Vicky only said: "I certainly don't claim omniscience. But I watch everything everybody does. That's what I mean when I say I know everything. In this special sense I am omniscient."
Did this mean, the doctor wondered, that Vicky could tell her everything about Sybil, Peggy, and herself? So far she had revealed very little.
"Vicky," said the doctor, "I'd like to know more about you."
"I'm a happy person," Vicky replied, "and happy people don't have big stories. But I'll be glad to tell you anything you want to know."
"What I'm really trying to say," the doctor replied, "is that I should like to know how you happen to be."
Vicky twinkled and said, "Oh, that's a philosophical question. One could write a tome on that." Then she became more serious and looked directly at the doctor. "But if you want to know where I come from, I'll be happy to tell you. I come from abroad. I come from a very large family. My mother and father, my brothers and sisters--there are lots of them--all live in Paris. Mon Dieu, I haven't seen them in years. My full name is Victoria Antoinette Scharleau. Vicky for short. One becomes Americanized, you know. One can't go around being called Victoria Antoinette. Vicky is easier."
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