There Is a River

by Thomas Sugrue

  “And they are still not paying me enough for two to live on comfortably.

  “So I’ve decided to quit.”

  She looked frightened.

  “I have another job, with my father. He has an excellent chance to sell fraternal insurance, going from town to town under the auspices of a society, and writing up the policies which they offer to all new members. The members always take the insurance, because it is very reasonable, and all that is necessary is to go to the places, meet the new members, and sign them up.

  “But my father has his own business here in town, and he can’t leave it. So he wants me to go into partnership with him and take the fraternal end. I’ll go to the towns near here and be back home every weekend. It’s a sure thing, and I’m certain to make more money than I did in Louisville. I can live at home, be with my mother, see you, and save enough money in a short time for us to get married.”

  Gertrude threw her arms around him in relief.

  “I’m so happy!” she said. “I knew I couldn’t let you go away from me again. I just knew it.”

  Back in Louisville the manager of J. P. Morton and Company accepted his resignation, but offered to keep him on the payroll if he would take with him, in his travels, a line of specialty books—ledgers, checkbooks, etc.—and introduce them in the towns he visited. He accepted gratefully. On February 1, 1900, Edgar Cayce, salesman and insurance agent, went on the road, touring the towns of western Kentucky.

  Early in March he arrived in Elkton, a small town about forty miles from Hopkinsville. For several weeks, off and on, he had been suffering from severe headaches. One morning while in Elkton the pain was particularly bad. He stopped at a doctor’s office and asked for a sedative. The doctor gave him a powder and told him to take it with a glass of water. He went back to his hotel and swallowed the dose.

  When next he was conscious he was at home in Hopkinsville, in bed. Two doctors were in the room: the family physician, J. B. Jackson, and Dr. A. C. Hill. They were looking at him anxiously. He heard them talking to the squire, who told them that a friend of the family, a man named Ross Rogers, “come on Edgar in the railroad station over in Elkton, wandering around in a daze. Didn’t seem to know Ross or anything. Had his overcoat on, but it was open, and his hat was gone. Ross brought him home. Ross was coming anyhow.”

  Edgar tried to speak, to ask questions, but his voice had dwindled to a faint, painful whisper. They gave him a gargle, but it didn’t help. Finally he managed to tell his story, with whispers and gestures. The doctors examined him and said that except for his hoarseness he was all right. The sedative had apparently been too strong and had shocked his nervous system. Probably his sore throat came from wandering around the streets on a cold day with his coat open and no hat on.

  They advised him to rest.

  Next day he was up and about, ready to get back to work. But the hoarseness had not improved. Nor was it better the next day, nor the next. Dr. Manning Brown, the local throat specialist, was called in. He said something about aphonia and asked for permission to call in other specialists. They came in droves, each with a different theory. There was even a European specialist, who was visiting in a nearby town and came to Hopkinsville to see the “interesting case.” Weeks slipped into months. Spring came, and summer. The hoarseness remained.

  Edgar became suddenly aware, one day, that his condition was incurable. The doctors weren’t visiting him with any idea of being helpful; they regarded him as a curiosity. Something one of them said as he came into Dr. Brown’s office, and something in the way Dr. Brown introduced the newcomer, tore the veil away one morning. Edgar saw himself as others saw him: a man who had lost his voice and would never again be able to speak above a whisper.

  For a while he found it impossible to give up hope. He was in the habit of expecting to get well; it was hard to break himself of the thought. For the faith he held in the doctors he found himself substituting a belief in miracles. It was only gradually, through acquiring the habit, that he was able to face the truth.

  He had to have a job. That was the main force in conditioning him to his new environment. Salesmanship was impossible for a man without a voice; so was clerking; so, it seemed, was everything he had ever done. He could go back to the farm, but he recoiled from the thought. He needed the town; he was lonely, depressed, frightened. He wanted to be near lots of people, even though he couldn’t speak with them or join with them in the things they did. He needed them. Left alone, there were problems he had to face, and he was not yet prepared to meet them.

  The local photographer, W. R. Bowles, solved the problem of work. He offered a job as apprentice. Edgar accepted; it seemed to be just what he wanted. He would be with lots of people, but without the necessity of speaking with them—Mr. Bowles would do that. He would learn a trade which, whether his voice ever came back or not, would be a means of livelihood.

  Another of the problems he had to face disappeared as soon as he took the job. Gertrude was delighted when she heard what he was doing. She had always been interested in photography and painting; she took photographs herself and tinted them.

  “We can have our own studios!” she said excitedly. “I’ll receive the people and tend to all the business of talking with them and showing them samples and prices, and you can take the pictures and do the developing. I can do tinting, too!”

  He nodded, surprised. He had known that the loss of his voice made no difference in her feeling for him, but he had not been able to shake off the conviction that she was justified in breaking the engagement and therefore ought to do it. Somehow it had seemed to him that it was right that he be an outcast. That she not only did not think so, but was identifying herself with his misfortune and turning it into a blessing for them both, was a mystery of compassion and grace that numbed him. It had never occurred to him that she should do something for him. He had been solely concerned with doing everything for her.

  But though she drew him closer to her, the sense of ostracism remained. There was a third problem. In the quiet of the studio darkroom, in the solitude of his walks to and from the Hill, in the time of prayer before going to sleep, he was haunted by God.

  Had his voice been taken from him because it was meant to be the voice of a preacher? Was he being punished for not heeding the call to serve God? The angel who had appeared to him when he was a child, who had directed him from the farm to Hopkinsville: had she sent him on a mission he had failed to fulfill?

  She had said to him: “Your prayers have been heard. Tell me what you would like most of all, so that I may give it to you.” He had answered: “Most of all I would like to be helpful to others, and especially to children when they are sick.” Then she had disappeared and the next day she had helped him with his lessons.

  Why had she helped him with his lessons, if she had not meant him to study and be a preacher—or, as his mother had thought, a doctor? But these things had been impossible. He had done the best he knew how: he had taught Sunday school, formed a mission group, and tried to live like a true Christian. Was there something else he should have done?

  Always there had been the feeling within him that he should spend all his time helping other people. But it was impossible to do that and make a living at the same time, unless you were a preacher or a doctor. The disciples of Jesus just left their work and followed Him. But if he did that, after whom would he follow?

  When he asked his mother about it she tried to reassure him.

  “I’ve never thought that your voice was meant to be that of a preacher,” she said. “Preachers are all right, but they are the sort of people who expect virtue of other people. You’re the sort who expects virtue of yourself. There’s a difference. Not that preachers aren’t all right. Most of them are fine people. But I never could really think of you as a preacher. You seem more like a good Christian. A good Christian is too busy being virtuous himself to worry about whether his n
eighbor is keeping the law.”

  She talked some more; she talked quite a bit, in fact, going on and on about things and people and duty and service, until suddenly he realized that she was not answering his question. She was just talking, and she was worried—worried and puzzled and frightened, as he was.

  —

  Everyone in Hopkinsville went to Holland’s Opera House when Hart the Laugh King came to town. Hart was a hypnotist; he got his laughs by putting people “under” and telling them to do ridiculous things, such as play hopscotch, imitate fish, climb nonexistent ladders, crochet imaginary doilies, etc. People loved to watch their cousins, friends, and enemies go through these routines, and when volunteers failed, Hart would sit on the stage and hypnotize the audience, swaying back and forth in his chair while he monotonously droned, “Sleep, sleep, sleep.” Afterward he would go through the audience, looking for those who had succumbed. He would speak quickly to them, make passes with his hands before their faces, and they would awaken.

  Usually he asked for a group to go up on the stage—a “class,” he called it. Those who failed to react to his passes and words were dismissed, the others amused the audience. Once Edgar went up with a group of his friends, but he was dismissed.

  Hart had a professional troupe, including a man who, when hypnotized, was instructed to remain rigid. Then a large rock was placed on his chest, and another member of the troupe, using a blacksmith’s hammer, pounded on the rock until it broke. There were other acts, equally spectacular, and a special demonstration which did for Hart what the parade did for the circus. A local volunteer was given an object and told to hide it anywhere in town. Then Hart, in a carriage drawn by two horses, with a blindfold over his eyes and a man on either side of him, each holding a wrist, would retrace the man’s route, telling the driver what turns to take and eventually finding the object. He never failed in these searches, nor did he ever succeed in convincing the skeptical that it wasn’t a fake.

  Hart usually stayed in town from ten days to two weeks, leaving when the crowds began to dwindle. He was a medium-sized man, with light-brown, wavy hair and hazel-green eyes that seemed uncommonly bright and alert. He wore no robes, used no lights or other paraphernalia, and credited his powers to the “new science” of hypnotism and clairvoyance.

  Hypnotism at the time was enjoying a fad throughout the country. The French Academicians had spurned Mesmer and his theories, and although many reputable scientists had worked with hypnotism thereafter, under such titles as somnambulism and magnetic therapy, it had failed to win a clean reputation with science and medicine. In the United States it had both enthusiasts and exploiters. A New York physician, Dr. John P. Quackenboss, said that hypnotism was the medicine of the future, which would cure every illness by directing the unconscious mind of the sufferer to remove the cause and heal the wound. In Nevada, Missouri, a school of “Suggestive Therapeutics” was established by S. A. Weltmer with correspondence courses for those who could not attend in person. Every theater in the country, from time to time, featured a “professor,” who offered to put anyone in the audience under his power.

  Hart was not a therapist by trade, but he was a thoroughgoing showman. When he heard from some of the townspeople about Edgar’s trouble, he accepted it as a challenge. For $200, he said, he would cure the hoarseness. If he did not succeed he would accept nothing for his efforts. Edgar’s friends urged him to accept. Dr. Manning Brown smiled and said, “Why not?” The squire thought it was a good idea. He had never forgotten how Edgar had once cured himself by prescribing a poultice.

  “Let him put you to sleep and see what happens,” he said. “It can’t do any harm.”

  The experiment was conducted in Dr. Brown’s office. Edgar sat in an easy chair and did his best to cooperate. Hart began talking, waved his hands a little, then selected a shiny object from Dr. Brown’s instrument tray.

  “Look at this,” he said. “Watch it closely. You are going to sleep now, to sleep . . . to sleep . . . sleep . . .”

  When next Edgar was aware of what was going on, they were all smiling at him: Dr. Brown, the squire, and Hart.

  “Say something,” Hart said.

  Edgar spoke. “Did I go under all right?” he asked.

  His voice was a hoarse whisper. It had not changed.

  The smiles faded.

  “You talked quite normally under the spell,” Dr. Brown said.

  “Good as I’ve ever heard you,” the squire said.

  “You were fine,” Hart said, “but you didn’t take the post-suggestion. We’ll try it again, after you’ve had a rest. I’m sure it can be done. You talked; that’s the important thing.”

  He smiled again. The others nodded and also smiled. Next time the post-suggestion would probably take effect.

  But it didn’t. They tried that afternoon, and when Edgar awoke he was still hoarse, though he had talked again while “under.” They asked him how his throat felt; Dr. Brown examined it. There was no change in its condition. It still seemed normal, as it had seemed to be during all the time of the affliction.

  “He gets to the second stage of hypnosis,” Hart said, “and then something happens. He won’t go beyond it to the third stage, where he would take post-suggestion. But I’m sure he will eventually. We’ll keep trying.”

  Hart was on his mettle now. Everyone in town knew about the experiments, and the local newspaper printed accounts of them. Professor William Girao, who taught psychology at South Kentucky College, asked permission to attend the meetings. He was a small man, an Italian with large, deep-set eyes and a mustache. He was quiet while the hypnotizing proceeded, making notes and occasionally asking a question of Hart.

  In the end Hart had to give up. Theatrical bookings took him away from Hopkinsville, and although he returned for another try whenever he was in the vicinity, he admitted that he had failed.

  “He won’t take post-suggestion,” he told Girao. “He won’t go beyond the second stage.”

  Girao wrote an account of the experiments and sent it, with some clippings from the Hopkinsville New Era, to Dr. Quackenboss in New York. Dr. Quackenboss expressed interest in the case, entered into correspondence with Girao, and one day in the autumn turned up in Hopkinsville, ready to try his skill on Edgar.

  He was a quick-moving, sharp-featured man, with a kindly, thoughtful attitude toward his patient. He asked a lot of questions, listened to the squire’s account of Edgar’s childhood experiences, took copious notes, and then began his experiments. He had no more success than Hart. Edgar would not go beyond the second stage; he would not take post-suggestion. In a final effort Dr. Quackenboss set about inducing a “deep sleep . . . a very deep sleep . . . a very, very deep sleep.”

  Edgar slept for twenty-four hours, impervious to all efforts to waken him. Everyone was frightened, and most of the doctors in town gathered for consultation. When the patient awoke it was naturally, as if it were morning. He said he felt fine, though his voice was no better. For days thereafter he could not sleep at all, except in cat naps. Then he got over it, and Dr. Quackenboss, relieved but still puzzled, left.

  From New York he wrote to Girao that in thinking over his experiences in Hopkinsville he was convinced that there was a solution to the case. At the point where Edgar refused to take further suggestion he seemed to take charge of things himself, Quackenboss said. If the hypnotist were to suggest, at that point, that the patient talk about his own case, something interesting might result. Such things had been reported in France, many years before: patients under hypnosis showed powers of clairvoyance. Whether or not there was anything to it was problematical, but the chance was worth the effort.

  The only hypnotist in Hopkinsville was Al C. Layne, a thin, frail man whose wife ran the millinery shop where Annie Cayce, Edgar’s sister, worked. Layne was not in good health; he kept books for his wife and, to pass the time, studied suggestive therapeutics and osteo
pathy by means of correspondence courses. He had followed the accounts of the experiments in Dr. Brown’s office with the greatest interest. When he learned from Annie that her brother and Girao were looking for a hypnotist, he begged for a chance to try his skill.

  Edgar was willing, but his parents objected. He had been losing weight ever since the first experiment; he was nervous, fretful, high strung. The squire, at first hopeful of a cure, had become convinced that hypnotism was no more beneficial than medicine.

  “First we had the doctors coming, one after another, poking at him as if he was a sick sow,” he said to his wife. “Now these hypnotists are doing the same thing. They’ll drive the boy crazy.”

  “He’s not well,” the mother said. “He’s not eating or sleeping.”

  Edgar asked for a compromise. Let Layne try one experiment, following the suggestion made by Dr. Quackenboss. If this did not bring results, he would submit to no more hypnotizing.

  Reluctantly they agreed. Annie brought Layne to the house and introduced him. He was a wisp of a man, weighing hardly a hundred and twenty pounds, with graying hair and a small mustache. He was somewhere between thirty-five and forty, though his apparent ill-health made it hard to judge. He was anxious to make the test as soon as possible. The date was set for the following Sunday afternoon, March 31, 1901.

  Girao could not attend. Layne arrived about 2:30. The girls had finished the dinner dishes and gone out. Edgar and his father and mother were in the parlor. Edgar suggested that he put himself to sleep—as he did when sleeping on his books—and that when he was apparently “under,” Layne make the attempt to talk to him. He had discovered, he told Layne, that no matter what the hypnotist did, it was his own thought that made him go to sleep. Layne said that the more Edgar could do of his own volition, the more they might accomplish. He agreed with the idea of self-hypnosis, or, as he called it, “autohypnosis.”