Their contents were utterly beyond me. Dr Bernstein had believed that a repressed secret was forcing its way forth between the lines, but I could not perceive any trace of such a thing. Her writings strongly resembled the samples I had read in Dr Bernstein’s book: they expressed a kind of religious obsession with neurotic repetitiveness, and I could see nothing more. No strange incoherencies marred their natural flow. I shuffled them all back into the stolen file, and sat back, thinking.

  If there was any sense at all to be made of this nonsense, any clue to the mystery of Lydia’s secret and Sebastian’s death, there was only one person in the world who could help me find it. And by asking for his help, I would also be granting him his heart’s desire.

  When the train pulled into London, I immediately went and sent an urgent telegram to Dr Bernstein at his Basel home. I had really had enough of trains, and would have been delighted to hear that I was never to see another one, but it was not to be. Twenty-four hours later I was spending yet another night trundled and jumbled in yet another sleeping-car, on my way to yet another destination, in the search for the elusive truth.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  In which a discovery takes place at a most astonishing moment

  The doctor rose, struck a match, and lit another candle, then pushed the brass candlestick closer to the papers that lay scattered over his desk. I sat near him in his study, my eyes heavy, but any idea of sleep was out of the question, for the doctor was buzzing about like a frantic bee. Shock, anger, joy, indignation, fury, and a feverish desire to understand crowded together to occupy all of his possibilities of expression, so that the poor man felt the need to slap his head, utter sighs and groans, take dancing steps about the room, pronounce imprecations and evolve yet another new theory, all at the same time. We had been there for hours, and the manservant who had brought us tea and then prepared a light dinner had long since gone to bed, but Dr Bernstein’s state would not admit of his stopping for a moment. It was a Sunday, and he had had no patients, and our work and discussion had been going on for hours, interrupted only by meals over which he asked me ever more questions, and reminisced with increasing openness about the past.

  Alerted by my telegram – in which, in order to be certain of his immediate reaction, I had included the words ‘Lydia Krieger found’ – the doctor had come to fetch me at the Basel railway station, and the sight of the emotion painted upon his bearded face as he recognised me erased any impulse I might normally have had to respect the social conventions by preceding the moment of revelation with lengthy formal greetings. Instead, I lifted up the heavy file that I had been clutching almost without stopping for the last forty-eight hours, and plunked it straight into his arms with a feeling of relief at thus transferring an insoluble problem to one more competent than myself. He opened it, glanced at the first pages, and then looked at me. We had not yet exchanged a single word, and for several moments, he seemed unable to pronounce one. When he finally did, it was simply: ‘Come.’

  Luncheon, to say the least, was a tense affair. His eyes burning, the doctor questioned me in detail, breaking off abruptly every time his manservant entered to bring or remove the dishes. I told him all I knew and all I had done, and had the pleasure of seeing him smile for the first time as I somewhat blushingly explained about the unusual use I had made of Dr Richards’ settee. I hid nothing from him, at least not a single fact or incident. I kept to myself only certain suspicions. It was his turn to question me for the present. My own time for questioning would come, and I should know to seize the opportunity when it was ripe.

  The meal over, we settled into the doctor’s study, coffee was brought in, and we remained undisturbed. The doctor took out the file and spread the papers over the desk.

  Being a physician, Dr Bernstein began his examination of the contents with the document I had considered last; the medical report. Of this, there was only one entry of significant interest, which was the very first one, established by a certain Dr Enderson on the day of Lydia’s arrival at Holloway. The moment I had read it, I had felt a tingling down my spine, for it confirmed at least one of my suspicions.

  April 18, 1875

  Lydia Krieger, 29 years of age, born August 1, 1846, in good physical health, primiparous.

  Mr and Mrs Edward Cavendish have brought Miss Lydia Krieger, sister of the second-named, for examination in view of confinement and treatment for mental illness.

  I first spoke with Mr and Mrs Cavendish in the absence of the patient. Mrs Cavendish recounts that her sister has displayed increasingly abnormal psychological behaviour, in particular for anything concerned with the act of writing, since the age of 13 or 14 years. Miss Krieger was sent for treatment to a private clinic in Switzerland at the age of 24. Miss Krieger is now aged 29. Miss Krieger left the clinic one year ago for her annual summer holiday in England, and did not return. Mr Cavendish told me that the reason for her remaining in England was that she was found to be with child. Miss Krieger either would not say or was unaware of how this situation had come about. Mrs Cavendish moved with her to the countryside for six months, remaining with her until the birth of the child. When her sister was entirely recovered, she returned with her to London, leaving the child in the care of a local woman. Mrs Cavendish states that her sister’s mental condition has become even more fragile than it was previous to the birth, and, given what has happened, she believes it would be unwise to allow her to continue to roam freely within society, when any unscrupulous person might take advantage of her mental disability.

  I then saw Miss Lydia Krieger. The initial cursory examination of the patient confirmed Mrs Cavendish’s observations of pronounced mental abnormality and fragility. Mr and Mrs Cavendish refuse to communicate any information concerning the Swiss clinic where Miss Krieger received treatment. They claim that the reason is that ‘they wish Miss Krieger’s whereabouts to remain entirely unknown to the circle of friends she had formed there, for reasons that should be obvious’, even at the price of excluding all possibility of obtaining her previous medical records. In any case, Mrs Cavendish claims that contrarily to her original expectations, the Swiss treatment had no positive effect on her sister, that if anything she worsened under its influence, and that the records of it would be of no use to us. She categorically refused to give any further details on this matter. In fact, the couple had never had any direct communication with the Swiss clinic at all, the whole affair having been handled by a third person, who had been named as the sisters’ legal guardian upon their mother’s death.

  Holloway Sanatorium agrees to accept Miss Lydia Krieger as a patient for a trial period of one month, during which time she will be examined and diagnosed for further treatment. At the end of the one-month period, a final decision will be made as to whether she may be profitably kept.

  One sentence had leapt out at me in letters of flame: the birth of the child! So I was right, I had to be right: the age was the same, the resemblance was there: the child could not be anyone but Sebastian. He was, as I had guessed, and somehow in the depths of my soul even hoped, Lydia’s son.

  I waited for Dr Bernstein to say something about it, any remark at all, any hypothesis about what might have happened when Lydia left Basel, but he did not mention it, and his face was inscrutable. I bided my time, and he continued to read through the documents one by one, handing each one to me as he finished. I had glanced through the file on the train to London, of course, and read it all in greater detail during the long, long trip across the continent, but it was interesting to read it again together with him, for he kept up a running commentary on the purely medical aspects of the case that were outlined on each page; every minor illness, every drug and medicine that Lydia had ever received merited his scathing commentary, and on the whole the experience was an enlightening one even if he did avoid precisely the points that most interested me. The doctor was in no hurry. He did not rush through the pages as I had done; he read them one by one in detail, frowned often, stopped occasionally to look things up in certain large medical books he kept upon his shelves, and finally concluded his examination of the medical report with a fiery diatribe against institutional treatment in general, during which he actually took notes of his own words, probably in view of some future written complaint! Then, perhaps in deference to my nationality, he peered at the clock which was ticking loudly upon the mantelpiece and rang for the manservant to bring us tea and biscuits on a tray, draw the curtains, and light the lamps, for it was already growing dusky outside. Setting aside the large sheaf of Lydia’s own writings for later, he now pulled towards him the thick notebook in which Dr Richards had recorded the efforts of five years of psychiatric treatment. The file did not contain the records of the efforts of the doctors who had held the position before his arrival at Holloway in the month of September of 1895. They must have been archived in some separate place; presumably they were too bulky to fit inside. After all, most patients did not spend twenty-five years receiving treatment, and the square files had been constructed of a limited thickness. Thus, Lydia’s file contained nothing but the records of the four and half years during which Dr Richards attended her.

  During the first few weeks, Dr Richards’ comments upon the writing samples that emerged from Lydia’s pen expressed strenuous efforts at comprehension, accompanied by somewhat forced analyses. As Dr Bernstein read them, he grunted, shook his head, slapped his forehead in deep irritation and occasionally uttered smothered imprecations. I had experienced some of the same reactions upon reading them, although I did not have the professional qualifications that he did. But Dr Richards’ approach struck me as unconvincing, unlikely, and, in fact, altogether unbelievable. This feeling was strengthened, I admit, by my secret rationalistic suspicion that Lydia’s madness was simply too mad to be meaningful, and no analysis could possibly make sense of it. With all my heart I desired Dr Bernstein to prove me wrong, to discover something, to convince me, yet I was conscious of a pinch of fear that the evening might end in disappointment, either because he might find nothing, or worse, because he might enter into some slippery psychological terrain upon which I could not follow him, interpreting weird occult meanings into Lydia’s words that I could not perceive myself at all.

  Dr Richards’ overbearing personality shone through his writings, exasperating me even though I knew that he was simply and conscientiously doing his professional job. ‘The previous doctors have made a mess of the case’ was the very first phrase he had consigned to the notebook devoted to the study of his recalcitrant patient.

  No modern methods have been applied, only clumsy efforts at persuasion and moderate coercion, which, as might be expected, have had no effect whatsoever. It was necessary for me to proceed to a new and complete interview with the family, which is at present reduced only to the sister, now a widow. Modern psychoanalytical theory indicates repressed trauma from early childhood, which may or may not be linked to the act of writing. The patient’s history of childhood communicated by the sister does not indicate the latter, but although she shared the patient’s childhood, the difference in age indicates that she may not have been conscious or even born at the time of the original trauma. This is a clear possibility in view of the fact that the children were adopted together, indicating that if the second child was a baby at that time, the older one had already reached the age of two, an age at which the great impressionability and consciousness of the child does not match its ability to express itself, leading, as recent theories reveal, to frequent cases of traumatic repression. Neither the patient nor her sister has any memories of or knowledge of anything concerning the time previous to their adoption.

  On the other hand, they were not told that they were adopted until the mother revealed it to them on her deathbed, when the sisters were aged fourteen and twelve respectively. She told them that they should be aware of the fact, so that they would not be surprised if they learnt it later from some unexpected source, such as an old family acquaintance who had witnessed the adoption. Both the patient and her sister claim that they were far more shocked by the death of their adoptive mother, which left them orphans for a second time (their adoptive father having died ten years earlier when the children were aged four and two), than by this revelation. Certainly the patient’s irregular behaviour dates from this time. It is possible in the case of the patient that the combination of the two events, losing her single remaining parent and learning of her adoption, produced the impulse to compulsive behaviour.

  In order to determine the truth, a cure of this patient must be effected, which can only be done by causing the memory of the trauma to emerge. Previous doctors have been incapable of perceiving the original cause and thus of providing adapted treatment.

  ‘He does seem to have some idea of why Lydia began to write so strangely,’ I said, after reading this page together with the doctor. We were both leaning over his broad oak desk covered with a layer of dark green leather, and the page laid open upon it was bathed in the mellow circle of light from the lamp. A very faint but not disagreeable odour of cigar smoke clung to the doctor’s jacket. Together, we read through Dr Richards’ efforts with Lydia over the following weeks and months, which consisted largely in applications of recently developed methods of dream-analysis and free association.

  ‘He is missing the main point,’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘All these suppositions are well and good, but he cannot hope to find the answer through attempts at direct analysis such as these!’ He turned another page, then half-covered it with his hand. Then he glanced at me, and took his hand away.

  ‘Hum,’ he mumbled, ‘please recall that a doctor’s job involves a certain necessary intimacy.’ I smiled and nodded gently. I had already read the entire text and seen everything embarrassing that there might be to see, as, in fact, he might have known had he taken a moment to think about it. But there seemed no point in saying so; his delicacy was kindly meant.

  By two months after the beginning of his treatment, Dr Richards was displaying frustration with the case, leading him to explore the domains that Dr Bernstein feared might embarrass me. But he needn’t have worried; if anything, I found all the commentaries disappointingly tame.

  The patient resists all attempts to unearth the original source of trauma, opposing a consistent attitude of dreamy absent-mindedness to my questions. Her responses are indicative of a deeper resistance than the respect for appearance and manners that has certainly been inculcated into her. No matter how I phrase them, she deflects my questions about sexuality with vague and general remarks. She will not react to any hints and shows no will whatsoever to investigate her deeper self, or, in fact, to be cured of her affliction at all. She will not rise to the bait even if asked whether she does not wish to leave this place and to live outside like other people. She has been here for twenty years now, and any desire to return to the real world has been lost, perhaps replaced by the nameless and unspoken fear of freedom well known in long-term patients and prisoners. She opposes all insistence, even provocation, with a fatalistic sigh.

  On we read together, through the months and years of efforts on the part of the doctor to understand the origin of Lydia’s problem, and to influence or modify the static condition of the problem itself.

  December 4, 1895

  I asked Miss Krieger if she remembered the very beginnings of her condition. She replied that she did remember more or less, but that it had been gradual, not sudden. I asked her to describe these gradual beginnings, and she told me that it had begun at the age of fourteen, after the death of her mother. Until that time, she had been schooled by governesses, and had not experienced any difficulties. She recalls that after her mother died, she occasionally felt a strong desire to write down certain words. Encouraged by friends who were involved in spiritualism, she associated these with the desire of her mother to send her messages from beyond. She had no precise memory of exactly what those first words might have been. At that time, the inner pressure to write down words became increasingly strong, but it took a year before it actually began to interfere severely with her attempts to write other texts. At that point it became necessary for her to keep a second paper near her when writing anything, which she used to note down the irrelevant words that pressed into her mind. Over the course of a second year, she gradually lost the ability to write words of her own choice. She did not recall this development as being particularly unpleasant, and had no sense of being mentally ill. She described it as a person who slowly begins to limp while walking, due to some developing defect of the leg. At first it seems like nothing, and then little by little one accepts the situation without making a fuss about it. For many months, she continued to believe that she was receiving messages from her defunct mother, but her sister shed doubt upon this idea. This situation continued until the two sisters reached the ages of twenty-two and twenty-four. At that time, the patient’s sister married, and the couple came to the decision, to which the patient did not object, to send her to a clinic in Switzerland specialising in psychiatric treatment of trance and automatic writing. The patient spent four years in Switzerland, returning home only during the summer holidays. Details and records from this clinic have not been provided for use in the present treatment; neither the patient nor her sister consent to speak of it or even to identify it. It is very possible that the treatments she received there provoked a new trauma. I reserve the possibility of discovering more about this at a later stage, if investigation of the original source of trauma does not yield results.

 

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