Paul Patoff Part 16

"I am ready," said I. "You can trust me."

"Since you were here last, very painful things have occurred. In consequence of the death of her eldest son, and of certain circ.u.mstances attending it which I need not, cannot, detail, my wife's sister, Madame Patoff, became insane about eighteen months ago. Professor Cutter chanced to be with her at the time, and informed me at once. Her husband, as you know, died twenty years ago, and Paul was away, so that Cutter was so good as to take care of her. He said her only chance of recovery lay in being removed to her native country and carefully nursed. Thank G.o.d, I am rich. I received her here, and she has been here ever since. Do not look surprised. For the sake of all I have taken every precaution to keep her absolutely removed from us, though we visit her from time to time. Cutter told me that dreadful story of her trying to kill herself in Suabia. He has just informed me that it was you who saved both her life and his with your rope,--not knowing either of them.

I need not tell you my grat.i.tude."

John paused, and grasped my hand; his own was cold and moist.

"It was nothing," I said. "I did not even incur any danger; it was Cutter who risked his life."

"No matter," continued Carvel. "It was you who saved them both. From that time she has recognized no one. Cutter brought her here, and the north wing of the house was fitted up for her. He has come from time to time to see her, and she has proper attendants. You never see them nor her, for she has a walled garden,--the one against which the hot-houses and the tennis-court are built. Of course the servants know,--everybody in the house knows all about it; but this is a huge old place, and there is plenty of room. It is not thought safe to take her out, and there appears to be something so peculiar about her insanity that Cutter discourages the idea of the ordinary treatment of placing the patient in the company of other insane, giving them all manner of amus.e.m.e.nt, and so on. He seems to think that if she is left alone, and is well cared for, seeing only, from time to time, the faces of persons she has known before, she may recover."

"I trust so, indeed," I said earnestly.

"We all pray that she may, poor thing!" rejoined Carvel, very sadly.

"Now listen. Her son. Paul Patoff, arrived this morning, and insisted upon seeing her this afternoon. Cutter said it could do no harm, as she probably would not recognize him. To our astonishment and delight she knew him at once for her son, though she treated him with a coldness almost amounting to horror. She stepped back from him, and folded her arms, only saying, over and over again, 'Paul, why did you come here,--why did you come?' We could get nothing more from her than that, and at the end of ten minutes we left her. She seemed very much exhausted, excited, too, and the nurse who was with her advised us to go."

"It is a great step, however, that she should have recognized any one, especially her own son," I remarked.

"So Cutter holds. She never takes the least notice of him. But he has suggested to me that while she is still in this humor it would be worth while trying whether she has any recollection of you. He says that anything which recalls so violent a shock as the one she experienced when you saved her life may possibly recall a connected train of thought, even though it be a very painful reminiscence; and anything which helps memory helps recovery. He considers hers the most extraordinary case he has ever seen, and he must have seen a great many; he says that there is almost always some delusion, some fixed idea, in insanity. Madame Patoff seems to have none, but she has absolutely no recognition for any one, nor any memory for events beyond a few minutes.

She can hardly be induced to speak at all, but will sit quite still for hours with any book that is given her, turning over the pages mechanically. She has a curious fancy for big books, and will always select the thickest from a number of volumes; but whether or not she retains any impression of what she reads, or whether, in fact, she really reads at all, it is quite impossible to say. She will sometimes answer 'yes' or 'no' to a question, but she will give opposite answers to the same question in five minutes. She will stare stolidly at any one who talks to her consecutively; or will simply turn away, and close her eyes as though she were going to sleep. In other respects she is in normal health. She eats little, but regularly, and sleeps soundly; goes out into her garden at certain hours, and seems to enjoy fine weather, and to be annoyed when it rains. She is not easily startled by a sudden noise, or the abrupt appearance of those of us who go to see her. Cutter does not know what to make of it. She was once a very beautiful woman, and is still as handsome as a woman can be at fifty. Cutter says that if she had softening of the brain she would behave very differently, and that if she had become feeble-minded the decay of her faculties would show in her face; but there is nothing of that observable in her. She has as much dignity and beauty as ever, and, excepting when she stares blankly at those who talk to her, her face is intelligent, though very sad."

"Poor lady!" I said. "How old did you say she is?"

"She must be fifty-two, in her fifty-third year. Her hair is gray, but it is not white."

"Had she any children besides Paul and his brother?"

"No. I know very little of her family life. It was a love match; but old Patoff was rich. I never heard that they quarreled. Alexander entered the army, and remained in a guard regiment in St. Petersburg, while Paul went into the diplomacy. Madame Patoff must have spent much of her time with Alexander until he died, and Cutter says he was always the favorite son. I dare say that Paul has a bad temper, and he may have been extravagant. At all events, she loved Alexander devotedly, and it was his death that first affected her mind."

John had grown more calm during this long conversation. To tell the truth, I did not precisely understand why he should have looked so pale and seemed so anxious, seeing that the news of Madame Patoff was decidedly of an encouraging nature. I myself was too much astonished at learning that the insane lady was actually an inmate of the house, and I was too much interested at the prospect of seeing her so soon, to think much of John and his anxiety; but on looking back I remember that his mournful manner produced a certain impression upon me at the moment.

The story was strange enough. I began to comprehend what Hermione had meant when she spoke of Paul's cold nature. An hour before dinner the man had seen his mother for the first time in eighteen months,--it might be more, for all I knew,--for the first time since she had been out of her mind. I had learned from John that she had recognized him, indeed, but had coldly repulsed him when he came before her. If Paul Patoff had been a warm-hearted man, he could not have been at that very moment making conversation for his cousins in the drawing-room, laughing and chatting, his eyegla.s.s in his eye, his bony fingers toying with the flower Chrysophrasia had given him. It struck me that neither Mrs.

Carvel nor her sister could have known of the interview, or they would have manifested some feeling, or at least would not have behaved just as they always did. I asked John if they knew.

"No," he answered. "He told my daughter because he broke off his conversation with her to go and see his mother, but Hermy never tells anything except to me."

"When would you like me to go?" I asked.

"Now, if you will. I will call Cutter. He thinks that, as she last saw you with him, your coming together now will be more likely to recall some memory of the accident. Besides, it is better to go this evening, before she has slept, as the return of memory this afternoon may have been very transitory, and anything which might stimulate it again should be tried before the mood changes. Will you go now?"

"Certainly," I replied, and John Carvel left the room to call the professor.

While I was waiting alone in the study, I happened to take up a pamphlet that lay upon the table. It was something about the relations of England with Russia. An idea crossed my mind.

"I wonder," I said to myself, "whether they have ever tried speaking to her in Russian. Cutter does not know a word of the language; I suppose n.o.body else here does, either, except Paul, and she seems to have spoken to him in English."

The door opened, and John entered with the professor. I laid down the pamphlet, and prepared to accompany them.

"I suppose Carvel has told you all that I could not tell you, Mr.

Griggs," said the learned man, eying me through his gla.s.ses with an air of inquiry, and slowly rubbing his enormous hands together.

"Yes," I said. "I understand that we are about to make an experiment in order to ascertain if this unfortunate lady will recognize me."

"Precisely. It is not impossible that she may know you, though, if she saw you at all, it was only for a moment. You have a very striking face and figure, and you have not changed in the least. Besides, the moment was that in which she experienced an awful shock. Such things are sometimes photographed on the mind."

"Has she never recognized you in any way?" I asked.

"Never since that day at Weissenstein. There is just a faint possibility that when she sees us together she may recall that catastrophe. I think Carvel had better stay behind."

"Very well," said John, "I will leave you at the door."

Carvel led the way to the great hall, and then turned through a pa.s.sage I had never entered. The narrow corridor was brightly lighted by a number of lamps; at the end of it we came to a ma.s.sive door. John took a little key from a niche in the wall, and inserted it in the small metal plate of the patent lock.

"Cutter will lead you now," he said, as he pushed the heavy mahogany back upon its hinges. Beyond it the pa.s.sage continued, still brilliantly illuminated, to a dark curtain which closed the other end. It was very warm. Carvel closed the door behind us, and the professor and I proceeded alone.

X.

The professor pushed aside the heavy curtain, and we entered a small room, simply furnished with a couple of tables, a bookcase, one or two easy-chairs, and a divan. The walls were dark, and the color of the curtains and carpet was a dark green, but two large lamps illuminated every corner of the apartment. At one of the tables a middle-aged woman sat reading; as we entered she looked up at us, and I saw that she was one of the nurses in charge of Madame Patoff. She wore a simple gown of dark material, and upon her head a dainty cap of French appearance was pinned, with a certain show of taste. The nurse had a kindly face and quiet eyes, accustomed, one would think, to look calmly upon sights which would astonish ordinary people. Her features were strongly marked, but gentle in expression and somewhat pale, and as she sat facing us, her large white hands were folded together on the foot of the open page, with an air of resolution that seemed appropriate to her character. She rose deliberately to her feet, as we came forward, and I saw that she was short, though when seated I should have guessed her to be tall.

"Mrs. North," said the professor, "this is my friend Mr. Griggs, who formerly knew Madame Patoff. I have hopes that she may recognize him.

Can we see her now?"

"If you will wait one moment," answered Mrs. North, "I will see whether you may go in." Her voice was like herself, calm and gentle, but with a ring of strength and determination in it that was very attractive. She moved to the door opposite to the one by which we had entered, and opened it cautiously; after looking in, she turned and beckoned to us to advance. We went in, and she softly closed the door behind us.

I shall never forget the impression made upon me when I saw Madame Patoff. She was tall, and, though she was much over fifty years of age, her figure was erect and commanding, slight, but of good proportion; whether by nature, or owing to her mental disease, it seemed as though she had escaped the effects of time, and had she concealed her hair with a veil she might easily have pa.s.sed for a woman still young. Mary Carvel had been beautiful, and was beautiful still in a matronly, old-fashioned way; Hermione was beautiful after another and a smaller manner, slender and delicate and lovely; but Madame Patoff belonged to a very different category. She was on a grander scale, and in her dark eyes there was room for deeper feeling than in the gentle looks of her sister and niece. One could understand how in her youth she had braved the opposition of father and mother and sisters, and had married the brilliant Russian, and had followed him to the ends of the earth during ten years, through peace and through war, till he died. One could understand how some great trouble and despair, which would send a duller, gentler soul to prayers and sad meditations, might have driven this grand, pa.s.sionate creature to the very defiance of all despair and trouble, into the abyss of a self-sought death. I shuddered when I remembered that I had seen this very woman suspended in mid-air, her life depending on the slender strength of a wild cherry tree upon the cliff side. I had seen her, and yet had not seen her; for the sudden impression of that terrible moment bore little or no relation to the calmer view of the present time.

Madame Patoff stood before us, dressed in a close-fitting gown of black velvet, closed at the throat with a clasp of pearls; her thick hair, just turning gray, was coiled in ma.s.ses low behind her head, drawn back in long broad waves on each side, in the manner of the Greeks. Her features, slightly aquiline and strongly defined, wore an expression of haughty indifference, not at all like the stolid stare which John Carvel had described to me, and though her dark eyes gazed upon us without apparent recognition, their look was not without intelligence. She had been walking up and down in the long drawing-room where we found her, and she had paused in her walk as we entered, standing beneath a chandelier which carried five lamps; there were others upon the wall, high up on brackets and beyond her reach. There was no fireplace, but the air was very warm, heated, I suppose, by some concealed apparatus.

The furniture consisted of deep chairs, lounges and divans of every description; three or four bookcases were filled with books, and there were many volumes piled in a disorderly fashion upon the different tables, and some lay upon the floor beside a cushioned lounge, which looked as though it were the favorite resting-place of the inmate of the apartment. At first sight it seemed to me that few precautions were observed; the nurse was seated in an outer apartment, and Madame Patoff was quite alone and free. But the room where she was left was so constructed that she could do herself no harm. There was no fire; the lamps were all out of reach; the windows were locked, and she could only go out by pa.s.sing through the antechamber where the nurse was watching.

There was a singular lack of all those little objects which enc.u.mbered the drawing-room of Carvel Place; there was not a bit of porcelain or gla.s.s, nor a paper-knife, nor any kind of metal object. There were a few pictures upon the walls, and the walls themselves were hung with a light gray material, that looked like silk and brilliantly reflected the strong light, making an extraordinary background for Madame Patoff's figure, clad as she was in black velvet and white lace.

We stood before her, Cutter and I, for several seconds, watching for some change of expression in her face. He had hoped that my sudden appearance would arouse a memory in her disordered mind. I understood his anxiety, but it appeared to me very unlikely that when she failed to recognize him she should remember me. For some moments she gazed upon me, and then a slight flush rose to her pale cheeks, her fixed stare wavered, and her eyes fell. I could hear Cutter's long-drawn breath of excitement. She clasped her hands together and turned away, resuming her walk. It was strange,--perhaps she really remembered.

"He saved your life in Weissenstein," said Cutter, in loud, clear tones.

"You ought to thank him for it,--you never did."

The unhappy woman paused in her walk, stood still, then came swiftly towards us, and again paused. Her face had changed completely in its expression. Her teeth were closely set together, and her lip curled in scorn, while a dark flush overspread her pale face, and her hands twisted each other convulsively.

"Do you remember Weissenstein?" asked the professor, in the same incisive voice, and through his round gla.s.ses he fixed his commanding glance upon her. But as he looked her eyes grew dull, and the blush subsided from her cheek. With a low, short laugh she turned away.

I started. I had forgotten the laugh behind the latticed wall, and if I had found time to reflect I should have known, from what John Carvel had told me, that it could have come from no one but the mad lady, who had been walking in the garden with her nurse, on that bright evening. It was the same low, rippling sound, silvery and clear, and it came so suddenly that I was startled. I thought that the professor sighed as he heard it. It was, perhaps, a strong evidence of insanity. In all my life of wandering and various experience I have chanced to be thrown into the society of but one insane person besides Madame Patoff. That was a curious case: a hardy old sea-captain, who chanced to make a fortune upon the New York stock exchange, and went stark mad a few weeks later.

His madness seemed to come from elation at his success, and it was very curious to watch its progress, and very sad. He was a strong man, and in all his active life had never touched liquor nor tobacco. Nothing but wealth could have driven him out of his mind; but within two months of his acquiring a fortune he was confined in an asylum, and within the year he died of softening of the brain. I only mention this to show you that I had had no experience of insanity worth speaking of before I met Madame Patoff. I knew next to nothing of the signs of the disease.

Madame Patoff turned away, and crossed the room; then she sank down upon the lounge which I have described as surrounded with books, and, taking a volume in her hand, she began to read, with the utmost unconcern.

"Come," said the professor, "we may as well go."