him, but the doctor always declined.
Mr Perceval suspected that many epochs had passed since he had first been placed in his niche. God was punishing him by allowing him glimpses of the newspapers for 1831 only – left on the parlour table each morning, alongside the huge bible – so that Mr Perceval would remain in ignorance of the centuries that were rushing by. He often felt that he was in two or three places at the very same time – inhabiting separate planes all at once. Mr Perceval would skim the newspaper when he was allowed out of his niche. When he had read a sentence he looked away but when he looked again, the words had shifted themselves around. Faces and features changed too, as he peered at his fellow inmates, attendants and servants. Almost everyone around him had multiple personas, with various names and predominant attributes.
The most important person in his life was his attendant, Herminet Herbert (who was also ‘Zachary Gibbs’, ‘Jesus’ and ‘Samuel Hobbs’ – by which name the rest of the world knew him). Herminet Herbert was a divinity, and during supervised, strait-waistcoated visits to the privy, Mr Perceval would propel himself off the WC, through the unlocked closet door in order to fall upon his face and chest at Herminet Herbert’s feet, in worship. Herminet Herbert would then throw Mr Perceval back on the WC and rain blows down on his head and stomach.
Herminet Herbert would often attempt to humour Mr Perceval with childish or coarse jokes, or by jingling spoons in his face, but this levity swiftly turned to violence whenever Herminet Herbert had become bored with it or if Mr Perceval had not laughed sufficiently, or just whenever the attendant felt like it. One of Mr Perceval’s many terrors was that he would be dissected, since the Foxes were doctors and therefore interested in anatomy, and Herminet Herbert’s favourite threat was, ‘I’ll cut your guts out!’
Bath-time happened once a week, but was also kept in reserve as a punishment for refractory patients. The large pool used for this wasin a gloomy, freezing, top-lit outbuilding. Although Mr Perceval never resisted, Herminet Herbert and another attendant would always take the opportunity to throw him into the freezing water backwards, and his head would be forced under with an iron bar pressed on his neck. He would shake with cold for half an hour afterwards and experience toothache and headache. An alternative to the pool was the shower-bath, and for this he would be walked naked across a courtyard to a small outhouse. There, he would be seated, chained in and the attendant would stand astride him and pour two or three pails of cold water on to him, bringing on convulsive jerkings and more tooth and head pain.
Despite being chained all night, Mr Perceval only once wet his bed. For this, he was placed in an outhouse at the bottom of the first-class male airing-court, hard up against Dr Fox’s kitchen garden wall. There were three or four cells in this part of the complex, of bare stone and top-lit. A straw mattress and straw pillow that smelt of cows were placed on a wooden bed-frame, and Mr Perceval was strapped down and manacled to the wall. But he felt happier here; he was alone, for one thing, and in seclusion he was able to sing and ‘halloo!’ as often as the spirits directed him. He spent a fortnight in his cell. fn1
The beatings by Herminet Herbert, together with the regular self-inflicted head and neck injuries, caused a large swelling on the left side of his head near the ear. He believed the lump was filled with the tears of blood that he had not been able to shed. A surgeon came to bleed the left temporal artery, and Mr Perceval later said that this operation had caused permanent damage to his hearing.
Mr Perceval felt surprisingly little of the physical pain he endured. His agony was ‘the agony of mind occasioned by the incomprehensible commands, injunctions, insinuations, threats, taunts, insults,
Mr Perceval suspected that many epochs had passed since he had first been placed in his niche. God was punishing him by allowing him glimpses of the newspapers for 1831 only – left on the parlour table each morning, alongside the huge bible – so that Mr Perceval would remain in ignorance of the centuries that were rushing by. He often felt that he was in two or three places at the very same time – inhabiting separate planes all at once. Mr Perceval would skim the newspaper when he was allowed out of his niche. When he had read a sentence he looked away but when he looked again, the words had shifted themselves around. Faces and features changed too, as he peered at his fellow inmates, attendants and servants. Almost everyone around him had multiple personas, with various names and predominant attributes.
The most important person in his life was his attendant, Herminet Herbert (who was also ‘Zachary Gibbs’, ‘Jesus’ and ‘Samuel Hobbs’ – by which name the rest of the world knew him). Herminet Herbert was a divinity, and during supervised, strait-waistcoated visits to the privy, Mr Perceval would propel himself off the WC, through the unlocked closet door in order to fall upon his face and chest at Herminet Herbert’s feet, in worship. Herminet Herbert would then throw Mr Perceval back on the WC and rain blows down on his head and stomach.
Herminet Herbert would often attempt to humour Mr Perceval with childish or coarse jokes, or by jingling spoons in his face, but this levity swiftly turned to violence whenever Herminet Herbert had become bored with it or if Mr Perceval had not laughed sufficiently, or just whenever the attendant felt like it. One of Mr Perceval’s many terrors was that he would be dissected, since the Foxes were doctors and therefore interested in anatomy, and Herminet Herbert’s favourite threat was, ‘I’ll cut your guts out!’
Bath-time happened once a week, but was also kept in reserve as a punishment for refractory patients. The large pool used for this wasin a gloomy, freezing, top-lit outbuilding. Although Mr Perceval never resisted, Herminet Herbert and another attendant would always take the opportunity to throw him into the freezing water backwards, and his head would be forced under with an iron bar pressed on his neck. He would shake with cold for half an hour afterwards and experience toothache and headache. An alternative to the pool was the shower-bath, and for this he would be walked naked across a courtyard to a small outhouse. There, he would be seated, chained in and the attendant would stand astride him and pour two or three pails of cold water on to him, bringing on convulsive jerkings and more tooth and head pain.
Despite being chained all night, Mr Perceval only once wet his bed. For this, he was placed in an outhouse at the bottom of the first-class male airing-court, hard up against Dr Fox’s kitchen garden wall. There were three or four cells in this part of the complex, of bare stone and top-lit. A straw mattress and straw pillow that smelt of cows were placed on a wooden bed-frame, and Mr Perceval was strapped down and manacled to the wall. But he felt happier here; he was alone, for one thing, and in seclusion he was able to sing and ‘halloo!’ as often as the spirits directed him. He spent a fortnight in his cell. fn1
The beatings by Herminet Herbert, together with the regular self-inflicted head and neck injuries, caused a large swelling on the left side of his head near the ear. He believed the lump was filled with the tears of blood that he had not been able to shed. A surgeon came to bleed the left temporal artery, and Mr Perceval later said that this operation had caused permanent damage to his hearing.
Mr Perceval felt surprisingly little of the physical pain he endured. His agony was ‘the agony of mind occasioned by the incomprehensible commands, injunctions, insinuations, threats, taunts, insults,
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