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Authors: Jr. Lloyd Biggle
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happened along and opened the door for me; and then, as I started to leave, she asked, “May I see your ground card?”
She had mistaken me for a patient, and that points up a common problem at mental hospitals: How do you tell the doctors and staff members (and, in my case, the volunteer workers) from the patients?
In William Seabrook’s classic account of life in a mental institution, Asylum, he describes a dance where one rule was strictly enforced: patients could not dance with other patients. Almost every dancing couple consisted of a patient and a staff member, and one might suppose that with the problem thus simplified one could pick out the patients with a high degree of accuracy. Seabrook could not even attain the fifty per cent that the law of averages would seem to guarantee. On his first ten tries he guessed wrong seven times.
“Another fox trot began and I tried to improve my average. There were several I was sure I couldn’t be wrong on—a microcephalic, giggling hatchet-faced blonde with her hair bobbed like Joan of Arc, an openmouthed young man with adenoids and steel-rimmed spectacles who looked like the village idiot after he had set fire to the barn in a way-down-east melodrama, and an elated, screen-conscious young creature with Diesel engine eyes who labored under the hallucination that she was Greta Garbo.
“I indicated them discreetly to Miss Pine, and said that at any rate anybody could recognize them as patients.
” ‘Yeah,’ she said, Veil, you’d better not let them hear you say so. The first is a graduate nurse from Bellevue, the man is a student nurse planning to be a psychiatrist and your Garbo is a superintendent in the diet kitchen.’
Add one more ingredient, Shakespeare’s famous lines; from As You Like It: All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.
Editor Horace Gold interpreted this perfectly when he published the story: “There was one thing wrong with all the world being a stage … so many grudging people had to be bit players and stagehands!”
• William Seabrook, Asylum. Copyright © 1935 by Harcourt, Brace & Co.
page 55
CHAPTER TWO
LEADING MAN
He wandered aimlessly down the long corridor, opening doors and closing them, feeling a growing frustration as each room stretched its yawning opulence before him. He was hungry and he wanted food. He wanted to find a single fireplace where no fire crackled cheerfully. He wanted to find one door that failed to open at his touch. He knew that his every move was being watched, and he wanted something to happen; but most of all he wanted food.
He tried another door, thrusting it open impatiently, and froze with his hand on the doorknob.
A man stepped forward, plump, elderly, silver hair crowning his solemn face. His black coat made a most amusing, bulging V over his white shirt. He bowed humbly. “Did you ring, sir?”
“I don’t think so. Did you hear me ring?”
“Then I didn’t ring.”
“No, sir.”
He backed away and closed the door firmly. “I’ll count doors,” he told himself. “That should do it.”
He moved on down the corridor, his feet sinking noiselessly into the plush piles of the carpet. “One!” He slammed open a door and glanced in at the flickering fire. He moved on. “Two!” he shouted. “Three!” He was approaching the end of the corridor. He threw open another door. “Four!”
The silver-haired man stood before him, bowing humbly. “Did you ring, sir?”
He gazed thoughtfully at the bulging V and pointed a finger. “You—are—a—butler.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I didn’t ring.”
He closed the door quickly and hurried on. “Five!”
At the end of the corridor he paused to look out of the multipaned window and saw only his own face reflected back at him. He turned angrily and started back down the opposite side of the corridor, savagely opening and
She had mistaken me for a patient, and that points up a common problem at mental hospitals: How do you tell the doctors and staff members (and, in my case, the volunteer workers) from the patients?
In William Seabrook’s classic account of life in a mental institution, Asylum, he describes a dance where one rule was strictly enforced: patients could not dance with other patients. Almost every dancing couple consisted of a patient and a staff member, and one might suppose that with the problem thus simplified one could pick out the patients with a high degree of accuracy. Seabrook could not even attain the fifty per cent that the law of averages would seem to guarantee. On his first ten tries he guessed wrong seven times.
“Another fox trot began and I tried to improve my average. There were several I was sure I couldn’t be wrong on—a microcephalic, giggling hatchet-faced blonde with her hair bobbed like Joan of Arc, an openmouthed young man with adenoids and steel-rimmed spectacles who looked like the village idiot after he had set fire to the barn in a way-down-east melodrama, and an elated, screen-conscious young creature with Diesel engine eyes who labored under the hallucination that she was Greta Garbo.
“I indicated them discreetly to Miss Pine, and said that at any rate anybody could recognize them as patients.
” ‘Yeah,’ she said, Veil, you’d better not let them hear you say so. The first is a graduate nurse from Bellevue, the man is a student nurse planning to be a psychiatrist and your Garbo is a superintendent in the diet kitchen.’
Add one more ingredient, Shakespeare’s famous lines; from As You Like It: All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.
Editor Horace Gold interpreted this perfectly when he published the story: “There was one thing wrong with all the world being a stage … so many grudging people had to be bit players and stagehands!”
• William Seabrook, Asylum. Copyright © 1935 by Harcourt, Brace & Co.
page 55
CHAPTER TWO
LEADING MAN
He wandered aimlessly down the long corridor, opening doors and closing them, feeling a growing frustration as each room stretched its yawning opulence before him. He was hungry and he wanted food. He wanted to find a single fireplace where no fire crackled cheerfully. He wanted to find one door that failed to open at his touch. He knew that his every move was being watched, and he wanted something to happen; but most of all he wanted food.
He tried another door, thrusting it open impatiently, and froze with his hand on the doorknob.
A man stepped forward, plump, elderly, silver hair crowning his solemn face. His black coat made a most amusing, bulging V over his white shirt. He bowed humbly. “Did you ring, sir?”
“I don’t think so. Did you hear me ring?”
“Then I didn’t ring.”
“No, sir.”
He backed away and closed the door firmly. “I’ll count doors,” he told himself. “That should do it.”
He moved on down the corridor, his feet sinking noiselessly into the plush piles of the carpet. “One!” He slammed open a door and glanced in at the flickering fire. He moved on. “Two!” he shouted. “Three!” He was approaching the end of the corridor. He threw open another door. “Four!”
The silver-haired man stood before him, bowing humbly. “Did you ring, sir?”
He gazed thoughtfully at the bulging V and pointed a finger. “You—are—a—butler.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I didn’t ring.”
He closed the door quickly and hurried on. “Five!”
At the end of the corridor he paused to look out of the multipaned window and saw only his own face reflected back at him. He turned angrily and started back down the opposite side of the corridor, savagely opening and
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