The Bird’s Nest (7 page)

I had, without realizing it, found a way of procedure; Miss R. looked at me, and almost laughed. “I won't make you angry again,” she promised.

“Indeed I believe you will, and it may be good for a stern fellow who tends to think of his patients as problems rather than as people. By all means, whenever you find me regarding you as a problem in arithmetic—” (or in sewage, I might have said; O unfortunate analogy!) “—do at once bring me sharply up by an appeal to my temper. You shall never find me wanting in anger, my dear.”

We gazed amiably upon one another, quite as though Miss R. were already the person she might someday become, and I verily believe that in the brief moment of anger, and my graceless apology, we came closer together than we had been before. In any case, the unkind question of treatment, brought up of necessity once more, found Miss R. less inclined to flat refusal, and it must suffice to say that she was once again brought to submit herself to hypnosis. “But no embarrassing questions, please?” she asked, blushing as though ashamed of this insistence and yet constrained to make it, as a patient will ask a dentist over and over again not to let the extraction hurt. Since I had at this time no slightest notion of what might seem to Miss R.'s tender sensibilities an embarrassing question, I could only agree helplessly, like the dentist, and promise myself privately to fulfill the obligation as nearly as possible; I had at the same time a notion that Miss R.'s reading of embarrassing questions might be wholly different from my own; I had a conviction that my own assumption, in a like case, of what might constitute an “embarrassment” would be a line of questioning tending toward the point of stoppage in the pipe, but I strongly suspected that what Miss R. meant by “embarrassing” was precisely what any untutored young girl might mean by the word: i.e., anything she would be ashamed to discuss before me, any secrets the poor girl might possess, although these need not be—indeed, very probably were not—the secret I was in search of; I thought tolerantly of love letters and such, and resolved roundly that Miss R.'s maiden sentiments should remain her own still, untampered with by me.

As Miss R. slipped softly into the trance state, I was anxious to meet again the pleasant girl I had spoken with before, and welcomed the amiable face with the delight of one greeting a charming acquaintance; I had decided that it would be most proper and practical to initiate the little series of questions I had first asked as a formal beginning for all hypnotic questioning, establishing, as it were, a little ritual of introduction, and I hoped that after a short time it might have the double effect of reassuring Miss R. in the first moments of trance, and in addition, perhaps, serve as a complementary trance-inducement; that is, when Miss R., falling asleep, heard my familiar pattern, she would be confirmed in the hypnotic state. So, I began again, “What is your name?”

“Elizabeth R.”

She again told me where she lived, and assured me that she had no fear of me. When I asked her if she remembered what she had told me upon her previous visit, R
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smiled and said she did, that she had told me she was not afraid of me, and she was not. I felt that this emphasis upon complete trust in myself was very necessary, and endeavored to stress constantly, in my questions and my manner, my utter and entire sympathy with her. I thought of myself, frequently, as fatherly, and often found myself addressing her as a fond parent speaks to a precious child.

Since I had not been restricted, upon this second attempt, to “only a minute or so,” I was able to question Miss R. at greater length about her illness, which she admitted frankly in this trance state, and about her daily life; I learned, for instance, much more clearly, about her work at the museum, and her routine homelife with her aunt. I also learned, without really intending to press the matter, that the substantial fortune which kept Miss R. and her aunt so easily was in actuality the future property of Miss R. herself, left in trust by her father; and for years to come, through a skillful and (I must confess I thought it) foresighted maneuver among lawyers and bankers, would be administered entirely by Aunt, with due deference to Miss R.'s comfort and convenience; I do not pretend to understand financial matters, and Miss R. obviously knew less of them, even, than I, but I could not help applauding the wisdom which would preserve Miss R. secure and safe from the many pitfalls which must beset a very young girl possessed of a large fortune and as passive and acquiescent as Miss R. had shown herself to be. Aside from the casual remark which elicited this information, my questions were largely trivial, aimed as much at establishing communication as at securing information, and we got along swimmingly, until I asked, “And why did you refuse to be hypnotized at first, then?”

She wrung her hands, and turned helplessly in her chair, which was so much unlike her relaxed R
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trance state that I felt suddenly and strongly that we were getting, at last, to a closer view of Miss R.; after a minute, still wringing her hands, she brought out, “I won't answer that question.” She spoke harshly, and as though reluctantly, and it was the first sign she had shown as R
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of lack of cooperation. I smiled privately at the fancy that I might have asked an “embarrassing” question, and so meekly abandoned the subject and went on, “And so you slept well?”

“Very well,” she said, relaxing and smiling. “And thank you for telling me to sleep soundly, because I know that it was your idea.”

“Why are you turning your hands in that fashion?” she had commenced twisting her fingers together again and bringing her hands insistently to her eyes.

“I want to open my eyes, but they won't open.”

“I should prefer that you keep your eyes closed, if you please.”

“But I
want
to open them.”—petulantly.

“Closed, please.”

“If I could open my eyes,” she said wheedlingly, “then I could look at you, dear Doctor Wright.”

“There is no need for your looking at me, dear Miss R., so long as you can hear me.”

“But if I can't see you, then I don't choose to hear you.”

And no question of mine, after that, could provoke a response. She set her lips stubbornly, folded her arms, and scowled, eyes shut. Seeing at last that further questioning was worse than useless, I gave her finally the same suggestions about sleeping well, and added that her appetite should be better, and, in no very good humor with my patient, awakened her. Again she asked me what she had said, but this time, instead of passing her my notes as before, I told her that she had become cross with me and refused to answer me at all. In genuine dismay she said impulsively, “I can't believe it of myself; what will you think of me?” And then, slyly, “Are you going to give up my case?”

I told her, believing her sincerely contrite, that such stubbornness was not unusual, and added humorously that I really believed her to be more stubborn asleep than awake, which made her laugh. We parted amiably, and good friends, and she came to my office the next day but one substantially more cheerful and gay, and much easier with me, as though my human vexation at her last visit had somehow proven us equally fallible, and close. There was color in her cheeks at this next visit, and she reported, almost chattering, that not only had she slept well and without waking during the past two nights but that (as I had suggested to her in hypnosis) her appetite had improved and her headache, which had troubled her intermittently for the past several years and almost constantly for the last few months, had vanished for the whole of the previous day and had only returned briefly this morning, disappearing by breakfast-time; this did much to confirm, of course, one of my beliefs about the headache and the backache and the appetite being all outgrowths, as it were, of the insomnia, and I had great hopes of all of these symptoms clearing away readily as Miss R. rid herself of the extreme fatigue from which she suffered. This must not be taken to mean that I felt Miss R.'s difficulties to be merely physical, and that all I had to do was persuade her through post-hypnotic suggestion that she should sleep well, and so cure her entirely; Ryan, even, could have accomplished
that
with a pill or two; my belief was sincerely that the trifling physical symptoms were precisely that—symptoms; the cure we were seeking must be applied for deeper and more insistently. I confess, too, that I perceived that the easier Miss R.'s physical state, the stronger her trust in me, and the easier, consequently, my endeavors toward understanding her.

She accepted the hypnotic trance readily by now, and fell without difficulty into her usual light slumber. Again I began formally by asking her who she was, and where she lived, and again she answered me without hesitation, smiling a little, and doing my heart good with her smiling, friendly face.

“Do you choose to hear me today?”

“Of course.”—surprised.

“The other day you did not, you know.”

“I? I could not have done such a thing.”

I turned to my previous notes and read her her own remarks upon refusing to hear me if she could not open her eyes. As I read she brought up her hands and began again twisting them and rubbing at her face.

“Then,” she asked, “may I open my eyes now?”

“I insist that you keep your eyes closed.” I paused. “Do you choose to hear me with your eyes closed?”

“I suppose I must.”—pettishly. “You won't leave me alone unless I do.”

I frowned a little, at a momentary loss how to proceed, and it was at that moment, I think, that I received the most shocking blow of my life. I sat, as always, upon a stool next to Miss R.'s chair, with a low table next me upon which I could write my notes; Miss R. lay back in the large chair, with her feet on a footstool and a pillow behind her head. I remember that I looked at her for a minute, in the half-light the room was in with the curtain closed, and saw her almost clearly, her face pale against the dark chair, the merest line of late-afternoon sunlight touching her from the crack in the curtain. Her face was turned a little toward me, her lips still parted in a little smile, and her eyes, of course, closed. Her hands were at her breast, still twined together; she is like a sleeping beauty, I thought childishly; I wonder, though, how I ever thought her handsome. Because she was not, I saw, at all handsome, and as I watched her in horror, the smile upon her soft lips coarsened, and became sensual and gross, her eyelids fluttered in an attempt to open, her hands twisted together violently, and she laughed, evilly and roughly, throwing her head back and shouting, and I, seeing a devil's mask where a moment before I had seen Miss R.'s soft face, thought only, it cannot be Miss R.; this is not she.

A moment, and it was gone; the laughter ended, and she turned timidly toward me. “Please,” she asked, “may I open my eyes?”

I awakened her at once; I was myself too shaken by the grotesque sight of her to be able to do more than bid her good afternoon; I believe she felt that I was displeased with her, and she would not have been far wrong; I was, as I say, shaken, and I am shaken now, writing of it. What I saw that afternoon was the dreadful grinning face of a fiend, and heaven help me, I have seen it a thousand times since.

 • • •

I was not well in time for Miss R.'s next visit, nor the next, so it was nearly a week before she came again to my office. When she entered, and I greeted her, I felt rather than perceived what a good deal of our progress had been lost; from her reluctant step and sullen voice I realized that she was very nearly again the Miss R. who had come to me first. I felt this, I say, rather than perceived it, because when I glanced at her I saw only in her face the shadow of the grinning fiend who had laughed at me, and so I took my turn, in this visit, at looking at the table leg and the rug and a thousand other sane objects, that I might not look into Miss R.'s face. She for her part seemed restless, and in discomfort; she confessed to a return of her headache, and I had great difficulty in subduing her into the trance state; this may perhaps have been because of my own horror of hearing again that jeering laughter. Our visit was brief; I merely imposed the usual post-hypnotic suggestions, and awakened her; I was myself not entirely well, and unequal to great exertion.

On her next visit we seemed again to have gained ground; I felt that I had thrown off the clinging nervousness which resulted from my own illness, and was better able to cope—as one who has raised demons, and must deal with them—with any manifestation Miss R. might choose to exhibit while under hypnosis. We had very little difficulty, however; Miss R. fell almost immediately asleep, and we conversed, R
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and I, upon the several subjects we had before started, of her aunt, her home, her work. Once or twice she begged most pitifully to be allowed to open her eyes, but I was firm in my refusal, and she desisted for the time. When I awakened her, although there was still some constraint between us—the cause entirely unsuspected, I fear, on her side, poor girl—she bade me goodbye with a trace of her former friendliness. In my notes for that day I find the phrase “R
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unusually charming.” She wore a dress I had not seen before, I recall, of a somewhat lighter blue than was usual for Miss R.

It seemed, however, that we were never to step forward without going an equal step back; for every time I found cause to congratulate myself on some appearance of progress, I was given equal cause to despair. For, the next visit after the one when R
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had been so unusually charming, R
1
, or Miss R., arrived at my office in a state where I could not persuade her to answer me, or, indeed, to speak at all. Hypnosis was out of the question under these circumstances, and I could hardly dismiss my patient in tears; I had no recourse but to administer a soothing draught, and to wait. I busied myself at my desk, and let Miss R. compose herself in her chair; after a time, when it seemed that her agitation had subsided, I half-turned toward her, affectionately, and asked, “What has disturbed you so, dear Miss R.?”