The Mind of Mr Soames (6 page)

Dr Breuer went on: ‘As soon as Mr Soames has made a complete physical and physiological recovery from his operation, he will be transferred to a room in the Psychiatric Division where he can be kept under continual observation and control. There are two basic factors which we must bear in mind. First, he is an adult with a fully developed brain, and second, that his brain is quite blank. It contains no memories, no experiences, no behaviour patterns or habits, and no means of rational communication with others. And because it contains no vocabulary of words, it cannot think. Our problem is what to put into this completely empty brain, and in what order.’

Mr Gillings cleared his throat, adjusted his glasses and said: ‘May I at this point say how very deeply interested the education authorities are in this experiment? Here we have an opportunity to study the precise mechanism of learning and remembering in a mind untainted, as it were, by preconditioning or acquired habits. Even a child when it first attends school has already developed a complex behaviour pattern with attendant prejudices and inhibitions. With Mr Soames this can not be so. We shall, for the first time in recorded history so far as we know, have absolute control over his education, in its widest sense, right from the start. We can create behaviour patterns and establish habits to specification.’

‘The first essential, of course, is language,’ Mr Storey put in, anxious not to be left out of the preliminary statement of policy. ‘Until Mr Soames has acquired the means of semantic communication, he can be taught nothing.’

Conway considered for a moment whether he might reasonably add his own contribution to the discussion without appearing disrespectful. It was, so far as he understood, a free-for-all conference on American brain-storming lines, in which anyone could throw in an idea, relevant or not, for what it was worth.

‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘there are a number of things Mr Soames will have to be taught long before he is capable of uttering a single word. One of the first is, perhaps, the simple habit of cleanliness. So far, in the cold tank with intravenous feeding, there has been no great problem, but in future, as he changes to solid food, he will have to be trained to bring the sphincter reflexes under voluntary control.’

‘That is a problem we are already encountering,’ Breuer observed, ‘but until the patient is able to get up and walk about we can do little other than use the normal sanitary appliances.’

‘Agreed,’ Conway said, ‘but I think it’s advisable, so far as is possible, to start as one means to continue. Soames’s mind won’t be so flexible as a baby’s, and he may not be able to switch from one behaviour pattern to another with facility. I think it is important to try to establish the correct and normal patterns right at the beginning.’

‘We can only proceed step by step,’ Dr Mortimer declared. ‘There will be things he may need to learn in a temporary way, and then unlearn again later. Similarly there will be other matters which could conveniently be deferred until his mind is ready to accept them.’

‘Such as what?’ Mr Gillings asked. ‘After all the man is an adult and theoretically his mind should be ready to accept and absorb all information.’

‘I am thinking in terms of expedience,’ Mortimer replied. ‘There are certain basic essentials—until he can speak and count he can learn little in any academic sense. Then, level by level his understanding of the world and human behaviour will increase. He will progress from the simple levels to the more complex ones, as a child does.’ He smiled whimsically. ‘After all, a child learns about birds and bees individually long before touching upon the combined operation often referred to as “the birds and the bees”.’

‘The point is well taken,’ Breuer conceded, ‘but there is an over-riding factor involved so far as “the birds and the bees” is involved. In a child sex education is of no great moment until the onset of puberty, but Mr Soames is already mature. Clearly correct sex education and orientation for him is a matter of some urgency. At the same time, my own feeling is that it must be deferred until he has acquired certain moral values, the ability to differentiate between right and wrong, the recognition of authority and social convention, and so on.’

‘That may be difficult to achieve,’ Conway pointed out. ‘Apart from mathematics there’s hardly a subject he can learn which does not introduce the notion that there are women in the world as well as men.’

‘It can be presented in an abstract way, as gender rather than sex,’ Dr Mortimer explained. ‘As in learning French, for example,
la plume
is acknowledged as feminine without any question of sex arising. There is no reason at all why Mr Soames should not acquire this convenient attitude, initially at least. After all, young children do quite naturally.’

‘Until they come into contact with other young children of the opposite sex, and then they frequently discover that there’s more to it than mere gender,’ Conway said. ‘For instance, I fancy Mr Soames will regard the nurses looking after him as rather less than abstract, as you could hardly call his interest precocious, as it might be in the case of a child.’

‘Dr Conway obviously has a practical turn of mind,’ Breuer said to the assembly at large, ‘but the solution to the problem would seem to be rather simple, namely, to employ male nurses. Candidly, I’m inclined to Dr Mortimer’s point of view. I think it is essential not to introduce complications during the early phase of the educational programme. It is equally desirable to eliminate or at least minimise any distracting influences, of which sex is obviously going to be the most powerful.’

‘I entirely concur,’ said Mortimer. ‘We must, I think, regard sex education as a thing apart, to be introduced when Mr Soames has reached an accepted level of general education and training and is ready to mix with society. It means, of course, that he will be required to live a monastic life for a period of, well, perhaps several years, but it also means that his education ’will be more speedily accomplished without irrelevant distractions. Or doesn’t Mr Conway agree?’

Conway shook his head doubtfully. ‘I can’t see anything irrelevant about sex so far as Mr Soames is concerned, and the programme sounds to me more like indoctrination than education. There’s another danger—if Mr Soames, with his blank mind and primitive instincts is forced to live a purely monastic life among male nurses and doctors, his inherent sex drive is likely to become diverted into autoerotic or even homosexual channels.’

‘In that case, what would
you
suggest?’ Mortimer asked with some irony.

Conway shrugged. ‘That’s hard to say. It just seems to me that here we have a man who, so far as we know, is normal in every respect, perhaps far more normal in absolute terms than any of us here in this room. His mind is, in a sense, raw material which it is our responsibility to mould. Mr Soames will become what we make of him, and we shall stand or fall by the end product. The question of sex is a tricky one, I’ll admit, but we can’t take an ostrich-like attitude by pretending it doesn’t exist—by leading Mr Soames up the garden path of gender when the very hormones in his blood are blindly motivated by sex. Frankly I think one could do worse than provide him with a mistress, or even a wife, at the earliest possible moment. After all, education takes many forms.’

Silence followed Conway’s matter-of-fact speech, as if his audience couldn’t make up their minds whether to take him seriously or not. Dr Breuer looked slightly incredulous, his mouth slightly open as if about to say something, but he remained silent.

‘We must not make the mistake of treating Mr Soames as a little child at infant’s school,’ Conway added tentatively.

Breuer found his voice. ‘Dr Conway, with all due respect to your obvious sincerity, I’m afraid you appear to have misconstrued the situation entirely. It is
not
our task to make something of Mr Soames, as you suggest, nor do we stand or fall by the end product. All we are required to do is to give this adult man the kind of information and establish the type of behaviour pattern that will best fit him for the society in which he is to live. If we are successful Mr Soames will, in the course of time, make his own major decisions as to what he wishes to do with his life. If he decides to choose a mistress or a wife, then that is his own responsibility.’

He paused for a moment, coughing into his cupped hand, then continued: ‘It is certainly not for us to supply what you might term sexual facilities as an integral part of his educational curriculum.’

‘We must remember, too,’ Mr Gillings ventured, ‘that Mr Soames is the focal point of world-wide curiosity. Everything that happens to him is likely to be reported in newspapers all over the world. It would be most unwise to do anything that might invite criticism—
public
criticism—on grounds of morality. I feel sure that I am speaking for the Education Authority when I suggest that Mr Soames must be allowed to determine his own moral values when he is fit enough to leave the Institute.’

‘In how many years?’ Conway demanded.

‘That must surely depend entirely on the rate of educational progress. Naturally we hope it will not be too long.’

‘I think’, Mr Storey interposed, ‘that I am in broad agreement with my colleague, Mr Gillings, and also Dr Breuer and Dr Mortimer. Above all, we must be
correct
in our approach to the problem of Mr Soames.’ He smiled benignly at his audience. ‘Our attitude, after all, is academic rather than parental. We are concerned with the temporal rather than the spiritual side of Mr Soames’s life, and I think it is in the patient’s best interests, as well as ours, that we should pursue a formal, orthodox policy.’

‘I can’t see how one can be orthodox in an unorthodox situation,’ Conway said hotly, ‘nor as a psychiatrist can I differentiate between Mr Soames’s temporal and spiritual facets. Both are interlocked and interdependent. His spiritual self, whatever that might mean, is going to be conditioned by his temporal education, and that’s
our
responsibility.’

‘But orthodoxy...’ Mr Gillings put in apologetically.

‘Is it orthodox for Soames to be subjected to homosexual conditions and environment?’

‘Dr Conway, we have to be circumspect,’ Breuer stated firmly. ‘We have to protect Mr Soames from forces of an instinctive nature which could well destroy all that we are trying to create. The first priority for Mr Soames is communication, and that means the three “R’s”, just as in the case of any schoolboy. When he can read write and count, we can begin to consider the more mature aspects of his education. It may well be that in the course of a few months, when Mr Soames has achieved a stable and mature outlook, we shall be able to extend his horizons, as it were, and introduce him to the idea of sex.’

‘But in the nicest possible way,’ Conway said with heavy irony.

‘Yes,’ Breuer agreed, ‘in the nicest possible way—for the sake of Mr Soames. We are not denying the difficulties, but at least we can try to make the difficulties less difficult, if you understand my meaning.’

He paused, scanning the assembly challengingly. ‘May I venture to suggest that at this stage we might reasonably get down to more detailed programme—an agenda, as it were—of Mr Soames’s proposed education.’

‘Agreed,’ said Gillings. ‘After all, I must have something concrete to put to my committee.’

‘And I shall need to show something to the Ministry,’ Mr Storey added.

Breuer tapped his stubby fingers thoughtfully on the table top. ‘Very well, gentlemen. Let us concentrate on detail rather than general policy, bearing in mind that we can only outline a tentative programme at this stage. There are also a number of other authorities who may wish to make constructive comments and suggestions, and I happen to know that Dr Takaito himself is anxious to play an active if remote part in the education of Mr Soames. At any rate, we can certainly crystallise plans to cover the next few weeks, by which time we shall have coordinated the entire programme. I have already made a note of a number of personal observations which I shall ask Dr Bennett to read out to you, and then we can discuss them informally. If you wouldn’t mind, Bennett...’

Dr Bennett riffled through his file of papers in a methodical fashion, and Conway settled down to what was obviously going to be a fairly lengthy meeting.

❖

‘The brainwashing of John Soames is more or less cut and dried,’ Conway said to Ann Henderson later in the evening. They were in The Green Man, a local pub about half a mile from the Institute, sitting in the lounge bar drinking light ales. Half a dozen local residents sat at the small circular tables quenching their respective thirsts with various alcoholic fluids, and the prevailing atmosphere was, if anything, drowsy.

‘Basically they propose to treat him as a child,’ Conway went on. ‘The difference is that they hope to concentrate within a few years, not more than five, what normally requires ten years or more in the case of a child, and all this without any of the practical experience of living that a child enjoys.’

Ann frowned and accepted a cigarette which Conway offered her. ‘Well, it sounds fairly reasonable, Dave. Soames has got to start somewhere, so why not at the beginning? He’s got to learn to talk, and read and write, add, subtract, multiply, and so on.’

‘Superficially, yes. And all the other baby things, too. He’s even got to learn to walk.’

She blinked at him in surprise.

‘Walking is an acquired facility, like swimming or cycling. It requires co-ordination of the muscles in response to the direction of the balancing organs—the semicircular canals of the ear. Soames has been lying in a horizontal position for thirty years. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was terribly sick the first time he tried to stand erect—and that kind of sensation is likely to cause a feeling of insecurity. The same applies to other fundamental bodily functions. For weeks he will become habituated to all the paraphernalia of bedpans, urinal bottles and so on, and he’ll come to accept them as normal. Then one day they’ll make him stand and walk and use an ordinary lavatory, and that in itself may produce an inhibition. At all events there’s a possibility he’ll associate bedpans with bed and lavatories with standing up. You don’t get that problem with babies. They’re more flexible, and one can use nappies and hold them over a pot but you can’t do that with Mr Soames.’