The Collected Stories of Machado De Assis

by Machado De Assis

  All complaints against the alienist ceased, as did any lingering traces of resentment for what he had done. Ever since he had declared the Casa Verde’s inmates to be completely sane, they had all been filled with a sense of profound gratitude and fervent enthusiasm. Many of them felt that the alienist deserved special recognition for his services and even gave a ball in his honor, followed by further dinners and celebrations. The chronicles say that, at first, Dona Evarista considered asking for a separation, but the sad prospect of losing the companionship of such a great man overcame any wounded feelings, and the couple ended up even happier than before.

  The friendship between the alienist and the apothecary remained equally close. The latter concluded from Simão Bacamarte’s memorandum that, in times of revolution, prudence is the most important virtue, and he greatly appreciated the alienist’s magnanimity in extending him the hand of friendship when he granted him his liberty.

  “He is indeed a great man,” said Soares to his wife, referring to the alienist’s gesture.

  Needless to say, Mateus the saddler, Costa, Coelho, Martim Brito, and all the others mentioned earlier were free to return to their former habits and occupations. Martim Brito, locked up on account of that overenthusiastic speech in praise of Dona Evarista, now gave another speech in honor of the eminent doctor “whose exalted genius spreads its wings far above the sun and leaves beneath it all other spirits of the earth.”

  “Thank you for your kind words,” replied the alienist, “which only serve to remind me how right I was to release you.”

  Meanwhile, the council, which had replied to Simão Bacamarte’s memorandum saying that it would set out its position concerning the end of paragraph four in due course, finally set about legislating on the matter. A bylaw was adopted, without debate, authorizing the alienist to detain in the Casa Verde anyone whose mental faculties were found to be in perfect equilibrium. And after the council’s previous painful experience, a clause was included stating that such authorization was provisional in nature and limited to one year, so that the new theory could be put to the test, and authorizing the council to close down the Casa Verde at any time, should this be deemed advisable for reasons of public order. Councillor Freitas also proposed a provision that under no circumstances should any councillor be committed to the mental asylum, and this clause was accepted, voted through, and included in the bylaw, despite Councillor Galvão’s objections. The latter’s main argument was that the council, in passing legislation relating to a scientific experiment, could not exclude its own members from the consequences of the law; such an exemption was both odious and ridiculous. As soon as he uttered those two words, the other councillors erupted in howls of disapproval at their colleague’s audacity and foolishness; for his part, he heard them out and simply repeated, calmly, that he would vote against the exemption.

  “Our position as councillors,” he concluded, “grants us no special powers, nor does it exclude us from the foibles of the human mind.”

  Simão Bacamarte accepted the bylaw with all its restrictions. As for the councillors being exempted, he declared that he would have been deeply saddened had he been compelled to commit a single one of them to the Casa Verde; the clause itself, however, was the best possible proof that their mental faculties did not suffer from perfect equilibrium. The same could not, however, be said for Councillor Galvão, whose wisdom in objecting to the exemption, and moderation in responding to his colleagues’ abusive tirades, clearly demonstrated a well-organized brain, and on this account Bacamarte respectfully requested the council to hand him over for treatment. The council, still somewhat offended by Councillor Galvão’s behavior, considered the alienist’s request and voted unanimously in favor.

  It goes without saying that, according to the new theory, a person could not be committed to the Casa Verde on the basis of a single incident or word; rather, a long examination was required, exhaustively covering both past and present. For example, it took thirty days after the bylaw was passed for Father Lopes to be arrested, and forty days for the apothecary’s wife. This lady’s detention filled her husband with indignation. Crispim Soares left his house spitting with rage, and declaring to whoever he met that he was going to box the tyrant’s ears. Upon hearing this in the street, one of the alienist’s sworn enemies immediately set aside his animosity and rushed to Simão Bacamarte’s house to warn him of the danger. Bacamarte expressed his gratitude to his erstwhile adversary, and in a matter of minutes ascertained the worthiness and good faith of the man’s sentiments, his respect and generosity toward his fellow man; he thereupon shook him warmly by the hand and committed him to the Casa Verde.

  “A most unusual case,” he said to his astonished wife. “Now let’s wait for our good friend Crispim.”

  Crispim arrived. Sorrow had overcome anger, and the apothecary did not after all box the alienist’s ears. The latter consoled his dear friend, assuring him that all was not lost; his wife might well have some degree of cerebral imbalance, and he, Bacamarte, would examine her very thoroughly to find out. In the meantime, though, he could scarcely let the woman roam the streets. Seeing certain advantages in reuniting them—on the basis that the husband’s slippery duplicity might in some way cure the moral refinement he had detected in the wife—Bacamarte told Soares:

  “You can work in your dispensary during the day, but you will have lunch and dinner here with your wife, and stay overnight, and spend all day here on Sundays and public holidays.”

  The proposal placed the poor apothecary in the position of Buridan’s ass. He very much wanted to be with his wife, but feared returning to the Casa Verde; he remained caught in this dilemma for some time, until Dona Evarista rescued him by promising to visit her dear friend and relay messages back and forth between them. Crispim Soares gratefully kissed her hands. This gesture of cowardly egotism struck the alienist as almost sublime.

  After five months, there were some eighteen persons residing at the Casa Verde, but Simão Bacamarte did not let up; he went from street to street and house to house, observing, asking questions, and taking notes, and the internment of even one new patient gave him the same pleasure he had once enjoyed when herding them in by the dozen. It was precisely this disparity that confirmed his new theory; he had finally discovered the truth about cerebral pathology. One day, he succeeded in committing the chief magistrate to the Casa Verde, but only after he had scrupulously carried out a detailed study of all his judicial decisions and spoken to all the important people in the town. On more than one occasion, he had found himself on the verge of committing someone who turned out to be perfectly unbalanced; this is what happened with a certain lawyer, in whom he had identified such a fine array of moral and mental qualities that he considered it positively dangerous to leave the man at large in society. He ordered him to be arrested, but the bailiff had doubts and asked Bacamarte if he could conduct an experiment; he went to see a friend of his who had been accused of forging a will, and advised him to engage Salustiano (the name of the lawyer in question) to defend him.

  “So do you really think he’ll . . . ?”

  “No doubt about it. Tell him everything, the whole truth, whatever it may be, and leave the matter entirely in his hands.”

  The man went to see the lawyer, confessed to having forged the will, and asked him to take on the case. The lawyer agreed, studied all the papers, pleaded the case before the court, and proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the will was completely genuine. The defendant was solemnly declared innocent by the judge, and the inheritance was his. To this experiment the distinguished lawyer owed his freedom. However, nothing escapes an original and penetrating mind. Simão Bacamarte, who had already noted the bailiff’s dedication, wisdom, patience, and restraint, recognized the skill and good judgment with which he had conducted such a tricky and complicated experiment, and ordered him to be committed forthwith to the Casa Verde. He did, however, give him one of the best cells.

  Once again, the lunatics were lodge
d according to their different categories. One wing housed those madmen with a particular tendency for modesty; one was for the tolerant, one for the truthful, one for the innocent, one for the loyal, one for the magnanimous, one for the wise, one for the sincere, and so on. Naturally, the inmates’ friends and family objected strongly to this new theory, and some tried to force the council to rescind its authorization. However, the council had not forgotten the language used by Councillor Galvão, and, since he would be released and restored to his former position if they rescinded the bylaw, they refused. Simão Bacamarte wrote to the councillors, not to thank them, but to congratulate them on this act of personal vindictiveness.

  Disenchanted with the lawful authorities, some of the leading townspeople went secretly to Porfírio the barber and promised him their wholehearted support, as well as money and influence at court, if he would lead another uprising against the council and the alienist. The barber declined, saying that ambition had driven him to break the law on that first occasion, but that he had seen both the error of his ways and the fickleness of his followers. Since the council had seen fit to authorize the alienist’s new experiment for one year, then, in the event of the council rejecting their request, they should either wait until the year was up or petition the viceroy. He, Porfírio, could never advise resorting to means that had already failed him once and resulted in deaths and injuries that would be forever on his conscience.

  “What’s this you say?” asked the alienist when one of his spies told him about the conversation between the barber and the leading citizens.

  Two days later, the barber was taken to the Casa Verde. “I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t!” cried the poor man.

  The one-year period came to an end, and the council authorized a six-month extension to allow some new therapies to be tested. The conclusion of this episode in the chronicles of Itaguaí is of such magnitude, and so unexpected, that it deserves a full explanation of no less than ten chapters; I will, however, make do with just one, which will form both the grand finale of my account, and one of the finest-ever examples of scientific conviction and selflessness.

  Chapter 13

  PLUS ULTRA!

  Now it was the turn of therapy. Simão Bacamarte, so assiduous and wise in finding his patients, exceeded even himself in the foresight and diligence with which he began their treatment. On this point all of the chroniclers are in complete agreement: the eminent alienist performed the most astonishing cures, earning him Itaguaí’s most ardent admiration.

  Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a more rational system of therapy. Having divided the lunatics into categories according to their predominant moral perfection, Simão Bacamarte set about attacking the leading attribute head-on. Take, for example, modesty. Bacamarte would apply a treatment designed to instill precisely the opposite characteristic—in this case, vanity. Rather than starting immediately with the maximum dose, he would increase it gradually, taking into account the patient’s age, condition, temperament, and social position. Sometimes all it took was a tailcoat, a ribbon, a wig, or a cane to restore the patient’s sanity; in more stubborn cases he would resort to diamond rings, honorary titles, etc. There was one patient, a poet, who resisted everything. Simão Bacamarte was beginning to despair of finding a cure, when he had the idea of sending out the town crier to proclaim him as great a poet as Garção or Pindar.

  “It’s a miracle,” said the poet’s mother to one of her closest friends, “a blessed miracle.”

  Another patient, also suffering from modesty, exhibited the same resistance to medical treatment; but since he wasn’t a writer (he could barely sign his name), the town-crier cure could not be applied. Simão Bacamarte had the idea of petitioning for the man to be appointed secretary of the Academy of Hidden Talents that had been established in Itaguaí. The posts of president and secretary were by royal appointment, in memory of His Late Majesty King João V, and carried with them both the title of “Your Excellency” and the right to wear a gold medallion on one’s hat. The government in Lisbon initially refused the appointment, but when the alienist indicated that he was not proposing it as a legitimate distinction or honorary award, but merely as a therapeutic remedy in a difficult case, the government made an exception and granted his request, although not without extraordinary efforts on the part of the Minister for the Navy and Colonies, who just so happened to be the alienist’s cousin. Yet another blessed miracle.

  “Quite remarkable!” people said in the street, on seeing the healthy, puffed-up expressions of the two former lunatics.

  Such was his system. The rest can be imagined. Each moral or mental refinement was attacked at the point where its perfection seemed strongest, and the effect was never in doubt. There were some instances in which the predominant characteristic resisted all attempts at treatment; in such cases the alienist would attack another element, conducting his therapies much as a military strategist would, assailing first one bastion and then another until the fortress falls.

  After five and a half months, the Casa Verde was empty: everyone was cured! Councillor Galvão, so cruelly afflicted by principles of fairness and moderation, had the good fortune to lose an uncle; I say good fortune because the uncle left an ambiguously worded will and Galvão obtained a favorable interpretation by corrupting the judges and deceiving the other heirs. The alienist’s sincerity was apparent on this occasion; he freely admitted that he had played no part in the cure, and that it had been all down to the healing power of nature. With Father Lopes it was an entirely different matter. Knowing that the priest knew absolutely no Hebrew or Greek, the alienist asked him to write a critical analysis of the Septuagint. The priest accepted and performed the task in short order; within two months he had written the book and was a free man. As for the apothecary’s wife, she did not stay long in the cell allocated to her and where she was always treated kindly and affectionately.

  “Why doesn’t Crispim come to visit me?” she asked every day.

  In reply they gave her one excuse after another; in the end they told her the truth. The worthy matron could not contain her shame and indignation. During her fits of rage, she would utter random words and phrases such as these:

  “Scoundrel! Villain! Ungrateful cheat! Nothing but a peddler of spurious, rancid lotions and potions . . . Oh, the scoundrel!”

  Simão Bacamarte recognized that, even if the accusation itself might not be true, her words were enough to show that the excellent lady was at last restored to a state of perfect mental disequilibrium, and he promptly discharged her.

  Now, if you think that the alienist was delighted to see the last inmate leaving the Casa Verde, you will only be revealing how little you know our man. Plus ultra! was his motto: Ever Onward! It was not enough for him to have discovered the true theory of insanity; nor was he content to have restored the reign of reason in Itaguaí. Plus ultra! Rather than feeling elated, he grew troubled and pensive; something was telling him that his new theory held within it another, even newer theory.

  “Let’s see,” he thought, “let’s see if I can finally reach the ultimate truth.”

  Such were his thoughts as he paced the length of the vast room, which contained the richest library in all His Majesty’s overseas possessions. The eminent alienist’s majestic and austere body was wrapped in an ample damask robe, tied at the waist by a silken cord with gold tassels (a gift from a university). A powdered wig covered his broad and noble pate, polished smooth by daily scientific cogitations. His feet, neither slim and feminine nor large and uncouth, but entirely in proportion with his shape and size, were protected by a pair of shoes adorned with nothing but a plain brass buckle. Observe the contrast: his only luxuries were those of a scientific origin; everything that related to his own person bore the hallmark of simplicity and moderation, fitting virtues for a sage.

  Thus it was that he, the great alienist, paced from one end of the vast library to the other, lost in his own thoughts, oblivious to anything beyond t
he darkest problems of cerebral pathology. Suddenly he stopped. Standing in front of a window, with his left elbow supported on the palm of his right hand, and his chin resting on the closed fist of his left hand, he asked himself:

  “But were they really insane, and cured by me—or was what appeared to be a cure nothing more than the discovery of their natural mental disequilibrium?”

  And, digging further into his thoughts, he reached the following conclusion: the well-organized brains he had been so successfully treating were, after all, just as unbalanced as all the rest. He could not pretend, he realized, to have instilled in his patients any sentiment or mental faculty they did not already possess; both of these things must have already existed, in a latent state, perhaps, but there nevertheless.

  Upon reaching this conclusion, the eminent alienist experienced two opposing sensations, one of pleasure, the other of dejection. The pleasure was on seeing that, at the end of long and patient investigation, involving unrelenting work and a monumental struggle against the entire population, he could now confirm the following truth: there were no madmen in Itaguaí; the town possessed not one single lunatic. But no sooner had this idea refreshed his soul than another appeared, completely neutralizing the effect of the first: a doubt. What! Not one single well-adjusted brain in the whole of Itaguaí? Would such an extreme conclusion not, by its very nature, be erroneous? And would it not, moreover, destroy the entire majestic edifice of his new psychological doctrine?

  The chroniclers of Itaguaí describe the illustrious Simão Bacamarte’s anguish as one of the most terrifying moral maelstroms ever to afflict mankind. But such tempests only terrify the weak; the strong brace themselves and stare into the eye of the storm. Twenty minutes later, the alienist’s face lit up with a gentle glow.