The Mask of Sanity

by Hervey Cleckley

  After settling down sufficiently to permit an interview, he showed no ordinary evidence of a psychosis. He was charming superficially, dismissed his own deeds with lordly insouciance, bewailed his plight, for which he still blamed his wife, though he now spoke of her always with a show of gallantry and implied that her father and other relatives were responsible for her causing him all this trouble.

  Though fundamentally childish and full of puerile self-pity, he was on the surface one of the most delightful persons I have ever seen. Something inimitably well-bred in his manner, a gracious and warming geniality which seemed, surely, to overlie great dignity and pride, caused all the personnel on the ward to treat him with particular deference. He all but became the pet of the hospital.

  He immediately assumed that the physician was chiefly concerned in helping him get back into the good graces of his wife, who at present refused to accept him. He would have left the hospital at once but his in-laws and members of his own family had agreed for the police to take him if he did.

  Persuaded by his apparent sincerity, his wife agreed after two days for him to come home on a pass for a few hours. She soon called the hospital and asked for attendants to be sent. He was brought in, mean and vehement, from a barroom where he had already drunk to excess after first creating a shocking uproar at his house.

  The next day he agreed that he had conducted himself unwisely but laid his actions chiefly to his wife’s failure to show complete confidence in him. Not a trace of anything like shame or remorse was discernible. Somewhat alarmed now that his wife might actually be persuaded to leave him, he bent all his efforts toward winning her over. She refused to visit him for several days. He spent hours writing letters to her. These he read proudly to his physician. They were of rather far-fetched eloquence and extravagant sentiment, and he read them with much oratorical gusto:

  “What does any misunderstanding weigh against the immortal love I bear you? The carping and misguided influence of others should not be allowed to come between those united in such devotion as is ours, My darling! My sweetheart!”

  Wasn’t this the best note to strike? he asked his physician. A politely subdued twinkle of pride and canniness came into his glance. He had succeeded so often that he was already confident. Nevertheless, he showed great vexation and restlessness at the delay, sighed and held his head in his hands, swearing that he could not stand it another hour. He very plainly showed and stated that he felt even one day in the hospital too severe a measure to take against such trivial indiscretions as his.

  After three or four days his wife, a highly intelligent person, though far from confident that he would not continue in his ways, was won over sufficiently to take him home.

  When last heard from several months later, he had given no further serious trouble. It is quite possible that he may continue the appearance of a fairly good adjustment for a year or two, but it must be remembered that he is supported in this by financial aid and by strong moral efforts on the part of his wife, his father-in-law, and others.

  His history shows that he has remained as long as two years sober, fairly industrious, and nearly always in his mask of the grand and charming gentleman. It is important, however, not to give him access to substantial sums of money. Eventually, despite all efforts to protect him, his psychopathic tendencies come forward and he repeats with ingenious variations the theme of the episodes here described.

  24. The Psychopath as Scientist

  Limitations of space allow only a few highlights to be thrown on this man’s interesting career. Though still in the late twenties, he was already a doctor of philosophy, and the co-author of several creditable papers on subjects in the general field of physics.

  Although delayed by truancy and alcoholic escapades for a year in obtaining his degree, he always showed noteworthy ability in a technical sense so long as he applied himself. Now and then he was disabled for several days or a week, during which times he drank enough to remain semiconscious or climbed into trees, from which he hurled noisy defiance at his friends and later at policemen who attempted to get him down. He drank chiefly alone and sometimes urinated in bureau drawers, his own or his roommate’s shoes, and indulged in other pranks of the same caliber.

  Having obtained his degree, he had little difficulty in securing a satisfactory post on the faculty of a state university. He did not, however, enter upon these duties. Having taken up residence with an aunt in the university town several weeks before the beginning of classes, he at once proceeded to drink on weekends and to haunt public houses of unsavory reputation.

  One night a few days before the formal beginning of the academic year, he made himself particularly disagreeable to his companions, who consisted of two prostitutes and a local derelict. In a mood of great irritability and arrogance he quit this group and joined another woman of the streets with whom he had frequently consorted but in whom he had never shown any special interest. During the next hour he drank little but spent his energy ridiculing and slandering his acquaintances in town, the faculty of the university, and particularly his aunt, who was his only local relative. At about 3 o’clock in the morning he astonished all present by announcing in imperious tones that he and his present companion would straightway join themselves in holy matrimony. Before leaving with such company as he could gather, he took pains to telephone his aunt and insist peremptorily that she attend the nuptials.

  One may be left to imagine the consternation and confusion of the elderly and very circumspect lady as she sought first to understand and then to counsel her nephew.

  On arriving at the residence of a justice of the peace, the aunt and friends whom she had brought left nothing undone in efforts to dissuade our subject from proceeding. In desperation they pointed out not only the defects of character so plain in the prospective bride but also her considerable age, her poorly made false teeth, and her unprepossessingly dyed hair. With oaths, obscenity, and a very artificial show of gaiety, these objections were waved aside, and the bridegroom fulfilled his aims.

  The next day he condescendingly allowed his aunt to begin efforts to annul the marriage, but, while expressing his approval, he took very little active part. When earnestly questioned about his motivation, he casualty averred that the whole affair was meant as a joke.

  “But on whom is this joke?’ an elderly friend of the family asked with some asperity.

  “Why on me, I suppose,” confessed the disinterested bridegroom laughing with what appeared to be a calmness and lack of concern almost incredible under the circumstances. He never showed any signs of serious worry or of shame, although he glibly confessed to being in the wrong. The affair became widely known, and authorities in the university succeeded in obtaining their new instructor’s resignation before he actually took up his duties.

  He promptly abandoned the woman he had married, and his family made some settlement with her. After a financially successful year as an automobile salesman, in which he got into trouble somewhat less frequently than usual, he decided to return to the academic world.

  He obtained several other good positions in universities where his work was fitful but promising. His personal life soon became so spectacularly designed to embarrass the institution that he had to be dropped. One of these positions he lost, after several minor efforts of the same sort, by the following bit of conduct:

  After becoming drunk and conspicuously turbulent in his quarters, where efforts were being made to nurse him and to cajole him back to an appearance of what might be called sanity, he disappeared and could not be located for several days.

  The authorities at the college remained in a state of considerable anxiety about his fate. This was terminated by a telephone call made by a local veterinarian to the professor in whose department he worked. The latter, a person of authentic and altogether unstudied dignity and a scholar of national importance, was probably the last man on earth whom a normal youth would desire to rouse out of bed at midnight and treat to a display of absurdi
ty. Humor of no lesser order than his dignity characterized him. Though peaceful, unaggressive, and tolerant as a man can be, some deep subjective poise enabled him when prodded sufficiently to utter a quiet and ironic rebuke fit to unfrock a bishop.

  The veterinarian informed this considerable personage that his missing research fellow was at present in the dog hospital and had insisted that this news be delivered to no other than himself, and at once. The bland, laconic lines of the professor’s face subtly hardened. Pausing as he reached for his socks, he swore inaudibly.

  On arriving at the dog hospital, he found his younger colleague sprawled in a large cage or cubicle used to house ailing Great Danes or St. Bernards. He at once yelled to the professor, announcing in glee that prophecies by the latter about his going to the dogs were now amply fulfilled—so what of it! His clamorous outcries rose above the din of barking dogs, who, aroused by the presence of so unusual a kennel-mate, gave voice vigorously and in unison.

  The veterinarian explained that his new patient had come in some urgency and insisted on going to where the convalescent dogs were kept. Somewhat bewildered, but thinking perhaps that his visitor had good reason to inquire into the condition of some canine acquaintance, he promptly brought him to the kennels. The strange young man at once climbed into his present berth, defied the veterinarian to remove him, sang, shouted, cursed, and finally insisted that his superior be called.

  Finally agreeing to come out, he remained generally obstreperous and at once began to blame a grave and gentle older colleague for his plight. The latter, who had been sincerely interested in trying to keep this promising young man from destroying himself, had, he said, set him off on the present spree by offering him a bottle of beer at lunch several days previously.

  Despite many apparently self-imposed and purposeless obstacles in his career he continues to obtain positions, sometimes keeping them as long as a year. His family is called upon to see him through difficulties when they arise, and he continues to speak of those who assist him as if he considered them in a large measure responsible for his troubles.

  25. The Psychopath as Physician

  When first seen by me, he was still in his early forties. From the country town in which he was practicing medicine an inquiry came concerning his professional ability. Everyone regarded him as a brilliant man. His patients loved him, and while he was working regularly, his collections were more than adequate. It was often impossible to find him, for now and then, in the classic manner, he lay out in third-rate hotel rooms or in the fields semiconscious until he could be found and coaxed back home.

  This was tolerantly accepted as one of his idiosyncrasies by the rustic folk he attended. It was inconvenient, but like drought and the boll weevil, what the devil could one do about it? The community, in which not only social drinking but even card playing and dances were generally regarded as devices of Satan, intuitively sensed that the Doc’s doings had little or nothing in common with the proscribed gaieties or frivolities. Although a man known to drink cocktails for pleasure and even a woman who smoke cigarettes might have been ostracized, local deacons and town gossips made no concerted attack on the doctor.

  The inquiry about his ability mentioned previously was prompted by the following incident:

  A patient whom he had been attending off and on for several weeks had noticed that he occasionally seemed glassy-eyed and slightly irrelevant. Neither she nor her family, however, was prepared for such a bedside manner as was his on the last visit.

  When the door was opened for the doctor, he swung in unsteadily with it, hanging desperately to the knob, which he apparently hesitated to relinquish. Breathing hard, he muttered inaudibly for a moment, winked inanely at three children who had withdrawn to a corner, gave several short, piercing cheers, and slipped to the floor. Retaining his instrument bag in one hand, he began, still prone, to crawl toward his patient’s room. Switching his body from side to side, he made slow but spectacular progress, hesitating every few yards to give a series of hoarse, emphatic grunts or barks. This pantomime was taken by the family to represent an alligator slipping through a bog. In this manner he reached the bedside of the patient.

  This man’s history shows a great succession of purposeless follies dating from early manhood. He lost several valuable hospital appointments by lying out sodden or by bursting in on serious occasions with nonsensical uproar. He was once forced to relinquish a promising private practice because of the scandal and indignation which followed an escapade in a brothel where he had often lain out disconsolately for days at a time.

  Accompanied by a friend who was also feeling some influence of drink, he swaggered into this favorite retreat and bellowed confidently for women. Congenially disposed in one room, the party of four called for highballs. For an hour or more only the crash of glasses, scattered oaths, and occasional thuds were heard. Then suddenly an earnest, piercing scream brought the proprietress and her servants racing into the chamber. One of the prostitutes lay prostrate, clasping a towel to her breast, yelling in agony. Through her wails and sobs she accused the subject of this report of having, in his injudicious blunderings, bitten off her nipple. An examination by those present showed that this unhappy dismemberment had, in fact, taken place. Although both men had at the moment been in bed with her, the entertainer had no doubt as to which one had done her the injury.

  Feeling ran strong for a while, but, by paying a large sum of money as recompense for the professional disability and personal damage he had inflicted, the doctor avoided open prosecution. Before a settlement had been made, the guilty man attempted to persuade his companion to assume responsibility for the deed. It would be less serious for the other man, he argued, since his own prominence and professional standing made him a more vulnerable target for damaging courtroom dramatics and for slander. His companion, however, declined this opportunity for self-sacrifice with great firmness.

  Less spectacular performances include locking himself in a hotel room alone where he would drink to stupefaction, arouse the management, break furniture, telephone his wife that he had decided to kill himself, drink more, and remain until taken by police or friends who broke open the door.

  He also contributed vividly to the liveliness of a dance some years ago. His older brother, whom he was visiting in a New England town and who was an officer in a country club where the dance was in progress, remonstrated with him, urging him to leave because his loud and disorderly behavior, having already attracted unfavorable attention, was now beginning to cause consternation. Whooping in indignation, he at once grappled with his elder on the porch of the club where they stood.

  The orchestra having stopped for intermission, a large number of ladies and gentlemen were strolling on the terrace below. Attracted by frantic outcries, reiterated curses, and the sound of scuffling above, these bystanders looked up to see the two brothers whirling dizzily in combat. The younger man, his strength finally prevailing, got the older against the banister and seemed about to throw him over. As observers ran to quell the tumult, our subject, having in his position of vantage breath to spare for oratory, caused the golf course to echo with his threats and insults.

  “You bastard! You goddamned — bastard! You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you, bastard and son of a bitch that you are!” he yelled, pushing his brother back farther over the banister as the echoes returned his violent words. One wonders if the brother was observant enough at the moment to note the two-edged nature of the term with which he was being so loudly reviled. Rescuers soon interrupted the performance. Our subject could very probably have thrown his brother over before they came, but his intention apparently was to make a scene rather than to inflict serious injury.

  After one of his longest periods of regular work and apparently satisfactory adjustment, which lasted nearly a year, he attended the meeting of a regional medical society in a large city where an exploit brought him to the notice of local newspapers.

  FOUND DRUNK ON HIGH ALTAR OF ST. PHILIP’S C
HURCH

  A man listed as Dr. ___ of ____ was arrested yesterday morning and charged with burglary when he was found asleep on the altar of St. Philip’s Church. Officer J. G. Coates who made the arrest said that a painter engaged in painting St. Philip’s dome found the door to the church open this morning and called him. Investigation revealed the man asleep on the altar. The officer quoted Dr. ____ as saying that someone else had been with him but that he could not remember who. The doctor seemed to be eminently rational but could give no adequate reason for his inopportune presence in such a place. While a charge of burglary had been placed, according to records at police barracks, a complete examination of the church property revealed the fact that nothing was missing.

  He proved to the satisfaction of the authorities that he had entered the church with no intention of stealing or doing any other damage. I am indeed strongly convinced that this contention was correct. Finding a man in so preposterous a situation, the newspaper reporters had mistakenly, but understandably, assumed that some motive such as burglary must, of plain necessity, be responsible for his presence. What his purpose really was, we must admit, is difficult to explain in terms of ordinary human strivings.

  He often swears off drinking and expresses the intention of devoting himself to constructive and regular occupation but, despite all the serious troubles that his conduct has brought him, he actually continues as before.

  26. The Psychopath as Psychiatrist

  In the group who show some fundamental characteristics of the typical psychopath but who make a good or fair superficial adjustment in society are sometimes found men who hold responsible positions. Lawyers, business executives, physicians, and engineers who show highly suggestive features of the disorder have been personally observed. Perhaps one would think that the psychiatrist, with good opportunity to observe the psychopath, would eschew all his ways. I believe, however, that a glimpse can be given of characteristics of the psychopath in such a person.