The Project Gutenberg EBook of Two Women or One?, by Henry Harland This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Two Women or One? From the Mss. of Dr. Leonard Benary Author: Henry Harland Release Date: May 3, 2016 [EBook #51986] Last Updated: March 13, 2018 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO WOMEN OR ONE? *** Produced by David Widger from page images generously provided by Google Books TWO WOMEN OR ONE? From The Mss. Of Dr. Leonard Benary By Henry Harland New York 1890 DEDICATION TO ———— ————, ESQUIRE. “I'll link my waggon to a star;” I'll dedicate this tale to you: Wit, poet, scholar, that you are, And skilful story-teller too, And theologue, and critic true, And main-stay of the———-Review. I'll link my waggon to a star, M Does not the Yankee sage advise it? And yet I dare not name your name, Lest the wide lustre of its fame Eclipse my humble candle-flame: But you'll surmise it. January 1890. CONTENTS TWO WOMEN OR ONE? CHAPTER I.—THE FIRST NIGHT. CHAPTER II.—AT THE RIVER SIDE. CHAPTER III.—WHENCE SHE CAME. CHAPTER IV.—THE DOCTOR SPEAKS. CHAPTER V.—THE DOCTOR ACTS. CHAPTER VI.—MIRIAM BENARY. CHAPTER VII.—WITHIN AN ACE. CHAPTER VIII.—A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. CHAPTER IX.—JOSEPHINE WRITES. CHAPTER X.—JOSEPHINE EXPLAINS. CHAPTER XI.—REASSURANCE. CHAPTER XII.—THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA. CHAPTER XIII.—NATURE BEGINS REPRISALS. CHAPTER XIV.—ALTER EGO. TWO WOMEN OR ONE? CHAPTER I.—THE FIRST NIGHT. y name is Leonard Benary—rather a foreign-sounding name, though I am a pure-blooded Englishman. I reside at No. 63, Riverview Road, in the American city of Adironda, though I was born in Devonshire. And I am a physician and surgeon, though retired from active practice. My age can be computed when I say that I came into the world on the 21st day of July, in the year 1818. I must at the outset crave the reader's indulgence for two things. First, my style. I am not a literary man; and my style will therefore be ungraceful. Secondly, my provincialisms. I have lived in Adironda for very nearly half a century, and I have therefore fallen into divers local peculiarities of speech. But I have a singular, and I believe an interesting and significant, story to tell, and I think it had Y better be ill told than not told at all. It begins with the night of Friday, June 13th, 1884. Towards twelve o'clock on that night I was walking in an easterly direction along the south side of Washington Street, between Myrtle Avenue and Riverview Road, on my way home from a concert which I had attended at the Academy of Music. Moving in the same direction, on the same side of the street, and leading me by something like a hundred feet, I could make out the figure of a woman. Except for us two, the neighbourhood appeared to be deserted. Anything about my fellow pedestrian, beyond her sex, which was proclaimed by the outline of her gown as she passed under a street-lamp—whether she was young or old, white or black, a lady or a beggar—I was unable, owing to the darkness of the night, and to the distance that separated us, to distinguish. Indeed, I should most likely have paid no attention whatever to her, for I was busy with my own thoughts, had I not happened to notice that when she readied the corner of Riverview Road, instead of turning into that thoroughfare, she proceeded to the terrace at the foot of Washington Street, and immediately disappeared down the stone staircase which leads thence to the water's edge. This action at once struck me as odd, and put an end to my pre-occupation. What could a solitary woman want at the brink of the Yellow Snake River at twelve o'clock midnight? Her errand could scarcely be a benign one; and the conjecture that suicide might possibly be its object, instantly, of course, arose in my mind. My duty under the circumstances, anyhow, seemed plain—to keep an eye upon her, and hold myself in readiness to interfere, if needful. After a moment's deliberation, I, too, descended the stone stairs. CHAPTER II.—AT THE RIVER SIDE. et to keep an eye upon her was more easily said than done. At the bottom of the terrace it was impenetrably dark. Not a star shone from the clouded sky. The points of light along the opposite shore—and here and there, upon the bosom of the stream, the red or green lantern of a vessel—punctured the darkness without relieving it. Strain my eyesight as I might, I could see nothing beyond the length of my arm. But the lapping of the waves upon the strand, and about the piles of the little T-shaped landing-stage that extends into the river at this point, was distinctly audible, and served to guide me. Towards the landing-stage I cautiously advanced; and when I felt the planking of it beneath my feet, I halted. The whereabouts of the woman I had no means of determining. “However,” thought I, “if her business be self-destruction, she has not yet transacted it, for I have heard no splash.” Ah! Suddenly a flare of heat-lightning on the eastern horizon illuminated the land and the water. It was very brief, but it lasted long enough for me to take my bearings, and to discern the object of my quest. She was standing, a mass of shadow, at the very verge of the little wharf, distant not more than three yards in front of me. A moment later I had silently gained her side, stretched out my hand, and laid firm hold upon her by the arm. In great and entirely natural terror, she started back: as luck would have it, not in the direction of the water, for else she had certainly tumbled in, perhaps dragging me with her. And though she uttered no articulate sound, she caught her breath in a sharp spasmodic gasp, and I could feel her tremble violently under my touch. I sought to reassure her. “Do not be alarmed,” I said, speaking as gently as I could; “I mean you no manner of evil. I saw you come down here from the street above; and it struck me as hardly a safe place for a person of your sex to visit alone at such an hour.” She made no answer. A prolonged shudder swept over her, and she drew a deep long sigh. “You have no reason to fear me,” I continued. “I have only come to you for the purpose of protecting you, of being of service to you, if I can. Look—ah! no; it's too dark for you to see me. But I am a white-haired old man, the last person in the world you need be afraid of. You would not tremble and draw away like that, if you could know how far I am from wishing you anything but good.” She spoke. “Then release my arm.” Her tone was haughty and indignant. She enunciated each syllable with frigid preciseness. From the correctness of her accent and the cultivated quality of her voice, I learned that I had to do with a woman of education and refinement. “Then release my arm.” “No,” I said, “I dare not release your arm.” “Dare not!” echoed she, in the same indignant tone, to which now was added an inflection of perplexity. Sightless as the darkness rendered me, I could have wagered that she raised her eyebrows and curled her lip. “I dare not,” I repeated. “Possibly you will be good enough to explain what it is you fear.” “Frankly, I fear that you mean to do yourself a mischief. I dare not let go my hold upon you, lest you might take advantage of your liberty to throw yourself into the water.” “Well, and if I should?” “That would be a very foolish thing to do.” “But what concern is it of yours? What right have you to molest me? My life is my own, is it not, to dispose of as I please?” “That is a very difficult and subtle question, involving the first principles of theology and ethics. I do not think we can profitably enter into a discussion of it just now, and here. But this much I will promise you,” said I, “I shall not let go my hold upon your arm until I am persuaded that you have renounced your suicidal purpose.” She gave a tchk of exasperation. Then, after a momentary silence— “You are insolent and intrusive, sir. You presume upon the fact that I am a woman and alone, to take a shameful and unmanly advantage of me.” “I am sorry if such is your opinion of me,” I returned. “I do only what I must.” “You tell me you are an old man. I am not old, and I am strong. I warn you now to let me go. I assure you, you are unwise to trifle with me. I am a very desperate woman, and shall not mind consequences. If you try me beyond endurance—if we should come to a struggle——” “Ah! but we will not,” I hastily interposed. “You will not improve your superior strength against one who is moved by no other feeling than goodwill toward you. And besides,” I added, “though it is true that I am close upon sixty-six years of age, my muscles have still some iron in them. I fancy I should be able to hold my own.” This, I must acknowledge, was sheer braggadocio. I weigh but nine stone, measure but five feet four in my boots, and am anything rather than an athlete. “You are a meddler, sir. Good or bad, your motives do not interest me. Let me go. My patience is exhausted. I will brook no further interference. Release my arm. Your conduct is an outrage.” She spoke in genuine anger, stamping her foot, and tugging to escape my grasp. “What I do, madam, be it outrageous or otherwise, I am in common humanity bound to do. I should be virtually your murderer if I did less. It is my bounden duty to restrain you, to do what I may to help you.” “Help me, sir? You are in no position to help me. I have not asked your help. There is no help for me. You are meddlesome and officious. I will not dispute with you further. Let me go!” She spoke the last three words with threatening emphasis. I could hear her teeth come together with a decisive click after them. Again she tugged to break loose from me. “You require of me the impossible,” was my reply. “It is impossible for me to let you go. I implore you to control your anger, and to listen to me for one moment. You are labouring under great excitement, you are not accountable, you are not yourself. How can I let you go? I should never know another instant of peace if I stood by and suffered you to do yourself the injury that you contemplate. I should be a brute, a craven, a criminal, if I did that. I should be answerable for your death. As a human being, I am compelled to restrain you if I can. You must see that it is impossible for me to let you go.” “Well, have you finished?” she demanded, as I paused. “Not quite,” I answered, “for now I must ask you to let me take you to your home. Tomorrow morning you will feel differently, you will see all things by a different light. You will thank me then for what you now call an outrage. Think of your friends, your family. No matter what anguish you may be suffering, no matter to what desperate straits your affairs may be arrived, you have no right to attempt your life. Besides, you say you are young. Therefore you have the future before you; you have hope. I am older than you, and wiser. Be advised and guided by me. Come, let me take you to your home.” “Home!” she repeated bitterly. “Home, friends, family! Ha-ha-ha!” She laughed; but her laughter was dry and sardonic, horrid to hear. “What you say would be cruel, sir, if it were not so highly humorous. You speak and act in ignorance. You are very far from comprehending the situation. I have no home. I have no family, no friends, and, worst of all, no money. There is not a roof in this city— no, nor in the whole world, for that matter—under which I can seek a welcome; not a friend, acquaintance, relation, not a human being, in short, to miss me, or even to enquire after me, if I disappear. Except, indeed, enemies; except those who would wish to find me for my further hurt: of them there are plenty. Now will you let me go? I am in extreme misery, sir. There is no help for me, no hope. My life is a wreck, a horror. I can't bear it, I can't endure it any longer. Let me go. If you understood the circumstances, you would not detain me. If you knew what I am, what I have done, and what I should have to look forward to if I lived; if you knew what it is to reach that pass where life means nothing for you but fire in the heart: you would not refuse to let me go. You could condemn me to no agony, sir, worse than to have to live. To live is to remember; and so long as I remember I shall be in torment. Even to sleep brings me no relief, for when I sleep I dream. Oh, for mercy's sake, let me go! Go yourself. Go away, and leave me here. You will not repent it. You may always recall it as an act of kindness. I believe you mean to be kind. Be really kind, and do not interfere with me longer.” She had begun to speak with a recklessness and a savage irony that were shocking and repulsive; but in the end she spoke with a pathos and a passion that were irresistible. I was stirred to the bottom of my heart. “I wish, dear lady,” I said, “I wish you could know how deeply and sincerely I feel for you, how genuine and earnest my desire is to help you. Pray, pray give me at least a chance to do so. Look; I live in one of those houses, above there, on the terrace—where you see the lights. Come with me to my house. You say you have no roof under which you can seek a welcome: I will promise you a welcome there. You say you are friendless: let me be your friend. Come with me to my house. I believe—nay, I am sure—I shall be able in some way to help you. Anyhow, give me a chance to try. I am an old man, a physician. Come with me, and let us talk together. Between us we shall discover some better solution of your difficulties than the drastic one that you are looking to. But I will make a bargain with you. Come with me to my house, and remain there for one hour. If, at the expiration of that hour, I shall not have persuaded you to think better of your present purpose—if then you are still of your present mind—I will promise to let you depart I unattended, without further hindrance, to go wherever and to do whatever you see fit. No harm can come to you from accompanying me to my house—no harm by any hazard, but possibly much good. Try it. Try me. Trust me. Come. Within an hour, if you still wish it, you may go your way alone. I give you my word of honour. Will you come?” “You leave me no free choice, sir. It will be my only means of deliverance from you. I run a great risk, a great peril, greater than you can think, in doing so. But it is agreed that at the end of one hour I shall be my own mistress again? After that—hands off?” “At the end of one hour you may go or stay, according to your own pleasure.” “Very well; I am ready.” CHAPTER III.—WHENCE SHE CAME. led her into my back drawing-room—which apartment I use as a library and study—and turned up the drop-light on my writing- table. Then I looked at her, and she looked at me. She had said that she was young. I was not surprised to see that she was beautiful as well. I do not know that I can explain just what had prepared me for this discovery. Perhaps, in part, her voice, which was exquisitely sweet and melodious. Perhaps simply the tragical and romantic circumstances under which I had found her. However that may be, beautiful she indubitably was. She wore no bonnet. Her hair, dark brown, curling, and abundant, was cut short like a boy's. Her skin was fine in texture, and deathly pale. Her eyes, large, dark, liquid, were emotional and intelligent. Her mouth was generous in size, sensitive in form, and in colour perfect. But over her whole countenance was written legibly the signature of hard and fierce despair. From throat to foot she was wrapped in a black waterproof cloak. “Be seated,” I began. “Put yourself at ease in mind and body. And first of all, let me offer you a glass of wine.” “You may spare yourself that trouble, sir,” she replied. “I have no appetite for wine.” “But it will do you good. A single glass?” “I will not drink a single drop.” “Well, then, a composing draught. You are my patient for the time being, remember. You must let me prescribe for you. You are in a state of excessive nervous excitement, bordering upon hysteria. Drink this.” “I assure you, sir, my disorder is not of the body,” she said wearily. “No medicine can relieve it.” “Nevertheless, I will beg of you to give this a trial. It is but a thimbleful. It can't hurt you, even if it should fail to benefit you.” “For aught I know it may contain a drug.” “It certainly does contain a drug. I should not offer you aqua pura.” “You juggle words, sir. I mean a poison.” “Come; that is good. Do you think I would have been at such pains to dissuade you from suicide, immediately thereafter to seek to poison you?” “I don't mean a deadly poison. You could do me no greater kindness than to offer me a deadly poison. I mean—it may contain some opiate, some narcotic, to deprive me of power over myself, so that I shall be unable to leave your house when the time is up.” “Madam, look at me. Have I the appearance of a man who would attempt to get the better of you by an underhand trick like that?” “No, you do not look deceitful,” she answered, after a moment's scrutiny of my face. “Then trust me enough to drink this.” Without further protest she took the glass I proffered, and emptied it. “Now, if you are willing, we may talk,” said I. “What is there to talk about? I, at any rate, have nothing to say. But I am at your mercy for the term of one hour. You, of course, may talk as much as you desire. But at the end of one hour—— Please look at your watch. What o'clock is it now?” “It is twenty minutes after midnight.” “Thank you. Five minutes have already passed. At a quarter after one I shall be free to leave.” Therewith she let her head fall back upon the cushion of the easy-chair in which she was seated, and closed her eyes. “Yes,” said I, “you will then be free to leave, if you still wish it. But I doubt if you will.” “Your doubt is groundless, sir. However, if it pleases you to cherish it, you may do so till the hour is finished.” “No, I cannot think my doubt is groundless. I told you I believed I should be able to show you a better way out of your troubles than the desperate one that you were purposing to take; and now I will make good my promise.” “Being more fully acquainted with my own affairs than you are, I assure you that your promise is one which cannot by any possibility be made good.” “Time will prove or disprove the truth of that assertion. To begin with, may I ask you a question or two?” “You may ask me twenty questions. I do not pledge myself to answer them.” “Well, will you answer this one? Am I right in having understood you to say, when we were below there, on the wharf, that you have no friends or kindred whose feelings you are bound to consider in determining your conduct, and no worldly ties or associations which you are bound to respect?” “Yes, you are right in that.” “I am right in having understood you to say that; but is what you said true?” “Which would imply that you suspect me of having lied,” she returned, with an unlovely smile. “Well, I don't blame you. I am a skilful and habitual liar, and I daresay it shows in my face. But in that case I broke my rule, and told the truth.” “My dear madam, I intended no such imputation. But you were agitated and excited; and sometimes under the stress of our excitement we unwittingly exaggerate.” “Well, I did not exaggerate. What I told you was literally true.” “And the rest that you said? That also you re-affirm? That you are penniless, homeless, wretchedly unhappy, and weary of life? It seems brutal for me to state it thus; but I must understand clearly, for a purpose which you will presently see.” “You need not apologise, sir. This is no occasion for mincing matters. Yes, I am penniless, homeless, wretchedly unhappy, and weary of life. But I am worse than that. I am bad. I am utterly base and degraded. Look at me,” she added, fixing her eyes boldly, even defiantly, upon mine. “Examine me. I am a rare specimen. Very probably you have never seen my like before, and never will again. I am an example of—” she paused and laughed; and there was something in her laughter that made me shudder—“of total depravity,” she concluded. Then suddenly her manner changed, and she became very grave. “Would you entertain a leper in your house, sir? Yet I have been told that I am a moral leper. I have been told that the corruption-spot upon me reaches in to the core. And I think my informant put it very moderately. If you suspected the crimes I have been guilty of, the worse crimes that I have meditated, and only failed to commit because of material obstacles that I could not overcome, you would not harbour me in your house for a single minute. You would feel that my presence was a contamination: that I polluted the chair I sit in, the floor under my feet. The glass I just drank from—you would shatter it into bits, that no innocent man or woman might ever put lips to it again. There! can't you see now that I am beyond help, beyond hope? What have I to live for? I am an incumbrance upon the face of the earth, and hateful to myself into the bargain. Why keep me here an hour? Let us rescind our compromise.* Let me go at once.” * It is possible that here and elsewhere Dr. Benary, in reporting conversations from memory, puts into the mouths of his interlocutors words and phrases from his own vocabulary, at the same time, without doubt, giving the substance and the spirit of their remarks correctly. “Let us rescind our compromise,” at any rate, falling from the lips of a woman, has, to say the least, an unrealistic sound.—-Editor. She rose, and stood restive, as if expecting a dismissal. “No, no; you must stay out your hour, at all events,” I insisted. “Sit down again. I am sure you are not so black as you paint yourself; and in any case, guilt confessed and repented of is more than half atoned for.” “That is not so, to begin with,” she retorted; “that is the shallowest, hollowest sort of cant. It may pass with people who know guilt only by hearsay, but is ridiculous to those who, like myself, have a knowledge of the subject at first hand. “Guilt, crime, is atoned for only when it is undone, and all its consequences are obliterated. And now, speaking from my first-hand knowledge of the subject, I will tell you two things—first, all the confession and repentance in the world cannot undo a crime once done, nor obliterate its consequences; secondly, nothing can. You are a physician; I take it, therefore, you are familiar with the first principles of science: with what they call, I think, the Law of the Persistence of Force, the Law of the Conservation of Energy. If you understand that law, you will not dispute this simple application of it: a crime once done can never be undone; its consequences are ineradicable and eternal. Well and good. It is a puerility, in the face of the Law of the Persistence of Force, to talk of atonement. Atonement could come to pass only by means of a miracle—a suspension of Nature, and the interposition of a Supernatural Power. And that is where the Christians, with their dogma of vicarious atonement, are more rational than all the Rationalists from a to zed. So much for atonement. And now, as to repentance—who said that I repented? Repentance! Remorse! I will give you another piece of information, also speaking from firsthand knowledge. Repentance and Remorse are unmeaning sounds. There are no realities, no things, to correspond with them. I do not repent. No man or woman, from the beginning of time, has ever yet repented, in your sense of the word. We regret the losses that our crimes entail upon us: yes. We suffer because our crimes find us out, because retribution overtakes us: yes. But repent? We do not repent. Most of us pretend to. But I will be frank; I will not pretend. “I suffer because the punishment which, by my crimes, I have brought down upon myself, is greater than I can bear; I suffer, too, because the last purpose I had left to live for, which was also a criminal purpose, has been defeated. But I do not repent. I will not pretend to repent.” “Be all which as it may, I will repeat what I said before: I do not believe that you are so black as you paint yourself. You, young, beautiful, intelligent—no, no. But even if you were ten times blacker, it would make no difference to me. For, look you, since you have introduced a question of science, and favoured me with a scientific generalisation, I will pursue the question a little further, and cap your generalisation with another: namely, good, bad, or indifferent, we are not our own creators; we do not make ourselves; we are the resultants of our Heredity and our Environment; and our actions, whether criminal or the reverse, are determined not by free-will, but by necessity. I will not enlarge upon that generalisation; I will leave its corollaries for your own imagination to perceive. But in view of it, I will say again: even if you were ten times blacker, it would make no difference to me. You are no more to blame for the colour of your soul than for the colour of your hair.” I “You are very magnanimous,” she said bitterly, “and your doctrine would sound well in a criminal court.” “Think of me as scornfully as you will,” I returned, “I am very sincerely anxious to befriend you.” “If that is true, you have it in your power to do so with marvellous ease.” “How so?” I queried. “Absolve me from my agreement to stay here an hour. Sit still there in your chair, and let me go about my business unmolested and at once.” “No; to that agreement I must hold you, for your own sake. I have much to say to you, if you would only let me once get started.” “Good God, sir!” she cried, springing up in passion. “You drive me to extremes. Do you know that you are violating the laws of the State in harbouring me here?—that you are exposing yourself to the risk of prosecution?” “I know that I should be violating the laws of humanity if I suffered you to lay violent hands upon yourself so long as I have it in my power to restrain you. As for the laws of the State, do you mean that you can bring an action against me for damages in interfering with your personal liberty? I doubt if you will do so. And I am sure no jury, apprised of the circumstances, would find against me.” “You are still in ignorance of the situation.” said she. “Now open your eyes.” With that she threw off the waterproof cloak in which she was enveloped, and stood before me in the blue and white striped uniform of a Deadlock Island convict. CHAPTER IV.—THE DOCTOR SPEAKS. confess my heart leapt into my throat, and I gasped for breath. She, witnessing my stupefaction, laughed, as if in cynical enjoyment of it. After a little: “I think now you will permit me to bid you good evening,” she said with mock ceremoniousness. “You—you have escaped from prison!” I faltered out. “Yes, from the Penitentiary across the river. You see, though we have never met until to-night, we have been neighbours, living within sight each of the other's residence, for some time. Two years already I have spent, somewhat monotonously, upon Deadlock Island; and, to employ technical language, I was 'in' for a term of which that was but an insignificant fraction. I had, however, certain business to transact here in town—a little matter to arrange with the gentleman who was the principal witness for the prosecution at my trial—and I seized, therefore, upon the first opportunity that presented itself to come hither incognito. But when I arrived I found that Fate, with her usual perversity, had put it out of my power to transact that business, the party of the second part having died from natural causes. Thus the one last only purpose I had left to live for had become impossible of accomplishment. And now I wish for nothing except death. At last even you must see the absurdity of my staying longer here in your house. Let me go.” “You say,” I rejoined, having by this time recovered somewhat of my equanimity; “you say that you wish for nothing except death. Say what you will, I do not believe that you wish for death at all.” “To that I can only answer that you deceive yourself.” “No, it is you who deceive yourself. What you wish for is not death, but change—a change of condition. No truer words were ever spoken than those of Tennyson's:— Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly longed for death. What you crave under the name of death is forgetfulness. You yourself compressed the whole truth into five words when you said: 'To live is to remember.' Your inference was that to die is to forget. It is memory that agonizes you; it is the past which lives in memory that handicaps you, that hangs like a mill-stone round your neck, and goads you to despair. If you could forget, if you could erase the entire past from your consciousness, you would cease to suffer. Is not that true?” “True enough, perhaps. But without pertinence. A quibble. Forgetfulness is what I wish for, yes. But there is no forgetfulness except in death—no Lethe save the Styx.” “No forgetfulness except in death? You assume, then, that there is forgetfulness in death; a bold assumption. Have you no dread of something after death, the undiscovered country? Do you ignore the possibility of a future life? Suppose, beyond the grave, you preserve your identity—that is to say, your memory: in what respect will you have gained by the change?” “I must take my risks. This much I know for certain: there is no forgetfulness in life. In death there may be. I will take my chances. Am I not in hell now? Any change must be a change for the better. I will take the risks.” “You say there is no forgetfulness in life. But suppose there were? Suppose it were possible for you to obtain total and permanent forgetfulness without dying, without taking those risks, without taking any risks at all? Suppose some one should come to you and say: 'See! I have it in my power to bestow upon you total and permanent obliviousness, so that the entire past, with all its events and circumstances, shall be perfectly effaced from your mind; so that you shall not even recall your name, nor your language; but, with unimpaired bodily health and mental capacities, shall begin life afresh, like the new-born infant, speechless, innocent, regenerated; another person, and yet the same:—suppose some one should come to you and offer that?” “It is an idle supposition! The age of miracles has passed.” “An idle supposition? You deem it such? Let us see, let us consider. To begin with, answer me this: Have you never heard or read —in conversation, newspaper, medical report, or novel—have you never heard or read, I say, of a case where, through an accident, a human being has had befall him exactly the experience which I have just described? A case where a lesion of the cerebral tissues, caused perhaps by disease, perhaps by a concussion of the brain, or by a fracture of the skull, has resulted in the total annihilation of memory, without injury to the other intellectual faculties, so that the patient, upon recovering health and consciousness, could remember absolutely nothing of the past—neither his name, nor his nationality, nor the face of his father or mother, nor even how to speak, walk, eat—but was literally born anew, and had to begin life over again from the start? Surely, everybody who has ears has heard, everybody who can read has read, of cases of that nature?” “Oh, yes; I have read of such cases, certainly.” “Very well. You have read of such cases. So!—Now, then, suppose an accident of that sort should befall you? Everything you can hope for from death would come to pass, and yet you would live. What better could you desire? “And yet I would live? Hardly. My body would live, true. But I, my personality, my identity, would have vanished. For is not the very pith and marrow of one's identity, remembrance? Is not memory the birthmark, so to speak, by which one recognises one's-self? Is it not the cord upon which one's experiences are strung, which holds them together, and establishes their unity? My body would live, true enough. But it would be inhabited and animated by another spirit, another mind.” “Well, even so? It is the extinction of your identity which you seek to bring about by means of death. But you have no ground for supposing that death involves any such extinction. Atheist, agnostic, what you will, you must always acknowledge and allow for that possibility of a future life. Whereas, the man or woman to whom the accident happens which we have assumed, obtains for a surety that which he or she can only dubiously hope for from death.” “Ah, but there is a mighty difference. It is not within my power to cause such an accident. It is within my power to die.” “Not within your power to cause such an accident? Not within your power, I grant. But will you say that it is not within human power, not within any man's power? Imagine whatever human circumstance you like, which can come to pass by accident. Then, speaking à priori, tell me of any conclusive reason why that circumstance should not be brought to pass by design? Why man, investigating the causes of it, enlightened by his science, employing his cunning, should not be able at will to occasion it? Take this very case in hand—the total obliteration of a human being memory of the past. A blow upon the head, the result of an accident, can occasion it. Why not a blow upon the head, the result of man's deliberate purpose? Insanity, small-pox, consumption, paralysis, deafness, blindness—each of these it would be entirely possible for man voluntarily to induce. Why not oblivion?” “I have never heard of its being done. I once read a novel in which something of the kind was related—'Dr. Heidenhoff's Process'— but even in that novel, the author had not the audacity to pretend that his story was possible; it turned out to be a dream. But then, after all, that was quite a different thing. It was the obliteration not of the whole memory, but simply the memory of one particular fact or group of facts. The memory in respect of other facts remained intact.” “Ah, that indeed! That, of course, it may not as yet be within the power of science to accomplish. That, as yet, I will grant you, is only the material for a romancer's fancy. I cannot cause you to forget any one fact or train of facts, while leaving your memory unaffected regarding other facts. But the obliteration of the whole memory is a very different matter. It has happened frequently by accident. You have never heard of its being effected by design, though you will acknowledge the theoretical possibility of its being so effected. Well and good. Now the truth is this: not only is it theoretically possible, but it is practically feasible.. It can be done; and I, even I, can do it. That same obliviousness which, as the case-books of physicians bear abundant testimony, Nature often produces through the medium of disease or violence, I—I who speak to you—I can produce by means of a surgical operation.” “It is incredible,” said she. “Incredible or not, it is a fact,” said I. “What a stone striking you upon the head may accomplish, I can accomplish with my instruments. I can cause a depression of one of the bones of your skull, at a certain point upon the tissues of the brain, so that, when you recover from the influence of the anaesthetic which I administer, you are returned to the mental and moral condition of infancy. You remember nothing. You know nothing. Your mind is as a blank sheet of paper. The past is abolished. The future is before you.” “If what you say is true, you possess a terrible power. Are surgeons generally able to do this?” “Every intelligent surgeon must recognise the antecedent possibility of the operation. But when you ask me whether surgeons generally know how to perform it, I suppose that they do not. It is a discovery which I have made, by the examination of a large number of skulls, and the dissection of a large number of brains. I have never communicated it to anybody else. Others, for all I know, may have made the same discovery independently.” “But why have you kept it a secret? It would have made you famous.” “I have had many reasons for keeping it a secret. You yourself have named one of them: it is a terrible power. I have not thought it prudent as yet to put it into the hands of the faculty at large; but it will be published after, if not before, my death.” “You say you can do this. Have you ever done it?” “Upon a human being—no. Upon animals—upon dogs, monkeys, and horses—yes; often, and with unvarying success.” “Animals, indeed!” She smiled. “But never upon a human being. It is a descent from the sublime to the grotesque. You are anxious to obtain a subject?” “I will not deny that I should be glad to obtain a subject, if it pleases you to put it in that downright way. I have never performed the operation upon a human being; but I can predict with absolute assurance just what its consequences upon a human being would be.” “Let me hear your prediction.” “Well, to begin with, let me tell you the circumstances of an actual case, which came under my observation, where the thing happened accidentally. The patient was a Frenchman, thirty-two years old, in robust health. I think, from the point of view of morals, he was the most depraved wretch it was ever my bad fortune to encounter. He was a brute, a sot, a liar, a thief—a bad lot all round. I chanced to know a good deal about him, because he was the husband of a servant in my family. The affair occurred more than thirty years ago. I say he was a depraved wretch. What does that mean? It means that, like every mother's son of us, he came into this world a bundle of potentialities, of latent spiritual potentialities, inherited from his million or more of ancestors, some of these potentialities being for good, others of them for evil; and it means that his environment had been such, and had so acted upon him, as to develop those that were for evil, and to leave dormant those that were for good. That wants to be borne in mind. Very well. He was the husband of a servant in my family, a most respectable and virtuous woman, also French, who would have nothing to do with him; but whom it was his pleasantest amusement to torment by hanging around our house, seeking to waylay her when she went abroad, striving to gain admittance when she was within doors. Late one evening we above stairs were surprised by the noise of a disturbance in the kitchen: a man's voice, a woman's voice, loud in altercation. I hurried down to learn the occasion of it. Halfway there, my ears were startled by the sudden short sound of a pistol-shot, followed by dead silence. I entered the kitchen, but arrived a moment too late. Our woman servant stood in the centre of the floor, holding a smoking revolver in her hand. Her husband lay prostrate, unconscious, perhaps dead, at her feet. I demanded an explanation. It appeared that he had stolen into the kitchen, where his wife sat alone, and, coming upon her suddenly, had attempted to abduct and carry her off by main force. The foolish woman confessed that some days before she had bought herself a pistol, with a view to just such an emergency as this; and now she had used it. Well, I examined the man, and I found, to my great relief, that he was not dead, and that, she being but an indifferent marks-woman, the ball had not even entered his body. It had struck him on the head at an oblique angle, and had glanced off. However, it had injured him quite seriously enough, having, indeed, fractured his skull at a certain point. We carried him upstairs, and put him to bed. For upwards of sixty hours —nearly three days—he lay in total unconsciousness. For six weeks he lay in a stupor just a hair's breadth removed from total unconsciousness; but by-and-by his wound had healed, and he was convalescent. Now, however, what was his mental condition? Precisely that of a new-born baby! His memory had been utterly destroyed. He had forgotten the simplest primary functions of life: how to speak, how to eat, how to walk, how to use his fingers. He could not remember his name; he could not recognise his wife. He had all the lessons of experience to learn anew. But you must recollect that, being an adult, his brain, as an organ, was full-grown, was mature. Therefore, he acquired knowledge with astonishing rapidity—learning almost as much in a fortnight as a child learns in a year. At the end of one month after we began his education, he could walk, feed himself, dress himself, and was beginning to talk. At the end of six months he spoke as fluently as I do—English, mind you, not French, which had been his mother-tongue. At the end of a year he read without difficulty, and wrote a good hand. What was most remarkable, however, though entirely natural, his moral nature had undergone a complete transformation. In a new environment, treated with kindness, surrounded by wholesome influences, 'trained up in the way he should go,' and absolutely oblivious of every fact, event, circumstance, and association of his past, he became a new, another, an entirely different man. Now, of the million spiritual potentialities, predispositions, that heredity had implanted in him, those that made for good were vivified, those that made for bad left dormant. He was as decent and as honest a fellow as one could wish to meet, and he had plenty of intelligence and common sense. I kept him in my service, as a sort of general factotum, for more than twenty years; then he died. Before his death he made a will, bequeathing to me the only thing of especial value that he had to leave behind him. Here it is.” I unlocked a cabinet, and produced from it a skull. “Let me see it,” she said eagerly. She took it in her hands, without the faintest show of repugnance, and studied it intently. “It is like a fairy-tale. It is marvellous,” she said at last. “Science abounds in marvels no less stupendous,” said I. “It was my observation of that man's case, and of the beneficent results of it, that suggested to me the possibility of bringing such things to pass of a set, purpose.” “For years I have made the brain and the skull a study, with that possibility in view. I am able to say now that I can perform the operation with perfect certainty of success.” “But,” she went on, after a pause, “it is scarcely inspiring to think that the character, the morality, of a human being, can be influenced, can be radically altered, by a mere physical condition like that—to think that the character of the soul can be changed by a change in the structure of the body. It is enough to establish materialism pure and simple; the only logical consequences of which are cynicism and pessimism.” “It is certainly one of the many psychological facts which go to prove that while it is the tenant of the body the soul must adapt itself to its habitation.” “It would seem to prove that the soul is not simply the tenant of the body, but its slave, its victim, its creature. As the materialists express it, that mind, thought, emotion, are but functions of the brain.” “It would perhaps lend colour to that hypothesis; but it does not prove it. Nothing can be proved relative to the human soul. Like all elemental things, it is in its very essence an insoluble mystery. All elemental things? Nay, it is the elemental thing, the ultimate thing, the only thing we know at first hand. All other things we know only as they are mirrored in it; we know them only by the impressions they produce upon our souls. Ten thousand hypotheses concerning it—concerning its origin, its nature, its meaning, its destiny—are equally plausible, equally inadequate. It cannot by seeking be found out.” She was silent now for a long while. At last, “Will you describe your operation to me?” she inquired. “You would need a medical education to follow such a description.” “Is it anything like what they call trepanning, or trephining?” N “But very remotely. A partial fracture, and a depression, of the bone are caused; but no particle of it is removed.” “What is the worst that could happen, in case of the operation miscarrying? What would be the chances of the subject's losing not only his memory, but his reason—becoming an imbecile or a maniac?” “There is no chance of that. The worst that could happen would be death. It is as safe an operation as any in which the knife is employed. But, of course, in all operations which involve the use of the knife there is some danger. There is always the possibility of inflammation. But that possibility is by no means a probability. The chances are largely against it.” “So that you are sure one of two things would happen either the operation would prove a success, or the patient would die?” “Exactly so.” “How much time would have to elapse after the operation, before the patient would be able to take care of himself again—before he would have regained sufficient knowledge to act as a responsible and competent human being?” “I should say a year. Perhaps more, perhaps less. But I will say a year.” “And during that year? Suppose, for example, that I should offer myself to you as a subject—how should I be provided for during the period of my incompetence? And what education should I receive?” “You would be provided for by me. You would be lodged and taken care of here in this house. My sister, ten years younger than I, the kindest and the gentlest of women, would be your nurse, your companion, and your teacher. We would give you the same education that we would give a child of our own.” “I beg your pardon, but you have not told me your name.” “My name is Benary—Leonard Benary.” “Well, Dr. Benary, I am willing to submit to your operation. I make no professions of gratitude, for—though, whether it kills me or regenerates me, I shall be equally your debtor—I take it you are not sorry to find a subject to experiment upon; and therefore it will be a fair exchange, and no robbery. Will you proceed with the operation here, now, to-night?” “Oh, dear me, no. You must have some sleep first. I will call my sister. She will show you to a room. Then, perhaps, to-morrow, after a good night's rest, you will be in a favourable condition.” “But your sister—what will she say to this?” She pointed to her prison-garb. “If you will wait here while I go to summon her, I can promise you a kindly welcome from her. I shall explain all the circumstances to her; and she will not mind your costume.” And I went upstairs to rouse my sister, Miss Josephine Benary. CHAPTER V.—THE DOCTOR ACTS. ext morning, at about eleven o'clock, my good sister Josephine came to me in my study, and said, “She is awake now and wishes to see you.” “I am at her service,” I replied. “Will she join me here?” “She is eager to have you operate. She asked me where you would do so. I told her I supposed there, in her bed. Then she said she would not waste time by getting up, and wished me to tell you that she is waiting to have it done. I suspect that she is partly influenced by a reluctance to put on her prison uniform again. I should have offered her the use of my wardrobe, but she is so much taller and larger than I, that that would be absurd.” “Yes, to be sure, so it would. Very well. I will go to her directly. If she is in a favourable condition of mind and body, it will, perhaps, be as well not to delay. But first tell me—you have held some conversation with her?” “Yes, a little.” “And what impression do you form of her character?” “She is very pretty. She is even beautiful.” I laughed. “What has that to do with her character?99 “I infer her character as much from her appearance as from her behaviour, as much from her physiognomy as from her speech.” “Oh, I see. And your inference is?” “I cannot be quite sure. There is a certain hardness in her face, a certain cynical listlessness in her manner, which may indicate a vice of character, but which may, on the other hand, result simply from hardship and suffering. She is undoubtedly clever. She has received a good education; she expresses herself well; she has a marvellously musical voice. Yet, on the whole, I cannot say that I find her likeable or agreeable. She seems to proceed upon the assumption that nobody is moved by any but selfish motives; that everybody has an axe to grind; and that she must be constantly on her guard lest we take some advantage of her. She is horribly suspicious.” “Well, go on.” “Well, I do not know that I can say anything more. I cannot quite fathom her—quite make her out. It is a question in my mind whether she is naturally a young woman of good instincts, whose passions have betrayed her into the commission of some crime, or whether she is inherently and intrinsically corrupt.” “Towards which alternative do you incline?” “I do not like to express a final opinion; but I am afraid, from what little I have seen of her, I am afraid that I incline towards the latter.” “That she is intrinsically bad. Well, it will be interesting, after our operation, to see whether, in a new environment, under new conditions, the good that is latent in her—as good is latent in every human soul—will be developed. And now will you come with me to her room?” “Will she not prefer to see you alone?” “Why should she? Come, let us go.” We found her si...