 Chapter 9 of The Elephant Man and Other Reminescences. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Botez. The Elephant Man and Other Reminescences by Frederick Treves. An Articulo Mortis. The recent work on death and its mystery by Camille Flamerion, the eminent astronomer, cannot fail to be of supreme interest. The second volume of the series, entitled At the Moment of Death, will more especially appeal to medical men, and it is with this volume and with the reminescences it has aroused that I am at present concerned about the act or process of dying that is no mystery. The pathologist can explain precisely how death comes to pass, while the physiologist can describe the exact physical and chemical processes that ensue when a living thing ceases to live. Furthermore, he can demonstrate how the material of the body is finally resolved into the elements from which it was formed. The mystery begins in the moment of death, and that mystery has engaged the thoughts and imaginations of men since the dawn of human existence. It was probably the first problem that presented itself to the inquisitive and ingenious mind, and it may be that it will be the last to occupy it. Beyond the barrier of death is the undiscovered country, where a kindly light falls upon elysian fields or happy hunting grounds, or fields with splendor, the streets of an eternal city. To some, on the other hand, there is no such country, but only an impenetrable void, a blank, a mere seizing to be. Certain who read these works of the learned astronomer may perhaps feel that he has thrown light upon the great mystery. Others may affirm that he leaves that mystery still unilluminated and wholly unsolved, while others again may think that he makes the mystery still more mysterious and more complex. M. Flamerian deals with the manifestations of the dying, with agencies set in action by the dying, and with events which attend upon the moment of death. He affirms that in addition to the physical body, there is an astral body, or psychic element, which is imponderable and gifted with special, intrinsic faculties capable of functioning apart from the physical organism, and of manifesting itself at a distance. This leads to the theory of bilocation, where the actual body, at the point of death, may be in one place and the astral body in another. It is this power of bilocation which explains the phantasms and operations of which the book gives many detailed records. These operations may be objective, that is to say may be visible to several people at the same time, or they may be subjective or capable of being perceived only by the subject or seer. These operations, the author states, are projections emanating from the soul of the dying. They are astral bodies detached for the moment from the physical body of which they are part. It is, the author continues, at the hour of death that transmissions of images and of sensations are most frequent. These phantasms appear either in dreams or in broad daylight to the friends of dying persons. They may announce in words, I am dying or I am dead. They may merely appear with signs upon their faces of alarm or of impending dissolution. They may appear as bodies lying dead upon a couch or in a coffin. They may predict the hour of their death, but more usually their appearance coincides with the exact moment at which their physical bodies seized to exist. M. Flammerian gives numerous instances of these operations seen under such varying circumstances as have been named. In certain examples, the phantom appears to have substance and to be capable of making its presence actually felt. Thus, in one case, the subject saw the apparition of her sister who was dying in a place far away and at the same time fell to hand brush lightly against the sheets. The subject, when questioned, said, No, no, it wasn't a dream. I heard her steps. They made the floor creak. I'm sure of it. I wasn't dreaming, she came. I saw her. Page 345. It may be further noted that persons who announce their deaths to others by visions or by spoken words may at the same time of such warning be in perfect health. Moreover, the apparitions may announce to the dreamer the exact date of the speaker's own death many days in advance. In one such instance, a man, then in sound health, appeared to a friend in a dream on August 2 and informed him that he, the subject of the apparition, would die on August 15. The event happened as foretold. An instance which involved an interval of years is recorded by Robert Browning, the poet. Seven years after his wife's death, she appeared in a dream to her sister, Ms. Arabelle Barrett. Ms. Barrett asked the apparition, When will the day come on which we shall be reunited? The dead woman answered, My dear, in five years. Five years, like in a month, after this vision, Ms. Barrett died of heart disease. In messages or warnings from the dying, Amphlamerian affirms that telepathy or the transmission of thought to a distance plays an important part. More than this, he says, it is beyond doubt that at the moment of death a subtle shock unknown in its nature at times affects those at a distance who are connected with a dying person in some way. This connection is not always that of sympathy. The method in which telepathy acts is explained by the author in the following words. It is admitted that a kind of radiation emanates from the dying person's brain from his spirit, still in his body, and is dispersed into space in ether waves, successive, spherical waves like those of sound in the atmosphere. When this wave, this emanation, this effluvium comes into contact with a brain attuned to receive it, as in the case of a wireless telegraph apparatus, the brain comprehends it, fills, hears, sees, page 284. The manifestations produced by these passages between the living and those who are on the point of death are very varied. They may take the form of warnings, predictions, or notifications of death. They may be conveyed vast distances and are usually received at the very moment at which the body from which they emanate seizes to be. Visions or announcements may be conveyed by voices or by visions of various kinds. The voices may be recognized as those of the dying, or the actual death scene, vision from a distance, may be presented complete in every detail. Some of the manifestations may take a physical form, such as knockings upon doors and windows, the sound of footsteps, or of gliding feet, the moving of articles of furniture, the falling of portraits from the wall, the opening of doors, the passage of a gust of wind. Many of the phenomena appear to me to be hardly worthy of being recorded. As illustrations I may quote the movement of a hat on a hat peg used by the deceased. The violent shaking of an iron fender to announce a daughter's death, the fact that about the time of a relative's disease a table became split completely along its whole length, while on another like occasion a gas jet went out in a room in which a party was sitting, playing cards. The following circumstance will not commend itself to the reasonable as one that was dependent upon a supernatural agency. My grandmother, a student writes, died in 1913, at the hour of her death the clock which hung in her room stopped, and no one could make it go again. Some years afterwards her son died, and the very day of his death the clock again began to go without anyone having touched it. It is strange, comments M. Flammerian, that the spirit of someone dying or dead should be able to stop a clock or start it again. Assuredly it is more than strange. The same comment might apply to the following testimony provided by a gardener in Luneville, a friend when one day cleaning vegetables seated in a chair was struck on the knee by a turnip, which was on the ground, and heard the same instant two cries, mother, mother. That same day her son, a soldier, was dying in our colony in Guyana. She did not hear of his death until very much later. M. Flammerian's work is probably the most orderly, temperate and exact that has appeared on the subject of death from the point of view of the spiritualist. It has been the work of many years, and its conclusions are based upon hundreds of reports, letters and declarations collected by the writer. To many readers the book will, no doubt, be convincing and inspiring, while possibly to a larger number of people, the author's position will appear to be untenable and much of the evidence upon which his conclusions are based to be either incredible or impossible. With those who may hold the latter opinion, I am entirely in accord. Many of so-called manifestations, such as the spirit visitants, visions and voices, can be as fitly claimed to be illusions and hallucinations as affirmed to be due to the action of the psychic element or astral body. The tricks of the senses are innumerable. The imagination, stimulated and intensified, can affect strange things in sensitive subjects, while on the other hand the powers of self-deception are almost beyond belief as the experience of any physicians will attest. Belief in the supernatural and the miraculous has a fascination for many minds and especially for minds of not too stable an order. Such persons seem to prefer a transcendental explanation to one that is commonplace. Visions are not apt to appear to those who are healthy both in body and in mind. Dreams, it will be admitted by all, are more often due to indigestion than to a supernatural or a spiritual agency. Voices are heard and non-existing things are seen by those whose minds are deranged and it must be allowed that not a few of the men and women upon whose evidence am flammarian depends exhibit a degree of emotional excitement or exaltation which borders on the normal. I think, moreover, it would not be unjust to suggest that certain of the narratives are exaggerated and that an element of invention is possible and indeed probable in many of them. There is an impression also that some of the circumstances detailed have been misinterpreted or misapplied or have been modified by events which have followed later and to which they have been adapted as an afterthought. Above all, I am reluctant to believe that the dying in the solemn and supreme moment of passing away from the earth can be occupied by the trivialities and indeed I would say by the poultry tricks which are accredited to their action in this book. It is only fair to point out that the volume now discussed is written by an eminent man of science who has been trained all his life in methods of precision in the judicial examination of reported facts and in the close scrutiny of evidence. Further, it may be said that the terms incredible and impossible would have been applied a few years ago to any account of the telephone or of wireless telegraphy while the same expressions would assuredly be employed by a medical man when told not so long since that there was a ray capable of making a human body so transparent as to render visible not only the bones but details of their internal construction. In common with others who have been for many years on the staff of a large hospital, I have seen much of death and have heard even more from those who have been in attendance on the dying. In this experience of a lifetime, I have never met with a single circumstance which would confirm or support the propositions advanced by M. Flamerian. This is obviously no argument. It is merely a record of negative experience. The only two events within my personal knowledge which bear even remotely upon the present subject are the following. I was as a youth on a walking tour in the south of England with a cousin. We put up one night at a certain inn. In the morning my companion came down to breakfast much excited and perturbed. He declared that his father was dead, that in a vivid dream he had seen him stretched out dead upon the couch in his familiar bedroom at home. He had awakened suddenly and noted that the hour was 2 AM, that his father had expired at that moment he was assured, so assured that he proposed to return home at once since his mother was alone. In as much as the journey would have occupied the whole day, I suggested that, before starting, he should telegraph and seek news of his father. With greater reluctance he consented to this course and the telegram was dispatched, a reply was received in due course. It was from the father himself expressing surprise at the inquiry and stating that he was never better in his life. Nothing it transpired had disturbed his father's rest at 2 AM on this particular night. Nothing untoward happened. My uncle lived for many years and finally died one afternoon and not therefore at 2 AM. The other incident is associated with an actual death and with a strange announcement, but the announcement is not to be explained by any of the theories propounded by M. Flamerian. The facts are these. I was on a steamship which was making a passage along the coast known in old days as the Spanish Main. I put in a column and remained there for about a day and a half. I took advantage of this break in the voyage to cross the Isthmus by train to Panama. The names of those who were travelling by train had been telegraphed to that city which will explain how it came about that on reaching the station I was accosted by one of the medical officers of the famous American Hospital of the Place. He begged me to see with him a patient under his care. The sick man was an Englishman who was travelling for pleasure, who was quite alone and who had been taken ill shortly after his arrival on the Pacific. He was the only Englishman he said on that side of the Isthmus. I found the gentleman in a private ward. He was a stranger to me, was very gravely ill but still perfectly conscious. I had nothing fresh to suggest in the way of treatment. The case was obviously hopeless and we agreed that his life could not be extended beyond a few days and certainly not for a week. It was a satisfaction to feel that the patient was as well cared for as if he had been in his own home in England. I returned to Cologne. Travelling with me was a retired general of the Indian Army. He had remained at Cologne during my absence. I told him my experience. He did not know the patient even by name but was much distressed at the thought that a fellow countryman dying alone in this somewhat remote part of the world. This idea I noticed impressed him greatly. Two days after my return from Panama we were on the high seas having touched at no port since leaving Cologne. On the third day after my visit to the hospital the general made a curious communication to me. The hour for lunch on the steamer was 12.15. My friend, as he sat down to the table said abruptly, Your patient at Panama is dead. He has just died. He died at 12 o'clock. I naturally asked how he had acquired this knowledge. Since we had called nowhere, there was no wireless installation on the ship and we had received no message from any passing vessel. Apart from all, this was a question of time. For the death he maintained had only just occurred. He replied, I cannot say. I was not even thinking of the poor man. I only know that as the ship's bell was striking 12, I was suddenly aware that he had, at that moment, died. The general, I may say, was a man of sturdy common sense who had no belief in the supernatural, nor in emanations from the dying, nor in warnings, nor in what he called generally all that nonsense. The telepathy, in which also he did not believe, was out of the question since he and the dead man were entirely unknown to one another. My friend was merely aware that the news had reached him. It was useless for me to say that I did not think the patient could have died so soon, for the general remained unmoved. He only knew that the man was dead whether I expected the event or whether I did not. When we reached Trinidad, I proposed to go ashore to ascertain if any news had arrived at the death at Panama. The general said it was a waste of time. The man was dead and had died at noon. Nevertheless, I landed and found that a telegram had appeared in which the death of this lowly gentleman was noted as having taken place on the day I have named. The hour of death was not mentioned, but on my return to England I was shown by his relatives the actual cablegram which had conveyed to them the news. It stated that he had died at Panama on that particular day at 12 o'clock noon. No coincidence could have been more precise. The general, to whom the event was as mysterious as it was unique in his experience, ventured one comment. He said that during his long residence in India he had heard rumors of the transmission of news from natives in one part of India to natives in another which reports, if true, could not be explained by the feats of runners nor by any system of signalling since the distances traversed were often hundreds of miles. We were both aware of the rumor, current at the time that the news of the defeat at Colenso was known in certain Indian bazaar a few hours after the guns had ceased firing. This we agreed was assuredly an example of loose bubble started by a native who hoped to hear of the failure of the British and that this gossip had become by repetition converted into a prophecy after the occurrence. For my own part I must regard the Panama incident as nothing but a remarkable coincidence of thought and event. My friend was inclined to regard it as an example of the sudden transmission of news of the kind suggested by his Indian experience. Why he of all people should have been the recipient of the message was beyond his speculation since he had no more concern with the happenings at Panama than had the captain of the ship to whom I had also spoken of the occurrence. A further subject of some interest suggested by M. Flamerian's work may be touched upon. In the contemplation of the mystery of death it may be reasonable to conjecture that at the moment of dying or in the first moment after death the great secret would be in whole or in part revealed. There are those who believe that after death there is merely the void of non-existence, the impenetrable and eternal night of nothingness. Others conceive the spirit of the dead as wandering somewhere and somehow beyond the limits of the world. It is this belief which has induced many a mother after the death of her child to leave the cottage door open and to put a light in the window with some hope that the wandering feet might find a way home. Others again hold the conviction that those who die pass it once into a new state of existence, the conditions of which vary according to the faith of believer. In the face of the great mystery it would be thought that those who have returned to life after having been for an appreciable time apparently dead might have gained some insight into the unknown that lies beyond. Cases of such recovery are not uncommon and not a few must have come within the experience of most medical men of large practice. I have watched certain of such cases with much interest. Among them the most pronounced example of apparent lifelessness was afforded by the following occasion. A middle aged man in good general health was brought into the theatre of the London Hospital to undergo an operation of a moderate degree of severity. The administration of an anaesthetic was commenced but long before the moment for operation arrived the man collapsed and appeared to be dead. His pulse had stopped or at least no pulse could be detected. The heartbeat could not be felt, he had ceased to breathe, all traces of sensation had vanished and his countenance was the countenance of the dead. Artificial respiration was at once employed, injections of various kinds were given, electricity was made extended use of while the heat of the body was maintained by hot bottles liberally disposed. The man remained without evidence of life for a period so long that it seemed to be impossible that he could be other than dead. In the intense anxiety that prevailed and in the excitement roused I have no doubt that this period of time was exaggerated and that seconds might have been counted as minutes but it represented in my own experience the longest stretch of time during which a patient has remained apparently without life. Feeble indications of respiration returned and a flutter at the wrist could again be felt but it was long before the man was well enough to be moved back to the world. The operation having been of course abandoned. I determined to watch the recovery of consciousness in this instance for here was a man who had been so far dead that for a period almost incredible to believe he had been without the signs and evidences of life. If life be indicated by certain manifestations he had ceased to live. He was without question apparently dead. It seemed to me that this man must have penetrated so far into the valley of the shadow of death that he should have seen something of what was beyond some part at least of the way some trace of a path some sight of a country. The door that separates life from death was in his case surely opening. Had he no glimpse as it stood a jar? He became conscious very slowly. He looked at me but I evidently conveyed no meaning to his mind. He seemed gradually to take in the details of the word and at last his eye fell up on the nurse. He recognized her and after some little time said with a smile. Nurse you never told me what you heard at the music hall last night. I questioned him later as to any experience he may have had while in the operating theater. He replied that except for the first unpleasantness of breathing chloroform he remembered nothing. He had dreamed nothing. At a recent meeting 1922 of the British Medical Association at Glasgow Sir William McEwan reports an even more remarkable case of a man who was brought into the hospital as dead. He had ceased to breathe before admission and operation upon the brain was performed without the use of an anesthetic of any kind. During the procedure artificial respiration was maintained. The man recovered consciousness and looking around with amazement at the operating theater and the strange gathering of surgeons dressers and nurses broke his deathlike silence by exclaiming. What's all this fuss about? It is evident from cases such as this that no light up on the mystery is likely to be shed by the testimony of those who have even advanced so far as to reach at least the borderline of the undiscovered country. I might conclude this fragment with some comment on the fear of death. The dread of death is an instinct common to all humanity. Its counterpart is the instinct of self-preservation to resolve to live. It is not concerned with a question of physical pain or distress but is the fear of extinction a dread of leaving the world with its loves its friendships and its cherished individual affairs with perhaps hopes unrealized and projects incomplete. It is the dread of which the young know little. To them life is eternal. The adventure is before them. Death and old age are as far away as the blue haze of the horizon. It is about middle age that realization dawns upon men that life does not last forever and that things must come to an end as the past grows vaster and more distant and the future lessens to a mere span. The dread of death diminishes so that in extreme old age it may be actually welcomed. Quite apart from this natural and instinctive attitude of mind there is with many a poignant fear of death itself of the actual act of dying and of the horror and suffering that may be thereby involved. This fear is ill-founded. The last moments of life are more distressing to witness than to endure. What is termed the agony of death concerns the watcher by the bedside rather than the being who is the subject of pity. The last illness may be long, worrisome and painful but the closing moments of it are as a rule free from suffering. There may appear to be a terrible struggle at the end but of this struggle the subject is unconscious. It is the own looker who bears the misery of it. To the subject there is merely a moment when something like a white wave of the sea breaks our the brain and buries us in sleep. Death is often sudden. May often come during sleep or may approach so gradually as to be almost unperceived. Those who resent the drawbacks of old age may take some consolation from the fact that the longer a man lives the easier he dies. A medical friend of mine had among his patients a very old couple who having few remaining interests in the world had taken up the study and arrangement of their health as a kind of a hobby or diversion. To them the subject was like a game of patience and was treated in somewhat the same way. They had made an arrangement with a doctor that he should look in and see them every morning. He would find them in the winter in a cozy old-fashioned room sitting around the fire in two spacious armchairs which were precisely alike and were precisely placed one on the right hand and one on the left. The old lady with a bright ribbon in her lace cap and a shell around her shoulders would generally have some knitting on her knees while the old gentleman in a black beretta would be fumbling with a newspaper and a pair of horn spectacles. The doctor's conversation every morning was of necessity monotonous. He would listen to accounts of the food consumed of the medicine taken and the quantity of sleep secured just as he would listen to the details of a game of patience. Now and then there would be some startling move, some such adventure as a walk to the garden gate or the bold act of sitting for an hour at the open window. After having received this report he would compliment the lady on her knitting and on the singing of her canary and would discuss with the gentleman such items of news as he had read in the paper. On one morning visit he found them as usual. The wife was asleep with her spectacles still in place and her hands folded over her knitting. The canary was full of song. The midday beef tea was warming up on the hob. The old gentleman having dealt with his health became very heated on the subject of certain grievances such as the noise of the church bells and the unseemly sounds which issued from the village in. He characterized these and like disturbances of the peace as outrages which were a disgrace to the country. After he had made his denunciation he said he felt better. Your wife I see is asleep said the doctor. Yes replied the old man she has been asleep I am glad to say for quite two hours because the poor deer had a bad night last night. The doctor crossed the room to look at the old lady. She was dead and had indeed been dead for two hours. Such may be the last moments of the very old. Quite commonly the actual instant of death is preceded for hours or days by total unconsciousness. In other instances a state of semi-consciousness may exist up to almost the last moment of life. It is a dreamy condition free of all anxiety. A state of twilight when the familiar landscape of the world is becoming very indistinct. In this penumbra friends are recognized. Automatic acts are performed and remarks are uttered which show or seem to show both purpose and reason. It is however so hazy a mental mood that could the individual return to life again. No recollection of the period would I think survive. It is a condition not only free from uneasiness and from any suspicion of alarm but is one suggestive even of content. I was with a friend of mine a solicitor at the moment of his death although pulseless and rapidly sinking he was conscious and in the quite happy condition just described. I suggested that I should rearrange his pillows and put him in a more comfortable position. He replied, don't trouble my dear fellow. A lawyer is comfortable in any position. After that he never spoke again. In connection with this semi somnolent state it is interesting to note how certain traits of character which have been dominant during life may still survive and assert themselves. It may be automatically in those whose general consciousness is fading away in the haze of death. The persistence of this ruling passion or phase of mind was illustrated during the last moments of an eminent literary man at whose deathbed I was present. This friend of mine had attained a position of great prominence as a journalist. He had commenced his career as a reporter and the reporter's spirit never ceased to mark the intellectual activities of his later life. He was always seeking for information, for news, for some matter of interest, something to report. His conversation as one acquaintance said consisted largely of questions he always wanted to know. When he was in extremis but still capable of recognizing those around him the dire sound of rattling in his throat commenced. He indicated that he wanted to speak to me. I went to his bedside. He said, in what little voice remained, tell me, is it the death rattle? I replied that it was. Thank you, he said, with a faint shadow of a smile. I thought so. End of chapter 9, recording by Mike Botez. Chapter 10 of The Elephant Man and Other Reminescences. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Botez. Chapter 10 The Idol with Hands of Clay The good surgeon is born, not made. He is a complex product in any case and often something of a prodigy. His qualities cannot be expressed by diplomas nor appraised by university degrees. It may be possible to ascertain what he knows, but no examination can elicit what he can do. He must know the human body as a forester knows his wood, must know it even better than he, must know the roots and branches of every tree, the source and wanderings of every rivulet, the bunks of every alley, the flowers of every glade. As a surgeon, moreover, he must be learned in the moods and troubles of the wood, must know of the wild winds that may rend it, of the savage things that lurk in its secret horns, of the struggling creepers that may throttle its dirtiest growth, of the rotten mold that may make dust of its very heart. As an operator, moreover, he must be a deft handicraftsman and a master of touch. He may have all these requirements and yet be found wanting, just as a man may succeed when shooting at a target but fail when faced by a charging lion. He may be a clever manipulator and yet be mentally clumsy. He may even be brilliant but haven't helped the poor soul who has to be operated upon by a brilliant surgeon. Brillancy is out of place in surgery. It is pleasing in the juggler who plays with knives in the air but it causes anxiety in an operating theater. The surgeon's hands must be delicate but they must also be strong. He needs a lace maker's fingers and a semen's grip. He must have courage, be quick to think and prompt to act, be sure of himself and captain of the venture he commands. The surgeon has often to fight for another's life. I conceive of him then not as a massive Hercules wrestling ponderously with death for the body of Valsestes but as a nimble man in doublet and hose who over a prostrate form fights death with a rapier. These reflections were the outcome of an incident which had set me thinking of the equipment of a surgeon and of what is needed to feed him for his work. The episode concerned a young medical man who had started practice in a humble country town. His student career had been meritorious and indeed distinguished. He had obtained an entrance scholarship but his medical school had collected many lottery certificates, had been awarded a gold medal and had become a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. His inclination was towards surgery. He considered surgery to be his meteor. Although circumstances had condemned him to the drop life of a family doctor in a little town he persisted that he was first and foremost a surgeon and indeed on his door plate had inverted the usual wording and had described himself as surgeon and physician. In his hospital days he had assisted at many operations but his opportunities of acting as a principal had been few and insignificant. In a small practice in a small town surgical opportunities are rare. There was in the place a cottage hospital with six beds but it was mostly occupied by medical cases by patients with rheumatism or pneumonia by patients who had to submit to the surgical indignity of being poltist and of being treated by mere physics. Cases worthy of a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons were very few and even these seldom soared in interest above an abscess or a broken leg. Just before the young doctor settled down to practice he married. It was a very happy union. The bride was a daughter of a neighboring farmer. She had spent her life in the country was more familiar with the ways of fowls and ducks than with the ways of the world. While a son bonnet became her better than a Paris toke she was as pretty as the milkmaid of a pastoral picture with her pink and white complexion her laughing eyes and her rippled hair. Her chief charm was her radiant delight in the mere joy of living. The small world in which she moved was to her always in the sun and the sun was that of summer. There was no town so pretty as her little town and no house so perfect as the doctors in the high street. The doctors was a Georgian house with windows of many panes with a fan light like a surprised eyebrow over the entry and a self-conscious brass knocker on the door. The house was close to the pavement from which it was separated by a line of white posts connected by loops of chain. Passers-by could look over the low-grain wooden blinds into the dining room and see the table covered with worn magazines for the room was intended to imitate a Harley street waiting room. They could see also the bright things on the sideboard the wedding present biscuit box the gong hanging from two cow horns and the cup won at some hospital sports. To the young wife there never was such a house nor such furniture nor such ornaments nor as she went about with a duster from room to room could there be a greater joy than that of keeping everything polished and bright. Her most supreme adoration however was for her husband. He was handsome so devoted and so amazingly clever. His learning was beyond the common grasp and the depths of his knowledge unfathomable. When a friend came in at night to smoke a pipe she would sit silent and open mouthed lost in admiration of her husband's dazzling intellect. How glibly he would talk of metabolism and blood pressure how marvelously he endowed common things with mystic significance when he discourse upon the value in calories of a pound of steak or upon the vitamins that enrich the common bean or even the more common cabbage. It seemed to her that behind the tiny world she knew there was a mysterious universe with which her well-beloved was as familiar as was she with the contents of her larder. She was supremely happy and content while her husband bestowed upon her all the affection of which he was capable. He was naturally vain but her idolatry made him vainer. She considered him wonderful and he was beginning to think her estimate had some truth in it. She was so proud of him that she rather wearied her friends by the tail of his achievements. She pressed him to allow her to have his diploma and his more florid certificates framed and hung up in the consulting room but he said with chilling superiority that such things were not done so that she could only console herself by adoring the modesty of men of genius. One day this happy ever busy lady was seized with appendicitis. She had had attacks in her youth but they had passed away. This attack although not severe was graver and her husband determined quite wisely that an operation was necessary. He proposed to ask a well-known surgeon in a neighboring city to undertake this measure. He told his wife of course of his intention but she would have none of it. No she said she would not be operated on by stuffy old Mr. Heron. He was no good. She could not bear him even to touch her. If an operation was necessary no one should do it but her husband. He was so clever, such a surgeon and so up to date. Old Heron was a fossil and behind the times. No, her clever Jimmy should do it and no one else. She could trust no one else. In his wonderful hands she would feel safe and would be running about again in the garden in no time. What was the use of a fine surgeon if his own wife was denied his precious help? The husband made no attempt to resist her wish. He contemplated the ordeal with dread but was so influenced by her fervent flattery that he concealed from her the fact that the prospect made him faint of heart and that he had even asked himself can I go through with it? He told me afterwards that his miserable vanity decided him. He could not admit that he lacked either courage or competence. He saw moreover the prospect of making an impression. The town people would say here is a surgeon so sure of himself that he carries out a grave operation on his own wife without a tremor. Then again his assistant would be his fellow practitioner in the town. How impressed he would be by the operator's skill, by his coolness, by the display of the latest type of the instrument and generally by his very advanced methods. It was true that it was the first major operation he had ever undertaken but he no longer hesitated. He must not imperil his wife's faith in him nor fail to realize her conception of his powers. As he said to me more than once it was his vanity that decided him. He read up the details of the operation in every available manual he possessed. It seemed to be a simple procedure. Undoubtedly in nine cases out of ten it is a simple measure. His small experience as an onlooker had been limited to the nine cases. He had never met with the tenth. He hardly believed in it. The operation as he had watched it at the hospital seemed so simple but he forgot that the work of expert hands does generally appear simple. The elaborate preparations for the operation made with anxious fastiness and much clinking of steel were duly completed. The lady was brought into the room appointed for the operation and placed on the table. She looked very young. Her hair parted at the back was arranged in two long plates, one on either side of her face as if she were a school girl. She had insisted on a pink bow at the end of each plate pleading that they were cheerful. She smiled as she saw her husband standing in the room looking very gaunt and solemn in his operating dress. A garb of linen that made him appear half monk, half mechanic. She held her hand towards him but he said he could not take it as his own hand was sterilized. Her smile vanished for a moment at the rebuke but came back again as she said. Now don't look so serious Jimmy. I am not the least afraid. I know that with you I am safe and that you will make me well but be sure you are by my side when I awake for I want to see you as I open my eyes. Wonderful boy. The operation was commenced. The young doctor told me that as he cut with his knife into that beautiful white skin and saw the blood well up behind it a lump rose in his throat and he felt that he must give up the venture. His vanity however urged him on. His doctor friend was watching him. He must impress him with his coolness and his mastery of the position. He talked of casual things to show that he was quite at ease but his utterances were artificial and forced. For a time all went well. He was showing off. He felt with some effect but when the depths of the wound were reached a condition of things was found which puzzled him. Structures were confused and matted together and so obscured as to be unrecognizable. He had read of nothing like this in his books. It was the tenth case. He became uneasy and indeed alarmed as one who had lost his way. He seized to chatter. He tried to retain his attitude of coolness and command. He must be bold. He kept saying to himself. He made blind efforts to find his course, became wild and finally reckless. Then a terrible thing happened. There was a tear. Something gave way. Something gushed forth. His heart seemed to stop. He thought he should faint. A cold sweat broke out upon his brow. He seized to speak. His trembling fingers dropped aimlessly in the depths of the wound. His friend asked. What has happened? He replied with a sickly fury. Shut up. He then tried to repair the damage he had done. Took up instrument after instrument and dropped them again until the patient's body was covered with soiled and discarded forceps, knives and clamps. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his hand and left a wide streak of blood across his forehead. His knees shook and he stomped to try to stop them. He cursed the doctor who was helping him, crying out. For God's sake do this or for God's sake don't do that. Sighed like a suffocating man. Looked vacantly around the room as if for help. Looked appealingly to his wife's masked face for some sign of her tender comfort. But she was more than dumb. Frenzied with despair he told the nurse to send for Mr. Heron. It was a hopeless mission since that surgeon, even if at home, could not arrive for hours. He tried again and again to close the awful rant. But he was now nearly dropping with terror and exhaustion. Then the anesthetist said in a whisper, How much longer will you be? Her pulse is failing. She cannot stand much more. He felt that he must finish or die. He finished in a way. He closed the wound and then sunk on a stool with his face buried in his blood-stained hands. While the nurse and the doctor applied the necessary dressing. The patient was carried back to her bedroom but he dared not follow. The doctor who had helped him crept away without speaking a word. He was left alone in this dreadful room with its hideous reminders of what he had done. He wondered about, looked aimlessly out of the window but saw nothing. Picked up his wife's handkerchief which was lying on the table. Crunched it in his hand and then dropped it on the floor. As the red horror of it all flooded his brain. What had he done to her? She. She of all women in the world. He caught a sight of himself in the glass. His face was smeared with blood. He looked inhuman and unrecognizable. It was not himself he saw. It was a murderer with a brand of cane up on his brow. He looked again at her handkerchief on the ground. It was the last thing her hand had closed up on. It was a piece of her lying amid the scene of unspeakable horror. It was like some ghastly item of evidence in a murder story. He could not touch it. He could not look at it. He covered it with a towel. In a while he washed his hands and face. Put on his coat and walked into the bedroom. The blind was down. The place was almost dark. The atmosphere was laden with the smell of ether. He could see the form of his wife on the bed. But she was so still and sinned so thin. The coverlet appeared so flat except where the points of her feet raised a little ridge. Her face was as white as marble. Although the room was very silent he could not hear her breathe. On one side of the bed stood the nurse and on the other side the anesthetist. Both were motionless. They said nothing. Indeed there was nothing to say. They did not even look up when he came in. He touched his wife's hand but it was cold and he could feel no pulse. In about two hours Heron the surgeon arrived. The young doctor saw him in an adjacent bedroom. Gave him an incoherent spasmodic account of the operation. Laid emphasis on the unsurmountable difficulties. Gabbled something about an accident. Tried to excuse himself. Maintained that the fault was not his. But that circumstances were against him. The surgeon's examination of the patient was very brief. He went into the room alone. As he came out he closed the door after him. The husband, Namuth Terror, was awaiting him in the lobby. The surgeon put his hand on the richid man's shoulder, shook his head, and without uttering a single word made his way down the stairs. He nearly stumbled over a couple of shrinking white-faced maids who had crept up the stairs in the hope of hearing something of their young mistress. As he passed, one said, Is she better, doctor? But he merely shook his head and without a word walked out into the sunny street where some children were dancing to a barrel organ. The husband told me that he could not remember what he did during this portentous hours after the operation. He could not stay in the bedroom. He wondered about the house. He went into his consulting room and pulled out some half dozen works on surgery with the idea of gaining some comfort or guidance. But he never saw word on the printed page. He went into the dispensary and looked over the rows of bottles on the shelves to see if he could find anything, any drug, any elixir that would help. He crammed all sorts of medicines into his pocket and took them upstairs, but as he entered the room he forgot all about them. And when he found them in his coat a week later, he wondered how they had got there. He remembered a pallet maid coming up to him and saying, Lunch is ready sir. He thought her mad. He told me that among the horrors that haunted him during these hours of waiting not the least were the flippant and callous thoughts that would force themselves into his mind with finished brutality. There was for example a scent bottle on his wife's table, a present from her aunt. He found himself wondering why her aunt had given it to her and when, what she had paid for it and what the aunt would say when she heard her niece was dead. Worse than that he began composing in his mind an obituary notice for the newspapers. How should he word it? Should he say beloved wife or dearly loved wife and should he add all his medical qualifications? It was terrible. Terrible too was his constant longing to tell his wife of the trouble he was in and to be comforted by her. Shortly after the surgeon left, the anesthetist noticed some momentary gleam of consciousness in the patient. The husband hurried in. The end had come. His wife's face was turned towards the window. The nurse lifted the blind a little so that the light fell full upon her. She opened her eyes and at once recognized her husband. She tried to move her hand towards him, but it fell listless on the sheet. A smile, radiant, grateful, adoring, illuminated her face. And as he bent over her, he heard her whisper. Wonderful boy, end of section 10, recording by Mike Botez. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Mike Casey, Madison, Wisconsin. The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences by Frederick Treves. Among the more painful experiences which haunt a doctor's memory are the occasions on which it has been necessary to tell a patient that his malady is fatal and that no measure of cure lies in the hands of man. Rarely indeed has such an announcement to be bluntly made. In the face of misfortune, it is merciless to blot out hope. That meager hope, although it may be but a will of the wisp, is still a glimmer of light in the gathering gloom. Very often the evil tidings can be conveyed by the lips of a sympathetic friend. Very often the message can be worded in so elusive a manner as to plant merely a germ of doubt in the mind, which germ may slowly and almost painlessly grow into a realization of the truth. I remember being present when Sir William Jenner was enumerating to a friend the qualities he considered to be essential in a medical man. He needs, said the shrewd physician, three things. He must be honest, he must be dogmatic, and he must be kind. In imparting his dread message, the doctor needs all these qualities, but more especially the last, he must be kind. His kindness will be the more convincing if he can, for the moment, imagine himself in the patient's place, and the patient in his. The mind associates the pronouncing of a verdict and a sentence of death with a court of justice, a solemn judge in his robes, the ministers of the law, the dock, a pallid and almost breathless audience. Such a spectacle, with its elaborate dignity, is impressive enough, but it is hardly less moving when the scene is changed to a plain room, hushed almost to silence and occupied by two persons only, the one who speaks and the one who listens, the latter with bowed head and with knotted hands clenched between his knees. The manner in which ill news is received depends upon its gravity, upon the degree to which the announcement is unexpected, and upon the emotional bearing of the recipient. There may be an intense outburst of feeling, there are maybe none, the most pitiable cases are those in which the sentence is received in silence, or when from the trembling lips there merely escapes the words, it has come. The most vivid displays of feeling that occur to my mind have been exhibited by mothers when the fate of a child is concerned. If her child be threatened, a mother may become a tigress. I remember one such instance, I was quietly interviewing a patient in my consulting room, when the door suddenly flew open, and there burst in, as if blown in by a gust of wind, a gasping, wild-eyed woman with a little girl tucked up under her arm like a puppy. Without a word of introduction, she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, He wants to take her foot off! This sudden unexplained lady was a total stranger to me. She had no appointment, I knew nothing of her, she might have dropped from the clouds. However, the elements of violence, confusion and terror that she introduced into my placid room were so explosive and disturbing that I begged my patient to excuse me, and conducted, or rather impelled, the distraught lady into another room. Incidentally, I may remark that she was young and very pretty, but she was evidently quite oblivious of her looks, her complexion, her dress, or her many attractions. I had before noticed that when a good-looking woman is unconscious of being good-looking, there is a crisis in progress. The story, which was told me in gasps and at white heat, was as follows. The child was a little girl of about three, almost as pretty as her mother. She was the only child and had developed tuberculosis disease in one foot. The mother had taken the little thing to a young surgeon, who appears to have let fall some rash remark as to taking the foot off. This was enough for the mother, she would not listen to another syllable. She, whom I came to know later as one of the sweetest and gentlest of women, changed at the moment to a wild animal, a Tigris. Without a word, she snatched up the baby and bolted from the house, leaving the child's sock and shoe on the consulting room floor. She had been given my name as a possible person to consult, and had dashed off to my house, carrying the child through the streets with its bare foot and leg dangling in the air. On being admitted, she asked which was my room. It was pointed out to her, and without more ado, she flung herself in as I have described. The child, I may say, was beaming with delight. This dashing in and out of other people's houses and being carried through the streets without a sock or a shoe on her foot struck her as a delicious and exciting game. The mother's fury against my surgical colleague was almost inexpressible. If the poor man had suggested cutting off the child's head, he could not have done worse. How dare he, she gasped. How dare he talk of cutting off her foot. If he had proposed to cut off my foot, I should not have minded. It would be nothing. But to cut off her little foot, this beautiful little foot is a horror beyond words. And then look at the child, how sweet and wonderful she is. What wickedness! It was a marvelous display of one of the primitive emotions of mankind, a picture in human guise of a Tigris defending her cub. By a happy good fortune, after many months and after not a few minor operations, the foot got well so that the glare in the eyes of the Tigris died away, and she remembered again that she was a pretty woman. It is well known that the abrupt reception of ill tidings may have a disastrous effect upon the hearer. The medical man is aware that if he would avoid shock, the announcement of unpleasant facts or of unhappy news must be made slowly and with a tactful caution. In this method of procedure, I learned my lesson very early and in a way that impressed my memory. I was a house surgeon, and it was Christmas time. In my day, each house surgeon was on what was called full duty for one entire week in the month. During these seven days, all accident cases came into his surgeon's words. He was said to be taking in. On this particular Christmas week, I was taking in. Two of my brother house surgeons had obtained short leave for Christmas, and I had undertaken their duties. It was a busy time, so busy indeed, that I had not been to bed for two nights. On the eve of the third night, I was waiting for my dressers in the main corridor at the foot of the stair. I was leaning against the wall, and for the first and the last time in my life, I fell asleep standing up. The nap was short, for I was soon awakened, rudely awakened as novelists would put it. I found myself clutched by a heated and panting woman, who, as she clung to me, said in a hollow voice, Where have they took him? The question needed some amplification. I inquired who he was. She replied, The bad accident case just took in. Now the term accident implies in hospital language, a man ridden over in the street, or fallen from a scaffold, or broken up by a railway collision. I told her I had admitted no such case of accident. In fact, the docks and the great works were closed, and men and women were celebrating the birth of Christ by eating too much, by getting drunk, and by street rioting, which acts so involved only minor casualties. She was, however, convinced he was, took in. He was her husband. She gave me his name, but that conveyed nothing, as it was the dresser's business to take names. With a happy inspiration, I asked, What is he? A butler, she replied. Now a butler is one of the rarest varieties of mankind, ever to be seen in Whitechapel. And it did so happen that I had, a few hours before, admitted an undoubted butler. I told her so, with the effusion of one eager to give useful information. She said, What is the matter with him? I replied cheerily, He has cut his throat. The effect of this unwise readiness on my part was astonishing. The poor woman, letting go of my coat, collapsed vertically to the floor. She seemed to shut up within herself like a telescope. She just went down like a dress dropping from a peg. When she was as small a heap as was possible in a human being, she rolled over onto her head on the ground. A more sudden collapse I have never seen. Had I been fully awake, it would never have happened. We placed her on a couch and soon restored her to consciousness. Her story was simple. She and her husband had met. The two being full of supper and distempering drafts, as Brabantio would say, had had a savage quarrel. At the end, he banged out of the house, exclaiming, Oh, put an end to this. She had bowled after him. I hope to God you will. He had wandered to Whitechapel, and creeping into a stable, had cut his throat there and then. The friend who hastened to inform the wife told her, with attackfulness I so grievously lacked, that her husband had met with an accident and had been taken to the hospital. This lesson I never forgot, and in the future, based my method of announcing disaster, upon that adopted by the butler's discreet friend. Although a digression from the present subject, I'm reminded of the confusion that occasionally took place in the identity of cases. All patients in the hospital, who are seriously ill, whether they have been long in the wards, or have been only just admitted, are placed on the dangerous list, and have their names posted at the gate so that their relatives might be admitted at any time of the day or night. A man very gravely injured had been taken into the accident ward. He was insensible, and his condition such that he was at once put on the dangerous list, or in the language of the time, was gated. During the course of the evening, a youngish woman, dressed obviously in her best, bustled into the ward with an air of importance, and with a handkerchief to her hips. She demanded to see the man who had been brought in seriously injured. She was directed by the sister to a bed behind a screen, where lay the man, still insensible, and with his head and much of his face enveloped in bandages. The woman, at once dropping on her knees by the bedside, and throwing her arms about the neck of the unconscious man, wept with extreme perfusion, and with such demonstrations of grief as are observed at an Oriental funeral. When she had exhausted herself, she rose to her feet, and staring at the man on the bed, exclaimed suddenly, This is not Jim! This is not my husband! Where is he? Now, in the next bed to the one with the screen, and in full view of it, was a staring man setting bolt upright. He had been admitted with an injury to the knee. This was Jim! He was almost overcome by amazement. He had seen his wife, dressed in her best, enter the ward, clap her hand to her forehead, fall on her knees, and throw her arms around the neck of a total stranger, and proceed to smother him with kisses. Jim's name had been gated by mistake. When she came to the bedside of her real husband, she was annoyed and hurt, so hurt, indeed, that she dealt with him rudely. She had worked herself up for a really moving theatrical display in the wards, had rehearsed what she should say as she rode along in the omnibus, and considered herself rather a heroine, or at least a lady of intense and beautiful feeling, which she had now a chance of showing off. All of this was wasted and thrown away. An injured knee, caused by falling over a bucket, was not a subject for fine emotional treatment. She was disgusted with Jim. He had taken her in. Bah, she exclaimed. Come in with water on the knee. You might as well have come in with water on the brain. You are a fraud, you are. What do you mean by dragging me all the way out here for nothing? You have to be ashamed of yourself. With this reproof, she sailed out of the room with great dignity, a deeply injured woman. To return to the original topic, in all my experience, the most curious manner in which a painful announcement was received was manifested under the following circumstances. A gentleman brought his daughter to see me, a charming girl of eighteen. He was a widower, and she was his only child. A swelling had appeared in the upper part of her arm, and was increasing ominously. It became evident on examination that the growth was of the kind known as a sarcoma, and that the only measure to save her was an amputation of the limb at the shoulder joint. After, of course, the needful confirmatory exploration had been made. A more distressing position could hardly be imagined. The girl appeared to be in good health, and was certainly in the best of spirits. Her father was absolutely devoted to her. She was his ever-delightful companion, and the joy and comfort of his life. Terrible as the situation was, it was essential not only that the truth should be told, but told at once. Everything depended upon an immediate operation, and therefore there was not a day to be lost. To break the news seemed for a moment almost impossible. The poor father had no suspicion of the gravity of the case. He imagined that the trouble would probably be dealt with by a course of medicine and a potent liniment. I approached the revelation of the dreadful truth in an obscure manner. I discussed generalities, things that were possible, difficulties that might be, throughout hints, mentioned vague cases, and finally made known to him the barren ghastly truth, with as much gentleness as I could command. The wretched man listened to my discourse with apparent empathy, as if wondering what all this talk could mean, and what it had to do with him. When I had finished, he said nothing, but rising quietly from his chair, walked over to one side of the room, and looked at a picture hanging on the wall. He looked at it closely, and then, stepping back, and with his head on one side, viewed it at a few feet distant. Finally, he examined it through his hand and screwed up like a tube. While so doing, he said, This is a nice picture! I rather like it! Who's the artist? Ah, I see his name in the corner. I like the way in which he has treated the clouds, don't you? The foreground, too, with those sheep, is very cleverly managed. Then, turning suddenly to me, he burst out, What were you talking about just now? You said something. What was it? For God's sake! Say that it's not true! It is not true! It cannot be true! End of chapter 11 Chapter 12 of The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Casey, Madison, Wisconsin. The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences by Frederick Treves Chapter 12 A Question of Hats I had a very busy afternoon and had still two appointments to keep. The first of these was in the suburbs, a consultation with a doctor who was a stranger to me. It was a familiar type of house where we met, classic Doric pillars to the portico, a congested hall with hat pegs made of cow horns, a pea-green vase with a fern in it perched on a bamboo tripod, and a red and perspiring maid servant. Further, I became acquainted with a dining room containing bomb-proof mahogany furniture and great prints and pairs on the walls, war and peace on one side, summer and winter on the other. Then there was the best bedroom, rich in lace and wool mats, containing a bedstead as glaring in brass as a fire engine, a mirror draped with muslin and pink bows, and enough silver articles on the dressing table to start a shop. After a discussion of the case with the doctor in a drawing room which smelled like an empty church, I rushed off, leaving the doctor to detail the treatment we had advised, for I found, to my dismay, that I was twenty minutes late. The second case was that of an exacting Duke whom I had to visit at regular periods, and according to the Ducal pleasure, I should be at the door at least one minute before the appointed hour struck. I was now hopelessly late and consequently flurried. On reaching the Ducal abode, I flew upstairs prepared to meet the storm. His grace ignored my apologies and suggested, with uncouth irony, that I had been at a cricket match. He added that it was evident that I took no interest in him, that his sufferings were nothing to me, and concluded by asserting that if he had been dying I should not have hurried. I always regard remarks of this type as a symptom of disease rather than as a considered criticism of conduct, and therefore had little difficulty in bringing the Duke to a less contentious frame of mind by reverting to that topic of the day his engrossing disorder. The Duke never allowed his comfort to be in any way disturbed. He considered his disease as a personal affront to himself, and I therefore discussed it from the point of view of an unprovoked and indecent outrage. This he found very pleasing, although I failed to answer his repeated inquiry as to why his grace, the Duke of X, should be afflicted in this rude and offensive manner. It was evident that his position should have exempted him from what was quite a vulgar disorder, and it was incomprehensible that he, of all people, should have been selected for this insult. The interview over, I made my report to the Duchess, who was in a little room adjacent to the hall. She followed me out to ask a final question, just as I was on the point of taking my hat. The hat handed to me by the Butler was, however, a new hat that I had never seen before. It was of a shape I disliked. The Butler, with due submission, said that it was the hat I came in. I replied it was impossible, and putting it on my head showed that it was so small as to be absurd. The Duchess, who was a lady of prompt convictions, exclaimed, Ridiculous! That was never your hat! The Butler could say no more. He was convicted of error. The Duchess then seized upon the only other hat on the table, and held it at arm's length. Whose is this? She cried, Heavens! It is the shabbiest hat I ever saw! It cannot be yours! It was not. Looking inside, she added, What a filthy hat! It is enough to poison the house! Handing it to the Butler, as if it had been an infected rag, she exclaimed, Take it away, and burn it! The Butler did not at once convey the garbage to the flames, but remarked, As if talking in his sleep, There is a piano forte tuna in the drawing room. The Duchess stared with amazement at this inconsequent remark, whereupon the Butler added that the new hat I had rejected might possibly be his. He was at once sent up to confront the artist, whose aimless tinkling could be heard in the hall, with the further message, that if the dirty hat should happen to be his, he was never to enter the house again. The Butler returned to say that the musician did not use a hat. He wore a cap, which same he had produced from his pocket. While the Butler was away, a great light had illumined the mind of the Duchess. It appeared that Lord Andrew, her son-in-law, had called that afternoon with his wife. He had just left, his wife remaining behind. It was soon evident that the Duchess had a grievance against her son-in-law. When the light fell upon her, she exclaimed to me, I see it all now! This horrible hat is Andrew's! He has taken yours by mistake, and has left this disgusting thing behind! It is just like him. He is the worst-dressed man in London, and this hat is just the kind he would wear. At this moment the daughter appeared. She had overheard her mother's decided views, and was proportionately indignant. She disdained to even look at the hat, preferring to deal with the indictment of Andrew on general grounds. She defended her husband from the charge of being unclean, with no little show of temper. Without referring to the specific hat, she said she was positive on a priori grounds that Andrew would never wear a dirty hat. Her mother had no right to say such things. It was unjust and unkind. The Duchess was now fully roused. She was still more positive. This, she affirmed, was just the sort of thing Andrew would do, leave an old hat behind and take a good one. She would send him at once a note by a footman, demanding the immediate return of my hat, and the removal of his own offensive headgear. The daughter, deeply hurt, had withdrawn from the discussion. I suggested that as Lady Andrew was about to go home, she might inquire if a mistake had been made. Her grace, however, was far too moved to listen to such moderation. She wanted to tell Andrew what she thought of him, and it was evident she had long been seeking the opportunity, so she at once stamped off to write the note. In the meanwhile I waited, gazing in great melancholy of mind at the two hats. The silent butler also kept his eyes fixed upon them, with a gloom even deeper than mine. I had hinted that the new hat might belong to Lord Andrew, but the Duchess had already disposed of that suggestion by remarking with assurance that Andrew never wore a new hat. The note was produced, and at once dispatched by a footman. I have no idea of the wording of the note, but I was satisfied that the Duchess had not been ambiguous, and that she had told her son-in-law precisely what were her present views of him in a wider sense than could be expressed in terms of hats. The writing of the letter had relieved her. She was almost calm. She now told the silent butler to fetch one of the Duke's hats, so that I might have at least some decent covering on my bare head, thus unscrupulously stripped by the unclean Andrew. The butler returned with a very smart hat of the Duke's. It had apparently never been worn. It fitted me to perfection. In this vicarious coronet I regained my carriage. I felt almost kindly towards the Duke now that I was wearing his best hat. Next day I placed the ducal hat in a befitting hat box, and having put on another hat of my own, was starting for the scene of the downfall of Lord Andrew. At my door a note was handed me. It was from the suburban doctor. He very courteously pointed out that I had taken his hat by mistake, and said he would be glad if I would return it at my convenience, as he had no other, and my hat came down over his eyes. It was a dreadful picture, that of a respected practitioner going his rounds with a hat resting on the bridge of his nose, but at least it cleared up the mystery of the new hat. The butler was right. In my anxiety at being late on the previous afternoon, I was evidently not conscious that I was wearing a hat which must have looked like a thimble on the top of an egg. On reaching the ducal residence I was received by the butler. He said nothing, but it seemed to me that he smiled immoderately for a butler. The two hats, the new and the dirty, were still on the table, but the duchess made no appearance. I returned the duke's hat with appropriate thanks, and expressed regret for the stupid mistake I had made on the occasion of my last visit. I then placed the doctor's new hat I had repudiated in the hat box ready for removal. The full mystery was still unsolved, while the butler stood in the hall like a hypnotized sphinx. I said in a light and casual way, and what about Lord Andrew? Did his lordship answer the note? The butler replied, with extreme emphasis, he did indeed. Poor duchess, I thought. What a pity she had been so violent and so hasty. Still, the dirty hat remained shrouded in mystery. So pointing to it, I said to the butler, By the way, whose hat is that? That hat, sir? He replied, adopting the manner of a showman in a museum. That hat is the duke's. It is the hat his grace always wears when he goes out in the morning. I asked, why did you not tell the duchess so yesterday? He replied, What, sir? After her grace had said that the hat was enough to poison the house? Not me! End of Chapter 12 End of The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences by Frederick Treves