Asylum Piece

AIRING A GRIEVANCE

Yesterday I went to see my official advisor. I have visited him fairly often during the last three months in spite of the inconvenience and expense of these interviews. When one’s affairs are in such a desperate state as mine, one is simply obliged to make use of any possible help; and this man D has been my last hope. He has been the only source of advice and assistance available to me, the only person with whom I could discuss my affairs: in fact, the only person to whom I could speak openly about the intolerable situation in which I have been placed. With everybody else I have had to be reserved and suspicious, remembering the motto, ‘Silence is a friend that never betrays anyone’. For how can I tell whether the person to whom I am talking is not an enemy, or perhaps connected with my accusers or with those who will ultimately decide my fate?

Even with D I have always been on my guard. From the start there have been days when something seemed to warn me that he was not altogether to be trusted: yet on other occasions he filled me with confidence; and what was to become of me if I were deprived even of his support — unsatisfactory as it might be? No, I really couldn’t face the future entirely alone, and so, for my own sake, I must not distrust him.

I went to him confidently enough in the first place. His name was known to me as that of a man, still young, but already very near the top of his profession. I considered myself lucky to have been placed in his charge, notwithstanding the long journey which separated me from him: in those early days I did not anticipate having to visit him frequently. At the beginning, I was favourably impressed by his solid town house, and by the room in which he received me with its wine-coloured velvet curtains, its comfortable arm-chairs, its valuable looking pieces of tapestry.

About the man himself I was not so certain. I have always believed that people of similar physical characteristics fall into corresponding mental groups, and he belonged to a type which I have constantly found unsympathetic. All the same, there could be no doubt as to his ability, he was excellently qualified to take charge of my case, and as I was only to meet him occasionally — and then in a professional and not in a social capacity — the fact of our being basically antipathetic to one another seemed of little significance. The main thing was that he should devote sufficient time to my affairs, that he should study my interests seriously; and this, to begin with, he seemed quite prepared to do.

It was only later, as things went from bad to worse, and I was obliged to consult him at shorter and shorter intervals, that I started to feel dubious about his goodwill towards me.

At our early meetings he always treated me with extreme consideration, even with deference, listening with the closest attention to everything I had to say, and in general impressing me with the grave importance of my case. Irrational as it may sound, it was this very attitude of his — originally so gratifying — which aroused my first vague suspicions. If he were really looking after my interests as thoroughly as he asserted, why was it necessary for him to behave in this almost propitiatory way which suggested either that he was trying to distract my attention from some possible negligence on his part, or that matters were not progressing as favourably as he affirmed? Yet, as I have previously mentioned, he had a knack of inspiring confidence, and with a few encouraging, convincing phrases he could dispel all my tenuous doubts and fears.

But presently another cause for suspicion pricked my uneasy mind. Ever since my introduction to D I had been aware of something dimly familiar about his face with the very black brows accentuating deep-set eyes into which I never looked long enough or directly enough to determine their colour but which I assumed to be dark brown. From time to time my thoughts idly pursued the half-remembered image which I could never quite manage to bring into full consciousness. Without ever really giving much attention to the subject, I think I finally decided that D must remind me of some portrait seen long before in a gallery, most probably somewhere abroad; for his countenance was decidedly foreign, and contained the curious balance of latent sensuality and dominant intellectualism seen to the best advantage in some of the work of El Greco. Then one day, just as I was leaving his house, the complete memory which had eluded me for so long, suddenly came to me with an impact sharp as a collision with a fellow pedestrian. It was no ancient portrait that D’s face recalled to my mind, but a press photograph, and one that I had seen comparatively recently, one that was contained in an illustrated periodical which was probably still lying about somewhere in my living-room.

As soon as I got home I started to search through the papers which, in my preoccupied state of mind, I had allowed to accumulate in an untidy pile. It was not long before I found what I was looking for. The face of the young assassin, gazing darkly at me from the page, was, in all essentials, the same black-browed face that had confronted me a short time previously in the curtained seclusion of his handsome room.

Why did this accidental likeness make such an impression on me, I wonder? It is possible for a man to resemble a certain murderer in his outward appearance without possessing himself any violent tendencies; or if, as is more likely, he does possess them, without lacking sufficient restraint to hold them in check. One has only to think of D’s responsible position, to look at his controlled, serene, intelligent face, to realize the fantastic nature of the comparison. The whole sequence of ideas is utterly grotesque, utterly illogical. And yet there it is; I can’t banish it from my mind.

One must remember, too, that the man in the photograph was no common assassin, but a fanatic, a man of extraordinarily strong convictions, who killed not for personal gain, but for a principle, for what he considered to be the right. Is this an argument against D or in his favour? Sometimes I think one way, sometimes the other: I am quite unable to decide.

As a result of these prejudices — and of course there were others which would take too long to write down here — I decided to put my case in the hands of a different advisor. This was a serious step, not to be taken lightly, and I expended a great deal of time considering the subject before I finally sent off my application. Even after I had posted the letter I could not feel at all sure that I had done the right thing. Certainly, I had heard of people who changed their advisors, not once but several times, and of some who seemed to spend their whole time running from one to another: but I had always rather despised them for their instability, and the general feeling in the public mind was that the cases of these individuals would terminate badly. Still, on the whole, I felt that the exceptional circumstances warranted the change where I was concerned. In wording my letter of application I was particularly careful to avoid any statement that could possibly be taken as detrimental to D, merely stressing the point of how expensive and awkward it was for me to be continually undertaking the long journey to his house, and asking for my case to be transferred to someone in the university town near my home.

For several days I waited anxiously for an answer, only to receive at the end of that time a bundle of complicated forms to be filled up in uplicate. These I completed, sent off, and then waited again. How much of my life lately has consisted of this helpless, soul-destroying suspense! The waiting goes on and on, day after day, week after week, and yet one never gets used to it. Well, at last the reply came back on the usual stiff, pale blue paper, the very sight of which I have learned to dread. My request was refused. No explanation was given as to why a favour which had been granted to hundreds of people should be denied to me. But of course one can’t expect explanations from these officials; their conduct is always completely autocratic and incalculable. All they condescended to add to the categorical negative was the statement that I was at liberty to dispense altogether with the services of an advisor should I prefer to do so.

I was so cast down after the receipt of this arbitrary communication that for two whole weeks I remained at home, absolutely inactive. I had not even the heart to go out of doors, but stayed in my room, saying that I was ill and seeing no one except the servant who brought my meals. Indeed, the plea of illness was no untruth, for I felt utterly wretched in body as well as in mind, exhausted, listless and depressed as if after a severe fever.

Alone in my room, I pondered endlessly over the situation. Why, in heaven’s name, had the authorities refused my application when I knew for a fact that other people were allowed to change their advisors at will? Did the refusal mean that there was some special aspect of my case which differentiated it from the others? If this were so, it must surely indicate that a more serious view was taken of mine than of the rest, as I was to be denied ordinary privileges. If only I knew — if only I could find out something definite! With extreme care I drafted another letter and sent it off to the official address, politely, I’m afraid even servilely, beseeching an answer to my questions. What a fool I was to humiliate myself so uselessly, most likely for the benefit of a roomful of junior clerks who doubtless had a good laugh over my labori'ously-thought-out composition before tossing it into the waste-paper basket! Naturally, no reply was forthcoming.

I waited a few days longer in a state of alternate agitation and despair that became hourly more unbearable. At last — yesterday — I reached a point where I could no longer endure so much tension. There was only one person in the whole world to whom I could unburden my mind, only one person who might conceivably be able to relieve my suspense, and that was D who was still, when all was said, my official advisor.

On the spur of the moment I decided to go and see him again. I was in a condition in which to take action of some sort had become an urgent necessity. I put on my things and went out to catch the train.

The sun was shining, and I was astonished to see that during the period I had remained indoors, too preoccupied with my troubles even to look out of the window, the season seemed to have passed from winter to spring. When last I had looked objectively at the hills I had seen a Breughel-like landscape of snow and sepia trees, but now the snow had vanished except for a narrow whiteness bordering the northern edge of the highest point of the wood. From the windows of the train I saw hares playing among the fine, emerald green lines of the winter wheat: the newly-ploughed earth in the valleys looked rich as velvet. I opened the carriage window and felt the soft rush of air which, not far away, carried the plover in their strange, reeling love dance. When the train slowed down between high banks I saw the glossy yellow cups of celandines in the grass.

Even in the city there was a feeling of gladness, of renewed life. People walked briskly towards appointments or dawdled before the shop windows with contented faces. Some whistled or sang quietly to themselves under cover of the traffic’s noise, some swung their arms, some thrust their hands deep in their pockets, others had already discarded their overcoats. Flowers were being sold at the street corners. Although the sunlight could not reach to the bottom of the deep streets the house-tops were brightly gilded, and many eyes were raised automatically to the burnished roofs and the soft, promising sky.

I, too, was influenced by the beneficent atmosphere of the day. As I walked along, I determined to put the whole matter of the letter and its answer frankly before D, to conceal nothing from him, but to ask him what he thought lay behind this new official move. After all, I had not done anything that should offend him; my request for a change of advisor was perfectly justifiable on practical grounds. Nor had I any real reason for distrusting him. On the contrary, it was now more than ever essential that I should have implicit faith in him, since he alone was empowered to advance my cause. Surely, if only for the sake of his own high reputation, he would do everything possible to help me.

I reached his house and stood waiting for the door to be opened. A beggar was standing close to the area railings holding a tray of matches in front of him, a thin, youngish man of middle-class appearance, carefully shaved, and wearing a very old, neat, dark blue suit. Of course, the whole town is full of destitute people, one sees them everywhere, but I couldn’t help wishing that I had not caught sight, just at this moment, of this particular man who looked as though he might be a schoolmaster fallen on evil days. We were so close together that I expected him to beg from me; but instead of that he stood without even glancing in my direction, without even troubling to display his matches to the passers-by, an expression of complete apathy on his face that in an instant began to dissipate for me all the optimistic influence of the day.

As I went inside the door, some part of my attention remained fixed on the respectable looking beggar, with whom I seemed in some way to connect myself. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps one day I, no longer able to work, my small fortune absorbed in advisor’s fees, my friends irreparably alienated, might be placed in the same situation as he.

The manservant informed me that D had been called out on urgent business but that he would be back before long. I was shown into a room and asked to wait. Alone here, all my depression, briefly banished by the sun, began to return. After the spring-like air outside, the room felt close and oppressive, but a sort of gloomy inertia prevented me from opening one of the thickly draped windows. An enormous grandfather clock in the corner didactically ticked the minutes away. Listening to that insistent ticking, a sense of abysmal futility gradually overwhelmed me. The fact of D’s absence, that he, should choose to-day of all days to keep me waiting in this dismal room, created the worst possible impression on my overwrought nerves. A feeling of despair, as if every effort I might make would inevitably be in vain, took possession of me. I sat lethargically on a straight-backed, uncomfortable chair with a leather seat, gazing indifferently at the clock, the hands of which had now completed a half circle since my arrival. I thought of going away, but lacked even the energy to move. An apathy, similar to that displayed by the beggar outside, had come over me. I felt convinced that already, before I had even spoken to D, the visit had been a failure.

Suddenly the servant returned to say that D was at my disposal. But now I no longer wanted to see him, it was only with the greatest difficulty that I forced myself to stand up and follow the man into the room where my advisor sat at his desk. I don’t know why the sight of him sitting in his accustomed pose should have suggested to me the idea that he had not really been called out at all, but had been sitting there the whole time, keeping me waiting for some ulterior motive of his own; perhaps to produce in me just such a sensation of despair as I now experienced.

We shook hands, I sat down and began to speak, driving my sluggish tongue to frame words that seemed useless even before they were uttered. Was it my fancy that D listened less attentively than on previous occasions, fidgeting with his fountain pen or with the papers in front of him? It was not long before something in his attitude convinced me that he was thoroughly acquainted with the whole story of my letter of application and its sequel. No doubt the authorities had referred the matter to him — with what bias, with what implication? And now my indifferent mood changed to one of suspicion and alarm as I tried to guess what this intercommunication portended.

I heard myself advancing the old argument of inconvenience, explaining in hesitant tones that in order to spend less than an hour with him I must be nearly six hours on the double journey. And then I heard him answer that I should no longer have cause to complain of this tedious travelling, as he was just about to start on a holiday of indefinite length and would undertake no further work until his return.

If I felt despairing before you can imagine how this information affected me. Somehow I took leave of him, somehow found my way through the streets, somehow reached the train which carried me across the now sunless landscape.

How hard it is to sit at home with nothing to do but wait. To wait — the most difficult thing in the whole world. To wait — with no living soul in whom to confide one’s doubts, one’s fears, one’s relentless hopes. To wait — not knowing whether D’s words are to be construed into an official edict depriving me of all assistance, or whether he intends to take up my case again in the distant future, or whether the case is already concluded. To wait — only to wait — without even the final merciful deprivation of hope.

Sometimes I think that some secret court must have tried and condemned me, unheard, to this heavy sentence.