An Inconvenient Wife Part 42

"Dr. Seth, could you state your qualifications, please."

Victor said, "I'm a neurologist. I studied at the University of Leipzig, and then with Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpetriere until I went to Nancy. There I studied with Hippolyte Bernheim."

"A neurologist," Howe said. "I'm not familiar with that term, sir."

"Neurologists study the brain and the nervous system," Victor said easily. "We specialize in organic disorders, especially as they apply to illnesses that most people think of as nervous conditions."

"Such as insanity?"

Victor nodded. "Among other things. Neurologists tend to treat those who are still functioning outside of inst.i.tutions."

"I see. So you are a physician?"

Contemptuously, Victor said, "I am a physician, but I hardly a.s.sume ancient medical knowledge has validity. I'm a scientist first and foremost. Medical knowledge is increasing day by day. The brain and nervous system have been unknown continents before now. In time science will solve every puzzle of human behavior. We will be able to cure anything."

Howe raised a brow. "Even madness?"

"Especially madness," Victor said.

"How truly extraordinary," Howe said. "How then, sir, would you characterize insanity?"

"Insanity can be measured only by comparison with a person's normal behavior."

"So if one day someone's behavior changed dramatically, that could be seen as insanity?"

Victor nodded. His eyes were so dark it was hard to read his expression. "Possibly."

"Would you say that, oh, a carpenter, for example, who one day was calmly making cabinets, and who had always been of an even temperament, and then the next day violently decapitated his wife with an ax might be insane?"

Victor allowed a small smile. "That could be one possibility. I would need to know more about the circ.u.mstances of the particular case."

"But you do believe that someone might be so overtaken by some emotion, some irresistible impulse, that he might temporarily lose control of his actions?"

"Certainly. I've seen it for myself."

"What generally triggers such a thing?"

"Great distress," Victor said. "Physical or emotional."

"I see. Where is your practice, Dr. Seth?"

"Here in the city."

"And what is your specialty?"

"I specialize in nervous disorders-hysteria, neurasthenia, morbid fears, and the like-especially in women."

"Is that how you came to know Mrs. Carelton?"

Victor glanced at me. He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. "Yes. She came to me in January of this year. She desired treatment for hysteria. At the time her husband said they were quite desperate. Apparently she'd seen many doctors throughout the years. None had been able to help her. Mr. Carelton intimated that I was their last hope."

"Other doctors diagnosed her with uterine monomania."

"They were wrong," Victor said flatly. "There was no irregularity with her uterus, nothing to indicate monomania at all."

"How did you ascertain this?"

"With a simple examination," Victor said. He exhaled in disgust. "This is the problem with most physicians today. They're too quick to find fault with the reproductive system. Mrs. Carelton was quite normal, although she had been unable to conceive."

"Wouldn't one a.s.sume that this was because she was not normal?"

Victor's smile grew faintly patronizing. "One could a.s.sume this, but one would be wrong. Mrs. Carelton had no abnormality in her uterus or her ovaries. She did indeed suffer from hysteria and s.e.xual neurasthenia, but I attributed those things not to her womb but to her husband."

"Her husband?"

"Yes. Mr. Carelton declined to do his part to relieve his wife's systems. He said he was afraid of defiling her. What he meant was that he didn't want to be of the cla.s.s of man who might have a pa.s.sionate woman as a wife. In her desire to please him, she followed his instruction in everything. Because of that, her own desires were thwarted, and she took refuge in hysteria."

Howe nodded. "Did you believe you could cure her of this hysteria and-what else did you call it?"

"s.e.xual neurasthenia," Victor said. "Yes. I did believe I could cure her."

"How long did your treatment of Mrs. Carelton last?"

Victor looked pained. "Until her husband committed her to an asylum."

"Because she was insane?"

"No, Mr. Howe. Because she was well."

There was a stirring in the audience. Judge Hammond looked up sternly.

Howe's thick brows rose in surprise. "She was well, and he had her committed? Why was that?"

"In my conversations with him, I discovered that Mr. Carelton preferred his wife to be helpless and dependent upon him. He preferred her ill. When she began to deny him, he was angry."

"What did she deny him, Dr. Seth?"

"The opportunity to dictate her every action."

"But isn't that what husbands are supposed to do? To lead their wives gently in the proper direction?"

Victor said firmly, "It is certainly a husband's prerogative to direct his wife in proper behavior, but I believe Mr. Carelton's ambition made him unduly harsh. I ask you, Mr. Howe, who would have been the most cognizant of proper behavior: Mrs. Carelton, who is descended from the Knickerbockers, or Mr. Carelton, who was not?"

"A good question, Dr. Seth," Howe said, looking pointedly at the jury. "A very good question indeed. Now, Doctor, you are of the opinion that Mrs. Carelton was well when her husband had her committed to Beechwood Grove. Why do you say that?"

"I was directing her treatment. She was making great strides."

"Would you say your relations.h.i.+p with Mrs. Carelton was intimate, Doctor?"

"I would say any doctor-patient relations.h.i.+p is."

"Yes, of course. However, Mrs. Breckenwood claimed earlier that Mrs. Carelton was having an affair with you. Is this true?"

Victor didn't look at me. "No. It is not true." His lie was so smooth and confident even I nearly believed it.

"You were not having a personal relations.h.i.+p with Mrs. Carelton?"

Again Victor sighed with exasperation. "Part of Mrs. Carelton's treatment required some exploration of her physical symptoms, yes. This is a usual medical procedure. Mr. Carelton knew this. We discussed it. He did not seem to find it unreasonable."

"What else did her treatment consist of?"

"Electrotherapy, to treat the s.e.xual neurasthenia. Hypnosis for the hysteria."

"Hypnosis?" Howe turned his gaze to the jury as if he might find understanding there. "What exactly is hypnosis? A kind of mesmerism?"

"No. Mesmerism is a parlor trick. Hypnosis is a medical procedure that uses suggestion to change behavior."

"Suggestion? How does that work?"

"A person is put into a trance state," Victor explained patiently. "During the trance, the conscious mind is inactive-asleep, if you will-and the unconscious mind is then receptive to suggestion."

"Objection," Scott called. "What relevance does any of this have?"

"We have a right to raise a defense," Howe said. "And the state has already mentioned Dr. Seth's unique ability-"

"Yes, yes," said the judge. "Continue, please, Doctor."

Howe smiled and turned back to Victor. "Now, Mrs. Breckenwood testified earlier that you performed this 'hypnotism' at parties."

"Yes."

"She said that you could make anyone do anything. Is this true?"

Victor shook his head and smiled slightly. "Hardly. Not everyone can be put in a trance state, nor does everyone respond to suggestion to the same degree."

"So there are some for whom hypnotism doesn't work?"

"Yes."

"And what about Mrs. Carelton? How did she respond to hypnotism?"

"I found during my first examination of Mrs. Carelton that she was extraordinarily suggestible."

"What exactly do you mean by that?"

"She responded quite well to suggestion," Victor said. "To a degree I'd never seen. For example, if I told her she would be numb, she became so."

"I see." Howe turned from Victor and faced the jury. He seemed about to deliver a cautionary tale. I found myself leaning forward, waiting to hear.

"You said earlier that you could not make anyone do anything, as Mrs. Breckenwood testified. But in fact you did have the skill to put everyone into a trance when you were entertaining at Newport, didn't you?"

"Yes," Victor said. "But that was only because I chose my subjects well. Experience has taught me who will go into a trance and who will not. There is a certain indolence about the eye, a willingness to be led." He shrugged. "It was not so difficult to choose those who could be hypnotized."

"And you say that Mrs. Carelton was especially susceptible to hypnotism?"

Victor's voice deepened as he said, "Yes. Yes."

"How often did she follow the suggestions you planted during a trance state?"

"Every time," Victor said, and his vanity over it was obvious. "She followed every suggestion I made. As I said, it was extraordinary."

"Is it possible to make a suggestion that the subject acts upon at some later point in time?"

"Yes. Posthypnotically."

"So you could, for example, make a man bark at the moon after the party is over and everyone has gone to bed?"

"Yes."

"Would he still be in a trance state?"

"No. The suggestion has been planted in his unconscious. It lingers there until it receives a signal. Perhaps I've made the suggestion that he bark at the moon at midnight. At midnight he will wake and do so."

"Remarkable," Howe said. "That's hard to believe, Doctor."

Again that confidence, that s.h.i.+ning vanity. "Ask anyone who was at Newport last summer. They saw it quite clearly."

"Did Mrs. Carelton also respond to- What did you call it? Posthypnosis?"

"Posthypnotic suggestion," Victor said. He leaned back in the witness chair, self-possessed. "Yes. That is exactly what reduced her distress and her hysteria."

"You said that Mrs. Carelton followed every suggestion you made to her. Could you make her do something that she wouldn't normally do?"

"Yes."

"Even if it was morally abhorrent to her?"

I gasped softly. The jury glanced at me. Victor glanced at me.

"What are you suggesting?" he asked quietly.

"Answer the question, Dr. Seth," Judge Hammond said.

I saw Victor struggle. I saw when his vanity seemingly won the battle. "Yes," he said. "Even that. I can make Lucy do anything."

This time Judge Hammond did not attempt to quiet the courtroom. It was Howe, my own lawyer, who held up his hand for silence and turned to Victor.

"You were aware, weren't you, of the position Mrs. Carelton occupied in New York City society?"