As her husband was to return the following day, I
did not go to the house for several days. When
I did go I was surprised at not seeing Misti.
I asked where he was.
She blushed and replied:
“I gave him away. I was uneasy.”
I was astonished.
“Uneasy? Uneasy? What about?”
She gave me a long kiss and said in a low tone:
“I was uneasy about your eyes, my dear.”
Misti appeared in. Gil Blas
of January 22, 1884, over the signature
of “MAUFRIGNEUSE.”
Crazy people attract me. They live in a mysterious
land of weird dreams, in that impenetrable cloud of
dementia where all that they have witnessed in their
previous life, all they have loved, is reproduced for
them in an imaginary existence, outside of all laws
that govern the things of this life and control human
thought.
For them there is no such thing as the impossible,
nothing is improbable; fairyland is a constant quantity
and the supernatural quite familiar. The old
rampart, logic; the old wall, reason; the old main
stay of thought, good sense, break down, fall and
crumble before their imagination, set free and escaped
into the limitless realm of fancy, and advancing with
fabulous bounds, and nothing can check it. For
them everything happens, and anything may happen.
They make no effort to conquer events, to overcome
resistance, to overturn obstacles. By a sudden
caprice of their flighty imagination they become princes,
emperors, or gods, are possessed of all the wealth
of the world, all the delightful things of life, enjoy
all pleasures, are always strong, always beautiful,
always young, always beloved! They, alone, can
be happy in this world; for, as far as they are concerned,
reality does not exist. I love to look into their
wandering intelligence as one leans over an abyss
at the bottom of which seethes a foaming torrent whose
source and destination are both unknown.
But it is in vain that we lean over these abysses,
for we shall never discover the source nor the destination
of this water. After all, it is only water, just
like what is flowing in the sunlight, and we shall
learn nothing by looking at it.
It is likewise of no use to ponder over the intelligence
of crazy people, for their most weird notions are,
in fact, only ideas that are already known, which
appear strange simply because they are no longer under
the restraint of reason. Their whimsical source
surprises us because we do not see it bubbling up.
Doubtless the dropping of a little stone into the
current was sufficient to cause these ebullitions.
Nevertheless crazy people attract me and I always
return to them, drawn in spite of myself by this trivial
mystery of dementia.
One day as I was visiting one of the asylums the physician
who was my guide said:
“Come, I will show you an interesting case.”
