The piece of ice in the pitcher of water which usually stood on the table sometimes clinked against the pitcher’s side as its center of gravity shifted through melting.  It was many days before I reasoned out the cause of this sound; and until I did I supposed it was produced by some mechanical device resorted to by the detectives for a purpose.  Thus the most trifling occurrence assumed for me vast significance.

V

After remaining at home for about a month, during which time I showed no improvement mentally, though I did gain physically, I was taken to a private sanatorium.  My destination was frankly disclosed to me.  But my habit of disbelief had now become fixed, and I thought myself on the way to a trial in New York City, for some one of the many crimes with which I stood charged.

My emotions on leaving New Haven were, I imagine, much the same as those of a condemned but penitent criminal who looks upon the world for the last time.  The day was hot, and, as we drove to the railway station, the blinds on most of the houses in the streets through which we passed were seen to be closed.  The reason for this was not then apparent to me.  I thought I saw an unbroken line of deserted houses, and I imagined that their desertion had been deliberately planned as a sign of displeasure on the part of their former occupants.  As citizens of New Haven, I supposed them bitterly ashamed of such a despicable townsman as myself.  Because of the early hour, the streets were practically deserted.  This fact, too, I interpreted to my own disadvantage.  As the carriage crossed the main business thoroughfare, I took what I believed to be my last look at that part of my native city.

From the carriage I was carried to the train and placed in the smoking car in the last seat on the right-hand side.  The back of the seat next in front was reversed so that my legs might be placed in a comfortable position, and one of the boards used by card-playing travelers was placed beneath them as a support.  With a consistent degree of suspicion I paid particular attention to a blue mark on the face of the railroad ticket held by my custodian.  I took it to be a means of identification for use in court.

That one’s memory may perform its function in the grip of Unreason itself is proved by the fact that my memory retains an impression, and an accurate one, of virtually everything that befell me, except when under the influence of an anaesthetic or in the unconscious hours of undisturbed sleep.  Important events, trifling conversations, and more trifling thoughts of my own are now recalled with ease and accuracy; whereas, prior to my illness and until a strange experience to be recorded later, mine was an ordinary memory when it was not noticeably poor.  At school and in college I stood lowest in those studies in which success depended largely upon this faculty.  Psychiatrists