To ask a patient in my condition to take a little medicated sugar seemed reasonable.  But from my point of view my refusal was justifiable.  That innocuous sugar disc to me seemed saturated with the blood of loved ones; and so much as to touch it was to shed their blood—­perhaps on the very scaffold on which I was destined to die.  For myself I cared little.  I was anxious to die, and eagerly would I have taken the sugar disc had I had any reason to believe that it was deadly poison.  The sooner I could die and be forgotten, the better for all with whom I had ever come in contact.  To continue to live was simply to be the treacherous tool of unscrupulous detectives, eager to exterminate my innocent relatives and friends, if so their fame could be made secure in the annals of their craft.

But the thoughts associated with the taking of the medicine were seldom twice alike.  If before taking it something happened to remind me of mother, father, some other relative, or a friend, I imagined that compliance would compromise, if not eventually destroy, that particular person.  Who would not resist when meek acceptance would be a confession which would doom his own mother or father to prison, or ignominy, or death?  It was for this that I was reviled, for this, subjected to cruel restraint.

They thought I was stubborn.  In the strict sense of the word there is no such thing as a stubborn insane person.  The truly stubborn men and women in the world are sane; and the fortunate prevalence of sanity may be approximately estimated by the preponderance of stubbornness in society at large.  When one possessed of the power of recognizing his own errors continues to hold an unreasonable belief—­that is stubbornness.  But for a man bereft of reason to adhere to an idea which to him seems absolutely correct and true because he has been deprived of the means of detecting his error—­that is not stubbornness.  It is a symptom of his disease, and merits the indulgence of forbearance, if not genuine sympathy.  Certainly the afflicted one deserves no punishment.  As well punish with a blow the cheek that is disfigured by the mumps.

The attendant who was with me most of the time while I remained at the sanatorium was the kindly one already mentioned.  Him I regarded, however, as a detective, or, rather, as two detectives, one of whom watched me by day, and the other—­a perfect double—­by night.  He was an enemy, and his professed sympathy—­which I now know was genuine—­only made me hate him the more.  As he was ignorant of the methods of treatment in vogue in hospitals for the insane, it was several weeks before he dared put in jeopardy his position by presuming to shield me against unwise orders of the doctors.  But when at last he awoke to the situation, he repeatedly intervened in my behalf.  More than once the doctor who was both owner and superintendent threatened to discharge him for alleged officiousness.  But better judgment usually held the doctor’s wrath in check, for he realized that not one attendant in a hundred was so competent.