Authors: Margaret Atwood
Preparing himself for his first interview with Grace, Simon had disregarded this portrait entirely. She must be quite different by now, he’d thought; more dishevelled; less self-contained; more like a suppliant; quite possibly insane. He was conducted to her temporary cell by a keeper, who’d locked him in with her, after warning him that she was stronger than she looked and could give a man a devilish bite, and advising him to call for help if she became violent.
As soon as he saw her, he knew that this wouldn’t happen. The morning light fell slantingly in through the small window high up on the wall, illuminating the corner where she stood. It was an image almost mediaeval in its plain lines, its angular clarity: a nun in a cloister, a maiden in a towered dungeon, awaiting the next day’s burning at the stake, or else the last-minute champion come to rescue her. The cornered woman; the penitential dress falling straight down, concealing feet that were surely bare; the straw mattress on the floor; the timorous hunch of the shoulders; the arms hugged close to the thin body, the long wisps of auburn hair escaping from what appeared at first glance to be a chaplet of white flowers – and especially the eyes, enormous in the pale face and dilated with fear, or with mute pleading – all was as it should be. He’d seen many hysterics at the Salpêtrière in Paris who’d looked very much like this.
He approached her with a calm and smiling face, presenting an image of goodwill – which was a true image, after all, because goodwill was what he felt. It was important to convince such patients that you, at least, did not believe them to be mad, since they never believed it themselves.
But then Grace stepped forward, out of the light, and the woman he’d seen the instant before was suddenly no longer there. Instead there was a different woman – straighter, taller, more self-possessed, wearing the conventional dress of the Penitentiary, with a striped blue and white skirt beneath which were two feet, not naked at all but enclosed in ordinary shoes. There was even less escaped hair than he’d thought: most of it was tucked up under a white cap.
Her eyes were unusually large, it was true, but they were far from insane. Instead they were frankly assessing him. It was as if she were contemplating the subject of some unexplained experiment; as if it were he, and not she, who was under scrutiny.
Remembering the scene, Simon winces. I was indulging myself, he thinks. Imagination and fancy. I must stick to observation, I must proceed with caution. A valid experiment must have verifiable results. I must resist melodrama, and an overheated brain.
There’s a scuffling outside the door, then a thumping. It must be his breakfast. He turns his back, and can feel his neck retracting down into his collar like a turtle’s into its shell. “Come in,” he calls, and the door flies open.
“Here’s your food,” bawls Dora. The tray bumps down; she marches out, and the door bangs shut behind her. Simon has a fleeting and unbidden image of her, strung up by the ankles in a butcher-shop window, with cloves stuck into her and a rind on her like a sugared ham. The association of ideas is truly remarkable, he thinks, once one begins to observe its operations in one’s own mind. Dora – Pig – Ham, for instance. In order to get from the first term to the third, the second term is essential; though from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, is no great leap.
He must make a note of it:
Middle term essential
. Perhaps a maniac is simply one for whom these associative tricks of the brain cross the line that separates the literal from the merely fanciful, as may
happen under the influence of fevers, and of somnambulistic trances, and of certain drugs. But what is the mechanism? For there must be one. Is the clue to be found in the nerves, or in the brain itself? To produce insanity, what must first be damaged, and how?
His breakfast must be getting cold, if Dora has not deliberately chilled it in advance. He levers himself out of his chair, disentangling his long legs, stretches himself and yawns, and goes over to the other table, the one with the tray on it. Yesterday his egg was like india-rubber; he’d mentioned it to his landlady, the wan Mrs. Humphrey, and she must have admonished Dora, because today the egg is so undercooked as to be scarcely jellied, with a blueish tinge to it like an eyeball.
Curse the woman, he thinks. Sullen, brutish, vengeful; a mind that exists at a sub-rational level, yet cunning, slippery and evasive. There’s no way to corner her. She’s a greased pig.
A piece of toast cracks like slate between his teeth.
Dearest Mother
, he composes in his head.
The weather here is very good; the snow is almost gone, spring is in the air, the sun is warming the lake, and already the vigorous green tips of –
Of what? He has never known much about flowers.
I
am sitting in the sewing room, at the head of the stairs in the Governor’s wife’s house, in the usual chair at the usual table with the sewing things in the basket as usual, except for the scissors. They insist on removing those from within my reach, so if I want to cut a thread or trim a seam I have to ask Dr. Jordan, who takes them out of his vest pocket and returns them to it when I have finished. He says he does not feel any such rigmarole is necessary, as he considers me to be entirely harmless and in control of myself. He appears to be a trusting man.
Although sometimes I just bite the thread off with my teeth.
Dr. Jordan has told them that what he wishes is an atmosphere of relaxation and calm, it is more conducive to his purposes whatever they may be, and so he recommended that I was to be kept in the same daily routine as much as possible. I continue to sleep in my allotted cell, and I wear the same clothing and eat the same breakfast, in silence if you can call it silence, forty women, most of them in here for nothing worse than stealing, who sit chewing their bread with their mouths open and slurping their tea in order to make a
noise of some sort even if not speech, with an edifying Bible passage read out loud.
You can have your own thoughts then, but if you laugh you must pretend you are coughing or choking; choking is better, if choking they hit you on the back, but if coughing they have the doctor. A hunk of bread, a mug of weak tea, meat at dinner but not much of it, because overfeeding on rich foods stimulates the criminal organs of the brain, or so say the doctors, and the guards and keepers then repeat it to us. In that case, why are their own criminal organs not more stimulated, as they eat meat and chickens and bacon and eggs and cheese, and as much as they can get. That is why they are so fat. It is my opinion that they sometimes take what is intended for us, which would not surprise me in the least, as it is dog eat dog around here and they are the bigger dogs.
After breakfast I am brought over to the Governor’s mansion as usual, by two of the keepers who are men and not above making a joke amongst themselves when out of hearing of the higher authorities. Well Grace says the one, I see you have a new sweetheart, a doctor no less, has he gone down on his knees yet or have you lifted your own up for him, he’d better keep a sharp eye out or you’ll have him flat on his back. Yes says the other, flat on his back in the cellar with his boots off and a bullet through his heart. Then they laugh; they consider this very comical.
I try to think of what Mary Whitney would say, and sometimes I can say it. If you really thought that of me you should hold your dirty tongues, I said to them, or one dark night I’ll have them out of your mouths roots and all, I won’t need a knife, I’ll just take hold with my teeth and pull, and not only that I’ll thank you to keep your filthy screw’s hands to yourself.
Now can’t you take a bit of fun, I’d welcome it if I was you says the one, we’re the only men that’s ever going to lay a hand on you for the rest of your life, you’re shut up in there like a nun, come now,
confess you’re longing for a tumble, you was ready enough with that runty little James McDermott before they stretched his crooked neck for him, the murdering bastard, and That’s the way Grace, says the other, up on your high horse, just like a spotless maiden, no legs on you at all, you’re as pure as an angel you are, in a pig’s ear as if you’d never seen the inside of a man’s bedroom in the tavern in Lewiston, we heard about that, putting on your stays and stockings you was when you was nabbed, but I’m glad to see there’s still a touch of the old hellfire left, they ain’t worked it out of you yet. I like a bit of spirit in a woman, says the one, Or a whole bottleful says the other, gin leads to sin, God bless it, there’s nothing like a little fuel to make the fire burn. Drunker the better says the one, and out stone cold is the best, then you don’t have to listen to them, there’s nothing worse than a squalling whore. Were you noisy Grace, says the other, Did you squeal and moan, did you wiggle underneath that swarthy little rat, looking at me to see what I’ll say. Sometimes I say I won’t have that kind of talk, which makes them laugh heartily; but as a rule I say nothing.
And that is the way we pass the time, out to the prison gateway, Who goes there oh it’s only you, Good day Grace, got your two young men with you have you, tied to your apron strings, a wink and a nod and then along the street, each holding fast to an arm, they don’t need to do that but they like it, they lean in on me closer and closer until I am squeezed between them, through the mud, over the puddles, around the piles of horse dung, past the trees in bloom in the fenced yards, their tassels, their flowers like pale yellow-green caterpillars dangling, and the dogs barking and the carriages and wagons passing, splashing through the water in the road, and the people staring because it’s obvious where we have come from, they can tell by my clothing, until we go up the long drive with herbaceous borders and around to the servants’ entrance, and Here she is all safe and sound, she tried to escape didn’t you Grace, tried to give
us the slip, she’s a cunning one for all her big blue eyes, well better luck next time my girl, you should’ve hitched up your petticoats higher and shown a clean pair of heels and some ankle while you was at it, says the one. Oh no, higher still, says the other, hoisted them up around your neck, you should’ve gone off like a ship in full sail, arse to the wind, we would’ve been smitten by your dazzling charms, knocked on the head like lambs at slaughter, struck by lightning we would’ve been, you would’ve got clean away. They grin at each other and laugh, they have been showing off. They have been talking to each other all this time, and not to me.
They are a low class of person.
I do not have the run of the house as before. The Governor’s wife is still frightened of me; she’s afraid I will have another fit, and she doesn’t want any of her best teacups broken; you would think she never heard anyone scream before. So I do not dust these days, or carry in the tea tray or empty the chamber pots or make up the beds. Instead I am set to work in the back kitchen, cleaning the pots and pans in the scullery, or else I work in the laundry. I do not mind that so much as I always liked doing the laundry, it is hard work and roughens the hands, but I like the clean smell afterwards.
I help the regular laundress, old Clarrie, who is part coloured and used to be a slave once, before they did away with it here. She is not afraid of me, she doesn’t mind me or care what I may have done, even if I killed a gentleman; she only nods, as if to say, So that’s one less of them. She says I am a steady worker and pull my share and don’t waste the soap, and I know the treatment of fine linen, I have the way of it, and also how to get out the stains, even from the blonde lace, which is not easy to come by; and a good clear starcher too, and can be trusted not to burn the things in ironing, and that is enough for her.
At noon we go into the kitchen and Cook gives us what is left over, from the larder; at the very least some bread and cheese and
meat broth but usually something more, as Clarrie is a favourite of hers and is known to have a temper if crossed, and the Governor’s wife swears by her, especially for laces and ruffles, and says she is a treasure and has no equal, and would be annoyed to lose her, so she is not stinted; and because I am with her neither am I.
It’s better food than I’d get on the inside of the walls. Yesterday we had the chicken carcass and all that was on it. There we sat at the table like two foxes in the henhouse gnawing the bones. They make such a fuss about the scissors upstairs, but the whole kitchen is bristling with knives and skewers all over like a porcupine, I could slip one into my apron pocket as easy as rolling off a log, but of course they never even think about that. Out of sight out of mind is their motto, and below stairs is like below ground as far as they are concerned, and little do they know that the servants carry away more out the back door with a spoon than the master can bring in the front door with a shovel; the trick of it is to do it little by little. One small knife would never be missed, and the best place to hide it would be in my hair, under my cap, well pinned in, as it would be a nasty surprise if it fell out at the wrong time.
We cut up the chicken carcass with one of the knives, and Clarrie ate the two little oysters off the bottom, near the stomach you might say, she likes to get those if they are left, and she being the senior has first choice. We did not say much to each other but we grinned, because eating this chicken was so good. I ate the fat off the back and the skin, I sucked the rib bones, then I licked my fingers like a cat; and after we were done, Clarrie had a quick smoke of her pipe on the step, and then it was back to work. Miss Lydia and Miss Marianne between them dirty a lot of washing, although much of it is not what I would call dirty at all; I believe they try things on in the morning and change their minds, and then take the things off and drop them carelessly on the floor and step on them, and then into the wash they must go.
After the hours have gone by and the sun on the clock upstairs has moved around to the middle of the afternoon, Dr. Jordan arrives at the front door. I listen for the knocking and the ringing and the clatter of the maid’s footsteps, and then I am taken up the back stairs, my hands washed as white as snow with the soap from the laundry and my fingers all wrinkled from the hot water like someone newly drowned, but red and rough all the same, and then it is time to sew.