il Blas of January 22, 1884, over the signature
of "MAUFRIGNEUSE."
MADAME HERMET
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."
And he opened the door of a cell where a woma
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