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The Maniac – A Realistic Study of Madness from the Maniac’s Point of View – E Thelmar

The yelling voices, and the shattering explosions they caused in my brain, gradually ceased.

Innumerable voices were still speaking, and crying, and calling for help; but they sounded voices far away from me, and not voices inside my brain, shattering it, as had seemed to be the case those two times when the voices attained to a sort of paroxysm, almost resembling one long-continued explosion in my brain, making me know to a certainty that I had gone mad.

Each time when that shattering sensation passed, I fully believed I had regained sanity. I said to R, B., "You are not to leave that Medium mad. You have cured Ray Hall and me, you are to cure her-and at once."

He grumbled and growled, but at last gave in, and went and stopped the Medium's shrieks. He said, "I have done what you ordered, and made that woman sane, but I don't think she will remain so for long. She is so terrified, and has no self-control because she is so under-bred. Whenever she goes mad again, it will send you two mad also, as one going mad sends all three mad."

"Well," I said, "then Ray Hall and I will have to pull through for the three of us again, that is all. But if the thing is explained to her, perhaps she will control herself and have a little courage, instead of being such an arrant coward. In the meantime, Ray Hall and I are going to save all these other mad people. Now that we know what a ghastly torment madness is, we do not mean to leave one solitary person, in any asylum, unrescued."……………….

At last only one voice remained. It was a woman's voice, wandering to and fro, reiterating again and again, all on one note and in tones of the most blank and utter despair, the thrice repeated word- “Lost! lost! Lost!" "

Now I have saved them all!" said Ray Hall.

"What!" I exclaimed, "you say you have saved them all, while that voice, the very unhappiest, most despairful of the entire lot, is still crying like that! On no account are you to cease your efforts, or come to me, until you have saved that most desolate voice!"

“I cannot save that one," answered Ray Hall; that is yourself,"

“Myself?" I exclaimed in the most unmitigated astonishment. "But I am not crying at all! How can that voice be mine?"

"You are not crying now," said Ray Hall, “but that is your voice, nevertheless. You know, and have heard for yourself these last few days, that thought utters as loud and clear a voice as speech; and you know that no sound that has once been uttered in the Universe can ever be lost. All your life you have been wandering through the world, seeking everywhere, vainly, for the Truth, and being unable to find it. That has been your Thought-cry as you sought, and it is still echoing through the Universe,"

"But," I said, “this is too dreadful! There is not one soul in heaven or on earth that can ever be happy with that terrible cry ringing in their ears! If that really is my voice, I order you to go down and strangle it."

There was a short pause, and then the wailing voice was heard to change its cry to- "Found! found! found!"

It was still all on that one same note, and did not sound to me very much happier than before. But there was far too much on hand for me to be able to devote any more time to one voice……………..

Ray Hall …. said that before we could begin the book, or he could get to me, there were hundreds of wandering fiends to be strangled, and he was about to set to work upon them. He said I mustn't be frightened, as he could easily strangle them all, but that there would probably be tremendous noise and scufflings over the performance.

I said I wasn't in the least afraid now that I knew he was here to help me, and I didn't mind what disturbance went on.

Until it was time to get up, these stranglings and scufflings continued.

Sometimes Ray Hall said he was coming out of the wardrobe carrying the dead bodies of some of the strangled fiends, but that I mustn't be afraid. I said I was not at all afraid, and looked expectantly for the wardrobe door to open and the corpses to emerge; but although the most tremendous scufflings were going on inside the wardrobe, nothing and no one emerged.

Then his voice would come from the chair beside my bed, saying he was sitting there; and I would turn quickly to see, but again there was nothing, although the voice continued to talk to me from that chair. I never closed an eye the entire night through.