Nightmare (Fantasy in Black), F. Scott Fitzgerald

I

May I say in the beginning that I don’t believe this ever happened: it is all too grotesque and I have been unable to find the exact locality where it took place or to identify the people by their real names. But here is the story as I heard it.

In a pleasant section of New Hampshire, on a hill that is white in the winter and green in summer, four or five houses stand near each other. On a spring afternoon all the doors and windows of the largest and most elaborate house are thrown open toward the tennis courts; often the sound of a violin and piano drifts out upon the summer air. There is movement in the reception room downstairs as if a house-party were taking place.

Walking the length of the terrace you might see through the French windows people playing in the billiard room, or other people listening to the spirited strains of Suppe’s Light Cavalry, or further on a group with embroidery in hand—all of them on a certain June day arc intent on some pastime, save for a tall girl in white who stands in the doorway looking out toward the New Hampshire mountains with an expression of rapturous discontent.

There was conversation in the salons—some of it in a merry mood. A tall, sheep-like gentleman, standing in a group of three, remarked in a guarded voice:

“Now there’s Mrs. Miller playing bridge. If I could just slip up behind her with a good pair of scissors and snip off half a dozen of those mousy curls they’d be fine souvenirs and she’d be much improved.”

The other two men were not amused at his fancy. One of them made a contemptuous remark in bad Spanish and regarded the speaker sullenly—the third paid no attention but wheeled sharply as the group was joined by a fourth.

“Well, well, Mr. Woods—and Mr. Woods—and Mr. Woods,” said the new arrival jovially, “What gorgeous weather.”

The three Mr. Woods—they were brothers, aged perhaps thirty-five, forty and forty-five—agreed with him. He was a dark stout man with flashing brown eyes and black hair and a hawk-like face that somehow blended with his forceful, soft-flowing voice. He was a dandy and rather more sure of himself than anyone in the room. His name was Vincintelli and his birthplace Milan.

“Did you enjoy the music that Mrs. Sachs and Mr. Hepburn have been giving us?” Vincintelli asked.

“I was just saying—” began the eldest Woods brother, but broke off.

“You were just saying what?” asked Vincintelli, quietly yet sharply.

“Nothing” said Mr. Wallace Woods.

Vincintelli looked around and his eyes lingered for a moment on the young woman in the doorway. Instinctively he felt dissatisfied with the physical attitude she had assumed—somehow standing in the doorway like that betrayed the fact that her mood was centrifugal rather than centripetal—she was drawn toward the June afternoon, the down-rolling, out-rolling land, adventurous as an ocean without horizons. Something stabbed at his heart for his own mood was opposite—for him she made this place the stable center of the world.

He made a parallelogram of the rooms, rather more rapidly and nervously than was his wont, speaking a greeting here, dropping a joke or a joviality there, congratulating the amateur musicians, and then, passing close to Kay Shafer who did not turn to look at him, he arrived again in the vicinity of the Woods brothers who still stood together in a group.

“You should mix around more,” he chided them, “You shouldn’t be such an exclusive triumvirate.”

“Yo no quiero,” said the second Woods brother, rapidly and contemptuously.

“As you know I do not speak Spanish well,” said Vincintelli calmly, “we could communicate so much better in English.”

“Yo non hablo Inglese,” asserted Mr. Woods.

“On the contrary you speak excellent English, Mr. Woods. You are an American born and bred, like your brothers. We know that, don’t we?” He laughed, confidently, firmly, and took out his watch. “It’s two-thirty. We must all go to our schedules.” As he turned briskly it seemed to be a sort of signal, for the people in the room, singly or in pairs, bestirred themselves and slowly drifted from the room.

“Train leaving,” chanted the youngest Mr. Woods, “New York, New Haven and Hartford—for Pelham, Greenwich, South Norwalk, Norwalk!” His voice suddenly grew louder until it resounded through the room, “Westpoint! Larchmont! NEW HAVEN! AND POINTS BEYOND!”

A nurse skipped quickly to his side.

“Now Mr. Woods.” Her trained voice indicated disapproval without exasperation, “we mustn’t make quite so much noise. We’re going to the carpentry shop where—”

“Train leaving at Gate 12—” His voice had sunk to a plaintive but still sonorous cadence as he walked obediently with her to the door. The other brothers followed, each with a nurse. So also, with a sigh and a last glance outdoors, did Miss Shafer. She stopped, however, as a small short-legged man with a shield-shaped body and beaver whiskers hurried into the room.

“Hello, father,” she said.

“Hello, my dear,” he turned to Vincintelli, “Come to my office immediately.”

“Yes, Professor Shafer.”

“When are you leaving, father?” asked Kay.

“At four.” He hardly seemed to see her and she made no effort to say goodbye; only her young brow wrinkled a little as she glanced at her watch and went on out.

Professor Shafer and Dr. Vincintelli went to the Professor’s office in the same building.

“I will be gone three or four days,” said Professor Shafer, “Here are some last points for you to note: Miss Katzenbaugh [says] she wants to leave and since she’s not committed we can’t stop her—until her sister arrives from New York detain her on one pretext or another. It is clear paranoid schizophrenia, but when they refuse to commit what can we do?” He shrugged his shoulders and glanced at his paper. “The patient Ahrens is suicidal; watch him closely and remove all small objects from his room. You cannot be too careful—remember the golf balls we found in Mr. Capes at the autopsy—also, I think we can regard Mrs. O’Brien as well and discharge her. Talk to her and write to her family.”

“Very well, Professor,” said Vincintelli writing busily.

“Move Carstairs to ‘the Cedars.’ When there is a full moon he meows at night and keeps people awake. Finally, here are some prescriptions and routine notes that will explain themselves. There—” he sat back in his chair, “I think that is all. Is there anything you would like to ask me?”

Vincintelli nodded thoughtfully.

“About the Woods brothers,” he said.

“You are always worried about the Woods brothers,” said Dr. Shafer impatiently. “It is not a case that permits of much interesting prognosis. Their progress has been steadily down-hill.”

Vincintelli nodded in agreement. “Today,” he said, “I tried bringing them over to lunch. It was a failure—the brother who imagines himself a train announcer was shouting when he left.”

Professor Shafer looked at his watch. “I must leave in ten minutes,” he said.

“Let me recapitulate,” said Vincintelli, “their history. The Woods brothers arc rich and prosperous stockbrokers; the eldest, Wallace, breaks down on the day after the market crash in twenty-nine and is sent here with his pockets full of ticker-tape. He develops a mania for cutting off people’s hair, and we have trouble every time he gets hold of a pair of shears. There was the unfortunate incident of Mrs. Reynard’s wig—not to mention the time he tried to get at your facial hair with a nail scissors.”

The professor passed his hand uncomfortably through his beard.

“The second brother, Walter, was in charge of the Foreign Bond Department. He broke down after the revolutions in South America and came here with the delusion that he could speak nothing but Spanish. The third brother, John, who specialized in railroad securities, was all right until the fall of 1931 when he fainted one day and woke up under the impression that he was the train announcer in the Grand Central Station. There is also a fourth brother, Peter, who is quite sane, carrying on the business.”

Professor Shafer looked at his watch again. “That is all quite correct, Dr. Vincintelli, but really I must leave you. If there is any special change of treatment you would recommend for them, we can take it up on my return.”

He began tucking papers into his briefcase, while Vincintelli regarded him rather glumly.

“But Professor—”

“It seems to me that we should conserve our interest for cases more promising than those of the Woods brothers,” and with that Professor Shafer hurried out.

While Vincintelli still sat there, a moody dissatisfaction in his eyes, a small red light glowed on his desk and Miss Shafer came into the room. The doctor stood up.

“Is father gone?” Kay asked.

“You can still catch him, I think.”

“It doesn’t matter. I just want to report that the press is broken in the book-bindery.”

He stared at her with open admiration.

“To look at you,” he said, “it is hard to believe that you are a full-fledged doctor.”

“Do you mean that to be a compliment?” she asked indifferently.

“Yes, a compliment to your youth. To be a doctor—there could be no higher calling. But to be a psychiatrist—” A light of exaltation came into his eyes, “that is to be among the peers, the samurai of the profession. And when some day you will see arise the splendid towers of our Institute for Psychiatric Research, which will parallel the Rockefeller Institute—”

“I think,” said Kay Shafer slowly, “and have thought for some time, that you yourself arc in the early stages of manic-depressive psychosis.” As he stared at her she continued, “And I think that I will soon develop symptoms myself if I don’t get out of