Charles Snow - The Sleep of Reason

Benskin : Can you explain the dangers you are referring to, Doctor?

Cornford : One of them is sometimes called folie à deux . That is, the partners may incite each other to fantasies which neither would have imagined if left to him or herself.

Benskin : And these fantasies may be transferred into action?

Cornford : In extreme cases, there is a danger that that may happen.

We didn’t know, said Cornford, why the gap between fantasy and action — which in most of us is wide and never crossed — should in those extreme cases cease to exist. If we did know that, we should understand more of the impulses behind some criminal actions. If he were going to admit the term personality defect, he might apply it to those impelled to carry such fantasies into action.

Benskin : That would apply to Miss Ross?

Cornford : That would apply equally to Miss Ross and Miss Pateman.

They had certainly made fantasies about having children in their charge. That was not uncommon in relations like theirs, overshadowed by guilt: especially so when one of the partners was a woman deprived, or a mother manquée , like Miss Pateman. There was a strong maternal aspect in her feeling for Miss Ross. In many such relationships, similar fantasies existed. They had played imaginary games of parents and children (that reminded me of the Superintendent’s homely tone). But it was an extreme case of folie à deux that led them to translate that game into a plan–

They had made fantasies about ultimate freedom. They had heard of people who talked about being free from all conventions: they had met people who prided themselves on not obeying any rules. They felt superior because they were breaking the rules themselves: that was not inconsistent with unconscious guilt, in fact it often went hand-in-hand with it. But they excited each other into being freer than anyone round them. They made fantasies about being lords of life and death. They thought of having lives at their mercy. That again was not unknown — particularly in relations with a coloration of what he (Cornford) had previously called “bad sex”. But it was very rare for the impulse to be so uncontrollable as to carry over into action.

Guilty relationships, the more so if the guilt was not conscious, had a built in tendency to lead to further guilt. One had done something which one couldn’t thrust away or live with peacefully or reconcile with one’s nature: with many people in that position, there grew a violent impulse to do something which one could face even less. Guilty relationships pushed both partners further to the extreme. All guilt had a tendency towards escalation.

That might be true, I was thinking: it was certainly true of some that I had known. A few people, dissatisfied with their lives, tried to reshape them. But there were many more like George, who couldn’t take his pleasures innocently, who felt, at least when he was young, attacks of remorse — and yet couldn’t help getting more obsessed with the chase of pleasure, never mind the risks, never mind who got hurt. He knew that those who accused him or mourned over him were right: well, to hell with them, he’d give them twice as much to be right about.

The gap between fantasy and action. Those who jumped it — Benskin got back to business — had some serious — in the terms of the Act — abnormality of mind? There was some fencing about definitions. Cornford, so confident in his own line, was intellectually a conscientious and modest man. He wasn’t prepared to trust himself in semantics or metaphysics, he said.

Benskin : But if we accept from you that personality defect or abnormality of mind is not an exact term, you would tell us that Miss Ross had features of her personality which drove her into living out her fantasies?

Cornford : I should say that.

Benskin : And that really does mean an abnormality of mind, doesn’t it?

Cornford : In the legal sense, I should say yes, without question.

Benskin : Also she couldn’t control that part of her personality?

Cornford : I should say that too.

Benskin : That is, while planning and performing those criminal actions, she had far less responsibility for them than a normal person would have?

Cornford : I’m a little worried about the words “normal person”.

Benskin : Like most of the people you meet, not as patients, doctor, but in everyday life. Compared with them, her responsibility was impaired? Very much impaired?

Cornford : Yes, I can say that.

Wilson asked permission to put the same questions about Miss Pateman. After Cornford had given an identical reply, Benskin finished by saying: “I should like you to give a clinical opinion. How well, in your judgment, would Miss Ross’ mental state respond to treatment?”

For once Cornford hesitated: but he wasn’t hesitating because — although it was true — this was a long-prepared question by the defence.

He said: “I can’t be as certain as I should like.”

“You told us, you found her difficult to examine?”

“Quite unusually.”

“And the first time, she wouldn’t co-operate at all?”

“No. “

“What happened?”

“She told me she had nothing to say.”

“In what terms?”

“Pretty violent ones.”

If one had heard her outburst in court, one could imagine the scene. Cornford’s handsome face was wearing a faint, uncomfortable smile. He was upset as a doctor: he had his share of professional vanity: and perhaps, of physical vanity too.

Later meetings had been easier, but it had been hard throughout to get her to participate.

“What sort of indication is that? About her mental state being treatable?”

“Usually it is a bad sign. When a patient hasn’t enough insight to co-operate, then the prognosis is bad.”

Benskin thanked him and sat down. Wilson did not ask similar questions about Kitty Pateman. Cornford might have said that Kitty Pateman had more insight, and, though the whole tone of his evidence had been in her favour, at least as much as Cora’s, that final word could have done her harm.

Bosanquet must have seen the chance to divide the two. But he didn’t take it. His duty was to get them both. It was more than his duty: it was, as I knew by now, what he believed to be right. Further, as he began to cross-examine Cornford, I gained the impression that beneath the stubborn phlegm Bosanquet was irritated. Cornford had the knack, just as Davidson and the older generation of their families had, of provoking a specific kind of irritation. They were clever, they were privileged, to outsiders it seemed that they had found life too easy: they were too sure of their own enlightenment. Bosanquet hadn’t found life at all easy: despite his name, his family was poor, he had been to a North Country grammar school. He wasn’t sure of his own enlightenment or anyone else’s, after living in the criminal courts for thirty years. His first questions were, as usual, paced out and calm but — I thought my ear was not deceiving me — his voice was just perceptibly less bland.

Bosanquet : Doctor Cornford, you have been telling us about the gap between fantasy and action, haven’t you?

Cornford : Yes, a little.

Bosanquet : We all have fantasies, you were saying, weren’t you, of violent actions. That is, we all have fantasies of putting someone we dislike out of the way?

Cornford : I can’t be certain that we all do. But I should have thought that it was a common experience.

Bosanquet : Granted. But not many actually do put someone they dislike out of the way?