Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace

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 —

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.

Chapter 8

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.