Free Collected Works of Poe, Vol 4 by Edgar Allan Poe Page A

The company followed our example without stint. They chatted -- they jested -- they laughed -- they perpetrated a thousand absurdities -- the fiddles shrieked -- the drum row-de-dowed -- the trombones bellowed like so many brazen bulls of Phalaris -- and the whole scene, growing gradually worse and worse, as the wines gained the ascendancy, became at length a sort of pandemonium in petto. In the meantime, Monsieur Maillard and myself, with some bottles of Sauterne and Vougeot between us, continued our conversation at the top of the voice. A word spoken in an ordinary key stood no more chance of being heard than the voice of a fish from the bottom of Niagra Falls.
    "And, sir," said I, screaming in his ear, "you mentioned something before dinner about the danger incurred in the old system of soothing. How is that?"
    "Yes," he replied, "there was, occasionally, very great danger indeed. There is no accounting for the caprices of madmen; and, in my opinion as well as in that of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, it is never safe to permit them to run at large unattended. A lunatic may be 'soothed,' as it is called, for a time, but, in the end, he is very apt to become obstreperous. His cunning, too, is proverbial and great. If he has a project in view, he conceals his design with a marvellous wisdom; and the dexterity with which he counterfeits sanity, presents, to the metaphysician, one of the most singular problems in the study of mind. When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time to put him in a straitjacket."
    "But the danger, my dear sir, of which you were speaking, in your own experience -- during your control of this house -- have you had practical reason to think liberty hazardous in the case of a lunatic?"
    "Here? -- in my own experience? -- why, I may say, yes. For example: -- no very long while ago, a singular circumstance occurred in this very house. The 'soothing system,' you know, was then in operation, and the patients were at large. They behaved remarkably well-especially so, any one of sense might have known that some devilish scheme was brewing from that particular fact, that the fellows behaved so remarkably well. And, sure enough, one fine morning the keepers found themselves pinioned hand and foot, and thrown into the cells, where they were attended, as if they were the lunatics, by the lunatics themselves, who had usurped the offices of the keepers."
    "You don't tell me so! I never heard of any thing so absurd in my life!"
    "Fact -- it all came to pass by means of a stupid fellow -- a lunatic -- who, by some means, had taken it into his head that he had invented a better system of government than any ever heard of before -- of lunatic government, I mean. He wished to give his invention a trial, I suppose, and so he persuaded the rest of the patients to join him in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the reigning powers."
    "And he really succeeded?"
    "No doubt of it. The keepers and kept were soon made to exchange places. Not that exactly either -- for the madmen had been free, but the keepers were shut up in cells forthwith, and treated, I am sorry to say, in a very cavalier manner."
    "But I presume a counter-revolution was soon effected. This condition of things could not have long existed. The country people in the neighborhood-visitors coming to see the establishment -- would have given the alarm."
    "There you are out. The head rebel was too cunning for that. He admitted no visitors at all -- with the exception, one day, of a very stupid-looking young gentleman of whom he had no reason to be afraid. He let him in to see the place -- just by way of variety, -- to have a little fun with him. As soon as he had gammoned him sufficiently, he let him out, and sent him about his business."
    "And how long, then, did the madmen reign?"
    "Oh, a very long time, indeed -- a month certainly -- how much longer I can't precisely say. In the meantime, the lunatics had a jolly season of it -- that you may