Free Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood Page A

didn’t it scare away the young men, as who would want a wife like that, writing things down for everyone to see, and made-up things at that, and Iwould never be so brazen. And he smiled, and said it did not appear to trouble the young men, as the girls saved up their wages for their dowries, and a dowry was always acceptable. And I said that at least after they got married, they would be too busy to make up any more stories, because of all the children.
    Then I was sad, as I remembered that I would never be married now, or have any babies of my own; though there can be too much of a good thing you could say, and I would not like to have nine or ten and then die of it, as happens to many. But still it is a regret.
    When you are sad it is best to change the subject. I asked if he had a mother living, and he said yes, although her health was not good; and I said that he was fortunate to have a mother living, as mine was not. And then I changed the subject again, and said I was very fond of horses, and he told me about his horse Bess, that he had as a boy. And after a time, I don’t know how it was, but little by little I found I could talk to him more easily, and think up things to say.
    And that is how we go on. He asks a question, and I say an answer, and he writes it down. In the courtroom, every word that came out of my mouth was as if burnt into the paper they were writing it on, and once I said a thing I knew I could never get the words back; only they were the wrong words, because whatever I said would be twisted around, even if it was the plain truth in the first place. And it was the same with Dr. Bannerling at the Asylum. But now I feel as if everything I say is right. As long as I say something, anything at all, Dr. Jordan smiles and writes it down, and tells me I am doing well.
    While he writes, I feel as if he is drawing me; or not drawing me, drawing on me – drawing on my skin – not with the pencil he is using, but with an old-fashioned goose pen, and not with the quill end but with the feather end. As if hundreds of butterflies have settled all over my face, and are softly opening and closing their wings.
    But underneath that is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. It’s like being wakened suddenly in the middle of the night, by a hand over your face, and you sit up with your heart going fast, and no one is there. And underneath that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but too ripe and splitting open of its own accord.
    And inside the peach there’s a stone.

9.
    From Dr. Samuel Bannerling, M.D., The Maples, Front Street,
Toronto, Canada West; to Dr. Simon Jordan, M.D., care of Mrs.
William P. Jordan, Laburnum House, Loomisville, Massachusetts,
The United States of America. Redirected, care of Major C. D.
Humphrey, Lower Union Street, Kingston, Canada West
.
    April 20th, 1859.
    Dear Dr. Jordan:
       I am in receipt of your request to Dr. Workman of April 2nd, concerning the convict Grace Marks, and of a note from him asking that I supply you with any further information at my disposal.
    I must inform you at once that Dr. Workman and I have not always seen eye to eye. In my estimation – and I was at the Asylum for more years than he has yet been there – hispolicies of leniency have led him to undertake a fool’s errand, namely the transforming of sows’ ears into silk purses. Most who suffer from the more severe nervous and cerebral disorders cannot be cured, but merely controlled; for which purposes, physical restraint and correction, a restricted diet, and cupping and bleeding to reduce excessive animal spirits, have in the past proven efficacious enough. Although Dr. Workman claims to have obtained positive results in several cases previously considered hopeless, these supposed cures will no doubt in time prove to have been superficial and temporary.