'I have not said that he is mad, in the common interpretation of the word,' said the doctor, thinking that he was being attacked: 'but neither will I say that I think it prudent to allow him to remain at large.'
This statement caused considerable emotion, and Monsieur Rastoil instinctively glanced at the wall which separated the two gardens. Every face was turned towards the doctor.
'I once knew,' he continued, 'a charming lady, who kept up a large establishment, giving dinner-parties, receiving the most distinguished members of society, and showing much sense and wit in her conversation. Well, when that lady retired to her bedroom, she locked herself in, and spent a part of the night in crawling round the room on her hands and knees, barking like a dog. The people in the house long imagined that she really had a dog in the room with her. This lady was an example of what we doctors call lucid madness.'
Abbé Surin's face was wreathed with twinkling smiles as he glanced at Monsieur Rastoil's daughters, who appeared much amused by this story of a fashionable lady turning herself into a dog. Doctor Porquier blew his nose very gravely.
'I could give you a score of other similar instances,' he continued, 'of people who appeared to be in full possession of their senses, and who yet committed the most extravagant actions as soon as they found themselves alone.'
'For my part,' said Abbé Bourrette, 'I once had a very strange penitent. She had a mania for killing flies, and could never see one without feeling an irresistible desire to capture it. She used to keep them at home strung upon knitting needles. When she came to confess, she would weep bitterly and accuse herself of the death of the poor creatures, and believe that she was damned. But I could never correct her of the habit.'
This story was very well received, and even Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies and Monsieur Rastoil themselves condescended to smile.
'There is no great harm done,' said the doctor, 'so long as one confines one's self to killing flies. But the conduct of all lucid madmen is not so innocent as that. Some of them torture their families by some concealed vice, which has reached the degree of a mania; there are other wretched ones who drink and give themselves up to secret debauchery, or who steal because they can't help stealing, or who are mad with pride or jealousy or ambition. They are able to control themselves in public, to carry out the most complicated schemes and projects, to converse rationally and without giving any one any reason to suspect their mental weakness, but as soon as they get back to their own private life, and are alone with their victims, they surrender themselves to their delirious ideas and become brutal savages. If they don't murder straight out, they do it gradually.'
'Well, now, what about Monsieur Mouret?' asked Madame de Condamin.
'Monsieur Mouret has always been a teasing, restless, despotic sort of man. His cerebral derangement has increased with his years. I should not hesitate now to class him amongst dangerous madmen. I had a patient who used to shut herself up, just as he does, in an unoccupied room, and spend the whole day in contriving the most abominable actions.'