"The case—yes—it is a very singular case, and I am intensely interested in it. Besides, it has very nearly cost me my reputation, as well as my life. I assure you I have rarely had to do with such a case, nor have I ever experienced such a sensation as when I went over the cliff at Weissenstein after Madame Patoff."
"Probably not," I remarked. "I never saw a braver thing more successfully accomplished."
"There is small courage in acting under necessity," said the professor, walking slowly across the room towards the fire. "If I had not rescued my patient, I should have been much more injured than if I had broken my neck in the attempt. I was responsible for her. What would have become of the 'great neurologist,' the celebrated 'mad-doctor,' as they call me, if one of the few patients to whom I ever devoted my whole personal attention had committed suicide under my very eyes? You can understand that there was something more than her life and mine at stake."
"I never knew exactly how it happened," I replied. "I was looking out of my window, when I saw a woman fall over the balcony below me. Her clothes caught in the crooked branches of a wild cherry tree that grew some ten feet below; and as she struggled, I saw you leaning over the parapet, as if you meant to scramble down the face of the cliff after her. I had a hundred feet of manilla rope which I was taking with me to Switzerland for a special expedition, and I let it down to you. The people of the inn came to my assistance, and we managed to haul you up together, thanks to your knowing how to tie the rope around you both. Then I saw you down-stairs for a few minutes and you told me the lady was not hurt. I left almost immediately. I never knew what led to the accident."
Professor Cutter passed his heavy hand slowly over his thick gray hair, and looked pensively into the fire.
"It was simple enough," he said at last. "I was paying our bill to the landlord, and in doing so I turned my back upon Madame Patoff for a moment. She was standing on a low balcony outside the window, and she must have thrown herself over. Luckily she was dressed in a gown of strong Scotch stuff, which did not tear when it caught in the tree. It was the most extraordinary escape I ever saw."
"I should think so, indeed. But why did she want to kill herself? Was she insane?"
"Are people always insane who try to kill themselves?" asked the professor, eying me keenly through his glasses.
"Very generally they are. I suppose that she was."
"That is precisely the question," said the scientist. "Insanity is an expression that covers a multitude of sins of all kinds, but explains none of them, nor is itself explained. If I could tell you what insanity is, I could tell you whether Madame Patoff was insane or not. I can say that a man possesses a dog, because I can classify the dogs I have seen all over the world. But supposing I had never met any specimen of the canine race but a King Charles spaniel, and on seeing a Scotch deerhound in the possession of a friend was told that the man had a 'dog:' I should be justified in doubting whether the deerhound was a dog at all in the sense in which the tiny spaniel—the only dog I had ever seen—represented the canine race in my mind and experience. The biblical 'devil,' which 'possessed' men, took as many shapes and characteristics as the genus 'dog' does: there was the devil that dwelt in tombs, the devil that tore its victim, the devil that entered into swine, the devil that spoke false prophecies, and many more. It is the same with insanity. No two mad people are alike. If I find a person with any madness I know, I can say he is mad; but if I find a person acting in a very unusual way under the influence of strong and protracted emotion, I am not justified in concluding that he is crazy. I have not seen everything in the world yet. I have not seen every kind of dog, nor every kind of devil, nor every kind of madness."