The operation was effected without untoward incident of any kind. It was entirely successful. The wound healed by what is known as “first intention,” there was no rise of temperature and no surgical complication. But the condition of the patient caused an uneasiness that deepened day by day. She became restless and apathetic and at the same time very silent, answering questions only in monosyllables. She resisted no detail of treatment, but accepted everything with a lethargic complacency impossible to overcome.
That, however, was not all. She appeared to be possessed by an indefinite anxiety which was partly expressed by an intense attitude of expectation. She was expecting a letter, looking out for it day after day and hour after hour. She listened to the door and to any sound on the stair as an imprisoned dog might listen for the steps of its master. This terrible vigil began on the second or third day after the operation. When I made my visit about that time she asked me if I had given orders that she was to have no letters. I assured her I had not done so and that she should have every letter the moment it arrived. But no letter came.
Whenever I made my appearance her first question was, “Did you see a letter for me in the hall?” I could only answer “No.” Then she would press me with other inquiries: “How often does the postman come? Is he not sometimes late? Has there been any accident on the railway? Do letters get occasionally lost in the post?” and so on interminably. If anyone came into the room there was always a look of expectation on her face, an eager searching for a letter in the hand or on a tray. If a knock was heard at the front door, she at once inquired if it was the postman, and very usually asked me to go to the top of the stair to ascertain.
The sisters, the nurses and the patient’s friend could tell me nothing. No letter of any kind arrived. The poor, tormented creature’s yearning for a letter had become a possession. I inquired if she had written any letters herself. The sister said that, as far as was known, she had written but one, and that was on the eve of her operation. Although she should have been in bed at the time, she insisted on going out for the purpose of posting the letter herself.
She rapidly became weaker, more restless, more harassed by despair. She was unable to sleep without drugs and took scarcely any food. Feeble and failing as she was, her anxiety about the coming of a letter never abated. I asked a physician versed in nervous disorders to see her, but he had little to propose. She was evidently dying—but of what?
She was now a pitiable spectacle, emaciated and hollow-eyed, with a spot of red on her cheek, an ever-wrinkled brow and ever-muttering lips. I can see to this day the profile of her lamentable features against the white background of the pillow. Pinned to the pillow was the brooch that I had noticed at her neck when I saw her in my consulting room. She would never allow it to be removed, but gave no reason for her insistence. I have seen her hand now and then move up to touch it, just as she had done during our first interview.
I was with her when she died. As I entered the room there was still the same expectant glance at the door. Her lips, dry and brown, appeared to be shaping the question, “A letter for me?” There was no need to answer “No.” At the very last—with a display of strength that amazed me—she turned over with her face to the wall as if she wished to be alone; then, in a voice louder than I had known her to be capable of for days, she cried out, “Oh, Frank! Frank!” and in a moment later she was dead.
Her death was certified, with unconscious accuracy, as due to “heart failure.”
Here was a mystery, and with it a realization of how little we knew of this lady who had died because she wished to die. I was aware that her husband’s christian name was William, but beyond that I knew practically nothing of him. The sister of the nursing home had both written and telegraphed to the husband, but no reply had been received. It was afterwards ascertained that he was away at the time and that the house was shut up.
I was determined to find out the meaning of the tragedy, but it was some months before I was possessed of the whole of the story. The poor lady’s marriage had been unhappy. Her husband had neglected her, and they were completely estranged. She formed a friendship with a man of middle age who lived near by. This is he whose christian name was Frank and who was, I imagine, the giver of the brooch. The friendship grew into something more emotional. She became, indeed, desperately attached to him, and he to her. Their intimacy was soon so conspicuous as to lead to gossip in the neighbourhood, while the state of the two lovers themselves was one of blank despair. She looked to him as Pompillia looked to Caponsacchi. He was her saviour, her “soldier saint, the lover of her life.” To him she could repeat Pompillia’s words: “You are ordained to call and I to come.”