The Tyranny of the Dark

by Hamlin Garland

He had been profoundly instructed by Tolman's account of a case of alternating personality which he had studied with so much care. The fact that the secondary self appeared when the subject's life seemed at a lower ebb, and when the cerebral centres were sparsely supplied with the life-current, and the further fact that the use of a certain substance which stimulated (without poisoning) the higher brain-centres, was able to bring back the primary or supra-liminal self, was of the utmost value. It threw a flood of light upon Viola's condition, for had she not in her trance become inert, cold, and almost without pulse? He had provided himself with this drug, and as he studied its appearance in the phial, so minute, so colorless, so helpless in its prison, he felt once again the mystery of matter, and smiled to think how childish was the popular conception of the physical universe as something dead and inorganic. Nothing is more mysterious.

"The office of this drug can be twofold. It has the power in itself to flush the cerebral centres with fresh blood, and it can also serve as a point of support for the suggestion I am about to give. It does not really matter whether she has any phase of what they call mediumistic power or not. To rid her of her trances will liberate her from a belief in her ills, and that is the main consideration."

He found the greatest encouragement at this point in the many cases where perfect mental health had been restored by means of a complete change of mental stimuli. "All hypnotic methods," he read, "have one thing in common, and that is the diversion of attention from the insistency of external surroundings.... The hypnotic state has one broad characteristic, and that is the working of the subliminal consciousness in directions unusual in ordinary life."

"The way to help her is to cut off every suggestion which leads to the trance and to the thought of the dead; to centre her mind on the serene, the busy, the sunny. Thus flooding her brain with sights and sounds utterly disassociated with her past."

The realization that she was at last domesticated under his roof made her redemption seem easy, certain, almost accomplished. There remained only the painful duty of separating her from her mother. He could see that this would bring keen sorrow upon them both, but that if she could be brought to consider him in the light of her future husband, the change would seem less violent; for, after all, it was the law of life which subordinated the claims of the mother to those of the husband.

"At any rate, the issue is now clear in my mind. A powerful chain of suggestion has been formed and fastened upon her by her own mother and by Clarke. That chain must be broken; it is broken in Clarke's case, and no matter what the pain, the fear, this course may cause the mother, it must be pursued in order to restore Viola to health."

He passed from this to a forecast of the radical changes in his own life which an avowal of love would make, and his mood chilled. He had always imagined the announcement of his engagement, falling into a sober and decorous paragraph among the society notes, and had figured himself receiving with dignified composure the congratulations of his associates and club-fellows. He had never considered the possibility of shrinking from these publicities, nor fancied himself in the light of finding excuses to justify or explain his marriage. He now clearly foresaw, foreheard the comment, the surprise, the opposition of his family.

He pulled himself up short with a word of derision at the length to which he had permitted his mind to run. "All this for the future. The immediate question is, Can she be freed from her bonds?"

He was deep in his book when Kate entered with excited greeting. "Morton, do you know that those women have been locked in their rooms all day for fear of Clarke and Pratt? Well, they were! Clarke has gone stark mad with jealousy, and even that besotted mother was afraid of him, and admits it. They would be there in that house prisoners this minute only for you."

"Don't lay your wreath on my head; keep it for Lambert. Really, Kate, he was magnificent. Little as he is, he towered. I had no doubt of his willingness and ability to kill either Pratt or Clarke; and I don't think they questioned the integrity of his promise."