gentle. “You will just tell the mosquito to go away and leave you alone! You will say ‘Shoo,’ and he will fly off!”
Alice smiles, tosses her cards to the side.
“I think somebody has won the game!” Madame Lordet leans toward Elsa, necklace jangling, and whispers, “My niece in Antwerp”—she shakes her head with regret—“is just the same.”
After the card game, Madame Lordet offers to take Alice to the parlor to cheer the Ping-Pong matches. “My Adèle just adores watching the balls go back and forth,” she says, lifting a pale finger to illustrate the motion.
“Well,” Elsa begins politely, “Alice has a variety of interests more stimulating than ball-watching.” How tiresome, though, the endless assumptions. “You might ask her to draw your portrait. She’s quite a good artist.”
“An artist!” The woman smiles, shakes her head in wondrous delight, as though before her has pranced a monkey in a top hat. “
Merveilleux.
”
Elsa strains a smile and offers a polite good-bye, planting a kiss on Alice’s honeyed scalp. From the table she picks up
On the Origin of Species
and tucks it in the crook of her arm. Edward smiles; the book, a handsome first edition, was his wedding gift to her. The night before leaving England, he presented her with a collection of Darwin: five books, each bound in burgundy leather, the spines lettered in gold, and her new, married initials—EPB—embossed on all the title pages. She has been carrying this volume from her cabin to the deck to the lounge without a moment, yet, for study. Now she can steal a few minutes.
Elsa climbs the steps to the boat’s upper deck, but no sooner has she reached the windy promenade than she thinks of turning back. She is sickened by the idea of this woman dragging Alice through the parlor like a pet. Elsa tries to shake the image from her mind. Her father always admonished her for this—her desire to argue Alice’s abilities. Alice was Alice, he said, no matter how she was perceived. Ignorance wounded only the ignorant. But for Elsa, it was a matter of defending Alice’s honor. Even if each contemptuous stare could be disregarded, she couldn’t help but feel that left unchecked, the weight of them all might soon press against Alice. And part of Elsa suspected her father was simply too tired, too old, for outrage. She had seen him outraged just once in her life: She had been nine years old, sitting in Dr. Chapple’s London consultation room with her father and Alice, listening as the doctor explained the medical specifications of amentia—
state of restricted potentiality . . . arrest of cerebral development . . . insufficient cortical neurons
—at the time, an endless muddle of syllables to Elsa, but words she would hear again for years to come. What Elsa did understand was that Dr. Chapple said there were places they could send Alice—the Royal Albert Asylum in Lancaster, the Sandlebridge School for the Feeble-Minded—places that would accommodate, and this phrase etched itself in Elsa’s mind,
mental defectives
. Elsa finally slid forward in her chair and asked what to her seemed the most relevant question: “Can you fix her?”
“I’m afraid, my dear girl,” said the doctor, removing his glasses for this final pronouncement, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “the condition of amentia, though its external manifestations can be reduced through a proper balance of stimulus and rest, is both permanent and untreatable.”
Her father nodded silently.
The doctor then began scribbling. “However, take one part caraway seeds, one part ginger and salt, and spread it on bread with a touch of butter. This has been shown successful at temporarily quelling mild episodes of hysteria.” Her father’s gaze was fixed on the floor, so Elsa accepted the doctor’s paper.
Once they were outside, on the steps of Dr. Chapple’s office, after the door had closed behind them, her father raised his hand and slapped Elsa’s face.
Alice smiles, tosses her cards to the side.
“I think somebody has won the game!” Madame Lordet leans toward Elsa, necklace jangling, and whispers, “My niece in Antwerp”—she shakes her head with regret—“is just the same.”
After the card game, Madame Lordet offers to take Alice to the parlor to cheer the Ping-Pong matches. “My Adèle just adores watching the balls go back and forth,” she says, lifting a pale finger to illustrate the motion.
“Well,” Elsa begins politely, “Alice has a variety of interests more stimulating than ball-watching.” How tiresome, though, the endless assumptions. “You might ask her to draw your portrait. She’s quite a good artist.”
“An artist!” The woman smiles, shakes her head in wondrous delight, as though before her has pranced a monkey in a top hat. “
Merveilleux.
”
Elsa strains a smile and offers a polite good-bye, planting a kiss on Alice’s honeyed scalp. From the table she picks up
On the Origin of Species
and tucks it in the crook of her arm. Edward smiles; the book, a handsome first edition, was his wedding gift to her. The night before leaving England, he presented her with a collection of Darwin: five books, each bound in burgundy leather, the spines lettered in gold, and her new, married initials—EPB—embossed on all the title pages. She has been carrying this volume from her cabin to the deck to the lounge without a moment, yet, for study. Now she can steal a few minutes.
Elsa climbs the steps to the boat’s upper deck, but no sooner has she reached the windy promenade than she thinks of turning back. She is sickened by the idea of this woman dragging Alice through the parlor like a pet. Elsa tries to shake the image from her mind. Her father always admonished her for this—her desire to argue Alice’s abilities. Alice was Alice, he said, no matter how she was perceived. Ignorance wounded only the ignorant. But for Elsa, it was a matter of defending Alice’s honor. Even if each contemptuous stare could be disregarded, she couldn’t help but feel that left unchecked, the weight of them all might soon press against Alice. And part of Elsa suspected her father was simply too tired, too old, for outrage. She had seen him outraged just once in her life: She had been nine years old, sitting in Dr. Chapple’s London consultation room with her father and Alice, listening as the doctor explained the medical specifications of amentia—
state of restricted potentiality . . . arrest of cerebral development . . . insufficient cortical neurons
—at the time, an endless muddle of syllables to Elsa, but words she would hear again for years to come. What Elsa did understand was that Dr. Chapple said there were places they could send Alice—the Royal Albert Asylum in Lancaster, the Sandlebridge School for the Feeble-Minded—places that would accommodate, and this phrase etched itself in Elsa’s mind,
mental defectives
. Elsa finally slid forward in her chair and asked what to her seemed the most relevant question: “Can you fix her?”
“I’m afraid, my dear girl,” said the doctor, removing his glasses for this final pronouncement, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “the condition of amentia, though its external manifestations can be reduced through a proper balance of stimulus and rest, is both permanent and untreatable.”
Her father nodded silently.
The doctor then began scribbling. “However, take one part caraway seeds, one part ginger and salt, and spread it on bread with a touch of butter. This has been shown successful at temporarily quelling mild episodes of hysteria.” Her father’s gaze was fixed on the floor, so Elsa accepted the doctor’s paper.
Once they were outside, on the steps of Dr. Chapple’s office, after the door had closed behind them, her father raised his hand and slapped Elsa’s face.
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