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well as the criminal, medical, and legal, communities in New York to be the man whose testimony in court or at a sanity hearing could determine, more than that of any other alienist of the day, whether a given person was sent to prison, to the somewhat less horrifying confines of a mental institution, or back out onto the streets. The moment he was spotted in a place such as the Pavilion, therefore, the usual sounds of madness gave way to an eerie attempt at coherent communication on the part of most of the inmates. Only the uninitiated or the hopelessly distressed would continue their ravings; and yet the effect of this sudden reduction in noise was not at all reassuring. Indeed, it was in some ways worse on the nerves, for one knew that the attempt at order was a strained one, and that the sounds of anguish would soon return—again, like burning coals roasting away the transitory suppression of a splash of water.
    Kreizler’s reaction to the inmates’ behavior was no less disconcerting, for one was left only to imagine what experiences in his life and career could have implanted in him the ability to walk through such a place and witness such desperate performances (all peppered by measured yet passionate pleas of “Dr. Kreizler, I must talk with you!” “Dr. Kreizler, please, I am not like these others!”) without submitting to fear, revulsion, or despair. As he moved in measured strides down the long corridor, his brows drew together over his gleaming eyes, which shot quickly from side to side, cell to cell, with a look of sympathetic admonishment: as if these people were errant children. At no point did he allow himself to address any of the inmates, but this refusal was not cruel; quite the contrary, for to speak to any one would only have raised that unfortunate person’s hopes, perhaps unrealistically, while dashing those of the other supplicants. Any patients present who had been in madhouses or prisons before, or who had been under observation for an extended period at Bellevue, knew that this was Kreizler’s practice; and they made their most emphatic pleas with their eyes, aware that it was only with the organ of sight that Kreizler would acknowledge them.
    We passed through the sliding iron doors and into the men’s ward, and followed the attendant Fuller to the last cell on the left. He stood to the side and opened the small observation window in the heavily banded door. “Wolff!” he called. “Visitors for you. Official business, so behave.”
    Kreizler stood before the window looking inward, and I watched over his shoulder. Inside the small, bare-walled cell a man sat on a rough cot, under which lay a dented steel chamber pot. Heavy bars covered the one small window, and ivy obscured the little external light that tried to enter. A metal pitcher of water and a tray bearing a bit of bread and an oatmeal-encrusted bowl lay on the floor near the man, whose head was in his hands. He wore only an undershirt and woolen pants without a belt or suspenders (suicide being the worry). Heavy shackles were clamped around his wrists and ankles. When he lifted his face, a few seconds after Fuller’s call, he revealed a pair of red eyes that reminded me of some of my worst mornings; and his deeply lined, whiskered face bore an expression of detached resignation.
    “Mr. Wolff,” Kreizler said, watching the man carefully. “Are you sober?”
    “Who wouldn’t be?” the man answered slowly, his words indistinct, “after a night in this place?”
    Kreizler closed the small iron gate that covered the window and turned to Fuller. “Has he been drugged?”
    Fuller shrugged uncomfortably. “He was raving when they brought him in, Dr. Kreizler. Seemed more than just drunk, the superintendent said, so they jabbed him full of chloral.”
    Kreizler sighed in deep irritation. Chloral hydrate was one of the banes of his existence, a bitter-tasting, neutrally colored, somewhat caustic compound that slowed the rate of