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experienced myself as speaking to others like one buried within, and very nearly strangulated by, his own adipose tissue—were these symptoms so unusual in the trance-world of psychosis?
    Why I had lost my sanity I couldn’t understand, however. What could have triggered such a thoroughgoing schizophrenic collapse in someone seemingly so well? But then whatever might have caused such a breakdown was undoubtedly so frightening that I would have had to obliterate all memory of it … Only why then was Dr. Klinger—and that it was Dr. Klinger with whom I was talking I was sure; I had to be sure of something if I was to make a start, so I clung to his mildly accented English, to his straightforward manner and his homely humor as proof that at least this in my experience was real—why then was Dr. Klinger telling me to accept my fate, when clearly the way back to sanity was to defy this absolutely crazy conception of myself? The answer was obvious—should have been all along. That wasn’t what Klinger was saying. My illness was such that I was taking his words, simple and clear as they were when he spoke them, and giving them precisely their opposite meaning.
    When he came that afternoon, I had to call forth all my famous strength of character in order to explain, as simply and clearly as I could, my incredible discovery. I sobbed when I was finished, but otherwise was as inspired in speech as I have ever been. When teaching, one sometimes hears oneself speaking in perfect cadences, developing ideas into rounded sentences, and combining them into paragraphs full to brimming, and it is hard then to believe that the fellow suddenly addressing his hushed students with a golden tongue and great decisiveness could have made such a muddle of his notes only the hour before. Well, harder still to believe that the measured tones in which I had just broken the good news to Dr. Klinger came from the vituperous madman who had had to be sedated by his keepers. If I was still a lunatic—and still a breast, I was still a lunatic—I was now, at least, one of the more lucid and eloquent on my floor.
    I said, “Curiously, it’s Arthur Schonbrunn’s visit that convinces me I’m on the right track. How could I ever have believed that Arthur would come here and laugh? How could I take so blatantly a paranoid delusion for the truth? I’ve been cursing him for a month now—and Debbie too, for those idiotic records—and none of it makes any sense at all. Because if there is one person in the world who simply couldn’t lose control like that, it’s Arthur.”
    â€œHe is beyond the perils of human nature, this Dean?”
    â€œYou know something? The answer to that is yes. He is beyond the perils of human nature.”
    â€œSuch a shrewd operator.”
    â€œIt isn’t that he’s so shrewd—that’s going at it the wrong way round. It’s that I’ve been so mad. To think that I made all that up!”
    â€œAnd his note, which you answered so graciously? The note that made you so livid?”
    â€œMore paranoia.”
    â€œAnd the recording of Hamlet? ”
    â€œAh, that’s Mr. Reality. That is real—and right up Debbie’s alley. Oh yes, I can feel the difference now, even as I talk I can sense the difference between the insane stuff and what’s truly happened. I do feel the difference, you must believe me. I’ve gone mad, but now I know it!”
    â€œAnd what do you think has caused you, as you put it, to ‘go mad’?” Dr. Klinger asked.
    â€œI don’t remember.”
    â€œAny idea at all? What could have drawn someone like you into such a fully developed and impenetrable delusion?”
    â€œI’m telling you the truth, Doctor. I don’t have the least idea. Not yet, anyway.”
    â€œNothing comes to mind? Nothing at all?”
    â€œWell, what comes to mind, if anything—what came to