Clanging or station-calling, we slid
silently, almost surreptitiously, into the Gare du Nord, at Paris.
Neither in England nor on the mainland does anyone feel called
on to notify you that you have reached your destination.
It is like the old formula for determining the sex of a pigeon - you
give the suspected bird some corn, and if he eats it he is a he;
but if she eats it she is a she. In Europe if it is your destination
you get off, and if it is not your destination you stay on. On
this occasion we stayed on, feeling rather forlorn and helpless,
until we saw that everyone else had piled off. We gathered up our
belongings and piled off too.
By that time all the available porters had been engaged; so we
took up our luggage and walked. We walked the length of the
trainshed - and then we stepped right into the recreation hall of
the State Hospital for the Criminal Insane, at Matteawan, New York.
I knew the place instantly, though the decorations had been changed
since I was there last. It was a joy to come on a home institution
so far from home - joysome, but a trifle disconcerting too, because
all the keepers had died or gone on strike or something; and the
lunatics, some of them being in uniform and some in civilian dress,
were leaping from crag to crag, uttering maniacal shrieks.
Divers lunatics, who had been away and were just getting back, and
sundry lunatics who were fixing to go away and apparently did not
expect ever to get back, were dashing headlong into the arms of
still other lunatics, kissing and hugging them, and exchanging
farewells and sacre-bleuing with them in the maddest fashion
imaginable. From time to time I laid violent hands on a flying,
flitting maniac and detained him against his will, and asked him
for some directions; but the persons to whom I spoke could not
understand me, and when they answered I could not understand them;
so we did not make much headway by that. I could not get out of
that asylum until I had surrendered the covers of our ticket books
and claimed our baggage and put it through the customs office. I
knew that; the trouble was I could not find the place for attending
to these details. On a chance I tried a door, but it was distinctly
the wrong place; and an elderly female on duty there got me out by
employing the universal language known of all peoples. She shook
her skirts at me and said Shoo! So I got out, still toting five or
six bags and bundles of assorted sizes and shapes, and tried all
the other doors in sight.
Finally, by a process of elimination and deduction, I arrived at
the right one.
