Evening star., 1928-11-30
By
NANCY
BARR
MAVITY


extremity admitted him to my
Office, gave him a mild sedative and
when he was somewhat quieter, asked
him the nature of his trouble.
st will summarize his statement as
succinctly as possible, in order not to
weary you" DR.. Cavanaugh paused
and glanced at the jury with his smile
of courteous apology. Every face was
turned toward him with tense inter
est. Even the judge leaned forward.
"Mr. Orme told me at that time that
he had been for almost a year suffer-
ing from a complete loss o. memory for
preceding events. His memory, that is,
was clear for the period between last
April end the present. For events pre-
ceding that time his mind was a total
blank. AS perhaps you know, this state
of amnesia is technically called
fugue.'
The jury didn't know, but they ap-
preciated the implied fiattery and tried
to look as If they did
Il went back rather carefully over
the patients personal history for tha
last IL months. If 1 may be allowed
to use an imperfect analogy, it was
as if the strip Of continuity. of th2
stream Of memories which makes u
conscious of ourselves as unbroken per-
sonalities, had been cut off at a par
ticular point, with no way of uniting
the severed edges.
HE had found himself walking along
country road. hatless and without
luggage. If he had had a wallet con-
tanning money and means of identih-
cation he had lost it or it had been
stolen from him. The only clue to his
identity which he could discover was
a fountain pen in his pocket with the
initials d. o. engraved on a gold band
around the barrel
From that time on, for a period Of
IL months. he had worked as a casual
ranch hand, using the name Daniel
Osgood, which was suggested to him
by the initials on the pen.
He had kept moving, in hope that
eventually some scene or circumstance
would recall his past life to him. On
the day when I saw him he had re-
ceived his first hint-the first stimulus
which seemed to have aroused a re-
sponse connected with his past life. I
hope am not being too detailed-tak-
ing up too much of your time with all
thiS?"
Harry laid down his pencil and
stretched his cfamped fingers.
Gee" he whispered to the %" twin
Spell me on this, will you? It's all
answer and no questions. Do you think
you're getting paid just to sit and loaf
In ringSide seat at this trial?"
"All right, hand it over. But. say, do
you notice what sense of the dramatic
the old bird has? He always asks if
he's boring them at the most critical
moments"
Il haven't had time to notice any,
thing but keeping up with pot-hooks."
For once. even the bailiff was too alb
sorbed to chaStise the offenders against
courtroom etiquette.
Go on, please, doctor. The court
Will be glad to listen to all you have
to say"
THE circumstance to which refer
was moving picture. Orme, or Os-
good, as called him then, had dropped
into moving picture house, more for
place to sit down and rest than for
anything else. But an incident in the
picture had aroused in him an intense,
though indefinite, emotional disturb
ance.
1T was a scene in which an angry
man knocked woman down. He was
unable to stay for the conclusion of the
story and rushed out into the street in
state OF acute excitement. His first
clear recognition out of the past was
the sight of my name on the door
plate when he passed my house-he
recognized it, that is, as belonging to
a more or less well known psychiatrist."
More or less'-get that?" nudged
Harry.
1T would be unnecessary to take
you step by step through the analysis
oy which, in the course of the next
two weeks, finally knitted together
the severed portions of Orme's con-
sciouSneSS.
Working backward. discovered that
in his childhood he had received a pow
erful shock when his father, in a
drunken rage, had struck his mother
ana knocked her down. The woman
mad hit her head in falling and was
stunned; and the child. left alone with
her when his father had stormed out
OF the house, had believed her to be
dead.
THE incident was buried in his sub
conscious and apparently forgotten
1t was only short time afterward
tnat musician became interested in
Orme's remarkable talent and under
TOOK his education. separating him from
ms family associations. But the horror
OF scene. intensified by his helplessness.
nevertheless made an ineffaceable and
powerful impression.
When, as he has told YOU. he In n
moment OF anger struck his wife, Sheila
OShay, and saw her fall as his mother
mad fallen, he found himself repro
duc1ng the scene which had given him
SO profound a shock in his Childhood.
he IN his own person was re-enacting
the role OF his hated father. The repro
ouctlon OF similar scene on the screen
naturally caused a reSurgence Of the
emotional storm. and gave us a start
ing point for reconstruction.
Ihe amneSia from which he was
Sut1er1ng explains the fact that Orne
was unaware of his wife's subsequent
marriage until so long after it had
taken place.
There are other items, of course.
Whlcn require explanation. Not every
one would nave responded to the same
set OF circumstances as David Orme
responded to them. We must remem-
Der that he was and always has been
an unstable personality-an instability
recognized by the laity in reference to
the hlgh-strung Sensitiveness. the tenn.
permanent OF certain geniuses.
In such a personality a rift in the
stream OF memory technically called a
tugue is invariably a means of escape
from an unbearable reality. When Orme
found himself performing the same act
Wnicn had so Mortified him in his father
ne reacted by a complete denial of the
lntoleraoie fact-by. in short, forgetting
tne palntuI situation and becoming. in
effect, some one else. I have no Doubt
Whatever that the emotional strain of
seeing his wife again on the night of
March l3 caused a Slight recurrence Of
retroactive amneSia, which explains his
CONFUSION as to the details of the inter
view and his inability to remember his
parting from Sheila O'Shay and his re-