Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [70]
‘Ach, no!’ said Dr Reichardt. ‘Persecution mania, no, that I do not treat. There is no persecution mania in my clinic. Not among the group with whom I am specially interested. On the contrary, they hold the delusions that they do because they wish to be happy. And they are happy, and I can keep them happy. But if I cure them, see you, they will not be happy. So I have to find a cure that will restore sanity to them, and yet they will be happy just the same. We call this particular state of mind–’
He uttered a long and ferociously sounding German word of at least eight syllables.
‘For the purposes of our English friends, I shall still use my term of megalomania, though I know,’ continued Herr Spiess, rather quickly, ‘that that is not the term you use nowadays, Dr Reichardt. So, as I say, you have in your clinic six hundred patients.’
‘And at one time, the time to which I am about to refer, I had eight hundred.’
‘Eight hundred!’
‘It was interesting–most interesting.’
‘You have such persons–to start at the beginning–’
‘We have God Almighty,’ explained Dr Reichardt. ‘You comprehend?’
Mr Lazenby looked slightly taken aback.
‘Oh–er–yes–er–yes. Very interesting, I am sure.’
‘There are one or two young men, of course, who think they are Jesus Christ. But that is not so popular as the Almighty. And then there are the others. I had at the time I am about to mention twenty-four Adolf Hitlers. This you must understand was at the time when Hitler was alive. Yes, twenty-four or twenty-five Adolf Hitlers–’ he consulted a small notebook which he took from his pocket–‘I have made some notes here, yes. Fifteen Napoleons. Napoleon, he is always popular, ten Mussolinis, five reincarnations of Julius Caesar, and many other cases, very curious and very interesting. But that I will not weary you with at this moment. Not being specially qualified in the medical sense, it would not be of any interest to you. We will come to the incident that matters.’
Dr Reichardt spoke again at rather shorter length, and Herr Spiess continued to translate.
‘There came to him one day a government official. Highly thought of at that time–this was during the war, mind you–by the ruling government. I will call him for the moment Martin B. You will know who I mean. He brought with him his chief. In fact he brought with him–well, we will not beat about the bush–he brought the Führer himself.’
‘Ach, so,’ said Dr Reichardt.
‘It was a great honour, you understand, that he should come to inspect,’ went on the doctor. ‘He was gracious, mein Führer. He told me that he had heard very good reports of my successes. He said that there had been trouble lately. Cases from the army. There, more than once there had been men believing they were Napoleon, sometimes believing they were some of Napoleon’s Marshals and sometimes, you comprehend, behaving accordingly, giving out military orders and causing therefore military difficulties. I would have been happy to have given him any professional knowledge that might be useful to him, but Martin B. who accompanied him said that that would not be necessary. Our great Führer, however,’ said Dr Reichardt, looking at Herr Spiess slightly uneasily, ‘did not want to be bothered with such details. He said that no doubt it would be better if medically qualified men with some experience as neurologists should come and have a consultation. What he wanted was to–ach, well, he wanted to see round, and I soon found what he was really interested to see. It should not have surprised me. Oh no, because you see, it was a symptom that one recognizes. The strain of his life was already beginning to tell on the Führer.’
‘I suppose he was beginning to think he was God Almighty himself at that time,’ said Colonel Pikeaway unexpectedly, and he chuckled.
Dr Reichardt looked shocked.
‘He asked me to let him know certain things. He said that Martin B. had told him that I actually had a large number of patients thinking, not to put too fine a point on it,