The Magus - John Fowles [100]
is what she needs. But not upset. For reasons you of course now realise. I am sorry for all this little mystery we spread around you before." He pressed my arm, and went on. "You mean the... amnesia?" He stopped again; we had just come to the steps. "Nothing else about her struck you?" "Lots of things." "Nothing pathological?" "No." He raised his eyebrows a fraction as if I surprised him, but went up the steps; put his glasses on the old cane couch, and turned back to the tea table. I stood by my chair, and gave him his own interrogative shake of the head. "This obsessive need to assume disguises. To give herself false motivations. That did not strike you?" I bit my lips, but his face, as he whisked the muslin covers away, was as straight as a poker. "I thought that was rather required of her." "Required?" He seemed momentarily puzzled, then clear. "You mean that schizophrenia produces these symptoms?" "Schizophrenia?" "Did you not mean that?" He gestured to me to sit. "I am sorry. Perhaps you are not familiar with all this psychiatric jargon." "Yes I am. But--" "Split personality." "I know what schizophrenia is. But you said she did everything... because you wanted it." "Of course. As one says such things to a child. To encourage them to obey." "But she isn't a child." "I speak metaphorically. As of course I was speaking last night." "But she's very intelligent." He gave me a professional look. "The correlation between high intelligence and schizophrenia is well known." I ate my sandwich, and then grinned at him. "Every day I spend here I feel my legs get a little longer. There's so much pulling on them." He looked amazed, even a shade irritated. "I am most certainly not pulling your leg at the moment. Far from it." "I think you are. But I don't mind." He pushed his chair away from the table and made a new gesture; pressing his hands to his temples, as if he had been guilty of some terrible mistake. It was right out of character; and I knew he was acting. "I was so sure that you had understood by now." "I think I have." He gave me a piercing look I was meant to believe, and didn't. "There are personal reasons I cannot go into now why I should--even if I did not love her as a daughter--feel the gravest responsibility for the unfortunate creature you have been with today." He poured hot water into the silver teapot. "She is one of the principal, the principal reason why I come to Bourani and its isolation. I thought you had realised that by now." "Of course I had... in a way." "This is the one place where the poor child can roam a little and indulge her fantasies." I was thinking back fast--what had she said... _I owe him so much_... _I can't explain_... _I can't lie to him_. I thought, the cunning little bitch; they're throwing me backwards and forwards like a ball. I felt annoyed again, and at the same time fascinated. I smiled. "Are you trying to tell me she's mad?" "Mad is a meaningless nonmedical word. She suffers from schizophrenia." "So she believes herself to be your long-dead fianc�" "I gave her that role. It was deliberately induced. It is quite harmless and she enjoys playing it. It is in some of her other roles that she is not so harmless." "Roles?" "Wait." He disappeared indoors and came back a minute later with a book. "This is a standard textbook on psychiatry." He searched for a moment. "Allow me to read a passage. 'One of the defining characteristics of schizophrenia is the formation of delusions which may be elaborate and systematic, or bizarre and incongruous." He looked up at me. "Lily falls into the first category." He went on reading. "They, these delusions, have in common the same tendency to relate always to the patient; they often incorporate elements of popular prejudice against certain groups of activities; and they take the general form of self-glorification or feelings of persecution. One patient may believe she is Cleopatra, and will expect all around her to conform to her belief, while another may believe that her own family have decided to murder her and will therefore make even their most