Visitor in Lunacy Read Online Free PDF

smell the corpse might emit I managed to slip the stick under its hindquarters. Flipping it on its side revealed a squirming ball of fat white maggots. Magdalene's exclamations of disgust contradicted the look of wonder in her eyes.
    “Come on,” she said finally. “Let's go.”
    On our way out of the wood she broke a period of silence to ask if I was afraid to die.
    “No,” I replied. In truth I had never given the matter any thought.
    “Nonsense, of course you're afraid. Everyone is.... Your mother died, didn't she?”
    “Yes, but it was a very long time ago. I don't remember much about her.”
    “My mother died too. I still miss her. But I think daddy misses her more. What do you think happens after we're gone? Do we go to heaven?”
    The question confused me. The answer seemed so obvious that it was barely worth addressing, like asking if the sky was blue or the grass was green: “If we've been good, of course we do. Where else would we go?”
    Without answering she skipped up onto the side of a fallen ash tree and reached out her hand to help me up. Thick, fleshy fungus with caps the size of dinner plates grew on the underside of the trunk. Once we were safely on the ground again I tried to release my grip but my friend refused. We walked like this, our fingers wound together, until we were back at the bridge.
    I was awakened from these reminiscences by the stuttering old man opposite me in the carriage, asking me where I was travelling to. It was as he faltered over the 't' for the fourth time over that I lost my patience and interrupted.
    “What possible b-b-business could that be of yours?”
    Casting me a wounded look he gathered his things and went into the corridor without a word. Looking out at the passing tenements I ran my tongue searchingly over the swollen ulcer on the inside of my bottom lip.
     

The Visitor in Lunacy
     
    HAVING measured the width of the subject's jaw line using a pair of steel callipers, Doctor Monastero set about carefully arranging the electrical conductors around her face. Roughly the shape and size of cigars and mounted on metal stands of varying heights, they were attached to trailing wires which disappeared behind a Chinese silk screen. Once satisfied with his work the elderly Italian limped back to his camera and evaluated the composition with a thin-lipped frown.
    Seated at the centre of the scene was a woman in a loose white gown and a shawl, her hair scraped away from her face in a severe ponytail. Two of the copper conductors touched against her eyebrows, two more had been placed on her cheeks. Buckled brown leather straps bound her wrists to the armrests of her chair while another, broader strap around her neck helped keep her head upright and steady. Only the whites of her eyes were showing, her pupils having rolled up beneath their lids.
    Monastero's assistant – a bear-like German with a swallow-tailed beard – looked up from his notebook and suggested in flawless English that the room should be made a shade darker. With a shallow nod of agreement the doctor asked for the curtains to be partly drawn. We were on the ground floor of Sutton Asylum, overlooking over the gardens. Four small circular impressions remained on the carpet where the billiard table had been hauled out to make way for the photography studio. An empty cue rack rung on the wall.
    The light sufficiently dimmed, Monastero gestured with his liver-spotted hands. His frame, diminished by age, was too small for his immaculate frock coat and his sleeves hung low over his wrists. Responding to the command the German dropped his pencil smartly into the pocket of his brightly coloured waistcoat and stepped behind the screen.
    “Number four. Strong stimulation of zygotmaticus major and corrugator supercilli.”
    All at once the subject's countenance was transformed. Deep creases cut across her forehead and her mouth turned down sharply at the corners. She was like a gargoyle, her features becoming