security and dignity Mrs.——— had long and justly boasted for her house.
Max also, especially after a few drinks, liked to go about the house bragging to clients and to entertainers alike of his prowess in various lines, intruding on parties still at the “downstairs stage” of the night’s activities, minding everybody’s business, and inevitably turning the conversation to his superiorities. Most of the time he was quite amiable in this role—a cordial, but an all too cordial, host under circumstances where people are usually concerned more with definite and perhaps pressing aims of their own than with the glowing reminiscences of another. Occasionally when crossed he became threatening even with clients and, though open strife was usually avoided, hot, wild words and strenuous scenes sometimes followed, with Max exulting in the aftermath by pacing up and down the corridors of the house, shadow-boxing, cursing, crying out his pugilistic titles and victories, and challenging all comers.
No one better than his wife, a woman of experience and good judgment in such matters, realized what an unhappy effect these antics had on her clientele quietly seeking pleasure behind doors before which Max roared and paraded. Naturally she sought to silence him and to lead him off to the quarters they shared. Usually, however, her appearance served merely as a focus for his ire, and the tumult she sought to quell redoubled through her efforts. More than once under such circumstances he pursued her into her room, the wrangle having moved on to open violence, and beat her there to his heart’s content. Mrs.———, a tall and heavy person, gave a casual impression of being twice as large as Max. Furthermore, she was a woman of considerable strength. She often fought back vigorously and, though she seldom succeeded in landing a telling blow that would discourage her marital opponent, her resistance made the fight much more lively and greatly augmented the uproar of thuds, slaps, crashes, oaths, grunts, and honest yells of pain.
Over several years this connubial life had been interrupted frequently by Max’s departure, which he usually took in heat after quarrels such as those described above. Often he left voluntarily with obscene curses at his wife on his lips. Sometimes she called the police to him after he had covered her with minor bruises and abrasions from his practiced fists and had him forcibly ousted. Over the years he spent perhaps two-thirds of his time away, going from city to city, living by his wits, which are sharp indeed. When caught in his minor frauds, which he practiced not only on the public but also on those associated with him in his ventures, he quickly left town; or, if not quick enough, spent a few days in jail, from which he soon obtained release by telling of his imaginary head injury, of his “spells,” or of anything else that occurred to his fertile mind as a means to make people believe he was incompetent because of “shell shock.” When his situation turned out to be more serious, he telegraphed or telephoned to his wife, who at once flew to his aid and usually with some little money at her disposal.
He covered the entire eastern seaboard on these trips and made several expeditions into the Middle West. For a few weeks in Texas he lived well off of money he milked from slot machines by some ingenious device or contraption or maneuver. His inventions of this type are numerous and highly practical. He could, perhaps, make an excellent living indefinitely off such takings if he did not, when drinking, and often when sober, boast too widely of his cleverness or otherwise bring himself to the attention of the police.
It has been mentioned that he had, earlier in his career, but after his second marriage, been wedded to other women bigamously. His wife learned of these episodes and legal action was taken by the deceived women. From these minor troubles he was extricated by his shrewdness, the aid of his wife, and the power of his familiar tactics of claiming incompetency and irresponsibility.
This gambit of moves seems to have gained rather than lost effectiveness by repetition. It has become virtually a joker in the deck, or rather up the sleeve; and it has never failed him yet. One cannot but wonder if the juries, the courts, and other authorities are not overwhelmed by precedent and, seeing that his grounds for impunity have been upheld so often in the past, fail to challenge them adequately. Precedent is, of course, freely admitted to weigh heavily in law. On the other hand, these nonmedical observers seem to weigh seriously the plain facts of the patient’s conduct when they decide that he is not a normal man. Psychiatry, with its clear rules and definitions for the determination of psychosis, has not seemed to be as much concerned with these facts.
The immediate cause of Max’s return to the hospital on this occasion was indirectly connected with a third bigamous marriage which he recently made while off on one of his tours from connubial security. With his new partner he tried his hand again at forgery on a somewhat larger scale than usual. He prospered for a while and, flushed with prosperity and bravado, brought his new bigamous partner home with him on a visit to the brothel where his legal wife was struggling to restore standards which had suffered during his presence.
Quarreling broke out at once, as might well be imagined, between the two wives. Max, still in character, did nothing to pour oil on these sorely troubled waters. In fact, his every move seemed designed to whip up the already lively doings to a crescendo. The dispute culminated in a vigorous and vociferous set-to during which both ladies were pretty thoroughly mauled, furniture broken, and the brothel all but wrecked. Max’s most important personal contribution to the fray was a broken jaw for his legal wife, the Madame of the house.
It is interesting here to note that, despite his continual brawling with both men and women over so many years while drinking or while quite sober, and despite his ferocious threats of violence and his pretty genuine ability as a pugilist, no serious bodily harm had before this come to anyone at his hands. I believe that the substantial injury was unintentional, an act of thoughtless exuberance committed in the heat of a situation eminently and subtly designed to bring out high enthusiasm in such a man as our hero.
Having succeeded in bringing off a scene that even in his career stands out as a little masterpiece, he took the bigamous partner and fled back to the nearby city where his forgeries were in progress. Almost on his arrival detection met him, and hard on its heels came prosecution from home in consequence of the jaw-breaking. To these difficulties charges for his latest bigamy were added. As such disasters began to accumulate about Max, his legal wife, finally aroused, decided for the moment to lend her influence to the punitive forces.
In the court action that followed, the present and third bigamous wife received an adequate sentence to the state penitentiary, and for a while Max’s own fortune seemed none too bright. Wrought upon by his protestations, however, and perhaps influenced as well by the disappearance of her rival from the scene, his old protector, the legal wife, was won over and began to work with her husband. Soon matters were arranged for him to escape the ordinary consequences of his deeds and be sent again to a psychiatric hospital. His last admission, with which this account began, was the result.
Safe in the familiar harbor of a psychiatric hospital, he was for a week or more friendly, cooperative, and apparently content. He was at all times shrewd, somewhat witty on low levels of humor, and entirely free from ideas or behavior suggesting any recognized psychosis.
He became very friendly with me at this period and talked entertainingly and with enthusiasm about his many adventures. He denied all misconduct on his part but admitted that he had often been in trouble because of his wife and others. It was not the denial of a man who is eager to show himself innocent but the casual tossing aside of matters considered irrelevant or bothersome to discuss. After briefly laughing off all his accusations, he at once shifted the subject to his many triumphs and attainments.
Telling of his early life in Vienna, his birthplace, he spoke of his excellent scholarship in the schools, his pre-eminence at sports and of the splendid figure in general he had cut as a youth in that gay and urbane city. In none of these statements did he lay in details such as might be expected of a man developing a delusional trend. No psychiatrist, and few laymen for that matter, would have had the least difficulty in recognizing all this as “tall talk” designed to deceive the listener and to put the talker in a good light. All the patient’s reactions
