They gave her various answers and finally told her the plain truth. The worthy matron could not contain her shame and indignation. Her explosions of wrath included such expressions as “rat,” “coward,” and “he even cheats on prescriptions.” Simão Bacamarte remarked that, whether or not these characterizations of her husband were true, they clearly established the lady’s return to sanity. He promptly released her.

If you think the alienist was radiant with happiness on seeing the last guest leave the Green House, you apparently do not yet understand the man. Plus ultra was his motto. For him the discovery of the true theory of mental illness was not enough, nor was the establishment in Itaguai of the reign of reason with the total elimination of psychological abnormality. Plus ultra! Something told him that his new theory bore within itself a better, newer theory.

“Let us see,” he said to himself, “if I can discover the ultimate, underlying truth.”

He paced the length of the immense room, past bookcase after bookcase—the largest library in His Majesty’s overseas possessions. A gold-embroidered, damask dressing-gown (a gift from a university) enveloped the regal and austere body of the illustrious physician. The extensive top of his head, which the incessant cogitations of the scientist had rendered bald, was covered by a wig. His feet, neither dainty nor gross but perfectly proportioned to his body, were encased in a pair of ordinary shoes with plain brass buckles. Note the distinction: only those elements that bore some relationship to his work as a scientist were in any sense luxurious; the rest was simple and tem-
perate.

And so the alienist walked up and down his vast library, lost in thought, alien to everything but the dark problem of psychopathology. Suddenly he stopped. Standing before a window, with his left elbow resting on his open right hand and his chin on his closed left hand, he asked himself:

“Were they all really insane? Did I really cure them? Or is not mental imbalance so natural and inherent that it was bound to assert itself with or without my help?”

He soon arrived at this conclusion: the apparently well-balanced minds that he had just “cured” had really been unbalanced all the time, just like the obviously sane minds of the rest of the people. Their apparent illness was superficial and transient.