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The Maniac – A Realistic Study of Madness from the Maniac’s Point of View – E Thelmar

One evening I suddenly awoke to normal consciousness-I mean consciousness of my real, bodily surroundings-and found myself out of bed, with two nurses standing, one on each side of me, supporting me.

I remembered all that had been occurring, and I felt so weak and ill I could scarcely sit up. I could not comprehend what it was that had happened to me (I had again ceased to understand that I was mad), and it seemed to me that these inexplicable torments were never-ending.

I was so weak and in such utter misery, I leant my cheek against the hand of the kinder- looking of the two strange nurses (whose hand was hanging down close beside my face as she stood by me), and my tears trickled slowly and silently down my cheeks all down the back of the woman's hand, as I thought to myself- "O God, how much longer am I to be obliged to go on enduring such inexplicable torments, and be killed and made to die again and again without ever being allowed to remain dead and get it finished?"

As I thought this, I rose and attempted to walk back to bed. I was so weak I dropped prone upon the floor, half on the bed, half off. Instantly a clear voice proclaimed loudly- “It is finished!"