6 CASE HISTORIES 



English imperfectly, with a foreign pronunciation, and most 

 school teachers are women anyway." 



A few days later he said, " I'm not feeling very well. I felt 

 better at college. Sitting quiet is very comfortable. I'm pa- 

 tiently satisfied." This last phrase pleased him immensely. He 

 repeated it several times and said it exactly expressed his 

 sentiments. 



After explaining the self-preservative and creative impulses 

 I asked what he loved most. " My three meals and myself, three 

 square meals, warmth and a bed. In that respect I'm satisfied. 

 I like woman's voice and companionship, looking at her, hearing 

 her voice, but the meals and bed come first, more than la femme." 



All day he would sit in a chair or stand gazing out a window 

 lost in his thoughts, his lips pressed tight together and pushed 

 forward in a pout. Sometimes he moved them back and forth. 

 When his tray was set on a nearby table he ate standing up, 

 though there was a chair a few steps away and another patient 

 called his attention to it. 



When I asked what he thought about so much he replied, " I 

 think over past experiences or what I've read. Sometimes there 

 is a vacuum and I think of and look at nothing. I just plod 

 along. I feel satisfied. I take my situation as a matter of course. 

 I've gotten so accustomed to this place I don't think I'll ever be 

 discharged. I'm a stoic. I think I'm sane. I don't see how I'm 

 insane but I really don't care. I take things as they are. ("What 

 about your future?") In a hundred years we'll all be dead. I 

 don't think of it, of anything. I feel fairly well physically and 

 mentally. I suppose anyone would prefer to be with his kin, but 

 it's up to the authorities as to discharge. When it's time for it, 

 it will come. There's nothing to do but sit around and wait and 

 make baskets. I don't care particularly about basket making." 



One day I called his attention to Irgocz squatting in a corner, 

 eyes closed, and fingers to ears, and told him that was the end 

 of the road he was traveling, a thing that could hardly be called 

 a man, a mere vegetable, but it didn't jar him a bit. " He doesn't 

 seem unhappy. If I get to be like him I suppose I shall still be 

 patiently satisfied. ("Of what use will all your years of 



