relatives, I jumped to the conclusion that I was still under police
surveillance. At my request my brother had promised not to engage any
nurse who had been in attendance at the hospital. The difficulty of
procuring any other led him to disregard my request, which at the time
he held simply as a whim. But he did not disregard it entirely, for the
nurse selected had merely acted as a substitute on one occasion, and
then only for about an hour. That was long enough, though, for my
memory to record her image.

Finding myself still under surveillance, I soon jumped to a second
conclusion, namely, that this was no brother of mine at all. He
instantly appeared in the light of a sinister double, acting as a
detective. After that I refused absolutely to speak to him again, and
this repudiation I extended to all other relatives, friends and
acquaintances. If the man I had accepted as my brother was spurious, so
was everybody--that was my deduction. For more than two years I was
without relatives or friends, in fact, without a world, except that one
created by my own mind from the chaos that reigned within it.

While I was at Grace Hospital, it was my sense of hearing which was the
most disturbed. But soon after I was placed in my room at home, _all_
of my senses became perverted. I still heard the "false voices"--which
were doubly false, for Truth no longer existed. The tricks played upon
me by my senses of taste, touch, smell, and sight were the source of
great mental anguish. None of my food had its usual flavor. This soon
led to that common delusion that some of it contained poison--not
deadly poison, for I knew that my enemies hated me too much to allow me
the boon of death, but poison sufficient to aggravate my discomfort. At
breakfast I had cantaloupe, liberally sprinkled with salt. The salt
seemed to pucker my mouth, and I believed it to be powdered alum.