should put my legs down and keep them down, whether it hurt or not. The
pain was of course intense when the blood again began to circulate
freely through tissues long unused to its full pressure, and so evident
was my distress that the attendant ignored the doctor's command and
secretly favored me. He would remove the forbidden support for only a
few minutes at a time, gradually lengthening the intervals until at
last I was able to do without the support entirely. Before long and
each day for several weeks I was forced at first to stagger and finally
to walk across the room and back to the bed. The distance was increased
as the pain diminished, until I was able to walk without more
discomfort than a comparatively pleasant sensation of lameness. For at
least two months after my feet first touched the floor I had to be
carried up and downstairs, and for several months longer I went
flat-footed.

Delusions of persecution--which include "delusions of
self-reference"--though a source of annoyance while I was in an
inactive state, annoyed and distressed me even more when I began to
move about and was obliged to associate with other patients. To my
mind, not only were the doctors and attendants detectives; each patient
was a detective and the whole institution was a part of the Third
Degree. Scarcely any remark was made in my presence that I could not
twist into a cleverly veiled reference to myself. In each person I
could see a resemblance to persons I had known, or to the principals or
victims of the crimes with which I imagined myself charged. I refused
to read; for to read veiled charges and fail to assert my innocence was
to incriminate both myself and others. But I looked with longing
glances upon all printed matter and, as my curiosity was continually
piqued, this enforced abstinence grew to be well-nigh intolerable.