The patient was as obstinate as a mule, though claiming that
she was doing her best and trying everything in her power to
co-operate. She was doing everything in her power to frustrate the
physician’s directions, claiming at the same time that she was
doing her best to follow scrupulously the doctor’s orders. She
claimed she was nice to people when she was nasty and offensive to
everybody who in any way happened not to fall in with her whims
and caprices. In fact, even those who went out of their way to
please her and did everything in attending to her, and helping
her in every way day and night, even those she treated with lack
of consideration, even positive disdain and contempt. She was the
incarnation of demoniacal obsession of psychopathic meanness and
egotism.
She abused and dominated her husband by her sickness, trouble,
fainting and crying spells, headaches, moans and weeping. She made
him do everything she pleased. In fact, she tyrannized over her
husband, and kept on claiming she loved him. She could not for
a moment be without him, and complained that on account of her
extreme devotion to him, “her will was broken.”
She was a regular termagant, a demon incarnate. She knew how to
make a scene and put the blame on her “dear ones.” It was enough
for her to suspect what her friends wanted her to do, she was sure
out of sheer malice, to act the contrary. She was distrustful,
spying on others, sneaky and lying without any scruples; and
yet “no one was so mild, so ideal, so kind, so affectionate, so
considerate, so calm as she was.” She went around reciting poetry
about ideals, health, and happiness. She persuaded herself that
she was highly educated, that she was the best business woman,
the best critic, appreciative of poetry and of art in general.
She was a veritable Nero, an “egomaniac” devoid of all love and
human sympathy. She suffered so much, because she was so unusually
altruistic. A coyote in her fear, a tigress in her rage, she
claimed the gentleness of the dove and the innocence of the babe.
Not for a moment could she fix her attention on anything but
herself, eating, drinking, sleeping, and feeling. Nothing
interested her but herself. She avoided work, however short and
easy. She could, however, talk of herself, of her achievements, of
her moral, intellectual qualities by the hour and by the day. Even
games did not interest her, nothing but herself, and self. This was
so evident that one of the attendants noticed this characteristic
psychopathic trait, and described her as “egomaniac.” She was the
“Great I am.” “The Ego-person is the reflection of the Ego-god.” ...
Whenever one spoke of a great man, she was sure to have her opinion
of him. She was at any rate superior to him. She could give her
opinion on any conceivable subject in literature, economics, and
politics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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