T H E
E L E P H A N T M A N
by
SIR FREDERICK
TREVES
Frederick
Treves (1853–1923) was a prominent British surgeon who was widely known as a close friend of Joseph
Merrick, known as the "Elephant Man" due to his severe deformities.
Born in Dorchester, he studied medicine and passed his surgical exams in 1878.
He specialized in abdominal surgery at London Hospital. In 1886, he saw Joseph
Merrick being exhibited as a showman's curiosity. He brought him to the
hospital where he lived until his death in 1890.
The story of
Merrick's (the Elephant Man's) life published in 1923 is the source of most of
what is known about the man, and forms the basis of the films, television
adaptations and plays that followed. However, the story about Merrick is only
one of many of Doctor Treves' reminiscences, each of them absorbing and
fascinating. This book gives a great insight into medical changes and problems
at the time and forms the memoirs of a great doctor with a distinguished
medical career.
IN THE Mile End Road, opposite to
the London Hospital, there was (and
possibly still is) a line of small
shops. Among them was a vacant
greengrocer’s which was to let. The
whole of the front of the shop, with
the exception of the door, was
hidden by a hanging sheet of canvas on
which was the announcement that the
Elephant Man was to be seen within
and that the price of admission was
twopence. Painted on the canvas in
primitive colours was a life-size
portrait of the Elephant Man. This
very crude production depicted a
frightful creature that could only have
been possible in a nightmare. It
was the figure of a man with the
characteristics of an elephant. The
transfiguration was not far
advanced. There was still more of
the man than of the beast. This
fact—that it was still human—was
the most repellent attribute of the
creature. There was nothing about
it of the pitiableness of the
misshapened or the deformed,
nothing of the grotesqueness of the freak,
but merely the loathing insinuation
of a man being changed into an
animal. Some palm trees in the
background of the picture suggested a
jungle and might have led the
imaginative to assume that it was in this
wild that the perverted object had
roamed.
When I first became aware of this
phenomenon the exhibition was closed,
but a well-informed boy sought the
proprietor in a public house and I
was granted a private view on
payment of a shilling. The shop was empty
and grey with dust. Some old tins
and a few shrivelled potatoes occupied
a shelf and some vague vegetable
refuse the window. The light in the
place was dim, being obscured by
the painted placard outside. The far
end of the shop—where I expect the
late proprietor sat at a desk—was
cut off by a curtain or rather by a
red tablecloth suspended from a cord
by a few rings. The room was cold
and dank, for it was the month of
November. The year, I might say,
was 1884.
The showman pulled back the curtain
and revealed a bent figure crouching
on a stool and covered by a brown
blanket. In front of it, on a tripod,
was a large brick heated by a
Bunsen burner. Over this the creature was
huddled to warm itself. It never
moved when the curtain was drawn back.
Locked up in an empty shop and lit
by the faint blue light of the gas
jet, this hunched-up figure was the
embodiment of loneliness. It might
have been a captive in a cavern or
a wizard watching for unholy
manifestations in the ghostly
flame. Outside the sun was shining and one
could hear the footsteps of the
passers-by, a tune whistled by a boy and
the companionable hum of traffic in
the road.
The showman—speaking as if to a
dog—called out harshly: “Stand up!”
The thing arose slowly and let the
blanket that covered its head and
back fall to the ground. There
stood revealed the most disgusting
specimen of humanity that I have
ever seen. In the course of my
profession I had come upon
lamentable deformities of the face due to
injury or disease, as well as
mutilations and contortions of the body
depending upon like causes; but at
no time had I met with such a
degraded or perverted version of a
human being as this lone figure
displayed. He was naked to the
waist, his feet were bare, he wore a pair
of threadbare trousers that had
once belonged to some fat gentleman’s
dress suit.
From the intensified painting in
the street I had imagined the Elephant
Man to be of gigantic size. This,
however, was a little man below the
average height and made to look
shorter by the bowing of his back. The
most striking feature about him was
his enormous and misshapened head.
From the brow there projected a
huge bony mass like a loaf, while from
the back of the head hung a bag of
spongy, fungous-looking skin, the
surface of which was comparable to
brown cauliflower. On the top of the
skull were a few long lank hairs.
The osseous growth on the forehead
almost occluded one eye. The
circumference of the head was no less than
that of the man’s waist. From the
upper jaw there projected another mass
of bone. It protruded from the
mouth like a pink stump, turning the
upper lip inside out and making of
the mouth a mere slobbering aperture.
This growth from the jaw had been
so exaggerated in the painting as to
appear to be a rudimentary trunk or
tusk. The nose was merely a lump of
flesh, only recognizable as a nose
from its position. The face was no
more capable of expression than a
block of gnarled wood. The back was
horrible, because from it hung, as
far down as the middle of the thigh,
huge, sack-like masses of flesh
covered by the same loathsome
cauliflower skin.
The right arm was of enormous size
and shapeless. It suggested the limb
of the subject of elephantiasis. It
was overgrown also with pendent
masses of the same cauliflower-like
skin. The hand was large and
clumsy—a fin or paddle rather than
a hand. There was no distinction
between the palm and the back. The
thumb had the appearance of a radish,
while the fingers might have been
thick, tuberous roots. As a limb it
was almost useless. The other arm
was remarkable by contrast. It was not
only normal but was, moreover, a
delicately shaped limb covered with
fine skin and provided with a
beautiful hand which any woman might have
envied. From the chest hung a bag
of the same repulsive flesh. It was
like a dewlap suspended from the
neck of a lizard. The lower limbs had
the characters of the deformed arm.
They were unwieldy, dropsical
looking and grossly misshapened.
To add a further burden to his
trouble the wretched man, when a boy,
developed hip disease, which had
left him permanently lame, so that he
could only walk with a stick. He
was thus denied all means of escape
from his tormentors. As he told me
later, he could never run away. One
other feature must be mentioned to
emphasize his isolation from his
kind. Although he was already
repellent enough, there arose from the
fungous skin-growth with which he
was almost covered a very sickening
stench which was hard to tolerate.
From the showman I learnt nothing
about the Elephant Man, except that
he was English, that his name was
John Merrick and that he was
twenty-one years of age.
As at the time of my discovery of
the Elephant Man I was the Lecturer on
Anatomy at the Medical College
opposite, I was anxious to examine him in
detail and to prepare an account of
his abnormalities. I therefore
arranged with the showman that I
should interview his strange exhibit in
my room at the college. I became at
once conscious of a difficulty. The
Elephant Man could not show himself
in the streets. He would have been
mobbed by the crowd and seized by
the police. He was, in fact, as
secluded from the world as the Man
with the Iron Mask. He had, however,
a disguise, although it was almost
as startling as he was himself. It
consisted of a long black cloak
which reached to the ground. Whence the
cloak had been obtained I cannot
imagine. I had only seen such a garment
on the stage wrapped about the
figure of a Venetian bravo. The recluse
was provided with a pair of
bag-like slippers in which to hide his
deformed feet. On his head was a
cap of a kind that never before was
seen. It was black like the cloak,
had a wide peak, and the general
outline of a yachting cap. As the
circumference of Merrick’s head was
that of a man’s waist, the size of
this headgear may be imagined. From
the attachment of the peak a grey
flannel curtain hung in front of the
face. In this mask was cut a wide
horizontal slit through which the
wearer could look out. This
costume, worn by a bent man hobbling along
with a stick, is probably the most
remarkable and the most uncanny that
has as yet been designed. I
arranged that Merrick should cross the road
in a cab, and to insure his
immediate admission to the college I gave
him my card. This card was destined
to play a critical part in Merrick’s
life.
I made a careful examination of my
visitor the result of which I
embodied in a paper.[1] I made
little of the man himself. He was shy,
confused, not a little frightened
and evidently much cowed. Moreover,
his speech was almost
unintelligible. The great bony mass that projected
from his mouth blurred his
utterance and made the articulation of
certain words impossible. He
returned in a cab to the place of
exhibition, and I assumed that I
had seen the last of him, especially as
I found next day that the show had
been forbidden by the police and that
the shop was empty.
I supposed that Merrick was
imbecile and had been imbecile from birth.
The fact that his face was
incapable of expression, that his speech was
a mere spluttering and his attitude
that of one whose mind was void of
all emotions and concerns gave
grounds for this belief. The conviction
was no doubt encouraged by the hope
that his intellect was the blank I
imagined it to be. That he could
appreciate his position was
unthinkable. Here was a man in the
heyday of youth who was so vilely
deformed that everyone he met
confronted him with a look of horror and
disgust. He was taken about the
country to be exhibited as a monstrosity
and an object of loathing. He was
shunned like a leper, housed like a
wild beast, and got his only view
of the world from a peephole in a
showman’s cart. He was, moreover,
lame, had but one available arm, and
could hardly make his utterances
understood. It was not until I came to
know that Merrick was highly
intelligent, that he possessed an acute
sensibility and—worse than all—a
romantic imagination that I realized
the overwhelming tragedy of his
life.
The episode of the Elephant Man
was, I imagined, closed; but I was fated
to meet him again—two years
later—under more dramatic conditions. In
England the showman and Merrick had
been moved on from place to place by
the police, who considered the
exhibition degrading and among the things
that could not be allowed. It was
hoped that in the uncritical retreats
of Mile End a more abiding peace
would be found. But it was not to be.
The official mind there, as
elsewhere, very properly decreed that the
public exposure of Merrick and his
deformities transgressed the limits
of decency. The show must close.
The showman, in despair, fled with
his charge to the Continent. Whither
he roamed at first I do not know;
but he came finally to Brussels. His
reception was discouraging.
Brussels was firm; the exhibition was
banned; it was brutal, indecent and
immoral, and could not be permitted
within the confines of Belgium.
Merrick was thus no longer of value. He
was no longer a source of
profitable entertainment. He was a burden. He
must be got rid of. The elimination
of Merrick was a simple matter. He
could offer no resistance. He was
as docile as a sick sheep. The
impresario, having robbed Merrick
of his paltry savings, gave him a
ticket to London, saw him into the
train and no doubt in parting
condemned him to perdition.
His destination was Liverpool
Street. The journey may be imagined.
Merrick was in his alarming outdoor
garb. He would be harried by an
eager mob as he hobbled along the
quay. They would run ahead to get a
look at him. They would lift the
hem of his cloak to peep at his body.
He would try to hide in the train
or in some dark corner of the boat,
but never could he be free from
that ring of curious eyes or from those
whispers of fright and aversion. He
had but a few shillings in his
pocket and nothing either to eat or
drink on the way. A panic-dazed dog
with a label on his collar would
have received some sympathy and
possibly some kindness. Merrick
received none.
What was he to do when he reached
London? He had not a friend in the
world. He knew no more of London
than he knew of Pekin. How could he
find a lodging, or what
lodging-house keeper would dream of taking him
in? All he wanted was to hide. What
most he dreaded were the open street
and the gaze of his fellow-men. If
even he crept into a cellar the
horrid eyes and the still more
dreaded whispers would follow him to its
depths. Was there ever such a
home-coming!
At Liverpool Street he was rescued
from the crowd by the police and
taken into the third-class
waiting-room. Here he sank on the floor in
the darkest corner. The police were
at a loss what to do with him. They
had dealt with strange and mouldy
tramps, but never with such an object
as this. He could not explain
himself. His speech was so maimed that he
might as well have spoken in
Arabic. He had, however, something with him
which he produced with a ray of
hope. It was my card.
The card simplified matters. It
made it evident that this curious
creature had an acquaintance and
that the individual must be sent for. A
messenger was dispatched to the
London Hospital which is comparatively
near at hand. Fortunately I was in
the building and returned at once
with the messenger to the station.
In the waiting-room I had some
difficulty in making a way through
the crowd, but there, on the floor in
the corner, was Merrick. He looked
a mere heap. It seemed as if he had
been thrown there like a bundle. He
was so huddled up and so helpless
looking that he might have had both
his arms and his legs broken. He
seemed pleased to see me, but he
was nearly done. The journey and want
of food had reduced him to the last
stage of exhaustion. The police
kindly helped him into a cab, and I
drove him at once to the hospital.
He appeared to be content, for he
fell asleep almost as soon as he was
seated and slept to the journey’s
end. He never said a word, but seemed
to be satisfied that all was well.
In the attics of the hospital was
an isolation ward with a single bed.
It was used for emergency
purposes—for a case of delirium tremens, for
a man who had become suddenly
insane or for a patient with an
undetermined fever. Here the
Elephant Man was deposited on a bed, was
made comfortable and was supplied
with food. I had been guilty of an
irregularity in admitting such a
case, for the hospital was neither a
refuge nor a home for incurables.
Chronic cases were not accepted, but
only those requiring active treatment,
and Merrick was not in need of
such treatment. I applied to the
sympathetic chairman of the committee,
Mr. Carr Gomm, who not only was
good enough to approve my action but who
agreed with me that Merrick must
not again be turned out into the world.
Mr. Carr Gomm wrote a letter to
_The Times_ detailing the circumstances
of the refugee and asking for money
for his support. So generous is the
English public that in a few days—I
think in a week—enough money was
forthcoming to maintain Merrick for
life without any charge upon the
hospital funds. There chanced to be
two empty rooms at the back of the
hospital which were little used.
They were on the ground floor, were out
of the way, and opened upon a large
courtyard called Bedstead Square,
because here the iron beds were
marshalled for cleaning and painting.
The front room was converted into a
bed-sitting room and the smaller
chamber into a bathroom. The
condition of Merrick’s skin rendered a bath
at least once a day a necessity,
and I might here mention that with the
use of the bath the unpleasant
odour to which I have referred ceased to
be noticeable. Merrick took up his
abode in the hospital in December,
1886.
Merrick had now something he had
never dreamed of, never supposed to be
possible—a home of his own for
life. I at once began to make myself
acquainted with him and to
endeavour to understand his mentality. It was
a study of much interest. I very
soon learnt his speech so that I could
talk freely with him. This afforded
him great satisfaction, for,
curiously enough, he had a passion
for conversation, yet all his life
had had no one to talk to. I—having
then much leisure—saw him almost
every day, and made a point of
spending some two hours with him every
Sunday morning when he would
chatter almost without ceasing. It was
unreasonable to expect one nurse to
attend to him continuously, but
there was no lack of temporary
volunteers. As they did not all acquire
his speech it came about that I had
occasionally to act as an
interpreter.
I found Merrick, as I have said,
remarkably intelligent. He had learnt
to read and had become a most
voracious reader. I think he had been
taught when he was in hospital with
his diseased hip. His range of books
was limited. The Bible and Prayer
Book he knew intimately, but he had
subsisted for the most part upon
newspapers, or rather upon such
fragments of old journals as he had
chanced to pick up. He had read a
few stories and some elementary
lesson books, but the delight of his
life was a romance, especially a
love romance. These tales were very
real to him, as real as any
narrative in the Bible, so that he would
tell them to me as incidents in the
lives of people who had lived. In
his outlook upon the world he was a
child, yet a child with some of the
tempestuous feelings of a man. He
was an elemental being, so primitive
that he might have spent the
twenty-three years of his life immured in a
cave.
Of his early days I could learn but
little. He was very loath to talk
about the past. It was a nightmare,
the shudder of which was still upon
him. He was born, he believed, in
or about Leicester. Of his father he
knew absolutely nothing. Of his
mother he had some memory. It was very
faint and had, I think, been
elaborated in his mind into something
definite. Mothers figured in the
tales he had read, and he wanted his
mother to be one of those
comfortable lullaby-singing persons who are so
lovable. In his subconscious mind
there was apparently a germ of
recollection in which someone
figured who had been kind to him. He clung
to this conception and made it more
real by invention, for since the day
when he could toddle no one had
been kind to him. As an infant he must
have been repellent, although his
deformities did not become gross until
he had attained his full stature.
It was a favourite belief of his
that his mother was beautiful. The
fiction was, I am aware, one of his
own making, but it was a great joy
to him. His mother, lovely as she
may have been, basely deserted him
when he was very small, so small
that his earliest clear memories were
of the workhouse to which he had
been taken. Worthless and inhuman as
this mother was, he spoke of her
with pride and even with reverence.
Once, when referring to his own
appearance, he said: “It _is_ very
strange, for, you see, mother was
so beautiful.”
The rest of Merrick’s life up to
the time that I met him at Liverpool
Street Station was one dull record
of degradation and squalor. He was
dragged from town to town and from
fair to fair as if he were a strange
beast in a cage. A dozen times a
day he would have to expose his
nakedness and his piteous
deformities before a gaping crowd who greeted
him with such mutterings as “Oh!
what a horror! What a beast!” He had
had no childhood. He had had no
boyhood. He had never experienced
pleasure. He knew nothing of the
joy of living nor of the fun of things.
His sole idea of happiness was to
creep into the dark and hide. Shut up
alone in a booth, awaiting the next
exhibition, how mocking must have
sounded the laughter and merriment
of the boys and girls outside who
were enjoying the “fun of the
fair!” He had no past to look back upon
and no future to look forward to.
At the age of twenty he was a creature
without hope. There was nothing in
front of him but a vista of caravans
creeping along a road, of rows of
glaring show tents and of circles of
staring eyes with, at the end, the
spectacle of a broken man in a poor
law infirmary.
Those who are interested in the
evolution of character might speculate
as to the effect of this brutish
life upon a sensitive and intelligent
man. It would be reasonable to
surmise that he would become a spiteful
and malignant misanthrope, swollen
with venom and filled with hatred of
his fellow-men, or, on the other
hand, that he would degenerate into a
despairing melancholic on the verge
of idiocy. Merrick, however, was no
such being. He had passed through
the fire and had come out unscathed.
His troubles had ennobled him. He
showed himself to be a gentle,
affectionate and lovable creature,
as amiable as a happy woman, free
from any trace of cynicism or
resentment, without a grievance and
without an unkind word for anyone.
I have never heard him complain. I
have never heard him deplore his
ruined life or resent the treatment he
had received at the hands of
callous keepers. His journey through life
had been indeed along a _via
dolorosa_, the road had been uphill all the
way, and now, when the night was at
its blackest and the way most steep,
he had suddenly found himself, as
it were, in a friendly inn, bright
with light and warm with welcome.
His gratitude to those about him was
pathetic in its sincerity and
eloquent in the childlike simplicity with
which it was expressed.
As I learnt more of this primitive
creature I found that there were two
anxieties which were prominent in
his mind and which he revealed to me
with diffidence. He was in the
occupation of the rooms assigned to him
and had been assured that he would
be cared for to the end of his days.
This, however, he found hard to
realize, for he often asked me timidly
to what place he would next be
moved. To understand his attitude it is
necessary to remember that he had
been moving on and moving on all his
life. He knew no other state of
existence. To him it was normal. He had
passed from the workhouse to the
hospital, from the hospital back to the
workhouse, then from this town to
that town or from one showman’s
caravan to another. He had never
known a home nor any semblance of one.
He had no possessions. His sole
belongings, besides his clothes and some
books, were the monstrous cap and
the cloak. He was a wanderer, a pariah
and an outcast. That his quarters
at the hospital were his for life he
could not understand. He could not
rid his mind of the anxiety which had
pursued him for so many years—where
am I to be taken next?
Another trouble was his dread of
his fellow-men, his fear of people’s
eyes, the dread of being always
stared at, the lash of the cruel
mutterings of the crowd. In his
home in Bedstead Square he was secluded;
but now and then a thoughtless
porter or a wardmaid would open his door
to let curious friends have a peep
at the Elephant Man. It therefore
seemed to him as if the gaze of the
world followed him still.
Influenced by these two obsessions
he became, during his first few weeks
at the hospital, curiously uneasy.
At last, with much hesitation, he
said to me one day: “When I am next
moved can I go to a blind asylum or
to a lighthouse?” He had read about
blind asylums in the newspapers and
was attracted by the thought of
being among people who could not see.
The lighthouse had another charm.
It meant seclusion from the curious.
There at least no one could open a
door and peep in at him. There he
would forget that he had once been
the Elephant Man. There he would
escape the vampire showman. He had
never seen a lighthouse, but he had
come upon a picture of the
Eddystone, and it appeared to him that this
lonely column of stone in the waste
of the sea was such a home as he had
longed for.
I had no great difficulty in
ridding Merrick’s mind of these ideas. I
wanted him to get accustomed to his
fellow-men, to become a human being
himself and to be admitted to the
communion of his kind. He appeared day
by day less frightened, less
haunted looking, less anxious to hide, less
alarmed when he saw his door being
opened. He got to know most of the
people about the place, to be
accustomed to their comings and goings,
and to realize that they took no
more than a friendly notice of him. He
could only go out after dark, and
on fine nights ventured to take a walk
in Bedstead Square clad in his
black cloak and his cap. His greatest
adventure was on one moonless
evening when he walked alone as far as the
hospital garden and back again.
To secure Merrick’s recovery and to
bring him, as it were, to life once
more, it was necessary that he
should make the acquaintance of men and
women who would treat him as a
normal and intelligent young man and not
as a monster of deformity. Women I
felt to be more important than men in
bringing about his transformation.
Women were the more frightened of
him, the more disgusted at his
appearance and the more apt to give way
to irrepressible expressions of
aversion when they came into his
presence. Moreover, Merrick had an
admiration of women of such a kind
that it attained almost to
adoration. This was not the outcome of his
personal experience. They were not
real women but the products of his
imagination. Among them was the
beautiful mother surrounded, at a
respectful distance, by heroines
from the many romances he had read.
His first entry to the hospital was
attended by a regrettable incident.
He had been placed on the bed in
the little attic, and a nurse had been
instructed to bring him some food.
Unfortunately she had not been fully
informed of Merrick’s unusual
appearance. As she entered the room she
saw on the bed, propped up by white
pillows, a monstrous figure as
hideous as an Indian idol. She at
once dropped the tray she was carrying
and fled, with a shriek, through
the door. Merrick was too weak to
notice much, but the experience, I
am afraid, was not new to him.
He was looked after by volunteer
nurses whose ministrations were
somewhat formal and constrained.
Merrick, no doubt, was conscious that
their service was purely official,
that they were merely doing what they
were told to do and that they were
acting rather as automata than as
women. They did not help him to
feel that he was of their kind. On the
contrary they, without knowing it,
made him aware that the gulf of
separation was immeasurable.
Feeling this, I asked a friend of
mine, a young and pretty widow, if she
thought she could enter Merrick’s
room with a smile, wish him good
morning and shake him by the hand.
She said she could and she did. The
effect upon poor Merrick was not
quite what I had expected. As he let go
her hand he bent his head on his
knees and sobbed until I thought he
would never cease. The interview
was over. He told me afterwards that
this was the first woman who had
ever smiled at him, and the first
woman, in the whole of his life,
who had shaken hands with him. From
this day the transformation of
Merrick commenced and he began to change,
little by little, from a hunted
thing into a man. It was a wonderful
change to witness and one that
never ceased to fascinate me.
Merrick’s case attracted much
attention in the papers, with the result
that he had a constant succession
of visitors. Everybody wanted to see
him. He must have been visited by
almost every lady of note in the
social world. They were all good
enough to welcome him with a smile and
to shake hands with him. The
Merrick whom I had found shivering behind a
rag of a curtain in an empty shop
was now conversant with duchesses and
countesses and other ladies of high
degree. They brought him presents,
made his room bright with ornaments
and pictures, and, what pleased him
more than all, supplied him with
books. He soon had a large library and
most of his day was spent in
reading. He was not the least spoiled; not
the least puffed up; he never asked
for anything; never presumed upon
the kindness meted out to him, and
was always humbly and profoundly
grateful. Above all he lost his
shyness. He liked to see his door pushed
open and people to look in. He
became acquainted with most of the
frequenters of Bedstead Square,
would chat with them at his window and
show them some of his choicest
presents. He improved in his speech,
although to the end his utterances
were not easy for strangers to
understand. He was beginning,
moreover, to be less conscious of his
unsightliness, a little disposed to
think it was, after all, not so very
extreme. Possibly this was aided by
the circumstance that I would not
allow a mirror of any kind in his
room.
The height of his social
development was reached on an eventful day when
Queen Alexandra—then Princess of
Wales—came to the hospital to pay him
a special visit. With that kindness
which marked every act of her life,
the Queen entered Merrick’s room
smiling and shook him warmly by the
hand. Merrick was transported with
delight. This was beyond even his
most extravagant dream. The Queen
made many people happy, but I think no
gracious act of hers ever caused
such happiness as she brought into
Merrick’s room when she sat by his
chair and talked to him as to a
person she was glad to see.
Merrick, I may say, was now one of
the most contented creatures I have
chanced to meet. More than once he
said to me: “I am happy every hour of
the day.” This was good to think
upon when I recalled the half-dead heap
of miserable humanity I had seen in
the corner of the waiting-room at
Liverpool Street. Most men of
Merrick’s age would have expressed their
joy and sense of contentment by
singing or whistling when they were
alone. Unfortunately poor Merrick’s
mouth was so deformed that he could
neither whistle nor sing. He was
satisfied to express himself by beating
time upon the pillow to some tune
that was ringing in his head. I have
many times found him so occupied
when I have entered his room
unexpectedly. One thing that always
struck me as sad about Merrick was
the fact that he could not smile.
Whatever his delight might be, his
face remained expressionless. He
could weep but he could not smile.
The Queen paid Merrick many visits
and sent him every year a Christmas
card with a message in her own
handwriting. On one occasion she sent him
a signed photograph of herself.
Merrick, quite overcome, regarded it as
a sacred object and would hardly
allow me to touch it. He cried over it,
and after it was framed had it put
up in his room as a kind of ikon. I
told him that he must write to Her
Royal Highness to thank her for her
goodness. This he was pleased to
do, as he was very fond of writing
letters, never before in his life
having had anyone to write to. I
allowed the letter to be dispatched
unedited. It began “My dear
Princess” and ended “Yours very
sincerely.” Unorthodox as it was it was
expressed in terms any courtier
would have envied.
Other ladies followed the Queen’s
gracious example and sent their
photographs to this delighted
creature who had been all his life
despised and rejected of men. His
mantelpiece and table became so
covered with photographs of
handsome ladies, with dainty knicknacks and
pretty trifles that they may almost
have befitted the apartment of an
Adonis-like actor or of a famous
tenor.
Through all these bewildering
incidents and through the glamour of this
great change Merrick still remained
in many ways a mere child. He had
all the invention of an imaginative
boy or girl, the same love of
“make-believe,” the same instinct
of “dressing up” and of personating
heroic and impressive characters.
This attitude of mind was illustrated
by the following incident.
Benevolent visitors had given me, from time
to time, sums of money to be
expended for the comfort of the _ci-devant_
Elephant Man. When one Christmas
was approaching I asked Merrick what he
would like me to purchase as a
Christmas present. He rather startled me
by saying shyly that he would like
a dressing-bag with silver fittings.
He had seen a picture of such an
article in an advertisement which he
had furtively preserved.
The association of a silver-fitted
dressing-bag with the poor wretch
wrapped up in a dirty blanket in an
empty shop was hard to comprehend. I
fathomed the mystery in time, for
Merrick made little secret of the
fancies that haunted his boyish
brain. Just as a small girl with a
tinsel coronet and a window curtain
for a train will realize the
conception of a countess on her way
to court, so Merrick loved to
imagine himself a dandy and a young
man about town. Mentally, no doubt,
he had frequently “dressed up” for
the part. He could “make-believe”
with great effect, but he wanted
something to render his fancied
character more realistic. Hence the
jaunty bag which was to assume the
function of the toy coronet and the
window curtain that could transform
a mite with a pigtail into a
countess.
As a theatrical “property” the
dressing-bag was ingenious, since there
was little else to give substance
to the transformation. Merrick could
not wear the silk hat of the dandy
nor, indeed, any kind of hat. He
could not adapt his body to the
trimly cut coat. His deformity was such
that he could wear neither collar
nor tie, while in association with his
bulbous feet the young blood’s
patent leather shoe was unthinkable. What
was there left to make up the
character? A lady had given him a ring to
wear on his undeformed hand, and a
noble lord had presented him with a
very stylish walking-stick. But
these things, helpful as they were, were
hardly sufficing.
The dressing-bag, however, was
distinctive, was explanatory and entirely
characteristic. So the bag was
obtained and Merrick the Elephant Man
became, in the seclusion of his
chamber, the Piccadilly exquisite, the
young spark, the gallant, the
“nut.” When I purchased the article I
realized that as Merrick could never
travel he could hardly want a
dressing-bag. He could not use the
silver-backed brushes and the comb
because he had no hair to brush.
The ivory-handled razors were useless
because he could not shave. The
deformity of his mouth rendered an
ordinary toothbrush of no avail,
and as his monstrous lips could not
hold a cigarette the cigarette-case
was a mockery. The silver shoe-horn
would be of no service in the
putting on of his ungainly slippers, while
the hat-brush was quite unsuited to
the peaked cap with its visor.
Still the bag was an emblem of the
real swell and of the knockabout Don
Juan of whom he had read. So every
day Merrick laid out upon his table,
with proud precision, the silver
brushes, the razors, the shoe-horn and
the silver cigarette-case which I
had taken care to fill with
cigarettes. The contemplation of
these gave him great pleasure, and such
is the power of self-deception that
they convinced him he was the “real
thing.”
I think there was just one shadow
in Merrick’s life. As I have already
said, he had a lively imagination;
he was romantic; he cherished an
emotional regard for women and his
favourite pursuit was the reading of
love stories. He fell in love—in a
humble and devotional way—with, I
think, every attractive lady he
saw. He, no doubt, pictured himself the
hero of many a passionate incident.
His bodily deformity had left
unmarred the instincts and feelings
of his years. He was amorous. He
would like to have been a lover, to
have walked with the beloved object
in the languorous shades of some
beautiful garden and to have poured
into her ear all the glowing
utterances that he had rehearsed in his
heart. And yet—the pity of
it!—imagine the feelings of such a youth
when he saw nothing but a look of
horror creep over the face of every
girl whose eyes met his. I fancy
when he talked of life among the blind
there was a half-formed idea in his
mind that he might be able to win
the affection of a woman if only
she were without eyes to see.
As Merrick developed he began to
display certain modest ambitions in the
direction of improving his mind and
enlarging his knowledge of the
world. He was as curious as a child
and as eager to learn. There were so
many things he wanted to know and
to see. In the first place he was
anxious to view the interior of
what he called “a real house,” such a
house as figured in many of the
tales he knew, a house with a hall, a
drawing-room where guests were
received and a dining-room with plate on
the sideboard and with easy chairs
into which the hero could “fling
himself.” The workhouse, the common
lodging-house and a variety of mean
garrets were all the residences he
knew. To satisfy this wish I drove
him up to my small house in Wimpole
Street. He was absurdly interested,
and examined everything in detail
and with untiring curiosity. I could
not show him the pampered menials
and the powdered footmen of whom he
had read, nor could I produce the
white marble staircase of the mansion
of romance nor the gilded mirrors
and the brocaded divans which belong
to that style of residence. I
explained that the house was a modest
dwelling of the Jane Austen type,
and as he had read “Emma” he was
content.
A more burning ambition of his was
to go to the theatre. It was a
project very difficult to satisfy.
A popular pantomime was then in
progress at Drury Lane Theatre, but
the problem was how so conspicuous a
being as the Elephant Man could be
got there, and how he was to see the
performance without attracting the
notice of the audience and causing a
panic or, at least, an unpleasant
diversion. The whole matter was most
ingeniously carried through by that
kindest of women and most able of
actresses—Mrs. Kendal. She made the
necessary arrangements with the
lessee of the theatre. A box was
obtained. Merrick was brought up in a
carriage with drawn blinds and was
allowed to make use of the royal
entrance so as to reach the box by
a private stair. I had begged three
of the hospital sisters to don
evening dress and to sit in the front row
in order to “dress” the box, on the
one hand, and to form a screen for
Merrick on the other. Merrick and I
occupied the back of the box which
was kept in shadow. All went well,
and no one saw a figure, more
monstrous than any on the stage,
mount the staircase or cross the
corridor.
One has often witnessed the
unconstrained delight of a child at its
first pantomime, but Merrick’s
rapture was much more intense as well as
much more solemn. Here was a being
with the brain of a man, the fancies
of a youth and the imagination of a
child. His attitude was not so much
that of delight as of wonder and
amazement. He was awed. He was
enthralled. The spectacle left him
speechless, so that if he were spoken
to he took no heed. He often seemed
to be panting for breath. I could
not help comparing him with a man
of his own age in the stalls. This
satiated individual was bored to
distraction, would look wearily at the
stage from time to time and then
yawn as if he had not slept for nights;
while at the same time Merrick was
thrilled by a vision that was almost
beyond his comprehension. Merrick
talked of this pantomime for weeks and
weeks. To him, as to a child with
the faculty of make-believe,
everything was real; the palace was
the home of kings, the princess was
of royal blood, the fairies were as
undoubted as the children in the
street, while the dishes at the
banquet were of unquestionable gold. He
did not like to discuss it as a
play but rather as a vision of some
actual world. When this mood
possessed him he would say: “I wonder what
the prince did after we left,” or
“Do you think that poor man is still
in the dungeon?” and so on and so on.
The splendour and display impressed
him, but, I think, the ladies of the
ballet took a still greater hold
upon his fancy. He did not like the
ogres and the giants, while the
funny men impressed him as irreverent.
Having no experience as a boy of
romping and ragging, of practical jokes
or of “larks,” he had little
sympathy with the doings of the clown, but,
I think (moved by some mischievous
instinct in his subconscious mind),
he was pleased when the policeman
was smacked in the face, knocked down
and generally rendered undignified.
Later on another longing stirred
the depths of Merrick’s mind. It was a
desire to see the country, a desire
to live in some green secluded spot
and there learn something about
flowers and the ways of animals and
birds. The country as viewed from a
wagon on a dusty high road was all
the country he knew. He had never
wandered among the fields nor followed
the windings of a wood. He had
never climbed to the brow of a breezy
down. He had never gathered flowers
in a meadow. Since so much of his
reading dealt with country life he
was possessed by the wish to see the
wonders of that life himself.
This involved a difficulty greater
than that presented by a visit to the
theatre. The project was, however,
made possible on this occasion also
by the kindness and generosity of a
lady—Lady Knightley—who offered
Merrick a holiday home in a cottage
on her estate. Merrick was conveyed
to the railway station in the usual
way, but as he could hardly venture
to appear on the platform the
railway authorities were good enough to
run a second-class carriage into a
distant siding. To this point Merrick
was driven and was placed in the
carriage unobserved. The carriage, with
the curtains drawn, was then
attached to the mainline train.
He duly arrived at the cottage, but
the housewife (like the nurse at the
hospital) had not been made clearly
aware of the unfortunate man’s
appearance. Thus it happened that
when Merrick presented himself his
hostess, throwing her apron over
her head, fled, gasping, to the fields.
She affirmed that such a guest was
beyond her powers of endurance for,
when she saw him, she was “that
took” as to be in danger of being
permanently “all of a tremble.”
Merrick was then conveyed to a
gamekeeper’s cottage which was hidden
from view and was close to the
margin of a wood. The man and his wife
were able to tolerate his presence.
They treated him with the greatest
kindness, and with them he spent
the one supreme holiday of his life. He
could roam where he pleased. He met
no one on his wanderings, for the
wood was preserved and denied to
all but the gamekeeper and the
forester.
There is no doubt that Merrick
passed in this retreat the happiest time
he had as yet experienced. He was
alone in a land of wonders. The breath
of the country passed over him like
a healing wind. Into the silence of
the wood the fearsome voice of the
showman could never penetrate. No
cruel eyes could peep at him
through the friendly undergrowth. It seemed
as if in this place of peace all
stain had been wiped away from his
sullied past. The Merrick who had
once crouched terrified in the filthy
shadows of a Mile End shop was now
sitting in the sun, in a clearing
among the trees, arranging a bunch
of violets he had gathered.
His letters to me were the letters
of a delighted and enthusiastic
child. He gave an account of his
trivial adventures, of the amazing
things he had seen, and of the
beautiful sounds he had heard. He had met
with strange birds, had startled a
hare from her form, had made friends
with a fierce dog, and had watched
the trout darting in a stream. He
sent me some of the wild flowers he
had picked. They were of the
commonest and most familiar kind,
but they were evidently regarded by
him as rare and precious specimens.
He came back to London, to his
quarters in Bedstead Square, much
improved in health, pleased to be
“home” again and to be once more among
his books, his treasures and his
many friends.
Some six months after Merrick’s
return from the country he was found
dead in bed. This was in April,
1890. He was lying on his back as if
asleep, and had evidently died
suddenly and without a struggle, since
not even the coverlet of the bed
was disturbed. The method of his death
was peculiar. So large and so heavy
was his head that he could not sleep
lying down. When he assumed the
recumbent position the massive skull was
inclined to drop backwards, with
the result that he experienced no
little distress. The attitude he
was compelled to assume when he slept
was very strange. He sat up in bed
with his back supported by pillows,
his knees were drawn up, and his
arms clasped round his legs, while his
head rested on the points of his
bent knees.
He often said to me that he wished
he could lie down to sleep “like
other people.” I think on this last
night he must, with some
determination, have made the
experiment. The pillow was soft, and the
head, when placed on it, must have
fallen backwards and caused a
dislocation of the neck. Thus it
came about that his death was due to
the desire that had dominated his
life—the pathetic but hopeless desire
to be “like other people.”
* *
* * *
As a specimen of humanity, Merrick
was ignoble and repulsive; but the
spirit of Merrick, if it could be
seen in the form of the living, would
assume the figure of an upstanding
and heroic man, smooth browed and
clean of limb, and with eyes that
flashed undaunted courage.
His tortured journey had come to an
end. All the way he, like another,
had borne on his back a burden
almost too grievous to bear. He had been
plunged into the Slough of Despond,
but with manly steps had gained the
farther shore. He had been made “a
spectacle to all men” in the
heartless streets of Vanity Fair.
He had been ill-treated and reviled
and bespattered with the mud of
Disdain. He had escaped the clutches of
the Giant Despair, and at last had
reached the “Place of Deliverance,”
where “his burden loosed from off
his shoulders and fell from off his
back, so that he saw it no more.”