They demonstrate for the narrator the strange behavior they have witnessed, including patients who thought themselves a teapot, a donkey, cheese, champagne, a frog, snuff tobacco, a pumpkin, and others. The narrator says that there is much of the "bizarre" about everything at the dinner.Ĭonversation as they eat focuses on the patients they have been treating.
Dinner is also accompanied by musicians playing "fiddles, fifes, trombones and a drum", and though they seem to entertain all the others present, the narrator likens the music to horrible noises (at one point even mentioning the torture and execution device known as the brazen bull). The table and the room are decorated with an excess of lit candles wherever it is possible to find a place for them. Most of them are female and are "bedecked with a profusion of jewelry, such as rings, bracelets and earrings, and wore their bosoms and arms shamefully bare". The other guests are dressed somewhat oddly: though their clothes are well made, they do not seem to fit the people very well. The narrator tours the grounds of the hospital and is invited to dinner, where he is joined by 25 to 30 other people and a large, lavish spread of food. He questions this, as he has heard of its success and popularity, but Maillard tells him to "believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see". The narrator is shocked to learn that the "system of soothing" has recently been abandoned. A companion with whom he is travelling knows Monsieur Maillard, the originator of the system, and makes introductions before leaving the narrator. The story follows an unnamed narrator who visits a mental institution in southern France (more accurately, a " Maison de Santé") known for a revolutionary new method of treating mental illnesses called the "system of soothing". First published in Graham's Magazine in November 1845, the story centers on a naïve and unnamed narrator's visit to a mental asylum in the southern provinces of France. " The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" is a dark comedy short story by the American author Edgar Allan Poe. First page of the story in Graham's Magazine (November 1845)
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