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 BODY-STATES:
INTERPERSONAL
AND RELATIONAL
PERSPECTIVES ON
THE TREATMENT OF
EATING DISORDERS

Edited by Jean Petrucelli

First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Body-states : interpersonal and relational perspectives on the treatment of
eating disorders / edited by Jean Petrucelli.
p. ; cm. — (Psychoanalysis in a new key book series ; vol. 22)
Includes bibliographical references.
[DNLM: 1. Eating Disorders—psychology. 2. Eating Disorders—
therapy. WM 175]
RC552.E18
616.85′26—dc23
2014007274
ISBN: 978-0-415-62956-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-62957-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-75817-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Apex CoVantage, LLC
 TO MY SIBLINGS,
JOANNE, MICHAEL, JOSEPH, TERESA
AND STEVEN
A N D T H E I R C O U N T E R PA RT S . . . A N D
TO OUR
MOM FOR INSPIRING IT ALL.
This page intentionally left blank
 CONTENTS

About the Editor xv

Contributors xvi
Foreword by Philip M. Bromberg xxi
Acknowledgments xxiii

Introduction: ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ 1

JEAN PETRUCELLI

PART I
Finding Beauty in the Beast: Interpersonal Perspectives
and Treatment of Eating Disorders 11

1 Mermaids, Mistresses, and Medusa: Getting ‘Inside Out and

Outside In’ the Relational Montage of an Eating Disorder 13
JEAN PETRUCELLI

2 ‘My Body Is a Cage’: Interfacing Interpersonal Neurobiology,

Attachment, Affect Regulation, Self-Regulation, and the
Regulation of Relatedness in Treatment With Patients
With Eating Disorders 35
JEAN PETRUCELLI

PART II
The Mindbody and the Bodymind: Reflections Inside and
Outside Reality and Subjectivity 57

3 ‘You’re the One That I Want’: Appetite, Agency, and

the Gendered Self 59
SARAH SCHOEN

xi
 CONTENTS

4 ‘Stretched to the Limit’: The Elastic Body Image in

the Reflexive Mind 79
E L I Z A B E T H HAL S T E D

5 ‘I Can See Clearly Now the Rain Has Gone’: The Role
of the Body in Forecasting the Future 92
PAT O G D E N

6 ‘Look at me. . . . What Am I Supposed to Be?’: Women,

Culture, and Cosmetic Splitting 104
C AT H E R I N E BAKE R- P I T T S

7 ‘I Won’t Grow Up, Never Grow Up, Not Me!’: Anorexia

Nervosa and Maturity Fears Revisited 120
D A N A L . C H ARATAN

8 ‘Spitting Out the Demons’: The Perils of Giving and

Receiving for the Patient With Anorexia 133
J I L L C . H O WARD

PART III
Treating the Family, the Young, the Hormonal, and
the Religious: Developmental, Familial, and
Cultural Contexts 143

9 ‘What’s Going On, What’s Going On?’: An Interpersonal

Approach to Family Therapy With the Patient With
an Eating Disorder 145
J U D I T H B R I SMAN

10 ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’: Girls’ Growing Bodies,

Growing Minds, Growing Complications 155
J A C Q U E L I N E F E RRARO

11 ‘The Circle (Cycle) Game’: Ovarian Hormones, Self-States,

and Appetites 172
SUE KOLOD

12 ‘Body and Soul’: Eating Disorders in the Orthodox

Jewish Population 186
C A RY N G O RDE N AND S HARON KOF MAN

xii
 CONTENTS

PART IV
Appetite Regulation in an Interpersonal and Cultural
Context 205

13 ‘These Boots Aren’t Made for Walking, but That’s Just

What They’ll Do’: The Use of the Detailed Inquiry in
the Treatment of Obesity 207
JANET TINTNER

14 ‘No Self-Control’: Working in the Binge Eating Spectrum 219

A N N E F. M A L AV É

15 ‘Sweet Thing’: Racially Charged Transferences and Desire in

the Interpersonal Treatment of a Black American Woman
With Binge Eating Disorder—Who Needs Chocolate Cake
When You Can Have Chocolate Men? 231
A N D R E A H A M ILTON

16 ‘Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered’: Sharing

the Dream 245
I R I S A C K E R M AN

17 ‘Hooked on a Feeling’: Emotions That Facilitate

the Movement from Compulsion to Choice—Three
Bodies. . . . Patient, Analyst, and Supervisor 257
S A N D R A B U E C HL E R

PART V
Beyond the Interpersonal: Clinical and Assessment
Tools Across Modalities 267

18 ‘Come Together’: Blending CBT/DBT and Interpersonal

Psychotherapy in the Treatment of Eating Disorders 269
CARRIE D. GOTTLIEB

19 ‘One Pill Makes You Larger, and One Pill Makes You
Small’ . . . and the Ones That Doctor Gives You May
or May Not Do Anything at All: A Brief Summary of
Pharmacological Approaches in the Treatment of
Eating Disorders 283
A . M I T T S I C R OS S MAN AND Z E V L ABI NS

xiii
 CONTENTS

20 Body or Mind: A Discontinuous Model of Neural

Emotional Processing 288
B A R B A R A P EARL MAN

21 The Acquisition of a Body: Establishing a New Paradigm

and Introducing a Clinical Tool to Explore the
Intergenerational Transmission of Embodiment 302
T H E B O D I GROUP ME MBE RS : CAT HE RI NE BAKER -PITTS,
C A R O L B L O OM, L UI S E E I CHE NBAUM, L I NDA G A RO FA LLO U ,
S U S I E O R B ACH, JE AN P E T RUCE L L I , VI CTORI A SLIVA ,
S U Z I TO RTORA

22 ‘Across the Universe’: Christians, Patients, Women With

Anorexia Nervosa, Then and Now 316
E M I LY A . K URI L OF F

Index 323

xiv
 ABOUT THE EDITOR

Jean Petrucelli, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and a psychoanalyst, director

and co-founder of the Eating Disorders, Compulsions & Addictions Service
(EDCAS); fellow; supervising analyst; teaching faculty; conference advisory
board chair, and founding director of the Eating, Disorders, Compulsions &
Addictions 1-year educational certificate program at the William Alanson
White Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She is an adjunct clini-
cal professor of psychology at the New York University postdoctoral program
in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis; associate editor for Contemporary Psy-
choanalysis; and member of the BODI Group, conducting research on the
intergenerational transmission of body image and embodiment.
Dr. Petrucelli is editor of the books Knowing, Not-Knowing & Sort-of-
Knowing: Psychoanalysis and the Experience of Uncertainty (Karnac Books,
2010); and Longing: Psychoanalytic Musings on Desire (Karnac Books, 2006);
co-editor of the book Hungers and Compulsions: The Psychodynamic Treatment
of Eating Disorders and Addictions (Rowan & Littlefield/Jason Aronson Inc.,
2009, 2001). She specializes in the interpersonal treatment of eating disorders
and addictions and lectures at colleges, universities, institutes, psychoanalytic
societies, and treatment facilities. She is in private practice in New York City.

xv
 CONTRIBUTORS

Iris Ackerman, PhD, is a clinical social worker who received her doctorate from
New York University. She completed her postdoctoral training in psychoanal-
ysis and psychotherapy at Adelphi University/Derner Institute of Advanced
Psychological Studies and completed a 1-year educational program in Eating
Disorders, Compulsions and Addictions at the William Alanson White Insti-
tute, NYC. She maintains a full-time private practice in East Rockaway, Long
Island, working with adolescents, young adults, and adults in individual, mari-
tal, and group therapy.

Catherine Baker-Pitts, PhD, LCSW, is a lecturer at NYU and a faculty member

and co-director of the training program for psychotherapists at the Women’s
Therapy Centre Institute, specializing in eating and body-image problems.
She is a founding member of the National Eating Disorders Association as
well as a current member of NEDA’s Clinical Advisory Council; journal edi-
tor of Eating Disorders and author of numerous booklets and papers on the
intersection of media culture, gender, technology, and the body. She is a mem-
ber of the BODI Group. In her private practice, she treats people with a range
of body-based difficulties and consults with patients pre- and postelective
cosmetic surgeries.

Judith Brisman, PhD, is the founding director of the Eating Disorder Resource
Center in NYC. She is co-author of Surviving an Eating Disorder: Strategies
for Family and Friends (3rd edition, 2009) and she is on the editorial board
of Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. Dr. Brisman
is an associate editor for the journal Contemporary Psychoanalysis and is a
supervisor of psychotherapy and EDCAS teaching faculty at the William Alan-
son White Institute. She has published and lectured extensively regarding the
interpersonal treatment of eating disorders and is well known for her expertise
in running training seminars and presentations.
Philip M. Bromberg, PhD, is a training and supervising analyst of the Wil-
liam Alanson White Institute, and adjunct clinical professor of psychology
at the New York University postdoctoral program in psychoanalysis and

xvi
 CONTRIBUTORS

psychotherapy. He is emeritus co-editor-in-chief of Contemporary Psycho-

analysis and an editorial board member of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and
Psychoanalytic Inquiry. Dr. Bromberg is most widely recognized as author of
Standing in the Spaces: Essays on Clinical Process, Trauma, and Dissociation
(Analytic Press, 1998); Awakening the Dreamer: Clinical Journeys (Analytic
Press, 2006); and The Shadow of the Tsunami: And the Growth of the Rela-
tional Mind (Routledge, 2011).
Sandra Buechler, PhD, is a training and supervising analyst at the William
Alanson White Institute and faculty for EDCAS. She is a supervisor at
Columbia Presbyterian Hospital’s internship and postdoctoral programs and
at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. A graduate of the William
Alanson White Institute, Dr. Buechler has written extensively on emotions
in psychoanalysis, including papers on hope, joy, loneliness, and mourning
in the analyst and patient. Her books include Clinical Values: Emotions that
Guide Psychoanalytic Treatment (Analytic Press, 2004); Making a Difference
in Patients’ Lives: Emotional Experience in the Therapeutic Setting (Rout-
ledge, 2008); and Still Practicing: The Heartaches and Joys of a Clinical
Career (Routledge, 2012).
Dana L. Charatan, PhD, received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the
Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She maintains a private practice
in Boulder, Colorado, where she works with individuals with various eating,
body, and exercise related disorders. Dr. Charatan is a faculty member and
clinical supervisor at the Boulder Institute for Psychotherapy and Research,
where she teaches and sits on the training committee for their pre- and post-
doctoral psychology and master’s internship programs. She is a member of the
Early Career Committee for APA’s Division 39.
A. Mittsi Crossman, MD, received her BA from Yale while working with research
teams at the Yale Child Study Center and Conduct Clinic. She attended Uni-
versity of South Florida College of Medicine and completed her residency at
Bellevue Hospital in NYC in adult psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine, as
well as a fellowship in addiction psychiatry. Dr. Crossman worked as unit chief
of the Dual Diagnosis Inpatient Unit in Bellevue Hospital. She is a diplomat for
the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and in General Psychiatry and
Addiction Psychiatry; has an academic appointment with NYU; and has been
intensively trained in DBT. Her interests lie in trauma, addictions, eating dis-
orders, and personality disorders and she maintains a private practice in NYC.
Jacqueline Ferraro, DMH, is a fellow, supervisor of psychotherapy, faculty,
steering committee member and supervisor of EDCAS; member of executive
committee, faculty and supervisor of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy
Training Program; and associate director of Parent Center at the William Alan-
son White Institute. She is in private practice in NYC treating children, ado-
lescents, and adults.

xvii
 CONTRIBUTORS

Carrie D. Gottlieb, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, currently in full-time private

practice in Manhattan, specializing in the treatment of adults and adolescents
with eating disorders and substance abuse issues, and is a steering committee
member and faculty of the EDCAS program at the William Alanson White
Institute. She has received training in cognitive behavioral, interpersonal,
relapse prevention, and DBT therapies. She participated in post graduate train-
ing at the NY State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in
the division of substance abuse and a 1-year educational program at the Wil-
liam Alanson White Institute in Eating Disorders, Compulsions, and Addic-
tions. In addition, she served as director of the day treatment program at the
Renfrew Center of NY.
Caryn Gorden, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private
practice in NYC. She is a graduate of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psy-
chotherapy and Psychoanalysis and a Faculty member of the EDCAS program
at the William Alanson White Institute and the Stephen Mitchell Center. She
presents and writes about the intergenerational transmission of trauma and
regularly works with members of the Orthodox Jewish population.
Elizabeth Halsted, PhD, is a supervisor of psychotherapy at WAWI; teaching
faculty and steering committee member of EDCAS at the William Alanson
White Institute. She is a chapter author of “A Shoe Is Rarely Just a Shoe:
Women’s Accessories and Their Psyches,” in Longing, Psychoanalytic Mus-
ings on Desire, edited by J. Petrucelli, published by Karnac Books, 2006. She
is in private practice in NYC and is a consultant to the Rudolph Steiner School
in Manhattan.
Andrea Hamilton, PhD, received her PhD in clinical psychology from North-
western University and developed specializations in providing psychological
consultation to the medically ill and in the treatment of eating disorders and
obesity. She participated in a postdoctoral fellowship in consultation-liaison
psychiatry at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. She joined the fac-
ulty of Memorial Sloan-Kettering and established the Psychosocial Services
Division of the Department of Gynecological Oncology where she served as
director, providing psychological services and sexual health consultation to
those affected by gynecological cancer and its treatments. She has published
in the area of psycho-oncology and sexual health. Dr. Hamilton is currently a
psychoanalytic candidate in the NYU postdoctoral program in psychotherapy
and psychoanalysis, where she has received the Benjamin Wolstein and Harris
Fellowships. She currently has a private practice in NYC.
Jill C. Howard, PhD, is a supervisor of psychotherapy, teaching faculty; steering
committee member of EDCAS at the William Alanson White Institute. She is
an adjunct full professor at Long Island University. She has published numer-
ous papers on infidelity and the use of money in relationships. She is in private
practice in NYC.

xviii
 CONTRIBUTORS

Sharon Kofman, PhD, MPH, is a training and supervising psychoanalyst, direc-

tor of the Low-Cost Psychotherapy Supervision Service; faculty member in the
Psychoanalytic Training Program, the EDCAS training program, and the Child
and Adolescent Training Program at the William Alanson White Institute. She
is a member of the faculty at the Parent-Infant Program at the Columbia Psy-
choanalytic Center and an adjunct lecturer of psychology at the Payne Whitney
Woman’s program at Weill-Cornell Hospital. She has a private practice in New
York City.
Sue Kolod, PhD, is a supervising and training analyst, steering committee and
faculty member of EDCAS and former chair of the COF at the William Alan-
son White Institute. She is co-editor of the blog Contemporary Psychoanaly-
sis in Action. Dr. Kolod has written numerous chapters and articles about the
impact of hormones on the psyche. Her work also focuses on the impact of
hormones on sexuality. She maintains a fulltime private practice in Brooklyn
and Manhattan.
Emily A. Kuriloff, PsyD, is a training and supervising analyst, faculty, and mem-
ber of the EDCAS faculty at the William Alanson White Institute; editor for
Special Issues and former book review editor for the journal Contemporary
Psychoanalysis; author of the book Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the
Legacy of the Third Reich: History, Memory and Tradition (Routledge, 2013).
Zev Labins, MD, is a clinical asst. professor of psychiatry at Columbia Univer-
sity College of Physicians & Surgeons, is certified by the American Board of
Psychiatry & Neurology in the specialty of psychiatry and the subspecialty of
addiction psychiatry and certified in psychoanalysis by the American Acad-
emy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry. He is a distinguished fellow
of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psy-
choanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry.
Anne F. Malavé, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, faculty,
supervisor of psychotherapy, and member of the steering committee and fac-
ulty of EDCAS at the William Alanson White Institute. She maintains a private
practice with offices in Manhattan, New York City, and in Dutchess County,
upstate New York.
Pat Ogden, PhD, is a pioneer in somatic psychology and the founder/director of
the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, an internationally recognized school
specializing in somatic–cognitive approaches for the treatment of posttrau-
matic stress disorder and attachment disturbances. She is a clinician, consul-
tant, international lecturer and trainer, and first author of Trauma and the Body:
A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy (W.W. Norton and Co., 2006).
Barbara Pearlman, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and group analyst specializ-
ing in the treatment of eating disorders for over 28 years. She runs the Finchley
Clinic for Eating Disorders—a private out-patient facility in North London.

xix
 CONTRIBUTORS

Previously she supervised an out-patient clinic at Watford General, an NHS

hospital, and created and supervised an in-patient, day-patient and out-patient
eating disorder clinic at the North London Priory. She was also consultant
supervisor to a regional eating disorder service in North East Essex. Dr. Pearl-
man is a founding member and Associate Director of the Independent Psychol-
ogy Service (IPS)—a network of private clinical psychologists, psychiatrists,
and therapists in North London. The IPS provides assessment and treatment
for individuals, couples, and families.
Sarah Schoen, PhD, is on the faculty and steering committee of EDCAS at the
William Alanson White Institute. She is also a supervisor of psychotherapy at
the White Institute and a former supervising psychologist at the Bellevue/NYU
Program for Survivors of Torture. She is in private practice in New York City.

The BODI Group

Catherine Baker-Pitts, PhD, LCSW—The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute,
NYC
Carol Bloom, LCSW—The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute, NYC
Luise Eichenbaum, LCSW—The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute, NYC
Linda Garofallou, MS—Children’s Hospital of NJ at Newark Beth Israel Medi-
cal Center
Susie Orbach, PhD—The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute, London & NYC
Jean Petrucelli, PhD—The William Alanson White Institute, NYC; NYU Postdoc
Victoria Sliva—The New School for Social Research, NYC
Suzi Tortora, EdD, BC-DMT—New School for Continuing Studies; Pratt Insti-
tute, Brooklyn, NY
Janet Tintner, PsyD, is Division 1 faculty and supervisor of psychotherapy;
steering committee member, supervisor and faculty member of EDCAS at the
William Alanson White Institute, NYC. She also runs a stroke support group at
St. Lukes Hospital, NY. Dr. Tintner writes and teaches extensively on obesity
and is in full time private practice in NYC.

xx
 FOREWORD
The Body as Self-State

Several years ago, in a conversation with Jean Petrucelli about her (2010a) ‘ten-
nis’ paper, “Serve, Smash, and Self-States,” we discussed its central emphasis on
self-states and affect regulation—especially the development of her view that the
body has a mind of its own and that what the body ‘knows’ is being transmitted
from the body to the mind as organized by the central nervous system. It was an
idea whose ‘rightness’ I could feel as well as understand. It also struck me, even
back then, that her insight was achieved not through linear thinking but required
a mind so creative that she could arrive at this groundbreaking insight only by
releasing herself from the time-honored frame that limits our view of what the
body knows as information coming from the central nervous system. Her mind
was able to move her in a new direction because she was able to move in the
opposite direction from how this is usually conceived.
I had not until then thought about the body as a self-state, but the more we
talked the more accurate it felt. If the body’s mind speaks its own language, and it
is an affective language, then the more you learn to listen to it affectively, without
trying to think about it, the more fluent it becomes in letting you know what you
need to know.
It then became easy for me to imagine why, if the body is indeed a self-state,
it will function most reliably if its own mind can, as needed, simultaneously
interface with the mind’s (left-brain) capacity for cognition without interfering
with the functioning of the (right-brain’s) affective knowing (which is what we
call ‘body memory’). I could see the role of normal dissociation in this adaptive
fluidity—a powerful new example of what Petrucelli (2010b) has called ‘sort-
of-knowing.’ So many questions for further exploration then opened up. If the
body as self-state is indeed an adaptive use of normal dissociation, can this help
to account for why the language of the body (affect) depends on the mind of the
body to hold its language as a regulatable experience? I could already feel myself
in even greater awe of our capacity to bypass cognition and enter a state that we
call being in a ‘zone’ or ‘on a roll’ or ‘in a groove.’
René Magritte challenged both convention and the definition of reality by plac-
ing the words “This is Not a Pipe” within his iconic painting. What the viewer
looks at in the painting is indeed not a pipe but the image of a pipe. Jean Petrucelli

xxi
 FOREWORD

might easily have titled what is between these covers “This is Not a Book of
Edited Papers.” Do not be fooled by the format. It is the groundbreaking perspec-
tive of Dr. Petrucelli that inspires each chapter, and my use of the word ground-
breaking should not be taken lightly.
—Philip M. Bromberg, PhD

References
Petrucelli, J. (2010a). Serve, smash and self-states: Tennis on the couch and courting Steve
Mitchell. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 46, 578–588.
Petrucelli, J. (2010b). Knowing, not-knowing & sort-of-knowing: Psychoanalysis and the
experience of uncertainty. London, England: Karnac.

xxii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We live in an era of having to fight the constant pressure to conform or pretend;

we work tirelessly, we create, we dream, and we play. What seemed like a simple,
manageable plan, that of bringing together colleagues doing groundbreaking work
in the treatment of eating disorders to create an anthology to share their thoughts
and experiences, is not an endeavor that one should attempt to entertain in their
spare time. The mammoth undertaking that editing such a compilation becomes
could not have been accomplished without the generosity of time, hard work,
efforts, sympathetic ears, and compassion of those swept up in the maelstrom of
this project . . . —and there were many.
To begin, the members of my Eating Disorders, Compulsions & Addictions
(EDCAS) steering committee: Jacqueline Ferraro, Carrie D. Gottlieb, Elizabeth
Halsted, Jill C. Howard, Sue Kolod, Anne F. Malavé, Sarah Schoen, and Janet
Tintner, and EDCAS faculty members at the William Alanson White Institute,
brought their own singular approaches and areas of expertise that highlight these
chapters. In particular, I want to acknowledge Sarah Schoen, Jill C. Howard, and
Janet Tintner for always going above and beyond in their ability to help and feed
me just the right amount of inspirational nourishment. I feel blessed by the genu-
ine curiosity and intellectual heft of all my contributing authors whose ideas flow
through these chapters and I am thankful for their generosity in sharing their theo-
retical and clinical knowledge. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the
BODI group members, who faced the daunting task of working across universes
and creating a new clinical assessment tool that was many years in the making.
The theoretical underpinnings of this book could have only come to fruition
because of the work of several, starting with Philip M. Bromberg, whose seminal
ideas on self-states has influenced a generation of analysts. On a personal note,
Philip has continued to provide immeasurable support and inspiration for every
project that I undertake, and I am incredibly moved by the Foreword he authored
for this anthology. I could not have done this without him. My other heroes/
mentors include Edgar A. Levenson, Donnel Stern, Steve Mitchell, Lew Aron,
and Susie Orbach, whose accepted wisdom has greatly influenced my thinking
and has allowed me to apply psychoanalytic wisdom to clinical treatment for
patients with eating disorders. Donnel Stern has also graciously provided a home

xxiii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

for this anthology in his Psychoanalysis in a New Key Book series, for which I am
deeply grateful and humbled.
The painstaking editing of this book could not have been accomplished without
the cherished help of a few colleagues and friends that have read various parts of
this book and offered detailed critiques and commentaries: Philip M. Bromberg,
Joseph Canarelli, Jill C. Howard, Ruth Livingston, Nick Samstag, Sarah Schoen,
Donnel Stern, and members of my writing group led by Sue Kolod, whose com-
ments and feedback were enormously providential. I feel immense gratitude to
Ruth Livingston, who persevered in the face of time constraints and shared her
pearls of wisdom with constructive edits along the way. I would like to thank
Annelisa Pederson for her expertise and skillfulness in copy editing, ensuring
all my is were dotted and my ts were crossed. Additionally, thanks goes out to
Kristopher Spring, who offered me the initial opportunity to become part of the
Routledge family, and to Kate Hawes and her crew, including Kirsten Buchanan,
for their infinite patience in shepherding this book to publication.
Once more, I want to express my love and appreciation to my family: my
devoted mom, a world-class Scrabble player; my late dad, with his infinite wis-
dom, who still watches over me and sometimes lets me know that; my siblings
and all their parts; my cherished, remarkable, and playful daughters Juliette and
Jade, who, as legend has it, and just for the record, as they have told me, never
once cried when they were babies; and my love and soul mate, Steve, who affably
endures.
Lastly, I am forever indebted to my patients, for their multitude of gifts: their
humanity, courage, and willingness to go beyond and let themselves be known
and seen, in ways that permeate and transform us together, over lifetimes.

xxiv
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Shuddering
castle
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Shuddering castle

Author: Wilbur Finley Fauley

Release date: October 4, 2023 [eBook #71806]

Most recently updated: October 18, 2023

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Green Circle Books, 1936

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from images made available by the HathiTrust
Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

SHUDDERING CASTLE ***
 SHUDDERING CASTLE

By Wilbur Fawley

GREEN CIRCLE BOOKS

NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1936
by LEE FURMAN, INC.

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any

evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was
renewed.]

Printed in the United States of America

 SHUDDERING CASTLE
Shuddering Castle is not a mystery novel in the generally
accepted sense. It is a novel with a mystery; a highly imaginative
story, with revelations in the field of radio and short-wave
broadcasting. None of the strange events recorded oversteps the
boundaries of accepted natural laws.
In this novel of exciting action, radio communication is established
between Earth and Mars, with a world-girdling hook-up from Radio
Center, in New York City, and the reader will be amazed to find that
the Martians are human beings like ourselves, subject to the same
laws, the same temptations and passions which affect humanity. Into
this pulsating picture of tensed American life of the near future,
comes another revelation from the sky. This brings the reader to the
drama of a frightening but plausible visitor from the jungles of Mars
to this world, whose presence in the old spooky castle of an
eccentric millionaire-scientist on Long Island causes great fear to its
inmates when night falls.
But there is thrilling romance to warm your hearts, the infatuation of
a young newspaperman for the alluring debutante niece of the old
scientist; a humanly drawn boy and girl who are caught in the violent
web of mystery and sudden death. Shuddering Castle is a unique
study in the mysterious recesses of the universe.

SHUDDERING CASTLE
 I
As a staid and wealthy New York family, of distinguished but remote
English ancestry, we moved formally and rather arrogantly within our
small, exclusive circle, holding on grimly to the traditions and
elegancies of the past. During the winter season, we viewed the
outside world placidly, and with the respectful composure of middle-
age, from the dignified privacy of our red brick mansion in
Washington Square.
On May first, as regular as clockwork, year in and year out, and with
all the solemnity of a ritual, we put our elaborate upholstered
furniture in linen shrouds, veiled the somber, scowling family portraits
in their dull gold frames with fly-netting, boarded up the windows and
doors, and went to the country. Our summer home is called The
Castle, and it is situated at Sands Cliff, Long Island. As a family we
resembled nothing so much as this embattled stone fortress, of old-
world design, in which we spent more than half the year.
As long back as I can remember, we had successfully preserved the
family's seclusion from the living world. Wherever we happened to
be, in town or country, we had protected our privacy with shuttered
windows, and massive iron gates that were secured both day and
night with heavy chains. Numerous signs of "Private" and "No
Trespassing Allowed" dotted our grounds like grave markers.
And then, quite suddenly, our lives became incredibly transformed. A
series of weird events brought us out of our privacy and seclusion—
brought us plenty of excitement and trouble and even horror.
But that was not to be wondered at, with Henry, my elder brother,
suddenly developing a mania for research in scientific matters,
especially the science of heavenly bodies and the phenomena of
radio. He did not pretend to be a scholar, although he had cultivated
scholarly habits most of his life. Inexplicably, this mania had seized
him late in life; a sort of bursting out of the abnormal repression
which held us all in thrall, no doubt as the result of our long seclusion
from the outside world and following the drab and barren routine of
our lives with such punctilious rigidity.
Ample means had enabled him to completely outfit an observatory,
with a powerful telescope, at our summer residence. Here he would
spend hours gazing into the abyss of space. He saw things up there
the trained, professional astronomer never saw, or ever hoped to see
—colliding suns, formation of temporary stars, the rejuvenescence of
dying worlds, and gaseous explosions in the Milky Way.
One of his pet theories was that the planet Mars was inhabited by a
race of people like ourselves, and that their men of science had long
been trying to establish radio communication with the earth. The
static on our radio set which annoyed me intensely, would galvanize
Henry with delight and hope, and his eyes would glisten almost
frenziedly behind their horn-rimmed spectacles.
"Those are distinctly electro-magnetic waves," he would say, "that
come from some point far off in space, and they are not due to any
terrestrial disturbance like thunderstorms, local or distant."
There was no opening, no escape, from Henry once he got started
on the galactic radio waves as differing from the cosmic rays and
from the phenomenon of cosmic radiation.
"I'm telling you, Livingston," he once declared in an excited, high-
pitched voice, "that man has only begun his conquest of time and
space. There are no limitations to human achievement. The world is
on the threshold of things unheard of, undreamed of. I have no doubt
that we will soon be able to establish radio communication with
Mars, and with my leisure, money and the required taste for science,
I feel that I am admirably fitted to make it come true."
And from that day he was changed, secretive. He refused to tell me
what he had discovered. Again and again I begged him to explain
and always it was the same vague answer, the same shake of the
head, and tightened lips.
It all seemed fantastic and visionary then, Henry's theories about
Mars and interstellar communication, but when unusual things began
to happen and our peaceful and ordered living was suddenly and
violently disturbed, I realized, as never before, that visions often
come to reality in an unbelievable way.
At the time we were thrown into such turmoil, and the dread spotlight
of publicity centered upon us, our family consisted of Henry and
myself, both bachelors; Jane, our spinster sister, and Patricia Royce
Preston—Pat for short—a very fascinating young person, who had
come to live with us at the tender age of fourteen, after the shocking
death of her parents, our youngish sister, Virginia Royce Preston,
and her husband, Allston, who were killed in an air-liner crash near
Paris.
There is something strangely lovable about a young girl in the
process of growing up. The advent of Pat meant, of course, less
privacy and the trampling down of staid personal habits and family
customs which we held virtually sacred. The fact that we were old
and queer and our household drab and rather grotesque, in
comparison to the modernistic and rather barbaric splendor of our
more fashionable friends, scarcely troubled her. Nothing seemed to
matter but that this bright-eyed, brown-haired girl should concentrate
all her love and devotion on a trio of old fossils. A warm affection
grew between us and our pretty niece. As she blossomed into young
womanhood our lives became centered in her. She was now
eighteen.
Although we were born rich, and received a huge income from the
heritage of vast and various real estate holdings on Manhattan
Island, both Henry and myself, strangely enough, had never
splurged, and never married. I am sure the thought of matrimony
never entered Jane's mind. Our natural emotions seemed to be
stirred and exalted only by the importance of our family name and
our wealth. Romantically, we were strangely neutral, as though, in
the pursuit of riches, the family stock had been sort of washed out.
After our college days, Henry and I grew into old-fashioned, mellow
bachelorhood, aloof from the world and very self-sufficient, and glad
to have it so. Henry had just observed his sixty-fifth birthday when
our lives became so tempestuous and convulsed. I was two years
his junior. Jane had just turned sixty. As progeny, we seemed to have
come into this world in swift successiveness, as though the marriage
of our revered parents had fulfilled its promise in a bunch.
For an entire summer Henry lived virtually in seclusion in his
observatory without any tangible result. Sweeping the sky with his
telescope for anything that might happen. But nothing transpired. Yet
he persisted. Finally, he detected a tiny comet, apparently on its way
to the earth. At first it appeared no larger than a pin-prick of light,
with a small, meteoric tail.
The night he made the discovery, he got me out of bed to see it, but I
was in no mood or condition for sky gazing. In addition, looking into
the eye-piece of the telescope made me a little sick and dizzy. I
couldn't see a thing. Deciding that he was suffering from a delusion, I
went back to bed.
The odd thing was that Henry was right. He had actually witnessed
the phenomenon of impact of two small planets which produced the
comet. As he explained it afterwards to a group of eminent scientists,
this collision of two celestial bodies had produced a distinct flash of
light, out of which had grown a spiral swarm of very brilliant particles,
and he had watched them as they took on orbital motion.
The comet soon became the most impressive and magnificent sight I
have ever seen, stretching its scimitar-like form half across the
heavens. Its wonder and beauty dragged New Yorkers up in the
small hours, to gaze at it with fascinating awe. Many regarded it with
terror, others with superstitious dread. In churches throughout the
land, the people prayed: "Lord save us from the devil, and Royce's
comet!"
The comet was not only named after Henry but his discovery was
acclaimed by scientists the world over, and he was chosen a fellow
of the two leading scientific bodies of America and England. While
still rated as an amateur in science, nevertheless, many learned men
began to look upon him as the depository of authority and
authenticity in matters relating to the mysteries of the solar system.
Having disclosed something to the world in the order of creation,
Henry became imbued with an overpowering sense of his own
importance as a man of science; his ambitions soared to
unsurmountable heights. The discovery of the comet having been far
easier than he had dared dream, he now turned with profound
intentness to establish radio communication with Mars. He began
talking in a familiar and chatty way about the people on Mars, and to
hear him talk one would think that he was going there for a week-end
of golf.
In this project, he had enlisted the able assistance of Serge Olinski,
assistant research engineer of the National Radio Corporation,
whose unexceptional qualifications included an honor degree in
cosmic ray research, with distinction in astronomy. Their
experimental activities, in trying to pick up and decode the galactic
radio waves, which both believed constituted some kind of
interstellar signaling, were carried on behind locked doors, either at
Henry's observatory in the country, or in Olinski's laboratory in the
NRC Building, in the new Radio Center Annex.
Olinski was a queer shrinking soul, and any sort of publicity to Henry
was equally distasteful. They were two of a kind, in this respect.
Notwithstanding all the praise and attention given to Henry by the
press during the comet furore, he treated reporters with the utmost
contempt, and accused them of being dishonest rogues. One
reporter in particular he hated and feared. Just mention to him the
name of Robert McGinity of the New York Daily Recorder, and his
correctly chiselled and aristocratic features would crinkle up in rage
and horrible chuckles would issue from his thin lips like unnamable
profanities.
He had never forgotten his first encounter with McGinity on the
telephone, nor had he ever forgiven the reporter for what he called
an utterly disreputable transaction in news. But the business of
reporting is at least an honorable one, and reporters have to get their
stories, somehow.
This fellow, McGinity, published the first report of Henry's discovery
of the comet, and scored a beat by calling him up and giving the
impression that he was one of the assistant astronomers at Harvard
University. I had no suspicions then how the information had trickled
into the office of the Daily Recorder, but I believe now that our
solemn-visaged butler, Orkins, who afterwards turned out to be so
mercenary and treacherous, tipped off this morning paper, which
paid liberally for exclusive stories.
It was the night following Henry's detection of the comet when he
was aroused out of a sound sleep to answer an important telephone
call. If I hadn't been up and overheard the conversation, I wouldn't
have believed it possible for any man to be so easily deceived. But
gullibility is one of Henry's weaknesses. I switched into the
conversation from an extension on the second floor.
Henry seemed to have some recollection of the name of the Harvard
professor, as it came over the telephone, and at first was a little
taken aback and curious that the news of his discovery should have
become known. Despite this, he told all about his detection of the
new comet, and proudly, omitting no detail. It would have been
ungrateful on his part to have distrusted the man at the other end of
the wire, after he had gone to the trouble and expense of calling up,
obviously from Boston, and it seemed so unlikely that any one
outside astronomical circles would be interested in the discovery. Up
to that time, Henry had had no dealings with reporters. By exercising
extraordinary discretion, he had managed all his life to keep out of
the news, except for occasional real estate transactions, and had
always avoided any encounter with the press.
After he had answered heaps and heaps of questions, the voice at
the other end said: "Thanks, Mr. Royce. Thanks a lot. Darned good
of you to tell me all this."
An oppressive silence descended. By that time, Henry must have
guessed that he had been gulled. I got his voice but I missed the
play of expression on his face.
"Who is this speaking?" he asked again. "Who the devil are you?"
"Bob McGinity of the Daily Recorder," came the prompt reply.
Henry gave a nervous jump. "What?" he gasped angrily. It was
evident that he was utterly taken by surprise. "I—I find your action in
calling me up quite incomprehensible, Mr. McGinity. I imagined that
—that—"
"Pardon me," the reporter retorted with some dignity. "I never said I
was an assistant professor of astronomy at Harvard. I simply asked if
you knew of such a person, and you said you did, and then you
proceeded to tell me exactly what I wanted to know."
"But surely you're not going to publish this," Henry fumed. "It's too
immature. You must keep it out of the newspaper."
"I'm sorry but I have no power to do so, Mr. Royce," the reporter
replied. "And no inclination, Mr. Royce."
Henry clawed at the telephone instrument with trembling fingers. "If I
had you here, young man," he shouted, "I'd break your damned
neck."
He hung up with a bang, and I don't think he slept a wink the rest of
the night. And it was entirely due to this experience that he and
Olinski took every precaution that nothing should leak out concerning
their research in interstellar signaling, which, as far as I could learn,
at the time, had entered on the final and exciting stage of their
experimental work.
Henry's actions indicated that his mind was still working feverishly on
this subject; he even raved about it in his sleep, according to his
Filipino valet, Niki. But about his and Olinski's doings, not a word to
me. When I would ask him if they had found anything worth finding,
he would reply: "Just you wait, and see;" a vague term which he
refused to make more definite.
In the silent watches of the night, he would sit at his telescope, his
eyes trained on that beautiful, reddish planet, Mars. One morning, at
four o'clock, I found him there, clad only in his pajamas, and he
strongly resented my intrusion. But I had a task to perform, and that
was to see that he got his proper rest. I had no wish that any
member of our family should become psychopathic.
"Henry!" I exclaimed, rather harshly; "you've only a few hours before
breakfast-time. Go to bed and get a bit of sleep."
I think he realized, instinctively, that I was not in sympathy with this
business of trying to pick up radio signals from Mars. It all seemed
so useless and incredible. His secret experiments had been in
progress now for about a year. The tumult aroused by the discovery
of the comet seemed a thing long past and forgotten. The memory of
the public is short. Newer sensations had taken its place.
In this latest mad, scientific quest, Henry reminded me of one of
Jane's goldfish, which swims in its bowl, and swims and swims,
thousands of miles, perhaps, and then finds itself a few inches from
its starting point. So one day I resolved to bring the matter to an
issue. I slipped into his room just after he had disrobed and donned
a dressing-gown, preparatory to taking a bath and dressing for
dinner.
"Henry," I began, rather abruptly, "study and action are worth while,
only when they lead you some place." But I was not destined to
finish what was in my mind to say.
"I beg pardon, Livingston, if I disturb you," he interrupted in his
meekest accents, and then went into his bathroom, and closed the
door.
Determined to have my say, I followed him to the door, and knocked.
The door opened, and his face, meek and anxious, looked out at me
through a narrow crack.
"Henry!" I implored. "If I could only see you for a few minutes—"
"No!" he said, and shut the door. A second later, I heard the bar
shoved into its slot.
There was nothing unusual in Henry locking himself in his bathroom,
for he had the distressful habit of sitting in his bath-tub, by the hour,
smoking and thinking. His bathroom seemed to be the only quiet
retreat in the castle which afforded the complete solitude and privacy
necessary for the employment of his brain cells. He felt that here he
could relax, just as Napoleon did, after undue fatigue, dictating
letters and giving important military orders from his steaming bath-
tub.
I have often wondered where Sir Isaac Newton was sitting, at his
home in Woolsthorpe, England, when the fall of an apple, so legend
tells us, suggested the most magnificent of his discoveries, the law
of universal gravitation. There is no evidence to refute that he was
sitting in one of those queer, early English bath-tubs, looking out of
the bathroom window, at his apple orchard.
I never see Rodin's famous sculpture, "The Thinker," but I am
reminded of Henry, sitting in his bath-tub, thinking and thinking,
especially during the early part of the eventful summer of which I
write.
Evidently some fresh idea had come to him while in his bath on the
evening I persisted in assailing his peace of mind. With startling
suddenness he donned his bath-robe, rushed to the telephone, and
communicated with Olinski. As quickly as possible, the next day,
they got to work on Henry's idea. Then problems began to straighten
themselves out. As to what they had discovered, they said nothing at
the moment.
Soon after, however, an avalanche of adventure, mystery and
excitement came thunderously down upon us, throwing our lives into
chaos.

II
As I begin my narrative, my mind travels back for a moment to the
days of my youth, and I am made more vividly aware of the changes
that have taken place in the world. We are living in a new era now—
a period marked by a series of strange occurrences, manifestations
of the weird powers that lurk in outer space. The New Deal has
passed into history. A strangely remote time ago, that was....
The laboratory has supplied us with the basic means of lifting the
curtain of space from scenes and activities at a distance. A system
of sight transmission and reception, comparable in coverage and
service to the world-wide hook-up of sound broadcasting, has
brought all nations closer together. In the friendly exchange of ideas
and feelings through the medium of television and the radio, the
whole civilized world enjoys common participation.
Nationalism no longer endangers the peace of the world. All war
debts between nations have been settled, and tariff barriers laid low.
Internationalism reigns supreme, to the spirit and benefits of which
Henry contributed his share by engaging servants representing
seven nationalities. Thus we harbored at the castle of Sands Cliff
about every conceivable question of society, politics and religion.
Our summer castle is such a place as you read of, in romances of
the Middle Ages. It was built more than half a century ago by a
wealthy New York society woman who must have had a strain of
poetic romanticism in her veins. When Henry purchased the place, it
was almost in ruins.
It is perched on the summit of a precipitous sand cliff, commanding
an excellent view of Long Island Sound. From its windows, on a
bright day, the majestic towers of New York appear dimly etched
against a mauve horizon like the spires of a magical city. There it
stands, dark and foreboding, and ivy-clad, in its own grounds,
surrounded by a high brick wall. The main entrance gate is
approached by a dark avenue which winds through a heavily
wooded park. There is no other dwelling within a mile.
There are many mullioned windows in its slim, peaked towers.
Inside, a clutter of rooms—endless rooms—some of them in the
upper floors unused and smelling dusty and dank. The front door
opens on a brick terrace, which has a stone balustrade as a
protective measure against a sheer drop of two hundred feet to the
rocky base of the cliff. From the east end of the terrace, stone steps
wind down to a private yacht landing and a long stretch of beach,
fenced in with barbed wire.
An outstanding feature of the castle is its galleried entrance hall, with
its darkly gleaming oak panelling and great, stone staircase; a hall so
large that when one speaks, the sound is echoed like the whispering
of ghosts from the high, oak-timbered ceiling.
There is a queer element of solitude and uncanniness that always
cloaks the castle at the twilight hour, before Orkins, in his routine of
duty, switches on the lights. I noticed it particularly, one summer
evening, about the middle of August, as I walked up and down the
terrace, dinner-jacketed and smoking, awaiting the arrival of our two
dinner guests, Serge Olinski and His Highness Prince Dmitri Matani.
The sun had gone down in a cloudless, violet sky, and purplish
twilight had settled on the Sound and the marshland, stretching
westward to a cove, where the lights of the village of Sands Cliff
were beginning to twinkle. The silence was more oppressive than the
heat. Now and then it was broken by a distant tugboat whistle, like
the hoarse croak of a frog, and the faint calling of a thrush for its
mate in the thick shrubberies that fringed Jane's flower garden, on
the north side of the castle.
Far out in the Sound, two sail-boats were drifting along like tired
ghosts. Presently the fringe of the opposite shore became magically
outlined by tiny strands of lights. As the gloom of night slowly
enveloped the scene, an island lighthouse, a mile away, began to
flash its beacon over the dark, graying water with clock-like
regularity.
Against this flashing light, the ruins of our own lighthouse showed
dark and jagged, on a small, rocky island, rising out of the Sound
about a quarter of a mile off our shore, and within easy rowing
distance from the yacht landing. Henry had recently purchased the
island from the Government, and it was now a part of our Sands Cliff
estate. The old beacon tower of stone was built in 1800. In oil-
burning days, its light had counted for something, but now it was
nothing but a picturesque ruin, and largely populated during the
summer by bats.
I had no sooner turned my gaze on the ruined lighthouse when a big
bat swooped down at me out of the darkness. Only the night before,
one of them had got into my bedroom. I've never been able to
overcome my early fear of these nocturnal flying mammals. To my
childish imagination, they were the very spirits of evil. I was in no
mood this night to be pestered by them. A vague uneasiness
possessed me, an uneasiness caused on one hand by Henry's
strained and haggard look, and on the other, by his encouraging
Prince Matani's attentions to Pat.
Perhaps at the moment, his crazy quest in interstellar
communication annoyed me most. I had already suggested to Jane
that we send him to a psychoanalyst to be overhauled. This delving
into the unknown was too ponderable a matter for a man of his
years. It had become fixed on his mind with all the power of an
obsession. All that day he had not stirred from his observatory, and
now Olinski was coming from town to give a verbal report of his own
findings. Much cogitation, much secrecy was, in effect, nothing at all.
Unless they now had found the key. Was it possible that Olinski
might be bringing a transcribed cipher of a radio message from
Mars? His eager acceptance of the invitation to dinner seemed to
hold an important significance for Henry.
Desperately bothered by both problems which confronted me, the
bats made things more annoying still. Then, sudden-like, in the
haunting stillness, I saw something moving towards me from the
blackish void of trees and shrubbery bordering the west end of the
terrace. At first, I was conscious only of an oncoming shadow,
advancing with a rapid, noiseless movement.
I could feel my pulse jumping. Whoever or whatever it was, there
was a risk. Rather than face the risk, I moved quietly but swiftly
across the terrace towards the front door. But that did not stop the
oncoming something; it had suddenly changed its direction and was
coming right at me.
Luckily at that moment, the lights were turned on in the lower part of
the castle. Then Orkins opened the front door, and gave voice to a
surprised exclamation as he saw me making hurriedly for the
doorway.
Suddenly I stopped, and turned. The glow of a floor lamp in the
entrance hall had spread fanwise across the terrace, and into this
arc of light strode—Serge Olinski.
"Oh, hello, Olinski!" I exclaimed, with respectful familiarity, and very
cordially, stretching out my hand, and smiling to myself at the start
he had given me, coming like an abortive something out of the
shadows of the terrace. "That you?"
"Yes; it is I," Olinski replied, shaking my proferred hand, and
breathing rather heavily.
I faced a short, dumpy, middle-aged man, with a paunch, and a
Russian cast of countenance. Small, intelligent black eyes gleamed
through shell-rimmed glasses, from a round face fringed with a short,
black beard. He carried his hat, and I observed that his primly
sleeked hair was as black as his beard. I had a suspicion that he
dyed them.
"I caught an early train from the city, in order to enjoy the benefit of a
walk from the village to your beautiful castle," he explained, half
breathlessly, "after a most exacting but successful day in the
laboratory. A million apologies if I have delayed your dinner."
"Time is infinite in the country, especially on a fine night like this," I
remarked lightly, as we entered the hall, and Orkins relieved him of
his black top-coat and hat. His dinner jacket, I noticed, was much too
small for him, and his waistcoat so short that it came perilously near
revealing a section of his middle-age bulge. There were soup stains
on his shirt-front, which indicated that his shirt had been out to dinner
before.
As I waved him to a chair, I said: "You're really very punctual, even if
you avoided our car which was sent to the station to meet you, and
walked here. You can depend upon it, Prince Matani will not miss the
chance to drive to the castle in state when he steps off the train."
Unconsciously my lips sneered as I spoke the young princeling's
name. Olinski nodded and smiled understandingly. "Ah!" he said. "I
take it that you do not look with favor on the match your scholarly
brother is about to arrange between your charming niece and my
noble countryman?"
"To be frank, no," I replied.
"So I gathered. And why?"
"I have very strong reasons for opposing their marriage," I said; "and
my sister, Jane, is just as dead set against it as I am. Every one
knows that the Prince came to America to make a rich and
advantageous marriage. Pat will soon come into a large inheritance