The Mask of Sanity. Hervey M. Cleckley

any sexual relations, but she also regularly denied stealing, truancy, surreptitiously charging things to her father, and all her other faulty conduct. When she missed a menstrual period shortly after running away from school her parents were so perturbed that a medical examination was made. Not only was there no evidence of pregnancy but a definitely intact hymen was obvious.

      Roberta was sent to two other boarding schools from which she had to be expelled. She entered a hospital for training to be a registered nurse but did not last a month. Employed in her father’s business as a bookkeeper, she used her skill at figures and a good deal of ingenuity to make off with considerable sums.

      Though she had a number of boyfriends and spoke of having often been in love, Roberta was not the typical flirt. Apparently she had only mild experiences in kissing and necking, these activities seeming vaguely pleasant but not arousing any vivid passion. The war having been for some time in progress, Roberta met scores of young soldiers from a nearby camp. With many of them she kept up a lively correspondence after they were sent overseas or to other posts. She spoke of her satisfaction in sending letters to these men who were serving their country and expressed herself from time to time as being in love with one or another of them. One of those with whom she corresponded most regularly was killed in an accident on the West Coast and another during combat in Italy. She seemed little affected by these incidents, though her expressions of regret were verbally appropriate. Apparently she was unaware that under such circumstances another girl might have felt more.

      In telling of her initial sexual experience, which had occurred about a year before I first saw her, she seemed frank and by no means embarrassed.

      After her discharge from the WAC, which she had entered with apparent enthusiasm and wonderfully expressed intentions, she remained at home and, for a few months, despite relatively small irregularities, appeared at last to be making a better adjustment. She often seemed mildly bored but never pathologically restless or distinctly unhappy. She wrote many sentimental letters to a couple of dozen soldiers, read True Story magazine, Little Women, The Story of Philosophy, and comic books, and attended movies and parties at the Red Cross.

      With no explanation to her parents she suddenly disappeared. To me she explained that she had left with the intention of visiting a boyfriend stationed at a camp in another state. She admitted that she had in mind the possibility of marrying this man but that no definite decision had been made by her, much less by him. She had, it seems, given the matter little serious thought, and from her attitude one would judge she was moved by little more than what might make a person stroll off into the yard to see if the magnolia tree had bloomed. She left with a little over $4.00 in her purse. Getting off the bus in a town three hours ride from home, she tried to reach the boyfriend by telephone and ask him to telegraph funds to her. She could not at the time reach him. She had realized her family might trace her if she continued by bus to the city for which she had bought a ticket. This was the chief factor in her getting off where she did.

      Balked in her efforts to reach the soldier, she remembered another boy, now overseas, who lived in this town where she found herself almost without funds. She decided to go to his family and spend the night with them. With the most artless manner and with no sign of uneasiness or tension, she explained to these people that she was hurrying to the bedside of an aunt, that her father had been away on business when she left, that there had been a mistake in her understanding of the bus schedule. She found, she said, that she would have to take the morning train from here to reach the bedside of her aunt. There was much pleasant conversation and these people insisted on her staying for the night. While alone she attempted to place another long distance call to the soldier. She still had in mind ideas about marrying him but had come no closer to a decision. The call not being completed, she began to fear the operator might ring back. She also was not quite sure her hostess had not overheard her at the telephone. After thinking of this and realizing that her family might trace her in such a nearby place, she slipped off after pretending to go to bed early, leaving no message for these people who had taken her in.

      Catching a bus bound in another direction, she rode for a few hours and got off at a strange town where she knew no one. Not having concluded plans for her next step, she sat for a while in a hotel lobby. Soon she was approached by a middle-aged man. He was far from prepossessing, smelt of cheap liquor, and his manners were distinctly distasteful. He soon offered to pay for her overnight accommodations at the hotel. She realized that he meant to share the bed with her but made no objection. As well as one can tell by discussing this experience with Roberta, she was neither excited, frightened, repulsed, nor attracted by a prospect that most carefully brought up virgins would certainly have regarded with anything but indifference.

      The man, during their several hours together, handled her in a rough, pre-emptory fashion, took no trouble to conceal his contempt for her and her role, and made no pretense of friendliness, much less affection. She experienced moderate pain but no sexual response under his ministrations. After giving her $5.00 with unnecessarily contemptuous accentuations of its significance, he left her in the room about midnight.

      Next morning she reached her soldier friend by telephone and suggested that he send her sufficient funds to join him. She had not discarded the idea of marrying him, nor had she progressed any further toward a final decision to do so. He discouraged her vigorously against coming, refused to send money, and urged her to return home. She was not, it seems, greatly upset by this turn of events, and, with little serious consideration of the matter, decided to go to Charlotte, which was approximately 150 miles distant. She seemed frank in admitting that she had no distinct purpose in mind, was prompted by no overmastering thrill of adventure or fear that her parents might consider her “ruined” or disgraced. She was, in fact, not conscious of any strong reason for not going home or for having left in the first place.

      Reaching Charlotte, she had little trouble finding small jobs in restaurants and stores. She supported herself for several days by working but found her funds barely provided for room and food. She thereupon began to spend the nights with various tipsy soldiers, travelling salesmen, and other men who showed inclination to pick her up. With all these she had sexual intercourse. From this she eventually began to experience a moderate, half-warmed pleasure, but nothing like intense passion. Despite extensive promiscuity since that time she has never experienced a sharp and distinguishable orgasm or found sexual relations in any way a major pleasure or temptation. Nor has she felt any of the frustration and unrelieved tension so familiar in some women who are aroused but left unsatisfied. Her family, meanwhile, not knowing whether she was dead or alive, was making every effort, through the police and otherwise, to find her. These efforts met with success after about three weeks.

      On meeting her parents she expressed affection, running to them and throwing herself in their arms. At their prompting she found it easy to make use of the formalities indicative of penitence, but seemed remarkably free from actual humiliation or distress. Neither the recent anxiety of her mother and father nor her own social jeopardy overwhelmed or even greatly daunted her. She seemed little vulnerable to the inevitable gossip that, on her return, beat like a tempest about town. As if armored by a sort of innocence, she went her way freely, affable, unembarrassed, the picture of an artless girl fond of others and expecting kindliness from all.

      In this episode, as in most of her other behavior, it is not easy to see what such a girl as this is driving at. If she had, through hallucinations, heard God’s voice telling her to leave home, or if she believed with the conviction of delusion she had been invited by a princely suitor to spend the night in love, her conduct would be easier to understand and would, in a very important sense, be more rational and appropriate. It would also be easier to understand if she had been driven by sexual craving to sacrifice social approval for an enticing hedonistic goal.

      During her hospitalization she spoke convincingly of the benefit she was obtaining and discussed her mistakes with every appearance of insight. She spoke like a person who had been lost and bewildered but now had found her way. She did not seem to be making any voluntary effort to deceive her physicians.

      Soon after she returned home reports came, all indicating that she was continuing in her old patterns of behavior. A secretarial position was obtained for her in Spartanburg, S. C., with a large corporation. She was quick and effective in her work and was liked by all for her simple, friendly