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The Woman Who Wouldn't
By Wilder, Gene St. Martin's Press Copyright © 2008 Wilder, Gene
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312375782
Chapter 1
It seems that the more unbelievable a story is, the more I’m able to believe it.
I’m thirty-three years old. In 1903 I had a nervous breakdown and was sent to a neuropsychiatric hospital wrapped in a straitjacket. How that came about is still hazy, but I’ll tell you what I remember.
I’m a concert violinist; at least I was before the breakdown. In May of 1903 I was in Cleveland, Ohio, playing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, when—right in the middle of the cadenza I had been working on for weeks—I suddenly put my violin down and began tearing up the first violinist’s sheet music. I tore his score into small pieces as fast as I could, poured water into the large mouth of a tuba, pounded on the keys of the piano with my fists—only the black keys—and then sat on the floor, weeping. The audience watched all of this with open mouths until security guards rushed in and carried me off the stage.
A few weeks later, after I had calmed down enough to speak three or four sentences in a row that sounded sane, I was interrogated by the chief of the medical staff. The rest of his staff sat in chairs nearby, listening.
“Do you know your name?”
“Jeremy Spencer Webb,” I answered.
“Good for you!” the chief doctor said.
“Pleasedon’t patronize me.”
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said quite humbly. “Are you married?”
“No, thank goodness.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I was married a few years ago and if you had been married to my wife you’d be in a straitjacket now, and I’d be asking you questions.”
“Is that what caused your breakdown?”
“No, of course not—that’s just a bad memory. We’re divorced now.”
“Do you like your work as a musician, Mr. Webb?”
“I love my work more than I love my life.”
“Well then, why did you tear up the other violinist’s musical score . . . and pound the keys of a very expensive Steinway piano with your fist?”
“I don’t know. I honestly have no idea.”
“Do you have any idea why you poured water into a tuba?”
“I remember thinking that it might be thirsty.”
“Are you making a joke, Mr. Webb?”
“No, I’m not making a joke. I wish I were.”
The chief of staff stared at me for several seconds.
Two days later I was sent to a health resort in Badenweiler, Germany, which was in the Black Forest, close to the French and Swiss borders. Otto Gross, who was the artistic director of the Cleveland orchestra, wanted my written consent to have me taken there. I was reluctant to give it until he mentioned that the Russian writer Anton Chekhov, who was suffering from consumption, was also at the Badenweiler resort at this time. I had seen a production of Chekhov’s play, Uncle Vanya, which so intrigued me that I went to the public library in New York and read another play of his, The Seagull. I was moved by his insight and exquisite artistry. When Otto Gross also told me that my expenses would be paid by the orchestra, I signed the necessary papers. Just between us, I think they said that they would pay for everything because they were afraid of a possible lawsuit. Sending me from Cleveland, Ohio, to the Black Forest in Germany seemed crazy. Well, who was I to talk?
Copyright © 2008 by Gene Wilder. All rights reserved.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Woman Who Wouldn't by Wilder, Gene Copyright © 2008 by Wilder, Gene. Excerpted by permission.
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