"It isn't proper for guests to pry into such things."<br/>A window crowded against the narrow far wall, set into an acute corner more afterthought than feature of the guest room. Tiers of curtain and linen and lace parted fitful around the orderly's insistent hands, to let daylight into the room and kick up a migration of new dust. There in a private nook, a chair had once resided gazing out into the yard, for such extended periods of stillness that the dark circles where its feet rest were now aged into the hardwood.<br/>"The patients, that is, those committed into the care of the Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed by concerned friends or family or correctional tribunal, are advantaging their morning exercise. You may observe them from here to your satisfaction."<br/><br/>Out on the green esplanade, some three dozen women followed arrhythmic the directions of a superior in the meagerest of stretches, extending the arms, rolling the wrists, patting the head, rotating the hips, pressing the belly, tapping the elbow in slow, methodical care. Each woman was garbed in pale grey fabric not entirely opaque to the daylight, in dresses whose untailored sleeves drooped like bellflowers, whose only true accommodation to contour was a girdle at the waist cinched with laced twine.<br/><br/>And yet each of them- even the nurse giving instruction- wore those porcelain masks, such that there was barely any telling one from the next.<br/><br/>"A healthy body cultivates a healthy mind, and busy work tidies the psyche against idle lunacy. The patients will be busy throughout the morning, and ought not return in numbers until your date with Doctor Heinfroth. Before they return to the parlor, there will be fair warning, that you might remain in your room if the mood to fraternize does not take you."<br/><br/>Seen in this context, there seemed to be no difference between the drab clothes laid out for change and those compulsory to the patients outside, or indeed, the orderlies themselves.<br/><br/>"At Doctor Heinfroth's discretion the identity of a patient may be shared, if there is compelling cause for it. These women and their families benefit from confidentiality in a number of ways. You must respect them that prerogative."<br/><br/>A stout tub for bathing arrived soon after, and pails of freshly drawn water sufficiently warm to flex the metal tub. Sponges, linen, and coarse grater for the lavender-perfumed brick of soap were supplied before at last the orderlies left them to what privacy they could negotiate together.