The plot ***spoilers***

Young Jean Berlot’s mother has died in the lunatic asylum at Charenton. On his way home from the funeral he spends a night at a roadside inn. There he has a vivid dream – the same dream he always has in times of stress, in which two hospital orderlies in white coats try to force him into a straitjacket. After a violent struggle, Berlot always wakes up to find that the room has been completely demolished. Another guest at the inn, the Marquis, witnesses the nightmare and its results. He pays for the damage and invites Berlot to his castle. On the way he hears Berlot’s story: when his father died his mother, who was much younger, went mad with grief. Since then Jean, who takes after her, has been haunted by the idea that he too will end up in an asylum – hence the nightmares.
The Marquis lives alone in the crumbling castle, with only his mute servant Dominic for company. One night Berlot witnesses a sado-masochistic orgy in the castle chapel. The participants, apart from the Marquis and Dominic, are a fat, balding man and four young girls, whom the Marquis has brought along in a coach with barred windows. During the orgy the Marquis shouts out foul blasphemies. Berlot watches through the chapel window. He is struck by one of the girls, who seems to be taking part very much against her will. She finally escapes from the chapel, sees Berlot and asks for help. But Berlot is so shocked he can’t move. The girl is caught and dragged back to the orgy.
The next morning Berlot tells the Marquis that after what he has seen he can no longer stay at the castle. Defending his libertine philosophy the Marquis again starts blaspheming against God, until he is seized by a cataleptic fit. Berlot, assuming it to be a punishment from God, thinks the Marquis is dying. Dominic makes him help bury the Marquis – he even has to nail down the coffin lid. But the next day they find the Marquis sitting in his tomb, happily eating and drinking beside the open coffin. By way of explanation, he shows the astonished Berlot various tools he has concealed inside his shroud. Later, the Marquis tells his own story. He, too, had a loving mother. After a severe cataleptic fit she had been thought dead and buried alive. Ever since the Marquis has also suffered from cataleptic attacks, as well as a constant fear of being buried alive. What Berlot witnessed in the tomb was a ‘therapy’ that allows the Marquis to live normally again for a while. The similarity between the two men is not lost on Berlot. That night he has the nightmare again and before the Marquis can wake him up and comfort him he has already demolished his bedroom. The Marquis suggests he try the same ‘therapy’: the only way to dispel a fear of lunatic asylums is to spend some time in one, just as he dispels his own fear of being buried alive by actually letting it happen. He takes Berlot to a sanatorium run by his friend Dr Murlloppe, who turns out to be the fat man who attended the orgy. Berlot is horrified and wants to leave at once. But he changes his mind the moment Murlloppe introduces his daughter, who is none other than the girl he saw being forced to take part in the brutal orgy. Recognizing him, she secretly passes him a note begging his help. Berlot decides to stay, having received assurances that he can leave at any time.
Soon Berlot discovers from Charlotte (who comes to his room at night) that Murlloppe is not her father at all but a dangerous maniac who the previous year led a mutiny against the former sanatorium regime. His accomplices were the Marquis and Dominic, also inmates at the time. Having put the real director Dr Coulmiere and his staff behind bars in the cellar, they took control of the sanatorium themselves. She too had been one of the staff, but instead of locking her up they used her for their own perverted sex-games. Now she implores Berlot to help her and the hapless Coulmiere and his staff.
Meanwhile the Marquis and Murlloppe are planning an important anniversary celebration in the sanatorium. The Marquis wants to put on a dramatic tableau representing Liberty. While rehearsing with his cast of lunatics, he warns Berlot off Charlotte, describing her as a compulsive liar, a hysteric and a nymphomaniac who only enjoys sex if it involves perverse fantasies. He asks Berlot if he’s heard her ‘party piece’ – her deluded story about the inmates’ ‘mutiny’ – and advises him to get Murloppe to show him her clinical record before ‘doing anything stupid’. Berlot stands up for Charlotte, though the Marquis’ warning has rather unnerved him. When Charlotte again comes to his room he confronts her with his doubts. How could the sanatorium have been in the hands of the inmates for a whole year without anyone noticing? (The planned celebrations are in fact to mark the first anniversary of the takeover.) Charlotte, distressed that Berlot doesn’t believe her, decides to give him proof. Taking the cellar key from Murloppe’s study, she leads Berlot down to a row of cells occupied by strange creatures covered in filthy feathers, whom she introduces as Dr Coulmiere and his staff. After the mutiny, she explains, the inmates tarred and feathered them as a mark of contempt for their authority. She would have freed them herself if she could find the keys to the cells, which she’s convinced Murlloppe keeps somewhere in his study.
After the anniversary festivities the Marquis and Murlloppe plan to carry on celebrating at the Marquis’ castle, and invite Charlotte to join them. Guessing what sort of party this will be, Berlot announces that he and Charlotte are engaged and forbids them to take her. But to his surprise Charlotte says she wants to go. When they are alone she explains why: while she ‘diverts’ the two libertines at the castle, Berlot can find the keys and release the prisoners.
The minute the Marquis and his party leave the inmates start their own wild party, and Berlot is able to slip off to the study, find the keys, and set Coulmiere and his men free. The feather-coated men rush upstairs and violently set upon the partying inmates, driving them back to their rooms. In the melee Berlot is accidentally knocked unconscious. When he comes round Coulmiere apologizes for the incident and thanks Berlot for saving the sanatorium, while Charlotte happily plans their future together. Coulmiere tells him they’ve already caught Murlloppe and are on the Marquis’ trail. He then expounds his theory of psychiatry: the mind and the body are in constant conflict. If the mind gains the upper hand, we start suffering from physical illnesses; if, on the other hand, the body proves stronger, the result is mental illness. To cure it we must restore the mind-body balance, which Coulmiere achieves by systematically weakening the body through corporal punishment. This ‘therapy’ consists of thirteen graded punishments. Number 1, used on new patients, is a simple beating; number eight is removal of the tongue … At that moment news arrives that the Marquis and his servant have been found. They are brought before Coulmiere, who at once prescribes ‘treatment’ Number 9 for Dominic – which, as Berlot later finds out, leaves him permanently lame. But in the Marquis’ case he makes an exception to his rule of strict progression, and orders punishment 13. Berlot tries to discover what this involves, but Coulmiere is evasive as he prepares to perform the ‘operation’ himself, with Charlotte as assistant. Berlot, sickened by all this, announces he is leaving at once, and taking Charlotte with him. Coulmiere says that according to the sanatorium rules patients may only be discharged before 8 a.m., so he must wait till morning. Unable to sleep Berlot goes to look for Charlotte, but her bed is empty. He goes down to the cells where he finds Murlloppe with a blood-stained bandage over his eyes (treatment 10). At the back of the cell lies the inert Marquis, recovering from Number 13. Murloppe taunts Berlot for letting ‘that whore’ manipulate him. Berlot defends Charlotte and announces they plan to marry as soon as they get out of this ‘madhouse’. Murlloppe laughs at his naivety, saying Charlotte couldn’t give a damn about him and is probably in bed with ‘that madman Coulmiere’ right now. Berlot rushes upstairs and indeed finds her with Coulmiere. The pair are engaged in a subtle sado-masochistic game involving a mysterious sex aid sent specially from Paris.
Shocked and distressed, Berlot locks himself in his room. Again he has the straitjacket nightmare, and again he smashes everything within reach. Coulmiere arrives on the scene and sends for two orderlies (the exact doubles of the two in the dream), who proceed to force the wildly struggling Berlot into a straitjacket. Only then does he wake up to hear Coulmiere say: ‘My dear friend, your vital equilibrium appears to be seriously disturbed. Your body has become overdeveloped at the expense of your mind, and now your mind is sick. But don’t despair … I shall cure you. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? (to the men) Give him treatment number one.’

J.Š. 2000