The Alienist

“And then I saw it.”

The final sentence of Chapter 2 hints at the shocking scene Moore describes in gruesome detail at the beginning of the next chapter, establishing the novel’s habit of ending chapters with cliffhangers intended to pique the reader’s curiosity and propel them into the next chapter. In this case, “it” is the mutilated body of Georgio Santorelli, discovered atop the western anchor of the Williamsburg bridge on March 3, 1896. This dramatic setup prepares readers for the savage violence that lies at the heart of the story.

“Forced to use whatever means they could—and Georgio Santorelli’s had been the most basic—to survive on their own, such children were more completely on their own than anyone unfamiliar with the New York City ghettos of 1896 could possibly imagine.”

Georgio Santorelli’s “most basic” method of survival was to present himself as a child being commercially sexually exploited. By painting his face, wearing women’s clothing, calling himself “Gloria,” and offering his body to men, Santorelli personified the sheer desperation that gripped thousands of New York City’s orphaned or abandoned tenement children. Santorelli’s fate also reminds readers that Americans in 1896 did not universally honor childhood as a developmental phase requiring special protection for the child. Nor did Americans of that era universally criminalize what the modern world regards as pedophilia.

“Rarely have I felt so strongly the truth of Kreizler’s belief that the answers one gives to life’s crucial questions are never truly spontaneous; they are the embodiment of years of contextual experience, of the building of patterns in each of our lives that eventually grow to dominate our behavior.”

Moore reflects on the life experiences that have brought Roosevelt, Kreizler, and himself together in Roosevelt’s office at police headquarters, experiences that now appear to be shaping their responses to one another as they embark upon a clandestine murder investigation. For instance, since Roosevelt’s “credo of active response to all challenges ha[s] guided him through physical sickness in youth and personal trials in adulthood,” Moore wonders whether in this moment Roosevelt really has the free will to reject Kreizler’s proposal for a bold and active investigation based on controversial, modern methods (61).

“Despite the place’s collection of contemporary and classic art and splendid French furniture, as well as the grand piano out of which Cyrus perpetually coaxed fine music, I had never been able when there to fully elude the awareness that I was surrounded by thieves and killers, each of whom had a very good explanation for his or her acts but none of whom gave the impression of being willing to put up with questionable behavior from anyone else ever again.”

“There” is Kreizler’s house on 283 East 17th Street. The “thieves and killers” are Stevie Taggert, Cyrus Montrose, and Mary Palmer, all of whom Kreizler rescued from the city’s justice system by offering sympathetic court testimony and agreeing to take them under his wing as domestic servants. Stevie is still a boy. Cyrus and Mary experienced childhood traumas that provide “very good explanation” for their crimes. Moore’s nagging sense of uneasiness, however mild, reflects his periodic struggle to fully accept Kreizler’s view of the relationship between psychological context and criminal behavior. Cyrus’s “fine music” also highlights the importance of the book’s cultural settings, in particular the Metropolitan Opera, where two of the story’s most revealing scenes unfold.

“From that moment on, he said, we must make every possible effort to rid ourselves of preconceptions about human behavior.”

Kreizler hands each member of his investigative team a stack of books and articles written by some of history’s most celebrated philosophers and psychologists, which leaves Moore, Sara, and the Isaacsons “looking and feeling like beleaguered students on the first day of class” (129). To create a psychological profile of the killer—a controversial objective in 1896—the investigators must familiarize themselves with basic principles. Kreizler explains, for instance, that “no good would come of conceiving of this person as a monster,” and that it is “pointless to talk about evil and barbarity and madness” when trying to see the world through the killer’s eyes (129).

“Kreizler lifted a satisfied fist and said, Precisely—the bodies were a mirror image of some savage set of experiences that were central to the evolution of our man’s mind.”

Shortly after discovering the mutilated body of Ali ibn-Ghazi, Kreizler affirms Moore’s observation that “each dead body” thus far appears “to be a kind of mirror” in which the killer sees reflected some distant horror in his own life (158). Kreizler gives this affirmation added emphasis with “a satisfied fist” because he sees that Sara, still grappling with her first up-close view of the killer’s work, is reluctant to accept any such explanation.

“Whatever terrible and troubling thoughts dominated the murderer, this note could not be dismissed as a series of mad ravings—it was undeniably coherent, though just how coherent I was only on the verge of learning.”

The gruesome “note” from the killer describes acts of stalking, mutilation, and cannibalism, as well as the killer’s presumptive reasoning for these acts. Moore’s initial reaction to the note is to dismiss Kreizler’s idea that anyone engaged in cannibalism could be deemed sane. With help from Marcus, however, Kreizler convinces Moore that the killer shows clear evidence not only of sanity but of devious intelligence, for the killer appears to be a skilled liar. This exchange, which occurs at Brubacher’s Wine Garden, serves as a prelude to an extended discussion and analysis of the note back at headquarters.

“We all knew that Sara had been right and Kreizler inexplicably, pigheadedly wrong.”

While the team analyzes the killer’s note, Sara tries three different times to convince Kreizler that a woman, most likely a mother, played a critical and destructive role in the killer’s upbringing. Kreizler tries to steer the conversation toward his preferred theory of a violent father before finally and “inexplicably” erupting in dismissive rage: “Because her role cannot have been active, damn it!” (220). Moore later reveals what he does not yet know: Kreizler is committing the fallacy of viewing the killer’s life through the lens of his own "individual psychological context"—Kreizler’s childhood experience with a violent father. In the meantime, Moore and the Isaacsons recognize that an indignant Sara got the better of the argument.

“I suddenly found myself arguing with him as I argued with Sara.”

On the train ride back from Sing Sing Prison, where he and Moore had interviewed the notorious child-killer Jesse Pomeroy, Kreizler explains that after his unpleasant exchange with Sara he had called his friend and fellow alienist Dr. Alfred Meyer, who agreed with Sara’s theory that a woman, probably a mother, had a destructive impact on the killer’s life. Due to his own preconceptions, Kreizler remained hesitant to embrace this theory, but he came around to it, which is why he chose to interview Pomeroy, for Meyer reminded Kreizler that Pomeroy grew up without a father and yet became a murderous sadist.

“We had now experienced enough mysterious interference to know that there were forces far more powerful than Roosevelt at work; and those forces unquestionably had as their goal the complete suppression of the case.”

The outside forces’ “mysterious interference” included Mayor Strong’s warning at the opera house that Kreizler must not connect himself in any way with the city’s police department, the two thugs who chased Moore and Sara out of the Santorellis’ tenement, and two priests who appeared without explanation at the homes of the victims’ families. Moore notes this apparent conspiracy as the most important reason for continued secrecy, especially from Roosevelt’s policemen, some of whom still did the bidding of the city’s elites.

“Because it riles me.”

This is Paul Kelly’s answer to Kreizler’s question of why Kelly has fomented mobs of angry immigrants in response to the murders. At first, Kelly expresses the typical gangster’s cool and detached indifference to concepts such as law and order. When Kreizler presses him, however, Kelly’s face goes “straight,” and the gangster confesses his true rationale: “That’s right, Doctor—it riles me. Those pigs back there get fed all that slop about society by the boys on Fifth Avenue just as soon as they’re off the boat, and what do they do? They knock themselves out trying to eat every bit of it. It’s a sucker’s bet, a crooked game, whatever you want to call it, and there’s a part of me that just wouldn’t mind seeing it go the other way for a little while” (278). Kelly then demonstrates his “intimidating” intellect by teasing Kreizler that perhaps the doctor “could find something in the—the context of my life that would explain it” (278). The entire exchange occurs inside Kelly’s carriage, shortly after Kelly rescued Kreizler and Moore from the angry mob outside the morgue. It establishes Kelly as a formidable character whose interest in the case’s broader political implications hints at the gangster’s important role in the affair’s eventual conclusion.

“Some of the most important meetings in the history of New York—indeed, of the United States—had taken place in this room; and while that fact might have caused Kreizler and me to wonder all the more what we were doing there, the collection of faces that stared at us on our entrance soon made matters clearer.”

“This room” refers to the famous “Black Library” at the home of J. P. Morgan, a financier so powerful that he once rescued the US federal government from bankruptcy. The “collection of faces” includes Episcopal Bishop Henry Potter; Catholic Archbishop Michael Corrigan; Anthony Comstock, the “notorious censor of the US Post Office”; and Thomas Byrnes, former police inspector (292). Kreizler and Moore have been brought to Morgan’s home at gunpoint by Patrick Connor and his thugs, former policemen who are still loyal to Byrnes. The presence of these men at Morgan’s home “made matters clearer” to Moore, for while Morgan himself will prove open-minded about Kreizler’s methods and chances of solving the case, every other man present has his own selfish reasons for wanting to put a stop to the investigation.

“‘Mr. Kelly has a few ideas that are not altogether unsound,’ Kreizler answered, knowing that the comment would further pique the group around us. ‘But he is essentially a criminal, and I have no use for him.’”

In J. P. Morgan’s “Black Library,” surrounded by men who, aside from Morgan himself, are hostile to his investigation, Kreizler offers an equivocal response to Morgan’s question of whether Kreizler is working with the gangster Paul Kelly. On one hand, Kreizler acknowledges that Kelly is “essentially a criminal,” a point on which Morgan and his fellow guardians of the established order would agree. On the other hand, Kreizler’s reference to Kelly’s “ideas that are not altogether unsound” suggests that Kreizler agrees with Kelly on the case’s broader political implications. Though he would never admit as much in the presence of men such as Morgan, Byrnes, Comstock, and the two bishops, Kreizler’s attitude toward Kelly here constitutes the first indication that Kreizler, at a crucial moment, might be willing to enlist Kelly as an ally.

“Kreizler’s eyes suddenly went very wide and he set his spoon down slowly as he finished reading the document I’d given him.”

During dinner at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, Kreizler reads a report Moore had received earlier that day from his friend at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It refers to the 1880 murders of Victor Dury and his wife in the town of New Paltz, New York. Kreizler then pulls a file from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital showing New Paltz as the place of birth for a discharged soldier, Corporal John Beecham, whose background and physical description fit the investigative team’s emerging profile of the killer.

“If the words had been explosives I don’t think their concussion could have hit Kreizler and me any harder.”

Kreizler and Moore travel to Newton, Massachusetts, to speak with Adam Dury, eldest son of the husband and wife murdered in New Paltz, New York, in 1880. Adam explains that his father had learned mountaineering in Switzerland. This revelation strikes Kreizler and Moore with the force of “explosives” because the killer has been using advanced climbing techniques to snatch his victims and then murder them at locations accessible only by scaling large walls. It essentially proves that Japheth Dury, Adam’s younger brother who disappeared following his parents’ brutal murder and mutilation, possesses the unique skills necessary to have carried out the New York City child murders.

“We’ve been hunting a killer, John, but the killer isn’t the real danger—I am!”

In a moment of intense grief and misplaced guilt, Kreizler blames himself for the death of his beloved Mary, who fell down the stairs in Kreizler’s home and broke her neck while trying to defend young Stevie from Connor’s thugs. With Cyrus and Stevie now badly injured from separate attacks, and with Mary tragically gone, Kreizler feels responsible for having brought all three into his home and then put them in danger by getting involved in the investigation. It is worth noting that Kreizler, in his darkest moment of guilt and self-loathing, adopts the precise view of his tormentors, the very men responsible for Mary’s death. Connor and his thugs only appeared at Kreizler’s home in the first place because powerful men regarded Kreizler and his ideas as a threat to the social order. Most important of all, Kreizler now intends to withdraw from the investigation.

“He’s our man—he’s got to be.”

These are the tantalizing words of Marcus Isaacson, who, along with his brother Lucius, spoke to Corporal John Beecham’s former commanding officer, Frederick Miller, now a captain stationed at Fort Yates in North Dakota. Everything Miller told the Isaacsons about Beecham fits the killer's profile and confirms that Japheth Dury, after murdering his parents in 1880, disappeared and reinvented himself as John Beecham. Marcus makes this hopeful report to Sara and Moore at 808 Broadway, shortly after Roosevelt gave his approval for the investigation to continue in Kreizler’s absence.

“The effect of that storied neighborhood has always been difficult to describe to the uninitiated.”

Moore refers to the Five Points neighborhood, New York City’s most notorious tenement ghetto. While all Lower East Side’s tenements bore the usual marks of extreme poverty and lawlessness, Five Points “was an entirely different breed of neighborhood” that “exuded a deep sense of mortal threat” (421). Moore, Sara, and the Isaacsons venture into Five Points in search of Beecham, who frequents a stale-beer dive on Baxter Street. The general feeling of dread in this most ominous of neighborhoods heightens the sense that they are getting close to the killer.

“Precisely why I brought you boys onto the force—modern methods!”

For the first time, Commissioner Roosevelt has joined the team at 808 Broadway, where he is deeply impressed by their work. Here he pays a compliment to the Isaacsons, whose forensic expertise allows them to estimate how long a map of the city’s water supply had been on the wall of Beecham’s flat. This sort of exclamatory statement is characteristic of the historical Roosevelt and his legendary vigor.

“It is never easier to understand the mind of a bomb-wielding anarchist than when standing amid a crush of those ladies and gentlemen who have the money and the temerity to style themselves ‘New York Society.’”

At the Metropolitan Opera, Moore tries to push his way up the staircase through a mass of privileged humanity, those wealthy patrons who call themselves “New York Society.” Moore’s mind is distracted, and he is in a hurry to reach Kreizler’s reserved box, for he knows that this evening the killer is likely to strike again. Nonetheless, Moore’s momentary sympathy with the “bomb-wielding anarchist” accords with his and Kreizler’s mounting disdain for some of the city’s wealthiest and most powerful people, as well as for the social order in general, a disdain shared to varying degrees by others, including Sara, the Isaacsons, Roosevelt, and Paul Kelly.

“Both Beecham and Laszlo immediately grew silent and looked up at me in shock. Beecham’s facial spasms intensified dramatically as he eyed the Colt in my hand, while Laszlo’s attitude soon changed from one of stunned surprise to chastising comprehension.”

Having witnessed Beecham in the act of attempting to carry out another murder, and listening as Kreizler gently questions the now submissive and childlike killer, Moore snaps. Losing his composure altogether, thinking that Beecham has “no right to exhibit any pitiable human qualities,” Moore brandishes the revolver and yells, “Shut up! Shut the hell up, you miserable coward!” (466). Kreizler understands Moore’s reaction but tries to calm his friend. Beecham, mentally reverting to his childhood trauma, is terrified. This moment exemplifies the case’s psychological complexity. Although he has embraced Kreizler’s ideas and thus understands the context of Beecham’s life, Moore, in this one moment of extreme emotional conflict, cannot abide feelings of sympathy for the man who murdered Joseph and so many other children.

“I’m not saying I know anything about it, of course. But ask yourself this when you get a free minute—of all the people who were up there tonight, who do you think is really the most dangerous to the boys uptown?”

Outside his New Brighton Dance Hall, Paul Kelly asks a confused Moore to think of the murder case in terms of its broader political ramifications. Moore approached Kelly in hopes of learning why Kelly’s fearsome bodyguard, former prizefighter Jack McManus, had appeared atop the Croton Reservoir at a crucial and premeditated moment to pummel Connor and his two thugs. Kelly, of course, denies any direct knowledge of the incident, but his cryptic-sounding question explains everything. It takes the exhausted Moore a few moments to put it all together, but his jaw drops when he realizes that Kelly helped Kreizler because the gangster and the alienist share the same enemies: “the boys uptown.”

“We know so little about the brain, Moore.”

After an autopsy reveals no signs of abnormality in Beecham’s brain, Moore congratulates Kreizler on being proven right about Beecham’s sanity. Kreizler replies that it only “indicates” he was right and then confesses to Moore that scientists and doctors are working with their best guesses when it comes to the human brain. Kreizler’s humble acknowledgment reminds readers that psychological profiling—indeed, psychology itself—was an emerging science in 1896. It also explains Kreizler’s frustration at having lost the opportunity to question a man like Beecham, from whom there was much to learn.