Vintage Sacks by Oliver Sacks Read Free Book Online Page B

fallen into a sleep so deep that nothing could wake her; she dreamed of a death which was different from death. Her family had difficulty waking her the next morning, and when she awoke there was intense consternation: “Rose,” they cried, “wake up! What’s the matter? Your expression, your position . . . You’re so still and so strange.” Miss R. could not answer, but turned her eyes to the wardrobe mirror, and there she saw that her dreams had come true. The local doctor was brisk and unhelpful: “Catatonia,” he said;
“Flexibilitas cerea.
What can you expect with the life she’s been leading? She’s broken her heart over one of these bums. Keep her quiet and feed her—she’ll be fine in a week.”
    But Miss R. was not to recover for a week, or a year, or forty-three years. She recovered the ability to speak in short sentences, or to make sudden movements before she froze up again. She showed, increasingly, a forced retraction of her neck and her eyes—a state of almost continuous oculogyric crisis, broken only by sleep, meals, and occasional “releases.” She was alert, and seemed to notice what went on around her; she lost none of her affection for her numerous family—and they lost none of their affection for her; but she seemed absorbed and preoccupied in some unimaginable state. For the most part, she showed no sign of distress, and no sign of anything save intense
concentration:
“She looked,” said one of her sisters, “as if she were trying her hardest to remember something—or, maybe, doing her damnedest to forget something. Whatever it was, it took all her attention.” In her years at home, and subsequently in hospital, her family did their utmost to penetrate this absorption, to learn what was going on with their beloved “kid” sister. With them—and, much later, with me—Miss R. was exceedingly candid, but whatever she said seemed cryptic and gnomic, and yet at the same time disquietingly clear. 8
    When there was only this state, and no other problems, Miss R.’s family could keep her at home: she was no trouble, they loved her, she was simply—elsewhere (or nowhere). But three or four years after her trance-state had started, she started to become rigid on the left side of her body, to lose her balance when walking, and to develop other signs of Parkinsonism. Gradually these symptoms grew worse and worse, until full-time nursing became a necessity. Her siblings left home, and her parents were aging, and it was increasingly difficult to keep her at home. Finally, in 1935, she was admitted to Mount Carmel.
    Her state changed little after the age of thirty, and when I first saw her in 1966, my findings coincided with the original notes from her admission. Indeed, the old staff-nurse on her ward, who had known her throughout, said: “It’s uncanny, that woman hasn’t aged a day in the thirty years I’ve known her. The rest of us get older—but Rosie’s the same.” It was true: Miss R. at sixty-one looked thirty years younger; she had raven-black hair, and her face was unlined, as if she had been magically preserved by her trance or her stupor.
    She sat upright and motionless in her wheelchair, with little or no spontaneous movement for hours on end. There was no spontaneous blinking, and her eyes stared straight ahead, seemingly indifferent to her environment but completely absorbed. Her gaze, when requested to look in different directions, was full, save for complete inability to converge the eyes. Fixation of gaze lacked smooth and subtle modulation, and was accomplished by sudden, gross movements which seemed to cost her considerable effort. Her face was completely masked and expressionless. The tongue could not be protruded beyond the lip-margins, and its movements, on request, were exceedingly slow and small. Her voice was virtually inaudible, though Miss R. could