Our Hero
Investigates Hysteria
by J. R. Salling
In Paris he gathers soldiers, on leave from battle, looks for red softenings in exposed gray matter, and Salpêtrière mothers, who fall into trances in which they reveal hidden birth traumas and scandalous plots. His intercranial pressure probes kaleidoscopic aspects of random episodes, those black seizures that lock in rows of unhappy smiles. Wary of his questions, there is silence, hardening silence in the end to crumble into ill-mannered song.