Writing this book has been an exercise in submission to that despair; to my evisceration; to my unsaved life; to form imposed on an array of obsessions, premonitions, desires. I have kept Augustine’s photos before me as I write. They can tell me nothing about how to approach the mind-body problem, do not translate intellectual principles into visceral ones, do not grant language to pain. They show me nothing but a woman at a moment in time. I have attempted to capture how she, through images of her body, which was subjected to a cruel and violent world, has affected my life.

Even the solace provided in hospital life under Charcot, Augustine’s initial yes was eventually unendurable. We don’t know what anything felt like for her after she left the Salpêtrière, if she was able to confront the soulful perils of the world she previously could not endure. We have no idea what happened to her next.

Finding the right words is paramount. The “language” hysteria provided to Augustine was ultimately insufficient, and playing the role of the model hysteric, the medical pin-up girl, became more oppressive than her symptoms. After refusing Charcot’s hypnotism sessions, Augustine was placed in solitary confinement and gave a final expression of distress: the last entry in her medical file reads, “On September 9, Augustine escaped from the Salpêtrière, disguised as a man.”