The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences

by Frederick Treves

This is a gathering, indeed, not of people, but of “cases” recalled by portions of their bodies. The collection is not unlike a medley of fragments of stained glass with isolated pieces of the human figure painted upon them, or it may be comparable to a faded fresco in a cloister, where the portions that survive, although complete in themselves, fail to recall the story they once have told.

It is curious, when so much is indefinite, how vividly certain trivial items stand forth as the sole remains of a once complete personality. All I can recall of one lady—elderly but sane—was the fact that she always received me, during a long illness, sitting up in bed with a large hat on her head trimmed with red poppies. She also wore a veil, which she had to lift in order that I might see her tongue. She was further distinguished by a rose pinned to her nightdress, but I recall with relief that she did not wear gloves.

Of one jolly boy the only particular that survives in my mind is a hare’s foot which was found under his pillow when he was awaiting an operation. It had been a talisman to coax him to sleep in his baby days, when his small hand would close upon it as the world faded. His old “nanny” had brought it to the nursing home, and had placed it secretly under his pillow, knowing that he would search for it in the unhappy daze of awakening from chloroform. He wept with shame when it was discovered, but I am sure it was put back again under the pillow, although he called his “nanny” “a silly old thing.”

Then, again, there was the whistling girl. She was about sixteen, and had recently learnt whistling from a brother. Her operation had been serious, but she was evidently determined to face it sturdily and never to give way. She expressed herself by whistling, and the expression was even more realistic than speech. Thus as I came upstairs the tone of her whistling was defiant and was intended to show that she was not the least afraid. During the dressing of the wound the whistling was subdued and uncertain, a rippling accompaniment that conveyed content when she was not hurt, but that was interrupted by a staccato “whoo” when there was a dart of pain. As soon as my visit was over the music became debonair and triumphant, so that I often left the room to the tune of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.”

On the other hand, among the phantoms of the case book are some who are remembered with a completeness which appears never to have grown dim. The figures are entire, while the inscription that records their story is as clear as it was when it was written.

In the company of these well remembered people is the lady whose story is here set forth. More than thirty years have passed since I saw her, and yet I can recall her features almost as well as if I had met her yesterday, can note again her little tricks of manner and the very words she uttered in our brief conferences. She was a woman of about twenty-eight, small and fragile, and very pretty. Her face was oval, her complexion exquisite, while her grey-blue eyes had in them the look of solemn wonder so often seen in the eyes of a child. Her hair came down low on either side of her face, and was so arranged as to remind me of the face of some solemn lady in an old Italian picture. Her mouth was small and sensitive, but determined, and she kept her lips a little apart when listening. She was quiet and self-possessed, while her movements and her speech were slow, as if she were weary.

She was shown into my room at an hour when I did not, as a rule, receive patients. She came without appointment and without any letter of introduction from her doctor. She said that she had no doctor, that she came from a remote place in the north of England, that she had an idea what was the matter with her, and that she wanted me to carry out the necessary operation. On investigation I found that she had an internal growth which would soon imperil her life. I explained to her that an operation would be dangerous and possibly uncertain, but that if it proved successful her cure would be complete. She said she would have the operation carried out at once, and asked me to direct her to a nursing home. She displayed neither anxiety nor reasonable interest. Her mind was made up. As to any danger to her life, the point was not worth discussing.

She had informed me that she was married, but had no children. I inquired as to her parents, but she replied that she was an orphan. I told her that I must write fully both to her doctor and to her husband. She replied, as before, that she had no doctor, and that it seemed a pity to worry a strange medical man with details about a patient who was not under his care. As to her husband, she asked if I had told her all and if there would be anything in my letter to him that I had not communicated to her. I said that she knew the utmost I had to tell. “In that case,” she replied, “a note from you is unnecessary.” I said, “Of course, your husband will come up to London?” To which she remarked, “I cannot see the need. He has his own affairs to attend to. Why should any fuss be made? The operation concerns no one but myself.”

I asked her then what relative or friend would look after her during the operation. She said, “No one. I have no relatives I care about; and as to friends, I do not propose to make my operation a subject for gossip.” I explained to her that under such circumstances no surgeon would undertake the operation. It was a hazardous measure, and it was essential that she should have someone near her during a period of such anxiety. She finally agreed to ask an elderly lady—a remote connexion of hers—to be with her during her stay in the nursing home.

Still, there was some mystery about the lady that I could not fathom, something evidently that I did not know. There was a suggestion of recklessness and even of desperation in her attitude that it was difficult to account for. As she sat in the chair by the side of my desk, with her hands folded in her lap and her very dainty feet crossed in front of her, her appearance of indifference was so pronounced that no onlooker would imagine that the purport of our converse was a matter of life and death. One little movement of hers during our unemotional talk was recalled to my mind some days later. She now and then put her hand to her neck to finger a brooch in the collar of her dress. It was a simple gold brooch, but she appeared to derive some comfort, or it may be some confidence, from the mere touching of it.