Dr. Tudor continued, “I must tell you frankly that what we have concluded is not hopeful. No treatment we know of can certainly arrest the course of katatonia. Two days ago, your mother, who is now in a room by herself, was seized with a violent attack of vomiting, after which a muscular rigidity set in which has continued with rare intervals of relaxation. Sleep is possible only if we give her opiates. Her hallucinations have increased and have become so diverse that they appear entirely unrelated to anything we know of in her history. It is bad news, Miss Marburg, but like all bad news, it is better to know it at once.”

“Do you mean, sir,” I said, “that my mother will never be well again?”

“We can’t talk in positive terms like that, as I have said. Patients have recovered. Many have made partial recoveries. Your mother may be one of those fortunate people who do regain their health. But it will take a long time and we can promise you nothing.”

“Does she know? I mean, is she . . .”

“You mean, is she unhappy. Subjectively, that is. Let me assure you that she is in a world of her own. She is frightened, yes, but nothing we can do, nothing anyone can do, can remove the cause of her fright.”

“Perhaps I could! Perhaps if I took her away, back to Chichester, she would be better.”

The doctor rose and came around his desk, standing over me with a benevolent smile that was yet somehow hasty as if he wished to draw our interview to a close. “Believe me, there is nothing you can do. For the time being, your visits will be of no use. She is very sick.”

“Poor Mamma,” I murmured.

“You go on home now. When we have anything to report, we’ll drop you a line. Some day you can see her again.”

“Some day? But when?”

“That, I can’t say.”

“Will you give her my flowers?” I asked him, holding out the waxy Easter lilies I had bought that morning at Mr. Quince’s. Dr. Tudor laid them on his desk and, finished with my case, led me to the door. The corridor was silent, for all the other visitors had gone to their melancholy meetings. My footsteps on the hard, rubbery floor sounded wet and loud, and the sunshine which stopped halfway from the door seemed remote, a golden bay. The indefatigable voice pursued me to the door, calling after me, “Doctor Fink-ull-stein! Doctor Shor-ort! Doctor Baaxter!” I was conscious of the terrible permanence of the asylum: forever, in the same inflections, the voice would chant and bleat the names of the same doctors, would echo through the glistening halls where every surface and every shadow was rounded, where even the doctors, at their most precise, smoothed down the sharp edges of what they said. Only the shafts of sunlight were sharp, but they were laden with round motes.