Psychological analysis is far from being able to explain in complete and illuminating fashion all cases of the disease with which we are here concerned. On the contrary, the majority remain obscure and difficult to understand, and chiefly because only a certain proportion of patients recover. Our last patient is noteworthy because his return to a normal state afforded us a survey of the period of his illness. Unfortunately the advantage of this standpoint is not always possible to us, for a great number of persons never find their way back from their dreams. They are lost in the maze of a magic garden where the same old story is repeated again and again in a timeless present. For patients the hands of the clock of the world remain stationary; there is no time, no further development. It makes no difference to them whether they dream for two days or thirty years. I had a patient in my ward who was five years without uttering a word, in bed, and entirely buried in himself. For years I visited him twice daily, and as I reached his bedside I could see at once that there was no change. One day I was just about to leave the room when a voice I did not recognise called out--"Who are you? What do you want here?" I saw with astonishment that it was the dumb patient who had suddenly regained his voice, and obviously his senses also. I told him I was his doctor, whereupon he asked angrily, why was he kept a prisoner here, and why did no one ever speak to him? He said this in an injured voice just like a normal person whom one had neglected for a couple of days. I informed him that he had been in bed quite speechless for five years and had responded to nothing, whereat he looked at me fixedly and without understanding. Naturally I tried to discover what had gone on in him during these five years, but could learn nothing. Another patient with a similar symptom, when asked why he had remained silent for years, maintained, "Because I wanted to spare the German language."[199] These examples show that it is often impossible to lift the veil of the secret, for the patients themselves have neither interest nor pleasure in explaining their strange experiences, in which as a rule they realise nothing peculiar. Occasionally the symptoms themselves are a sign-post to the understanding of the psychology of the disease.