Tuesday, November 5, 2013
He would wake up—find himself, discover himself were the phrases he often used—in this public square or that one, countries away from home, not knowing how he got there.
The Frenchman Albert Dadas was the first of his kind, an involuntary wanderer described by Maud Casey in her essay “A Stubborn Desire.”1 As Casey reports, Dadas spent years in the late 1800s walking across Europe in a semi-trance, sometimes 70 kilometers in a day, often without sleeping or eating. He was diagnosed by his doctor, Philippe Tissie, with a psychiatric condition never before applied: fugueur. From the Latin fuga: a combination of fugere (to flee) and fugare (to chase).
