فصل 12

CHAPTER 12

ON MONDAY MORNING, Nietzsche came to Breuer’s office for the final stages of their business together. After carefully studying Breuer’s itemized bill to be sure nothing had been omitted, Nietzsche filled out a bank draft and handed it to Breuer. Then Breuer gave Nietzsche his clinical consultation report and suggested he read it while still in the office in case he had any questions. After scrutinizing it, Nietzsche opened his briefcase and placed it in his folder of medical reports.

“An excellent report, Doctor Breuer, comprehensive and comprehensible. And unlike many of my other reports, it contains no professional jargon, which, though offering the illusion of knowledge, is in reality the language of ignorance. And now, back to Basel. I have taken too much of your time.” Nietzsche closed and locked his briefcase. “I leave you, Doctor, feeling more indebted to you than to any man ever before. Ordinarily, leavetaking is accompanied by denials of the permanence of the event: people say, ‘Auf Wiedersehen’—until we meet again. They are quick to plan for reunions and then, even more quickly, forget their resolutions. I am not one of those. I prefer the truth—which is that we shall almost certainly not meet again. I shall probably never return to Vienna, and I doubt you will ever be in such want of a patient like me as to track me down in Italy.” Nietzsche tightened his grip on his briefcase and started to get up.

It was a moment for which Breuer had prepared carefully. “Professor Nietzsche, please, not just yet! There is another matter I wish to discuss with you.”

Nietzsche tensed. No doubt, Breuer thought, he has been expecting another plea to enter the Lauzon Clinic. And dreading it.

“No, Professor Nietzsche, it’s not what you think, not at all. Please relax. It is quite another matter. I’ve been procrastinating in raising this issue for reasons that will soon be apparent.” Breuer paused and took a deep breath.

“I have a proposition to make you—a rare proposition, perhaps one never before made by a doctor to a patient. I see myself delaying. This is hard to say. I’m not usually at a loss for words. But it’s best simply to say it.

“I propose a professional exchange. That is, I propose that for the next month I act as physician to your body. I will concentrate only on your physical symptoms and medications. And you, in return, will act as physician to my mind, my spirit.” Nietzsche, still gripping his briefcase, seemed puzzled, then wary. “What do you mean—your mind, your spirit? How can I act as physician? Is this not but another variation of our discussion last week—that you doctor me and I teach you philosophy?” “No, this request is entirely different. I do not ask you to teach me, but to heal me.”

“Of what, may I ask?”

“A difficult question. And yet I pose it to my patients all the time. I asked it of you, and now it is my turn to answer it. I ask you to heal me of despair.”

“Despair?” Nietzsche relaxed his hold on his briefcase and leaned forward. “What kind of despair? I see no despair.”

“Not on the surface. There I seem to be living a satisfying life. But, underneath the surface, despair reigns. You ask what kind of despair? Let us say that my mind is not my own, that I am invaded and assaulted by alien and sordid thoughts. As a result, I feel self-contempt, and I doubt my integrity. Though I care for my wife and my children, I don’t love them! In fact, I resent being imprisoned by them. I lack courage: the courage either to change my life or to continue living it. I have lost sight of why I live—the point of it all. I am preoccupied with aging. Though every day I grow closer to death, I am terrified of it. Even so, suicide sometimes enters my mind.” On Sunday, Breuer had rehearsed this answer often. But today it had been—in a strange way, considering the underlying duplicity of the plan—sincere. Breuer knew he was a poor liar. Though he had to conceal the big lie—that his proposal was a ploy to engage Nietzsche in treatment—he had resolved to tell the truth about everything else. Hence, in his speech, he presented the truth about himself in slightly exaggerated form. He also tried to select concerns that might in some way interlace with some of Nietzsche’s own, unspoken concerns.

For once, Nietzsche appeared truly astounded. He shook his head slightly, obviously wanting no part of this proposal. Yet he was having difficulty formulating a rational objection.

“No, no, Doctor Breuer, this is impossible. I cannot do this, I’ve no training. Consider the risks—everything might be made worse.”

“But, Professor, there is no such thing as training. Who is trained? To whom can I turn? To a physician? Such healing is not part of the medical discipline. To a religious leader? Shall I take the leap into religious fairy tales? I, like you, have lost the knack for such leaping. You, a Lebens-philosopher, spend your life contemplating the very issues that confound my life. To whom can I turn if not to you?” “Doubts about yourself, wife, children? What do I know about these?”

Breuer responded at once. “And aging, death, freedom, suicide, the search for purpose—you know as much as anyone alive! Aren’t these the precise concerns of your philosophy? Aren’t your books entire treatises on despair?” “I can’t cure despair, Doctor Breuer. I study it. Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you will always find despair.”

“I know that, Professor Nietzsche, and I don’t expect cure, merely relief. I want you to advise me. I want you to show me how to tolerate a life of despair.”

“But I don’t know how to show such things. And I have no advice for the singular man. I write for the race, for humankind.”

“But, Professor Nietzsche, you believe in scientific method. If a race, or a village, or a flock has an ailment, the scientist proceeds by isolating and studying a single prototypic specimen and then generalizing to the whole. I spent ten years dissecting a tiny structure in the inner ear of the pigeon to discover how pigeons maintain their equilibrium! I could not work with pigeonkind. I had to work with individual pigeons. Only later was I able to generalize my findings to all pigeons, and then to birds and mammals, and humans as well. That’s the way it has to be done. You can’t conduct an experiment on the whole human race.” Breuer paused, awaiting Nietzsche’s rebuttal. None came. He was rapt in thought.

Breuer continued. “The other day you described your belief that the specter of nihilism was stalking Europe. You argued that Darwin has made God obsolete, that just as we once created God, we have all now killed him. And that we no longer know how to live without our religious mythologies. Now I know you didn’t say this directly—correct me if I’m mistaken—but I believe you consider it your mission to demonstrate that out of disbelief one can create a code of behavior for man, a new morality, a new enlightenment, to replace one born out of superstition and the lust for the supernatural.” He paused.

Nietzsche nodded for him to continue.

“I believe, though you may disagree with my choice of terms, that your mission is to save humankind from both nihilism and illusion?”

Another slight nod from Nietzsche.

“Well, save me! Conduct the experiment with me! I’m the perfect subject. I have killed God. I have no supernatural beliefs, and am drowning in nihilism. I don’t know why to live! I don’t know how to live!” Still no response from Nietzsche.

“If you hope to develop a plan for all mankind, or even a select few, try it on me. Practice on me. See what works and what doesn’t—it should sharpen your thinking.”

“You offer yourself as an experimental lamb?” Nietzsche replied. “That would be how I repay my debt to you?”

“I’m not concerned about risk. I believe in the healing value of talking. Simply to review my life with an informed mind like yours—that’s what I want. That cannot fail to help me.”

Nietzsche shook his head in bewilderment. “Do you have a specific procedure in mind?”

“Only this. As I proposed before, you enter the clinic under an assumed name, and I observe and treat your migraine attacks. When I make my daily visits, I shall first attend to you. I shall monitor your physical condition and prescribe any medication that may be indicated. For the rest of our visit, you become the physician and help me talk about my life concerns. I ask only that you listen to me and interject any comments you wish. That is all. Beyond that, I don’t know. We’ll have to invent our procedure along the way.” “No.” Nietzsche shook his head firmly. “It is impossible, Doctor Breuer. I admit your plan is intriguing, but it is doomed from the onset. I am a writer, not a talker. And I write for the few, not the many.” “But your books are not for the few,” Breuer quickly responded. “In fact, you express scorn for philosophers who write only for one another, whose work is removed from life, who do not live their philosophy.” “I don’t write for other philosophers. But I do write for the few who represent the future. I am not meant to mingle, to live among. My skills for social intercourse, my trust, my caring for others—these have long atrophied. If, indeed, such skills were ever present. I have always been alone. I shall always remain alone. I accept that destiny.” “But, Professor Nietzsche, you want more. I saw sadness in your eyes when you said that others might not read your books until the year two thousand. You want to be read. I believe there is some part of you that still craves to be with others.” Nietzsche sat still, rigid in his chair.

“Remember that story you told me about Hegel on his deathbed?” Breuer continued. “About the only one student who understood him being one who misunderstood him—and ended by saying that, on your own deathbed, you couldn’t claim even one student. Well, why wait for the year two thousand? Here I am! You have your student right here, right now. And I’m a student who will listen to you, because my life depends on understanding you!” Breuer paused for breath. He was very pleased. In his preparation the day before, he had correctly anticipated each of Nietzsche’s objections and countered each of them. The trap was elegant. He could hardly wait to tell Sig.

He knew he should stop at this juncture—the first object being, after all, to ensure that Nietzsche did not take the train to Basel today—but could not resist adding one further point. “And, Professor Nietzsche, I remember how you said the other day that nothing disturbed you more than to be in debt to another with no possibility of equivalent repayment.” Nietzsche’s response was quick and sharp. “You mean that you do this for me?”

“No, that’s just the point. Even though my plan might in some way serve you, that is not my intention! My motivation is entirely self-serving. I need help! Are you strong enough to help me?” Nietzsche stood up from his chair.

Breuer held his breath.

Nietzsche took a step toward Breuer and extended his hand. “I agree to your plan,” he said.

Friedrich Nietzsche and Josef Breuer had struck a bargain.

4 December 1882

My dear Peter,

A change of plans. Again. I shall be in Vienna for an entire month and, hence, must, with regret, postpone our Rapallo visit. I will write when I know my plans more precisely. A great deal has happened, most of it interesting. I am having a slight attack (which would have been a two-week monster were it not for the intervention of your Dr. Breuer) and am too weak now to do more than give you a precis of what has transpired. More to follow.

Thank you for finding me the name of this Dr. Breuer—he is a great curiosity—a thinking, scientific physician. Is that not remarkable? He is willing to tell me what he knows about my illness and—even more remarkable—what he does not know!

He is a man who greatly wishes to dare and I believe is attracted to my daring to dare greatly. He has dared to offer me a most unusual proposition, and I have accepted it. For the next month he proposes to hospitalize me at the Lauzon Clinic, where he will study and treat my medical illness. (And all this to be at his expense! This means, dear friend, that you need not concern yourself about my subsistence this winter.) And I? What must I offer in return? I, who none believed would ever again be gainfully employed, I am asked to be Dr. Breuer’s personal philosopher for one month to provide personal philosophic counsel. His life is a torment, he contemplates suicide, he has asked me to guide him out of the thicket of despair.

How ironic, you must think, that your friend is called upon to muffle death’s siren call, the same friend who is so enticed by that rhapsody, the very friend who wrote you last saying that the barrel of a gun seemed not an unfriendly sight!

Dear friend, I tell you this about my arrangement with Dr. Breuer in total confidence. This is for no one else’s ear, not even Overbeck. You are the only one I entrust with this. I owe the good doctor total confidentiality.

Our bizarre arrangement evolved to its present form in a complex manner. First he offered to counsel me as part of my medical treatment! What a clumsy subterfuge! He pretended that he was interested only in my welfare, his only wish, his only reward, to make me healthy and whole! But we know about those priestly healers who project their weakness into others and then minister to others only as a way of increasing their own strength. We know about “Christian charity”!

Naturally, I saw through it and called it by its true name. He choked on the truth for a while—called me blind and base. He swore to elevated motives, mouthed fake sympathy and comical altruisms, but finally, to his credit, he found the strength to seek strength openly and honestly from me.

Your friend, Nietzsche, in the marketplace! Are you not appalled by the thought? Imagine my Human, All Too Human, or my The Gay Science, caged, tamed, housebroken! Imagine my aphorisms alphabetized into a practicum of homilies for daily life and work! At first, I, too, was appalled! But no longer. The project intrigues me—a forum for my ideas, a vessel to fill when I am ripe and overflowing, an opportunity—indeed, a laboratory, to test ideas on an individual specimen before positing them for the species (that was Dr. Breuer’s notion).

Your Dr. Breuer, incidentally, seems a superior specimen, with the perceptiveness and the desire to stretch upward. Yes, he has the desire. And he has the head. But does he have the eyes—and the heart—to see? We shall see!

So today I convalesce and think quietly about application—a new venture. Perhaps I was in error to think that my sole mission was truth finding. For the next month, I shall see if my wisdom will enable another to live through despair. Why does he come to me? He says that after tasting my conversation and nibbling a bit of Human, All Too Human, he has developed an appetite for my philosophy. Perhaps, given the burden of my physical disease, he thought that I must be an expert on survival.

Of course he doesn’t know the half of my burden. My friend, the Russian bitch-demon, that monkey with false breasts, continues her course of betrayal. Elisabeth, who says Lou is living with Rée, is campaigning to have her deported for immorality.

Elisabeth also writes that friend Lou has moved her hate-and-lie campaign to Basel, where she intends to imperil my pension. Cursed be that day in Rome when I first saw her. I have often said to you that every adversity—even encounters with pure evil—makes me stronger. But if I can turn this shit into gold, I shall. . . I shall. . .—we shall see.

I have not the energy to make a copy of this letter, dear friend. Please return it to me.

Yours,

F.N.