فصل 19

CHAPTER 19

“WE’RE NOT GETTING ANYWHERE, Friedrich. I’m getting worse.”

Nietzsche, who had been writing at his desk, had not heard Breuer enter. Now he turned around, opened his mouth to speak, yet remained silent.

“Do I startle you, Friedrich? It must be confusing to have your physician enter your room and complain that he is worse! Especially when he is impeccably attired and carries his black medical bag with professional assurance!

“But, trust me, my outward appearance is all deception. Underneath, my clothes are wet, my shirt clings to my skin. This obsession with Bertha—it’s a whirlpool in my mind. It sucks up my every clean thought!

“I don’t blame you!” Breuer sat down next to the desk. “Our lack of progress is my fault. It was I who urged you to attack the obsession directly. You’re right—we do not go deep enough. We merely trim leaves when we should be uprooting the weed.” “Yes, we uproot nothing!” Nietzsche replied. “We must reconsider our approach. I, too, feel discouraged. Our last sessions have been false and superficial. Look at what we tried to do: discipline your thoughts, control your behavior! Thought training and behavior shaping! These methods are not for the human realm! Ach, we’re not animal trainers!” “Yes, yes! After the last session I felt like a bear being trained to stand and dance.”

“Precisely! A teacher should be a raiser of men. Instead, in the last few meetings, I’ve lowered you and myself as well. We cannot approach human concerns with animal methods.”

Nietzsche rose and gestured toward the fireplace, the waiting chairs. “Shall we?” It occurred to Breuer, as he took his seat, that though the future “doctors of despair” might discard traditional medical tools—stethoscope, otoscope, ophthalmoscope—they would in time develop their own accoutrements, beginning with two comfortable fireside chairs.

“So,” Breuer began, “let’s return to where we were before this ill-advised direct campaign upon my obsession. You had advanced a theory that Bertha is a diversion, not a cause, and that the real center of my Angst is my fear of death and godlessness. Maybe so! I think you may be right! Certainly it’s true that my obsession about Bertha keeps me pasted to the surface of things, leaving me no time for deeper or darker thoughts.

“Yet, Friedrich, I don’t find your explanation entirely satisfying. First, there’s still the riddle of ‘Why Bertha?’ Of all the possible ways to defend myself against Angst, why choose this particular, stupid obsession? Why not some other method, some other fantasy?

“Second, you say Bertha is merely a diversion to misdirect my attention from my core Angst. Yet ‘diversion’ is a pale word. It’s not enough to explain the power of my obsession. Thinking about Bertha is preternaturally compelling; it contains some hidden, powerful meaning.” “Meaning!” Nietzsche slapped his hand sharply against the arm of his chair. “Exactly! I’ve been thinking along identical lines since you left yesterday. Your final word, ‘meaning,’ may be the key. Perhaps our mistake from the beginning has been to neglect the meaning of your obsession. You claimed you cured each of Bertha’s hysterical symptoms by discovering its origin. And also that this ‘origin’ method was not relevant to your own case because the origin of your Bertha obsession was already known—having begun after you met her and intensifying after you stopped seeing her.

“But perhaps,” Nietzsche continued, “you’ve been using the wrong word. Perhaps what matters is not the origin—that is, the first appearance of symptoms—but the meaning of a symptom! Perhaps you were mistaken. Perhaps you cured Bertha by discovering not the origin, but the meaning of each symptom! Perhaps”—here Nietzsche almost whispered as if he were conveying a secret of great significance—“perhaps symptoms are messengers of a meaning and will vanish only when their message is comprehended. If so, our next step is obvious: if we are to conquer the symptoms, we must determine what the Bertha obsession means to you!” What next? Breuer wondered. How does one go about discovering the meaning of an obsession? He was affected by Nietzsche’s excitement and awaited instructions. But Nietzsche had settled back in his chair, taken out his comb, and begun to groom his mustache. Breuer grew tense and cranky.

“Well, Friedrich? I’m waiting!” He rubbed his chest, breathing deeply. “This tension here, in my chest, grows every minute I sit here. Soon it will explode. I can’t reason it away. Tell me how to start! How can I discover a meaning that I myself have concealed?” “Don’t try to discover or solve anything!” Nietzsche responded, still combing his mustache. “That will be my job! Your job is just to chimneysweep. Talk about what Bertha means to you.” “Haven’t I already talked too much about her? Shall I wallow once again in my Bertha ruminations? You’ve heard them all—touching her, undressing her, caressing her, my house on fire, everyone dead, eloping to America. Do you really want to hear all that garbage again?” Getting up abruptly, Breuer paced back and forth behind Nietzsche’s chair.

Nietzsche continued to speak in a calm and measured manner. “It’s the tenacity of your obsession that intrigues me. Like a barnacle clinging to its rock. Can we not, Josef, just for a moment, pry it away and peer underneath? Chimneysweep for me, I say! Chimneysweep about this question: What would life—your life—be like without Bertha? Just talk. Don’t try to make sense, even to make sentences. Say anything that comes to your mind!” “I can’t. I’m wound up, I’m a coiled spring.”

“Stop pacing. Close your eyes and try to describe what you see on the back of your eyelids. Just let the thoughts flow—don’t control them.”

Breuer stopped behind Nietzsche’s chair and clutched its back. His eyes closed, he rocked to and fro, as his father had when he prayed, and slowly began to mumble his thoughts:

“A life without Bertha—a charcoal life, no colors—calipers—scales—funerary marbles—everything decided, now and for always—I’d be here, you’d find me here—always! Right here, this spot, with this medical bag, in these clothes, with this face which, day by day, will grow darker and more gaunt.” Breuer breathed deep, feeling less agitated, and sat down. “Life without Bertha?—What else?—I’m a scientist, but science has no color. One should only work in science, not try to live in it—I need magic—and passion—you can’t live without magic. That’s what Bertha means, passion and magic. Life without passion—who can live such a life?” He opened his eyes suddenly. “Can you? Can anyone?” “Please chimneysweep about passion and living,” Nietzsche prodded him.

“One of my patients is a midwife,” Breuer went on. “She’s old, wizened, alone. Her heart is failing. But still she’s passionate about living. Once I asked her about the source of her passion. She said it was that moment between lifting a silent newborn and giving it the slap of life. She was renewed, she said, by immersion in that moment of mystery, that moment that straddles existence and oblivion.” “And you, Josef?”

“I’m like that midwife! I want to be close to mystery. My passion for Bertha isn’t natural—it’s supernatural, I know that—but I need magic. I can’t live in black and white.”

“We all need passion, Josef,” Nietzsche said. “Dionysian passion is life. But does passion have to be magical and debasing? Can’t one find a way to be the master of passion?

“Let me tell you about a Buddhist monk I met last year in the Engadine. He lives a spare life. He meditates half his waking hours and spends weeks without exchanging a word with anyone. His diet is simple, only a single meal a day, whatever he can beg, perhaps only an apple. But he meditates upon that apple until it’s bursting with redness, succulence, and crispness. By the end of the day, he passionately anticipates his meal. The point is, Josef, you don’t have to relinquish passion. But you have to change your conditions for passion.” Breuer nodded.

“Keep going,” Nietzsche urged. “Chimneysweep more about Bertha—what she means to you.”

Breuer closed his eyes. “I see myself running with her. Running away. Bertha means escape—dangerous escape!”

“How so?”

“Bertha is danger. Before her, I lived within the rules. Today I flirt with the limits of those rules—perhaps that’s what the midwife meant. I think about exploding my life, sacrificing my career, committing adultery, losing my family, emigrating, beginning life again with Bertha.” Breuer slapped himself lightly on the head. “Stupid! Stupid! I know I’ll never do it!” “But there’s a lure to this dangerous teeter-tottering on the edge?”

“A lure? I don’t know. I can’t answer that. I don’t like danger! If there’s a lure, it’s not danger—I think the lure is escape, not from danger but from safety. Maybe I’ve lived too safely!” “Maybe, Josef, living safely is dangerous. Dangerous and deadly.”

“Living safely is dangerous.” Breuer mumbled the words to himself several times. “Living safely is dangerous. Living safely is dangerous. A powerful thought, Friedrich. So is that the meaning of Bertha: to escape the dangerously deadly life? Is Bertha my freedom wish—my escape from the trap of time?” “Perhaps from the trap of your time, your historical moment. But, Josef,” he said solemnly, “do not make the mistake of thinking she will lead you out of time! Time cannot be broken; that is our greatest burden. And our greatest challenge is to live in spite of that burden.” For once, Breuer did not protest Nietzsche’s assumption of his philosopher’s tone. This philosophizing was different. He didn’t know what to do with Nietzsche’s words, but he knew they reached him, moved him.

“Be assured,” he said, “I have no dreams of immortality. The life I want to escape is the life of the eighteen eighty-two Viennese medical bourgeoisie. Others, I know, envy my life—but I dread it. Dread its sameness and predictability. Dread it so much that sometimes I think of my life as a death sentence. Do you know what I mean, Friedrich?” Nietzsche nodded. “Do you remember asking me, perhaps the first time we talked, whether there were any advantages to having migraine? It was a good question. It helped me think about my life differently. And do you remember my answer? That my migraine forced me to resign my university professorship? Everyone—family, friends, even colleagues—lamented my misfortune, and I am certain history will record that Nietzsche’s illness tragically ended his career. But not so! The reverse is true! The professorship at the University of Basel was my death sentence. It sentenced me to the hollow life of the academy and to spend the rest of my days providing for the economic support of my mother and sister. I was fatally trapped.” “And then, Friedrich, migraine—the great liberator—descended upon you!”

“Not so different is it, Josef, from this obsession that descends upon you? Perhaps we are more alike than we think!”

Breuer closed his eyes. How good to feel so close to Nietzsche. Tears welled up; he pretended a coughing fit in order to turn his head away.

“Let us continue,” said Nietzsche impassively. “We’re making progress. We understand that Bertha represents passion, mystery, dangerous escape. What else, Josef? What other meanings are packed into her?” “Beauty! Bertha’s beauty is an important part of the mystery. Here, I brought this for you to see.”

He opened his bag and held out a photograph. Putting on his thick glasses, Nietzsche walked to the window to inspect it in better light. Bertha, clothed from head to toe in black, was dressed for riding. Her jacket constricted her: a double row of small buttons, stretching from her tiny waist to her chin, struggled to contain her mighty bosom. Her left hand daintily clasped both her skirt and a long riding whip. From her other hand, gloves dangled. Her nose was forceful, her hair short and severe; and on it perched an insouciant black cap. Her eyes were large and dark. She did not trouble to look into the camera, but stared far into the distance.

“A formidable woman, Josef,” said Nietzsche, returning the photograph and sitting down again. “Yes, she has great beauty—but I don’t like women who carry whips.”

“Beauty,” Breuer said, “is an important part of Bertha’s meaning. I’m easily captured by such beauty. More easily than most men, I think. Beauty is a mystery. I hardly know how to speak about it, but a woman who has a certain combination of flesh, breasts, ears, large dark eyes, nose, lips—especially lips—simply awes me. This sounds stupid, but I almost believe such women have superhuman powers!” “To do what?”

“It’s too stupid!” Breuer hid his face in his hands.

“Just chimneysweep, Josef. Suspend your judgment—and speak! You have my word I do not judge you!”

“I can’t put it into language.”

“Try to finish this sentence: ‘In the presence of Bertha’s beauty, I feel——’ ”

“ ‘In the presence of Bertha’s beauty, I feel—I feel—’ What do I feel? I feel I’m in the bowels of the earth—in the center of existence. I’m just where I should be. I’m in the place where there are no questions about life or purpose—the center—the place of safety. Her beauty offers infinite safety.” He lifted his head. “See, I tell you this makes no sense!” “Go on,” said Nietzsche imperturbably.

“For me to be captured, the woman must have a certain look. It’s an adoring look—I can see it in my mind now—wide-open, glistening eyes, lips closed in an affectionate half-smile. She seems to be saying—oh, I don’t know——” “Continue, Josef, please! Keep imagining the smile! Can you still see it?”

Breuer closed his eyes and nodded.

“What does it say to you?”

“It says, ‘You’re adorable. Anything you do is all right. Oh, you darling, you get out of control, but one expects that of a boy.’ Now I see her turning to the other women around her, and she says, ‘Isn’t he something? Isn’t he dear? I’ll take him into my arms and comfort him.’ ” “Can you say more about that smile?”

“It says to me I can play, do whatever I want. I can get into trouble—but, no matter what, she’ll continue to be delighted by me, to find me adorable.”

“Does the smile have a personal history for you, Josef?”

“What do you mean?”

“Reach back. Does your memory contain such a smile?”

Breuer shook his head. “No, no memories.”

“You answer too quickly!” Nietzsche insisted. “You started to shake your head before I finished my question. Search! Just keep watching that smile in your mind’s eye and see what comes.” Breuer closed his eyes and gazed at the scroll of his memory. “I’ve seen Mathilde give that smile to our son, Johannes. Also, when I was ten or eleven, I was infatuated by a girl named Mary Gomperz—she gave me that smile! That exact smile! I was desolate when her family moved away. I haven’t seen her for thirty years, yet I still dream about Mary.” “Who else? Have you forgotten your mother’s smile?”

“Haven’t I told you? My mother died when I was three. She was only twenty-eight, and she died after giving birth to my younger brother. I’m told she was beautiful, but I have no memories of her, not one.” “And your wife? Does Mathilde have that magical smile?”

“No. Of that I can be certain. Mathilde is beautiful, but her smile has no power for me. I know it’s stupid to think that Mary, at age ten, has power, while Mathilde has none. But that’s the way I experience it. In our marriage, it is I who have power over her, and it is she who desires my protection. No, Mathilde has no magic, I don’t know why.” “Magic requires darkness and mystery,” Nietzsche said. “Perhaps her mystery has been annihilated by the familiarity of fourteen years of marriage. Do you know her too well? Perhaps you cannot bear the truth of a relationship to a beautiful woman.” “I begin to think I need another word than beauty. Mathilde has all the components of beauty. She has the aesthetics, but not the power, of beauty. Perhaps you’re right—it is too familiar. Too often I see the flesh and blood under the skin. Another factor is that there’s no competition; no other men have ever been in Mathilde’s life. It was an arranged marriage.” “It puzzles me that you would want competition, Josef. Just a few days ago, you spoke of dreading it.”

“I want competition, and I don’t. Remember, you said I didn’t have to make sense. I’m just expressing words as they occur to me. Let me see—let me collect my thoughts—ϒes, the woman of beauty has more power if she is desired by other men. But such a woman is too dangerous—she will scald me. Maybe Bertha is the perfect compromise—she’s not yet fully formed! She is beauty in embryo, still incomplete.” “So,” Nietzsche asked, “she’s safer because she has no other men competing for her?”

“That’s not quite it. She’s safer because I have the inside track. Any man would want her, but I can easily defeat competitors. She is—or, rather, was—completely dependent on me. For weeks she refused to eat unless I personally fed her every meal.

“Naturally, as her physician, I deplored my patient’s regression. Tsk, tsk, I clucked my tongue. Tsk, tsk, what a pity! I expressed my professional concern to her family, but secretly, as a man—and I’d never admit this to anyone but you—I relished my conquest. When she told me, one day, that she had dreamed of me, I was ecstatic. What a victory—to enter her innermost chamber, a place where no other man had ever gained entry! And since dream images do not die, it was a place where I would endure forever!” “So, Josef, you win the competition without having had to compete!”

“Yes, that is another meaning of Bertha—safe contest, certain victory. But a beautiful woman without safety—that is something else.” Breuer fell silent.

“Keep going, Josef. Where do your thoughts go now?”

“I was thinking about an unsafe woman, a fully formed beauty about Bertha’s age who came to see me in my office a couple of weeks ago, a woman to whom many men have paid homage. I was charmed by her—and terrified! I was so unable to oppose her that I could not keep her waiting and saw her out of turn before my other patients. And when she made an inappropriate medical request of me, it was all I could to resist her wishes.” “Ah, I know that dilemma,” said Nietzsche. “The most desirable woman is the most frightening one. And not, of course, because of what she is, but because of what we make of her. Very sad!” “Sad, Friedrich?”

“Sad for the woman who is never known, and sad, too, for the man. I know that sadness.”

“You, too, have known a Bertha?”

“No, but I have known a woman like that other patient you describe—the one who cannot be denied.”

Lou Salomé, thought Breuer. Lou Salomé, without a doubt! At last, he speaks of her! Though reluctant to relinquish the focus on himself, Breuer nonetheless pressed the inquiry.

“So, Friedrich, what happened to that lady you could not deny?”

Nietzsche hesitated, then took out his watch. “We have struck a rich vein today—who knows, perhaps a rich vein for both of us. But we are running out of time and I am certain you still have much to say. Please continue to tell me what Bertha means to you.” Breuer knew that Nietzsche was closer than ever before to disclosing his own problems. Perhaps a gentle inquiry at this point would have been all that was necessary. Yet when he heard Nietzsche prod him again: “Don’t stop: your ideas are flowing,” Breuer was only too glad to continue.

“I lament the complexity of the double life, the secret life. Yet I treasure it. The surface bourgeois life is deadly—it’s too visible, one can see the end too clearly and all the acts, leading right to the end. It sounds mad, I know, but the double life is an additional life. It holds the promise of a lifetime extended.” Nietzsche nodded. “You feel that time devours the possibilities of the surface life, whereas the secret life is inexhaustible?”

“Yes, that’s not exactly what I said, but it’s what I mean. Another thing, perhaps the most important thing, is the ineffable feeling I had when I was with Bertha or that I have now when I think about her. Bliss! That’s the closest word.” “I’ve always believed, Josef, that we are more in love with desire than with the desired!”

“ ‘More in love with desire than with the desired!’” Breuer repeated. “Please give me some paper. I want to remember that.”

Nietzsche tore a sheet from the back of his notebook and waited while Breuer wrote the line, folded the paper, and put it in his jacket pocket.

“And another thing,” Breuer continued, “Bertha eases my aloneness. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been frightened by the empty spaces inside of me. And my aloneness has nothing to do with the presence, or absence, of people. Do you know what I mean?” “Ach, who could understand you better? At times I think I’m the most alone man in existence. And, like you, it has nothing to do with the presence of others—in fact, I hate others who rob me of my solitude and yet do not truly offer me company.” “What do you mean, Friedrich? How do they not offer company?”

“By not holding dear the things I hold dear! Sometimes I gaze so far into life that I suddenly look around and see that no one has accompanied me, and that my sole companion is time.” “I’m not sure if my aloneness is like yours. Perhaps I’ve never dared to enter it as deeply as you.”

“Perhaps,” Nietzsche suggested, “Bertha stops you from entering it more deeply.”

“I don’t think I want to enter it more. In fact, I feel grateful to Bertha for removing my loneliness. That’s another thing she means to me. In the last two years, I’ve never been alone—Bertha was always there at her home, or in the hospital, waiting for my visit. And now she’s always inside of me, still waiting.” “You attribute to Bertha something that is your own achievement.”

“What do you mean?”

“That you’re still as alone as before, as alone as each person is sentenced to be. You’ve manufactured your own icon and then are warmed by its company. Perhaps you are more religious than you think!” “But,” Breuer replied, “in a sense she is always there. Or was, for a year and a half. Bad as it was, that was the best, the most vital, time of my life. I saw her every day, I thought about her all the time, I dreamed about her at night.” “You told me of one time she was not there, Josef—in that dream that keeps returning. How does it go—that you’re searching for her——?”

“It begins with something fearful happening. The ground starts to liquefy under my feet, and I search for Bertha and cannot find her——”

“Yes, I’m convinced there is some important clue in that dream. What was the fearful event that happened—the ground opening up?”

Breuer nodded.

“Why, Josef, at that moment, should you search for Bertha? To protect her? Or for her to protect you?”

There was a long silence. Twice Breuer snapped his head back as though to order himself to attention. “I can’t go further. It’s astounding, but my mind won’t work anymore. Never have I felt so fatigued. It’s only mid-morning, but I feel as though I’ve been laboring without stop for days and days.” “I feel it, too. Hard work today.”

“But the right work, I think. Now I must go. Until tomorrow, Friedrich.”

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Excerpts from Dr. Breuer’s Case Notes on Eckart Müller, 15 December 1882

Can it have been only a few days ago that I pleaded with Nietzsche to reveal himself? Today, finally, he was ready, eager. He wanted to tell me that he felt trapped by his university career, that he resented supporting his mother and sister, that he was lonely and suffered because of a beautiful woman.

Yes, finally he wanted to reveal himself to me. And yet, it’s quite astounding—I did not encourage him! It was not that I had no desire to listen. No, worse than that! I resented his talking! I resented his intruding upon my time!

Was it only two weeks ago I tried to manipulate him into revealing some tiny scrap of himself, that I complained to Max and Frau Becker about his secretiveness, that I bent my ear to his lips to hear him say, “Help me, help me, ” that I promised him, “Count on me”?

Why, then, did I neglect him today? Have I grown greedy? This counseling process—the longer it goes, the less I understand it. Yet it is compelling. More and more, I think about my talks with Nietzsche; sometimes they even interrupt a Bertha fantasy. These sessions have become the center of my day. I feel greedy for my time and often can hardly wait until our next one. Is that why I let Nietzsche put me off today?

In the future—who knows when, maybe fifty years hence?—this talking treatment could become commonplace. “Angst doctors” will become a standard specialty. And medical schools—or perhaps philosophy departments—will train them.

What should the curriculum of the future “Angst doctor” contain? At present, I can be certain of one essential course: “relationship”! That’s where the complexity arises. Just as surgeons must first learn anatomy, the future “Angst doctor” must first understand the relationship between the one who counsels and the one who is counseled. And, if I am to contribute to the science of such counseling, I must learn to observe the counseling relationship just as objectively as the pigeon’s brain.

Observing a relationships is not easy when I myself am part of it. Still, I note striking trends.

I used to be critical of Nietzsche, but no longer. On the contrary, I now cherish his every word and, day by day, grow more convinced that he can help me.

I used to believe I could help him. No longer. I have little to offer him. He has everything to offer me.

I used to compete with him, to devise chess traps for him. No longer! His insight is extraordinary. His intellect soars. I gaze at him as a hen at a hawk. Do I revere him too much! Do I want him to soar above me? Perhaps that is why I do not want to hear him talk. Perhaps I do not want to know of his pain, his fallibility.

I used to think about how to “handle” him. No longer! Often I feel great surges of warmth toward him. That’s a change. Once I compared our situation to Robert’s training his kitten: “Stand back, let him drink his milk. Later he’ll let you touch him.” Today, midway through our talk, another image flitted through my mind: two tiger-striped kittens, head touching head, lapping milk from the same bowl.

Another strange thing. Why did I mention that a “fully formed beauty” recently visited my office? Do I want him to learn of my meeting with Lou Salomé? Was I flirting with danger? Silently teasing him? Trying to drive a wedge between us?

And why did Nietzsche say he doesn’t like women with whips? He must have been referring to that picture of Lou Salomé that he doesn’t know I saw. He must realize his feelings for her are not so different from my feelings toward Bertha. So, was he silently teasing me? A little private joke? Here we are, two men trying to be honest with one another—yet both prodded by the imp of duplicity.

Another new insight! What Nietzsche is to me, I was to Bertha. She magnified my wisdom, revered my every word, cherished our sessions, could scarcely wait until the next—indeed, prevailed upon me to see her twice daily!

And the more blatantly she idealized me, the more I imbued her with power. She was the anodyne for all my anguish. Her merest glance cured my loneliness. She gave my life purpose and significance. Her simple smile anointed me as desirable, granted me absolution for all bestial impulses. A strange love: we each bask in the radiance of one another’s magic!

Yet I grow hopeful. There is power in my dialogue with Nietzsche, and I am convinced that this power is not illusory.

Strange that, only hours later, I have forgotten much of our discussion. A strange forgetting, not like the evaporation of an ordinary coffeehouse conversation. Could there be such a thing as an active forgetting—forgetting something not because it is unimportant, but because it is too important?

I wrote down one shocking phrase: “We are more in love with desire than with the desired. ”

And another. “Living safely is dangerous. ”Nietzsche says that my entire bürgerlich life has been lived dangerously. I think he means I am in danger of losing my true self, or of not becoming who I am. But who am I?

Friedrich Nietzsche’s Notes on Dr. Breuer, 15 December 1882

Finally, an outing worthy of us. Deep water, quick dips in and out. Cold water, refreshing water. I love a living philosophy! I love a philosophy chiseled out of raw experience. His courage grows. His will and his ordeal lead the way. But is it not time for me to share the risks?

The time for an applied philosophy is not yet ripe. When? Fifty years, a hundred years hence? The time will come when men will cease to fear knowledge, will no longer disguise weakness as “moral law, ” will find the courage to break the bond of “thou shalt. ” Then shall men hunger for my living wisdom. Then shall men need my guidance to an honest life, a life of unbelief and discovery A life of overcoming. Of lust overcome. And what greater lust than the lust to submit?

I have other songs that must be sung. My mind is pregnant with melodies, and Zarathustra calls me ever more loudly. My métier is not that of technician. Still, I must put my hand to the task and record all blind alleys and all fair trails.

Today the entire direction of our work changed. And the key? The idea of meaning rather than “origin”!

Two weeks ago, Josef told me he cured each of Bertha’s symptoms by discovering its original cause. For example, he cured her fear of drinking water by helping her remember that she had once observed her chambermaid allowing the dog to lap water from Bertha’s glass. I was skeptical at first, even more so now. The right of a dog drinking from one’s glass—unpleasant? To some, yes! Catastrophic? Hardly! The cause of hysteria? Impossible!

No, that was not “cause” but manifestation—of some deeper persisting Angst! That is why Josef’s cure was so evanescent.

We must look to meaning. The symptom is but a messenger carrying the news that Angst is erupting from the innermost realm! Deep concerns about finitude, the death of God, isolation, purpose, freedom—deep concerns locked away for a lifetime—now break their bonds and bang at the doors and windows of the mind. They demand to be heard. And not only heard, but lived!

That strange Russian book about the Underground Man continues to haunt me. Dostoevsky writes that some things are not to be told, except to friends; other things are not to be told even to friends; finally, there are things one does not tell even oneself! Surely it is the things Josef “has never told even himself that now erupt within him.

Consider what Bertha means to Josef. She is escape, dangerous escape, escape from the danger of the safe life. And passion as well, and mystery and magic. She is the great liberator bearing the reprieve from his death sentence. She has superhuman powers; she is the cradle of life, the great mother confessor: she pardons all that is savage and bestial in him. She provides him with guaranteed victory over all competitors, with perduring love, eternal companionship, and everlasting existence in her dreams. She is a shield against the teeth of time, offering rescue from the abyss within, safety from the abyss below.

Bertha is a cornucopia of mystery, protection, and salvation! Josef Breuer calls this love. But its real name is prayer.

Parish priests, like my father, have always protected their flock from Satan. They teach that Satan is the enemy of faith, that in order to undermine faith, Satan may assume any guise—and none more dangerous and insidious than the cloak of skepticism and doubt.

But who will protect us—the holy skeptics? Who will warn us of threats to the love of wisdom and hatred of servitude? Shall that be my calling? We skeptics have our enemies, our Satans who undermine our doubting and plant the seeds of faith in the most cunning places. Thus we kill gods, but we sanctify their replacements—teachers, artists, beautiful women. And Josef Breuer, a renowned scientist, beatifies, for forty years, the adoring smile of a little girl named Mary.

We doubters must be vigilant. And strong. The religious drive is ferocious. Look how Breuer, an atheist, yearns to persist, to be forever observed, forgiven, adored, and protected Shall my calling be that of the doubter’s priest? Shall I spend myself in detecting and destroying religious wishes, whatever their disguise? The enemy is formidable; the flame of belief is fueled inexhaustibly by the fears of death, oblivion, and meaninglessness.

Where will meaning take us? If I uncover the meaning of the obsession, then what? Will Josef’s symptoms abate? And mine? When? Will a quick dip in and out of “understanding” be sufficient? Or must it be a prolonged submersion?

And which meaning? There seem to be many meanings to the same symptom, and Josef has not begun to exhaust the meanings of his Bertha obsession.

Perhaps we must peel the meanings off one by one until Bertha ceases to mean anything but Bertha herself. Once she is stripped of surplus meanings, he will see her as the frightened naked human, all too human, that she and he and all of us really are.