فصل 9

CHAPTER 9

BUT ALL WAS NOT SETTLED. Nietzsche sat with his eyes closed for a long time. Then, suddenly opening them, he said decisively, “Doctor Breuer, I’ve taken enough of your valuable time. Your offer is a generous one. I shall long remember it, but I cannot—I will not accept it. There are reasons beyond reasons”—words spoken with finality, as though he did not intend further explanation. In preparation for departure, he closed the clasps on his briefcase.

Breuer was astonished. This interview resembled more a chess contest than a professional consultation. He had made a move, proposed a plan, which Nietzsche immediately countered. He had responded to the objection, only to face still another of Nietzsche’s objections. Was there no end to them? But Breuer, an old hand at clinical impasses, turned now to a ploy that rarely failed.

“Professor Nietzsche, be my consultant for a moment! Please imagine this interesting situation; perhaps you can help me understand it. I have encountered a patient who has been very sick for some time. He enjoys even tolerable health less than one day out of three. He then undertakes a long, arduous journey to consult with a medical expert. The consultant performs his task competently. He examines the patient and makes a proper diagnosis. Patient and consultant apparently develop a relationship of reciprocal respect. The consultant then proposes a comprehensive treatment plan in which he has complete confidence. Yet the patient shows no interest whatsoever, not even curiosity, in the treatment plan. On the contrary, he rejects it instantaneously and raises obstacle after obstacle. Can you help me understand this mystery?” Nietzsche’s eyes widened. Though he appeared intrigued by Breuer’s droll gambit, he did not respond.

Breuer persisted. “Perhaps we should start at the beginning of this riddle. Why does this patient who does not want treatment seek consultation in the first place?”

“I came because of strong pressure from my friends.”

Breuer was disappointed that his patient declined to enter into the spirit of his little artifice. Though Nietzsche wrote with great wit and extolled laughter in the written word, it was clear the Herr Professor did not like to play.

“Your friends in Basel?”

“Yes, both Professor Overbeck and his wife are close to me. Also, a good friend in Genoa. I don’t have many friends—a consequence of my nomadic life—and the fact that every one of them urged me to seek consultation was remarkable! As was the fact that Doctor Breuer’s name seemed to be on all their lips.” Breuer recognized the adroit hand of Lou Salomé. “Surely,” he said, “their concern must have been ignited by the gravity of your medical condition.”

“Or perhaps from my speaking of it too often in my letters.”

“But your speaking of it must reflect your own concern. Why else write them such letters? Surely not to evoke concern? Or sympathy?”

A good move! Check! Breuer was pleased with himself. Nietzsche was forced to retreat.

“I have too few friends to risk losing them. It occurred to me that, as a mark of friendship, I should do what I could to alleviate their concern. Hence my arrival in your office.”

Breuer decided to press his advantage. He moved more boldly.

“You have no concern for yourself? Impossible! Over two hundred days a year of punishing incapacitation! I have attended too many patients in the midst of a migraine attack to accept any minimization of your pain.”

Excellent! Another file on the chessboard closed off. Where would his opponent move now? Breuer wondered.

Nietzsche, apparently realizing he had to develop some of his other pieces, turned his attention back to the center of the board. “I have been called many things—philosopher, psychologist, pagan, agitator, antichrist. I have even been called some unflattering things. But I prefer to call myself a scientist, because the cornerstone of my philosophic method, as of the scientific method, is disbelief. I always maintain the most rigorous possible skepticism, and I am skeptical now. I cannot accept your recommendation for psychic exploration on the basis of medical authority.” “But, Professor Nietzsche, we are entirely in agreement. The only authority to be followed is reason, and my recommendation is supported by reason. I claim only two things. First, that stress may make one sick—and much scientific observation supports this claim. Second, that considerable stress exists in your life—and I speak of a stress different from that inherent in your philosophic inquiry.

“Let us examine the data together,” Breuer continued. “Consider the letter you described from your sister. Surely there is stress in being slandered. And, incidentally, you violated our contract of reciprocal honesty by failing to mention this slanderer to me earlier.” Breuer moved more boldly yet. There was no other way—he had nothing to lose.

“And surely there is stress in the thought of losing your pension, your sole source of support. And if that is mere alarmist exaggeration by your sister, then there is the stress of having a sister willing to alarm you!”

Had he gone too far? Nietzsche’s hand, Breuer noticed, had slid down the side of his chair and was slowly inching its way to the handle of his briefcase. But there was no turning back now. Breuer went for checkmate.

“But I have even more powerful support for my position—a brilliant recent book”—he reached out and tapped his copy of Human, All Too Human—“by a soon-to-be, if there be any justice in this world, eminent philosopher. Listen!”

Opening the book to the passage he had described to Freud, he read: “’Psychological observation is among the expedients by means of which one can alleviate the burden of living.’ A page or two farther, the author asserts that psychological observation is essential and that—here, in his words—(Mankind can no longer be spared the cruel sight of the moral dissecting table.’ A couple of pages later, he points out that the errors of the greatest philosophers usually stem from a false explanation of human actions and sensations which ultimately results in (the erection of a false ethics and religious and mythological monsters.’ “I could go on”—and Breuer flipped through the pages—“but the point made by this excellent book is that, if human belief and behavior are to be understood, one must first sweep away convention, mythology, and religion. Only then, with no preconceptions whatsoever, should one presume to examine the human subject.” “I am quite familiar with that book,” said Nietzsche sternly.

“But will you not follow its prescription?”

“I devote my life to its prescription. But you have not read far enough. For years now, I alone have performed such a psychological dissection: I have been the subject of my own study. But I am not willing to be your subject! Would you yourself be willing to be the subject of another? Allow me to put a direct question to you, Doctor Breuer. What is your motivation in this treatment project?” “You come to me for help. I offer it. I am a doctor. That’s what I do.”

“Far too simple! Both of us know that human motivation is far more complex, and at the same time more primitive. I ask again, what is your motivation?”

“It is a simple matter, Professor Nietzsche. One practices one’s profession—a cobbler cobbles, a baker bakes, and a doctor doctors. One earns one’s living, one practices one’s calling, and my calling is to be of service, to alleviate pain.” Breuer tried to convey confidence but began to feel queasy. He did not like Nietzsche’s latest move.

“These are not satisfactory answers to my question, Doctor Breuer. When you say a doctor doctors, a baker bakes, or one practices one’s calling, that is not motivation: that is habit. You’ve omitted from your answer consciousness, choice, and self-interest. I prefer it when you say one earns one’s living—that, at least, one can understand. One strives to put food in one’s stomach. But you don’t request money from me.” “I might pose you the same question, Professor Nietzsche. You say you earn nothing from your work: Why, therefore, do you philosophize?” Breuer tried to stay on the offensive but felt his momentum ebbing.

“Ah, but there is one important distinction between us. I do not claim that I philosophize for you, whereas you, Doctor, continue to pretend that your motivation is to serve me, to alleviate my pain. Such claims have nothing to do with human motivation. They are part of the slave mentality artfully engineered by priestly propaganda. Dissect your motives deeper! You will find that no one has ever done anything wholly for others. All actions are self-directed, all service is self-serving, all love self-loving.” Nietzsche’s words came faster, and he rushed on.

“You seem surprised by that comment? Perhaps you think of those you love. Dig deeper, and you will learn that you do not love them: what you love is the pleasant sensations such love produces in you! You love desire, not the desired. So, may I ask again why you wish to serve me? Again, I ask, Doctor Breuer”—here Nietzsche’s voice grew stern—“what are your motives?” Breuer felt dizzy. He choked back his first impulse: to comment on the ugliness and crassness of Nietzsche’s formulation, and thus inevitably put an end to the aggravating case of Professor Nietzsche. He imagined, for a moment, the sight of Nietzsche’s back as he stomped out of his office. God, what a relief! Free at last of this whole sorry, frustrating business. Yet it saddened him to think he would not see Nietzsche again. He was drawn to this man. But why? Indeed, what were his motives?

Breuer found himself thinking again of chess games with his father. He had always made the same error—of concentrating too much on attack, pressing it beyond his own supply lines, and ignoring his defense until, like lightning, his father’s queen struck behind his lines and threatened mate. He brushed the fantasy away, not failing, however, to take note of its meaning: he must never, never again underestimate this Professor Nietzsche.

“Again, I ask, Doctor Breuer, what are your motives?”

Breuer struggled to respond. What were they? He marveled at the way his mind resisted Nietzsche’s question. He forced himself to concentrate. His desire to help Nietzsche—when had it begun? In Venice, of course, bewitched by Lou Salomé’s beauty. So charmed had he been that he had readily agreed to help her friend. To undertake the healing of Professor Nietzsche had provided not only an ongoing link with her but an opportunity to elevate himself in her eyes. Then there was the link with Wagner. Of course, that was conflicted: Breuer loved Wagner’s music but hated his anti-Semitism.

What else? Over the weeks, Lou Salomé had dimmed in his mind. She was no longer the reason for his engagement with Nietzsche. No, he knew he was intrigued by the intellectual challenge before him. Even Frau Becker the other day had said no other physician in Vienna would have taken on such a patient.

Then there was Freud. Having proposed Nietzsche to Freud as a teaching case, he’d look foolish if the professor spurned his help. Or was it that he wished to be near greatness? Perhaps Lou Salomé was right in saying that Nietzsche represented the future of German philosophy: those books by Nietzsche—they had the smell of genius.

None of these motives, Breuer knew, had any relevance to the man Nietzsche, to the flesh-and-blood person before him. And so he had to remain silent about his contact with Lou Salomé, his glee at going where other physicians feared to tread, his craving for the touch of greatness. Perhaps, Breuer grudgingly acknowledged, Nietzsche’s ugly theories about motivation have merit! Even so, he had no intention of abetting his patient’s outrageous challenge to his claim of service. But how, then, to respond to Nietzsche’s annoying and inconvenient question?

“My motives? Who can answer such a question? Motives exist in many layers. Who decrees that only the first layer, the animalistic motives, are the ones that count? No, no—I see you’re ready to repeat the question; let me attempt to answer the spirit of your inquiry. I spent ten years in medical training. Shall I waste those years of training because I no longer need money? Doctoring is my way of justifying the effort of those early years—a way of providing consistency and value to my life. And of providing meaning! Should I sit all day and count my money? Would you do that? I am certain you would not! And then there is another motive. I enjoy the intellectual stimulation I receive from my contacts with you.” “These motives have at least the aroma of honesty,” Nietzsche conceded.

“And I’ve just thought of another—I like that granite sentence: ‘Become who you are.’ What if what I am, or what I was destined for, is to be of service, to aid others, to contribute to medical science and the relief of suffering?” Breuer felt much better. He was regaining his composure. Perhaps I’ve been too argumentative, he thought. Something more conciliatory is needed. “Here’s still another motive. Let us say—and I believe it to be so—that your destiny is to be one of the great philosophers. Thus my treatment not only may help your physical being but will also aid you in your project of becoming who you are.” “And if I am, as you say, to become great, then you as my animator, my saviour, become even greater!” Nietzsche exclaimed as if he knew he’d just fired the telling shot.

“No! I didn’t say that!” Breuer’s patience, generally inexhaustible in his professional role, was beginning to shred. “I am the physician to many individuals who are eminent in their field—the leading scientists, artists, musicians in Vienna. Does that make me greater than they? No one even knows I treat them.” “But you have told me, and now use their eminence to enhance your authority with me!”

“Professor Nietzsche, I don’t believe what I’m hearing. Do you actually believe that, if your destiny is fulfilled, I shall go about proclaiming that it is I, Josef Breuer, who created you?”

“Do you actually believe that such things do not happen?”

Breuer tried to settle himself. Careful, Josef, keep your temper. Consider things from his standpoint. Try to understand the source of his distrust.

“Professor Nietzsche, I know you have been betrayed in the past and are therefore justified to anticipate betrayal in the future. You have my word, however, that it will not happen here. I promise you that your name will never be mentioned by me. Nor shall it even appear in clinic records. Let us invent a pseudonym for you.” “It’s not what you may tell others, I accept your word on that. What matters is what you will tell yourself, and what I will tell myself. In all that you have told me of your motives, there was, despite your continuing claims of service and the alleviation of distress, nothing really of me in it. That is how it should be. You will use me in your self-project: that, too, is expected—it is the way of nature. But do you not see, I will be used up by you! Your pity for me, your charity, your empathy, your techniques to help me, to manage me—the effects of all these make you stronger at the expense of my strength. I am not rich enough to afford such help!” This man is impossible, Breuer thought. He dredges up the worst, the basest, motives for everything. Breuer’s few remaining tatters of clinical objectivity fluttered away. He could no longer contain his feelings.

“Professor Nietzsche, allow me to speak frankly. I have seen much merit in many of your arguments today, but this last assertion, this fantasy about my wishing to weaken you, about my strength feeding on yours, is total nonsense!” Breuer saw Nietzsche’s hand slipping farther down toward the handle of his briefcase, but could not stop himself! “Don’t you see, here’s a perfect example of why you cannot dissect your own psyche. Your vision is blurred!”

He saw Nietzsche grasp his briefcase and start to rise. Nonetheless, he continued, “Because of your own unfortunate problems with friendships, you make bizarre mistakes!”

Nietzsche was buttoning up his coat, but Breuer could not hold his tongue: “You assume your own attitudes are universal and then you try to comprehend for all mankind what you cannot comprehend about yourself.”

Nietzsche’s hand was on the doorknob.

“I apologize for interrupting you, Doctor Breuer, but I must arrange for this afternoon’s train to Basel. May I return in two hours to pay my bill and collect my books? I shall leave a forwarding address for your consultation report.” He bowed stiffly and turned. Breuer winced at the sight of his back as he walked out of the office.