A Curable Romantic

by Joseph Skibell

  I quickly pulled a handkerchief from my pocket. She seemed torn between accepting and rejecting it, apparently not wanting aid from the man who had nearly ruined her. With little choice, however, she took it and brought it to her nose. “Fräulein Eckstein,” I commanded her. The situation was now a medical emergency, and I was obliged to take charge of it. “Sit down!”

  Unwilling to sit in the chair where she had undressed herself, she moved to the one behind it. “This keeps happening and — oh! God! — it takes forever to stop!”

  The amount of blood gushing from her nose was alarming. When she occluded the offending nostril, the blood simply ran out the other; if she pinched both at once, as I advised her to do, the blood pooled at the back of her throat, mixing with her saliva until she had to spit it out in bright livid plugs. My handkerchief, crumbled in her hands, soon resembled a butcher’s rag, and her fingers, the front of her blouse and the knees of her skirt were stained with the wine-ish lacquer. I ran to summon help, and the house manager, appraising the situation, returned with towels from the tenor’s dressing room. Holding the white cloths to her face, Fräulein Eckstein allowed this gentleman to escort her from the box and, presumably, down the stairs to the lobby. He rode with her, I later learned, in the opera’s own fiacre to her family’s residence.

  I felt contemptible for failing to accompany her, but I knew my person was not desired. I attempted to concentrate on the performance, but I had no stomach for the contrivances of the plot and soon left.

  CHAPTER 11

  She spoke Yiddish to you?”

  “Yes, and she called me Yankl.”

  “But perhaps you mentioned to her that you were called Yankl as a child, and she wished, for some reason, in addressing you to bring up memories of your childhood.” Dr. Freud stopped to relight his cigar. He turned against the breeze, raising his shoulder as a windbreak. “It’s not an uncommon diminutive in the mother tongue … and yet” — he shook out the match and threw it into the street — “it does strike the odd-sounding chord.” He puffed on the cylinder with a smoker’s relief, the nicotine visibly soothing his nerves. “Mention nothing of this to Fliess, should we encounter him on our walk today, an occurrence I think likely.”

  “Certainly I’ll say nothing of Fräulein Eckstein.”

  “Not of the Fräulein, no, but of these,” he said, raising the cigar. “The old charmer’s back in town, you see, and at his command and for the benefit of my health, naturally, I’ve given up this filthy habit. I smoke the occasional one now and again simply to prove that I can stop whenever I wish.”

  We hesitated at the corner of Schwarzenbergstrasse to let a fiacre pass. The driver whipped his horses with a brutal fury, his passengers oblivious to his barbarisms, concealed, as they were, inside the carriage, wrapped comfortably beneath their heavy blankets. I could hear the high, fine tinkling sound of a woman’s laughter coming from inside the coach as it sped past.

  Dr. Freud scowled at the terrible sight. “You’ve put my work with Fräulein Eckstein back months now, or even years, I don’t mind telling you. You realize this, don’t you, Dr. Sammelsohn? Didn’t I tell you she was too ill for a suitor? And yet you recklessly ignored my warnings. And now just look at the mess you’ve made. Fräulein Eckstein’s was to be the final history in our Studies on Hysteria, a case of my own to rival what Breuer has done with Pappenheim in ‘The Case of Anna O.’ I’ll be months, mopping up the disaster you’ve created!”

  Dr. Freud checked the pulse in his wrist, then in his neck, before spitting onto the curb. “I have such a headache,” he said, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. “And it’s difficult to say if she’s truly suffering from hysteria or if her troubles have a more physiological origin. Once again my lack of medical knowledge weighs heavily upon me. Perhaps I should have Fliess examine her after all.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “Who else if not Wilhelm?”

  “It’s just that his theories seem so …”

  But I had risked too much. Dr. Freud grew suddenly cold. Perhaps because it seemed so improbable to me, I continually underestimated his infatuation with this dubious friend.

  “She acted as though she were possessed by a devil,” I said, hoping to bring the conversation back to hysteria, knowing that Dr. Freud was obsessed with the subject.

  He made a scoffing sound in his throat. “Oh, Dr. Sammelsohn.” He shook his head. “If you only knew.”

  He explained to me that, in addition to hysteria’s more dramatic and debilitating symptoms — all sorts of neuralgias, contractures, paralyses, hallucinations, et cetera — it was his and Dr. Breuer’s great discovery that hysterics suffer principally from reminiscences.

  “From reminiscences?” I said.

  “Mm, yes, from memories,” he said. “Specifically from repressed memories. Now these memories correspond to traumas the patient has allowed himself to experience only insufficiently. They are not, therefore, subject to the natural wearing-away process of normal memories. You see, Dr. Sammelsohn, the fading of a memory depends most importantly upon whether there has been an energetic reaction to the event in question, and by that I mean everything from acts of revenge to simple tears.”

  He drew on his cigar. “If the reaction is suppressed” — he shrugged — “the emotional charge attaches itself to the memory and manifests as hysteria.”

  In the great majority of cases, it was impossible to deduce the original trauma by interrogating the patient, however thoroughly one carried out these interrogations, partly because the experience in question is usually one the patient dislikes talking or even thinking about.

  “In that case, one must hypnotize him and, under hypnosis, arouse his memories of the time at which his symptoms first appeared. When this is done, it’s possible to demonstrate the connection between the hysterical symptom and its traumatic cause in the most convincing of fashions.”

  He had treated a clerk who’d become an hysteric as a result of having been beaten by his employer in public.

  “The poor man suffered from attacks in which he collapsed into a frenzy of rage, without giving any sign that he was in the grips of an hallucination. Under hypnosis, I was able to provoke an attack in the patient who then revealed that he was living through the scene in which his employer had beaten him.”

  But it was not he, Dr. Freud was quick to inform me, but rather Dr. Breuer, who, in treating a spectacular case of hysteria in a local girl named Bertha Pappenheim, had stumbled upon a rudimentary version of the psychoanalytic technique as early as 1880.

  “Now Breuer and I have found to our amazement that each symptom immediately and permanently disappears when the memory of the event that provoked it and its accompanying affects are brought into the light of analysis. This happens when the patient describes the event in the greatest possible detail, putting the affect into words. Hence: the talking cure. If a typical case of hysteria may be compared to a small shrine, Pappenheim’s was the grand cathedral of Chartres!”

  Highly intelligent, though intellectually understimulated, by her early twenties, Bertha Pappenheim had wrecked her health caring for her ailing father, and it was in the wake of his death that her symptoms first appeared: a squint, a nervous cough, violent mood swings, positive as well as negative hallucinations (she saw what wasn’t there and didn’t see what was). She suffered also from aural hallucinations and visual distortions. At one point, she could perceive the world visually only in pieces, one narrow segment at a time. At another, she lost her native German and spoke only (and perfectly, I might add) in English. Indeed, when given a German text to read, she translated it instantaneously, without realizing she had done so. For a time, a part of her consciousness lived in the actual year 1882, while another lived in the year before. In fact, she reexperienced the events of 1881 each day with a perfect fidelity, as Dr. Breuer was able to verify by consulting the diary of her mother.

  Only by having Fräulein Pappenheim recount the events of her trauma under h
ypnosis — one by one and in reverse chronological order — was Dr. Breuer able to relieve her of her symptoms. This was painstaking work, requiring infinite patience and infinite care; and the recounting succeeded only when Fräulein Pappenheim reexperienced these traumatic events with a full range of emotional responses. Fräulein Pappenheim herself coined the term talking cure — in English, of course — and in her lighter moments, she referred to the treatment, also in English, as chimney-sweeping.

  “But I’ll tell you a secret,” Dr. Freud said, leaning against me, and suddenly the air was thick with a delicious conspiracy. “Though you must promise never to reveal what I’m about to tell you to a living soul, and I mean that, Dr. Sammelsohn. Not to a living soul!”

  I promised him. I had no idea what he was going to say. I knew only that I must hear it.

  “This is what really happened between Breuer and his patient.” Dr. Freud raised his eyebrows. “On the evening of the day all of Fräulein Pappenheim’s symptoms were brought under control, Dr. Breuer was called to her bedside one final time. The patient was confused and writhing with abdominal cramps. Asked what was the matter, she replied, ‘Here comes Dr. B’s baby! Here comes Dr. B’s baby!’ Breuer, of course, had no stomach for such things. He picked up his medical bag, returned his hat to his head, and fled. He held the key in his hand, Dr. Sammelsohn, he held the key in his hand, and he dropped it. He dropped it! Like a thief who runs at the first sign of trouble, he had the courage of the knife but not the courage of the blood.”

  It was clear from the vitriol in Dr. Freud’s voice that his bitterness towards Dr. Breuer was far more complicated than he was letting on. He sounded like a suitor who’d been thrown over for a lover far less accomplished than himself. If this is how Dr. Freud treats his ex-friends, I thought, I’m glad to count myself among their opposites.

  “Breuer aside, the Pappenheim case is foundational for our young science,” Dr. Freud said. “The longer I’ve occupied myself with these phenomena, the more I’ve become convinced that there’s a splitting of consciousness involved in every hysteria, a ‘double self,’ as it were. Ideas originating in this second self, which are available to both patient and doctor in a state of hypnosis, are otherwise cut off from the normal consciousness of the patient. In their secondary state, these notions seem to form a second consciousness, a more or less highly structured condition seconde, as I call it. During an attack, control of the body appears to pass over to the second self entirely, and normal consciousness is repressed. I’m afraid something like this has befallen our poor Eckstein. In any case, the report you’ve made is troubling, and I’ll have to ask you to promise never to see the Fräulein again.”

  “Of course,” I said quickly.

  “I say this neither as her friend nor as yours but as a physician, her physician specifically.”

  “I will do whatever it is you advise.”

  Dr. Freud spat again into the curb. “God only knows what effects your afternoon tryst may have had upon her. You’ll give me your word, then. You will neither see her nor write to her, nor will you respond to any correspondence from her, except with the most bland demurrals, as any gentleman would.”

  “After today, I’m not certain Fräulein Eckstein will ever wish to see me again under any circumstances.”

  “That’s of course a woman’s prerogative,” Dr. Freud said, suddenly jovial and magnanimous again. “In which case …” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes?”

  “… there’s always the mother!”

  He barked up an orotund laugh.

  We were, by then, in the Prater, wandering along a rutted path before coming to a clearing near the Konstantinhugel where Dr. Fliess had asked Dr. Freud to meet him. He was waiting on one of the restaurant’s verandas, dapper in a dark suit and a floppy bow tie. He finished the chocolate he was eating and, wiping his hands against each other, rose to greet us as we approached.

  “Ah, Sigmund, good evening.”

  “Dearest Wilhelm, good evening, good year. You remember Dr. Sammelsohn, of course.”

  Dr. Fliess smiled at me with the icy grace of a reptile. “I’m quite sure we’ve never met. Or if we have, I don’t recall it.”

  “The week before last Christmas?” Dr. Freud prompted him. “At the soirée?”

  Dr. Fliess riffled his memory banks. Shaking his head, he made a clicking noise with his mouth. “Didn’t leave an impression, I’m afraid.” Nevertheless he took my hand. “There were so many fascinating people there.”

  At this, both men turned, as one, and looked at me. By their silent compact, I understood that they’d finished with my company and, too polite to dismiss me, were waiting for me to excuse myself.

  “Well, I see you have matters to attend to,” I said at last.

  “Yes,” Dr. Freud roared, “we’re having our picture made.” He smiled at Dr. Fliess. “A dual portrait. One that can be sent to all our mutual friends.”

  “What time is the appointment, anyway?” Dr. Fliess said.

  “You’ll receive a copy,” Dr. Freud assured me.

  “You’d better run,” I said as Dr. Fliess drew forth his watch. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

  “Good evening, Dr. Sammelsohn.”

  “Good evening, Dr… .” Though Dr. Freud had just spoken it, Dr. Fliess had apparently forgotten my name already.

  “Sammelsohn,” Dr. Freud said sotto voce.

  “Sammelsohn, yes, marvelous to meet you,” Dr. Fliess said as I said, “Good to see you again.”

  The two men walked off, arm in arm, Dr. Freud nearly leaning his head against Dr. Fliess’s shoulder. I waited a decent interval before following them the short distance to Brandstatter’s Photographic Emporium. I watched through the large front windows as Herr Brandstatter greeted both men. A hunchback, he shook their hands while looking at his shoes. He posed them against a grey backdrop, Dr. Freud with his long white tie, Dr. Fliess in the rakish bow tie embossed with a field of golden keys. Warning them with a raised finger not to move a hair, Herr Brandstatter retreated behind his camera and hid himself beneath its hood.

  He held up the pan, and the powder exploded with a flash.

  THAT NIGHT, THINGS came to an awkward pass. In bed, I felt hands tickling me awake. I pulled the covers tighter about my shoulders. “Who’s there?” I cried, squinting into the gloom, but I could see no one, even with my pince-nez on. As I was about to lay my head upon the pillow, however, a knocking sounded, and I got up, cinching the sash of my robe as I made my way to the door. A man is not made of stone, and though I’d pledged to do exactly as Dr. Freud had commanded, still, when I opened the door and found Fräulein Eckstein on the landing, dressed only in her nightgown and robe, her hair a mass of wet tangles, I had to let her in. What else was I to do? Send her away? Her clothes were damp from the night’s mist, and her bare feet were scalded red from the burning ice of the sidewalks.

  “Good Lord, Fräulein! Is that you?”

  She said nothing. Her eyes were nearly closed, her jaw slack, and her mouth opened slightly. She reminded me of a blind man I’d seen as a child in a railway station. Abandoned by his companions, he moved tentatively, taking each step as though the floor beneath him might open up at any moment and the earth swallow him. As with the blind man, something prevented me from immediately offering Fräulein Eckstein my aid. She was sleepwalking. I hadn’t realized this at first. Indeed, she was in as advanced a state of somnambulism as I had ever seen. Surely even Dr. Freud wouldn’t insist I send her away in such a precarious state. On the contrary, my calling as a doctor demanded that I take the opposite tack. The little I knew of somnambulism suggested it was best neither to startle nor awaken the Fräulein. On the other hand, I couldn’t very well leave a young woman, clad only in her nightclothes, standing at the door of my apartment and continue to live with my neighbors’ approval.

  “Come in, come in, you look frozen,” I said as gently I could. To my relief, she took a small step forward. She hesitated as t
hough puzzled at hearing my voice, but finally she crossed the threshold. I peered into the hallway before closing the door. No one was there. Fräulein Eckstein moved into the room, swaying slightly. Though her eyes were now completely closed, she managed somehow to avoid the furniture, a feat all the more remarkable as she’d never been inside my rooms before.

  “Do you mind?” she said, sitting at the table beneath the lamp, where earlier in the evening I’d been reading Dr. Fliess’s On the Causal Connection between the Nose and the Sexual Organ. Fräulein Eckstein picked up the book and tossed it aside. “Why do you read such rubbish?” she asked, still quite asleep.

  I shrugged, wondering if the silent gesture would register with her in any way. However, there was nothing to say in the book’s defense.

  “Yankl,” she said, sighing pleasurably.

  “Yes, Fräulein?”

  “Do you hear it?”

  “Hear what, Fräulein?”

  “The wedding music.”

  I shook my head.

  “I’m listening to it now,” she said. “Are you?”

  “I’m not.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I can’t hear it, I suppose.”

  Her brow puckered. “And why is that?”

  “Well, I’m certain I don’t know.”

  It’s an unsettlingly intimate thing to sit with a person whose eyes are closed. Observing while unobserved, the eye takes in things it otherwise might never see. I leaned in closer to Fräulein Eckstein and looked at the little blue twigs of veins inside her lowered eyelids, the skin of which seemed more red and roughened than the rest of her face. Perhaps she’s been crying, was my initial thought.