by Morris West
“Well, when she went to live in Silbersee . . .” The word is out before I realise that I have given him another clue to my identity. Hoping he has missed it, I hurry on. “We had a small horse breeding operation – hacks and draught animals for the local hunters and farmers. Papa insisted that both Lily and I learn to ride. After we were confident enough, we would ride out with Papa to visit the local gentlefolk. If Papa wasn’t home, Lily and I would go visiting together.”
His next question catches me unaware.
“Did your father ever speak about your mother?”
“Never. I asked him about her only once. He looked at me in the strangest way and said, ‘Be glad she’s gone. She never loved me. She never loved you. She was the Snow Queen, who had a lump of ice instead of a heart. But we don’t need her, do we? I’m your prince; you’re my princess; and Lily will look after us both for ever and ever, amen. Now promise me you’ll never talk about the Snow Queen again! Never, never, never!’ So, of course, I promised.”
“And you never thought about her?”
“Sometimes I did. Once I remember I saw a picture of the Snow Queen in a book of fairy tales. I was surprised that she looked so beautiful. I was tempted to take it to Papa and show him – but Lily said I shouldn’t. It would only make him angry. I was afraid that if he got too angry he would stay away and never come home. He was away so much; that was a very real fear for me.”
Suddenly, I am self-conscious. I am giving a solo performance. I say as much to Jung. He laughs and waves me on.
“That’s the best thing that can happen. Tell me more about your life at . . . where was it? . . . Silbersee.”
I begin, haltingly at first, then with lively enthusiasm, to tell him about my childhood in the Schloss, with Lily and me living our enchanted existence, while Papa came and went like some gallant from the golden days. I tell him about Papa’s homecomings and the happy sensual intimacies we shared. I find, to my surprise, I am happy to share the memory with my new friend, Doctor Jung.
“One morning, while I was still quite small, I came into Papa’s bedroom and found him making love with Lily. She was straddling him and riding him like a jockey. When Papa caught sight of me, he laughed and beckoned me over and had me join the game. I sat on his chest. Lily put her arms around me and sang ‘Ride a cock horse’, while the three of us bounced and laughed as if it were just another nursery game. Does that shock you, doctor?”
“No. Should it?”
“Well, some people might think it strange.”
“Did you find it strange?”
“No. It was pure pleasure. And it got better the older I grew. I had the best of two worlds – life on a big estate, the sowing and the reaping, the cutting of timber, the mating and birthing of animals, and lovely, cosy hours in our private heaven in the Schloss. Lily and Papa prepared me for puberty. Lily taught me girl things. Papa showed me his medical books, taught me how babies are conceived and born, and how women should conduct their sexual lives. I adored him. I would do anything to please him. I wanted to be as like him as possible. That’s why I made up my mind to be a doctor.”
“What was your father’s name?”
“Oh no, you don’t, doctor! That’s not fair!”
He grins at me, mischievously.
“A little test. Why is your name so important? You’re telling me much more intimate things.”
“Because this way I can tell them like fairy tales. If I don’t have a name, they don’t belong to me, do they?”
“I understand. Please, tell me more fairy tales.”
“It was a terrible wrench when I had to go to boarding school and learn to be a young lady of quality. The hardest thing was to keep quiet about the things I’d learned from Lily and my father. I felt so much older and wiser than all the silly little girls giggling in the dormitory after lights-out. I felt lonely, too, sometimes.”
“But obviously you settled down in the end?”
“Of course. I learned how to make capital out of my secret knowledge. I became a leader, not a follower. I began to build up contacts outside the school. The way I did this was by enrolling in what were called ‘optional courses’. These were given by private teachers in their own homes or studios. For example, as soon as I became a senior, I persuaded Papa to let me enrol at an advanced riding academy near the school. The academy was run by a former captain of cavalry and his two sons. One was a bit of an oaf; but the other, Rudi, was very handsome, and in the saddle he looked like a prince. He knew it too, and I teased him all the time about his arrogance. I knew he wanted me, because every time we talked I could see his erection straining at his tight breeches. One day, he challenged me to ride a big black stallion which the academy had just bought for stud. He was a beautiful beast, but bad tempered – a real rogue. I was hardly in the saddle when he reared and bucked and tried every trick to get rid of me. I hung on, determined to best him if I died in the attempt. I flogged and spurred him and drove him round and round at a bolting gallop until the moment when I knew I had him mastered. My excitement was so great that I came to orgasm – a wild burst of pleasure that excites me every time I remember it. Even now, my dear doctor.”
He does not take the bait. His eyes are fixed on his notebook. Still writing, he asks:
“And what happened then?”
“I rode the stallion to a standstill, then dismounted and tossed the reins to Rudi. I was wet and smelling of sex. Rudi stared at me and said, ‘Christ! I wish you’d ride me like that!’ I laughed and said, ‘Why not?’ We climbed up into the hayloft and made love. But after the stallion, Rudi was a great disappointment. He had no staying power.”
I mean it as a joke. He does not react. He scribbles another note and asks another question.
“How old were you when this happened?”
“Oh, seventeen – a little more, perhaps.”
“But clearly it wasn’t your first sexual experience.”
“Oh, dear no! I’d made all the usual experiments – no, that’s the wrong word, they weren’t experiments. I’d learned how to stimulate myself to climax. I had a quite happy lesbian relationship with a girl at school – and various episodes with male students in and around Geneva. None of them was important. I knew more than they did. Most of them were too eager or too inexperienced. Papa used to say a good lover needs as much training as an athlete.”
“Was your Papa a good lover?”
“The best! The very best! He was everything a woman . . .”
I break off, horrorstruck at what I have told him. I feel a blush like a tidal wave flooding over my breast and my cheeks. I cannot meet Jung’s eyes. I bury my face in my hands. A moment later, I hear him, as if from a great distance, saying:
“There now. Cry if you want. I’m going to pour some brandy.”
As he passes, he lays a hand on my head, as if he is imparting a blessing. I am absurdly grateful for the gesture. At least it proves that I am not a leper.
JUNG
Zurich
I confess to a singular satisfaction. The woman’s narrative – so vivid and at times so joyful – about her childhood and her relations with her father convince me that I am right and Freud is totally wrong on the incest taboo. I can say, without vanity, that I have much more experience than he in this matter.
Freud is a city man, born and bred. I am a country fellow. In Switzerland there are many small mountain communities where incestuous relations in various degrees of consanguinity are quite common. The commonest are those between father and daughter in a large family, between brother and sister, and between close cousins. Unless violence is involved, or a total destruction of the bond between husband and wife, incestuous relationships are often durable and happy. They excite little hostility in the small closed community, which accepts them as the slightly abnormal fringe of local mores.
There are, however, deeper questions involved – and it is on these that I have taken issue with Freud and his minions. Incest has always had a mythical
, a sacred aspect. The kings of Ancient Egypt married their sisters. Many of the regeneration myths are incestuous in character.
This woman’s narrative has all these characteristics. She lives in a closed world – a heaven of childish pleasures. Her father is a prince; she is a princess. As a lover, he was the best, always! Even the lost mother is a beautiful Snow Queen. Lily, the surrogate mother, is at once handmaiden, duenna and confidante at court. It is only later, when reality invades this Eden, that their three-cornered relationship will inevitably deteriorate. If I can trust the story I am being told, the same mythic attitude prevails with the father. He never brings women home. No outsider invades the upper rooms. The enchanted garden remains inviolate. The spell will be broken if the gate is opened and strangers from the outside world gain entrance.
This is when the trouble starts – and we are still a long way from definition of what that trouble may be. The childhood and girlhood narratives are clear, vivid and coherent. The others – with the exception of the dream – are still only sketches. She wants to be done with them as soon as possible. “Yes, I was cruel to the stallion and the dog. Yes, I was sexually excited by the experience. I loved my husband. I missed him when he died. My daughter thought I was a witch. I lost her. Sad, sad, sad! And if you don’t save me, reward me with peace and justification after all the trouble I’m going through, I’ll kill myself with prussic acid.” She’s a doctor. She knows there are easier, if not quicker, ways of dying than by cyanide poisoning; but the little blue bottle with the poison label is a dramatic threat directed at me.
I know that little piece of theatre, too. I remember the girl at the Burgholzli – also an incest case, but one who had been violated – who had retreated into a world of total myth and fantasy. She lived on the moon. She met a winged demon who turned into a beautiful man. All the magical transformations of ugliness into beauty! She was finally cured and restored to a normal life. On the day I signed her certificate of discharge from outpatient treatment, she presented me with a loaded pistol. If I had failed her, she said, she was going to shoot me . . . Well, this one can’t shoot me with a phial of hydrocyanic acid. She can, however, decide to stage a suicide scene on my doorstep. I hope she is too rational for that; but one can never be sure.
As we sip our brandy – I am interested to see how she handles a moderately large dose of alcohol – I take pains to impress on her that the incest experience is relatively common and that she must not feel humiliated by it. Her reaction is one of genuine surprise.
“Humiliated? By that? Never! I was prepared for it, don’t you see? My father was the one man who could make sense of a bizarre universe. Nothing shocked him. Nothing was unforgivable, except hypocrisy.”
“But he never forgave your mother’s desertion.”
“That’s true.”
“And you had to be sure you never incurred his displeasure – otherwise you, too, might have been cast out of Eden for ever.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way.” She does not reject this thought. She examines it, with an odd air of sadness. “Still, it could be so. I told you Papa’s comings and goings were always rather capricious. But yes, if he was away for longer than I expected, I would become restless and tearful. I used to wonder if something had happened to him – or if some other witch woman had carried him off.”
“Did he ever punish you, threaten you?”
“Never!” She is very emphatic. “It was Lily’s job to discipline me. Papa just enjoyed me. I enjoyed him. So long as he was there, my world was a Garden of Eden. Everything was possible. Nothing was forbidden. I was the lucky Eve who had the run of the place.”
“Let us be specific now. When did your father first have full intercourse with you?”
“On my seventeenth birthday. He told me it was his special gift.”
“Tell me about it – everything you can remember.”
Once again her narrative flows freely and simply. Her pleasure in the recollection is obvious. She is disappointed because I seem not to share it. Equally vivid – and this it seems to me is a very significant point – is her description of her anger and disappointment at being sent back to school after this rite of passage. I put it to her in the terms of our original metaphor.
“So, when you went back to school this time, it was like being cast out of Eden?”
“Yes, that’s what it felt like. I was a hothouse plant suddenly transplanted to a cold climate. For the first time, I saw myself as an oddity. What I resented was that I had no preparation for the experience.”
“So, how did you cope?”
She gives a small rueful laugh and takes a mouthful of brandy.
“I told you – I took control of the situation.” She sets down the brandy glass and takes off one of her rings. It is a signet ring. The stone is jade – imperial jade – carved with a device in intaglio. She tells me: “That’s Papa’s coat of arms. The device is a mailed fist holding a mace. The motto, which is very hard to read, is ‘Nemo me impune lacessit. No one provokes me with impunity.’ As I got older, Papa used to remind me of it from time to time. He would say: ‘You don’t have to use the club. Most of the time, you just have to wave it around and look fierce, and you’ll get what you want.’”
“But you’ve done more than wave it around, yes?”
“Sometimes.”
“You’ve broken stallions. You’ve brutalised a dog You’ve cut down roses with a hatchet. What have you done to people?” I hand back the ring and wait while she slips it back on to her finger. “You’re out of paradise now. It’s winter in your world. Clearly, you feel threatened. What do you do, for example, with lovers who have crossed you?”
This is indeed a sensitive spot. Her face clouds over. She reaches for the brandy glass. I stretch out my hand and take it from her. I smile and say:
“You don’t need that to answer a simple question.”
She snaps back instantly:
“It isn’t a simple question. It’s a lot of different questions all mixed up together.”
“You’re right. I apologise. So, let’s be very simple. You have brutalised animals. Have you ever brutalised people?”
“Yes.” It is a curt, reluctant monosyllable. Then she adds, “And if you want me to tell you about it, I am going to need that drink.”
I refill her glass and hand it back to her. I ask, as casually as I can:
“Do you have any dependence on alcohol? Please! It’s a clinical question, which I’m sure you’ll understand.”
She gives me a sidelong smile and raises her glass in salute before she drinks.
“Clinical question, clinical answer. I enjoy alcohol. I am not dependent on it. Neither am I addicted to nicotine, opium, morphine or any other drugs. I’ve experimented with them all. I’ve learned not to trust any of them. I owe that to Papa, too. He used to say: Try everything. Depend on nothing but yourself. Alcohol destroys the brain cells, syphilis plays hell with the constitution – and depressant drugs do no good for your sex life.’ Are you answered, doctor?”
“On this subject, yes. Now answer my first question.”
“Have I ever brutalised people? Yes, I have. I still do. In the circles I frequent, I have a reputation for it. I’ve also developed a taste for the game. I am frightened, really frightened, that one day I’ll go too far and end up with a dead body in my bed. Most of the time, I am absolutely under control, as I am here with you, but sometimes I go berserk and I really want to hurt people. You ask why I came to see you. I had to leave a certain European city because of a sado-masochist incident. The man – a willing partner, mind you – was badly injured and had a heart attack as well. I had to get out in a hurry. Now that frightened me. It was like . . . like . . .”
“Like breaking the stallion, beating the dog almost to death?”
“Just like that.”
“And you experienced orgasm in each case?”
“Yes.”
“How do you feel about these incidents?”
<
br /> “I feel a freak, because they’re excessive. I feel threatened because I could have the police on my neck.”
“Do you do this sort of thing for money?”
“No. I do it for fun. If anybody pays afterwards, I do.”
“These are very dangerous games.”
“I know.”
“Do you feel guilty about them?”
“No. I’d like to be different – normal if you like. But guilty? I suppose the truth is I don’t know what the word means. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced guilt. Look! I know what I want to say; but I have to find the right words. This is terribly important to me. May I walk in the garden for a few minutes? No, you mustn’t come! I need to be alone.”
I agree. She walks out alone. Thank God, she is still lucid, still rational. This again is an experience I should like to communicate to Freud and some of his very dogmatic colleagues. In a clinic like the Burgholzli, one deals always with real casualties. In private practice a large number of one’s patients are people in middle age, whose psychic supports – religion, family life, career achievement or, quite simply, the myth pattern by which they have lived so long – have collapsed beneath them. They are like climbers caught in a blizzard on the Jungfrau. They have lost all sense of direction. They grope desperately for handhold and foothold. They cling like limpets to the cliff from which a sudden gust may snatch them and whirl them into emptiness. They pray for the guide to come and pick them off the icy rockface before they die.
This woman is one of those. She is as sane as I am – probably a lot saner, according to Emma and Toni! The session we are having now is not analysis. I am simply eliciting a confession. Whether it will be a full confession remains to be seen. What will happen when she asks for absolution, God only knows! While she is walking in the garden, composing herself, I rummage quickly through her reticule. It is a precaution I have practised for years with women patients. Some carry guns; some carry knives; and I have come across some very lethal nail files.
The only significant items are the small blue bottle of prussic acid and half a dozen visiting cards tucked into the inside pocket. In the upper left-hand corner of each card, there is engraved a coat of arms – a knight’s helmet, surmounting a shield, on which is the emblem of a mailed fist holding a spiked mace. The motto reads, “Nemo me impune lacessit.” The name engraved on the card is: “Magda Liliane Kardoss von Gamsfeld”.
