24
HEART OF DARKNESS
The weeks around the Titanic tragedy were a quiet time of action on her part for maintenance of the Hyperion Fund. That was a good thing. Will Honeycutt, now, thanks to his friendship with Jesse Livermore, returned for some time from Chicago, where he had become adept at buying and selling real properties.
“You amaze me, Mr. Honeycutt,” she said to him as he showed her his figuring on profits from selling a twenty-story building on Wacker Drive, by the Chicago River.
“I tend to become bedeviled by the details,” he said, “to the exclusion of all else.”
She nodded with a knowing smile. “And I am grateful for that,” she said, “and glad that I do not have to worry about those details.”
“Or about me?”
“Mr. Honeycutt,” she said with a sigh, “I have long since given up the futile effort of worrying about you.”
She had other things, bigger things, to worry about, she thought. Ever since the death of William James, she had been revisited by recurring dreams of vastness, like the one of falling off the cliff or another one that involved being a little girl out alone on an endless expanse of ice. But ever since the Titanic tragedy, one dream in particular recurred with regularity, “the Big Dream,” Carl Jung later called it when she described it to him in a letter. And now as time passed and she began writing parts of it down in her notebook, it began to make more and more sense.
In the dream, she found herself perched on the top of a huge iceberg, in the middle of a dark and glassy sea. She sat precariously, fearful that she would slide off. Below her, on the waterline, she could see a large long swath of red paint, and below that she was aware of the huge mass extending way down into the deep, beyond where she could see. The depth of ocean beneath her, the two miles that Will had described, gave her an even greater feeling of dread. As she began to slide, desperately digging in with her heels and fingernails, she always woke up, perspiring and gasping for breath. At night when she had to get up and walk around, she could feel nothing but a deep dread, the feeling of vastness. She wrote of it in one of her monthly letters to Carl Jung, and two weeks later she received a telegram from him. “We shall discuss it,” it said, “when I come to Fordham.”
In the fall of 1912, a few months after the tragedy, Jung had been invited to Fordham University in New York City. It would be his third trip to America and an excellent opportunity for the two friends to meet. The visit would do them both good. The Swiss doctor wanted to talk about Sigmund Freud, and Eleanor wanted very much to talk about the dream.
During that time in 1912, the disagreement between the two psychologists over the origins of hysteria had not yet grown into a full-blown feud and its eventual rancorous and permanent estrangement. The two were extremely close, perhaps too close. Although Jung had established an independent reputation and was highly regarded in the psychological community of Zurich, the great Viennese doctor and his following thought of the younger Swiss doctor as a disciple. Freud appointed the younger man president of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and expected him to lead with authority and eventually rise to replace Freud himself. Tensions arose over a number of technical points, ones that William James had noted in 1909 at Clark University. Freud began to imagine jealousy in his younger colleague, where Jung insisted there was none, and he became critical of Jung’s leadership, first in letters, then in personal encounters. Eventually tensions would rise and lead to disagreements and disagreements to hostility, but in the fall of 1912, both men trying to minimize the common strands of what they believed, there was a nervous peace. It was the Fordham lectures, delivered far from either Zurich or Vienna, an ocean and continent away, that caused the beginning of the end.
Because he shared some of all this with Eleanor in letters, she knew before their meeting in New York that his disagreements with Dr. Freud had become more apparent since their conversations at Putnam Camp three years before. She found herself flattered by how much he shared with her, yet shocked and disappointed that these two giants of the new thinking in psychology were behaving with such childish peevishness.
In a way, the disagreements between Freud and Jung were as inevitable as their initial infatuations. The Viennese doctor was nineteen years the senior and considered himself the founder of the psychoanalytic movement now seeking an heir apparent, “the crown prince,” as a colleague described him.
Jung fell into that role willingly in the beginning because of his strong affinity for the older man. “Dr. Freud was far wiser and more experienced than I,” said Jung. “In the beginning I knew I must simply listen to what he had to say and learn from him.” But it did not take the younger man long to begin to chafe at the subservient role, as he began to find the formality of his position an impediment to his own development. In many ways it could be noted that the position of heir apparent was one to which Jung’s robust questioning nature and spontaneity made him unsuited.
During their trip to America together in 1909, when they spent long hours on shipboard talking and analyzing each other’s dreams, a number of tensions rose to the surface, including one moment when Freud actually accused Jung of wishing him dead, in solid oedipal tradition. “His friendship meant a great deal to me. I had no reason for wishing him dead,” Jung reflected later. “But it was possible that the dreams that I shared with him willingly on that trip could be regarded as a corrective, not as a negative wish but as a compensation, an antidote to my conscious high opinion and admiration of him. Therefore the dream recommended a rather more critical attitude.”
Freud was obviously more concerned about usurpation than he admitted, and Jung was more worried about the patriarchal dominance than he admitted.
Jung began straining at the strict ideas in Freud’s speeches and writing. “It is mostly a disagreement with Freud’s views of libido, the primal drive at the heart of all human impulse,” he wrote to Eleanor. “For Freud, the libido is purely sexual; for me it is the much broader derivation.” When Freud heard of these views from his supposed disciple, he began criticizing him directly in letters and indirectly to others. Soon Jung was responding to the criticism, not by acquiescing but by snapping back.
Jung had also written to Eleanor about a dream he had shared with Dr. Freud on the 1909 trip.
I found myself in an unfamiliar two-storied house, on the upper story, where there was a kind of salon furnished with fine old pieces of rococo style, a number of precious old paintings on the walls. It all seemed vaguely familiar. Descending the stairs, I reached the ground floor. There everything was much older. The furnishings were medieval. The floors were redbrick. Everywhere it was rather dark. I came to a heavy door and opened it, discovering a stone stairway that led down into the cellar. Descending, I found myself in a beautiful vaulted room that looked exceedingly ancient, dating from Roman times. I came to another stone stairway and descended, leading down into the depths. Thick dust lay on the floor, and on the dust were scattered bones and broken pottery, like remains of the primitive culture. I discovered two human skulls, obviously very old and half-disintegrated. Then I awoke.
Dr. Freud became convinced that the skulls represented somehow my desire to have him dead, an opinion from which he could not be shaken. I did not believe any part of that interpretation.
It was plain to me that the house represented a kind of image of the psyche—that is to say, of my then–state of consciousness, with hitherto unconscious additions. Consciousness was represented by the upper-floor salon. The ground floor stood for the first level of the unconscious, and the deeper floors, the ones of primitive culture, represented a primitive psyche of the animal soul, just as the caves of prehistoric times were usually inhabited by animals before men laid claim to them. It was during this time that I became aware of how keenly I felt the difference between Dr. Freud’s intellectual attitude and mine.
That dream which Sigmund Freud was so certain represented my contention with him was for me the first
inkling of a collective existence beneath the personal psyche. It is when I first became convinced of the collective unconscious.
One month before Jung’s visit, she received a letter explaining the details of his forthcoming visit to Fordham University that included the following note: “When we are in New York together, we shall dine alone. Grand theatrical attire required, of course.”
Grand and theatrical, she found herself thinking with a good deal of awe and amusement. I am sure that the evening will be one to remember.
After making careful arrangements and the usual explanations, she traveled alone to New York by train to a room she had booked at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. She packed for the occasion a beautiful black silk evening dress she had worn to the New Year’s ball that January. It was bare at the shoulders and cut in a way she knew he would enjoy, being prepared by this time in their relationship for Jung’s highly developed sense of drama—albeit with healthy suspicions.
On the chosen evening, alone in her room, she received from room service a box containing a book by Joseph Conrad and a very plain cardboard box containing a gaudy diamond necklace that she guessed from its luster to be made of ordinary glass. By then, Eleanor knew her Swiss friend to be purposeful when it came to details of ritual and ceremony, so she could not wait to hear what it all meant.
She put on the dress and the necklace and stood transfixed before the mirror, transported suddenly and for a long moment to an image of herself fifteen years before on an evening in Vienna, preparing to attend the opera to see for the first time the magnificence of Gustav Mahler conducting in the company of the great love of her life.
She stood now surprisingly comforted by the image of herself that she took in, not the proper Boston wife and mother, but a seductive woman of elegance, an object of desire. Though bemused and certainly suspicious, she felt herself overtaken first by a desire to end the charade, whatever it was, and to cancel the evening, and then by a second and stronger impulse simply to submit and cross the threshold to whatever was the intention, and she could imagine herself now descending with stunning effect the grand staircase of an opulent ocean liner.
Jung’s time in New York was busy, his days and nights filled with appointments, but he had set aside this evening. His nine speeches at Fordham University were indeed about to set him apart and become the deciding factor in his inevitable rend with his colleague and mentor. It was a time for him of great moment and great exhilaration, a chance to be alone in the New World, without Sigmund Freud looking over his shoulder expressing eloquently and clearly his own views on the new science of psychoanalysis.
When Eleanor arrived at the entrance to the dining room, she saw none of the seriousness of Jung’s professional dilemma: She found her Swiss friend in complementary evening dress of white tie and tails, beaming at the image he saw before him. “My, what a strikingly handsome specimen,” she said quickly before he could speak, awed by the sight of her old friend so handsomely attired. “I am greatly honored.”
“The honor is all mine,” Jung said, bowing elegantly as he offered her his arm and led her into the dining room, where the maître d’, as if well rehearsed, seemed to know exactly who they were and which table would be theirs. It was not entirely in her imagination that the other diners stopped their conversations and watched the elegant couple being escorted to their table.
“Did you fear that I would not go along with all this?” she asked after he had taken his seat, aware of his eyes on her, taking in with pleasure the image he had created.
“I knew that a Salome was within, crying for recognition.”
“So that is your intention? For me to release my inner Salome?”
He smiled. “It is so.”
“And whose head was to be on the platter?”
“To be determined,” he said, retaining the smile.
“And you are not intimidated in such a presence?”
“I welcome the release of that aspect of your character. No matter the consequence.”
“Well, I am grateful that you do.”
And they both paused.
“Tonight’s wine is Austrian,” he said, “and the meal is Viennese.” Then he stopped and stared at her neck. “And that is a stunning necklace for the purposes of the evening,” he said, shaking his head.
“It isn’t real, is it?” she said.
“Tonight it is.”
“And its intention?”
“Its intention is simply its stunning effect.”
“One assumes that the intention is honorable, Herr Doctor…,” she said, looking up and eyeing him seriously, then with only the hint of a smile said, “Salome herself is feeling actually quite vulnerable.”
“Tonight’s intentions are totally honorable, I assure you,” Jung said, returning her smile. “Tonight we are after a large prize.” He raised his glass to her. “You have traveled far for this special night. We shall not waste it. Tonight we talk about the dreams. Yours have done me a great service. In fact, you yourself have been doing me great service ever since we met at your family’s Putnam Camp. You have caused me to think, and to change.”
“I too have done a great deal of thinking as a result of our conversations.”
“They are precious to me.”
“Like a diamond necklace?” She smiled appreciatively, letting him know that the symbolism was not lost on her.
“Precisely. Our conversations then and in the letters have helped me clarify what I really wish for, and where my ideas are headed.”
“And you have come to New York to tell the world?”
“I have,” he said. “What I am going to say here will set me apart.”
“The direction you wish to go, I assume.”
“Yes, that.” He paused.
“And your vast differences with Dr. Freud,” she filled in for him.
“I suppose,” he said with a slight grimace. “And we must discuss your dream.”
“My dream?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I am greatly interested in the iceberg. The part above the water.” He gestured toward her. “The personality.”
“The part in which we all play a role for the world,” Eleanor said.
“Exactly,” Jung said. “The persona.”
“And the part of the iceberg below the waterline?”
“That too. The ninety percent below, the secret self, our famous unconscious that Dr. Freud has made so apparent. Above the surface we have our public selves.” He held out one hand. “The masks of classical drama. The tragic.” He held out the other hand. “And the comic. The persona, the Romans called the mask each actor wore.”
“Costume jewelry and a revealing dress.”
“In this case a charming and radiant beauty. The part of us above the surface, even the seductive part.”
“And your reason for the celebration tonight?” she asked.
“That persona,” he said decisively. “So much for me seems to be examining and describing the workings of personality, while Dr. Freud is after quite a different description. And each of us has the underwater part, some near the surface where we know of it, and some deep below, out of reach. That underwater part fascinates me, yes, but so does the visible part. Each of us has a unique persona above the waterline and our entire personal unconscious below. An iceberg there,” he said, gesturing to Eleanor, “and an iceberg here.” He tapped his own chest. “But what of the deep ocean beneath, the terrifying depth that now holds the Titanic in its dark and silent grave, the vast depth that has so overtaken you?” A look of concern settled on Eleanor. “It is the ocean depth that connects us all.”
“A common depth.”
“It is our collective unconscious.”
“And that is the meaning of your own dream,” Eleanor said, “the old bones and skulls in the dark cavern beneath your house?”
“It is. And you are good to remember my dream.”
“Your dream that Dr. Freud misinterpreted, I believe.”
“Yes,” Jung said. “That is correct.”
“And the mythical Titans, what of them?”
“And the Titans—” He paused and looked into her eyes. “The predecessors of the gods. Are they not the primal mythic connection of all culture for all time?” Eleanor said nothing and only shook her head slightly, then released a small sigh. “The parapsychology and the spiritual that Dr. James talked about,” he said.
“And that Dr. Freud has little interest in?”
Jung stared at her for a moment, surprised that she could absorb all this so quickly. “Dr. Freud is concerned primarily with the iceberg, the drives that rise up from the majority of the mass, the deep and profound nine-tenths below in the darkness, the underwater part, and the control it exerts on the surface.”
“And you are concerned with the depth even below the iceberg.”
“Yes.”
“And the two of you disagree, as Dr. James pointed out.”
“Perhaps.” Carl Jung looked at her with a smile of concern. “That is what my current lectures are about.”
“The part that Sigmund Freud would not like to hear?”
“Yes, that.”
“And in my dream, it is I, on the surface, clinging desperately, terrified of sliding off into that depth.” She shivered at the mere thought.
He paused for a long moment, holding the seriousness. “You, my dear friend, have had the most profound encounter with that depth, and it has ruined, for the moment, your equilibrium.” He paused again. “What if you simply let go?”
“I could never—” she began, and stopped, shaking her head. “I could never just let go. There is a whole life force.”
“There is immense fear of the depth, propelled by the ‘life force,’ as you call it. We will need to bring you back to the surface. That is our task for your time here.”
The Lost Prince Page 18
