Yours as ever,
Jung
He had taken to spending long hours by himself by the lakeshore, delving into his own unconscious in what might have looked to others as a state of depression. It was a time when he needed a friend and he could have used the perspective of a wise old mentor such as William James, someone who shared his more Eastern and mythological view of the unconscious and the future of psychology, what the traditionalists such as Freud had come to think of as parapsychology, mental phenomena outside the realm of scientific principle. Eleanor knew well the connection the Swiss doctor made between her and William James, how he did in fact expect her to speak for the great American philosopher, and she accepted any pressures that came with that association as a small price to pay for a friendship that had become both intense and dear to her.
The reception at the Jungs’ Seestrasse house was the warm one that she had expected. The Jungs’ children, the oldest fourteen and the youngest, Helene, just Standish’s age, had been prepared by their mother for the visit and whisked Standish off from almost the moment of his arrival. Emma Jung met them at the door and offered her spirited greeting. Emma was warm, outgoing, and engaging, a well-organized mother and an intelligent thinker who would become an analyst herself. “We are truly glad to see you,” she said to Eleanor. “Carl has much to share with you, and the children have been buzzing about Standish’s arrival all week. They have been calling him their American cousin.”
“I too have been greatly looking forward to this visit,” Eleanor said, her smile carrying the warmth she felt from the greeting and the thought that in this household she would be able to share much of what she had been carrying secretly inside.
40
“I HAVE EDUCATED MYSELF”
It was not until the late afternoon, after she and Standish were settled in their room and he off playing with the children and Eleanor and Jung were sitting alone in his study, that Toni Wolff entered.
“I do not believe that you have met Fräulein Wolff,” Jung said very formally.
The woman approached Eleanor and the two shook hands. Toni Wolff was tall and thin and severe, a strikingly attractive woman in her own way, but markedly different from Emma, who was soft, gentle, and maternal. Barely smiling, the two women greeted each other.
“I have heard much about you,” Eleanor said.
“And I you. Carl has been looking forward to your visit.”
Toni Wolff was thirty. She and Jung had met when she became his patient in 1910, and soon it became clear that she intended to be more: first a disciple, then a therapist on her own, and then an intimate. Jung was quite open about his relationship with her in his letters to Eleanor, and what he did not state outright, Eleanor could infer. She knew that the Zurich Psychology Society had become accustomed to Jung entering its meetings with the two women, and everyone knew that for some time now Emma had found herself accepting the intimate connection between her husband and this other woman and accepted it, all at least superficially, with grace. But no one ever saw the two women in any form of affectionate exchange. When Jung would retreat to the lakeshore in his afternoons of active imagination and imaginary construction, it was Toni Wolff who accompanied him, sitting quietly nearby, smoking and reading.
Eleanor had heard that Toni’s sharp, penetrating mind had contributed to Jung’s thinking more than any other and that he shared more ideas with her than he did with Emma. Years later, she would hear that Jung described the two relationships a man needs from a woman: On the one hand, he needs a wife to create his home, and to bear and rear his children; on the other, a femme inspiratrice, a spiritual companion, to share his fantasies and inspire his greatest works. Jung found those two roles to be played by two separate women in his life, and he expected them and the world to understand. Eleanor immediately thought of William James and Pauline Goldmark, and what conditions James’s wife, Alice, and Jung’s wife, Emma, had to accept in order to preserve their marriages.
On this visit, Eleanor was not certain what form Jung’s relationship with Toni Wolff had taken, but she, no stranger to complexity herself, had anticipated encountering this complex relationship, so different from the staid convention of Boston society, with an openness worthy of the trust her Swiss friend had placed in her. “I hope we shall have time to talk,” she said to Toni Wolff with a smile.
“I would enjoy that very much,” Toni Wolff said, picking up on Eleanor’s intention. There was a kind of intensity in her eyes that even Eleanor found compelling.
Later, that evening, when they were alone, Jung repeated to Eleanor his interest in someday meeting this Will Honeycutt, the man who had conversed with the ancient Democritus. “I have told his story often,” Jung said.
“You both have much in common,” Eleanor said, “your descent, some call it.”
“There was a certain descent,” Jung said. “I will admit that, but I have passed through it, I can say with confidence. The war is over.”
“An armistice,” she said, “a blessed relief.”
“There is never an armistice with the self. But yes, I have staked out a sort of peace.”
They continued on in this abstract manner before they arrived at family. “And Toni Wolff is part of that peace?” Eleanor said.
Jung looked at Eleanor for a long moment, surprised by her new addition to the discussion. “Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “Toni has become a vital part of the equation. One that requires understanding. She provides invaluable insight and inspiration.” There was only the slightest hint of apology in his voice.
“I think I understand, but I do not hold a place within your inner circle.” Circumstance had certainly given Eleanor an appreciation for the unconventional in marriage, but still she expressed concern. “Were I in that circle, I would find cause for concern. I wonder how it affects Emma and your children.”
“My family accept me as I am. And they have for a long time.”
“That is asking a lot, or at least from my perspective it is. If I were Emma I would have a difficult time with such attentions to another woman.”
“You are very forthright, my dear Eleanor, a most endearing quality. And you have shown great courage in accepting this proposed journey into the war zone.”
“And you are changing the subject”—she took a sip of claret—“which I shall allow.” And she paused for the subject to change. “As for me,” she continued, “I am simply doing what is expected.”
“Expected of the hero,” Jung said, smiling admiringly. “Your inner strength is very much on display, and very much admired, I might add. It is your inner masculine, I think you have caught me saying.”
Eleanor smiled. “Your animus theory,” she said. “The inner masculine in every woman, the unresolved father, I believe you have also said.” She was quoting him.
“Do you not agree?” Jung said. “Most women spend a lifetime trying to understand the image of their father within them.”
“And that is the cause of a certain assertive, sometimes strident tone.”
“Well,” Jung said, staring with piercing eyes, “is it not?”
“That is difficult to see in oneself. You make it sound fearsome.”
“The animus in a strong, high-spirited woman, that uncontrolled masculine force? It is fearsome, something most men cannot handle. It is the Amazon fierceness that makes us cower.”
“Like the Medusa, you have said. It turns men to stone.”
“Well?” Jung said. “Look at you. You are convinced that the reports of Esterhazy’s death are inaccurate, and you have traveled three thousand miles to find him. No one, no evidence, has been able to dissuade you.”
She looked serious. “You think my quest is irrational, animus-deceived, as you call it, my unresolved father image.”
Jung said nothing, as if her very question proved his point. “Well?”
Eleanor looked uneasy. “You think my strong will is often greater than what is called for. That in strong women this an
imus, the unresolved masculine, overreacts.”
Jung smiled. “Yes, I have observed that.”
“But I am also realistic,” she said, and she reached way back into her past, to her previous time in Vienna, the city she was now reentering.
“I know you are also realistic,” he said. “I have known that for some time, since our idyll at Putnam Camp.”
“William James pointed out that my faith was strong, that of a fundamentalist,” she said. “He found some amusement, I think, in my ‘absolute certainty,’ as he called it.”
“And you hear that strong, true voice speaking to you from time to time?”
She could not deny it. “I do.”
“You know then why you are here.”
“I do. I am called, I think you would say,” she said. “I believe what I believe.”
“Well then, I rest my case.” She could see on his face a look of admiration. Not knowing of the journal, he attributed her strength and certitude, she knew, to his new discovery of the animus. “That belief is now taking you on this quest. It will take you as far as the underworld perhaps, and you are not fearful.”
“Oh, I am plenty fearful, but I simply know what needs to be done.”
“And that you are the only one who can do it?”
“Well, yes,” she said. “Can you name another?”
“Point well taken. No, there is no one else who believes as you believe. You see, that is heroic, a perfect example of the animus. You are Marlow searching for Kurtz.”
“Ah, Heart of Darkness again,” she said. “That sounds a little grand. I am simply going into the war zone to find Arnauld. I know he cannot be dead.”
“How do you know this?”
“I can’t account for it, but I do know he is not dead.”
“You see, you are very courageous. There is no other way to account for it.”
“But still you think it folly? A fool’s errand.”
Jung smiled at her admiringly. “My dear, it is indeed grand. Grand and admirable, and perhaps even folly, I don’t know, and I worry that you will discover as fact what is already accepted.”
“That Arnauld is dead.”
“That is it,” he said. “I do know something in all this, and it is that if I were similarly lost in war, my situation hopeless, you are precisely the person I would want searching for me. And that is why I give this effort of yours my support.” He raised his wineglass. “And I salute you, my dear, determined friend.”
The next night she and Jung dined alone, as had become their tradition, after Standish had gone to bed with the Jung children, and Emma had left them to their conversations. “You are concerned about me,” he said with his usual matter-of-fact directness after raising a glass of claret in toast.
“I thought perhaps you had gone too far—”
“You feared that I was showing signs of a psychosis. You are not the only one with those concerns. It is said that I have internalized the chaos that war has brought.”
“And there is reason for that concern?”
“And there is on your part?”
Eleanor took the question with seriousness. “Your writings and your paintings, they have shown a depth and intensity we are not accustomed to.”
“They resemble the work of my schizophrenic patients, it is said.”
Eleanor laughed. “And for good reason,” she said. “The concern seems legitimate.”
“And you worry about me the way you worry about your Harvard friend who corresponds with his inner voices.”
“I do,” she said. “I do worry about my colleague Will Honeycutt, I have to admit, and I do worry about you.” She paused, giving the matter some little consideration. “But the presence of voices in your lives, and the responses, do make both of you interesting.”
That brought a smile to Jung. “I hope to meet your interesting colleague someday, your Mr. Will Honeycutt. I owe him a great deal.”
Eleanor only nodded slowly.
They were alone now in the spacious living room, the Küsnacht air crisp and cool and the house silent. She had asked if she could see the Red Book, the large leather-bound volume he had had made just for the purposes of recording dreams and reflections.
“I do show it,” he said. “We shall move to the study.”
She stood before the larger volume on its wooden stand beside the settee, and she turned the pages slowly, running her fingers over the beautiful colored drawings and careful calligraphy, each page full of exacting detail.
“These are beautiful,” she said, “done so painstakingly.”
“I began with the black volumes”—he pointed to a collection of three smaller black leather volumes on his desk—“but then finalized them with the drawings and calligraphy.”
“Well, this is just exquisite; I had no idea you were such an artist.”
“Nor did I,” Jung said with a wry smile.
She had not planned to tell him the whole story perhaps, but in the still quiet of his study, having just been allowed to see his Red Book, a feeling of intimacy came over her. “I have something to tell you. Something I have shared with no one but William James.”
Knowing that he had the ability to create such moments of intimate trust with people, especially women, the Swiss doctor would not have been surprised, and he certainly knew how to lean forward and present a posture of welcome. He said nothing except, “Please.”
And she began. “In the year 1897, the year after my graduation from college, I traveled to Vienna to write ‘something of significance,’ my headmistress called it, about music. And while there, I fell into the thrall of a remarkable American, an older man from San Francisco, one whose presence there involved unusual circumstance, you would say. In the future, the sound recordings of the Victrola will become greatly enhanced and expanded with electricity, so that musicians and instruments can be amplified to fill great auditoriums and athletic stadiums, bringing great popular fame to musicians and performers.”
“And this mysterious man from San Francisco is to be one of such great fame?”
“Yes,” Eleanor said.
“And he was from another time?”
Eleanor nodded, looking down.
“From a time in the future?” Jung said. There was a warmth in his voice. Carl Jung, this man who understood complexity, showed nothing but acceptance in his eyes.
She nodded again, then continued. “While in this remarkable man’s company and under his influence, I experienced the world in ways I had never experienced it before, and I made discoveries about myself—admitted things actually—that changed my life forever. He held back nothing. I lost my innocence, one would say, and I gained much, too much perhaps. When I left Vienna after this experience, much sadder but much wiser, as they say—far far wiser—I carried with me a journal this remarkable man had carefully prepared during his time in Vienna, and I have used that journal as my guide from that time forward. That is how I know certain things about the future and how I have known to take certain actions—certain investments, marriage to Frank Burden, the recruiting of Arnauld Esterhazy to St. Gregory’s, all of which have brought about my very good fortune.”
“All of that prescribed in this journal you brought with you from Vienna?” There was directness but still nothing judgmental in his tone.
Again, Eleanor lowered her head solemnly and nodded slowly. “All part of the commitment I made back then, all carried out with great purpose.”
“It has brought you great good fortune,” Jung said, obvious in slowly absorbing what he was hearing. “Your investments.”
“Yes, and much consternation, I must add. I have been blessed, and I have been cursed.”
After she finished this small exposition, Jung sat without speaking, a look of the deepest compassion on his face. “Oh my,” he said finally, in a kind of awe. “That explains a great deal. And it raises many questions, as you know. Many questions.”
“I know it is a great deal to take in right now, i
n one sitting. There will be time for questions. But right now I just wanted you to know the rough outline of the story.”
“And why you are here right now?” he asked.
“And why I am here right now.”
“It is how you and you alone know for certain that Arnauld Esterhazy cannot be dead.”
“It is.”
Then he looked deep into her eyes. “And if he is dead?” Jung said, barely able to pose the question.
Eleanor bowed her head in silence. “You may think that I have not confronted that possibility.”
“To the contrary, my dear Eleanor, I know of your courage and your integrity.”
“If Arnauld is dead—” She faltered, needing to collect herself for a moment. “To answer your question, I would be devastated,” she said in a whisper. “It would be devastating, and it would be a relief. I would lose my purpose in life—” She stopped, barely able to continue. “And I could become normal again, like everyone else.”
“And you would not have to carry this weight any longer.”
“I would not,” she said with her head still down.
“And that would be the devastation, and the relief.”
“Yes.” She nodded, holding for a moment in silence the comfort of being in the presence of someone—one of the few in the world perhaps—who could understand. Then she looked up, a characteristic steely resolve returning to her eyes. “But he is not dead,” she said, now with a renewed conviction. “I know he is not dead, and I shall find him.”
“And that journal?” Jung said. “It is your holy book, your scripture.”
The words caught her by surprise for a moment. “That is funny,” she said. “That is what William James called it, when he heard.” Then she looked into her friend’s intense kind eyes. “Yes, it is my holy scripture.”
“In adherence to it, you are a fundamentalist.”
“Yes, that is what William James observed,” she said. “In that adherence, that is how I am a fundamentalist, about the literal nature of what is written.”
The Lost Prince Page 30
