Doctors of Philosophy

by Muriel Spark

  CHARLIE B. Three cheers for Annie.

  ANNIE (getting up). You’ll see what I mean much better when I take out the actual boat after tea.

  MRS. S. You going out on the canal in that garb?

  ANNIE. Yes, I changed. All things considered, Mrs. S., my boudoir wrap would have been unsuitable and too conspicuous, one has to think of the neighbours.

  MRS. S. It’s too tight round the bottom for sportswear, that’s point number one. Point number two, you got to remember that this is the household of a distinguished economist and he don’t want to get his name in the papers in any connection that would throw a shadow of doubt on his balanced judgment. Balance is the keynote of this house, Annie. Balance is all.

  ANNIE (makes a few rowing movements). Am I unbalanced, Leonora?

  LEONORA. I’m no judge, Annie.

  MRS. S. You better give Charlie your verdict, Leonora, because I’ve got to see him to the door.

  ANNIE. What is Charlie consulting you about, Leonora?

  LEONORA. A reading lamp.

  MRS. S. Get up, Charlie.

  LEONORA. Sit down, Charlie.

  MRS. S. Leonora, they’ll all be coming in soon, and they’ve all been upset by you, and there’s a lot to straighten up in the whole affair. In my opinion the presence of an outsider might further complicate the issue. Come on, Charlie.

  LEONORA. I would prefer to complicate the issue. Stay here, Charlie. Continue to call me ‘doctor’. Once a doctor, always a doctor.

  ANNIE. Leonora, I think you’re brilliant.

  MRS. S. Well, myself, I like to see people facing the facts.

  LEONORA. I’ve already faced the facts. Annie has put them in the broom cupboard. ANNIE. And I don’t want to hear Daphne advising Leonora to see a psychiatrist on moral grounds. One should only see a psychiatrist out of boredom. Who are these flowers from?

  LEONORA. And I don’t want Catherine to be understanding, and Charlie to pretend that nothing’s happened, all the time watching me out of the corner of his eye.

  CHARLIE B. We got to show them who’s boss.

  ANNIE. Charlie, you’re brilliant!

  LEONORA. Where are they?

  MRS. S. Behind locked doors, I dare say, having a conference about you. Hold on, I’ll investigate.

  Exit. ANNIE (unwrapping flowers). Arum lilies. I call that a very pure idea to send. Arum lilies. Very bridal.

  CHARLIE B. That brings back a lot of memories.

  LEONORA. Why, Charlie? — Were you ever married?

  CHARLIE B. No. But there was two Lily’s in my life, Lily Donelly and Lily Pearson. I never got them out of my system, not properly. Makes me feel bad to think of them, doctor, I feel shaken.

  LEONORA. I’d better analyse you immediately, Charlie. (Charlie stretches out on the sofa.) That’s right.

  ANNIE. That’s brilliant!

  LEONORA. Relax and go on about Lily.

  CHARLIE B. Lilys. Plural. They both met one night in the ladies’ cloakroom of the Hammersmith Palais and started to compare what you might call notes. Well, to cut a long story short …

  Enter MRS. S.

  MRS. S. I can’t turn my back a minute to listen-in without everyone taking liberties in the home. Get up, Charlie.

  LEONORA. Lie down, Charlie. Mrs. S., I’ve got to think of my timing. Timing is very important. Are they coming ?

  MRS. S. Any minute now. Daphne says she knows a clinic where they’ll do you free. Mrs. D. says she’s glad she chose marriage after all. Charlie says that if the tape recorder isn’t found, how much will he have to pay for a replacement?

  ANNIE. Put him out of his misery right away, Mrs. S. Tell him the machine is in the broom cupboard.

  MRS. S. (shouts upstairs). Mrs. D., I got the instrument. It’s in the broom cupboard. Don’t worry, Charlie. I say I got the machine.

  Enter Catherine.

  CATHERINE. Where. … Oh Leonora, I didn’t know you were in, I thought you were out. … What’s the matter, has he fainted?

  MRS. S. No noise, please. Take your seat quietly. The patient is just going under.

  LEONORA. It’s most important, Charlie, that I should know a little more about your childhood in Bermondsey.

  CHARLIE B. Yes, doctor, well of course we wasn’t in Bermondsey for long. We were always on the move, my dad believed in it. Seven mouths to feed, he had to keep on the credit side of things.

  LEONORA. The family moves were profitable, then?

  CHARLIE B. Well, we got new credit every time.

  LEONORA. Just relax and go on about Lily.

  CHARLIE B. Well, that would be a story, that would.

  CATHERINE. Well, it’s nearly tea-time and I’m sure Charlie has had enough for one session. I must say, Charlie, you seem all right to me.

  CHARLIE B. No, ma’am, that’s where you’re wrong. You can’t judge by appearances.

  ANNIE. Charlie has been visited by a trauma in the last few days. He is very perplexed about a reading lamp, not to mention a couple of Lilys. I think Leonora’s doing a fine job of work on Charlie.

  CHARLIE B. Hear, hear. I feel better already.

  LEONORA. Tomorrow at three, then, Charlie. Don’t forget to make a note first thing in the morning of anything you may have dreamt in the course of the night.

  CATHERINE. Do you intend Charlie to come here for daily interviews, Leonora? Because—

  LEONORA. We could rig something up on the terrace if it’s a fine day and if you feel we’re intruding.

  CATHERINE. If you wish to use your room for professional purposes, Leonora, I have no objection. The terrace is rather public.

  LEONORA. My room is rather private. And really I think we had better not discuss this problem in front of my patient. He has problems enough already. Tomorrow at three, then, Charlie. Goodbye, and whatever you do, don’t worry.

  CHARLIE B. Au revoir and thank you, doctor. (Turns to ANNIE at door.) I’ll be watching out for you on the canal.

  ANNIE. Don’t forget to make a note of any points of style that you may feel need improvement, Charlie.

  CHARLIE B. Yes. I got a lot a notes to make. Ta ta. (Goes out.)

  CATHERINE (dusting sofa where CHARLIE B.’S feet have been). Why are you doing this, Leonora?

  LEONORA. It’s an exercise in compassion.

  CATHERINE. That lorry driver doesn’t need your help, Leonora. He’s tough. That kind doesn’t suffer from nerves.

  LEONORA. I mean it’s an exercise in compassion for him.

  CATHERINE. Well, if that’s what you mean, I don’t know what you mean.

  LEONORA. I mean he was sorry for me to the extent that he desired to help me.

  CATHERINE. Well it seemed to me you were doing all the exercise of compassion, solving his problem. You seemed very interested in him.

  LEONORA. Interest is not the same thing as compassion, you gross, crude, vulgar, bloated intellectual.

  Enter CHARLIE.

  CATHERINE. I am not gross, crude, vulgar and bloated.

  LEONORA. What do you know of compassion?

  CHARLIE. We’re sorry for you, Leonora, if that’s what you mean.

  LEONORA. You experience the emotion of pity for me?

  CHARLIE. Well, yes, if you want pity.

  LEONORA. You don’t seem to approve of the word.

  CHARLIE. Well, pity’s an embarrassing word.

  LEONORA. Because it’s an embarrassing emotion. Anything one has neglected is embarrassing. One hesitates to show one’s pity in the same way that one would be slow to display an under-nourished animal. People would notice there was something wrong with it and that would be embarrassing.

  CATHERINE. Leonora, we would like to help you somehow, and to exercise pity as you call it.

  LEONORA. But you don’t know how to do so.

  CATHERINE. Well, no. It’s a difficult problem.

  LEONORA. Why? You’ve had twenty years to study the subject. When your marriage prevented you from continuing your studies why didn’t you tur
n to studying the only other subject conveniently to hand? Why have you not given the same attention to the quality of your own emotions as you would have given to the quality of the handwriting of the ancient Assyrians?

  CATHERINE. What have you done about your emotions, Leonora?

  LEONORA. Nothing. I’m a professional scholar and I am not supposed to do anything about my emotions. You, on the other hand, have been under an obligation to do so for the past twenty years. What have you done with your time?

  CATHERINE. I love my husband and my daughter, naturally.

  LEONORA. So does any married woman without any intellectual distinction. Why do you find it so difficult to know what to do about me? If you had spent your time cultivating an understanding of compassion you would find it easy. What you call pity is not pity at all. Your pity is a word existing in the mind like your broom cupboard, it

  ANNIE. Would you try one of my pills, Leonora? It’s got something in it that lifts you up and another thing that calms you down. It won’t have any effect whatsoever. I can’t do without them.

  CATHERINE. I’ll try one, Annie, if you don’t mind.

  ANNIE. You take it with water.

  CHARLIE. Water, Leonora — behind you in the jug.

  CATHERINE. To hell with you, Leonora, for sitting there lecturing us and putting us in the wrong.

  CHARLIE. Attack is a usual form of defence.

  CATHERINE. Charlie hasn’t been sleeping. What pity have you got for Charlie?

  LEONORA. A certain amount. But I’m not sure what kind of pity it is.

  CHARLIE. I don’t want anyone’s pity.

  Enter MRS. S. with tea-tray, followed by DAPHNE.

  MRS. S. I been and muddled up all your papers, Leonora. They just fell to bits on the floor and the pages isn’t numbered.

  LEONORA. You shouldn’t meddle with my work, Mrs. S. Which batch have you muddled?

  MRS. S. Your new line of study.

  DAPHNE. Leonora, I hope you haven’t started any new work. You need a rest.

  MRS. S. Entitled ‘ “Observations of Human Reactions to Pitiable Objects.” First case history — the economist who, when put to the test of an artificial encounter contrived by the author—’

  LEONORA. My notes are private, Mrs. S.

  CHARLIE. Did you say case history of an economist?

  MRS. S. I did. But I shouldn’t of. Mrs. D., what have you done with the half a cucumber I put away for Daphne?

  CATHERINE. I threw it out. It was dry. DAPHNE. It wasn’t dry. I’m pining for cucumber.

  CHARLIE. Did you say case history of an economist, or was it a communist?

  MRS. S. Economist. You think I don’t know the difference?

  DAPHNE. It was only dry at the end. What a waste!

  MRS. S. It goes ‘First case history — the economist who, when put to the test of an artificial encounter contrived by the author—’

  CHARLIE. Leonora, what is the title of your thesis?

  MRS. S. I told you the title. ‘Observations of Human Reactions to Pitiable Objects.’ (Goes out.)

  DAPHNE. Have you told Leonora what you said you were going to say?

  CATHERINE. No. Leonora has been having all the say.

  DAPHNE. I think you’re both very cowardly. Leonora, we want to ask you to consult a psychiatrist and have a course of treatment.

  CHARLIE. Be careful what you say, Daphne.

  CATHERINE. Why should she be careful? Leonora has not been careful what she has said.

  DAPHNE. It’s a simple matter of repressed emotions and desires, Leonora. These schizophrenic symptoms like accosting Father with suggestions, well, they might occur again. You might approach some ancient male colleague one dark night. Next time you have an attack—

  CHARLIE. Daphne, I wish you would be quiet.

  DAPHNE. Someone’s got to speak. Now that Leonora has found out that she was quite unconsciously making absurd remarks, she must see that something must be done.

  LEONORA. My discovery was very dramatic. I suspected something, of course, but when I heard my own voice on the tape recorder, it was a kind of liberation. It felt like a cure in itself. Sometimes these revelations seem to occur in a dramatic way for curative purposes. I must say, I feel myself to be occupying a very dramatic role now. It’s quite a new sensation.

  ANNIE. I know exactly how you feel, Leonora. I’ve had a dramatic feeling all my life. It’s thrilling.

  DAPHNE. Once you start feeling dramatic you might do anything. You might do it at Oxford.

  LEONORA. So might you.

  DAPHNE. What do you mean?

  CHARLIE. Daphne, it’s my belief that Leonora is enacting a part simply in order to observe my reactions. The whole thing was contrived.

  CATHERINE. Leonora, if you have done this to your own kith and kin—

  LEONORA. I deny it. It was a humiliating experience for me, and I remain an object of your pity.

  CATHERINE. You don’t appear very humiliated. Quite the opposite. You’ve been laying down the law all afternoon. How can one exercise pity on people who are arrogant?

  ANNIE. Oh, Catherine, Leonora is very humble, she has just admitted that she honestly didn’t know what she was saying when she said ‘Charlie, give me a—’

  CHARLIE Annie, don’t. Please don’t repeat those words.

  ANNIE ‘… child. I want a— ’

  LEONORA. Charlie knows it all by heart, Annie.

  CHARLIE. Leonora, I shall never know what to believe.

  ANNIE. It was most dramatic.

  LEONORA. It was a kind of dramatic urge. You are in a way to blame for the form it took, and so is Catherine.

  CATHERINE. I knew we would be to blame in the end.

  LEONORA. I have occupied the role in which you’ve cast me. At times of low spirits when one is tired one behaves largely as people expect one to behave. It has been expected of me that I should be envious of you, Catherine, and should want Charlie to give me a child. I’ve instinctively played a part in your minds of Leonora the barren virgin.

  DAPHNE. Well, Leonora, isn’t that the truth?

  LEONORA. Not the whole truth. The definition excludes other aspects of my personality which are also true.

  CATHERINE. The definition is yours, Leonora. We have never referred to you as Leonora the barren virgin. Have we, Charlie?

  LEONORA. Charlie has frequently said to his daughter, ‘Your maiden aunt will be here next week.’

  DAPHNE. How did you know that?

  CHARLIE. Daphne, be careful what you say. Leonora’s preparing a thesis based on personal observations of human reactions. We shall all be in the book.

  LEONORA. I am trying to point out the context in which you think of me.

  DAPHNE. Of course you aren’t really my maiden aunt, you’re my maiden second cousin, to be accurate.

  LEONORA. And even that might not be accurate.

  DAPHNE. Why won’t you consult a psychiatrist?

  LEONORA. It would reduce me to the ranks. I’m not prepared to be reduced to the ranks, now that I have obtained such an exhilarating glimpse of my dramatic position.

  ANNIE. Leonora darling, I think you’re brilliant. That’s exactly what I said to my C.O. in the Wrens when she was trying to intimidate me about some silly business with a lance-corporal. I said to her, ‘I’m not prepared to be reduced to the ranks, that’s all.’ I said, ‘Not when I’m having such a thrilling time up here I’m not going to be reduced to the ranks.’ Of course, she knew I had the Air Vice-Marshal behind me. But it was a most dramatic moment. As soon as she mentioned the ranks I realised that I was a woman of destiny. No woman of destiny, Leonora, should permit herself to be reduced to the ranks, it would be most undramatic.

  CATHERINE. I don’t think I can cope with both my cousins having dramatic senses of themselves. I wish I could have a dramatic sense of myself, it must be lovely. But I’m too honest. It’s stark reality for me, every time.

  LEONORA. For me, it’s a glimpse of reality which giv
es me the dramatic sense of myself. Perhaps the same applies to Annie.

  CATHERINE. What sort of reality? Everyday life?

  LEONORA. Not the everyday life I’ve known so far. But I have a definite sense of being watched.

  DAPHNE. What?

  CATHERINE. What did you say?

  LEONORA: A definite sense of being observed and listened to by an audience.

  CATHERINE. What sort of audience?

  LEONORA. An invisible audience. Somewhere outside. Looking at all of us and waiting to see what’s going to happen.

  ANNIE. Leonora, this is thrilling. All my life I’ve had a feeling of being looked at by an audience. That’s why I always take care to be suitably dressed.

  LEONORA. Shall Annie consult a psychiatrist, too?

  CATHERINE. Oh Annie. Annie has always been like that.

  LEONORA. Well, now I’m like that. A great many dons are like that. We all go dotty in the end.

  CATHERINE. I see. Somehow I thought you spoke with conviction when you mentioned a sense of being watched. It’s a well-known symptom.

  ANNIE. I speak with conviction.

  DAPHNE. This might be the beginning of something like religious mania, Leonora. There’s a type of religious mania where the patients are beset by a terrible sense of being watched. They feel eyes upon them.

  LEONORA. I feel eyes upon me.

  DAPHNE. It must be ghastly. At least you should see a general practitioner.

  LEONORA. My condition isn’t in the least distressing. It’s most interesting. Exhilarating. I feel like the first woman who’s ever been born. I feel I’ve discovered the world.

  ANNIE. I know exactly how you feel, Leonora. I’ve never felt otherwise myself. Only I couldn’t put it into words.

  LEONORA. Beware of religious mania, Annie. There are eyes upon you. They might disapprove of religious mania.

  ANNIE. Well, of course, Leonora, I am a very religious type. That is something that very few people understand about me.

  CHARLIE. Annie, be careful what you say. I think it highly possible that Leonora’s posing as an object of pity simply to see how we react. We’ve got our eyes on you, Leonora. (Exit.)

  LEONORA. I think I ought to go away. I’ve played on Charlie’s nerves.