Human Traces (29 page)

course not share that dream with you; it would be both unscientific and tedious there being perhaps no worse manners on earth than telling others of your dreams. My analysis of my own dream, however, gave me a much fuller understanding than I would otherwise have had of the state of my affections and profoundly relieved a distress of which I had been only half aware. "I was wary at first of this line of thought, because it seemed to be mediaeval, or older, in its assumptions; there was something of the shaman about it. However, it was not long before a search of the relevant libraries in Paris led me to a different view. Now it is true that many great German psychologists have seen dreams as little more than the side-effects of chemical activity in the brain a sort of neural waste matter. But there exists a large and equally respectable school of thought to the contrary. "In my own language there is the example of the Marquis Hervey de Saint-Denys whose rare book Dreams and the Means to Direct Them I was fortunate enough to be lent by a benefactor in Paris. This charming work is mostly about the author's attempts to direct his own dreams, but part of his analysis was suggestive to me. He showed that many apparently novel or unexplained images that occurred in dreams turned out, on closer inspection, to be enactments of things he had forgotten. Our compatriot Alfred Maury's book Sleep and Dreams confirmed this phenomenon. Saint-Denys also showed how one quality could be abstracted from an image in a dream and projected on to another. He had no theory to expound; this was simple autobiography. "In Germany, in 1861, Karl Albert Schemer's book The Life of the Dream did have a thesis to propose: that dreams are a language of symbols, which can be interpreted. He showed that the symbolism was mostly related to the physical condition of the patient, so that dreams of flying, for instance, occurred to those with temporarily increased lung function. However, he also maintained that some symbols existed regardless of the patient's health. A house always represents the human body. Over the space of ten or more pages, Schemer listed such things as pipes, towers and clarinets as emblems of the male, while the female is represented by staircases or narrow courtyards. "A few years later, another highly respected German philosopher, F. W. Hildebrandt, wrote of how dreams could be the materialisation of a suppressed immoral thought. I think we can perhaps all think of an instance in our own lives where this may have been the case. Then, just three years ago, under the nom-de-plume Lynkeus, the German Josef Popper developed this idea to the crucial point by suggesting that unresolved conflict in the dreamer, between conscious and unconscious levels, finds expression in puzzling or coded dreams. "From the basis of what all these scholars have written, it is not difficult for us to move one step further and suppose that dreams are a necessary mental function; that far from being mere "neural waste", these images are those thoughts with which the conscious mind has not been able to deal. In dreams they come to us, these troubling ideas, sometimes in heavy disguise. They come as beggars, mendicants to our door, asking either to be understood or else discharged for ever. They constitute our best guides into the unconscious; they are Virgil to our Dante, as we descend into that dark region. "Ladies and gentlemen, I must now draw to a close. It is probably clear to you that I have devoted many hundreds of hours to this subject. I began with an orthodox study of an apparently orthodox neurological illness, hysteria. It proved a hard nut to crack, or as people in the village where I was brought up used to say, "a hard oyster to open". The fault line or crack in the closed shell, however, was clearly the mental element. By following Professor Charcot's preliminary examinations and Monsieur Janet's subsequent remarkable case studies, I have been driven into an extremely delicate area of neuro physiology "From there, I widened my researches, particularly in the German psychological literature, a glimpse of which I have given you in the last few minutes. The important ideas and phrases often seemed to lie, oddly enough, in the footnotes or the obiter dicta. I remind you of Janet's words: "The idea, like a virus, develops in a corner of the personality inaccessible to the subject, works subconsciously, and brings about all disorders of hysteria and mental disease." Not just hysteria in his view, you will note, but all mental disease. "I kept returning in my mind to Charcot's concept of "dynamic amnesia". It was not something he had time to investigate fully himself; it was by way of something thrown out by the continuous activity of that great brain. Surely, however, the idea that some amnesia could be unlocked by suggestion was highly significant. "And then there was Moritz Benedikt, a neurologist second in renown perhaps only to the great Charcot, who pointed out almost in passing that the mechanism for forming a pathogenic secret might exist universally, independent of any specific pathology. It might exist in healthy people too. "Benedikt also gave me leave to explore the possibility that hysteria might not depend on an organic neurological pathology. I am not ready to abandon Charcot's elegant description of the disease; nor should any doctor do so while hysterical patients present themselves by the score in his consulting rooms. However, Benedikt's suggestion prompted me to examine the way in which an entire psychology might be based on some of the key principles we developed in studying one complex hereditary disease. "I have not reached my destination yet, but I am well on the way, I believe, in a personal journey which began some years ago in the dissection of eels and crayfish, and has moved on, step by scientific step, to the threshold of something of rather greater importance: the meeting point between thought and flesh. "I have yet to find an entirely satisfactory name for the new therapeutic technique that attaches to these discoveries. I had wanted to call it 'psychosomatic resolution', but it has been pointed out to me that many people do not understand the meaning of the word 'psychosomatic'. It truly means 'existing in mind and body', and is often used of physical symptoms whose cause is in the mind; it suggests a double existence. I believe that a common misunderstanding of the word, however, has it as little more than a synonym for 'imagined'; that in many people's minds, far from meaning dually existent or doubly real, it means unreal or non-existent! Well, alas, one cannot deal only with what words truly mean, one must deal also with words as they are used or abused. For the time being, I am calling the process psycho physical resolution', and I hope in due course, little by little, we may shed the ugly adjective and call it simply by the more attractive noun, with all its beautiful connotations of healing and calm: resolution. "Enough of philology. Ladies and gentlemen, I leave you with the firm hope and the modest belief that my discovery, when it is complete, should be nothing less than and here I permit myself to borrow a phrase once used by my colleague Dr. Midwinter, though it may have lost a little of its elegance in translation from his original, indeed highly original, French "the way in which functions the mind of the human"." Jacques swept up his notes and levelled off their edges; he had no chief of clinic to hand them to, no one to instruct to prepare them for publication, but there was in his manner something of the Napoleon of the neuroses, of Charcot himself, as he strode from the stage.

Eleven

One of Sonia's responsibilities at the schloss was overseeing the diet of those patients undergoing the rest cure, and the cornerstone of it was raw beef soup. The prescription was strict: to one pound of chopped beef she was to add a pint of water and five drops of hydrochloric acid; the mixture was left in a bottle on ice overnight, then, in the morning, boiled for two hours at 110 degrees. The warm filtrate was given to the patients in three portions daily in addition to their regular meals. In the first week of their confinement, the rest-cure patients took all meals in their room, beginning at eight o'clock with a plate of oatmeal porridge and cream, followed by dried ham, white rolls, scrambled eggs and cheese. This was preceded by the beef soup and followed by a pear and half an ounce of cod-liver oil; cascara was prescribed for those who needed it. Lunch might be a leg and loin of venison, one of Frau Egger's staples, finished with red wine and half a pint of sour cream and served on a hillock of buttered noodles. This was preceded by the beef soup and might be followed by fruit loaf, chocolate sausage or cream cheese pastries with a pint of milk. The number of patients and the volume of food required meant that Sonia and Frau Egger had to decide on the menus a week in advance so that the tradesmen knew what to deliver and on which day. In the summer, when the kitchen gardens of the schloss were at their most fruitful, rumours began to circulate among the patients that tonight would see one of Frau Egger's strawberry souffles. These could be served only in the main dining room, not in the patients' bedrooms, but Frau Egger never failed to make them rise, the secret, apparently, being a refusal to inspect them until some native instinct told her they were ready, at which moment they would be carried through in triumph. Sonia tried to work some lighter English dishes into the repertoire. For every pike with anchovies, she would counter with boiled beef, and fresh carrots from the garden; after liver dumplings and trout in aspic jelly, she would propose gammon hock and sauce infused with parsley that grew in the sunny beds beneath the scullery windows. Frau Egger was in command, but Sonia felt she had established her right to contribute when her other duties left her time to spare. One day, she was working on the accounts in the office next to the waiting room, where a mother and her teenage daughter sat anxiously awaiting their appointment, when she heard the front door bell being vigorously pulled. Since she heard no responding footsteps on the stone flags of the hall, she went herself to open it. A grey-haired man, bearded, travel-weary, dressed in a cape was standing on the step. "Forgive me, Madame," he said in French. "I believe this is the famous sanatorium of Dr. Midwinter and his partner?" "Yes, indeed." "Good. I remember the building, though I see you have done a considerable amount of work to it. You do not know who I am, do you? I visited you briefly in the summer that you opened. Pierre Valade." He held out his hand and Sonia shook it. "Yes, I do remember," she said. "You have... You have lost a little weight, I think. And the beard. That is why I did not recognise you at first. Please excuse me." "Not at all. You, Madame, on the contrary, are as lovely as ever. Scandal that an ugly villain like Midwinter should have such a beautiful sister." Colouring a little, despite the obvious insincerity of Valade's bluster, Sonia invited him in. "Perhaps you would care to sit in the garden until Thomas has finished his consultation." "That would be splendid. Shall I ask your man to bring in my trunk? He is awaiting instructions." "Yes... I mean, yes, I expect we can find a room. We are full up, but... Daisy! Ask one of the girls to make up the green bedroom at the front, will you? Thank you. This way Monsieur. I shall bring Thomas out to you as soon as he is finished." Valade sat in the main courtyard on a bench near the fountain, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigar until Thomas appeared at the end of the cloister and strode over the grass to greet him. "Good heavens," he said. "What on earth has brought you here?" "My health of course," said Valade. "Why else -would a man go to a sanatorium? It is not for the company, I assure you." He nodded his head towards one of the patients referred from the public hospital, who was tracing a pattern of steps on the cobbles at the edge of the grass and talking animatedly to someone invisible. "Yes," said Thomas, "He is not strictly speaking meant to be in this courtyard. Never mind. You had better come and join us for lunch. How is Nadine?" "Vast." "And Gerard?" "A little better, thank you, Doctor. He is quite mobile." As they entered the cloister, Thomas said, "I dare hardly enquire about Madame Valade..." "Sophie has left me," said Valade. "She said that she was lonely." "Lonely? But surely ' "I know," said Valade. "A husband, two children at home, friends to visit every day. She said there is nothing so lonely as being unable to communicate." "But surely she has no difficulty with ' "Apparently she does. I did not listen. I was too self-absorbed. She felt like a prisoner, she told me. Now she has gone to live with a Russian financier in St. Petersburg, though not as his wife, since he is already married. The children spend six months with her and six with me. At the moment I am unencumbered." Valade invited himself to stay at the schloss, insisting that it be as a patient. "Melancholy' was his self-diagnosis, though there was little sign of it in his behaviour, and he resisted Thomas's offer of a consultation. "Perhaps you should see my colleague, Dr. Rebière, if you would find it awkward to speak to me." "I have no desire to talk about my private thoughts to a man I barely know," said Valade. "To tell a stranger my inner feelings! It is a barbaric idea. I ask only to be allowed the peace and quiet of the sanatorium and to feed myself on its excellent cooking." At dinner that night, he placed himself at the only spare place, which was at a table with two neurasthenic young women, Fraulein Fuchs and Fraulein Wolf, and an elderly German lawyer, Herr Hassler, who suffered bouts of mania in which he believed himself to be the king of Prussia. "Boy!" called Valade to the startled Hans, who was helping as a waiter. "Bring me a bottle of the best red burgundy in the house. Ladies, will you do me the honour of taking wine with me?" Valade spoke an inelegant, accented German, quite comprehensible, if hard on the ear. The two girls laughed uncertainly. They were known to Thomas as Miss Fox and Miss Wolf, and he had taken some pleasure in arranging for them to share a table, regretting only the departure though not the cure of Miss Hare, Fraulein Haas, the previous month. "Thank you," said Fraulein Wolf, "I still have a little Riesling left from last night." "Please do not trifle with me. A half of a half-bottle of German grape cordial is not going to restore you to health, Fraulein. You need red wine from France. Bring a second bottle, young man, and put it on my bill." Hans had anticipatedValade's needs and had brought up a number of bottles from the cellar. Valade took the first one from him and emptied it into the four glasses on the table. "Ladies and gentleman, to your renewed good health." Fraulein Fuchs, who seldom drank wine, raised the brimming glass nervously to her lips and inclined her head in thanks. "Not bad," said Valade, draining his glass, "though it could do with another year or two. I understand that Dr. Midwinter plans to convert the wine cellar into a laboratory, but I suspect he will find more meaning in the bottom of a glass of Nuits St. Georges than beneath the lens of his wretched microscope. Ladies, would you now like to propose a toast of your own? More wine please, boy' Fraulein Wolf, who had enjoyed her first glass of burgundy, said, "To our kind benefactor. Your good health, Monsieur." "Thank you. And you, Fraulein?" Emboldened, Fraulein Fuchs said, "To the good doctors and the wonderful cooks." In French, Valade replied, "And which of you two ladies will eat me up for dinner? Miss Wolf or Miss Fox?" The women, both of whom understood Valade s French, laughed, as though the coincidence of their surnames had not occurred to them; and it had certainly never been referred to in such a way. "And Herr Hassler," said Fraulein Fuchs. "To what will you drink?" "To Germany," said Herr Hassler. "United and strong." Valade's merriment faltered for a moment, but he managed to drain his glass another time. "To Germany. United and strong," he said. "And on this side of the Rhine." Sonia, Jacques and Thomas dined at a separate table, to which they usually invited one of the women patients, butValade spoke so loudly that all the room was included in his conversation, whether they liked it or not. After some breaded carp with cucumber sauce, the waitresses brought in plates of Tyrolean liver, fried with onions and sour cream, with sage dumplings and a lettuce salad, the sight of which encouraged Valade to venture further into the schloss's cellar. "I think we need something more broad-shouldered to carry the weight of this dish," he said. "A Chateauneuf du Pape, perhaps." Hans obliged with two bottles, and Valade poured for other patients what his own table could not manage. "Doctor Midwinter," he called across the room, "I would like to congratulate you on your cellar, your kitchen and your altogether excellent establishment. I have only one suggestion You need to move into the mountains. Who ever heard of a sanatorium in the valley?" There was a murmur of embarrassment among the patients, who were accustomed to a degree of formality at dinner. Although the public patients ate in the North Hall and those on the rest cure stayed in their rooms, there were still enough in the dining room to give it the feeling of a medium-sized, and respectable, hotel. Thomas was not put out by Valade, however. "We are not quite in the valley, we are on a hill. But I do agree with you. There is a mountain, my dear friend, called the Wilhelmskogel, whose summit is about one thousand metres above sea level," he said, projecting his voice a little so that it would reach Valade's table. "It is a short distance from here and commands a wonderful view. It is popular with visitors and has a number of tracks for climbers and mules. At present there is a refuge at the top and some unused houses. I have long thought that we should move there when the lease on this place expires, but one cannot ask sick people to undertake such a climb, even on horseback." "Then you must build a railway," said Valade. "Or a cable-car. A funicular, perhaps, the system of weights and pulleys that has become popular. There are any number of ways that such a thing can be done." "I am sure it could be done, but the expense would prohibit it." "Then you must find outside investment. "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." So our Lord told the multitude on the Mount. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." "It is a thrilling idea," said Thomas. "From tomorrow I shall start to organise the investment." "Begin with the mayor," said Valade. "Explain that it would help his city. Boy! We need champagne to go with the dessert." Valade asked Hans to deliver champagne to all the tables in the dining room, to go with the black cherry cake and apricot Ischl tarts that the girls were bringing in from the kitchen. After dinner, he persuaded Fraulein Wolf to play the piano in the hall, while he commanded Hans to bring more champagne for those who stayed to listen. The party went on till midnight, when Sonia was persuaded to play "The Lincolnshire Poacher' and Jacques sang a song in French: "There was a little ship.. ." The next day, Valade cornered Thomas as he was smoking a cigar in the courtyard between consultations. "I hope the patients were not disturbed last night," he said. "Not in the least," said Thomas. "It is good for them to have their routine broken a little. They enjoyed themselves." Valade looked down at the ground. "I was thinking of Sophie," he said. "The woman drove me mad with her incessant chatter. Yet without her, I feel... Bereft." "I understand." "One's own company," said Valade,"is pretty thin stuff." "You have friends in Paris. And here, of course." "Yes, but I live my days in my own head. I no longer live through the eyes and thoughts of another. When I was a child I was certain that I was unique. Then as a young man I became convinced that I was, if not unique, then of a complexity and fascination previously unknown. "Valade levered a loose cobble up with the toe of his boot. "But over the years I came to understand about half of the paradoxes that made up my complexity. The remainder, it transpired, were either insoluble by me, or, more likely, had no solution. They were simply dead ends of no significance. So you see, Doctor," he said, replacing the cobble and firming it back in place with his foot, 'that at the age of fifty-five I have essentially ceased to be of interest to myself Thomas smiled. He never knew how serious Valade was being, because he wore the same quizzical, slightly bad-tempered face for humour and solemnity. "I suppose you still have your painting, "Thomas said. "Presumably that provides some consolation." "I did not turn to art for consolation," saidValade fiercely. "I turned to it in the hope that I could use it to push back the edges of experience. I hoped that I could use it to reset reality." "That was ambitious." "It was. But I could see no other point in it." "And did you come close?" "I came close in my head. In my head, I even succeeded. But as soon as the wretched hand was involved, I became trapped by the poverty of my talent. Each brush stroke was a smear, a defacement. Each time I touched the canvas, a shadow fell across the purity of the idea and took it further from what I had envisaged. Every painting ended up as an advertisement of my limitations. Only I could see through it to the glorious thing that it was meant to be." "They looked pretty good to me." "Pretty good is what they were, Doctor. I aimed for transcendence and I ended with some "pretty good" paintings." They walked over the courtyard to the North Hall, which was being prepared for a lecture that evening by a visiting speaker from Vienna. "Ah, Sophie, Sophie... And, Doctor, have you never thought of marrying?" "I have thought of it. I am not against it. But I would feel sorry for the woman in question. I am still in love with the work I do. I still have great ambitions for it." "Did you have many loves as a young man?" "I was in love with someone I met years ago in Heidelberg. She was a nurse at the hospital. She was a very mysterious young woman and in the end I ran away from her