The Little Book (42 page)

Wheeler, the twentieth-century man, was bringing much to bear. Wheeler’s mother, from her distant perch in a California farm in the mid 1950s, had struggled with Freud’s ideas and his impact, struggles she had shared with her son and set free in her
Persephone Rising
, often considered as much an anti-Freudian as a feminist treatise. The Haze in his expansive writings had labored over his understanding of Freud’s work, a labor Wheeler had picked up in his long preparation of their joint book
Fin de Siècle
. Wheeler could not help sharing what he knew. “Everything has now fallen into place for you,” he said to the great doctor. “You have recognized that remembered infatuation with the mother and jealousy of the father are universal, that the Oedipal relationship of the child to the parents is, as you say, ‘a general event in early childhood.’ ”

The doctor nodded cautiously at this point, not certain where the patient’s conversation was headed and just who was actually in control. “This is a good summary of my views. But where is this leading?”

“Isn’t it possible,” Wheeler said, barely pausing, “that your former view, your seduction theory, was actually right?”

“It makes no sense,” Freud said quickly, trying ever so slightly to disengage.

“But what if a child is beaten and humiliated with regularity? Isn’t he going to grow up perverted?”

“My theory accounts for that,” Freud said, now overtly dismissive.

But Wheeler, wound up, took no notice. “The child in Lambach is a case in point. The unrelenting abuse is very real, as is his future menace. ”

“Ah, the child in Lambach again,” Freud said with now just a tinge of sarcasm. “The one you and your father are so sure is pure evil.”

Wheeler remained nonplussed. “The one I would like you to meet.”

“I do not think that will be necessary.”

“That boy in Lambach is going to grow up to be a monster, all because of the humiliating childhood abuse he could not escape. He is mistreated constantly by his father, and abandoned emotionally by his mother, beaten almost every day. He is learning to be obedient and to accept daily punishment with compliance. Most of Germany is accustomed to that kind of poisonous parenting. Faced with the evidence, I don’t think that even you would argue that the cause was entirely sexual tension, that he lusted after his mother.”

“What exactly is your point?” Freud said. Wheeler could see that his host was equivocating, on one hand ready to dismiss the rantings of his delusional patient and on the other ready to defend himself against the legitimate intellectual attack.

“The unexamined life, Herr Doktor,” Wheeler said. “Neither of us has much use or respect for it.”

“That would seem obvious, especially considering how we have spent the past weeks.”

“Well then, let’s do
examine
. I know what you are trying to say, but I am acknowledging it is the first wave of brilliant analysis that will change the world. But it is too narrow.”

“Narrow or not,” Freud said quickly, “I have told you before, the seductions must be seen metaphorically.”

“And I have told you before, the seductions must be literal
and
metaphoric. ”

The two men found themselves at loggerheads, but highly charged. Each had found his equal, someone he could talk to without slowing down or explaining, and that was both intoxicating and intimidating.

“You are saying that my Oedipus discovery is too limiting?”

“There are other myths, you know.”

“I do not see how another myth would be helpful.”

“By using the Oedipus myth, the way Jesus used parables, you will get everyone’s attention, and will introduce your listeners to great depth, without having to describe your subject literally.”

“You are so kind,” Freud said, now purely sarcastic.

“But by sticking to that one possibility, you are being too literal, too rational. The problem is that you are about one hundred percent
logos
.”

“And not enough
eros
,” Freud said quickly.

“Precisely. You are following the rationality of Apollo and ignoring the sensuality of Dionysus. You are saying it is Oedipus or nothing,
either or.
It is childhood drives or nothing.”

“You will have to explain.”

“Look,” Wheeler said after a pause. “Don’t you see what you are doing? You are introducing introspection to an age when people don’t do much self-examination. This is the rising connectedness to complement the overly masculine dissections that science has brought with it over the past few centuries. This is the rise of the mythic feminine, the connection of all things.”

Freud looked genuinely curious for just a moment. “The ‘mythic feminine, ’ ” he repeated, liking the sound of it. “Yes. The connectedness to all things,” he concluded.

“But why stop short?”

Freud shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You suggest something different? ” he said curtly.

“Why not take another myth now and expand that? Then take many myths. You are being as narrow as the monotheists you criticize. You have broken into the secret temple, but you are not using its full power.”

“What other myth do you recommend?”

“Well, why not Orpheus, for instance? The musician responsible for playing the sun up every morning, who loses his lover, Eurydice, to the god of the underworld, separated from his feminine nature, if you will. He is given permission to retrieve her only to lose her forever because of breaking the rules and looking back at her.”

“I know my Greek mythology, Herr Burden,” Freud said, barely hiding his indignation.

“But the ending. Do you know that in the end Orpheus is attacked by the rageful women of Thrace who are jealous of his attentions, and he is torn apart and thrown into the river?”

Now Freud smiled, following the argument in spite of himself. “Are you saying I should be torn apart by angry women?”

“It will be suggested, believe me.” Wheeler paused for effect.

“I do not see how this myth relates to hysteria.”

Wheeler didn’t even skip a beat. “Stories
are
the unconscious. That’s what you are saying.”

“What, pray tell, does that say about the roots of hysteria?”

Wheeler was wound up now. There was no stopping. “This story tells the plight of the bifurcated character. The split is what is killing your patients. They need to unite the two parts of their natures, the
logos
and
eros
, if you will. We all have the split, but in their cases the split is debilitating. Orpheus represents both Apollo and Dionysus, both
logos
and
eros
. We are separated from our true nature, and unless we are brought together by physical immersion in real life, we will stay fragmented forever.”

Freud suddenly held his guest in his gaze for a long moment. “Very interesting,” he said, then paused, collecting himself. “Thank you for the mythology lesson,” he said curtly. “But I will stick to my Oedipus analogy, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, that is your prerogative. I am just saying that I think it is too narrow, unworthy of the grandeur of your work.”

“I think you miss my point, Herr Burden.” Freud was now glaring at his visitor.

“I think you miss mine.”

“I think—” Freud paused, as if reconsidering his response, aware that he had been on a dangerous precipice, right on the edge of believing his patient’s grandiose story. “Herr Burden,” he began slowly, pulling himself back to solid ground, becoming absolutely serious. “I know you believe that you are here to dissuade me from moving away from what you call my ‘seduction theory’ to Oedipus. I appreciate the passion and conviction with which you have pursued your argument. But what you do not see, and perhaps never will see, is that in sharing your ornate and elaborate story, in sharing so openly your journal, you have strengthened, not diminished my conviction.”

The compulsive conversationalist found himself suddenly silenced. “Wait,” Wheeler said. “You think my story
strengthens
your belief?”

“I do.”

“You think that I have concocted this whole fantastic story because I am feeling guilty that I have killed my father to have my mother to myself? ” The words had erupted from him out of exasperation and now sat unavoidably before them. Neither man spoke.

The great doctor shrugged, as if to acknowledge the painful and unspoken truth. “The unexamined life, Herr Burden,” he said deliberately. “Neither of us has much use or respect for it.”

Wheeler shook his head. “I think we have so much more to talk about.”

Sigmund Freud stopped him with a movement of his hand. “I think we will call an end to this meeting. We will not need to meet again.” Abruptly rising and turning his back to Wheeler, he moved quickly toward the door. “I am sure you can find your way out.” As Sigmund Freud left the room, Wheeler was aware once again what a short man his host was.

44

Out of the Dark Corners

Why do I tell you all my secrets?” Weezie said. She was sitting with her legs under her on the shelf in front of the large open window looking out onto the Stephans-Platz. She was wearing a white lace blouse only partially buttoned, with her hair up, the way it had been the night of the opera. “It is as if you are my confessor.” Then she smiled and looked back at where Wheeler was sitting in an overstuffed chair, admiring her effect in the morning light. “I should be confessing about the spell our conversations have cast on me. I am totally bewitched.”

“Have you never talked this way to anyone before?”

“My friends and I have always been very proper. There were always girls who talked about such things—” She wrinkled her nose in adolescent distaste. “But they were of questionable repute.”

“Did you never talk with a young man?”

Weezie recoiled. “Oh, heavens no. One would rather die on the spot than talk to a young man about secret things.”

“So you just hold it inside?”

“That is just what one does.”

“And what is the result?”

She looked back out the window. “One should not go around talking about feelings. It just is not considerate.” She paused. “On the other hand, it does seem to make things better to get them out of the dark corners.” She looked back at Wheeler and smiled again. “You see, that is what you have done to me. You have caused me to bring all manner of unmentionables up into the daylight. Shameful. Once they are there, they don’t seem to be as important or worth hiding anymore.” She readjusted her legs under her. “The strict Puritan voice inside me is losing out to the sybarite, I fear. And all because of you.”

“Aren’t the two voices giving in to a third?”

She looked at him quizzically for a moment, to be certain he wasn’t teasing. “I do not follow,” she said.

“You said before that you were inhabited by three people. I’m just saying that your aunt Prudence and your willful child have perhaps stopped warring with each other and have given way to that third self you described. Do you remember how you described it?”

“My mother,” she said pensively.

“Exactly. The Puritan part of you—” Wheeler raised his hand to the top of an imaginary diagram in front of him. He moved his hand down to the bottom. “The libertine part—” He moved his hand to the middle position. “And the middle voice, the mature moderator, the authentic one. Strict parent, mature adult, impulsive child: three voices in all of us, actually, and we should try to use the middle one.”

“The mature voice I would like to hear always but often cannot.”

Wheeler nodded and smiled. “The mature voice, right. And whose voice is it?”

“My mother’s.”

Wheeler said nothing, only looked at her expectantly. At first, noting his expectation, she looked perplexed, as if unable to guess what should be coming next. Then she closed her eyes and smiled. “Not my mother, actually. My mother’s gift to me, the one I have had such a hard time reaching.”

“And what is that voice?” Wheeler said softly.

“That third voice, that mature one, the one I want to use. It is not my aunt Prudence with all her
shoulds
and
will nots
, and it is not my willful child with its selfish gratifications. It is just the one real and true voice.”

“The authentic one,” Wheeler said.

“What a curious way to describe it,” she said. “That is precisely it: my authentic voice,” Weezie said. “And how I wish to use it all the time.”

“You’re not alone in that wish.”

“But I seem so far behind. So often I feel afraid. I hear that Puritanical voice, and I feel unworthy and afraid. I want so to move beyond.”

Wheeler smiled. “And you do that by opening up and talking.”

Weezie fell silent and thought for a moment. “I need to open up more. I know that. I would have told no one, absolutely no one, about my meeting with Herr Mahler. And I would have hoped that no one had found out. I was so embarrassed that I would cringe inside every time I thought of it. Now, I have mentioned it enough times that it seems commonplace. ” She smiled. “What every young girl does, you know: faint in the presence of a great master.”

“And you begin to see connections.”

“That is the confounding part. I have felt that way before—flushed and dizzy. In college, when the girls would talk about uncomfortable things, and they would take delight in looking at me to see how I was reacting, I felt terrible pressure and would feel faint.”

Wheeler was amused. “What kinds of things?”

She looked away. “You know, the things girls in college talk about when they are trying to rattle someone they think naïve and sheltered.”

“What kind of things?”

She began to flush. “You know! I know
you
know.”

“I have never been a college girl,” he said with a gentle laugh. “You’ll have to tell me.”

“The things that make one blush and faint.”