by Morris West
“Why is Salome blind?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve been fishing around for connections with that one. You know that, in the Orient, blind girls are often trained as prostitutes. They are much in demand by older men because they are skilful and sensitive – and they cannot see the ravages of age in their clients. Also, here in Europe, the blind are trained in massage and physiotherapy. They are excellent manipulators. The two ideas are related in the dream. Salome is a person of low origins. She is also the wife, lover and protector of an old man.”
“So, let me ask you another question, Carl. In your very first important dream, the one in the underground cave, you saw the phallus as a giant one-eyed god. Was it blind, too? And how blind are you, Carl?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll put it another way then. You made love to me last night. I know you make love to Emma when you can. What’s the difference? Or are we both just two grey cats in the dark? No, don’t get angry! This is important, and you know it!”
The humour of it hits me and I burst out laughing. Toni is disconcerted. She demands to know what is so funny. I tell her that perhaps I should call Emma and have her join us so that I don’t have to go over the same explanation twice. Where would she like me to start? The physics of intercourse? The oestrous cycle of women? The varieties of stimuli for each sex? Does absence excite desire? Does propinquity kill it? Finally she laughs, too, and agrees to drop the question. Then she tosses another in my lap. This one really takes the prize!
“Carl, how do you see yourself? What are you?”
I know what she is asking. I know why. We have had many discussions, made many tentative definitions about the nature of mental health. We have arrived together at a notion of one-ness, a settled state in which the individual recognises himself as an entity, not necessarily complete or perfect, but acceptable and endurable. I have coined the word “individuation” to express both the process of growth and the state of arrival.
The cat does not question that she is a cat. The zebra does not seek to change his stripes. So, when Toni asks me who I am, I have to tell her honestly that I don’t know yet. This is the nature of my sickness. I have lost the certainty, not only about my goals, but about who is the real man behind the “persona”, the public face of Carl Gustav Jung. As I try to explain, she listens in silence, holding my hands between her own.
“My love, I am like the man who lost his shadow. Because I have no shadow I have no proof that I exist at all. This is why I need you. You prove that I’m solid, substantial and not just a fantasy of my own fantasies. This is why I am unsatisfactory to Emma and she to me. She is bringing up a family, bearing a new child. She needs a sure man to sustain her and her offspring. She cannot carry me too, like a suckling at the breast. So, we resent each other and hurt each other. I know that she has more grounds for complaint than I; but that doesn’t help. Her grip on reality is stronger than mine, as is yours. Just now, I am in the cloud of unknowing! So you see, the real question is not what I am, but what I’ll turn out to be. Have I ever told you that, when I began my university studies, I wanted to be an archaeologist?”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Simple economics. Basel was near home. My parents couldn’t afford to send me anywhere else. But Basel had no chair in archaeology. So, I took a medical degree instead. Now look at me – a compromise! And compromises never work too well.”
“Don’t underrate yourself. You’re a very good doctor.”
“I used to be, at the clinic. Now I’m the patient – and like all patients I’m centred on myself. Yet something tells me that although I’ve travelled much and will travel more in the physical world, my real exploration will be in the undiscovered country of the mind. Remember the old tag, ‘Non foras ire: in interiore homine habitat Veritas. Truth dwells inside a man. He doesn’t have to go outside to find it.’ Sometimes it’s a frightening journey. I feel often as if I’m toppling off the edge of the world. But I must go on. Perhaps my final destiny is not to be a healer, but one who risks his own sanity to bring back the healing herbs and the magical formulae for other men to use.”
Perhaps! It is all a great perhaps until she puts her arms around me and makes my manhood rise again and turns herself into my shadow so that I can stand, for a brief while at least, solid in the sun. To which, as always, there is an ironic afterthought. The shadow, once reunited with the substance, never, never leaves!
MAGDA
En voyage
At four in the morning we are halted at the Swiss frontier for entry and customs formalities. I put on a dressing gown and walk out into the corridor to watch the small bustle of passengers, porters and vendors on the platform. The conductor offers me a cup of coffee in his little cabin, where a young Swiss is inspecting passports. He smiles and gives me a “Grueszi” and asks politely if I am taking a vacation in Switzerland.
I tell him I am going to visit a very distinguished Swiss medical man, Doctor Carl Jung. The name means nothing to him. He is a country boy from Appenzell. He makes a little joke of his ignorance. He tells me in Schweizerdeutsch that he doesn’t know any Jungdoktor but there is a beautiful Jungmädchen he is going to marry when he gets his promotion.
He looks at my rings and asks if I am married. I make my little joke and tell him I’m no longer a Jungmädchen but I am a Junggesellin, a bachelor girl. That same moment he flips open my passport. He will make high rank one day. He does not bat an eyelid as he reads my age in the document.
There is still a three hour journey ahead of us, so I go back to bed and try to interest myself in the life and death drama of Sherlock Holmes and the infamous Moriarty. Vain effort! My own tale of love and violence is much more vivid, and I have to set it in some kind of order before my meeting with Jung.
The first question any doctor asks of any new patient is: “What’s the trouble? What brings you to me?” How shall I answer? “I’ve always liked violent sex games; now I’m going crazy and I’m afraid I’ll kill my next partner.’ Or again, “It starts with incest and builds up to murder. I have a taste for both. So you see, doctor, there’s an area of difficulty.” Perhaps it would be simpler to say, “Let’s spare each other’s blushes, dear colleague. Hand me your copy of Psychopathia Sexualis and I’ll mark the relevant passages.”
Set down in linear script, it reads like bad farce. But today or tomorrow Jung will ask the routine question and I shall have to answer it in words that will not brand me immediately as a criminal, a lunatic or a pathological liar. My best tactic may be to act like the majority of patients: present a long list of non-specific symptoms and let the physician ferret out the real illness for himself. At least that way I’ll have time to size up this psychic wonderworker before I commit myself to an outright confession. Besides, if he is, as Gianni suggests, a notable womaniser, we may have an interesting session: two physicians, each making a diagnosis of the other’s sexual maladies!
By nine in the morning, I am installed in the hotel, bathed, dressed and ready for judgment day – which I would like to have over as soon as possible. I summon the manager. I tell him I wish to remain incognito during my stay: I am to be known under a nom de guerre, “Madame Hirschfeld”. I also desire him, if he will have the kindness, to call Doctor Carl Gustav Jung at his home in Küsnacht and make an appointment for me under the same name. He will identify me only as a guest, recently arrived from Paris and recommended by a distinguished medico in that city, Doctor di Malvasia.
The manager is only too happy to oblige. He understands the idiosyncrasies of the rich – and I have to be rich to afford my present accommodation: a large suite with a view down the lake, which today is slate-grey and oily under a thundery sky. The manager is also discreetly informative on the subject of Herr Doktor Jung. He was, until recently, Clinical Director at the Burgholzli – the huge cantonal clinic for the mentally afflicted, which I will see on my way to Küsnacht. He was also a lecturer at the university, but retired quite recently. H
e has become a well known, if somewhat controversial, figure in the new psycho-analytic movement.
“But of course (this in deference to my sensibilities), he is a man of high reputation and undoubted talent. Our medical standards in Switzerland are among the highest in the world. If Madame will excuse me, I shall be back shortly.”
It is twenty minutes before he returns. Contact with Doctor Jung has proved rather difficult. He has spoken first with the wife, then with a Fräulein Wolff, who appears to be some kind of special assistant. Finally, after much delay, he has been able to speak with the great man himself. He was quite brusque at first, obviously reluctant to concern himself with a new patient dropping out of the sky. In the end however – the manager gives a little self-righteous shrug – the matter was settled by a discreet hint that Madame was well able to pay for his trouble.
The Herr Doktor will see me at eleven. The manager has taken the liberty of arranging for a chauffeured automobile to take me to Küsnacht, wait and bring me back to the hotel. The place is not far, a fifteen minute drive, no more. I thank him profusely. He is equally profuse in his deprecations. “Anything you need, Madame, anything!” Then he leaves me, with an hour to kill before the moment of final judgment.
I spend the time in a dressing-up game, looking for the costume in which to present myself. The image must be soft, summery, feminine: lace or sprigged muslin, a picture hat, a flowered parasol. Let Doctor Jung discover for himself what a variety of characters is hidden under the finery.
The maquillage must be soft and subtle, no hard lines, no heavy rouge. There! I have to confess that I am pleasantly surprised by what I see in the mirror. There is a touch of youth, a faint souvenir of innocence, which I have not noticed for a long time.
I check the contents of my reticule: a lace handkerchief, perfume, lipstick, a compact, a comb, visiting cards, an envelope stuffed with Swiss francs, so that, whatever happens, Doctor Jung will feel adequately recompensed – and, of course, my passport to oblivion, the small blue phial sealed with red wax. Time to go. Time to say a prayer – if I knew even a small one.
My suite is on the first floor. I walk ceremoniously downstairs. In the lobby, heads turn. Even the stolid Swiss take notice as La Dame Inconnue makes her entrance. A page rushes to open the door for me. The porter salutes and hands me to the chauffeur, who settles me in regal splendour in the back seat of a vast Hispano Suiza. As we move off, I am conscious of a certain irony. Here I am, a murderess, riding in state like a queen, while Marie Antoinette rode to the guillotine in a tumbril. The only problem is that I’ve lost the nerve to enjoy it wholeheartedly.
The house of Doctor Jung is a pleasant but undistinguished dwelling, right on the shore of the lake. It is a tall, square house of two storeys, whose outlines are broken by a circular tower, the base of which forms the entrance and whose topmost floor looks out over the lake on one side and the foothill countryside on the other. The grounds are not overly large. One approaches the house from the road by a long straight path flanked by orchard trees: pears and cherries and apples. There are flower gardens along the borders of the lawn and a kitchen garden by the far fence. As I approach the front door, my eye is caught by an inscription over the archway. It is in Latin. “Vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit. Whether he is called or not, the god will be present.” I seem to remember that a similar phrase in Greek was inscribed over the shrine of the oracle at Delphi.
I ring the bell. After a longish pause the door is opened by a tall, good-looking woman in her late twenties or early thirties. She is pleasant but a trifle flustered. She apologises for having kept me waiting.
“I’ve just sent the children out for a picnic with Nurse; it’s the housekeeper’s day off, so I’m the maid-of-all-work.” She smiles and her whole face lights up. “I’m not very good at it either. Please, do come in. I’m Emma Jung. You must be the new patient. Frau . . . There! It’s gone right out of my head!”
“Frau Hirschfeld. And please! I’m very grateful that the doctor would see me at such short notice.”
She ushers me into a small waiting room off the hall and leaves me, promising that the doctor will be ready in a few minutes. I have the idea she is probably pregnant. Her face has that curious mask-like appearance and there are deep, dark circles under her eyes. She looks like a woman breeding too quickly, while her firstlings are still clinging to her skirts.
I pick up a magazine from the pile on the table. It is the 1912 edition of the Yearbook of Psychoanalytic and Psychopathological Research. It contains a long essay by Doctor Jung entitled “Mutations and Symbols of the Libido”. I have hardly read two pages of the dense prose when Emma Jung returns to summon me into her husband’s presence. When I stand up, I find I am a little dizzy. I take a deep breath, smooth my skirt, straighten myself up like a soldier for inspection and follow Emma Jung upstairs. When we reach the landing outside the doctor’s study, I know that I have reached the point of no return.
JUNG
Zurich
This morning is Föhn weather, hot, still and humid, the air pressing down on the valley like a thick grey blanket. Everyone is ill humoured. The children are fretful. Emma has a worse than usual bout of morning sickness. Toni is in a bad humour with menstrual cramps. I am fed up to the back teeth with everybody – myself included.
I insist that Nurse take the children out for a picnic Emma protests that there may be rain and she does not want the children caught in a thunderstorm. I tell her that I will have old Ludwig Simmel take them out in his pony trap; if the rain comes they can shelter under the canvas cover. But at all costs, they must be out of the house; otherwise we shall all drive each other crazy.
Emma submits with reluctance I walk half a kilometre down the road to make arrangements with Simmel. He, like everyone else, is suffering from the Föhn and does not want to go out. I offer double the amount he normally charges. He agrees with ill grace. I stride back to the house in worse humour than before.
I am halfway to the front door when I stop dead in my tracks. I feel as if I have run into a steel wall. I see nothing; but I can feel the obstruction at my fingertips. It is like the testudo of the ancient Romans, a barrier of interlocked shields behind which the legions advanced. I feel that the legions are here, too. I know that in this moment they are hostile to me. They belong in the deepest level of my unconscious; but now they are released as a maleficent influence to plague me. Their power is enormous.
I try to step forward to penetrate the invisible wall. I cannot. I turn on my heel and walk back towards the front gate. Before I have taken three paces, I am stopped again. I am surrounded by a solid ring of hostility. I stand absolutely still. I raise my voice in a great shout for help: “Elijah! Elijah!” A moment later I can sense that the wall is melting away and that the creatures behind it are retreating into the darkness from whence they came.
I walk back to the house sweating and trembling like one in fever. I tell Emma to prepare a picnic lunch and Nurse to have the children ready to leave in half an hour. Emma follows me to my study where Toni is opening the morning mail. She tells me that during my brief absence there has been a phone call from the manager of the Baur au Lac. One of his guests, a Frau Hirschfeld, wants to see me this morning. Some fashionable physician in Paris has recommended her to me. I tell Emma that the last thing I need in the world today is a new patient. Emma is unexpectedly stubborn. She tells me flatly:
“I think you’re making a mistake, Carl. God knows, we’re not so well off that you can afford to turn away patients. You’ve said yourself many times that you would like to have a connection with the big tourist hotels. Well, here’s your opportunity.”
This is the moment Toni chooses to assert her authority as my analyst. She says snappishly:
“I don’t think you should see any patients for a few days. We are making such excellent progress with the dream analysis that I’d rather not see you distracted.”
This is entirely too much. I turn on her in fury.
/>
“Shut up, Toni! I’ll make my own decisions!”
“As you wish, of course, doctor.”
She turns back to the mail, using the letter opener as if it is a dagger and the envelopes are my living flesh. I am not prepared to have this exhibition of bad temper in front of Emma. I tell Toni curtly:
“Please call the Baur au Lac and tell the manager I would like to speak with him.” Then I make my oblique apology to Emma. “You’re quite right, of course. I’ll see this woman, whoever she is As you say, the Baur au Lac is a good connection.”
“Thank you, Carl.”
She gives me a small, grateful smile and goes out. Immediately Toni storms at me.
“My God! You’re an absolute beast! I was only trying to protect your privacy and you cut me down like some little clerk.”
“You deserved it. Never, never interfere in a situation between my wife and myself.”
“Never interfere.” She is almost choking with anger. “Dear Christ! I’m your whore, I’m your nursemaid, your lover . . . and you tell me not to interfere. I’ll never, never understand how your mind works.”
I reach out to take the phone. She snatches the instrument away and puts the call through. When the manager comes on I agree to see Frau Hirschfeld at eleven. The name of the man in Paris who recommended her, Malvasy, Malvoisier, something like that, means nothing to me. Still, as Emma says, it is all money – and God, do we need it! I tell Toni:
“I’d like you to sit in on this consultation.”