When Nietzsche Wept

by Irvin D. Yalom

  “So,” Nietzsche asked, “she’s safer because she has no other men competing for her?”

  “That’s not quite it. She’s safer because I have the inside track. Any man would want her, but I can easily defeat competitors. She is—or, rather, was—completely dependent on me. For weeks she refused to eat unless I personally fed her every meal.

  “Naturally, as her physician, I deplored my patient’s regression. Tsk, tsk, I clucked my tongue. Tsk, tsk, what a pity! I expressed my professional concern to her family, but secretly, as a man—and I’d never admit this to anyone but you—I relished my conquest. When she told me, one day, that she had dreamed of me, I was ecstatic. What a victory—to enter her innermost chamber, a place where no other man had ever gained entry! And since dream images do not die, it was a place where I would endure forever!”

  “So, Josef, you win the competition without having had to compete!”

  “Yes, that is another meaning of Bertha—safe contest, certain victory. But a beautiful woman without safety—that is something else.” Breuer fell silent.

  “Keep going, Josef. Where do your thoughts go now?”

  “I was thinking about an unsafe woman, a fully formed beauty about Bertha’s age who came to see me in my office a couple of weeks ago, a woman to whom many men have paid homage. I was charmed by her—and terrified! I was so unable to oppose her that I could not keep her waiting and saw her out of turn before my other patients. And when she made an inappropriate medical request of me, it was all I could to resist her wishes.”

  “Ah, I know that dilemma,” said Nietzsche. “The most desirable woman is the most frightening one. And not, of course, because of what she is, but because of what we make of her. Very sad!”

  “Sad, Friedrich?”

  “Sad for the woman who is never known, and sad, too, for the man. I know that sadness.”

  “You, too, have known a Bertha?”

  “No, but I have known a woman like that other patient you describe—the one who cannot be denied.”

  Lou Salomé, thought Breuer. Lou Salomé, without a doubt! At last, he speaks of her! Though reluctant to relinquish the focus on himself, Breuer nonetheless pressed the inquiry.

  “So, Friedrich, what happened to that lady you could not deny?”

  Nietzsche hesitated, then took out his watch. “We have struck a rich vein today—who knows, perhaps a rich vein for both of us. But we are running out of time and I am certain you still have much to say. Please continue to tell me what Bertha means to you.”

  Breuer knew that Nietzsche was closer than ever before to disclosing his own problems. Perhaps a gentle inquiry at this point would have been all that was necessary. Yet when he heard Nietzsche prod him again: “Don’t stop: your ideas are flowing,” Breuer was only too glad to continue.

  “I lament the complexity of the double life, the secret life. Yet I treasure it. The surface bourgeois life is deadly—it’s too visible, one can see the end too clearly and all the acts, leading right to the end. It sounds mad, I know, but the double life is an additional life. It holds the promise of a lifetime extended.”

  Nietzsche nodded. “You feel that time devours the possibilities of the surface life, whereas the secret life is inexhaustible?”

  “Yes, that’s not exactly what I said, but it’s what I mean. Another thing, perhaps the most important thing, is the ineffable feeling I had when I was with Bertha or that I have now when I think about her. Bliss! That’s the closest word.”

  “I’ve always believed, Josef, that we are more in love with desire than with the desired!”

  “ ‘More in love with desire than with the desired!’” Breuer repeated. “Please give me some paper. I want to remember that.”

  Nietzsche tore a sheet from the back of his notebook and waited while Breuer wrote the line, folded the paper, and put it in his jacket pocket.

  “And another thing,” Breuer continued, “Bertha eases my aloneness. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been frightened by the empty spaces inside of me. And my aloneness has nothing to do with the presence, or absence, of people. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Ach, who could understand you better? At times I think I’m the most alone man in existence. And, like you, it has nothing to do with the presence of others—in fact, I hate others who rob me of my solitude and yet do not truly offer me company.”

  “What do you mean, Friedrich? How do they not offer company?”

  “By not holding dear the things I hold dear! Sometimes I gaze so far into life that I suddenly look around and see that no one has accompanied me, and that my sole companion is time.”

  “I’m not sure if my aloneness is like yours. Perhaps I’ve never dared to enter it as deeply as you.”

  “Perhaps,” Nietzsche suggested, “Bertha stops you from entering it more deeply.”

  “I don’t think I want to enter it more. In fact, I feel grateful to Bertha for removing my loneliness. That’s another thing she means to me. In the last two years, I’ve never been alone—Bertha was always there at her home, or in the hospital, waiting for my visit. And now she’s always inside of me, still waiting.”

  “You attribute to Bertha something that is your own achievement.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That you’re still as alone as before, as alone as each person is sentenced to be. You’ve manufactured your own icon and then are warmed by its company. Perhaps you are more religious than you think!”

  “But,” Breuer replied, “in a sense she is always there. Or was, for a year and a half. Bad as it was, that was the best, the most vital, time of my life. I saw her every day, I thought about her all the time, I dreamed about her at night.”

  “You told me of one time she was not there, Josef—in that dream that keeps returning. How does it go—that you’re searching for her——?”

  “It begins with something fearful happening. The ground starts to liquefy under my feet, and I search for Bertha and cannot find her——”

  “Yes, I’m convinced there is some important clue in that dream. What was the fearful event that happened—the ground opening up?”

  Breuer nodded.

  “Why, Josef, at that moment, should you search for Bertha? To protect her? Or for her to protect you?”

  There was a long silence. Twice Breuer snapped his head back as though to order himself to attention. “I can’t go further. It’s astounding, but my mind won’t work anymore. Never have I felt so fatigued. It’s only mid-morning, but I feel as though I’ve been laboring without stop for days and days.”

  “I feel it, too. Hard work today.”

  “But the right work, I think. Now I must go. Until tomorrow, Friedrich.”

  Excerpts from Dr. Breuer’s Case Notes on Eckart Müller, 15 December 1882

  Can it have been only a few days ago that I pleaded with Nietzsche to reveal himself? Today, finally, he was ready, eager. He wanted to tell me that he felt trapped by his university career, that he resented supporting his mother and sister, that he was lonely and suffered because of a beautiful woman.

  Yes, finally he wanted to reveal himself to me. And yet, it’s quite astounding—I did not encourage him! It was not that I had no desire to listen. No, worse than that! I resented his talking! I resented his intruding upon my time!

  Was it only two weeks ago I tried to manipulate him into revealing some tiny scrap of himself, that I complained to Max and Frau Becker about his secretiveness, that I bent my ear to his lips to hear him say, “Help me, help me, ” that I promised him, “Count on me”?

  Why, then, did I neglect him today? Have I grown greedy? This counseling process—the longer it goes, the less I understand it. Yet it is compelling. More and more, I think about my talks with Nietzsche; sometimes they even interrupt a Bertha fantasy. These sessions have become the center of my day. I feel greedy for my time and often can hardly wait until our next one. Is that why I let Nietzsche put me off today?

  In the future—w
ho knows when, maybe fifty years hence?—this talking treatment could become commonplace. “Angst doctors” will become a standard specialty. And medical schools—or perhaps philosophy departments—will train them.

  What should the curriculum of the future “Angst doctor” contain? At present, I can be certain of one essential course: “relationship”! That’s where the complexity arises. Just as surgeons must first learn anatomy, the future “Angst doctor” must first understand the relationship between the one who counsels and the one who is counseled. And, if I am to contribute to the science of such counseling, I must learn to observe the counseling relationship just as objectively as the pigeon’s brain.

  Observing a relationships is not easy when I myself am part of it. Still, I note striking trends.

  I used to be critical of Nietzsche, but no longer. On the contrary, I now cherish his every word and, day by day, grow more convinced that he can help me.

  I used to believe I could help him. No longer. I have little to offer him. He has everything to offer me.

  I used to compete with him, to devise chess traps for him. No longer! His insight is extraordinary. His intellect soars. I gaze at him as a hen at a hawk. Do I revere him too much! Do I want him to soar above me? Perhaps that is why I do not want to hear him talk. Perhaps I do not want to know of his pain, his fallibility.

  I used to think about how to “handle” him. No longer! Often I feel great surges of warmth toward him. That’s a change. Once I compared our situation to Robert’s training his kitten: “Stand back, let him drink his milk. Later he’ll let you touch him.” Today, midway through our talk, another image flitted through my mind: two tiger-striped kittens, head touching head, lapping milk from the same bowl.

  Another strange thing. Why did I mention that a “fully formed beauty” recently visited my office? Do I want him to learn of my meeting with Lou Salomé? Was I flirting with danger? Silently teasing him? Trying to drive a wedge between us?

  And why did Nietzsche say he doesn’t like women with whips? He must have been referring to that picture of Lou Salomé that he doesn’t know I saw. He must realize his feelings for her are not so different from my feelings toward Bertha. So, was he silently teasing me? A little private joke? Here we are, two men trying to be honest with one another—yet both prodded by the imp of duplicity.

  Another new insight! What Nietzsche is to me, I was to Bertha. She magnified my wisdom, revered my every word, cherished our sessions, could scarcely wait until the next—indeed, prevailed upon me to see her twice daily!

  And the more blatantly she idealized me, the more I imbued her with power. She was the anodyne for all my anguish. Her merest glance cured my loneliness. She gave my life purpose and significance. Her simple smile anointed me as desirable, granted me absolution for all bestial impulses. A strange love: we each bask in the radiance of one another’s magic!

  Yet I grow hopeful. There is power in my dialogue with Nietzsche, and I am convinced that this power is not illusory.

  Strange that, only hours later, I have forgotten much of our discussion. A strange forgetting, not like the evaporation of an ordinary coffeehouse conversation. Could there be such a thing as an active forgetting—forgetting something not because it is unimportant, but because it is too important?

  I wrote down one shocking phrase: “We are more in love with desire than with the desired. ”

  And another. “Living safely is dangerous. ”Nietzsche says that my entire bürgerlich life has been lived dangerously. I think he means I am in danger of losing my true self, or of not becoming who I am. But who am I?

  Friedrich Nietzsche’s Notes on Dr. Breuer, 15 December 1882

  Finally, an outing worthy of us. Deep water, quick dips in and out. Cold water, refreshing water. I love a living philosophy! I love a philosophy chiseled out of raw experience. His courage grows. His will and his ordeal lead the way. But is it not time for me to share the risks?

  The time for an applied philosophy is not yet ripe. When? Fifty years, a hundred years hence? The time will come when men will cease to fear knowledge, will no longer disguise weakness as “moral law, ” will find the courage to break the bond of “thou shalt. ” Then shall men hunger for my living wisdom. Then shall men need my guidance to an honest life, a life of unbelief and discovery A life of overcoming. Of lust overcome. And what greater lust than the lust to submit?

  I have other songs that must be sung. My mind is pregnant with melodies, and Zarathustra calls me ever more loudly. My métier is not that of technician. Still, I must put my hand to the task and record all blind alleys and all fair trails.

  Today the entire direction of our work changed. And the key? The idea of meaning rather than “origin”!

  Two weeks ago, Josef told me he cured each of Bertha’s symptoms by discovering its original cause. For example, he cured her fear of drinking water by helping her remember that she had once observed her chambermaid allowing the dog to lap water from Bertha’s glass. I was skeptical at first, even more so now. The right of a dog drinking from one’s glass—unpleasant? To some, yes! Catastrophic? Hardly! The cause of hysteria? Impossible!

  No, that was not “cause” but manifestation—of some deeper persisting Angst! That is why Josef’s cure was so evanescent.

  We must look to meaning. The symptom is but a messenger carrying the news that Angst is erupting from the innermost realm! Deep concerns about finitude, the death of God, isolation, purpose, freedom—deep concerns locked away for a lifetime—now break their bonds and bang at the doors and windows of the mind. They demand to be heard. And not only heard, but lived!

  That strange Russian book about the Underground Man continues to haunt me. Dostoevsky writes that some things are not to be told, except to friends; other things are not to be told even to friends; finally, there are things one does not tell even oneself! Surely it is the things Josef “has never told even himself that now erupt within him.

  Consider what Bertha means to Josef. She is escape, dangerous escape, escape from the danger of the safe life. And passion as well, and mystery and magic. She is the great liberator bearing the reprieve from his death sentence. She has superhuman powers; she is the cradle of life, the great mother confessor: she pardons all that is savage and bestial in him. She provides him with guaranteed victory over all competitors, with perduring love, eternal companionship, and everlasting existence in her dreams. She is a shield against the teeth of time, offering rescue from the abyss within, safety from the abyss below.

  Bertha is a cornucopia of mystery, protection, and salvation! Josef Breuer calls this love. But its real name is prayer.

  Parish priests, like my father, have always protected their flock from Satan. They teach that Satan is the enemy of faith, that in order to undermine faith, Satan may assume any guise—and none more dangerous and insidious than the cloak of skepticism and doubt.

  But who will protect us—the holy skeptics? Who will warn us of threats to the love of wisdom and hatred of servitude? Shall that be my calling? We skeptics have our enemies, our Satans who undermine our doubting and plant the seeds of faith in the most cunning places. Thus we kill gods, but we sanctify their replacements—teachers, artists, beautiful women. And Josef Breuer, a renowned scientist, beatifies, for forty years, the adoring smile of a little girl named Mary.

  We doubters must be vigilant. And strong. The religious drive is ferocious. Look how Breuer, an atheist, yearns to persist, to be forever observed, forgiven, adored, and protected Shall my calling be that of the doubter’s priest? Shall I spend myself in detecting and destroying religious wishes, whatever their disguise? The enemy is formidable; the flame of belief is fueled inexhaustibly by the fears of death, oblivion, and meaninglessness.

  Where will meaning take us? If I uncover the meaning of the obsession, then what? Will Josef’s symptoms abate? And mine? When? Will a quick dip in and out of “understanding” be sufficient? Or must it be a prolonged submersion?

  And which meaning?
There seem to be many meanings to the same symptom, and Josef has not begun to exhaust the meanings of his Bertha obsession.

  Perhaps we must peel the meanings off one by one until Bertha ceases to mean anything but Bertha herself. Once she is stripped of surplus meanings, he will see her as the frightened naked human, all too human, that she and he and all of us really are.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING Breuer entered Nietzsche’s room still wearing his fur-lined greatcoat and holding a black top hat. “Friedrich, look out the window! That shy orange globe low in the sky—do you recognize it? Our Viennese sun has finally made an appearance. Shall we celebrate by taking a walk today? We both say we think best while walking.”

  Nietzsche bounced up from his desk as though he had springs on his feet. Breuer had never seen him move so quickly. “Nothing would please me more. The nurses haven’t permitted me to set foot outdoors for three days. Where can we walk? Have we sufficient time to escape the cobblestones?”

  “Here’s my plan. I visit my parents’ grave on the Sabbath, once a month. Come with me today—the cemetery is less than an hour’s ride. I’ll make a short stop, just enough time to lay some flowers, and from there we’ll go on to the Simmeringer Haide for an hour’s walk in the forest and meadow. We’ll be back in time for dinner. On the Sabbath, I schedule no appointments until afternoon.”

  Breuer waited while Nietzsche dressed. He often said that though he liked cold weather, it did not like him—and so, to protect himself from migraine, he donned two heavy sweaters and twisted a five-foot wool scarf several times around his neck before struggling into his overcoat. Putting on a green eyeshade to protect his eyes from the light, he topped it with a green Bavarian felt hat.