When Nietzsche Wept

by Irvin D. Yalom

  The night shift! That’s why she’s home at this hour, Breuer thought.

  “I offered to help you find another position. You didn’t answer any of my messages.”

  “I was in shock,” Eva replied. “I learned a hard lesson—that you can count on no one but yourself.” Here, for the first time, she raised her glance and stared directly into Breuer’s eyes.

  Flushed with shame at not having protected her, he began to ask her forgiveness—but Eva rushed on, talking about her new job, her sister’s wedding, her mother’s health, and then her relationship with Gerhardt, the young lawyer whom she had first met when he was a patient at the hospital.

  Breuer knew he was compromising her by his visit, and rose to leave. As he neared the door, he reached awkwardly for her hand and started to ask a question, but hesitated—did he still have the right to say anything familiar to her? He decided to risk it. Though it was obvious that the intimate bond between them was frayed, still, fifteen years of friendship are not so easily obliterated.

  “Eva, I shall go now. But, please, one last question.”

  “Ask your question, Josef.”

  “I can’t forget the times when we were close. Do you remember when, late one evening, we sat in my office and talked for an hour? I told you how desperately and irresistibly I felt drawn to Bertha. You said you were frightened for me, that you were my friend, that you didn’t want me to ruin myself. Then you took my hand, as I’m taking yours now, and said that you would do anything, anything I wanted, if it would save me. Eva, I can’t tell you how often, perhaps hundreds of times, I’ve relived that conversation, how much it has meant to me, how often I have regretted being so obsessed with Bertha that I did not respond more directly to you. And my question is—perhaps it is simply—Were you sincere? Should I have responded?”

  Eva withdrew her hand, placed it lightly on his shoulder, and spoke haltingly. “Josef, I don’t know what to say. I shall be honest—I am sorry to answer your question in this way, but for the sake of our old friendship I must be honest. Josef, I do not remember that conversation!”

  Two hours later, Breuer found himself slumped in a second-class seat on the train to Italy.

  He realized how important it had been for him, this last year, to have had Eva as insurance. He had counted on her. He had always been certain she would be there when he needed her. How could she have forgotten?

  “But, Josef, what did you expect?” he asked himself. “That she’d be frozen in a closet, waiting for you to open the door and reanimate her? You’re forty years old, time to understand that your women exist apart from you: they have a life of their own, they grow, they go on with their lives, they age, they make new relationships. Only the dead don’t change. Only your mother, Bertha, lies suspended in time, waiting for you.”

  Suddenly the awful thought burst forth that it was not only Bertha’s and Eva’s lives that would go on, but Mathilde’s as well—that she would exist without him, that the day would come when she would care for another. Mathilde, his Mathilde, with another man—that pain was hard to bear. Now his tears flowed. He looked up at the luggage rack for his valise. There it was, in easy reach, the brass handle stretching eagerly toward him. Yes, he knew precisely what he should do: grab the handle, lift the valise over the metal rail of the rack, pull it down, get off at the next stop, wherever it was, take the first train back to Vienna, and throw himself on Mathilde’s mercy. It was not too late—surely, she would take him in.

  But he imagined Nietzsche’s powerful presence blocking him.

  “Friedrich, how could I have given up everything? What a fool I was to have followed your advice!”

  “You had already given up everything of importance before you ever met me, Josef. That was why you were in despair. Do you remember how you lamented the loss of the lad of infinite promise?”

  “But now I have nothing.”

  “Nothing is everything! In order to grow strong you must first sink your roots deep into nothingness and learn to face your loneliest loneliness.”

  “My wife, my family! I love them. How could I have left them? I shall get off at the next stop.”

  “You flee only from yourself. Remember that every moment eternally recurs. Think of it: think of flying from your freedom for all eternity!”

  “I have a duty to———”

  “Only a duty to become who you are. Become strong: otherwise, you will forever use others for your own enlargement.”

  “But Mathilde. My vows! My duty to——”

  “Duty, duty! You will perish from such small virtues. Learn to become wicked. Build a new self on the ashes of your old life.”

  All the way to Italy, Nietzsche’s words pursued him.

  “Eternal recurrence.”

  “The eternal hourglass of existence turning upside down, again and again.”

  “Let this idea take possession of you, and I promise that it will change you forever.”

  “Do you love the idea or hate it?”

  “Live in such a way that you love the idea.”

  “Nietzsche’s wager.”

  “Consummate your life.”

  “Die at the right time.”

  “The courage to change your convictions!”

  “This life is your eternal life.”

  Everything had begun, two months ago, in Venice. Now it was back to the city of gondolas he was heading. As the train crossed the Swiss-Italian border and conversations in Italian reached his ears, his thoughts turned from eternal possibility to tomorrow’s reality.

  Where should he go when he got off the train in Venice? Where would he sleep tonight? What would he do tomorrow? And the day after tomorrow? What would he do with his time? What did Nietzsche do? When he was not sick, he walked and thought and wrote. But that was his way. How——?

  First, Breuer knew, he had to earn a living. The cash in his moneybelt would last for only a few weeks: thereafter the bank, at Max’s instruction, would send him only a modest monthly draft. He could, of course, continue to doctor. At least three of his former students were practicing medicine in Venice. He should have no difficulty building a practice. Nor would the language present a problem: he had a good ear and some English, French, and Spanish; he could pick up Italian quickly. But had he sacrificed so much simply in order to reproduce his Viennese life in Venice? No, that life was behind him!

  Perhaps some work in a restaurant. Because of his mother’s death and his grandmother’s frailty, Breuer had learned to cook and often assisted in the preparation of the family meals. Though Mathilde teased him and chased him out of the kitchen, when she was not around he used to wander in to observe and to instruct the cook. Yes, the more he thought about it, the stronger he felt that restaurant work might be just the thing. Not just managing or cashiering: he wanted to touch the food—to prepare it, to serve it.

  He arrived late in Venice and again spent the night at a train-station hotel. In the morning, he took a gondola into the central city and walked and thought for hours. Many of the local Venetians turned to look at him. He understood why when he caught sight of his image in the reflection of a shop window: long beard, hat, coat, suit, tie—all in forbidding black. He looked foreign, precisely like an aging, wealthy Jewish Viennese medical consultant! Last night at the train station, he had noticed a cluster of Italian prostitutes soliciting customers. None had approached him, and no wonder! The beard and the funereal clothes would have to go.

  Slowly his plan took shape: first, a visit to a barber and a working-class clothing store. Then he would begin intensive Italian instruction. Perhaps after two or three weeks, he could begin to explore the restaurant business: Venice might need a good Austrian restaurant or even an Austrian-Jewish one—he had seen several synagogues during his walk.

  The barber’s dull razor jerked his head back and forth as it attacked his twenty-one-year-old beard. Occasionally it sheared off patches of beard cleanly, but more often it grabbed and tugged out divots of the wiry aubur
n hair. The barber was dour and impatient. Understandably so, Breuer thought. Sixty lira is too little for the size of this beard. Motioning to him to slow down, he reached in his pocket and offered two hundred lira for a gentler shave.

  Twenty minutes later, as he stared into the barber’s cracked mirror, a wave of compassion for his own face swept over him. In the decades since he had seen it, he had forgotten the battle with time it had been waging under the darkness of his beard. Naked now, he saw that it was weary and battered. Only his forehead and brows had held firm and were resolutely supporting the loose, defeated flaccid sheets of his facial flesh. An enormous crevice stretched out from each nostril to separate his cheeks from his lips. Smaller wrinkles spread down from both eyes. Turkey-gullet folds draped from his jaw. And his chin—he had forgotten that his beard had concealed the shame of his puny chin, which now, even weaker, hid timidly, as best it could, below his moist, hanging lower lip.

  On his way to a clothing store, Breuer looked at the dress of passers-by and decided to purchase a heavy short navy coat, some solid boots, and a thick striped sweater. Yet everyone who passed him was younger than he. What did the older men wear? Where were they, anyway? Everyone seemed so young. How would he make friends? How would he meet women? Perhaps a waitress in the restaurant, or an Italian teacher. But, he thought, I don’t want another woman! I’ll never find a woman like Mathilde. I love her. This is insane. Why did I leave her? I’m too old to start over. I’m the oldest person on this street—perhaps that old woman there with the cane is older, or that stooped man selling vegetables. Suddenly he felt dizzy. He could barely stand. Behind him he heard a voice.

  “Josef, Josef!”

  Whose voice is that? It sounds familiar!

  “Doctor Breuer! Josef Breuer!”

  Who knows where I am?

  “Josef, listen to me! I’m counting backward from ten to one. When I reach five, your eyes will open. When I reach one, you’ll be fully awake. Ten, nine, eight,. . . ”

  I know that voice!

  “Seven, six, five. . . ”

  His eyes opened. He looked up into Freud’s smiling face.

  “Four, three, two, one! You’re wide awake! Now!”

  Breuer was alarmed. “What’s happened? Where am I, Sig?”

  “Everything’s all right, Josef. Wake up!” Freud’s voice was firm but soothing.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Give yourself a couple of minutes, Josef. It will all come back.”

  He saw he had been lying on the sofa in his library. He sat up. Again, he asked, “What’s happened?”

  “You tell me what happened, Josef. I did exactly as you instructed.”

  As Breuer still appeared dazed, Freud explained, “Don’t you remember? You came over last night and asked me to be here this morning at eleven to assist you in a psychological experiment. When I arrived, you asked me to hypnotize you, using your watch as a pendulum.”

  Breuer reached into his waistcoat pocket.

  “There it is, Josef, on the coffee table. Then, remember, you asked me to instruct you to sleep deeply and to visualize a series of experiences. You told me that the first part of the experiment would be devoted to leavetaking—from your family, friends, even patients; and that I should, if it seemed necessary, give you suggestions like: ‘Say goodbye,’ or ‘You can’t go home again.’ The next part was to be devoted to establishing a new life, and I was to make suggestions like: ‘Keep on going,’ or ‘What do you want to do next?’ ”

  “Yes, yes, Sig, I’m waking up. It’s all coming back to me. What time is it now?”

  “One o’clock Sunday afternoon. You’ve been out for two hours, just as we planned. Everyone will be arriving soon for dinner.”

  “Tell me exactly what happened. What did you observe?”

  “You quickly entered a trance, Josef, and for the most part stayed hypnotized. I could tell some active drama was being played out—but silently, in your own inner theater. There were two or three times when you seemed to be coming out of the trance, and I deepened it by suggesting you were traveling and feeling the rocking motion of the train, and that you put your head back into the seat cushion and fall deeper asleep. Each time, it seemed to be effective. I can’t tell you much more. You seemed very unhappy; a couple of times you wept and once or twice looked frightened. I asked if you wanted to stop, but you shook your head, so I kept urging you forward.”

  “Did I speak aloud?” Breuer rubbed his eyes, still trying to rouse himself.

  “Rarely. Your lips moved a great deal, so I guessed you were imagining conversations. I could make out only a few words. Several times you called for Mathilde, and I also heard the name Bertha. Were you speaking of your daughter?”

  Breuer hesitated. How to answer? He was tempted to tell Sig everything, yet his intuition warned him not to. After all, Sig was only twenty-six, and regarded him as a father or an older brother. Both were accustomed to that relationship, and Breuer was not prepared for the discomfort of abruptly altering it.

  Furthermore, Breuer knew how inexperienced and narrow-minded his young friend was in matters involving love or carnality. He recalled how he had embarrassed and puzzled him recently by pronouncing that all neuroses begin in the marital bed! And just a few days ago, Sig had indignantly condemned the young Schnitzler for his erotic affairs. How much understanding, then, could Sig be expected to have for a forty-year-old husband infatuated with a twenty-one-year-old patient? Especially when Sig absolutely worshiped Mathilde! No, confiding in him would be an error. Better to talk to Max or Friedrich!

  “My daughter? I’m not sure, Sig. I can’t remember. But my mother’s name also was Bertha, did you know that?”

  “Oh yes, I forgot! But she died when you were very young, Josef. Why would you be saying goodbye to her now?”

  “Perhaps I never really let her go before. I think some adult figures enter a child’s mind and refuse to leave. Maybe one has to force them out before one can be master of one’s own thoughts!”

  “Hmm—interesting. Let’s see, what else did you say? I heard, ‘No more doctoring,’ and then, just before I woke you, you said, ‘Too old to start over!’ Josef, I’m burning with curiosity. What does all this mean?”

  Breuer chose his words carefully. “Here’s what I can tell you, Sig. It’s all related to that Professor Müller, Sig. He forced me to think about my life, and I realized I’ve reached a point where most of my choices are behind me. Yet I wondered what it would have been like to have chosen differently—to have lived another life without medicine, family, Viennese culture. So I tried a thought experiment to have the experience of freeing myself from these arbitrary constructs—to face formlessness, even to enter some alternative life.”

  “And what did you learn?”

  “I’m still dazed. I’ll need time to sort everything out. One thing I feel clear about is that it’s important not to let your life live you. Otherwise, you end up at forty feeling you haven’t really lived. What have I learned? Perhaps to live now, so that at fifty I won’t look back upon my forties with regret. It’s important for you, too. Everyone who knows you well, Sig, realizes that you have extraordinary gifts. You have a burden: the richer the soil, the more unforgivable the failure to cultivate it.”

  “You are different, Josef. Maybe the trance changed you. You never talked to me like this before. Thank you, your faith inspires me—but perhaps it burdens me, too.”

  “And I also learned,” Breuer said, “—or maybe it’s the same thing, I’m not sure—that we must live as though we were free. Even though we can’t escape fate, we must still butt our heads against it—we must will our destiny to happen. We must love our fate. It’s as though——”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Are you two still in there?” asked Mathilde. “Can I come in?”

  Breuer went quickly to open the door, and Mathilde entered with a plate of steaming, tiny wursts, each wrapped in flaky filo dough. “Your favorite,
Josef. I realized this morning that I haven’t made these for you in a long time. Dinner’s ready. Max and Rachel are here, and the others are on the way. And Sigi, you’re staying. I’ve already set your place. Your patients will wait another hour.”

  Taking his cue from Breuer’s nod to him, Freud left the room. Breuer put his arm around Mathilde. “You know, my dear, it’s strange you asked if we were still in the room. I’ll tell you about our talk later, but it was like taking a distant journey. I feel I’ve been away for a very long time. And now I’ve come back.”

  “That’s good, Josef.” She put her hand on his cheek and rubbed his beard affectionately. “I am glad to welcome you back. I’ve missed you.”

  Dinner, by the Breuer family standards, was a small affair, with only nine adults at the table: Mathilde’s parents; Ruth, another of Mathilde’s sisters, and her husband, Meyer; Rachel and Max; and Freud. The eight children sat at a separate table in the foyer.

  “Why are you looking at me?” Mathilde murmured to Breuer, as she carried out a large tureen of potato-carrot soup. “You’re embarrassing me, Josef,” she whispered later, as she set down the large platter of braised veal tongue and raisins. “Stop it, Josef, stop staring!” she said again, as she helped to clear the table before bringing in dessert.

  But Josef didn’t stop. As if for the first time, he scrutinized his wife’s face. It wrenched him to realize that she, too, was a combatant in the war against time. Her cheeks had no crevices—she had refused to permit that—but she could not defend all fronts, and a fine crinkling flared out from the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her hair, stretched up and back and swirled into a gleaming bun, had been heavily infiltrated by columns of gray. When had that happened? Was he partly to blame? United, he and she might have suffered less damage.

  “Why should I stop?” Josef put his arm lightly around her waist, as she reached to take his plate. Later, he followed her into the kitchen. “Why shouldn’t I look at you? I—but, Mathilde, I’ve made you cry!”

  “A good cry, Josef. But sad, too, when I think of how long it’s been. This whole day is strange. What did you and Sigi talk about, anyway? Do you know what he told me at dinner? That he’s going to name his first daughter after me! He says he wants to have two Mathildes in his life.”