The White Hotel (19 page)

¹
Almost literally so, for the two were identical twins.

¹
[Fuel for heating and lighting was in desperately short supply after the war.—Ed.]

¹
She told me one day that the crucifix was an heirloom from her mother. Thus, filial piety reinforced religious awe.

¹
An allusion to the long summer nights, in the far north, where the days are only divided by a brief dusk.

¹
[In the text there is a play on the word
niederkommen
, which means both “to fall” and “to be delivered of a child.”]

¹
[Freud’s second daughter, Sophie, aged twenty-six, who died in Hamburg on 25 January 1920. She left behind two children, one of whom was only thirteen months old.]

¹
[A popular health resort in the Austrian Alps.]

¹
In actual fact, ground
had
been won back from the enemy. What we were seeing was the hysteria fighting back in some desperation.

¹
[“Frau Anna G.” was, in fact, an opera singer, not an instrumentalist. Freud’s desire to protect her identity gave rise to the change; though he always regretted having to depart from the facts, even in apparently trivial details.]

¹
[Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
.]

¹
There is also evidence that she helped her daughter through the later stages with a minimum of repression. Passages in the journal hint that Anna possessed a healthy and moderate awareness that the genital apparatus remains the neighbour of the cloaca, and actually (to quote Lou Andreas-Salomé) “in the case of a woman is only taken from it on lease.”

¹
Frau Anna used the Russian term,
medusa:
another example of her occasional introduction of foreign words of which careful note had to be taken.

¹
[One of Freud’s favourite quotations. Charcot’s dictum in full was: “
La théorie c’est bon, mais ça n’empěche pas d’exister
” (Theory is good, but it doesn’t prevent things from existing).]

¹
Anna’s father had completely rejected his Jewish heritage, and in consequence she herself felt not in the slightest degree Jewish. She once described herself to me as “mid-European Christian.”

²
From the History of an Infantile Neurosis
(“The Wolf-Man”) (1918). Unknown to Frau Anna, there were a surprising number of similarities in their backgrounds. On one occasion, also, she must have passed that particular patient on the stairs, after spending much time in discussion with me of aspects of his case.

¹
Evidently in the position to which I had alluded.

¹
1920.

¹
[Goethe, “Wanderer’s Song at Night” (“I am weary of it all, where is the sense in all this pain and joy?”). The quotation was an apt one in view of the circumstances in which
Frau Anna G
. was written. In 1930 Freud was awarded the Goethe Prize for Literature. His masterly address of thanks (read in Frankfurt by Anna Freud) so impressed the City Council that he was invited to write a psychoanalytical paper, to be published in an elegant limited edition in honour both of the centenary of Goethe’s death in 1832 and the fortieth anniversary of Freud and Breuer’s
Studies in Hysteria
. Freud, accepting the commission, proposed to write up the case of Frau Anna. The centenary committee at first willingly acceded to his wish that the patient’s writings should appear as an appendix to his study, but reacted with predictable dismay when they discovered the nature of the material. Beyond the conventional asterisks for indecent words, Freud would not permit any censoring to be carried out. Publication of the paper was delayed. With the rise to power of the National Socialists, it was abandoned altogether; and in 1933 all of Freud’s works were burnt on a bonfire in Berlin.]

¹
Her aunt’s account of her sister’s impulsive action had a painful effect on the patient, and she was often to revert to it.

¹
Her dream (
p. 102
) appears to have been preparing the way for the uncovering of the trauma. She gets off at a place that is signposted
Budapest
, though it is “completely dead.” The man in the train warns her that the T_____s in Moscow would not be able to put her up, and she would have to sleep naked in the summer-house. Frau Anna’s reflection on this, during the period of abreaction, was that it was extremely unlikely her mother would have stayed at a hotel, had she been visiting Moscow; she would almost certainly have stayed with the T_____s, her hospitable relations.

¹
Though for the most part her uncle is the “chef”: from the white naval cap which he used to wear jokingly—calling himself the “Chief” to her father’s “Captain”; and from his huge appetite which had stuck in her memory.

¹
[Freud’s unusual emphasis on the mother’s role may have owed something to the recent death of his own mother, on 12 September 1930.
Cf
. his letter to Jones: “Her value to me can hardly be heightened…. No pain, no grief, which is probably to be explained by the circumstances, the great age, and the end of the pity we had felt at her helplessness. With that a feeling of liberation, of release, which I think I can understand. I was not allowed to die as long as she was alive, and now I may. Somehow the values of life have notably changed in the deeper levels.”]

²
[G. von Strassburg,
Tristan
.]

¹
[The manuscript of 1931 continues from this point with a new paragraph: “It seemed appropriate on this occasion to introduce a case in which reason and imagination can be seen as partners in the search for truth, as they were in the mind and heart of the genius whom we honour. Disordered and sentimental though Frau Anna’s journal is, I believe Goethe himself would have seen in it more of purity than coarseness; and that he would not have been surprised to learn that in the realm of the libido the highest and the lowest are closely connected, and in a way dependent upon each other: ‘From Heaven, across the world, to Hell.’ Long may poetry and psychoanalysis continue to highlight, from their different perspectives, the human face in all its nobility and sorrow."]

4

The
Health
Resort

1

In the spring of 1929, Frau Elisabeth Erdman was travelling by train between Vienna and Milan. She had allowed herself the luxury of a first-class seat, to make sure of being fresh at the end of the journey; and for much of the way she sat alone, enjoying the scenery, reading a magazine from time to time, or closing her eyes and rehearsing, under her breath, the part she had been called upon to sing. The train was almost empty, and she found herself alone in the large and pleasant restaurant car when she took lunch. The attention of so many waiters made her nervous, and she bolted her food and went back to her compartment.

The train stopped at a tiny Tyrolean village—the station was little more than a platform—and Frau Erdman thought at first there must be a dignitary on the train, for the platform seethed
with people. But then, to her annoyance, she realized they were travellers, for they were weighed down by rucksacks and suitcases; they were swarming on to the train. There were far too many of them for the second-class coaches; they spilled over into the first class. Five rucksacked men and women forced their way into her compartment, and she had hurriedly to put her things on the rack. There were even people in the corridor, leaning against the windows and door. After the confusion of settling, rucksacks and skis overhung the rack above Frau Erdman’s head, and she felt pressed into a corner by the fleshy bulk of her travelling companions. They wore so many clothes that they looked—even the three men—pregnant; and they talked loudly and laughed with the boorish camaraderie of people who have shared a holiday together, and who therefore, for the moment, regard any stranger as an intrusion. Frau Erdman started to suffer mild symptoms of claustrophobia, amidst so much blubber: that was the word, and image, that came to her. She stood up, apologized for stepping over their legs, and made for the door.

She also, as ill luck would have it, felt just at this moment an urge to go to the toilet. But when she looked along the corridor, both ways, it was clear she would have an appalling struggle getting through the press of people, many of whom sat perched on their suitcases or rucksacks. One young man, a few yards down the corridor, noticed her anxious gaze, and politely gestured that she could come through. But with a wry smile she shook her head, as if to say—
It’s not worth it, I can wait!
—and he smiled back, interpreting her message and amused by it. Frau Erdman saw that he stood in a small “clearing,” in front of an open window, so she elbowed her way through to stand by him. She put her head out through the window and gulped the air.

Feeling much relieved, she leaned her back against the glass
window of a compartment. The young man asked her if she minded his cigarette smoke, and, when she said it did not bother her, offered her one from his case. She declined, whereupon he remarked that it was noticeable how many more ladies smoked cigarettes these days: and had she never been tempted to try? Yes, she said, she had enjoyed smoking when she was a young woman, but had given it up for fear of damaging her voice. Immediately she regretted saying it, for it would mean curious questions, her answers to which might lead him to think that she paraded her talents. The expected questions came, and she admitted to being a professional singer; she was on her way to Milan; she was to sing in the opera house there. And, yes, it was quite an important role.

The young man was impressed. He scanned her ordinary, somewhat lined face—but she had expressive eyes and lips—to try to recall seeing her photograph in newspapers. He knew little about music, he said, being a geology student at University, but everyone had heard of La Scala, Milan. She must be one of the “greats.” The woman laughed—becoming almost attractive as she did so—and shook her head vigorously. “Not at all, I’m afraid!” she said. “I’m only a replacement. You may have heard of Serebryakova?” (The young man shook his head.) “Well, she’s a great singer. She’s been singing the role, but she fell down some steps and broke her arm. Her understudy wasn’t up to it, so they were in trouble. The opera is in Russian, you see, and there are not many sopranos who can sing in Russian, and who are not booked up for months ahead. I was the only one they could think of!” She gave a ringing chuckle, and the lines at the corners of her eyes crinkled. She felt pleased by her modesty, which was genuine, and happy to be free from delusions of grandeur.

The young man made deprecating noises, and she confirmed: “It’s true! That’s the only reason I’ve got the part. It doesn’t worry me. I feel very lucky. I’m not going to get any better—I’m nearly forty. I shall have sung at La Scala, in a good role. That will be something to remember!” She gave an amused shrug.

She turned the conversation around to the young man. He was taking his finals, this summer, he said, and then he hoped to find a teaching post in Rome and marry his girlfriend there. He was on his way to see her now, after taking a week’s much-needed rest, climbing and skiing in the mountains, sleeping under the stars. He felt refreshed. She questioned him on that interesting experience, but found him disappointingly tongue-tied when it came to expressing the spiritual aspects of mountain climbing. His great ambition, he said, was to scale the Jungfrau. Frau Erdman found his remark, for some reason, rather amusing, but hid her smile in serious nods of the head as he described how difficult it would be.

After the bright lakes and fertile valleys of the Tyrol, the train thundered into a tunnel, discouraging conversation. The underground journey was long enough to convince them both that they had nothing in common, and there was no point in further talk; and so, when they emerged into light, they remained silent, until Frau Erdman said she had better make the perilous journey to wash her hands. When she struggled back, she slid past the young man, exchanging with him a goodbye and good luck. She settled into her cramped seat, and gazed at, rather than through, the window, because heavy rain had started to lash against it.