Vienna Blood (40 page)

“Prague. Moscovitz the tailor is praying in the Old New Synagogue. Suddenly, there is a flash of light—the walls shake and a horrible figure with horns and a tail appears. The air smells of sulfur. …” The professor drew on his cigar and paused for effect. “Moscovitz looks up, but continues with his prayers. The terrible figure shakes his fist and the ark tumbles to the ground. But Moscovitz is indifferent, and continues praying. ‘Hey, you,’ the terrifying figure shouts. ‘Are you not frightened?’ Moscovitz shrugs and shakes his head. Enraged, the terrifying figure lashes his tail—bricks fall. ‘Little Jew,’ says the terrifying figure, ‘do you know who I am?’ ‘Yes,’ Moscovitz replies, ‘I know exactly who you are—I've been married to your sister for the last thirty years!’ ”

As the gentle ripples of laughter subsided, the company stood up and stretched their legs. They milled aaround the table and in due course Liebermann found himself standing next to Freud, who was enjoying his second slice of
guglhupf.
The sponge was thick and moist, and exuded a sharp lemony fragrance. Before Freud could regale him with another one of his jokes—of which he seemed to have an inexhaustible supply—Liebermann seized the moment to ask a question that had occupied his mind for several days.

“Professor,” he said tentatively, “I was wondering whether I could trouble you for an opinion … on a theoretical matter.”

Freud fixed him with his penetrating stare. “Have you tasted this cake?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Good, isn't it?”

“Extremely.”

“I have a particular weakness for
guglhupf.
” Freud harpooned a bright yellow segment of sponge with the tines of his fork. “But you were saying … a theoretical matter?”

“Yes,” said Liebermann. “Do you think that the principles of dream interpretation can be applied to works of art?”

The segment of sponge did not reach Freud's mouth. Its journey came to an abrupt halt somewhere in the vicinity of his collarbone.

“That is a very interesting question.” The professor paused, swallowed, and placed his plate down on the edge of the table. He had suddenly lost interest in his
guglhupf.

“In dreams,” the young doctor continued, “the contents of the unconscious—traumatic memories, desires, and so forth—are transformed. They appear in a disguised form. And, of course, by employing your techniques it is possible to establish their true meaning. Might we not consider a painting or sculpture as a kind of … creative dream?”

“Have you heard of Lermolieff—the Russian art connoisseur?” asked the professor.

“No.”

“Lermolieff was a pen name—he was really an Italian physician called Morelli. He caused a furor in the art galleries of Europe by questioning the authorship of many famous pictures after he had devised a method for establishing authenticity.” The professor pulled at his neatly trimmed beard. “Lermolieff insisted that attention should be diverted from the general impression of a picture, laying stress instead on the significance of minor details: like the drawing of fingernails, of the lobe of an ear, of halos and such unconsidered trifles that the negligent copyist is bound to overlook, but that every genuine artist executes in his own very distinctive style. Now, it seems to me that Lermolieff's method of inquiry is closely related to the technique of psychoanalysis. The psychoanalyst is accustomed to divining secrets from unnoticed features—from the rubbish heap, as it were, of our observations.” The professor reached for a cigar, lit it, and
cleared his throat. “I can see no reason why the principles of our discipline cannot be applied to the interpretation of art. One might look for evidence of unconscious material that has—so to speak—broken through. … Anomalies, perhaps? Distortions and symbolization … Indeed, a painting might be likened to a window through which an analyst might steal glimpses of the artist's unconscious mind.”

It was the answer that Liebermann had been hoping for.

The table clock chimed.

“Good heavens,” said Freud. “How time flies.”

The maid was called again, and when she had finished clearing the table, the company returned to their seats in order to discuss the case presentations. This final part of the evening was largely dedicated to a collective analysis of Herr Beiber's dream. Freud insisted that Liebermann should reiterate the main points, occasionally stopping him to ask seemingly obscure questions. “Are you sure Herr B. was five years old?” “How big were the wolves, exactly?” “Did one of the wolves have a tail?” And so on.

When Liebermann had finished describing the dream again, Freud invited those present to comment.

“It reminds me of a fairy story,” Stekel began. “Something from the Brothers Grimm, like
Little Red Riding Hood.
I believe that the appearance of wolves in children's stories is inextricably bound with the fear of being devoured.”

“It might be that the wolves—issuing from a cavernous space—are a substitution for a more fundamental fear—that of the
vagina dentate,
” added Reitler.

“Thus,” Adler cut in, “Herr B., fearing the loss of his manhood, has eschewed sexual experience altogether.”

“And,” said Stekel, raising his finger, “has subsequently become
obsessed with Archduchess Marie-Valerie—with whom he can never form a relationship.”

“Obviating the conjugal requirement of consummation,” concluded Freud.

Liebermann was astonished at the speed of debate. How ideas sparked across the table.

When the initial flurry had exhausted itself, Freud continued to speculate:

“Gentlemen, there can be no question that Herr B.'s
paranoia erotica
is a defense—an unhappy compromise between the need to find love and the fear of sexual congress. However, it is my belief that the wolf dream does not represent a primal, mythic fear but an early memory of a very real traumatic event. Herr B. was a sick child who was taken into his parents’ bedroom. It was his misfortune to wake one night whereupon he witnessed his parents engaging in coitus
a tergo
—hence the transfiguration of his mother and father into beasts. The panting, however, survived the dream work, breaking through without distortion. Herr B. had violated the most significant taboo of all human societies. What child—indeed, what adult—can contemplate the circumstances of his own conception in the absence of guilt and anxiety? Herr B. expected to be punished for his transgression. A punishment appropriated from the traditional folk tale—that of being eaten alive!”

Remarkably, Freud reached for another cigar. In the ensuing silence he finally faded behind a roiling nimbus. Only a rasping cough reminded those present that he was still there.

70

A
NDREAS
O
LBRICHT HAD SPENT
the evening in several coffeehouses, examining his reviews. He did not return to his apartment. Instead, he walked across the city to his studio, where he lit a single candle and poured himself a large glass of vodka.

Various words and sentences kept bobbing up in his mind— breaking the surface tension of consciousness, splashing vitriol. It felt as though the interior of his head were sizzling, as though it were being eaten away by corrosive droplets of malice.

An artist bereft of talent.

A poor technician.

Crude, unimaginative, and without merit.

Lacking in originality.

How could they say such things?
Through the fog of his own condensed breath, he could just make out an unfinished canvas. He had hoped to include it in his exhibition, but he had run out of time. It showed Loge—the god of fire and cunning: an impish silhouette against a holocaust of leaping flames. The air smelled of turpentine and linseed oil.

Deficient brushwork.

A poor colorist.

Tired themes.

Olbricht drained his glass.

There had been one good review. It had appeared in a small Pan-German
publication. The writer had praised Olbricht's noble aspirations: his vision, his sensibility, his weltanschauung. But what good was that? He needed the support of the
Zeitung, Die Zeit, Die Fackel,
the
Neues Wiener Tagblatt,
the
Neue Freie Presse.
He needed so much more.

Suddenly, desolation was replaced by anger. Rage electrified his body and for a moment all he could see was a sheet of brilliant white light. He threw his glass and watched as it shattered against the opposite wall. Curiously, he found himself transported across the room. He was standing by the image of Loge, penknife in hand. The blade glinted as it descended—ripping, tearing, rending. He did not stop. He slashed wildly, breathlessly, until nothing of his work was left but tattered ribbons.

Olbricht allowed himself to slump against the wall. Exhausted, he closed his eyes and whispered into the darkness, “The Last Judgment.”

71

A
T FIRST,
L
IEBERMANN HAD
been uncertain about the legitimacy of the professor's interpretation. Freud's growing tendency to postulate a sexual origin for all forms of psychopathology had not gone unnoticed. Indeed, Liebermann had once overheard a visiting professor describing Freud as suffering from an incipient sexual monomania. Still, the more Liebermann considered Freud's interpretation, the more he found it easier to entertain. Did it require such a leap of imagination to connect a disturbance in the faculty of love with a repressed sexual trauma?

“Do you think dreams have meaning, Herr Beiber?”

“I'm sure they do. Particularly when they are associated with strong feelings.”

“Like your wolf dream.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“In which case, what do you think your wolf dream means?”

“I don't know. But, as I have already suggested, it may have been influenced by a supernatural presence.”

“You say that because you heard the breathing, the
panting
on other occasions?”

“Yes.”

Liebermann leaned forward and scrutinized his supine patient.

“What if this dream was a memory?”

Herr Beiber frowned.

“There are mechanisms in the mind,” Liebermann continued,
“that function to keep distressing memories out of awareness. Subsequently, these memories are pushed down, or repressed. But they do not thereby become inactive—they are merely dormant. When we sleep, the repressive mechanism weakens and they can rise up again. It is supposed that there is a censor in the mind that struggles to distort these memories in order to make them less distressing so that sleep may continue. Sometimes the censor works, sometimes it is partially successful, and sometimes it fails. The fact that you were awakened by your dream suggests that it represents a particularly traumatic memory. The kind of memory that would overwhelm the mind of a young child.”

Liebermann paused, allowing Herr Beiber to consider his account. He could see that his patient was thinking. The clerk's bushy ginger-yellow eyebrows were still knotted together.

“Go on,” said Herr Beiber.

“You were a sickly child. Consequently, you slept in your parents’ bedroom beyond infancy. It is possible that you saw things …”

With great care and sensitivity, Liebermann presented Freud's interpretation of the wolf dream to his patient. When he had finished, a long silence prevailed. Herr Beiber's index finger tapped the gelatinous mass of his stomach, producing a continuous ripple of flesh beneath the cotton gown.

“A memory, you say … a traumatic memory.” Herr Beiber spoke the words softly.

“To a child, much of the behavior of adults must appear strange and disconcerting … but what
you
witnessed must have been terrifying. Nevertheless, you have made the transition to adulthood yourself now—you have nothing to fear anymore.”

Beiber's finger stopped tapping.

“If you were to form a relationship,” Liebermann continued, “with a woman—an
ordinary
woman: a typist in your office, a shopgirl, a
seamstress, who knows?—but a woman whom you might one day realistically marry, then I suspect that your feelings for Archduchesss Marie-Valerie would soon diminish.”

Herr Beiber bit his lip.

“The process of psychoanalysis is one of reclamation,” Liebermann continued. “Once we have insight, we can recover the life that we have lost. What was previously jealously guarded by the unconscious mind becomes conscious—the irrational is superseded by the rational. Should you choose, one day, to enter the conjugal bedroom, remember that you will do so as a man—not as a confused, frightened child.”

For the first time since the beginning of Herr Beiber's analysis, the accountancy clerk was subdued. There were no chirpy retorts or flights of fancy. No florid proclamations of undying, transcendent love. It was as though Liebermann had planted a seed that had already begun to take root. He was reminded of the common sight of a sapling emerging from a cracked paving stone. It was remarkable how something so fragile, so delicate, could eventually pry heavy slabs apart. Yet this was exactly how psychoanalysis worked: the small seed of insight growing, developing, acquiring strength, and, in due course, shattering the rigid carapace of psychopathology.

Outside, a church bell struck the hour.

“Herr Beiber.” Their time together had expired, but Liebermann could not let his patient leave before asking him one more question. “In a previous session, you mentioned an incident involving a cellist. You tried to get him to play an aubade outside the Schönbrunn Palace. Do you remember?”

“Yes. What of it?” Beiber's response was rather tetchy, as if he resented having his thoughts disturbed.

“You said,” continued Liebermann, “that he was an odd fellow. You said that there was …
something about him.
”

“Did I?”

“Yes. What did you mean?”

Herr Beiber was still distracted. “A traumatic memory,” he whispered.

“Herr Beiber?” Liebermann raised his voice. “The cellist. You said he was odd—there was
something about him.
What did you mean?”