The Death Instinct

'She asked everyone, including the longtime servants. They all denied anything untoward in the nurse's departure, and she reported back to me that I must be mistaken. Then she had another dream, in which this very nurse appeared, but with a horse-like face. I told her that this represented — but, Younger, perhaps you know what the second dream represented?'

'No,' answered Younger.

'No? In that case,' replied Freud, 'why don't you tell Miss Rousseau what I said it meant?'

'I'm not sure the subject matter is appropriate.'

'For me?' asked Colette sharply.

'If Miss Rousseau is going to consent to her brother's treatment,' said Freud, 'don't you think she should know what she's consenting to?'

'Very well,' said Younger. 'To begin with, Dr Freud would probably have said that the nurse's horse-like face was an example of condensation: it represented both the nurse herself and the man she slept with.'

'Good,' said Freud, looking genuinely pleased. 'And who was that man?'

'The patient's father was a horseman, I suppose?'

'No,' Freud replied, giving nothing else away

'Did she associate him with horses?'

'Not to my knowledge.'

Younger paused. 'But horses were kept on the property?'

'They had a stable,' said Freud. 'For their carriages.'

'In that case,' Younger reflected, 'I suspect you would have said that the man the nurse slept with was someone involved with those horses — but associated as well in some way with the patient's father.'

'Excellent!' cried Freud. 'I told her that her nurse was in all probability involved with their groomsman, who was in fact related to her father. She answered that she had already questioned the groomsman he was one of the servants who had told her the nurse had done nothing illicit. I said she might wish to question him again.'

'Did she?' asked Colette.

'She did indeed,' replied Freud. 'She went to the man and told him she knew all about his affair with her nurse. Whereupon he confessed everything. Their tryst was the stable. The nurse would feed my patient a syrup that made her very drowsy. They would lay her down on a bed of hay and proceed to their business. The groomsman added, by the way, that the maid was quite hot-blooded — he was afraid sometimes she might die of pleasure. The affair began when my patient was three and continued until she was five, when the lovers were discovered and the maid was dismissed.'

'But that's incredible,' cried Colette. 'Vraiment incroyable.'

'Well done, my boy,' Freud said to Younger, as if he deserved the credit, and rose to indicate that the interview was over. 'You must join us for dinner this evening, both of you. Martha, my wife, especially invites you. Bring your brother, Fraulein. It will give me a better sense of how to proceed.'

Colette said she would be honored.

'Dr Freud,' said Younger, 'might I have a word with you?'

'I was about to ask the same of you. Will you excuse us for five minutes, Miss Rousseau? Younger, come to my study.'

'And how exactly,' asked Freud, seated behind the desk in his private study, which was populated by even more antiquities, 'do you expect me to analyze a boy who can't talk?'

'But you-'

'It's like the beginning of a joke: Did you hear about the mute who went to see Sigmund Freud? Your behavior, my boy, wants analyzing.'

'My behavior?'

Freud raised the lid of a wooden box. 'Cigar?'

'Thank you.'

Freud cut the cigar with fine, delicate scissors. 'Well, you have something to say to me, and I to you. Let's start with what you want to tell me.'

Younger considered how to put it.

'Will you permit me?' asked Freud. 'You want to say, first of all, that bringing the boy to me wasn't your idea.'

Younger didn't reply.

'If it had been your idea,' said Freud, 'you would have explained psychoanalysis to Miss Rousseau, told her you'd practiced it, described its benefits, and so on. You did none of these things. The idea was therefore hers. Moreover, the reason you were reluctant to have the boy analyzed is what you expect me to say about his condition. Miss Rousseau has obviously been the boy's substitute-mother for some time. You expect me to conclude that he therefore wants to sleep with her, and you want me to keep that information from her.'

Younger was astounded. 'There's only one other man alive,' he said, 'whom I constantly ask how he knows what he knows, and he happens to be listening to this story right now.'

'You didn't say that,' said Littlemore, his badly scuffed black shoes once again crossed on top of the kitchen table. 'Don't interrupt like that. It spoils the — uh-'

'Dramatic effect?'

'Yeah. You know, this Freud guy, he should have been a detective. But you mixed things up pretty good there, Doc. You made it sound like, according to your man Freud, Luc wants to sleep with Colette. And he wants to sleep with her because she's been his mom all these years!'

Littlemore broke into a loud laugh. He stopped when he saw Younger's unchanged expression. 'He doesn't think that,' said Littlemore. Younger nodded. 'No, he doesn't,' said Littlemore.

'That's why I stopped practicing psychoanalysis,' answered Younger. 'I told Freud ten years ago I didn't believe in it. That's how he knew what I was thinking.' 'So what did you say?'

'Yes, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell her that, Dr Freud,' answered Younger. 'She'll believe it's true.'

'Whereas you don't.'

'No, sir.'

Freud smoked his cigar, nodding.

'I'm sorry,' Younger added, 'but I can't persuade myself that Luc's difficulties have anything to do with a desire to sleep with his sister, his mother, or any member of his family. If he has a neurosis at all, it's a sort of war neurosis. Not sexual at all.'

'Not sexual — a diagnosis you base on what evidence? You remind me of the government physicians who attended our conference in Budapest. "Yes, we have to hand it to Freud. Yes, the old man was right about the unconscious after all. Yes, the war neuroses are caused by unconscious memories, just as Freud always said. But that disgusting sexual business? Thank God it has nothing to do with shell shock." In fact not one case of war neurosis has yet been analyzed all the way down to its roots. We don't know what connection it has to childhood wishes. That's why I'm so interested in Miss Rousseau's brother.'

'To see if you can find Oedipus beneath his symptoms?'

'If he's there, why not find him? But don't be so sure what I expect to find. Something else may be hiding in the boy. I've seen something new, Younger — dimly, but I've seen it. Perhaps another ghost in the cellar.'

'What is it?'

'I can't tell you, because I don't know.' Freud tamped ash from his cigar. 'But we haven't gotten to what I wanted to say to you.'

'You want me to reconsider my rejection of the Oedipus complex.'

'I want you to practice psychoanalysis again. Why are you here?'

'Miss Rousseau-'

'Wanted her brother analyzed,' interrupted Freud, 'and you're in love with her, so you said yes to please her. Obviously. Apart from that.'

'Apart from that?'

'Assuming the boy can be analyzed at all, you could have done it yourself. There was no need to travel to Austria. Indeed coming here was illogical given that Miss Rousseau plans to return to Paris shortly; an analysis cannot be conducted in a week or two, as you well know. It follows that you had another reason for coming.'

'Which was?' asked Younger.

'You wanted to see me,' said Freud.

Younger reflected. There was a long pause before he finally answered: 'That's true.'

'Why?'