The Death Instinct

'I think to ask you something.'

Freud waited. There was a longer silence.

'I have no — ' said Younger, looking for the right word, — 'no more faith.'

'The loss of religious faith,' replied Freud, 'is the beginning of maturity.'

'Not religious faith,' said Younger.

Freud waited.

'The war,' said Younger. 'Millions of men, millions upon millions of young men, killed for nothing. Meaningless slaughter. Countless more crippled and maimed.'

'Ah,' said Freud. 'Yes. Such destruction as we have lived through is very hard to fathom. Everything I believed I knew about the mind falls short in the face of it. But that's still not why you're here.'

Younger didn't reply.

'The war isn't what you want to ask me about,' added Freud.

'I don't see a point anymore,' said Younger. 'I don't see — the possibility of a point. I have thoughts, I have desires, but I no longer see any purpose.' His right fist clenched; he made it relax. 'Can one live without purpose?'

'The demand that your life have a purpose, my boy, is something you acquired from your parents, probably your father — something to be analyzed.'

'To say that,' replied Younger, 'is to concede that there is no purpose.'

'Then I can't help you.'

Another pause.

'You're not smoking,' said Freud, noticing that Younger's cigar was out and offering him a light. 'I've followed your career from afar. Brill has kept me informed. You've done well.'

'Thank you.'

'You fought?' asked Freud.

'Yes.'

'My sons too. Martin is still a prisoner, in Italy.' Freud drew on his cigar. 'I was very sorry to hear about your wife's death. A terrible thing. Do you treat women badly?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'You never remarried. You have an exaggerated idea of female innocence, to judge by your reluctance to speak about sexuality in front of Miss Rousseau. I'm wondering if you habitually mistreat women.'

'Why would I mistreat women?'

'It's a perfectly common reaction. A man who idealizes women not infrequently maintains a low opinion of them at the same time.'

'I don't have a low opinion of women. I have a high opinion of them.'

'I'm only observing. It was after your wife died that you turned away from psychology. You turned away from the mind.'

'I studied the mind,' replied Younger. 'Biologically.'

'That was how you turned away from it — probably a way of striking hack.'

'At whom?'

'At your wife. At me, I suppose. At yourself.'

Younger said nothing.

'You abandoned psychoanalysis,' Freud continued, 'and you mistreat women for the same reason: because of a sense of responsibility for your wife's death.'

'That's absurd. I wasn't responsible for her death.'

'Absurdity is an offense to logic,' said Freud, 'but in the mind logic is not master.'

Colette was no longer in the consulting room when the two men emerged from Freud's study. Younger went outside, but didn't find her on the street either. He walked down Berggasse toward the canal. He thought she might have taken a walk to see the Danube. She wasn't there. Younger stared at the water a long time.

Back at the Hotel Bristol, Younger asked Luc if his sister had returned. The boy shook his head and showed Younger a picture he had drawn.

'Very accomplished,' said Younger. The boy had drawn a tree with many limbs. On several of those branches animals perched, each of them staring at the viewer with large, hungry eyes. 'Are they dogs?'

Luc shook his head.

'Wolves?'

The boy nodded.

'You realize, little man,' said Younger, 'we don't even know if you can speak. Physically, that is.'

Luc looked interested, but disinterested, simultaneously.

'But you know if you can,' said Younger. 'I know you know. And if you can't speak, Luc, there's no reason for you to go to Dr Freud. He's not that kind of doctor.'

The boy remained still.

'But if you can,' Younger continued, 'you could get out of all this very easily. By talking. Get out of seeing the doctor. Get out of that school you're in. Make your sister very happy.'

Luc stared at Younger a long while before turning his drawing over and writing a message on the back. It was only the second time he'd done so with Younger. The page bore two words: You're wrong.

Watching the boy sit down in a corner with one of his books, Younger wondered on which point he'd been wrong. That Luc knew if he could speak? Or that his talking would make his sister happy?

Colette returned to the hotel an hour later.

'You disappeared,' said Younger.

'I went-' she began.

'To the Grubers'.'

'Yes. I walked. But the address wasn't their house,' she replied. 'It wasn't a residence at all. I couldn't find out anything. I'm not even sure what kind of place it was. A concert hall, maybe. Could you help me?'

Younger accompanied her back to the address to translate. It proved to be a music school. A secretary, kind enough to look in the school records, found that a student by the name of Hans Gruber had attended the school — or at least applied to it — in 1914. She gave them a new address, which, they learned from their cab driver, was in the Hutteldorf district, almost two hours away by horse-drawn, although the trip would be faster and cheaper by train. Colette declared that she would go by herself tomorrow.

'Don't be silly. I'll come with you,' said Younger.

That evening, Martha Freud, her sister Minna, and the Freuds' maid Paula all fawned over Luc, pronouncing him the most adorable schmдchtige Kerlchen in the world. Martha apologized repeatedly for the meagerness of the dinner fare, which in fact was the opposite of meager, but was extremely simple, as if the Freuds were country farmers.

'The awful war,' said Martha.

'At least the right side won,' declared Freud.

Martha asked how her husband could say such a thing when they had lost everything.

'We didn't lose everything, my dear,' said Freud chidingly.

'Only our life's savings,' replied Martha. 'We had it all in state bonds. The safest possible investment — everyone said so. There were pictures of Emperor Franz Josef on every one.'

'And now they are worth face value,' said Freud.

'They're worth nothing!' said Martha.

'Just what I said, my dear,' answered Freud. 'But our sons are unhurt, and our daughters are happy. True, we don't have Martin home yet, but he's better off where he is. As a prisoner, he's fed every day, while Vienna is starving. My patients pay me in goat's milk and hen's eggs — which has at least kept food on our table. But our movement, Younger, is rich. We received a bequest — a million crowns — from a Hungarian patient. When the money is released, we're going to build free clinics in Berlin and Hungary. Budapest will be our new center. Your old friend Ferenczi has just been appointed professor of psychology there.'

After finishing his meal, Luc was permitted to leave the table. He sat in a corner, absorbed in one of Freud's books.

'Why don't you let the boy stay here a night or two?' Freud asked Colette. 'I can't have proper sessions with him, but if he were under my roof, I could at least observe him.'

Younger found himself inwardly favoring Freud's plan, but not for psychiatric reasons. If the boy stayed with the Freuds, that would leave the two of them — Colette and Younger — alone in the hotel.

'You could stay too, Miss Rousseau,' Freud continued. 'Our nest is empty. Anna is away visiting her sister in Berlin. You could stay in her room.'

Younger spent the night by himself.

Colette was supposed to call at the hotel after breakfast the next morning. She did call after breakfast — but by then it was also after lunch.

'Martha and Minna took Luc to an amusement park,' she said, as if that fact explained the several hours she had been unaccounted for. 'He's so powerful — Dr Freud. Those eyes. He sees everything.'