from within, not of one that would be caused externally, says Oehler, if we disregard the fact that inner and outer are identical for natures like Hollensteiner and Karrer. For, and these are Karrer’s words, says Oehler, the possibility that Hollensteiner would commit suicide from an inner cause always existed, but then with the extension of Hollensteiner’s institute and with Hollensteiner’s obvious successes in his scientific work, simultaneously with the ignoring and the torpedoing of these scientific successes of Hollensteiner’s by the world around him, the possibility existed that he would commit suicide from an external cause. Whereas, however, it is characteristic and typical of Hollensteiner, says Oehler, that he did finally commit suicide, as we now know, and what we could not know up to the moment that Hollensteiner committed suicide is that it is also typical of Karrer that he did not commit suicide after Hollensteiner had committed suicide but that he, Karrer, went mad. However, what is frightful, says Oehler, is the thought that a person like Karrer, because he has gone mad and, as I believe, has actually gone finally mad, because he has gone finally mad he has fallen into the hands of people like Scherrer. On the previous Saturday, Oehler made several statements regarding Karrer to Scherrer which, according to Scherrer, says Oehler, were of importance for him, Scherrer, in connection with Karrer’s treatment, he, Oehler, did not believe that what he had told Scherrer on Saturday, especially about the incident that was crucial for Karrer’s madness, the incident in Rustenschacher’s men’s store, that the very thing that Oehler had told Scherrer about what he had noticed in Rustenschacher’s store, shortly before Karrer went mad, still made sense. For Scherrer’s scientific work it did, for Karrer it did not. For the fact that Scherrer now knows what I noticed in Rustenschacher’s store before Karrer went mad in Rustenschacher’s store makes no difference to Karrer’s madness. What happened in Rustenschacher’s store, says Oehler, was only the factor that triggered Karrer’s final madness, nothing more. For example, it would have been much more important, says Oehler, if Scherrer had concerned himself with the relationship of Karrer and Hollensteiner, but Scherrer did not want to hear anything from Oehler about this relationship, Karrer’s relationship to Hollensteiner was not of the slightest interest to Scherrer, says Oehler. I tried several times to direct Scherrer’s attention to this relationship, to make him aware of this really important relationship and of the really important events that took place within this year- and decades-long connection between Karrer and Hollensteiner, but Scherrer did not go into it, says Oehler, but, as is the way with these people, these totally unphilosophical and, for that reason, useless psychiatric doctors, he continued to nag away at the happenings in Rustenschacher’s store, which are, in my opinion, certainly revealing but not decisive, says Oehler, but he understood nothing about the importance of the Karrer/Hollensteiner relationship. Scherrer kept on asking me why we, Karrer and I, went into Rustenschacher’s store, to which I replied every time that I could not answer that question and that I simply could not understand how Scherrer could ask such a question, says Oehler. Scherrer kept on asking questions which, in my opinion, were unimportant questions, whereupon, of course, Scherrer received unimportant answers from me, says Oehler. These people keep on asking unimportant questions and for that reason keep on getting unimportant answers, but they are not aware of it. Just as they are not aware of the fact that the questions they ask are unimportant and as a result make no sense, it does not occur to them that the answers they receive to these questions are unimportant and make no sense. If I had not gone on mentioning Hollensteiner’s name, says Oehler, Scherrer would not have hit upon Hollensteiner. There is something terribly depressing about sitting opposite a person who, by his very presence, continuously asserts that he is competent and yet has absolutely no competence in the matter at hand. We observe time and again, says Oehler, that we are with people who should be competent and who also assert and claim, indeed they go on claiming, to be competent in the matter for which we have come to them, whereas they are in an irresponsible, shattering, and really repugnant manner incompetent. Almost everybody we get together with about a matter, even if it is of the highest importance, is incompetent. Scherrer, says Oehler, is, in my opinion, the most incompetent when it’s a question of Karrer, and the thought that Karrer is in Scherrer’s hands, because Karrer is confined in Scherrer’s section, is one of the most frightful thoughts. The enormous arrogance you sense, says Oehler, when you sit facing a man like Scherrer. Hardly a moment passes before you ask yourself what Karrer (the patient) really has to do with Scherrer (his doctor)? For a person like Karrer to be in the hands of a person like Scherrer is an unparalleled human monstrosity, says Oehler. But because we are familiar with his condition, it is immaterial to Karrer whether he is in Scherrer’s hands or not. After all, the moment Karrer became finally mad it became immaterial whether Karrer was in Steinhof or not, says Oehler. But it is not the fact that a man like Scherrer is totally unphilosophical that is repugnant, says Oehler, although someone in Scherrer’s position ought, first and foremost, besides having his medical knowledge, to be philosophical, it is his shameful ignorance. No matter what I say, Scherrer’s ignorance repeatedly finds expression, says Oehler. Whenever I said something, no matter what it was, to Scherrer or whenever Scherrer responded to what I had said, no matter what it was, I was constantly aware that Scherrer’s ignorance kept coming to light. But even when Scherrer says nothing, we hear nothing but ignorance from him, says Oehler, a person like Scherrer does not need to say something ignorant for us to know that we are dealing with a completely ignorant person. The observation that doctors are practicing in complete ignorance shakes us when we are with them, says Oehler. But among doctors, ignorance is a habit to which they have become accustomed over the centuries, says Oehler. Some exceptions notwithstanding, says Oehler. Scherrer’s inability to think logically and thus to ask logical questions, give logical answers, and so forth, says Oehler, it was precisely when I was in his presence that it occurred to me that people like Scherrer can never go mad. As we know, psychiatric doctors do become mentally ill after a while, but not mad. Because they are ignorant of their life’s theme these people finally become mentally ill, but never mad. As a result of incapacity, says Oehler, and basically because of their continual decades-long incompetence. And at that moment I again recognized to what degree madness is something that happens only among the highest orders of humanity. That at a given moment madness is everything. But to say something like that to Scherrer, says Oehler, would, above all else, be to overestimate Scherrer, so I quickly gave up the idea of saying anything to Scherrer such as what I have just said about the actual definition of madness, says Oehler. Scherrer is probably not the least bit interested in what took place in Rustenschacher’s store, says Oehler, he only asked me to go up to Steinhof because he didn’t know anything better to do, to ask me about what happened in Rustenschacher’s store, says Oehler. Psychiatric doctors like to make a note of what you tell them, without worrying about it, and what you tell them is a matter of complete indifference to them, that is, it is a matter of complete indifference to them, and they do not worry about it. Because a psychiatric doctor has to make inquiries, they make inquiries, says Oehler, and of all the leads the ones they follow are the least important. Of course, the incident in Rustenschacher’s store is not insignificant, says Oehler, but it is only one of hundreds of incidents that preceded the incident in Rustenschacher’s store and that have the same importance as the one in Rustenschacher’s store. Not a question about Hollensteiner, not a question about the people around Hollensteiner, not a question about Hollensteiner’s place in modern science, not a question about Hollensteiner’s philosophical circumstances, about his notes, never mind about Hollensteiner’s relationship to Karrer or Karrer’s to Hollensteiner. In the nature of things, Scherrer should have shown an interest in the time Hollensteiner and Karrer spent together at school, says Oehler, in their common route to school, their origins and so on, in their common, and their different, views and intentions and so on, says Oehler. The whole time I was there, Scherrer insisted that I only make statements about the incident in Rustenschacher’s store, and on this point with regard to the happenings in Rustenschacher’s store, says Oehler, Scherrer demanded the utmost precision from me. He kept saying leave nothing out, says Oehler, I can still hear him saying leave nothing out while I went on talking without a break about the incident in Rustenschacher’s store. This incident acted as a so-called trigger incident, I said to Scherrer, says Oehler, but there can be no doubt that it is not a fundamental one. Scherrer did not react to my observation, I made the observation several times, says Oehler, and so I had repeatedly to take up the incident in Rustenschacher’s store. That is absolutely grotesque, Scherrer said on several occasions during my description of the incident in Rustenschacher’s store. This statement was merely repugnant to me.