137 - Arthur I. Miller [8]
After a brilliant university career, Jung was immediately offered a position at the Burghölzli Mental Hospital by its director, the world-famous Dr. Eugen Bleuler, who had coined the term “schizophrenia.” The hospital is in Zürich, sixty miles from Basel. Jung began work there in December 1900, when he was twenty-five. Physically so big that he dwarfed colleagues, handsome and brimming with enthusiasm, with a voice and laugh so loud they filled the room, Jung had a magnetic presence. He soon became the director’s protégé.
A huge, sprawling, austere building, the Burghölzli loomed over Lake Zürich. To discourage thoughts of suicide it was built in such a way that none of the inmates could see the water. Inside, the building was sparse. Apart from the doctors’ offices there were no comfortable chairs, only wooden benches. The working day at Burghölzli rarely ended before 10 p.m. Jung found the regime exhausting and missed the intellectual life of Basel with its late night philosophical conversations. But he was convinced that psychiatry was his metier.
Emma
Four years earlier, Jung had met Emma Rauschenbach, a fascinating fourteen-year-old girl from a very wealthy family. She was an heiress, the second richest in Switzerland. Her father owned a vast manufacturing empire that produced, among other things, machine-made watches, which were then a novelty. However, it was not Emma’s wealth that attracted him to her. Jung always insisted most emphatically that he had not married her for her money. He once confided to a friend that he had fallen instantly in love the first time he saw her and felt sure they would marry some day. The friend, sadly to say, laughed.
In 1901 he was invited to a party in the town of Winterhur, where he met her again. She had grown into a beautiful young woman with dark hair, wide expressive eyes, and a ready smile. Having lived for a year in Paris, she spoke French and read Old French and Provençal. She was deeply interested in the legends of the Holy Grail, as was Jung. That summer her mother invited Jung to a ball at their elegant summer residence, the Ölberg, outside Schaffhausen. It covered several acres and there were scores of servants and gardeners. Jung’s cardboard collar, tattered clothes, and rough manners were in sharp contrast to the well-heeled crowd. To add to his problems Emma was already betrothed to the son of a business associate of her father’s.
Undaunted, he set about courting her. Emma was attracted to his good looks and brilliance. But more than that he seemed to value her intelligence and encouraged her to broaden it, qualities she found lacking in the other men who pursued her. In his numerous letters he suggested books she might read on subjects that included literature and psychology. She came to believe that more than just a wife to him, she could be a partner in his professional life. His courtship was boosted immensely by clandestine help from his future mother-in-law, who had come to realize her daughter’s growing affection for the poor but affable Dr. Jung. Eventually she convinced her husband of the young man’s seriousness and that her daughter’s happiness was of paramount importance.
The two married in 1903 in a lavish ceremony held at the Swiss Reformed Church in Schaffhausen. Two days later, in the best hotel in town, there was a sumptuous wedding banquet of twelve courses, each accompanied by the proper wine.
Carl and Emma Jung at the time of their marriage, February 14, 1903.
Emma took on the task of transcribing the voluminous notes Jung made during his hospital rounds. The following year they had their first child. Emma’s substantial wealth gave Jung the freedom to pursue his own research and he quickly came to the attention of the international