The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [78]
“I am very sorry, Cyrus. I had no idea.”
“Water over the dam, my dear. I’ve been footloose and fancy-free ever since. I told Schadenfreude when we parted company to let me know if he was ever in Egypt and I’d show him what an archaeological dig was like. He must have arrived in Cairo right after I left. Got his letter a few days ago—paid no attention to it at the time—other things on my mind—but if I remember rightly, he planned to be in Luxor sometime this week. What do you say I run over and see if he’s available?”
Of course the matter was not so easily arranged as Cyrus’s sympathetic enthusiasm led him to hope. It was evening before he returned, towing the famous Viennese physician along like a pet dog.
Schadenfreude was a curious figure—very thin in the face and very round in the stomach, his cheeks so pink they looked rouged, his beard so silvery-bright it suggested a halo that had slipped its moorings. Myopic brown eyes peered uncertainly through his thick spectacles. There was nothing uncertain about his professional manner, however.
“A most interrrresting case, to be sure,” he declared. “Herr Vandergelt has given me some of the particulars. You have not forced yourself upon him, gnãdige Frau?”
I stiffened with indignation; but a wink and a nod from Cyrus reminded me that the famous doctor’s imperfect command of English must be responsible for this rude question.
“He has slept most of the day,” I replied. “I have not insisted upon my relationship with him, if that is what you mean. Dr. Wallingford felt that might be unwise, at this stage.”
“Sehr gut, sehr gut.” Schadenfreude rubbed his hands together and showed me a set of perfect white teeth. “I will alone the patient examine. You permit, Frau Professor?”
He did not wait for my permission, but flung the door open and vanished within, closing said door with a slam.
“Peculiar little guy, isn’t he?” Cyrus said proudly, as if Schadenfreude’s eccentricities proved his medical prowess.
“Er—quite. Cyrus, are you certain—”
“My dear, he’s a wonder. I’m a living testimonial to his talents.”
Schadenfreude was inside quite a long time. Not a sound emerged—not even the shouts I fully expected to hear from Emerson—and I was getting rather fidgety before the door finally opened.
“Nein, nein, gnãdige Frau,” said Schadenfreude, holding me back when I would have entered. “It is a discussion we must have before you speak so much as a single word to the afflicted one. Lead us, Herr Vandergelt, to a place of discussion and supply, bitte, something of refreshment for the lady.”
We retired to my sitting room. I refused the brandy the doctor tried to press upon me—the situation was too serious for the temporary consolation of spirits—and he applied himself to the beer he had requested with such gusto that when he emerged from the glass his mustache was frosted with foam. However, when he began to speak I had no inclination to laugh at him.
Many people at that time were skeptical about the theories of psychotherapy. My own mind is always receptive to new ideas, however repellent they may be, and I had read with interest the works of psychologists such as William James and Wilhelm Wundt. Since some of their axioms—particularly Herbart’s concept of the threshold of consciousness—agreed with my own observations of human nature, I was inclined to believe that the discipline, when refined and developed, might offer useful insights. Herr Doktor Schadenfreude’s theories were certainly unorthodox, but I found them horribly plausible.
“The immediate cause of your husband’s amnesia is physical trauma—a blow on the head. Has he often suffered injury to that region?”
“Why—not to an excessive degree,” I began.
“I don’t know about that,” Cyrus demurred. “I can remember at least two occasions