The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [79]
“He does not avoid physical encounters when he is defending the helpless or righting a wrong,” I declared.
“Also! But the blow was only the catalyst, the immediate cause. It broke not only his head but the invisible membrane of the unconscious mind; and from this rent, this weakened part of the fabric, rushed fears and desires long suppressed by the conscious will. In short—in lay terms, gnüdige Fr au und Herr Vandergelt—he has forgotten the things he does not want to remember!”
“You mean,” I said painfully, “he does not want to remember ME.”
“Not you as yourself, Frau Emerson. It is the symbol he rejects.”
When a man gets to talking about his own subject he is inclined to be verbose. I will therefore summarize the doctor’s lecture. (I must warn the Reader that some of his statements were quite shocking.)
Man and woman, he declared, were natural enemies. Marriage was at best an armed truce between individuals whose basic natures were totally opposed. The need of Woman, the homemaker, was for peace and security. The need of Man, the hunter, was for the freedom to prey upon his fellowmen and upon women (the doctor put this more politely, but I caught his meaning). Society aimed to control these natural desires of man; religion forbade them. But the walls of constraint were constantly under attack by the brute nature of Man, and when there was a rent in the fabric, the brute burst forth.
“Good gracious,” I murmured, when the doctor paused to wipe his perspiring brow.
Cyrus had gone beet-red and was biting his lip to repress strangled noises of indignation and denial. “Doggone it, Doctor, I have to object to your language in the presence of Mrs. Emerson—and to your slur upon the masculine gender. We aren’t all—er—ravening beasts. You did say ‘ravening,’ didn’t you?”
“Ravening and lusting,” said Schadenfreude happily. “Yes, yes, that is the nature of man. Some of you repress your true natures successfully, mein Freund; but beware! The greater the control, the more the pressure builds, and if there is a rent in the fabric of the walls—BOOM!”
Cyrus jumped. “Now see here, Doc—”
“Be calm, Cyrus,” I urged. “The doctor is not being rude; he is being scientific. I am not offended, and indeed, I find some sense in his diagnosis. However, I am not so much interested in a diagnosis as in a cure. To employ your own metaphor, Doctor (and a striking one it is), how do we force the—er—beast back behind the wall and what kind of plaster do we use to mend it?”
Schadenfreude beamed approvingly at me. “You have an almost masculine directness, Frau Emerson. The procedure is obvious. One does not employ brute force against brute force; the ensuing struggle might wound both combatants mortally.”
“Striking as the metaphor is, I would prefer a more practical suggestion,” I said. “What am I to do? Would hypnosis—”
Schadenfreude shook a playful finger at me. “Aha, Frau Emerson! You have been reading the works of my more imaginative colleagues. Breuer and Freud are correct in stating that the operative force of the idea which was not abreacted by allowing its strangulated effect to find a way out in speech or action must be relived—brought back, in other words—to its status nascendi. But hypnosis is only a showman’s toy that may do more harm than good by substituting the practitioner’s own preconceptions for the psychical processes of the patient.”
I believe I have rendered accurately the general sense of his discourse. He had to pause for breath at this point—not surprisingly—and when he went on, it was in more specific terms.
“The memory is like a lovely flower, gnãdige Frau; it cannot be brought into existence fully formed, it must grow slowly and naturally from the seed. The seed is there in his mind. Return him to the scenes he does remember. Do not force memories upon him. Do not insist on facts he honestly, sincerely, believes to be false. This would be disastrous in his case, for if I