Original subtitles

What's the matter with her?

- With whom, my love? - With the woman in the picture.

She's too tightly laced.

And what's the doctor saying, Papa?

He's saying that unless she learns to loosen

her corset, she'll go on fainting in public

and life will be a misery for everyone who knows her.

Mademoiselle.

No, the young lady is not, as you might think, already hypnotized.

But do you not see in her physical bearing

that waxen flexibility in her face, that dullness, La Belle Difference,

which links the hypnoid and neurotic states?

Gentlemen, the lady is in love.

Four years ago, the object of her love parted harshly from her,

with words of shocking finality,

on the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

For a while she stood rooted to the spot,

and then she walked home ten days later.

Mark the interval.

She found that while she could rise from her bed at home without difficulty,

a strange impediment had descended on her during the night.

Our tests show undiminished muscular strength,

and when examined in bed she is capable of normal movement with normal vigor,

and, strange to say, she can perform a quite complicated leg movements.

She can dance, jump,

hop, even run.

But walk she cannot.

We can guess why. Yet how?

How, gentlemen, has she unlearnt to walk?

Our second patient derives his illness from a less romantic event.

A minor railway accident leading several days

later to a localized hysterical paralysis.

I say hysterical...

My sweet princess.

Paris overwhelms me.

I never knew what it was to feel so provincial until now.

Even Charcot's lectures appear to belong to the beau monde, in all their finery,

as much to the students of medical science.

And Charcot holds them all spellbound, at once doctor, sage and ringmaster.

The great man himself has welcomed me most cordially

and arranged a cubicle in the laboratory,

with all the pickled brain tissue a devout neurologist could wish for.

But, alas, brain tissue. When I look through the microscope...

..I might as well be back in Vienna.

So I flee into streets, to the Cites, to Notre Dame,

to the Louvre,

where I feel a cultural being once more.

Yesterday I walked in a daze down the alley of Versailles,

with its stone guardians overlooking a nature trimmed and tamed.

What splendorsI

And what a barbarous peopleI

The streets are filled with shouting news vendors

and partisans of every revolutionary creed under the sun.

The parks are crowded with lovers.

Wet nurses feed their charges openly en plein air.

Even in the Louvre,

Frenchwomen can scarcely stand before Grecian manhood without sniggering.

I am avidly reading The Hunchback.

Believe me, the French people haven't changed.

And this is the place to read it.

And how it makes me ache for you.

When Dom Claude the priest, bound by eternal vows,

conjures up pictures of Esmeralda, his beloved,

one night in particular, so Hugo writes,

"they so cruelly inflamed his priestly virgin blood

"that he tore his pillows with his teeth, leapt from the bed,

"threw a surplice over his nightgown

"and thus, half-naked, wild, with fire in his eyes, he left his cell. "

You may recall the tragic railway collision

at Clermont-Ferrand earlier this year,

resulting in several fatalities,

this gentlemen was among the fortunate.

He appeared to have escaped the crash without injury,

having thrown out his right hand to save

himself from being flung across the carriage.

With the onset of paralysis, however,

he has joined the long queue of those suing the railway company for damages

for loss of health and employment.

Your right hand, please.

Railway accidents are a prolific source of legal claim

for members of the general public.

The question arises, are all these claims justified?

Are there no malingerers among the claimants?

Here is a man with a paralyzed hand.

And yet there are half a dozen witnesses

who will testify that the man's hand never encountered the floor, the wall,

or any part of the railway carriage in question.

All it struck was thin air.

To whose agency, then, do we attribute these self-inflicted wounds? Hm?

To the sudden onset of cerebral tumors, as

our esteemed colleagues in Vienna maintain?

Herr Professor Meynert believes himself able, I understand, to trace even mania

and melancholia

to the cortical circulation of the blood.

Indeed, where else are we to find the source of this many-watered Nile?

In what name are we to save these patients from the surgeon's knife?

Mademoiselle, you are in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

Listen carefully. The Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

It is midday, hot and dusty.

Your lover is walking away. You can see him.

You're staring after him, standing, staring,

longing with all your might for him to turn,

willing for him to turn.

Can you see him walking, walking away?

His pace, his step is going slower now, more reluctant.

He can feel your eyes upon him. He is slowing, slowing.

He has stopped. Will he turn around? He's turning.

You can see his eyes, his face.

He takes the first step towards you, coming towards you, quicker now.

He wants you to join him.

He can see the tears in your eyes. You go towards him.

Go to him. Come. Come to him.

Walk, walk.

Oh!

She is now in the arms of her beloved but only for a short time.

Unless we release her, unconsciousness will intervene.

This is no cure, gentlemen.

It is a passage from one abnormal state into

another even more removed from reality.

Now, Monsieur,

close your eyes.

Listen attentively.

Raise your right arm,

palm upwards,

slowly extend the fingers...

I say extend the fingers,

and slowly close.

Slowly.

And open.

You can feel the sensation returning into your hand, into the fingers.

- Can you feel it? - No. No, sir.

I say you can,

and you can close your fingers.

No.

Open your eyes.

Fix your gaze on that lamp. Look hard.

Gaze at it with all your strength.

Let your arm fall to your side.

Let it hang.

Feel the blood return, enter the fingers, filling them with strength.

Now listen to me.

It is your left hand that is paralyzed.

Your left hand utterly stiff and dead.

You cannot move it. You cannot feel it.

Can you?

Whereas in your right hand...

Ah!

Sensation has returned.

Where are the tumors now, gentlemen? And the cortical blood?

Has it begun to run backwards at my command?

Monsieur, Mademoiselle, when you hear the gong once more,

you will be as you were when you entered the lecture hall.

Enough for one day.

Yes, these are tricks.

What you saw is for you to decide.

The power of the mind over the body.

A short-lived power, gentlemen.

You saw me suspend one illusion and replace it with another.

Yet the first illusion returns intact. Why?

Why of the many victims at Clermont-Ferrand

was it this man's fate to bear a timeless witness?

And this girl, of all the rejected lovers in the world?

We can only assume that a single traumatic event

stirred from sleep some hereditary disposition in her psyche,

which, during the ensuing days,

that fateful interval,

mulled over the material like a busy dramatist, to make of it a passion play.

And here at the Salpetriere,

what can we do for these poor actors tyrannized by their predestined role?

Will hydrotherapy or tonics ease them off the stage?

The best we can offer them, gentlemen, is a fresh setting,

away from their moral environment,

away from families or friends too weak or

too complacent to challenge their dreams.

With care and vigilance, with the constant promotion of discipline,

with moral and intellectual hygiene,

we can set the stage for recovery,

sometimes as certain and as

incomprehensible as the onset of illusion.

Once more,

we are obliged to watch

and wonder.

Thank you.

- Monsieur? - Don't you recognize me?

Liverij Osipovich Darkshevich.

I spent some months at the general hospital under your guidance.

Yes, of course, forgive me.

I am a stranger here myself, tyrannized by Meynert.

I know no one, and the Parisians are...Parisian.

I know somewhere moderately friendly where

one can drink, if you're not too busy.

It will be an honor, Herr Doctor.

What amused me was the difficulty he had in hypnotizing the bricklayer, hm?

I've been practicing a little hypnosis in the wards myself.

Professor Meynert will be shocked.

Come on.

About the bricklayer.

Did you notice that what was paralyzed was merely the man's idea of his hand?

The muscles that worked the hand were unaffected.

There might be an article to be written

on the hysterical paralysis of a given part of the body

as defined by the popular idea of its limits, not the anatomical plans.

I'm full of ideas myself.

Charcot's fallen out with his German

translator, and as soon as the opportunity...

Tell me,

do you think it's true that under hypnosis

the subject will do anything you command?

Within reason.

That's to say, unless you try to violate their moral will.

But isn't that exactly what attracts the

tout Paris to Charcot's demonstrations, hm?

I attended one where he persuaded a girl to

stab and kill a number of imaginary assailants.

- Yes... - In self-defense, I grant you.

But when he left the hall,

some medical students suggested to her that she was in the bath

and should undress, hm?

And did she?

No, she went straight into an hysterical crisis.

You see.

All the same,

it's odd she was so quick to perceive the difference

between their intention and Charcot's.

Huh?

Monsieur.

Permit me.

Monsieur.

Well, what puzzles me

is that Charcot denies the curative properties of hypnosis.

Surely the power of suggestion has been proved time and again.

There's a vast literature on the subject.

So vast that I spent all my grant on books in hardly an hour

and for my pickled brains in the laboratory.

Indeed. The waiters here all seem to know you very well.

But of course you come here to read scientific literature.

Certainly.

Why else?

Paris seems to have infected your mind, my friend,

as it has your clothes.

What is wrong with my clothes?

Look at yourself.

You're like a German peasant at a funeral.

You can't go around Paris like that.

I think I'd better introduce you to my tailor.

And my barber.

A good French haircut. What do you say, hm?

Monsieur le doctor Freud!

My precious darling, no letter from you today.

Instead, one from Ignaz scarcely disguising the gravity of his illness.

Comfort Minna, and write soon.

Tonight I am invited to one of Charcot's soirees,

fortified with cocaine and a new frock coat.

Paris has bankrupted me. But I shall see you all the sooner.

Monsieur Freud?

The Freud of cocaine?

Delboeuf.

You see, your reputation precedes you.

Don't worry, I am strongly in favor of this substance.

In certain circumstances.

Are you here to bring us some new pharmaceutical discovery?

Merely neurological research while attending the master's lectures.

Ah, the lectures.

An admirable showman, is he not?

And his willing ingenue may rival Sarah Bernhardt.

- In a sense. - In every sense.

- I'm not sure I understand you. - Oh, I think you do.

Surely it's common knowledge. All been rehearsed.

These obedient hysterics. Didn't you know?

Don't tell me you've been taken in. It's a delightful game.

Rehearsed, Monsieur, by whom?

Not by Charcot, I daresay not.

But by his assistants, down to the last detail.

His Excellency...

..Prince Karl Heinrich of Saxony!

Please come.

Come this way, please, sire.

You have been listening to gossip, Monsieur,

and I hardly think this is the time nor the place

to impugn Maitre Charcot's honor as a scientist uncertain to the truth.

If I might introduce you. Excuse me.

Good luck with your researches.

My new German translator, Dr. Freud. Prince Karl of Saxony.

- Enchante. - Oh, please, please, please.

- Feel at liberty to use your native tongue.

- When in Paris.

Though we are aware of your linguistic accomplishments, Maitre.

Have you been a member of this international

community for long, Herr Freud?

- Indeed not, Your... - No, but he is a quick learner.

And he will, I hope, soon be our new ambassador in Vienna,

in a manner of speaking.

A slow learner, I assure you.

But a quick translator. I have with me a draft of the first...

Oh, please, please, bring it to me in the morning.

And will you also spread the gospel of hypnotism in Vienna, Herr Freud?

The seeds are already sown.

My esteemed colleague Josef Breuer

has already used the technique on a young patient with remarkable success.

The girl was afflicted with multiple paralysis and a variety of delusions.

The family had despaired of her until Breuer took her in hand.

I should be most interested to hear about your case.

But if you will forgive me for the moment, hm?

Your Excellency. Dear colleague.

He found first by hypnosis and then by simply talking

he could free the patient from morbid compulsions.

How very fascinating.

Breuer calls it the cathartic method.

To me it seemed a miracle cure.

Somehow Bertha was able to learn the secrets of auto-suggestion

and defy the commands of her disease,

lancing the painful memories one by one until she repossessed her past entire,

her soul.

I believe the process was as tortured as a medieval exorcism.

Hm.

Remarkable.

Has he published a report?

There are such cases.

But we, the doctors, must learn to walk before we can run.

And some of us must sleep, Monsieur.

When time permits, I shall inspect your debut as a translator.

And I trust you will send me the rest from Vienna, mm?

We shall miss you.

It is not often that I have the chance to

influence one of Professor Meynert's acolytes.

Maitre, are you skeptical about Breuer's cathartic treatment?

I am skeptical about miracles, yes.

And the power of exorcism is a dangerous gift.

I know a great deal about medieval torture.

There are hazards, certainly.

Indeed, in this case, I believe the patient fell in love with her torturer.

Of course. Of course.

And so did the witches.

The seat of hysteria, my friend, is not in the mind, but in the genitals.

I tell you, in the genitals.

Without sexuality, there would be no such illness.

Don't you believe me?

- Do you find this in many cases? - In every case.

You are a man of some intelligence, hm?

With, I hope, the capacity for self-examination.

No doubt you suffer intermittently from migraines, neurasthenia,

fatigue, depression.

You appear unmarried.

Hm?

Tell me, then,

to what do you yourself attribute these modest neuroses?

Since Ignaz's death, she won't leave the house.

She sits reading.

She must burn his letters.

Burn them. Tell her.

It's important to clear her mind of it.

I heard you call my name one night in Paris, in the street.

It was as if I'd caught a fever.

I couldn't think of anything but you.

Sometimes I imagined I was Danton rescuing you in a runaway coach.

Marthi.

It's been four years.

I know your mother was engaged for nine, but I can't go on waiting.

I've come to ask you to forgo the ceremony,

rings, presents.

To ask me?

Or to hypnotize me?

Come now. I'm serious.

Sigmund, I must talk to you about our plans.

Our financial situation has altered.

I know.

Eli's lost your dowry.

- Lost it? - Playing the market, speculating.

He hasn't lost any of it. He's invested it. It's safe.

Then why does he avoid the subject?

It's not for you to ask him where the money is.

- No wonder your mother's so quiet. - My dowry is secure, believe me.

What there is of it.

As for Mama, we discussed everything at Christmas time.

Her objections now are purely practical.

Yes, but doesn't she understand what Paris has done for me?

For my standing in the profession?

I'm Charcot's chosen translator.

People will listen to me. Yet in your mother's eyes...

Will you let me speak?

Last week, Aunt Lea offered me a wedding gift

- of 1,250 gulden. - A gift?

Now, add that to Uncle Josef's legacy, subtract...

You mean we can get married?

..a thousand for my trousseau and our house linen.

House linen? I'd marry you without a sheet to our name.

Oh, Marthi.

Wait, wait.

Sigi, you must understand.

Mama will not countenance this marriage

unless you learn the wedding ceremony and the proper responses in Hebrew.

Eli will teach you.

I'll say them in Sanskrit if that's what you require.

In Hebrew.

And with a straight face.

I've already learnt it.

Ah, Sigmund.

Oh, Dr. Wilhelm Fleiss, a colleague from Berlin.

Dr. Freud, our principal speaker today.

You haven't come specially from Berlin, Herr Fleiss?

Why not? I am also a former student of Maitre Charcot.

His work is of the greatest interest to us in Germany.

- Excuse me, gentlemen. - Professor Chrobak you know, of course.

Of course. We've passed in the corridors.

Ah, good luck.

Thank you, sir.

And, er...congratulations on your marriage.

My God. Is he drunk?

Good luck.

Rumor has it you were planning to walk to Hamburg for the wedding.

I borrowed the train fare from my wife's sister.

- You should have come to me. - And be further in your debt?

No, this way you're free to approve or condone my lecture as you please.

Gentlemen, during my six months' visit to the Salpetriere in Paris,

I was privileged to witness some remarkable

developments in the treatment of hysteria,

through which Maitre Charcot has, I

believe, transformed our understanding...

He went to Paris a neurologist and he has returned a crank.

Meynert's words, apparently.

But you expected it.

You knew.

What did Breuer say?

Smiled.

Like a fond parent at a delinquent child.

Then he took me aside and asked me what I was charging for consultations.

- What did he mean by that? - Nothing, nothing insulting.

Merely to remind me that a doctor in his first year of general practice,

a doctor of controversial reputation,

would do well to set modest fees.

Josef means well.

He's invited me to an external consultation

with one of the richest women in the city.

- To hypnotize her? - I doubt it.

She's deranged enough already, by the sound of it.

A baroness.

It could be lucrative.

When I left the hall, Meynert stuffed this into my hands without comment.

So he had his answer ready?

Hardly an answer.

An old article on the fraudulence and immorality of hypnosis.

He actually claims it liberates the sexual impulses in the subcortex.

I daresay he imagines he can see the thing

springing to attention under the microscope.

Here.

"In the hypnotic state,

"a human being is reduced to a creature without will or reason,

"and his nervous and mental degeneration is only hastened by it."

Mental degeneration!

"Most hypnotic cures", in inverted commas,

"are the result either of lies or self-delusion

on the part of doctors and patients,

"whose depraved activities

"are achieving the proportions of a cyclical

epidemic among the gullible and the corrupt."

The narrow-minded, drunken bigot!

Leave them.

Let the girl do it.

- It's mid-afternoon. - Mm.

Didn't you know...

that's the hour of depravity...

in Vienna?

Pentheus, a poem.

Dedicated to my dear friend Professor Rudolf Chrobak,

gynecologist and magus.

Out of the gates of timid Thebes strides the daring one

at dead of night, drawn to the moon's pale sheaves as if by Ariadne's thread.

With serpents black the woodland seethes.

The Mother's rites are worshiped here.

And Dionysus in the leaves beckons the weary traveler near.

"My twin!" he breathes,

and on him writhes the briny berries of blood he crushes to the breast

that seethes once more with life's undying flood.

Oh!

You do me too much honor.

You deserve more.

But as I'm sure you noticed, I ran out of rhymes.

- Baroness, may I present Dr. Freud? - Ah.

A young colleague and lecturer in neuropathology,

who has recently returned from a six-month visit to the Salpetriere.

Oh. So!

You have been working under my beloved Charcot.

Do tell me, is his wife still fornicating with hussars?

I failed to inquire, madame.

Dr. Freud has brought with him some equipment

modeled on the latest developments in electrotherapy from Paris.

Indeed?

Charmant.

And how is the arm today?

The arm is clay.

Unfeeling.

But the pain here in my cheeks has gone.

I feel it like a slap sometimes.

A slap that stays and glows.

A slap I may have deserved but...never received.

Strange. I dreamt I was a statue last night.

I'd forgotten.

A statue of the Madonna.

A plaster statue by the roadside.

If you'll permit me, Baroness.

And the Emperor rode by.

He had my father's face.

He raised his hat and I heard him say, "Hail, Diana the huntress!"

Oh, it made me laugh to think of it when I woke up.

And yet,

there was something in his tone.

He had my father's voice.

Deliberate, mocking.

As if there was some meaning in the way he said it.

Diana.

Die.

Anna.

My name is Anna.

You may begin.

She seems to like you.

For 20 years the sheer variety of her symptoms

has exhausted the best doctors in Europe.

In the circumstances, you may charge 40 gulden.

But don't give her morphine, whatever you do.

A remarkable woman.

When in one of her trances, I've known her

stick knitting needles through her arms.

Between ourselves, the husband is tired of her.

After six children.

I tell you so that you know.

These things are usually born in the bedchamber.

Eh, Rudolph?

I know what I'd prescribe.

Penis normalis. Twice a day.

Oh, sweet Jesus! Sweet Jesus!

I'm going to die! Help me!

Oh! It's like nails in my side!

Oh!

Can you feel my temples? They're on fire.

Give me something to ease the pain, I beg you!

No alchemic water!

- Some chlorohydrate? - Something stronger, please!

- I dare not. - Oh, God! Quickly!

Oh, God!

Oh! Oh!

I can feel it rising. Swelling in my throat.

I...I can't swallow!

Trust me, it will pass.

There, it's easing.

Yes. Yes, quickly.

Oh!

Oh! Look.

In the trees.

There's two men hanging.

Is it the two of you?

Can't you see?

There's two men hanging in...in the trees.

It...

It's you and...and Breuer.

Oh, God.

What have I done?

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Just now,

do you know what I thought?

You, with your soothing voice,

like Breuer,

you're a match, you see?

Like...like pendants, the pair of you.

Pendants hanging.

You see?

My mind is a better poet than I am.

Am I not a worthless person?

What I said to you the other day about Charcot,

only a worthless person would say such things.

Believe me,

it's not incompatible with an unblemished character

or a well-governed mode of life.

Many of the finest minds,

the most gifted, and the most generous, have suffered what you're suffering.

A nice speech.

I'm hungry.

- Will you take some food with me? - No.

- Some caviar? - No, thank you.

I want some.

As you wish.

Do something for me!

Fetch my children!

It's two in the morning, Baroness.

Fetch them! Do you hear me? Why won't you fetch them?

- Baroness! - Don't use that tone to me!

You peasant! You've stolen them! You've taken everything!

You bitch! Husband, children, everything I've loved!

I'm not your governess! Look at me!

Don't lie to me! You're not their mother!

You're a spy! A dirty spy!

Oh, God!

At least tell me the truth! They've gone!

Stop this!

Your children are asleep. They're safe and well.

Oh! Oh dear!

I need a massage.

Oh, please.

A gentle massage.

I...I need something tonight.

Breuer gives me morphine.

No.

Oh!

Oh!

Oh.

Has the pain returned?

Oh...

And you said it was like a slap you had deserved but not received.

Tell me,

is it possible that you once received one that was not deserved?

Never?

No!

Mm.

- I'm going to be sick.

- You're not. You'll turn to me. Look at me!

You no longer feel nausea.

It's passing.

The pain, too, is passing.

The pain of the slap.

Close your eyes...

..and listen to me.

The pain is easing,

draining from your face.

You feel relaxed,

drowsy,

free of tension.

There is no pain.

There is no longer any pain.

You feel sleepy.

When I tell you to open your eyes, you will do so

and there will be no more pain...

only the need for sleep.

For long,

long sleep.

Open your eyes.

Is it better?

Yes.

Doctor.

Do you play chess?

You wanted to see me, Herr Professor?

- You're working at Kassowitz's clinic? - Yes.

- Anatomical work? - Yes.

On sensory aphasia, at present.

I understand through Kassowitz that you've nowhere to perform dissections

now that you've left the hospital.

I am placing my laboratory at your disposal.

That's...

most generous of you.

Particularly in view of the opinions you hold about my other work

in the field of the neuroses.

Neuroses?

Ah!

Have you ever had gout?

Keep it that way.

You're treating the Baroness von Lieben I hear.

Beneath that prim exterior of yours, my friend, lurks an unmitigated rascal.

Has she seduced you yet?

Well?

Herr Professor, I...

I shall tell my assistants to prepare a place for you in the laboratory.

As from tomorrow.

Why?

Why are you helping me?

I'm giving you a chance to remain a scientist.

Besides, I like rascals. They get things done.

And how is the railway magnate?

A glorified clerk, I assure you.

But I understand you procured Papa a free pass to travel anywhere in Europe.

You don't suppose he suddenly decided to take advantage of it today?

He's simply gone for a walk around the ring.

Mama.

One of these days, you'll find me in your surgery.

You'll have to wait in line.

Won't she?

Some days.

Others, I feel like the lion in the story.

Grrr. Twelve o'clock and still no blanks.

That'll be your father. I don't suppose

he has the faintest idea what time it is.

I'll warn him.

To the table, children.

- Such a beautiful day. - Hello, Father.

A shame to come in, really.

We heard your name mentioned at the Cafe Landtmann.

Oh?

- Favorably? - What else?

You were seen outside a great house on the Ringstrasse

descending from a coach-and-pair.

Rented.

The coach-and-pair.

Borrowed finery.

Your Uncle Josef used to own a coach.

Papa, lunch is being served.

And Mother's coughing badly again. She must go to a spa.

Until they took him away.

Your uncle.

For forging banknotes.

It was my father's birthday.

Four days.

We'd spent it at the lakeside picnicking.

I was pregnant for the first time.

I lay in the hotel bedroom waiting for Georg.

Reading, reading.

Can you remember what you were reading?

Oh.

I was a voracious reader in those days.

Montaigne.

Francis Bacon.

I read the same page again and again that night.

Waiting.

Counted the roses on the wallpaper.

Imagined Georg drowning.

Floating.

Imagined lovers.

I pretended to be asleep when Georg came in.

Pretended not to smell his breath as he climbed into bed.

Then as the...shame and panic of my dreams came back to me,

I turned,

and put his hand

on my breast.

He saw my eyes were open.

My mouth waiting for his.

And he looked at me...

with hatred.

"I'd rather make love to a sow in heat!"

His hand...

left my breast.

And though he never touched me, I felt him spin my head round on the pillow.

Burning.

I felt it...like a blow.

I couldn't cry.

I couldn't move.

Listen to me.

You are no longer at Aussee at the hotel.

No longer in trance.

You're back in your own house on the Ringstrasse on a fine May afternoon.

Ah!

Can you remember what you told me?

Every word.

Oh.

Oh.

It's strange, isn't it, that I couldn't remember it till now?

It seemed so clear in my mind.

What is the date today?

Twenty-fourth.

Oh, of course.

My father's birthday.

How did you know?

You mentioned it yourself three days ago.

He would have been 80.

It was his 61st birthday that day at Aussee.

Why do they hide from me, these memories?

As if my life had been chopped into pieces.

Why?

I can remember once when I was 15, propped

up in bed, some childhood illness,

and my grandmother was sitting beside me reading to me,

while I entertained improper thoughts,

and she shot me a look as if she knew, and at once I felt such a pain here,

as if she'd pierced my brain.

It's as though I have the power to convert ideas into flesh.

The slap that never came, except in words.

The nails that I feel sometimes inside.

The ball that rises in my throat when I have

to swallow something unpalatable to my mind.

And even...

My dear.

When I look at you,

and once more think

improper thoughts,

I am so filled with shame I feel dizzy.

I've told you more things in these last few months,

more things than I care to remember.

Sometimes in the night, I...

I wake and blush to think of what I've said to you the day before.

Is it possible, do you think, that I am to be free of the slap?

Or is it just another interval at the play?

If other patients are anything to go by, you

will be free of that particular symptom.

Why?

Just by telling you?

No, not by telling me.

By reliving the events.

- You've told me about the incident before.

- I have?

You told me calmly of your own free will here in this room.

But you told me without emotion,

embarrassed by the stranger you were telling.

So you've forgotten it.

As surely you did the night itself at Aussee.

Then, too, but far more powerfully, you withdrew from the experience

and left a poisoned thorn in the memory.

Now at last you've drained the poison.

And I told you before?

And treated you like a stranger?

Well, that was weeks ago.

Today we've tunneled deep.

And I think...

I've earned a cigar.

Dear friend.

You have been cunning with me in more than one respect.

You know what I'm talking about.

You rejected my love for you.

I thought at first it was because I was old and worthless to you.

And now I realize you were making me work all the harder

to satisfy you with my memories.

But you know, too,

that in my mind you are still my lover?

I doubt if that's what Breuer means by the cathartic method.

Sometimes...

I think I know her better than anyone in the world.

Better than you, even.

Certainly better than myself.

But we don't have hallucinations, you and I,

the weeping fits, confessional trances, to illuminate our fantasies.

It's nothing to be jealous of, believe me.

In some ways I've learnt more from her than Breuer or Charcot.

She understands the mind.

Its jumps, its lurid puns.

And how the body mimics them, drawing attention to some...

hidden incident.

But in disguise,

as if the mind itself were the enemy of truth.

A sensor,

obliging the disease to speak in code.

Her own description.

Sometimes she gives me these ideas fully formed.

And what have you...

given her?

A friend.

And something more, perhaps, more localized.

When I left her this afternoon, the pains had gone from arms and face. Yes.

And Meynert thinks that he alone can make a scientist of me.

Someone at the door.

Marthi.

It's the Baroness.

Her manservant.

She's suffered an acute relapse, pains in her side.

A new symptom?

My frock coat?