Frank Tallis - Vienna Secrets

Liebermann crossed the open concourse, glancing in passing at the central fountain with its vigilant circle of bronze nymphs, and entered a shadowy street on the other side. Soon he was standing outside his destination, a little flushed but feeling better for having physically exerted himself. He opened the door and entered.

Inside, sturdy columns with ornate capitals rose up to a high vaulted ceiling. The pianist was playing a Brahms waltz, and the cavernous space was resonant with loud conversation and laughter. In the far corner a gaggle of art students (one still wearing his paint-spattered smock) was watching a billiard game.

Liebermann searched for somewhere to sit. He ventured farther into the coffeehouse, passing an inebriated cavalryman and squeezing between tables. Amid the general hubbub, he caught snatches of political debate, jokes, and immoderate language. After completing an unsuccessful circuit, he stopped and surveyed his surroundings. It was hopeless: the place was full. He would have to go somewhere else. But just as he was about to depart, he noticed a man, some distance away, rising from his chair and waving. It was Gabriel Kusevitsky, the young doctor whom he had met at his father’s lodge.

“Excuse me, sir.” A waiter with a full tray was trying to pass.

“I’m sorry,” said Liebermann, veering off in the direction of Kusevitsky’s table.

Kusevitsky stood to greet him.

“Liebermann, how good to see you. Would you like to join us?” He gestured toward his companions. The first was a youth whose physical features duplicated Kusevitsky’s. The second needed no introduction. “My brother, Asher Kusevitsky, and Arthur Schnitzler.” Liebermann bowed. “Herr Dr. Max Liebermann.” Kusevitsky added, “Another devotee of Professor Freud.”

Schnitzler was wearing a large pale hat with a wide brim, tilted at a perilously steep angle. His velvet jacket and embroidered shirt were rather dandified, as was his somewhat overwhelming and sweet-smelling cologne. His substantial mustache was combed out sideways, and his triangular beard was trimmed to a sharp point.

Liebermann sat down.

Schnitzler was in the middle of a story and evidently intended to finish it. “I made a few timid efforts to gain recognition for The Adventure of His Life. First I sent it to Siegwart Friedmann, who ignored it, then to Tewele, who as a friend of the family at least felt he had to say a few pleasant words about it. Director Lautenburg had already had a copy of the script sent to him from Vienna by Eirich. I had heard nothing from him, but when Lothar arrived, a meeting was arranged with Lautenburg at a restaurant-Krziwanek-and Lothar soon found a way to shift the conversation tactfully to my comedy. At first Lautenburg didn’t seem to remember it. I reminded him of a few scenes. Suddenly he knew what we were talking about, gave me a polite, pitying look, shook his head, and said just one word: Terrible.”

Schnitzler grinned.

“What a fool!” said Asher.

“That’s not all,” Schnitzler continued. “A few minutes later, as if to console me, he added, ‘Your first effort, I presume?’ Because I couldn’t even offer him this as an excuse, he apparently gave me up as a hopeless case, and we talked of other things.”

“Well,” said Asher, “I’ll bear that in mind.” He tapped the side of his nose, an odd gesture that suggested some kind of private understanding had been reached.

After a short pause, the conversation became more inclusive, turning to recent theatrical productions, and Liebermann was invited to give his opinion; however, he was painfully aware that he had not been to the theatre very much of late and had little of consequence to say.

Liebermann recalled reading something about Schnitzler only the previous week in the Wiener Tagblatt. His latest publication, the text of a dramatic work called Riegen, had been dubbed pornography. Liebermann had not read Riegen, but he had seen one of Schnitzler’s plays, Paracelsus, at the Court Theatre, and had once come across an interesting academic paper by Schnitzler (who was also a doctor) on the treatment of functional aphonia using hypnotic suggestion.

As the conversation progressed, Liebermann gleaned that Asher Kusevitsky was a burgeoning playwright and was in some way connected with Schnitzler’s circle. The famous author was nodding vigorously; however, Liebermann noticed that he was somewhat distracted. He kept looking over at a pretty young woman seated at an adjacent table. She was smoking a thin black cigarette and sipping red wine. Asher Kusevitsky, in the throes of an impassioned speech about the hammy excesses of an actor called Obermoser, was oblivious to his companion’s lapses of concentration.

A waiter arrived, and Liebermann ordered a large, very strong schwarzer.

When the conversation started up again, an invisible curtain seemed to have been drawn across the table, separating Gabriel Kusevitsky and Liebermann on one side from Asher Kusevitsky and Schnitzler on the other. The two literary gentlemen clearly had some business to discuss.

“So,” said Liebermann, addressing Kusevitsky, “how is your research progressing?”

“Very well,” Kusevitsky replied, straightening his stylish purple necktie. He was looking much smarter. Liebermann observed a small pearl in the tie knot. “I have already collected a considerable amount of fascinating material. I am now utterly convinced of Nietzsche’s assertion that in dreams some primeval relic of humanity is at work.”

“Have you reported your preliminary findings to Professor Freud?”

“Of course, and he was delighted with my results.” Kusevitsky smiled, though the contraction and release of facial muscles was so brief that it was more like a twitch. “Through such research, Professor Freud believes that psychoanalysis may claim an elevated position among the historical sciences, superseding even archaeology. The mental antiquities that lie buried in the deepest stratum of the mind will be aeons older than anything excavated in Egypt.”

The waiter returned with Liebermann’s coffee.

A fragment of Asher’s conversation intruded: “… A secondary purpose of The Dybbuk… to raise Jewish consciousness.” The sentence was drowned by applause as the pianist began a sentimental Landler. It obviously had special significance to some of the regulars.

Kusevitsky described several dreams in which he identified the presence of universal symbols: kings, queens, sages and devils, towers, skeletons, and stars. All of them were supposed to have a specific meaning, each being an inherited residue resulting from generations of repeated human experience.

Liebermann remained unconvinced. He could accept that dreams contained symbols. That much was incontrovertible. But the idea that dreams could be understood in terms of fixed representations and that these representations were invariant from generation to generation seemed faintly preposterous. Adopting such a view made psychoanalysis seem indistinguishable from fortune-telling. A doctor became no different from the charlatan mystics on the Prater, reading off the meaning of dreams as if they were nothing more than the psychological equivalent of a pack of tarot cards.

“I wonder,” said Liebermann, his eyes sparkling with mischief, “what you will make of this, then, Kusevitsky-a dream reported to me by one of my patients.” He paused in order to recollect his own dream of Miss Lydgate in the tropical garden. “Let us, for reasons of confidentiality, call my patient Herr D, a professional gentleman in his twenties suffering from…” Again Liebermann paused before adding, “Obsessional indecision and doubting.”

Kusevitsky gave his tacit consent.

“The dream,” Liebermann continued, “was as follows: Herr D found himself in a vast garden of exotic flowers and high trees. A woman, with whom he had become acquainted through his work and whom I shall call Fraulein Lisa, appeared beside him, naked. She then spoke to him, saying something like, ‘I won’t lie below you. I am your equal.’ Consequently they began to argue. During the course of this argument, Fraulein Lisa pronounced the name of Herr D’s father, who then appeared, sitting on a throne.”