Fatal Lies by Frank Tallis (novels in english txt) 📗

disobeyed his mother and father, he had deceived others, he had shown disrespect to his elders, he had failed to attend Mass. His confession flowed fluently and easily, but his resolve faltered when he attempted to unburden his conscience of the single sin that—in his estimation, at least—would consign him to hell.

“Father…” He hesitated.

“Yes, my son?”

“I… I have… I have…” He could not do it. “I have been to see the whore in Aufkirchen.”

The priest, who had been perfectly still, shifted—as if suddenly interested.

“Ahh… the whore in Aufkirchen, you say?”

“Yes.”

“And what—exactly—was the nature of your sinful act?”

“Father… we had relations.”

“Relations… I see, I see. Did she perform impure acts about your person?”

“She…”

“Come now, my son…”

“We had relations.”

“You penetrated her?”

“I did.”

The priest took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.

“And did she… perform any unseemly acts with her mouth?”

“We kissed.”

“Yes… but did she degrade herself using your person?”

The inquisition went on for some time. When the priest was finally satisfied that he had a complete and thorough understanding of Drexler's transgressions, he offered him counsel with respect to the temptations of the flesh, and warned him that he should not replace one vice with another—especially the vice of self-pollution—which would have grave physical and spiritual consequences. The priest then gave Drexler absolution and a penance of prayer.

Drexler did not do his penance. Instead, he marched straight out of the chapel, across the courtyard, and sat in the cloisters, fuming. It was all such nonsense! The priest had clearly been titillated by Drexler's erotic adventures in Aufkirchen: how could such a pathetic individual mediate between him and God? This was not what he wanted. He wanted to be truly absolved. He wanted to be absolved to the extent that he could sleep peacefully again and be free of his terrible, terrible guilt, the sheer magnitude of which made the rest of life seem an empty, hollow, meaningless charade by comparison.

To atone fully, Drexler realized that he would have to pay a forfeit more costly than a few prayers. Such mumblings were not a penance, and would do nothing to ease his pain.

53

THE LECTURE THEATER was almost empty—in fact, there were only five attendees including Liebermann. Professor Freud pointed to a small semicircle of chairs in front of the tiered auditorium and said: “Please, won't you come nearer, gentlemen.” He smiled, and beckoned—wiggling his clenched fingers as one might to encourage a shy child. The tone of his voice was exceptionally polite, but his penetrating gaze was determined. The audience, which comprised professional men in their middle years, accepted his invitation and made their way down the central aisle.

Liebermann was already sitting in one of the chairs at the front. He had attended many of Freud's Saturday evening lectures and knew that a request for greater proximity would be issued sooner or later. The professor did not like straining his voice and tried to create an intimate and informal atmosphere when addressing small groups.

Whereas other faculty members might have appeared clutching a thick wad of foolscap, dense with inky hieroglyphs, Freud arrived empty-handed. He always preferred to extemporize.

Once, just before Freud had been about to speak, Liebermann had asked him: “What are you going to talk about?” “We shall see,” Freud had replied. “I am sure my unconscious has something planned.”

The professor consulted the auditorium clock, which showed seven o'clock exactly. He coughed into his hand and stood erect, as if startled by the occurrence of an unusually arresting idea.

“Gentlemen,” he began. “One would certainly have supposed that there could be no doubt about what is to be understood as sexual.’ First and foremost, what is sexual is something improper, something one ought not to talk about. I have been told that the pupils of a celebrated psychiatrist once made an attempt to convince their teacher how frequently the symptoms of hysterical patients represent sexual things. For this purpose they took him to the bedside of a female hysteric, whose attacks were an unmistakable imitation of the process of childbirth. But with a shake of his head he remarked, ‘Well, there's nothing sexual about childbirth.’ Quite right. Childbirth need not in every case be something improper.”

Liebermann was the only member of the audience who smiled.

“I see that you take offense at my joking about serious things,” Freud continued. “But it is not altogether a joke—for it is not easy to decide what is covered by the concept sexual.’ “

And so he went on, improvising with extraordinary fluency, exploring a range of subjects relating to human sexuality (many of which he chose to illustrate with clinical examples drawn from his own practice). Liebermann was particularly interested in a case of sexual jealousy.…

When the lecture ended, at a quarter to nine, Freud took some questions from the audience. They were not very searching, but the professor managed to answer them in such a way as to make the questioners appear more perceptive than they actually were. It was a display of good grace rarely encountered in academic circles.

Liebermann lingered as the auditorium emptied. He approached the lecturer's table. The professor shook Liebermann's hand, thanked him for coming, and remarked that he would not be going on to Königstein's house to play taroc, as his good friend had caught a bad head cold. Moreover, as it was his custom to socialize on Saturday nights—and he was nothing if not a creature of habit—he wondered whether Liebermann would be interested in joining him for coffee and a slice of guglhupf at Café Landtmann. The young doctor— always eager to spend time with his mentor—accepted the honor readily.

They made their way to the Ringstrasse while talking somewhat superficially about the attendees. Two of the gentlemen, Freud believed, were general practitioners—but he had no idea as to the identity of the other two. It was truly astonishing, Liebermann reflected, how Freud's public lectures rarely attracted more than half a dozen people. The professor commented, as if responding telepathically to Liebermann's private thoughts, that resistance to psychoanalytic