The Manticore Page 2

  "Whoever put the stone in his mouth."

  "Oh, come, Mr. Staunton, nobody could put that stone in a man's mouth against his will without breaking his teeth and creating great evidence of violence. I have tried it. Have you? No, I thought you hadn't. Your father must have put it there himself."

  "Why?"

  "Perhaps somebody told him to do it. Somebody he could not or did not wish to disobey."

  "Ridiculous. Nobody could make Father do anything he didn't want to do."

  "Perhaps he wanted to do this. Perhaps he wanted to die. People do, you know."

  "He loved life. He was the most vital person I have ever known."

  "Even after your stepmother had murdered him psychologically?"

  I was losing ground. This was humiliating. I am a fine cross-examiner and yet here I was, caught off balance time and again by this woman doctor. Well, the remedy lay in my own hands.

  "I don't think this line of discussion profitable, or likely to lead to anything that could help me," I said. "If you will be good enough to tell me your fee for the consultation, we shall close it now."

  "As you wish," said Dr. von Haller. "But I should tell you that many people do not like the first consultation and want to run away. But they come back. You are a man of more than ordinary intelligence. Wouldn't it simplify things if you skipped the preliminary flight and continued? I am sure you are much too reasonable to have expected this kind of treatment to be painless. It is always difficult in the beginning for everyone, and especially people of your general type."

  "So you have typed me already?"

  "I beg your pardon; it would be impertinent to pretend anything of the kind. I meant only that intelligent people of wealth, who are used to having their own way, are often hostile and prickly at the beginning of analytical treatment."

  "So you suggest that I bite the bullet and go on."

  "Go on, certainly. But let us have no bullet-biting. I think you have bitten too many bullets recently. Suppose we proceed a little more gently."

  "Do you consider it gentle to imply that my father killed himself when I tell you he was murdered?"

  "I was telling you only what was most discreetly implied in the news report. I am sure you have heard the implication before. And I know how unwelcome such an implication usually is. But let us change our ground. Do you dream much?"

  "Ah, so we have reached dreams already? No, I don't dream much. Or perhaps I should say that I don't pay much attention to the dreams I have."

  "Have you had any dreams lately? Since you decided to come to Zurich? Since you arrived?"

  Should I tell her? Well, this was costing me money. I might as well have the full show, whatever it might be.

  "Yes. I had a dream last night."

  "So?"

  "Quite a vivid dream, for me. Usually my dreams are just scraps – fragmentary things that don't linger. This was of quite a different order."

  "Was it in colour?"

  "Yes. As a matter of fact, it was full of colour."

  "And what was the general tone of the dream? I mean, did you enjoy it? Was it pleasant?"

  "Pleasant. Yes, I would say it was pleasant."

  "Tell me what you dreamed."

  "I was in a building that was familiar, though it was nowhere known to me. But it was somehow associated with me, and I was somebody of importance there. Perhaps I should say I was surrounded by a building, because it was like a college – like some of the colleges at Oxford – and I was hurrying through the quadrangle because I was leaving by the back gate. As I went under the arch of the gate two men on duty there – porters, or policemen, functionaries and guardians of some kind – saluted me and smiled as if they knew me, and I waved to them. Then I was in a street. Not a Canadian street. Much more like a street in some pretty town in England or in Europe; you know, with trees on either side and very pleasant buildings like houses, though there seemed to be one or two shops, and a bus with people on it passed by me. But I was hurrying because I was going somewhere, and I turned quickly to the left and walked out into the country. I was on a road, with the town behind me, and I seemed to be walking beside a field in which I could see excavations going on, and I knew that some ruins were being turned up. I went through the field to the little makeshift hut that was the centre of the archaeological work – because I knew that was what it was – and went in the door. The hut was very different inside from what I had expected, because as I said it looked like a temporary shelter for tools and plans and things of that kind, but inside it was Gothic; the ceiling was low, but beautifully groined in stone, and the whole affair was a stone structure. There were a couple of young men in there, commonplace-looking fellows in their twenties, I would say, who were talking at the top of what I knew was a circular staircase that led down into the earth. I wanted to go down, and I asked these fellows to let me pass, but they wouldn't listen, and though they didn't speak to me and kept on talking to one another, I could tell that they thought I was simply a nosey intruder, and had no right to go down, and probably didn't want to go down in any serious way. So I left the hut, and walked to the road, and turned back towards the town, when I met a woman. She was a strange person, like a gypsy, but not a dressed-up showy gypsy; she wore old-fashioned, ragged clothes that seemed to have been faded by sun and rain, and she had on a wide-brimmed, battered black velvet hat with some gaudy feathers in it. She seemed to have something important to say to me, and kept pestering me, but I couldn't understand anything she said. She spoke in a foreign language; Romany, I presumed. She wasn't begging, but she wanted something, all the same. I thought, 'Well, well; every country gets the foreigners it deserves' – which is a stupid remark, when you analyse it. But I had a sense that time was running short, so I hurried back to town, turned sharp to the right, this time, and almost ran into the college gate. One of the guardians called to me, 'You can just make it, sir. You won't be fined this time.' And next thing I knew I was sitting at the head of a table in my barrister's robes, presiding over a meeting. And that was it."

  "A very good dream. Perhaps you are a better dreamer than you think."

  "Are you going to tell me that it means something?"

  "All dreams mean something."

  "For Joseph and Pharaoh, or Pilate's wife, perhaps. You will have to work very hard to convince me that they mean anything here and now."

  "I am sure I shall have to work hard. But just for the moment, tell me without thinking too carefully about it if you recognized any of the people in your dream."

  "Nobody."

  "Do you think they might be people you have not yet seen? Or had not seen yesterday?"

  "Doctor von Haller, you are the only person I have seen whom I did not know yesterday."

  "I thought that might be so. Could I have been anybody in your dream?"

  "You are going too fast for me. Are you suggesting that I could have dreamed of you before I knew you?"

  "That would certainly seem absurd, wouldn't it? Still – I asked if I could have been anybody in your dream?"

  "There was nobody in the dream who could possibly have been you. Unless you are hinting that you were the incomprehensible gypsy. And you won't get me to swallow that."

  "I am sure nobody could get a very able lawyer like you to swallow anything that was ridiculous, Mr. Staunton. But it is odd, don't you think, that you should dream of meeting a female figure of a sort quite outside your experience, who was trying to tell you something important that you couldn't understand, and didn't want to understand, because you were so eager to get back to your enclosed, pleasant surroundings, and your barrister's robes, and presiding over something?"

  "Doctor von Haller, I have no wish to be rude, but I think you are spinning an ingenious interpretation out of nothing. You must know that until I came here today I had no idea that J. von Haller was a woman. So even if I had dreamed of coming to an analyst in this very fanciful way, I couldn't have got that fact right, could I?"

  "It is not a
fact, except insofar as all coincidences are facts. You met a woman in your Dream, and I am a woman. But not necessarily that woman. I assure you it is nothing uncommon for a new patient to have an important and revealing dream before treatment begins – before he has met his doctor. We always ask, just in case. But an anticipatory dream containing an unknown fact is a rarity. Still, we need not pursue it now. There will be time for that later."

  "Will there be any later? If I understand the dream, I cannot make head or tail of the gypsy woman with the incomprehensible conversation, and go back to my familiar world. What do you deduce from that?"

  "Dreams do not foretell the future. They reveal states of mind in which the future may be implicit. Your state of mind at present is very much that of a man who wants no conversation with incomprehensible women. But your state of mind may change. Don't you think so?"

  "I really don't know. Frankly, it seems to me that this meeting has been a dogfight, a grappling for advantage. Would the treatment go on like this?"

  "For a time, perhaps. But it could not achieve anything on that level. Now – our hour is nearly over, so I must cut some corners and speak frankly. If I am to help you, you will have to speak to me from your best self, honestly and with trust; if you continue to speak always from your inferior, suspicious self, trying to catch me out in some charlatanism, I shall not be able to do anything for you, and in a few sessions you will break off your treatment. Perhaps that is what you want to do now. We have one minute, Mr. Staunton. Shall I see you at our next appointment, or not? Please do not think I shall be offended if you decide not to continue, for there are many patients who wish to see me, and if you knew them they would assure you that I am no charlatan, but a serious experienced doctor. Which is it to be?"

  I have always hated being put on the spot. I was very angry. But as I reached for my hat, I saw that my hand was shaking, and she saw it, too. Something had to be done about that tremor.

  "I shall come at the appointed time," I said.

  "Good. Five minutes before your hour, if you please. I keep a very close schedule."

  And there I was, out in the street, furious with myself, and Dr. von Haller. But in a quiet corner of my mind I was not displeased that I should be seeing her again.

  4

  Two days passed before my next appointment, during which I changed my mind several times, but when the hour came, I was there. I had chewed over everything that had been said and had thought of a number of good things that I would have said myself if I had thought of them at the proper time. The fact that the doctor was a woman had put me out more than I cared to admit. I have my own reasons for not liking to be instructed by a woman, and by no means all of them are associated with that intolerable old afreet Netty Quelch, who has ridden me with whip and spur for as long as I can remember. Nor did I like the dream-interpretation game, which contradicted every rule of evidence known to me; the discovery of truth is one of the principal functions of the law, to which I have given the best that is in me; is truth to be found in the vapours of dreams? Nor had I liked the doctor's brusque manner of telling me to make up my mind, not to waste her time, and to be punctual. I had been made to feel like a stupid witness, which is as ridiculous an estimate of my character as anybody could contrive. But I would not retreat before Dr. Johanna von Haller without at least one return engagement, and perhaps more than that.

  A directory had told me her name was Johanna. Beyond that, and that she was a Prof. Dr. med. und spezialarzt fur Psychiatrie, I could find out nothing about her.

  Ah well, there was the tremor of my hand. No sense in making a lot of that. Nerves, and no wonder. But was it not because of my nerves I had come to Zurich?

  This time we did not meet in the sitting-room but in Dr. von Haller's study, which was rather dark and filled with books, and a few pieces of modern statuary that looked pretty good, though I could not examine them closely. Also, there was a piece of old stained glass suspended in the window, which was fine in itself, but displeased me because it seemed affected. Prominent on the desk was a signed photograph of Dr. Jung himself. Dr. von Haller did not sit behind the desk, but in a chair near my own; I knew this trick, which is supposed to inspire confidence because it sets aside the natural barrier – the desk of the professional person. I had my eye on the doctor this time, and did not mean to let her get away with anything.

  She was all smiles.

  "No dogfight this time, I hope, Mr. Staunton?"

  "I hope not. But it is entirely up to you."

  "Entirely? Very well. Before we go further, the report has come from the clinic. You seem to be in depleted general health and a little – nervous, shall we say? What used to be called neurasthenic. And some neuritic pain. Rather underweight. Occasional marked tremor of the hands."

  "Recently, yes. I have been under great stress."

  "Never before?"

  "Now and then, when my professional work was heavy."

  "How much have you had to drink this morning?"

  "A good sharp snort for breakfast, and another before coming here."

  "Is that usual?"

  "It is what I usually take on a day when I am to appear in court."

  "Do you regard this as appearing in court?"

  "Certainly not. But as I have already told you several times, I have been under heavy stress, and that is my way of coping with stress. Doubtless you think it a bad way. I think otherwise."

  "I am sure you know all the objections to excessive use of alcohol?"

  "I could give you an excellent temperance lecture right now. Indeed, I am a firm believer in temperance for the kind of people who benefit from temperance. I am not one of them. Temperance is a middle-class virtue, and it is not my fate. On the contrary, I am rich and in our time wealth takes a man out of the middle class, unless he made all the money himself. I am the third generation of money in my family. To be rich is to be a special kind of person. Are you rich?"

  "By no means."

  "Quick to deny it, I observe. Yet you seem to live in a good professional style, which would be riches to most people in the world. Well – I am rich, though not so rich as people imagine. If you are rich you have to discover your own truths and make a great many of your own rules. The middle-class ethic will not serve you, and if you devote yourself to it, it will trip you up and make a fool of you."

  "What do you mean by rich?"

  "I mean good hard coin. Doctor. I don't mean the riches of the mind or the wealth of the spirit, or any of that pompous crap. I mean money. Specifically, I count a man rich if he has an annual income of over a hundred thousand dollars before taxes. If he has that he has plenty of other evidences of wealth, as well. I have considerably more than a hundred thousand a year, and I make much of it by being at the top of my profession, which is the law. I am what used to be called 'an eminent advocate.' And if being rich and being an eminent advocate also requires a drink before breakfast, I am prepared to pay the price. But to assure you that I am not wholly unmindful of my grandparents, who hated liquor as the prime work of the Devil, I always have my first Drink of the day with a raw egg in it. That is my breakfast."

  "How much in a day?"

  "Call it a bottle, more or less. More at present, because as I keep telling you, I have been under stress."

  "What made you think you needed an analyst, instead of a cure for alcoholics?"

  "Because I do not think of myself as an alcoholic. To be an alcoholic is a middle-class predicament. My reputation in the country where I live is such that I would cut an absurd figure in Alcoholics Anonymous; if a couple of the brethren came to minister to me, they would be afraid of me; anyhow I don't go on the rampage or pass out or make a notable jackass of myself – I just drink a good deal and talk rather frankly. If I were to go out with another A.A. to cope with some fellow who was on the bottle, the sight of me would terrify him; he would think he had done something dreadful in his cups, and that I was his lawyer and the police were coming with the wagon. Nor
would I be any good in group therapy; I took a look at that, once; I am not an intellectual snob, Doctor – at least, that is my story at present – but group therapy is too chummy for me. I lack the confessional spirit; I prefer to encourage it in others, preferably when they are in the witness-box. No, I am not an alcoholic, for alcoholism is not my disease, but my symptom."

  "Then what do you call your disease?"

  "If I knew, I would tell you. Instead, I hope you can tell me."

  "Such a definition might not help us much at present. Let us call it stress following your father's death. Shall we begin talking about that?"

  "Don't we start with childhood? Don't you want to hear about my toilet-training?"

  "I want to hear about your trouble now. Suppose we begin with the moment you heard of your father's death."

  "It was about three o'clock in the morning on November 4 last. I was wakened by my housekeeper, who said the police wanted to talk to me on the telephone. It was an inspector I knew who said I should come to the dock area at once as there had been an accident involving my father's car. He didn't want to say much, and I didn't want to say anything that would arouse the interest of my housekeeper, who was hovering to hear whatever she could, so I called a taxi and went to the docks. Everything there seemed to be in confusion, but in fact it was all as orderly as the situation permitted. There was a diver in a frog-man outfit, who had been down to the car first; the Fire Department had brought a crane mounted on a truck, which was raising the car; there were police cars and a truck with floodlights. I found the inspector, and he said it was my father's car for a certainty and there was a body at the wheel. So far as they could determine, the car had been driven off the end of a pier at a speed of about forty miles an hour; it had carried on some distance after getting into the water. A watchman put in an alarm as soon as he heard the splash, but by the time the police arrived it was difficult to find exactly where it was, and then all the diving, and getting the crane, and putting a chain on the front part of the frame, had taken over two hours, so that they had seen the licence plate only a matter of minutes before I was called; it was a car the police knew well. My father had a low, distinctive licence number.