'Ah, yes, that's right, very good. Well, we must think more about this. But for now, my second question: tell me, Younger, why did she turn on you?'
'You mean, why did she throw her cup and saucer at me?'
'Yes,' said Freud.
'And hit you with boiling teapot,' added Ferenczi.
I had no answer.
'Ferenczi, can you enlighten our friend?'
'I am also in the dark,' Ferenczi replied. 'She is in love with him. That much is obvious.'
Freud addressed me. 'Think again. What did you say to her just before she became violent with you?'
'I had just finished the touching of her forehead,' I said, 'which failed. I sat down. I asked her to complete an analogy she had begun earlier. She was comparing the whiteness of Mrs Banwell's back to something else, but she broke off. I asked her to complete the thought.'
'Why?' asked Freud.
'Because, Dr Freud, you have written that whenever a patient begins a sentence, but interrupts himself and doesn't finish, a repression is at work.'
'Good boy,' said Freud. 'And how did Nora respond?'
'She told me to get out. Without warning. And then she began throwing things at me.'
'Just like that?' asked Freud.
'Yes.'
'So?'
Again I had no reply.
'Did it not occur to you that Nora would be jealous of any interest you showed in Clara Banwell? Particularly in her naked back?'
'Interest in Mrs Banwell?' I repeated. 'I've never met Mrs Banwell.'
'The unconscious does not take such niceties into account,' said Freud. 'Consider the facts. Nora had just described Clara Banwell performing fellatio on her father, which she witnessed at the age of fourteen. That act is of course repugnant to any decent person; it fills us with the utmost disgust. But Nora does not display to you any such disgust, despite implying that she fully understands the nature of the act. She even says she found Mrs Banwell's movements appealing. Now, it is quite impossible that Nora should have witnessed that scene without deep jealousy. A girl has a hard enough time bearing her own mother: she will never allow another woman to arouse her father's passion without bitterly resenting the intruder. Nora, therefore, envied Clara. She wanted to be the one performing fellatio on her father. The wish was repressed; she has nurtured it ever since.'
A moment ago, I had inwardly chastised Ferenczi for expressing revulsion at a 'deviant' sexual act — a revulsion I, for some reason, did not exactly share, despite Freud's remark about what all decent people feel. I had just been telling myself that every lesson taught by psychoanalysis undercut society's disapproval of so-called sexual deviance. Now, however, I found myself awash in a similar feeling. The wish Freud imputed to Miss Acton revolted me. Disgust is so reassuring; it feels like a moral proof. It is hard to let go of any moral sentiment anchored by disgust. We can't do it without setting our entire sense of right and wrong a-tremble, as if we were losing a plank that supported the whole fabric.
'At the same time,' Freud continued, 'Nora formed a plan to seduce Mr Banwell, in order to avenge herself on her father. That is why, only a few weeks later, Nora agreed to join Banwell alone on a rooftop to watch the fireworks. That is why she also walked with him alone by the shore of a romantic lake two years later. Probably she encouraged him with hints of interest all along, as any pretty young girl can easily do. How surprised he must have been when she rejected him — not once, but twice.'
'Which she did because true object of desire was her father,' Ferenczi put in. 'But still, why does she attack Younger?'
'Yes, why, Younger?' asked Freud.
'Because I stand in for her father?'
'Precisely. When you analyze her, you take his place. It is the predictable transferential reaction. As a result, Nora's unconscious desire is now to gratify Younger with her mouth and throat. This fantasy was preoccupying her when Younger approached her to touch her forehead. He told us, you will remember, that at that moment she began to undo her scarf. This gesture represented her invitation to Younger to take advantage of her. Here, I may add, is also the explanation of why the touching of her throat succeeded, whereas the touching of her forehead did not. But Younger rejected this invitation, telling her to retie her scarf. She felt rebuffed.'
'She did look offended,' I put in. 'I didn't know why.'
'Don't forget,' Freud continued, 'she is naturally vain about the injuries she has received. Otherwise she would not wear the scarf at all. So she was already sensitive about how you would react if you saw her neck or back. When you told her to keep her scarf on, you injured her. And when, shortly afterward, you brought up the subject of Clara Banwell's back, it was as if you had said to her, 'It is Clara in whom I am interested, not you. It is Clara's back I want to see, not yours.' Thus you unwittingly recapitulated her father's act of betrayal, provoking in the girl her sudden, otherwise inexplicable fury. Hence her violent attack — followed by a desire to give you her throat and mouth.'
'Irrefutable,' said Ferenczi, shaking his head in admiration.
Entering the drawing room of their house on Gramercy Park, Nora Acton informed her mother she would not sleep in her bedroom that night. Instead she would stay in the small first-floor parlor. From there, she could see the patrolman stationed outside. Otherwise, she said, she would not feel safe.
These were the first words Nora had addressed to either of her parents since leaving the hotel. When they arrived home, she had gone straight to her room. Dr Higginson had been called in, but Nora refused to see him. She also refused to come to dinner, declaring that she was not hungry. This was false; in fact she had not eaten since morning, when Mrs Biggs had prepared breakfast for her.
Mildred Acton, reclining on the drawing-room sofa and pronouncing herself exhausted, told her daughter she was being most unreasonable. With one police officer manning the front door and another the rear, how could there be any danger? In any event, Nora's spending the night in the parlor was out of the question. The neighbors would see her. What would they think? The family must do its best now to act as if there had been no disgrace.
'Mother,' said Nora, 'how can you say I've been disgraced?'
'Why, I said no such thing. Harcourt, did I say any such thing?'
'No, dear,' said Harcourt Acton, standing over a coffee table. He had been perusing five weeks of accumulated mail. 'Of course not.'
'I specifically said we must act as if you hadn't been disgraced,' her mother clarified.
'But I haven't,' said the girl.
'Don't be obtuse, Nora,' counseled her mother.
Nora sighed. 'What is that on your eye, Father?'
'Oh — polo accident,' explained Acton. 'Poked myself with my own stick. Stupid of me. You remember my old detached retina? Same eye. Can't see a deuced thing out of it now. How's that for bad luck?'
No one answered this question.
'Well,' said Acton, 'not compared with yours, Nora, of course, I didn't mean — '
'Don't sit there!' Mrs Acton called out to her husband, who was about to lower himself into an armchair. 'No, not there either. I had the chairs done just before we left.'
'But where am I to sit, dear?' asked Acton.
Nora closed her eyes. She turned to leave.
'Nora,' said her mother. 'What was the name of that college of yours?'
The girl stopped, her every muscle tense. 'Barnard,' she answered.
'Harcourt, we must contact them first thing tomorrow morning.'
'Why must you contact them?' asked Nora.
'To tell them you aren't coming, of course. It's quite impossible now. Dr Higginson says you must rest. I never approved in the first place. A college for young ladies! We never heard of such a thing in my time.'
Nora flushed. 'You can't.'
'I beg your pardon,' said Mrs Acton.
'I am going to be educated.'
