The Happiest
Years of
Arthur`s life
_________________________
Justbecause the terrible
activity of the genital system
still slumbers, while that of
the brain already has its full
briskness, childhood is the
time of innocence and
happiness, the paradise of
life, the lost Eden, on which
we look back longingly through
the whole remaining course of
our life.
_________________________
When Arthur turned nine, his father decided the time had come to take over the direction
of his son`s education. His first step was to deposit him for two years in Le Havre at the
home of a business partner, Gregories de Blesimaire. There, Arthur was to learn French,
social graces, and, as Heinrich put it, «become read in the books of the world.»
Expelled from home, separated from his parents at the age of nine? How many
children have regarded such exile as a catastrophic life event? Yet, later in life, Arthur
described these two years as «by far the happiest part of his childhood.»
Something important happened in Le Havre: perhaps for the only time in his life
Arthur felt nurtured and enjoyed life. For many years afterward he cherished the memory
of the convivial Blesimaires, with whom he found something resembling parental love.
His letters to his parents were so full of praise for them that his mother felt compelled to
remind him of his father`s virtues and largesse. «Remember how your father permits you
to buy that ivory flute for one louis–d`or.»
Another important event took place during his sojourn in Le Havre. Arthur found a
friend—one of the very few of his entire life. Anthime, the Blesimaire son, was the same
age as Arthur. The two boys became close in Le Havre and exchanged a few letters after
Arthur returned to Hamburg.
Years later as young men of twenty they met once again and on a few occasions
went out together searching for amorous adventures. Then their paths and their interests
diverged. Anthime became a businessman and disappeared from Arthur`s life until thirty
years later when they had a brief correspondence in which Arthur sought some financial
advice. When Anthime responded with an offer to manage his portfolio for a fee, Arthur
abruptly ended the correspondence. By that time he suspected everyone and trusted no
one. He put Anthime`s letter aside after jotting on the back of the envelope a cynical
aphorism from Gracian (a Spanish philosopher much admired by his father): «Make one`s
entry into another`s affair in order to leave with one`s own.»
Arthur and Anthime had one final meeting ten years later—an awkward encounter
during which they found little to say to one another. Arthur described his old friend as
«an unbearable old man» and wrote in his journal that the «feeling of two friends meeting
after a generation of absence will be one of great disappointment with the whole of life.»
Another incident marked Arthur`s stay in Le Havre: he was introduced to death. A
childhood playmate in Hamburg, Gottfried Janish, died while Arthur was living in Le
Havre. Though Arthur seemed undemonstrative and said that he never again thought of
Gottfried, it is apparent that he never truly forgot his dead playmate, nor the shock of his
first acquaintance with mortality, because thirty years later he described a dream in his
journal: «I found myself in a country unknown to me, a group of men stood on a field,
and among them a slim, tall, adult man who, I do not know how, had been made known
to me as Gottfried Janish, and he welcomed me.»
Arthur had little difficulty interpreting the dream. At that time he was living in
Berlin in the midst of a cholera epidemic. The dream image of a reunion with Gottfried
could only mean one thing: a warning of approaching death. Consequently, Arthur
decided to escape death by immediately leaving Berlin. He chose to move to Frankfurt,
where he was to live the last thirty years of his life, largely because he thought it to be
cholera–proof.
11
Philip`s First
Meeting
_________________________
Thegreatest wisdom is to make
the enjoyment of the present
the supreme object of life
because that is the only
reality, all else being the
play of thought. But we could
just as well call it our
greatest folly because that
which exists only a moment and
vanishes as a dream can never
be worth a serious effort.
_________________________
Philip arrived fifteen minutes early for his first group therapy meeting wearing the same
clothes as in his two previous encounters with Julius: the wrinkled, faded checkered shirt,
khaki pants, and corduroy jacket. Marveling at Philip`s consistent indifference to clothes,
office furnishings, his student audience, or, seemingly, anyone with whom he interacted,
Julius once again began to question his decision to invite Philip into the group. Was it
sound professional judgment, or was his chutzpah raising its ugly head again?
Chutzpah: raw nervy brashness.Chutzpah: best defined by the renowned story of
the boy who murdered his parents and then pleaded for mercy from the court on the
grounds that he was an orphan.Chutzpah often entered Julius`s mind when he reflected
upon his approach to life. Perhaps he had been imbued with chutzpah from the start, but
he first consciously embraced it in the autumn of his fifteenth year when his family
relocated from the Bronx to Washington, D.C. His father, who had had a financial
setback, moved the family into a small row house on Farragut Street in northwest
Washington. The nature of his father`s financial difficulties was off limits to any inquiry,
but Julius was convinced that it had something to do with Aqueduct racetrack and She`s
All That, a horse he owned with Vic Vicello, one of his poker cronies. Vic was an elusive
figure who wore a pink handkerchief in his yellow sports jacket and took care never to
enter their home if his mother was present.
His father`s new job was managing a liquor store owned by a cousin felled at forty–five by a coronary, that
