my time discussing it with you.» And what he implied, moreover, was that it was just as well you hadn't read it because you would never by your own efforts be able to unearth the gems which he, Arthur Raymond, had found in it. «When I get through telling you about it,» he seemed to say, «you won't need to read it. I know not only what the author said but what he intended to say and didn't.»
At the time I speak of one of his passions was Sigmund Freud. I don't mean to imply that he knew only Freud. No, he spoke as though he had an acquaintance with the whole swarm, from Krafft-Ebing and Stekel on down. He regarded Freud not only as a thinker but as a poet. Kronski, on the other hand, whose reading was wider and deeper in this field, who had the advantage of clinical experience as well, who was then making a comparative study of psycho-analysis and not merely endeavoring to assimilate one new contribution after the other, irritated Arthur Raymond beyond words by what the latter was pleased to call «his corrosive skepticism».
It was in our cubicle that these discussions, which were not only bitter but interminable, took place. Mona had given up the dance hall and was looking about for work in the theatre. Often we all ate together in the kitchen, attempting towards midnight to disperse and reach our respective quarters. But Arthur Raymond had absolutely no regard for time; when he was interested in a subject he thought nothing of food, sleep or sex. If he went to bed at five in the morning he would get up at eight, if he chose to, or remain in bed for eighteen hours. He left it to Rebecca to rearrange his schedule. Naturally this sort of life created an atmosphere of chaos and postponement. When it got too complicated Arthur Raymond would throw up his hands and walk out on it, sometimes remaining away for days. After these periods of absence strange rumors would come floating back, stories which shed quite a different lustre upon his character. Apparently these excursions were necessary to complete the physical being; the life of a musician couldn't possibly satisfy his robust nature. He had to get away occasionally and mix with his cronies—a most incongruous assortment of characters, incidentally. Some of his escapades were innocent and amusing, others were sordid and ugly. Brought up as a sissy, he had found it imperative to develop the brutal side of his nature. He enjoyed picking a quarrel with some burly, blustering idiot much bigger than himself and cold- bloodedly breaking the man's arm or leg. He had done what so many little fellows always dream of doing— mastered ju-jitsu. He had done it in order to have the pleasure of insulting the menacing giants who make up the world of bullies which the little man dreads. The bigger they were the better Arthur Raymond liked it. He didn't dare to use his fists for fear or injuring his hands, but, rather meanly I thought, he would always pretend to fight and then of course take his adversary by surprise. «I don't admire that in you at all,» I told him once. «If you played me a trick like that I'd break a bottle over your head.» He looked at me in astonishment. He knew that I didn't care to fight or to wrestle. «I wouldn't mind,» I added, «if you resorted to those tricks as a last extremity. But you just want to show off. You're a little bully, and a little bully is even more obnoxious than a big one. Some day you'll tackle the wrong man....»
He laughed. I always interpreted things in a queer way, he said.
«That's why I like you,» he would say. «You're unpredictable. You have no code. Really, Henry» —and he would give a hearty guffaw—«you're essentially treacherous. If we ever make a new world you'll have no place in it. You don't seem to understand what it means to give and take. You're an intellectual hobo.... At times I don't understand you at all. You're always gay and affable, almost sociable, and yet ...well, you have no loyalties. I try to be friends with you... we
It nettled him to observe the easy rapport which existed between Rebecca and myself. He wasn't jealous, nor had he reason to be, but he was envious of my ability to create such a smooth relationship with his wife. He was always telling me of her intellectual attainments', as though that should be the basis of attraction between us, but in a discussion, if Rebecca were present, he behaved towards her as if her opinions were of negligible importance. Mona he listened to with a gravity that was almost comical. He listened, of course, just long enough to hear her out, saying «Yes, yes, to be sure,» but actually giving no heed whatever to what she was saying.
Alone with Rebecca, watching her ironing or cook a meal, I had those sort of talks which one can only have with a woman if she belongs to another man.
Here there was really that spirit of «give and take» which Arthur Raymond complained of missing in me. Rebecca was earthy and not at all intellectual. She had a sensual nature and she loved to be treated as a woman and not as a mind. We talked of the most simple, homely things some 'times, things which the music master found no interest in whatever.
Talk is only a pretext for other, subtler forms of communication. When the latter are inoperative speech becomes dead. If two people are intent upon communicating with one another it doesn't matter in the least how bewildering the talk becomes. People who insist upon clarity and logic often fail in making themselves understood. They are always-searching for a more perfect transmitter, deluded by the supposition that the mind is the only instrument for the exchange of thought. When one really begin» to talk one delivers himself. Words are thrown about recklessly, not counted like pennies. One doesn't care about grammatical or factual errors, contradictions, lies and so on. One talks. If you are talking to some one who knows how to listen he understands perfectly, even though the words make no sense. When this kind of talk gets under way a marriage takes place, no matter whether you are talking to a man or a woman. Men talking with other men have as much need of this sort of marriage as women talking with women have. Married couples seldom enjoy this kind of talk, for reasons which are only too obvious.
Talk, real talk, it seems to me, is one of the most expressive manifestations of man's hunger for unlimited marriage. Sensitive people, people who feel, want to unite in some deeper, subtler, more durable fashion than is permitted by custom and convention. I mean in ways beyond the dreams of social and political Utopists. The brotherhood of man, should it ever come about, is only the kindergarten stage in the drama of human relationships. When man begins to permit himself full expression, when he can express himself without fear of ridicule, ostracism or persecution, the first thing he will do will be to pour out his love. In the story of human love we are still at the first chapter. Even there, even in the realm of the purely personal, it is a pretty shoddy account. Have we more than a dozen heroes and heroines of love to hold up as examples? I doubt if we have even as many great lovers as we have illustrious saints. We have scholars galore, and kings and emperors, and statesmen and military leaders, and artists in profusion, and inventors, discoverers, explorers—but where are the great lovers? After a moment's reflection one is back to Abelard and Heloise, or to Antony and Cleopatra, or the story of the Taj Mahal. So much of it is fictive, expanded and glorified by the poverty-stricken lovers whose prayers are answered only by myth and legend.
There was one observation which I made to myself over and over again as I listened to the interminable wrangles between Arthur Raymond and Kronski. It was to the effect that knowledge divorced from action leads to sterility. Here were two vital young men, each brilliant in his way, and they were arguing passionately night after night about a new approach to the problems of life. An austere individual, leading a sober, modest, disciplined life in the far off city of Vienna, was responsible for these clashes. All over the Occidental world this wrangling was going on. One had to speak passionately about these theories of Sigmund Freud or not at all, so it seemed.
That fact alone is of significance, of far more significance than the theories under discussion. A few thousand people—not hundreds of thousands!— would in the course of the next twenty years submit to the process known as psychoanalysis. The term psychoanalysis would gradually lose its magic and become a by-word. Its therapeutic value would decrease in proportion to the spread of popular understanding. The wisdom underlying Freud's explorations and interpretations would diminish in effectiveness with the increasing desire of the neurotic to become readapted to life.
In the case of my two young friends one of them was later to become dissatisfied with every solution to the problems of the day except that offered by Communism; the other, who would have pronounced me crazy had I then hinted at such an eventuality, was to become my patient. The music master forsook his music in order to right the world and failed. He failed even to make his own life more interesting, more satisfying, more ample. The other abandoned his medical practice and finally put himself into the hands of a quack,
It is now about twenty years since the period I speak of. Only the other day, as I was strolling aimlessly along, I ran into Arthur Raymond on the street. I might have passed him by had he not hailed me. He had altered,
