From the Case-Files

[Soundtrack for this episode:

  Brahms Cello sonata no 1 in E minor ]

(1)  The Adventure of the Botanical Monograph

I was alone with Holmes in his upstairs lodgings, one dreary February late-afternoon, which  in shading into evening, turned but from a wan  to a gloomier grey,  myself flipping fretfully through the evening papers  in a vain search for something to distract my dyspepsia, while Holmes sat deep in a brown study -- a burnt-umber study -- pondering I knew not what, motionless but for his long and bony fingers drumming a slow but steady devil’s tattoo, which (truth to tell) was beginning to play upon my nerves.  It was, then, with something of relief, when we heard a muffled knock at the downstairs door, followed by a brief exchange of words, not individually audible, but among which I could make out the familiar tones of Mrs Hudson, our housekeeper, then booted footsteps leading up the stairs to our rooms.

“Come in, sir!” barked Holmes, before even our visitor could rap or otherwise announce himself.  “You’ll be wanting to rest your legs after your long walk through the London fog, the moreso as you have been limping on your left leg.”

            The door opened, and a gentleman  a bit above the middle age  stood on the threshold, somewhat flushed, whether from his recent exertions (which themselves presented something of a mystery, whose meaning I could not divine, since  to all appearances  he could easily have afforded a hansom and spared himself the effort) or from (perhaps additionally) some discomfort at having thus been so cleanly pinned to the descriptive butterfly-board, sight unseen.  It is indeed disconcerting when Holmes indulges in such show-offy flights of transspection;  one always wonders whether he might likewise be discerning disorders yet deeper than shortness of breath or a game leg.

            “I--“ the stranger stammered.

            “Come in, Mr Landstrasser, come in, come in!” cried Holmes, suddenly all hospitality, waving our visitor over to a comfortable chair by the hearth, and proceeding to the sideboard, from which he retrieved a cut-glass flagon.  “Brandy?” he enquired, with a lift of one brow and holding forth the flask;  then set it down again, adding, “But I forgot;  you don’t drink.”

            For a moment our guest was predictably nonplussed, but then relaxed and almost smiled.  “I’ve heard tell of these diagnostic tricks of yours, Mr Holmes,” he said, good-sportingly enough.  “I won’t inquire how you arrived at your conclusions, which are of course quite accurate.”

            Holmes shrugged off the compliment, if such it was, simply murmuring “Elementary” under his breath, before likewise taking up a chair before the fire, and, steepling his fingers, gave the visitor his full attention.  “Proceed.”

            “I have come to you,” he began directly, manfully taking the bull by the horns, with no coyness or shilly-shally, “about a most delicate subject,  -- But perhaps you have already guessed what it is?”  This last was said as though in teasing jest, a tiny thrust at Holmes’ rather irksome habit of intrusive insights, but possibly also privately wondering whether such might actually somehow be the case.

            “No, no,” said Holmes with a dry and deprecating laugh, “I assure you, I have not the faintest idea.  That you have been lately bereaved of a loved-one, after a long illness,  and that you harbor growing concerns about your unavowed ipsigeneric paraphilia -- which you disguise very well, and do well to disguise, --“  Brought up short by an annoyed expression from our visitor, Holmes let the sentence end unfinished, and went on in a more matter-of-fact voice.  “But these are conditions that you have been living with for some time, and I do not suppose that they supplied the crisis that sent you forth from your house in such haste, without even pausing to collect your gloves--“  A glance at his red chapped hands confirmed the accuracy of this observation “-- and halfway across London to Baker Street, where you have been pacing up and down upon the sidewalk beneath these windows for the past ten minutes, before working up the courage to knock. -- You have my full attention.”

            “Quite correct,” our visitor said, less stunned by this effrontery than one might have expected, though I personally was not surprised:  the secret of his inversion was something he had been carrying about in his bosom for many years, no doubt since the first fumblings at Eton, and as a physician I can report that, though such a habitus may, in a well-regulated gentleman such as our visitor, be imperceptible to a layman, yet the sufferer himself goes through life as self-consciously as though covered richly in pimples.   In any event he went on, still self-composed,  “The matter at hand does not concern my affective life -- which is, at all events” (he added with a touch of asperity) “entirely my own affair.”  He paused, as though in challenge, and Holmes nodded assent.

            “The problem rather involves a … an object;  a simple … item, but one whose presence I cannot explain.  I found it in the drawer of my escritoire.”

            “I see,” said Holmes, nodding.  “Have you perchance brought along this … item, with you?” he added  in a sort of counter-challenge of his own, knowing that the visitor had not.

            Our guest shook his head in something like embarrassment or irritation.  “No I -- forgot.  Clean slipped my mind.”

            “Well, no matter,” said Holmes easily.  “It wouldn’t have fit into your greatcoat pocket in any case, the moreso as the latter is already largely occupied by your service revolver.”

            “Yes, ah -- a souvenir from the Crimea,” returned our guest, coloring slightly.  “That’s where I got this leg.”

~

By now I had set the newssheet aside, and was discreetly taking notes.  If the reader imagines that these narratives  which it has been my privilege to lay before the public over the years, are spun out of mere memory, long after the events, he does me too much credit:  my mnemonic powers are no more than average.  But I conscientiously take copious notes. 

            “It was,” continued our visitor, warming to his own tale, “a sort of monograph or notebook, bound in dark morocco, and imprinted in the lower corner of the cover with a monogram in an alphabet I did not recognize.”

            Holmes motioned for him to proceed.

            “I turned it over in my hands in some perplexity, as though mere handling of the object might induce it to give up its secrets, for I could not imagine how it could have made its way into my drawer, which is always kept locked.  Moreover, the discretion of my manservant, who has been with me for upwards of twenty years, can absolutely be relied upon--“

            Holmes interrupted with an impatient wave;  he was not interested in the details of some puerile Locked Room Mystery.

            “Thus at length, with reluctance, I opened the cover.”

            Holmes visibly tensed.

            “Then what was my bafflement at beholding, on the title page, in large gothic letters,

Das Seelenleben der Pflanzen:

eine intime Monographie.

Vom Herrn Dr. N. Landstrasser verfasst.

            Holmes, seeming startled, dropped his pipe and stared.

            “On each page,” he continued, “was depicted a different herb, etched in the style of Linnaeus, labeled in Latin, and delicately tinted with watercolor.  But what most astonished me was that, pinned to each page, was an actual specimen of the plant itself, dried and pressed -- these must have been assembled by a master botanist over the course of travels around half the globe, not omitting Tibet and Patagonia.”

            Holmes, by now, was growing visibly disturbed.

            “I had been especially admiring the depiction of the Cyclamen cyprium, one of my favorite plants, most artistically depicted, and to the accompanying specimen of which there seemed to cling, though dried and faded, a distant fragrance, as though of Mediterranean meadows. 

            “And yet, turning the page, what was my horror upon finding--“  (here he paused for effect) “-- a portrait of a professionally well-known medicinal specific, lately much investigated in Vienna, but without a specimen attached.  It yields an alkaloid with which I believe you are familiar, Mr Holmes.”

            “Erythroxylum coca,” Holmes muttered;  and his voice was hoarse.

            “Now, the problem, as you will already have gathered, was this:  Whoever could have abstracted and made off with that specimen  -- who so desperate as to force the drawer in a locked room of a house well shut-up for the night, circled by a spike-topped wrought-iron fence, its grounds guarded by savage mastiffs?  -- Naturally I though of … coming to … you.”

           

            At this, Holmes leapt to his feet.

            “R-r-raus !” he shouted, flinging our visitor his cape and cane, his straight arm pointing rigidly towards the door.

            I stared dumbstruck.

            “Weg mit Dir, du Schuft.  So’n Schabernack, ‘ne Schweinerei.   Diese sogenannte ‘Monographie’ hast Du nicht mit Dir gebracht, weil es sowas gar nicht gibt!”  His voice gave way, and he stood mutely trembling with rage, as our guest, no longer limping, left laughing  by the door.

            “Moriarty,”  I thought, suddenly grasping the situation.  “You fiend.”

~ ~ ~

*

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in pikanter amerikanischer Mundart,

und christlich gesinnt,

klicken Sie bitte hier:

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*

(2)  Der Traum vom einsamen Radfahrer

Es war eben nur kurz nach meiner Promovierung zum Doktor der Medizin, als ich noch mich als Forscher im Physiologischen Institut Brückes in Wien tätig machte, da kam es zu mir im Labor  eine mir bisher unbekannte junge Dame -- fast würde ich sagen, ein aufgeblümtes Mädchen -- in herkömmlicher Volkstracht;  diese äußerte sich bescheiden, ob ich vielleicht der Herr Doktor S. Freud wäre.   Ich bejahte knapp -- denn es war mir in jenen Tagen  viel zu viel zu verrichten aufgeladen: “Bin Arzt”, und zuckte die Achseln.

Leicht lächelnd.  “Mm.  Und was für denn einer?”

“Bin Nervenarzt.” 
“Also Nerrrven-arzt,” sagte sie, nachdenkend.

Ich blieb stumm, und starrte sie an.

“Aber… doch so … wenn ich störe …” und machte sich daran, sich zu entfernen.

“Ach nee -- Herein.  ‘tschüldigung.  Bißle überarbeitet, jetzt im Augenblick.  Aber bitte.”  Und ich lud sie ein, sich niederzusetzen.

Das tat sie eben, mit wohlerzogener Niedlichkeit;  worauf mein Herz hörte momentan auf, zu klopfen …

“To what do I owe the honour?” frug ich -- auf englisch;  weiß nicht genau warum.  Und dann erstaunte, als sie mich  leise, und auf leicht provinziel-gefärbter Sprechweise, ansprechend bat, einen Traum von ihr zu deuten.

“Einen Traum?  Aber weshalb stören Sich mich, ein so erbärmlich kleinliches Ding, oder Unding vielmehr!  Das ist alles ja doch nur sovieso Quatsch im Kopf -- vergessen Sie das lieber!”

“J-ja, das wissen Sie bestens, Herr Doktor;  aber wenn Sie doch meine Lubie nichtsdestoweniger  schon gütigst dulden möchten, die kitzelt mich und kitzelt, wie der Ohrwurm im Ohr!”

Ich überlegte eine Weile (aber was ich mir nur da alles überlegte, blieb mir zunächst unklar), und dann willigte ein.

“Aber doch nit hier, im Labor.  Bin beschäftigt und,  nu, was weiß ich -- all die Leute, hinaus, herein … Sie möchten ganz bequem hinauf zu mir in die Bude kommen, diesen Abend, nach Arbeitsschluss.”  Und ich nannte ihr die Strasse.

Das mochte sie gern.  Sie ließ mir ihre Karte, und ging weg.

"Wenn ich komme, 

küsse ich Dich

rot und dick …”

~

Ganz wie verabredet, kam sie zu mir, die lange dunkle Treppe hinauf, bis ins Logis. 

Ich fühlte mich ein bißchen verlegen, als wäre diese Verabredung ein “rendezvous”, ein “Stelldichein”.   Was gar nicht der Fall war.

Sie trat ein, und liess ihre Nerz-Stola langsam von Schultern hinabgleiten.  Dann setzte sie sich.

Ich wollte nicht plaudern, nur die medizinische Angelegenheit verrichten und dann -- Schluss damit.

“Nun ja also.  Zur Sache.”

Ich sah sie an.  Sie erwiderte meinen Blick, aber ohne zu reden.

“Den Traum, bitte, wenn Sie wollen.”

Sie überlegte ein weilchen;  endlich sprach sie.

“Ein Mann.”

“Ein ... Mann,” wiederholte ich, unsicher.

“Auf einem Fahrrad.”

“Auf -- na und?”

“-- Ist alles.”

Da fing ich an, eifrig meine Brille zu polieren, um einen Augenblick zum Nachdenken freizuhaben.  “Nun, meine gnädige -- allerdings --  wenn ich nur fragen darf -- Was ist denn das für ein Satz?  Ihm fehlt das Zeitwort, ohne wessen ein Satz ist lahm!  Subjekt, meinetwegen -- aber Prädikat, mein gnädiges Fräulein, ich bitte beflissen -- Prädikat!”

Ihre Augen sanken ab.  “Noch gibt’s keines.”

Einen Seufzer.  “Nun ja denn, so soll es sein.  Bis nächstes mal.”

~

Merkwürdigerweise, träumte ich jene Nacht, und zwar so:  daß ich selbst auf einem Fahrrad sass, ganz im Lande, und -- sie verfolgte …

~

Es verging dann drei Wochen, ohne dass sie zu mir im Labor käme;  ich meinte, sie hatte mich wahrscheinlich vergessen.  Sie aber vergass ich gar nicht.

Dann plötzlich, einen Sonntagmorgen sogar, da ich ganz allein im Labor mich bei meinen Versuchen beschäftigte, trat sie ein, diesmal ohne mal anzuklopfen.

Sie setzte sich, und ohne weiteres, sagte vorher:  “Ich habe einen Traum gemacht.”

Als wär’ ich nur leicht interessiert.  “Na und?  Was für einer?”

Leicht errötend.  “Denselben.”

“Sie haben jenen Traum also wieder- und weiter-geträumt?”

Und dann, ohne zu antworten -- stand sie plötzlich auf, und floh aus dem Zimmer!

[ Fortzusetzen/To be continued … ]

[Still unwritten:  Note to self.

Have an interlude in which Freud goes about his business in the town, without thinking overtly of his visitor.

He wonders if he will run into her -- in the small world of Vienna -- but he does not.  No:  It is the enclosed hothouse of the laboratory -- and of his own dream-world -- in which alone her existence is privileged.

Dazu -- at this early date in Freud's career:  Hypnosis!]

{ For further particulars,  compare our essay here. }

{{  And for a similarly enigmatic Übertragung-based mystery,

try this  }}

{{{ For additional Victoriana,  this  }}}

.

Übertragung VI

[A continuation of this.]

A male patient may adopt a characteristically obsequious  although subtly sarcastic attitude  toward his older male analyst,  quite inappropriate to the situation.

-- Leo Stone, The Psychoanalytic Situation (1961), p. 75

Die Tagesanknüpfung des Traumes  war einfach genug.

Earlier in the day, having been kidnapped by masked men on motorcycles, Miller had been obliged to effect his escape by overpowering his guard, slithering out of his restraints, and shinnying up out a skylight.  A rooftop chase ensued.

A:  So-o, you have perhaps a little dream for the old doctor?

B (wading right in):  I dreamt of a little bunny-rabbit, who munched a carrot.  Then mean Mr MacGregor came, and the bunny ran away, escaping through a hole in the garden fence.

A:  Hmmm….  Associations.  “Rabbit”?

B: “Hostage”.

A: “Carrot”?

B: “Luger”.

A:  “MacGregor”?

B: “Armed guard.”

A:  “Hole in the fence?”

B: “Skylight”.

A:  Hmmmmmmmmmmm … Die bisherigen Einfälle haben  zur Deutung des Traumes  nicht ausgereicht.  Ich dringe nach Weiterem.
 

*

Für psychologisch tiefgreifende Krimis,

in pikanter amerikanischer Mundart,

und christlich gesinnt,

klicken Sie bitte hier:

http://www.linguasacrapublishing.com/justice.html

*

[Something of a detour follows  here.  But then, analysis is full of detours.].

Übertragung V (Quotational Interlude)

We take a break from our analytic thriller, to offer some background on the term that supplies its title.

In psychoanalysis, the notion of  Übertragung/transference was to enjoy a remarkable floraison, to the point that many passages using the term (examples quoted below) are baffling to any but a connoisseur.  But its origins were literal enough, its use not restricted to the analytic situation. Thus, from the first edition of Die Traumdeutung, Freud anent his youthful crush on Hannibal:

Ich meine, daß ich diese Schwärmerei für den karthagischen General  noch ein Stück weiter in meine Kindheit zurück verfolgen kann, so daß es sich auch hier nur um die Übertragung einer bereits gebildeten Affektrelation  auf einen neuen Träger handeln dürfte.

*

Für psychologisch tiefgreifende Krimis,

in pikanter amerikanischer Mundart,

und christlich gesinnt,

klicken Sie bitte hier:

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*

Later, in the relation between analyst and analysand,  Freud believed he regularly discovered a transference of a special sort:  an unconscious projection, by the analysand, of prototypes -- likewise unconscious, and infantile in origin -- onto the analyst himself.   And the oddity -- no, the paradox -- is that, instead of going straight for the patient’s traumata and complexes and what-all, the transference being a mere distraction,  in time the analyst’s focus came to be primarily on analyzing the actual transference relation -- a sort of meta-illness.  As one orthodox practitioner put it:

It is now all but axiomatic that the transference is the indispensable driving power of the analytic process.

-- Leo Stone, The Psychoanalytic Situation (1961).

~

An early appreciation, from one outside the inner circle:

Such ‘negative’ transference seems to be often an artificial product of analysis, an artefact.  (Not always, for many subjects are inevitably hostile.)  One is tempted, indeed, to ask whether an investigator who encounters ‘negative’ transference  might not be well advised to retire from the world for a time  and to pracise a little auto-psychoanalysis.

-- Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex (?1897-?1910), vol. III, part 2, p. 204

The passage is characteristic of the author’s common sense, leavened by wit.   His observation, though that of an analytic outsider, yet hit the mark, as witness this parallel passage in the classic mainstream-orthodox text (held in reverence by Janet Malcolm, but itself  spectacularly devoid of any hint of humor) of Leo Stone, The Psychoanalytic Situation (1961), p. 54:

Superfluously remote and depriving attitudes [on the part of the analyst] tend to promote an artifact element in the transference neurosis …

Except as regards the spelling of artefact, these authors are here basically in agreement.

~

With time, the term became increasingly numinous and portentous:

The transference  and the transference neurosis … are at the very center of our concept of the analytic process.

-- Leo Stone, The Psychoanalytic Situation (1961).

“The motives of student organizations are nothing if not transferential.”

“The kids getting together against the parents.”

-- Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis:  The Impossible Profession (1981), p. 63

Though he considers the office unimportant, he says he would have felt terrible if he had lost out.  “It took on a transferential meaning for me.”

-- psychoanlyst “Aaron “, quoted in Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis:  The Impossible Profession (1981), p. 106

“It’s a defense maneuver that many analysts adopt, when  all of a sudden  they find themselves caught within the emotional field of the patient’s instincts, when they feel the full impact of the transference   beating down on them like hail.”

-- psychoanlyst “Aaron “, quoted in Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis:  The Impossible Profession (1981), p. 149

As with any precise technical term, transference is subject to a somewhat loose or relaxed use as jargon:

We must guard against rationalizing that aspect of our group countertransference  which idealizes the over-obedient patient.

-- Leo Stone, The Psychoanalytic Situation (1961), p. 66

Since an infantile fixation of a group mind is here most implausible, this can mean no more than déformation professionelle.

[A suivre ici.]

Übertragung (II)

[We continue the exciting saga that was begun here:
http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/12/ubertragung-i.html ]

A:  Also nun gut!  You were about to tell me the part of the dream you left out.

B (motionless; silence)

A:  Such as for instance … why you entered that room in the first place.

B: Ah.

A: Yes:  “Ah.”

B: Well…

A: Yes?

B (blurting it out, after an effort) : It was a room in a safe-house. I was on the run.  For something I’d done.

A (maintains a silence that implies:  Go on.)

B (stiffening a bit; more manfully):  It was something … something I’m not very proud of.

A (a wry smile):  I see that, on the contrary, you are unconsciously very proud of it indeed.  But that can wait. -- And the girl?

B (subdued):  She was my controller, in a former life.  And now … now I was hers.

(Silence reigns for a while on both sides;  each seems to be consulting his thoughts.)

A (softly, tentatively -- but expectantly):  And … the Lugar?

B (a decided silence this time;  he crosses his arms over his chest.)

A (sighs):  I detect some resistance.  Very well -- we try the Free Association test.  I say the Probewort, and you tell me, without hesitating, the very first word that pops into your head.  Holding back nothing.

B (nods)

A: White.

B:  Army.

A: Red.

B:  Orchestra.

A: …  Black …

B (this time he does hesitate a bit, as if before the wealth of surging associations; then stammers):  Hundreds … Redistribution … Ops …

A (nodding, narrows his eyes):  Ah… haa….  Now perhaps we take it up a notch.

Urysohn.

B (loudly, distinctly, biting off each syllable): Tychonoff !

A (pauses, pondering.  Then, softly):  Riiee…mann …..

B (rises abruptly from the couch, and, without turning round, strides to the hatstand to collect his cloak):  This session is over.

[No words are spoken, as garments are donned and writing-materials are put away.  Then:]

A:  Dennoch scheint mir der Traum  weiterer Aufklärung bedürftig. -- Also, bis bald.

*

Für psychologisch tiefgreifende Krimis,

in pikanter amerikanischer Mundart,

und christlich gesinnt,

klicken Sie bitte hier:

http://www.linguasacrapublishing.com/justice.html

*

[Continued here.]

Übertragung (I)

[Note:   Tonight  we begin a saga, surreptitiously extracted from the Freud Archives, and "transcribed in Hollywood":   a tale, 'twill make thine each particular hair to stand on end,
like quills .... upon the fretful bandersnatch...]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Übertragung  (‘Transference’)

 

… the “transference neurosis”, described by Freud as an artificial illness that the analysis itself  brings into being…

-- Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis:  The Impossible Profession (1981)

… the contrapuntal nature of the psychoanalytic relationship …

-- Leo Stone, The Psychoanalytic Situation (1961), p. 33

Dramatis personae

A:  the therapist, Dr. S. Freud, of Vienna.

B: the analysand, “Mister Miller” -- an extremely neurotic Englishman of uncertain occupation.

[Scene:  The Berggasse, Vienna.  A quiet consulting-room.  The lighting is low;  the patient is recumbent, upon the classic couch.]

A:  So-o … You have perhaps a dream for me today?

B: [silence]

A: …. ?   ….. Mm?

B: [stubborn silence]

A:  Come come -- even a little one.

B: [abruptly shakes his head.]

A [sighing, and picking up a magazine]:  Well then, we shall simply bide our time  until you remember.

[Five, ten, fifteen minutes pass.  Finally the analysand -- irked, perhaps, by the riffling of pages -- can stand it no longer.]

B:  I … dreamt … -- There is a room.

A (maintains his silence;  the riffling of pages rather insolently continues)

B And a man …

…

A (lowers the magazine, contemplates this, then ventures):  And … I  … take it, that, this… “man”…. as you call him,  is … in ... what you are pleased to call the “room” …

B [tightens his lips, gives a curt nod, in bitter signal of assent]

A [relaxing]: Ah-h-hh…. “Now we can begin” …

[minutes pass]

A:  So … What associations occur to you, about this … ‘room’ …

B [getting interested, despite himself]:  It’s a … hotel room.

A:  Ah!  And the name of the hotel?

B:  “The Continental”.  In … Prague.

[Now it is A’s turn  to be taken aback.

Finally he stammers--]   Go

on ….

B:  It is a bare room,

a spare room,

on an upper storey.

From outside the curtained windows,

confusion and alarums.

The Great War   was at a tipping-point;

it was uncertain, who would win …

A (nodding judiciously):  Just … so.  -- And the “man” ??

B (frowning;  delays, then proceeds):  It was … a woman, actually.

Only  dressed as a man …

A: ??? !!!

B:  No rather -- She was dressed (I imagine) as a woman, beneath it all;  but she wore a man’s old macintosh, and a battered fedora.   -- Plus the gun -- no ladies’ toy, but a big   black   Luger …

A (says nothing, but nods as though bidding the patient to proceed -- a gesture lost, however, on the analysand, since, in orthodox Freudian fashion,  the analyst is sitting -- crouching -- safely behind, and out of sight, of the patient’s couch …)

B (dreamily):  Exactly the way she was the last time I’d seen her … that night in Singapore …

A (cleans his glasses, checks his timepiece; then rises, a sign that today’s session is at an end.)

“Nun ja -- Ich muß mich mit der Deutung dieses Traumes noch weiter beschäftigen.  Also bis nächstes Mal…”

~

Was für Krimi liest wohl Dr. Sigmund Freud?

Schauen Sie mal!

Sigmund Freud und Sherlock Holmes

~

[Continued here.]