I am calmer today. I have appeased Basil Zaharoff. I am free to address myself to some personal decisions. The Brothers Ysambard suggest I re-invest part of my capital in the United States. After my talks with Zaharoff, I am convinced they are right. There will be war in Europe. A stake in the New World will be a comforting insurance. Next, they suggest I sell my estates with their valuable bloodstock. The market is high. I can spread the proceeds over a broader base and reduce my risk in the aftermath of war. I am in two minds about this proposal.
The union of Papa’s property in Silbersee with my late husband’s estate in nearby Gamsfeld gave me one of the richest holdings in Land Salzburg. All my roots are there, my sweetest memories of Papa and Lily and the only other man I have ever loved, my husband Johann, Ritter von Gamsfeld.
I know this country like the palm of my hand. I can recite the history of every Schloss and shrine. I speak the dialect. I know all the old songs and dances. I grew up with the sons and daughters of the local farmers. To give up my inheritance would be like cutting off my right hand and yet the matter is, in a sense, already decided because I am no longer welcome in my home place.
The night before I left for Berlin to deliver the horses I had sold to Prince Eulenberg, my studmaster came to see me. His name is Hans Hemeling. He is sixty years old, a Tiroler, a lion of a man with a mane of white hair and a weather-scored face, the very image of his country’s hero, Andreas Hofer. When I came to Silbersee as a child, he was one of the grooms. It was he who sat me on my first pony, dusted me off and dried my tears when I took my first tumble. Together he and I built up some of the best bloodlines in European horse breeding. Now he was my accuser, grim as a hanging judge.
“You take Apollo, our best stallion. You deliberately ride him past the mares. Then, when he gets restive you thrash him and rowel him bloody and gallop him into exhaustion. You break the heart of a beautiful beast! Why for God’s sake? Why? Your own hound comes up to you to be patted. His muzzle stains your riding habit. You beat him half to death; so I have to shoot him and bury him in the rose garden. Then you get up at midnight and chop down the roses! Oh yes! You swore you didn’t do it. Maybe you even believed it. But you were seen! How do you think our people take these things? I’ll tell you, Madame! They think you’re a Hexe, a witch! If you don’t go away from here, they’ll all leave – and I’ll go with them! If you think you can run this place with foreigners, don’t try it! Your stock will be stolen, your farms will be burned. The only reason it hasn’t happened already is because I’ve told them you’re going to Berlin to get medical attention and I’m going to be in charge here. Don’t argue! Just do as I say! At least you know I’m honest. You won’t be out one Pfennig! But if you stay, you’ll lose everything.”
I knew he was right. Ever since those days of madness I had felt the hostility building around me like a wall of fire. I appealed to Hans to explain me to myself. He shrugged wearily.
“I don’t know. I wish I did. You were always a wild one. Your husband – God rest him! – tamed you for a while. After he died you went wild again. I used to think all you needed was another lusty fellow to breed sons out of you. If I’d been younger and single I’d have bid for you myself. But that’s all in the past. Now you act as if you’re bewitched and even the animals sense it. I don’t know whether you need a doctor to look into your head or a priest to drive the devils out of you!”
That was old country talk; but it hit me harder than any rhetoric. We have a church on every hill and a shrine at every crossroads; yet the ancient Germanic gods and demons live on in the black forests and the high crags and the dark tarns. They have always been more real to me than any plaster saints. I know them from fireside yarns and kitchen gossip and old wives’ tales about spells and counter-spells. After my murderous rages I could well believe that a whole legion of evil spirits had taken up residence in my skull-case. So, I didn’t fight Hans any more. I bowed my head like a penitent child and told him I would stay away until the devil was driven out. Then I would come home again.
He was not mollified. He warned me bluntly:
“Don’t hurry! And write to me before you even think of coming back. Our people have long memories!”
The message was plain. They would never forgive or forget what I had done. So, this morning in Paris I telephoned Joachim Ysambard and told him I agreed with his recommendations. He should sell the property, disperse the stock, make due provision for my staff and invest the residue in equities in the United States. Joachim was gratified by my good sense. He asked about my future plans. I asked him whether he would like to take another vacation with me in Amalfi. He laughed and hung up.
For me it is no laughing matter. I am, now, desperately alone. Before I can make any plans, I must be cured of the madness that afflicts me. Hans Hemeling’s words still haunt me. “Find a doctor to look into your head, or a priest to drive out the devils.” It is Giancarlo’s advice in different words. But both, it seems to me, are prescribing a strong dose of magic: the magic of old religion, or the magic of a new breed of faith healers, working without anatomical charts, with no patterns of clinical procedure and certainly no promise of cure.
I remember Papa telling me how, in the ancient world, patients suffering from mental disorders were taken to the sacred island of Cos. There, after ritual preparation, they were submitted to the “experience of the God”, which seems to have been a combination of hypnotic ecstasy and a primitive therapy by shock and terror. It was, Papa explained, a profound piece of curative wisdom. The patient was renewed, reborn. The “experience of the God” was like baptism for the Christian, the datum point from which his new life began. But first he had to pay the price: the long rituals, the magical lustrations, the infusions of soothing drugs. Finally, in the innermost shrine, in darkness and dread, he had to make a leap into mystery.
I have to make the same leap, in the darkness of some confessional or in an analyst’s consulting room. It is not the mystery which terrifies me. It is the simple, brutal risk. How far can I trust the man, priest or physician, who takes my confession? I know all about professional ethics and the Hippocratic oath; but I’ve been in too many common rooms and too many beds to trust my life to the discretion of my peers. Yet if I do not make the confession, the whole exercise is pointless. I shall be like the patient who reports a migraine while all the time there is a cancer growing in her belly.
So Magda, my dear, what are you going to do? You can’t stay locked in a suite at the Crillon all your life. You can’t go trotting round the fashionable houses of assignation, knowing that every escapade will finally be reported to Basil Zaharoff or to the police. You can’t make any plans at all; because, without a radical cure, the future for you is demon country. It is not guilt which haunts you. It is something far more sinister. You have learned that there is no greater excitement than to hold a life in your hands, knowing that you can snuff it out like a candle flame. There is no orgasm more potent than that produced by the act of execution. You have experienced it. You are obsessed to repeat it – and sooner or later, you will.
There now! I’ve said it, written it; the truth about Magda Liliane Kardoss von Gamsfeld. You see, I understand myself. Why do I need the intervention of an analyst? And certainly a priest can’t help because I’m not at all sure I’m repentant. But I am afraid. My hands tremble so that I cannot hold the pen. I cannot be alone. I reach for the telephone and ask the operator to connect me with Doctor Giancarlo di Malvasia.
He was very gentle, very concerned. He took me to lunch at a quiet restaurant on the Ile. He told me that he had got up early and attended a mass to pray for me. I was so touched that I was ready to blurt out the whole sorry tale then and there; but he forestalled me.
“I confess that I was tempted to accept you as a patient, and treat you here in Paris with the assistance perhaps of someone like Flournoy or Janet. Then, while I was at prayer, it became clear to me that this would be a great mistake. We are too vulnerable to each other. We could compound each other’s risks. On the other hand, it would be dangerous for you just to tell me your history in fragments. It must be all or nothing.”
‘That’s precisely my problem, Gianni – all or nothing! You don’t know, you can’t know, how vulnerable I am to blackmail. How many of your colleagues can you really trust to keep their mouths shut about their patients?”
“Some – but I admit, not all!”
“How many priests then?”
“With the priest it is different. The situation is anonymous. You can confess in any church you like, to any priest you choose. The confessional is dark. You are nothing but a disembodied voice. Your narrative is a matter of substance, not of circumstance. You don’t have to write a novel about your theft or adultery. You come to the priest as to Christ. He absolves you from your sins in Christ’s name. By Christ’s merit you are restored to grace.”
“It sounds wonderful! Adultery on Saturday, absolution on Sunday! A real conjuror’s trick. Now you see it, now you don’t!”
I was mocking him and he knew it; but he was shrewd enough to understand and forgive me.
“You’ve got it wrong, my dear. It isn’t innocence which is restored, but the relationship between Creator and creature. The child says, I’m sorry! The Father embraces him back into the family. But we carry the scars of our follies until we die. I think perhaps the real value of analytic psychology may be that it makes us intelligible to ourselves and therefore tolerable to ourselves.”
That at least made sense. I know from bitter experience that my worst excesses were committed when my self-esteem was at its lowest point. I repeated my first question.
“How far can I rely on professional secrecy with Freud or Jung?”
Gianni shrugged resignedly.
“Who’s to say? At Weimar one heard the usual backstairs gossip about both men. Jung apparently has had a number of tricky episodes with women. But they are the leaders in their field. The risk of their indiscretion has to be weighed against the risk of your own death wish. You’re near the breakpoint now. Take my advice. Leave Paris tomorrow and go and talk to Carl Jung. Use another name if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
He took a prescription pad from his pocket, scribbled a few lines on it and thrust it at me. The note was superscribed to Dr. Carl Gustav Jung, Zurich. It read:
Dear Colleague,
You will remember that we met briefly at Weimar. The bearer is a distinguished lady whom I have known for many years. It is on my recommendation that she presents herself to you. For personal reasons she desires to remain anonymous, at least for the moment. I beg you to see her and offer her what counsel you can.
With most respectful salutations,
Giancarlo di Malvasia, M.D
“Take it!” said Gianni earnestly. “In God’s name take it and talk to the man! It may be your last hope.”
It was not his eloquence which persuaded me; not even my own sense of need. It was the note from Basil Zaharoff, which I found waiting for me at the hotel.
My dearest Magda,
I have known many women in my life, but never one who has given me such a generous variety of pleasures. I cannot bear the thought of losing you after a single so beautiful encounter. I leave tonight for London to meet with Lloyd George. As soon as I get back, let us dine and renew our passion together.
I want also to discuss another idea with you. I see now that the arrangement I proposed was much too rigid and burdensome for a spirited woman like yourself. I am sure we can work out another association more flexible, but no less profitable to us both.
I kiss your hand. I kiss your sweet lips. I carry you in my heart on my travels.
Lovingly,
Z.Z.
I tore the letter into shreds and flushed it down the water closet. Then I called the concierge and asked him to send me up a set of railway timetables and a Thomas Cook guide to the hotels of Europe. Afterwards I walked down to the little pharmacy where my signature is known and my prescriptions are accepted. The old pharmacist raised a cautious query when he read my recipe.
“Madame understands this stuff is deadly? I shall put a wax seal on the bottle for safety.”
I thanked him for his solicitude and explained that one of my hounds had an incurable canker and must be destroyed. I loved him so much that I wanted to put him to sleep myself.
“Ah Madame!” The old man was immediately reassured. “You remind me so much of your father. He was a beautiful man – of great heart, great tenderness!”
Oh Papa! If only you knew what kind of woman your daughter turned out to be. But then you did know, didn’t you? You never admitted it; but you knew. And the only comment you ever made sounded like a line from a Schnitzler play: “I hope, my dear, you don’t talk in your sleep!” Be assured, Papa, if this last desperate magic doesn’t work, I shall sleep long and soundly and never breathe another word of my secrets or yours. I am quite calm now. See! I can even smile at myself in the mirror. I remember one of Lily’s history lessons about the execution of the English king, Charles the First, and myself saying how much it must have hurt the poor fellow.
“Don’t you believe it, lassie,” said Lily in her happiest voice. “It looks messy but it’s very quick. Once your head’s off, you don’t have a worry in the world!”