At four in the morning we are halted at the Swiss frontier for entry and customs formalities. I put on a dressing gown and walk out into the corridor to watch the small bustle of passengers, porters and vendors on the platform. The conductor offers me a cup of coffee in his little cabin, where a young Swiss is inspecting passports. He smiles and gives me a “Grueszi” and asks politely if I am taking a vacation in Switzerland.
I tell him I am going to visit a very distinguished Swiss medical man, Doctor Carl Jung. The name means nothing to him. He is a country boy from Appenzell. He makes a little joke of his ignorance. He tells me in Schweizerdeutsch that he doesn’t know any Jungdoktor but there is a beautiful Jungmädchen he is going to marry when he gets his promotion.
He looks at my rings and asks if I am married. I make my little joke and tell him I’m no longer a Jungmädchen but I am a Junggesellin, a bachelor girl. That same moment he flips open my passport. He will make high rank one day. He does not bat an eyelid as he reads my age in the document.
There is still a three hour journey ahead of us, so I go back to bed and try to interest myself in the life and death drama of Sherlock Holmes and the infamous Moriarty. Vain effort! My own tale of love and violence is much more vivid, and I have to set it in some kind of order before my meeting with Jung.
The first question any doctor asks of any new patient is: “What’s the trouble? What brings you to me?” How shall I answer? “I’ve always liked violent sex games; now I’m going crazy and I’m afraid I’ll kill my next partner.’ Or again, “It starts with incest and builds up to murder. I have a taste for both. So you see, doctor, there’s an area of difficulty.” Perhaps it would be simpler to say, “Let’s spare each other’s blushes, dear colleague. Hand me your copy of Psychopathia Sexualis and I’ll mark the relevant passages.”
Set down in linear script, it reads like bad farce. But today or tomorrow Jung will ask the routine question and I shall have to answer it in words that will not brand me immediately as a criminal, a lunatic or a pathological liar. My best tactic may be to act like the majority of patients: present a long list of non-specific symptoms and let the physician ferret out the real illness for himself. At least that way I’ll have time to size up this psychic wonderworker before I commit myself to an outright confession. Besides, if he is, as Gianni suggests, a notable womaniser, we may have an interesting session: two physicians, each making a diagnosis of the other’s sexual maladies!
By nine in the morning, I am installed in the hotel, bathed, dressed and ready for judgment day – which I would like to have over as soon as possible. I summon the manager. I tell him I wish to remain incognito during my stay: I am to be known under a nom de guerre, “Madame Hirschfeld”. I also desire him, if he will have the kindness, to call Doctor Carl Gustav Jung at his home in Küsnacht and make an appointment for me under the same name. He will identify me only as a guest, recently arrived from Paris and recommended by a distinguished medico in that city, Doctor di Malvasia.
The manager is only too happy to oblige. He understands the idiosyncrasies of the rich – and I have to be rich to afford my present accommodation: a large suite with a view down the lake, which today is slate-grey and oily under a thundery sky. The manager is also discreetly informative on the subject of Herr Doktor Jung. He was, until recently, Clinical Director at the Burgholzli – the huge cantonal clinic for the mentally afflicted, which I will see on my way to Küsnacht. He was also a lecturer at the university, but retired quite recently. He has become a well known, if somewhat controversial, figure in the new psycho-analytic movement.
“But of course (this in deference to my sensibilities), he is a man of high reputation and undoubted talent. Our medical standards in Switzerland are among the highest in the world. If Madame will excuse me, I shall be back shortly.”
It is twenty minutes before he returns. Contact with Doctor Jung has proved rather difficult. He has spoken first with the wife, then with a Fräulein Wolff, who appears to be some kind of special assistant. Finally, after much delay, he has been able to speak with the great man himself. He was quite brusque at first, obviously reluctant to concern himself with a new patient dropping out of the sky. In the end however – the manager gives a little self-righteous shrug – the matter was settled by a discreet hint that Madame was well able to pay for his trouble.
The Herr Doktor will see me at eleven. The manager has taken the liberty of arranging for a chauffeured automobile to take me to Küsnacht, wait and bring me back to the hotel. The place is not far, a fifteen minute drive, no more. I thank him profusely. He is equally profuse in his deprecations. “Anything you need, Madame, anything!” Then he leaves me, with an hour to kill before the moment of final judgment.
I spend the time in a dressing-up game, looking for the costume in which to present myself. The image must be soft, summery, feminine: lace or sprigged muslin, a picture hat, a flowered parasol. Let Doctor Jung discover for himself what a variety of characters is hidden under the finery.
The maquillage must be soft and subtle, no hard lines, no heavy rouge. There! I have to confess that I am pleasantly surprised by what I see in the mirror. There is a touch of youth, a faint souvenir of innocence, which I have not noticed for a long time.
I check the contents of my reticule: a lace handkerchief, perfume, lipstick, a compact, a comb, visiting cards, an envelope stuffed with Swiss francs, so that, whatever happens, Doctor Jung will feel adequately recompensed – and, of course, my passport to oblivion, the small blue phial sealed with red wax. Time to go. Time to say a prayer – if I knew even a small one.
My suite is on the first floor. I walk ceremoniously downstairs. In the lobby, heads turn. Even the stolid Swiss take notice as La Dame Inconnue makes her entrance. A page rushes to open the door for me. The porter salutes and hands me to the chauffeur, who settles me in regal splendour in the back seat of a vast Hispano Suiza. As we move off, I am conscious of a certain irony. Here I am, a murderess, riding in state like a queen, while Marie Antoinette rode to the guillotine in a tumbril. The only problem is that I’ve lost the nerve to enjoy it wholeheartedly.
The house of Doctor Jung is a pleasant but undistinguished dwelling, right on the shore of the lake. It is a tall, square house of two storeys, whose outlines are broken by a circular tower, the base of which forms the entrance and whose topmost floor looks out over the lake on one side and the foothill countryside on the other. The grounds are not overly large. One approaches the house from the road by a long straight path flanked by orchard trees: pears and cherries and apples. There are flower gardens along the borders of the lawn and a kitchen garden by the far fence. As I approach the front door, my eye is caught by an inscription over the archway. It is in Latin. “Vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit. Whether he is called or not, the god will be present.” I seem to remember that a similar phrase in Greek was inscribed over the shrine of the oracle at Delphi.
I ring the bell. After a longish pause the door is opened by a tall, good-looking woman in her late twenties or early thirties. She is pleasant but a trifle flustered. She apologises for having kept me waiting.
“I’ve just sent the children out for a picnic with Nurse; it’s the housekeeper’s day off, so I’m the maid-of-all-work.” She smiles and her whole face lights up. “I’m not very good at it either. Please, do come in. I’m Emma Jung. You must be the new patient. Frau . . . There! It’s gone right out of my head!”
“Frau Hirschfeld. And please! I’m very grateful that the doctor would see me at such short notice.”
She ushers me into a small waiting room off the hall and leaves me, promising that the doctor will be ready in a few minutes. I have the idea she is probably pregnant. Her face has that curious mask-like appearance and there are deep, dark circles under her eyes. She looks like a woman breeding too quickly, while her firstlings are still clinging to her skirts.
I pick up a magazine from the pile on the table. It is the 1912 edition of the Yearbook of Psychoanalytic and Psychopathological Research. It contains a long essay by Doctor Jung entitled “Mutations and Symbols of the Libido”. I have hardly read two pages of the dense prose when Emma Jung returns to summon me into her husband’s presence. When I stand up, I find I am a little dizzy. I take a deep breath, smooth my skirt, straighten myself up like a soldier for inspection and follow Emma Jung upstairs. When we reach the landing outside the doctor’s study, I know that I have reached the point of no return.