The Schopenhauer Cure Page 6

  Here, Philip looked up. "What happened next is of great importance and it is here that I begin to close in on the designated subject of our lecture tonight."

  In the midst of his desperation Thomas Buddenbrooks chanced to draw from his bookcase an inexpensive, poorly sewn volume of philosophy bought at a used book stand years before. He began to read and was immediately soothed. He marveled by how, as Mann put it, "a master-mind could lay hold of this cruel mocking thing called life."

  The extraordinary clarity of vision in the volume of philosophy enthralled the dying man, and hours passed without his looking up from his reading. Then he came upon a chapter titled "On Death, and Its Relation to Our Personal Immortality" and, intoxicated by the words, read on as though he were reading for his very life. When he finished, Thomas Buddenbrooks was a man transformed, a man who had found the comfort and peace that had eluded him.

  What was it that the dying man discovered? (At this point Philip suddenly adopted an oracular voice.) Now listen well, Julius Hertzfeld, because this may be useful for life's final examination....

  Shocked at being directly addressed in a public lecture, Julius bolted upright in his seat. He glanced nervously about him and saw, to his astonishment, that the auditorium was empty: everyone, even the two homeless men, had left.

  But Philip, unperturbed by his vanished audience, calmly continued: I'll read a passage from Buddenbrooks. (He opened a tattered paperback copy of the book.) "Your assignment is to read the novel, especially part nine, with great care. It will prove invaluable to you--far more valuable than attempting to extract meaning from patients' reminiscences of long ago.

  Have I hoped to live on in my son? In a personality yet more feeble, flickering, and timorous than my own? Blind, childish folly! What can my son do for me? Where shall I be when I am dead? Ah, it is so brilliantly clear. I shall be in all those who have ever, do ever, or ever shall say "I"--especially, however, in all those who say it most fully, potently, and gladly!...Have I ever hated life--pure, strong, relentless life? Folly and misconception! I have but hated myself because I could not bear it. I love you all, you blessed, and soon, soon, I shall cease to be cut off from you by all the narrow bonds of myself; soon that in me which loves you will be free and be in and with you--in and with you all.

  Philip closed the novel and returned to his notes.

  Now who was the author of the volume which so transformed Thomas Buddenbrooks? Mann does not reveal his name in the novel, but forty years later he wrote a magnificent essay which stated that Arthur Schopenhauer was the author of the volume. Mann then proceeds to describe how, at the age of twenty-three, he first experienced the great joy of reading Schopenhauer. He was not only entranced by the ring of Schopenhauer's words, which he describes as "so perfectly consistently clear, so rounded, its presentation and language so powerful, so elegant, so unerringly apposite, so passionately brilliant, so magnificently and blithely severe--like never any other in the history of German philosophy," but by the essence of Schopenhauerian thought, which he describes as "emotional, breathtaking, playing between violent contrasts, between instinct and mind, passion and redemption." Then and there Mann resolved that discovering Schopenhauer was too precious an experience to keep to himself and straightaway used it creatively by offering the philosopher to his suffering hero.

  And not only Thomas Mann but many other great minds acknowledged their debt to Arthur Schopenhauer. Tolstoy called Schopenhauer the "genius par excellence among men." To Richard Wagner he was a "gift from Heaven." Nietzsche said his life was never the same after purchasing a tattered volume of Schopenhauer in a used-book store in Leipzig and, as he put it, "letting that dynamic, dismal genius work on my mind." Schopenhauer forever changed the intellectual map of the Western world, and without him we would have had a very different and weaker Freud, Nietzsche, Hardy, Wittgenstein, Beckett, Ibsen, Conrad.

  Philip pulled out a pocketwatch, studied it for a moment, and then, with great solemnity:

  Here concludes my introduction to Schopenhauer. His philosophy has such breadth and depth it defies a short summary. Hence I have chosen to pique your curiosity in the hope that you will read the sixty-page chapter in your text carefully. I prefer to devote the last twenty minutes of this lecture to audience questions and discussion.

  Are there questions from the audience, Dr. Hertzfeld?

  Unnerved by Philip's tone, Julius once again scanned the empty auditorium and then softly said, "Philip, I wonder if you're aware that your audience has departed?"

  "What audience? Them? Those so-called students?" Philip flicked his wrist in a disparaging manner to convey that they were beneath his notice, that neither their arrival nor their departure made the slightest difference to him. "You, Dr. Hertzfeld, are my audience today. I intended my lecture for you alone," said Philip, who in no way seemed discomfited by holding a conversation with someone thirty feet away in a cavernous deserted auditorium.

  "All right, I'll bite. Why am I your audience today?"

  "Think about it, Dr. Hertzfeld..."

  "I'd prefer you'd call me Julius. If I refer to you as Philip, and I'm assuming that's okay with you, then it's only right that you call me Julius. Ah, deja vu all over again--

  how clearly I recall saying so very very long ago, 'Call me Julius, please--we're not strangers.'"

  "I am not on a first-name basis with my clients because I am their professional consultant, not their friend. But, as you wish, Julius it is. I'll start again. You inquire why you alone are my intended audience. My answer is that I am merely responding to your request for help. Think about it, Julius, you came to see me with a request for an interview and embedded in that request were other requests."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. Let me expand upon this matter. First, there was a tone of urgency in your voice. It was particularly important to you that I meet with you. Obviously, your request did not arise from simple curiosity about how I was doing. No, you wanted something else. You mentioned that your health was imperiled, and, in a sixty-five-year-old man, that means you must be confronting your death. Hence, I could only assume that you were frightened and searching for some kind of consolation. My lecture today is my response to your request."

  "An oblique response, Philip."

  "No more oblique than your request, Julius."

  "Touche! But, as I recall, you've never minded obliquity."

  "And I'm comfortable with it now. You made a request for help, and I responded by introducing you to the man who, of all men, can be most helpful to you."

  "And so your intent was to offer me solace by describing how Mann's dying Buddenbrooks received comfort from Schopenhauer?"

  "Precisely. And I offered that to you only as an appetizer, a sampler of what is to come. There is a great deal that I, as your guide to Schopenhauer, can offer you, and I would like to make a proposal."

  "A proposal? Philip, you continue to surprise. My curiosity is piqued."

  "I've completed my course work in a counseling program and all other requirements to obtain a state counseling license, except that I need two hundred more hours of professional supervision. I can continue practicing as a clinical philosopher--

  that field is not regulated by the state--but a counselor's license would offer me a number of advantages, including the ability to buy malpractice insurance and to market myself more effectively. Unlike Schopenhauer, I have neither an independent source of financial support nor any secure academic support--you've seen with your own eyes the disinterest in philosophy displayed by the clods who attend this pigsty of a university."

  "Philip, why must we shout to one another? The lecture is over. Would you mind taking a seat and continuing this discussion more informally."

  "Of course." Philip collected his lecture notes, stuffed them into his briefcase, and eased into a seat in the front row. Though they were closer, four rows of seats still separated them, and Philip was forced to swivel his neck awkwardly to see Julius.

  "S
o, am I correct in assuming that you propose a swap--I supervise you and you teach me about Schopenhauer?" Julius now asked in a low voice.

  "Right!" Philip turned his head but not enough to make eye contact.

  "And you've given thought to the precise mechanics of our arrangement?"

  "I've given much thought to it. In fact, Dr. Hertzfeld..."

  "Julius."

  "Yes, yes--Julius. What I was going to say is that I'd been considering the idea of calling you for several weeks to try to arrange supervision but kept putting it off, primarily for financial reasons. So I was startled by the remarkable coincidence of your call. As for mechanics, I suggest meeting weekly and splitting our hour: half the time you provide expert advice about my patients, and half the time I am your guide to Schopenhauer."

  Julius closed his eyes and lapsed into thought.

  Philip waited two or three minutes and then: "What say you to my offer? Even though I'm certain no students will appear, I'm scheduled for office hours after my lecture and so must head back to the administration building."

  "Well Philip, it's not your everyday offer. I need more time to think it through.

  Let's meet later this week. I take off Wednesday afternoons. Can you do four o'clock?"

  Philip nodded. "I finish at three on Wednesday. Shall we meet in my office?"

  "No, Philip. My office. It's in my home at two-forty-nine Pacific Avenue, not too far from my old office. Here, take my card."

  Excerpts from Julius's Journal

  After his lecture Philip's proposal for a supervision-tutoring swap stunned me.

  How quickly one moves back into the familiar force field of another person! So much like the state-dependent memories in dreams in which the landscape's eerie familiarity reminds you that you've visited the identical locale before in other dreams. Same with marijuana--a couple of hits and suddenly you're in a familiar place thinking familiar thoughts that exist only in the marijuana state.

  And it's the same with Philip. Only a little time in his presence and--presto--my deep memories of him plus a peculiar Philip-induced state of mind reappear in a flash.

  How arrogant, how disdainful he is. How uncaring about others. And yet there is something, something strong--I wonder what?--that draws me to him. His intelligence?

  His loftiness and otherworldliness coupled to such extraordinary naivete? And how unchanged he is after twenty-two years. No, that's not true! He's liberated from the sexual compulsion, no longer doomed to walk nose-to-ground forever sniffing for pussy.

  He lives much more in the higher places he's always longed for. But his manipulativeness--that's still there, and so patent, and he's so clueless about its visibility, about how I should leap at his offer, how I should give him two hundred hours of my time in return for his teaching me Schopenhauer, and brazenly presenting it as though it was I who suggested it, who want and need it. Can't deny that I have some slight interest in Schopenhauer, but spending a couple hundred hours with Philip to learn about Schopenhauer right now is low on my wish list. And if that excerpt he read about the dying Buddenbrooks is a prime example of what Schopenhauer has to offer me, then it leaves me cold. The idea of rejoining the universal oneness without any persistence of me and my memories and unique consciousness is the coldest of comfort. No, it's no comfort at all.

  And what draws Philip to me? That's another question. That crack the other day about the twenty thousand dollars he wasted on his therapy with me--maybe he is still looking for some return on his investment.

  Supervise Philip? Make him a legitimate, kosher therapist? There's a dilemma. Do I want to sponsor him? Do I want to give him my blessing when I don't believe that a hater (and he is a hater) can help anyone grow?

  8

  Halcyon Days

  of Early

  Childhood

  _________________________

  Religionhas everything on its

  side: revelation, prophecies,

  government

  protection,

  the

  highest

  dignity

  and

  eminence...and more than this,

  the invaluable prerogative of

  being allowed to imprint its

  doctrines on the mind at a

  tender

  age

  of

  childhood,

  whereby

  they

  become

  almost

  innate ideas.

  _________________________

  Johanna wrote in her diary that after Arthur's birth in February 1788 she, like all young mothers, enjoyed playing with her "new doll." But new dolls soon become old dolls, and within months Joanna wearied of her toy and languished in boredom and isolation in Danzig. Something new was emerging in Johanna--some vague sense that motherhood was not her true destiny, that some other future awaited her. Her summers at the Schopenhauer country estate were particularly difficult. Though Heinrich, accompanied by a clergyman, joined her for weekends, Johanna spent the rest of her time alone with Arthur and her servants. Because of his fierce jealousy, Heinrich forbade his wife to entertain neighbors or to venture from home for any reason.

  When Arthur was five, the family encountered great stress. Prussia annexed Danzig, and, shortly before the advancing Prussian troops arrived under the command of the very general Heinrich had insulted years before, the entire Schopenhauer family fled to Hamburg. There, in a strange city, Johanna gave birth to her second child, Adele, and felt ever more trapped and despairing.

  Heinrich, Johanna, Arthur, Adele--Father, mother, son, daughter--the four bound together yet unconnected.

  To Heinrich, Arthur was a chrysalis destined to emerge as the future head of the Schopenhauer mercantile house. Heinrich was the traditional Schopenhauer father; he attended to business and put his son out of mind, intending to spring into action and assume fatherly duties when Arthur had finished his childhood.

  And the wife, what was Heinrich's plan for her? She was the Schopenhauer family seedpod and cradle. Dangerously vital, she had to be contained, protected, and restrained.

  And Johanna? What did she feel? Trapped! Her husband and provider, Heinrich, was her lethal mistake, her joyless jailer, the grim evacuator of her vitality. And her son, Arthur? Was he not part of the trap, the seal to her coffin? A talented woman, Johanna had a desire for expression and self-realization that was growing at a ferocious pace, and Arthur would prove a woefully inadequate recompense for self-renunciation.

  And her young daughter? Little noticed by Heinrich, Adele was assigned a minor role in the family drama and was destined to spend her entire life as Johanna Schopenhauer's amanuensis.

  And so the Schopenhauers each went their separate ways.

  Father Schopenhauer, heavy with anxiety and despair, lumbered to his death, sixteen years after Arthur's birth, by climbing to the upper freight window of the Schopenhauer warehouse and leaping into the frigid waters of the Hamburg canal.

  Mother Schopenhauer, sprung from her matrimonial trap by Heinrich's leap, kicked the grime of Hamburg from her shoes and flew like the wind to Weimar, where she quickly created one of Germany's liveliest literary salons. There she became the dear friend of Goethe and other outstanding men of letters, and authored a dozen bestselling romantic novels, many about women who were forced into unwanted marriages but refused to bear children and continued to long for love.

  And young Arthur? Arthur Schopenhauer was to grow up into one of the wisest men who ever lived. And one of the most despairing and life-hating of men, a man who at the age of fifty-five would write:

  Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners condemned not to death but to life and as yet all too unconscious of what their sentence means. Nevertheless every man desires to reach old age...a state of life of which it may be said "it is bad today, and every day it will get worse, until the worst of all happens."

  9

  __________
_______________

  Inendless

  space

  countless

  luminous spheres, round each

  of which some dozen smaller

  illuminated ones revolve, hot

  at the core and covered with a

  cold hard crust on which a

  mouldy

  film

  has

  produced

  living and knowing beings--this

  is...the real, the world.

  _________________________

  Julius's spacious Pacific Heights home was far grander than any he could now possibly afford to buy: he was one of the lucky millionaires in San Francisco who had the good fortune to buy a house, any house, thirty years earlier. It was his wife, Miriam's, thirty-thousand-dollar-inheritance money that had made the purchase possible, and, unlike any other investment Julius and Miriam had ever made, the house's value had rocketed upward. After Miriam's death, Julius considered selling the house--it was far too large for one person--but instead he moved his office into the first floor of the house.

  Four steps led from the street to a landing with a blue-tiled fountain. On the left, a few stairs led to Julius's office, on the right was a longer stairway to his home. Philip arrived precisely on time. Julius greeted him at the door, escorted him into the office, and gestured toward an auburn leather chair.

  "Some coffee or tea?"

  But Philip did not look around as he took his seat and, ignoring Julius's offer, said, "I await your decision about supervision."

  "Ah, once again, straight to the business at hand. I've having a difficult time with that decision. Lots of questions. There's something about your request--a deep contradiction--that puzzles the hell out of me."