Talent and Genius. The Fictitious Case of Tausk contra Freud

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TALENT and

GENIUS �

The Fictitious Case of Tausk contra Freud

K. R. EISSLER

A NEW YOFIK TIMES COMPANY

Copyright© 1971 by K. R. Eissua All rights rescived, includmg thc right to reproduce th1s book or portions thereof lO ny fom1. For information, address: QuAOR. 'CL!:: B0011:s, {Ne., 330 MADISON AVENUE, Nt.W YO.RK, NI'\\ YORK 10017 fanufactured in the United State of America. Library of Congrcss Card Number: 70-162813

CONTENTS

PREF

CE

Vll

I TRODUCTIO

I.

1

QUESTIO. rABLE BIOGR PHICAL ..., TECHNIQUES II.

24

THE TAUSK EPISODE IMAGES OF TAUSK 24

The Image of Tausk 24 in Lou Andreas-Salome's Journal The Image of Tausk in the Mrnutcs of the Vicnna Psycl10analyticSociety 48

Tim CAsE IlrsTORY oF TAu SnouLD FREUD IJAvc T.\KE PsYCIIOA FREuo's

PERSO

ALYSIS?

67 I~To

K TAUSK

80

AL REACTJON

TAusK's Su1cmE 92 Notcs on Paul Fcdern's Assessment of Tausk's Suicide

TO

108

vi

CONTENTS

ÜN TAusK's Su1cmE

o

BEYO

TJIE

GRAVE

111

129

135 FREUD AND HIS PUPILS III. IV. THE ROLE OF PLAGIARISM 155 IN FREUD'S SCIENTIFIC HISTORY 11,e Cocaine Episode 155 The F1iess-,1/eininger Episode 162 Freud and Janet 171 Freud and Moll 175 Freud and McDougall 178 Freud's Alleged Penchant for False Recollections I 78 Remarks about Freud's Bibliographies 180 A Plagiarism Wrongly Attributed to Freud 182 Unco □ scious Plagiarism 182 Freud's Unconcem about Priorities 183 A Seemingly-proven Case of Plagiarism 187 V.

CO TRADICTIO S, ABSURDITIES 189 A D ERRORS VI. REMARKS ON FREUD'S PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 233

VII.

TALE

TA

D GE

IUS

248

APPE DIX A. A Historical Note on the Conceptions of Narcissism and Identity in Tausk's Work 321 APPE DIX B. otes o □ Folie a deux beh:vecn Biographer and his Subject 327 APPE DIX C. Note on the Biographical Bias of Volun tarism 334 APPE DIX D. Another Critical View of Freud 342

381

REFERENCES INDEX

396

PREFACE

IF O:NE IAY be permitted to sketcb bigbly complicated historical processes in broad strokes, I would venture to outline the developrnent of psychology, "hich led to a peak in the first half of the present century, in the following way. During the course of the eighteenth century, \ estern man woke up to the perception, discernment and enjoyment of psychological details of a subtlety and refinement such as the world had not known before. This, I believe, was brought about far more by _Mozart's music than by tbe poetry of that time. The exgui ite enlargement of responsivenes to human emotionality and detail that could be irnplied only in the musical medium became cxplicit in the grcat psychological novels of ninetcenth-century France and Russia, concomitantly with the new philosophies of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. One sbould also think here of the portraits of Goya and tbe French impressionist . lt could not fail to happen that the new psychological understanding of man that had already imbued music, art literature and philosophy bccame the subject as we1l of scientific psychology. This was the accomp11shment of Freud. Such eminence had to be followed, of course, by a decfü1e. \Vitb Richard Strauss ( 1864-

viii

PREFACE

1949) rnusic reflecting the human world vanished. The psychological novel found its last repre entative in Proust (1871-1922). Heideggcr (1889-19 ) once again turned full face toward pure metaphysics. Auguste Rodin ( 1840-1917) was the last sculptor of human woes, passions and felicitie . What now dominates music, art and literature is dehumanized abstraction , which are of crushing proportions when they are wielded by a towcring mind. At the center lies the alleged discoverY that human cxistence i senseless-sometbing that was already°known to ancient Grcek tragedian a weil as to Shakespeare and Goethe. Psychoanalysis never did recm·cr from the loss of its founder: discoveries in the fi.eldsof the dream and of sex are nowadays made in dehumanized laboratories that conduct investigations. What the future of psychoanalysis or psychology in general will be is a matter of speculation. vVill the felicitous conjunction of Zeitgeist and an eminent mind. such as happencd during tbe decades before and after the turn of the ccnhuy, be repeated? ,vill psychology once again make a leap forward, as significant as the one that Freud brought about? At present psychoanalysis is under heavy attack. I t is regarded as being outdatcd, eyen obsolete, elitist and a hindrance to social progress. However out of place such criticism may be, an optimist could assign to the present fashion a possibly constructive effect -if only it did not Jead to a tcmporary degeneration of psycbo-therapy. After all, psychoanalysis prevailed for five decades-an unusually long time in the fie]d of science. I t may be tha t the new can arise only when the old-rigbtly or wrongly-has been debased and defamed. Yet, challenging as it would be to make the broad range of present-day argumcnts against psychoanalysis the center of an inquiry and to discuss their meaning historically, sociologically and psychologically, this book is devoted to one of the more subordinate avenues of attack. I t has become fa bionable these days to question Freud's character and personality. \Vestern tradition has in general dealt with the phenomenon of genius in two contradictory ways. One bas met genius with mistrust equating it ahnost with psychopathology; the other has idealized genius, dcclaring it to be free from any form of psychopatho]ogy. I t seems difficult to conceptualize genius as sharing human weaknesses

PREFACE

with a11 other mortals and ncverthcless as being essentially diffcre~t hom them. Thi Jack of subtlet) in the understanding of g~mu , howe\'cr, must be viewcd in the light of the gencral dech_n~ of psychology, which manife ts it elf with increasiog exphc1tness a thc centur: approaches its end. The defamation of Frcud's per onalit)· i not a new approach toward p ychoanaly i , but I ha\'e the impression that it has been gaining in momcn tum. \\'hcreas this had previously been a matter of mcre mud- lingiog. now it is clone with the added preten e of u ing "docnmentary e,·idence.'' foreover, in earlier years the defamation of Freud wa :i.Jway combined with the complete rejcction of psychoanalysis prop;r; now it is fashionable to stre Freud's genius. only in ordcr to hit him all the harder. Another variant is to concede at least ome single area of originalil:), a conce ion that makes the intimation of plagiarism all the more effective. Thc now oft-repeated criticism of plagiarism mu t be all the more urprising for those who for decades have been hearing that psychoanalysis is a composite of the fantasies of Freud and hi adherents-and nothing more. In \'iew of the numerou errors and inaccuracies that are usual1y to be discO\·ered in such effort , one may conjecture that here one is dealing with a rcsistance against psychoanalysis. o doubt a person \\ho would accept as valid such descriptions of Freud's personality a are now current in some quarters, would also evolve doubts about thc validil:) of Freud's discoveries. Although there is in fact no correlation between tbe type and severity of a genius's psychopathology and the quality of his achicvement, most people react like the critic who rccently said that, after learning the background of Richard \Yagner's relationship to Mathilde \\'esendonk. he was no longcr able to enjoy the fivc songs that the master had compo cd for her poems, and that hc was certain this would happcn to anyone else. J con1ecture that in the same way a good many of the attacks against Freud' personality are aimed at discrediting p ycboanalysis itself. \1/henever I read such a biographical attempt, 1 am over and over again reminded of a saying that i attributed to Johann estroy ( 1801-1862). an Austrian writer of charming comedies: "I think the worst of c,ery human, even of myself-and I have rarely been dccc1ved by doing so." lt is delightful to encounter

X

PREFACE

this anticipation of what is, to a certain extent, one aspect of psychoanalysis, presented in this witty, even though vulgarized form. Some of Freud's would-be biographers do not hesitate to apply the first part of estroy's principle to their subject but, of course tbey never heed the second. They takc it for granted that any incident mcant just what the new "psycboanalytic common sense," brought about by the popularization of Freud's findings, would seem to suggest. Sometimes they even go beyond that. foreover, 1estroy did not let us know whether he thought of the "worst" in terms of actions or of motives. After all-and this is rather readily forgotten-psychoanalysis has never doubted the existence of heroism or charitableness, wisdorn or altruism. .fotives, meanings and origins-that is just the area into whicb psychoanalysis has brought new light. Yet, in some instances that I shall discuss, the biographer in question did not even limit himself to deducing, without docmnentation that a slip or something like it reflected a certain unconscious process· he expresscd tbe certainty that it was a sign of corresponding action. Indeed, such biographical attempts -if they deserve to be called biographical at all-reveal more about the author than they do about the subject to whom they are ostensibly devoted. V/hat gives away their intent is the frequency of their mistakes when thcy quote from Freud's writings-mistakes that cannot possibly be ascribed to the unavoidable inadvertence that victirnizes even the most scrupulous scholars. Prof. Percival Bailey, a fierce opponent of Freud, asserted (1956, p. 392) that "Freud tells us, in one of bis letters to Fliess, that he stopped reading because he found his own ideas expressed better than he could." o such letter was to be found, of course, but five years later Prof. Bailey (1961, p. 216) published his "proof." Unbelievable as it may sound, that proof was fabricated by putting into direct sequence two sentences that were drawn from two letters separated in the sequence of their writing by over two and a half years and by 136 pages in the publication. 1l1e contexts in which the separate se□ tenccs stood did not proviclc any evidence for Prof. Bailey's claim. In the sarne way, Prof. Roazen in bis book, the disproof of

PREFACE

Xl

which will fill a good many pages of what follows, made himse1f gu_ilty_of unconscionable breaches of basic rules of quoting, culmmatmg at least once in his "quoting" the ,·ery opposite of what Freud had actually said. There is hon~r even among thieves, as a man from whom I had expected a particu1arly dastardly transgression assured me. The reader who is not expert is at the mercy of the author when the latter put a sentence into quotation m~rks. Honor re~uires a maximal crupulou nes : once the reader cannot rely on quotations, the whole transaction is bound to go into bankruptcy. Yet it is not v.ithout interest that eYen "expert readers," as can be seen from some of the review I shall have to quote, were deceived by what I would 1ike to call "the charisma of the quotation mmk." Another obsen-ation ha impressed me greatl)' about the book in question. Prof. Roazen occasionally seems to have drawn a winning card in his game of derogating Freud, when he appears to prove a proposition by quoting the correct sequence of words, as tbey are printed m the Standard Edition of Freud's psychological writings. In almost all mstances of this sort, this was possible because ).fr_ trachey had been imprecise in bis trans]ation. The original text doe not, howc, er. support Prof. Roazen ·s proposition. \V11at does it mean \\'hen Prof. Roazen's construction of a Freud-image is based on a electioo of prccisely those passages that were irnpreci ely translated? This alone seems to mc to prove that he was essentially on the wrang track. A historical process take its relentless course and the average man is unable to give its drift a different direction; at best. he can merely slow down its speed. I t i not probable that the present book will reach all those who have already accepted the content of Prof. Roazen's book as fairlv accurate; but if it docs succeed in reaching at least a few of the~. I make bold to believe that the speed of the present declinc of psychoanalysis's prestigc may be abated-even though that slowing down may be perceptible only in an almost imperceptible compass. All the more I am indebted to Ir. Herbert agourney for having readily accepted my manuscript for publication. I further owc greatest thanks to Harold Collins for his faithful

xii

PREFACE

devotion to and great effort in editing the manuscript. Most of the translations which appear in the text as the author's, I owe to his great literary skills; To Herbert F. Fuerst for having searched in Viennese and other newspapers for material pertinent to the subject-matter of this book; To Lottie evnnan for an important suggestion regarding the title; To the late Dr. Herman Nunberg and to Mr. Ernst Federn for having given me permission to read the unpublished parts of the Minutes ot the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which contain refercnces to Victor Tausk; To Dr. Thomas Menaker for valuable suggestions, after having read part of the manuscript; To Miss Liselotte Bendix ( Mrs. fax Stern) for her help in providing badly needed books; To Mrs. Phyllis Rubinton for excellent bibliographical advice; To Dr. Mary O' eil Hawkins for her great patience in listening to the major part of the manuscript and giving substantive advice; To Ronald Hudson, who was kind enough to comb the manuscript for those unavoidable inaccuracies and oversights that are the perennial headache of every author. Others from whose assistance I have benefited will be gratefully mentioned in the text. KR. E. New York City December 24, 1970 All translations of texts that refer to the meetings of tJ1e Vienna Psychoanalytic Society dated later than June 1910 are my own. References in the te.xt to the two volumes, Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, ed. by Herman Nunberg and Ern t Federn, are abbreviated as Minutes l or Minutes 2. References to Jones' biography of Freud do not contain the year of publication. Thus Jones ( l, p. 15) refers to the first volume of that biography.

INTRODUCTION

THE BOOK Brother Anima], by Paul Roazen, a professor at Harvard, published in 1969 by Alfred A. Knopf, a distinguished publisher, and favorably re,·iewed by such per ons as Arthur Koestler and Maxwell Geismar, both outsiders to psychoanalysis, compels me to enter into a polemic against it. Tbe Iate Dr. Max Schur, who was Freud's personal physician and wbo had finished a carefully detailed study of one critical phase in Freud's life, the Fliess period, was ready to write a critical review of this book when death cruelly annullcd his intention. He would have been far better prepared for that task than I am. I never met Freud and I know little more about bis life than does any reader who has studied the pertinent literature. How this happens to be the case, although J have been the secretary of the Sigmund Freud Archives since their inception, I shall not go into here. Since the Archives are supported financially by the contributions of many psychoanalysts, however, it was suggested, after Dr. Schur's dcath, that 1 look into what is true and what is untrue in Roazen's book. I carry out with reluctance what some consider to be my duty, because I am convinced of the futility of the undertaking.

2

TALENT

AND

GENIUS

To write positively about Freud in our times is to incur more often than not the comment that a positive transference-and, in my particular instance, perhaps an inner necessity to glorify genius -has made many of one's conclusions prima facie untrustworthy. 1o heed will probably be taken of the extensive documentation I have offered-which, if anything, is likely to strike the reader as being merely tiresome. On the other hand, an aperyu by tbe late Ernst Kris seems still to harbor some truth. As he uggested, if someone wants to become well known these days and to obtain a quick success he has only to write against Freud. The central theme of Roazen's book is Freud's relationship to Victor Tausk (1879-1919), who met Freud in 1908, became a successful psycboanalyst, and cornmitted suicide in 1919, at the age of 40. Roazen's central the i is tbat it was Freud who was ultirnately responsible for Tausk's untimely death. If my a signmcnt l1ad been to comment only on what is true in Roazen's book, a short essay would have sufficed. The improbable and undocumented conclusious Roazen bas drawn, tbe misrepresentation of information allegedly given to him, the distortion by way of omissions in quotations. the outright wrong quotations-any of these alone, and certainly all of them taken togetber, make this a painful book to read. lt is, indeed, a book that one wishes one bad not ever bad to read. Tue only compensation I find in the ugly and wearisome necessity of baving to occupy mHclf with it is that I have been able to place my repellent task into a broader context, which will give me the opportunity to discuss a few problems luving to do with the differences between talent and genius. I face a difficult problem in deciding how far to go in carrying out the critical portion of my exposition. Roazen's denigration of Freud culrninates in an implication that, if correct, would make Freud not only unworthy of respect, but guilty of having negIected his duty and abused bis standing as a physician and psychoanalyst-and this for selfish, petty and vengeful reasons. As will be seen, there is indisputable evidence-accessible without great difficulty to Roazen-that prima facie shatters the wild construction that he presents. That alone should dispel any trust the reader might otherwise

INTRODUCTION

3

have in tbe author's reliability and objectivity, with regard to the many traits and features that he a cribes to Freud. Yet the Romans knew all too well what the' meant v.rith their semper aliquid J1aerct; and many a reader of Roazen's book rnay feel that, even if the author was indeed wrong in Jus major point, and no matter how giiernus bis error mar have been in that regard, there must be some truth to the many negative traits in Freud's character that he ostensibly docwnents by the use of Freud's own works and letters. as well as by some quotations from Fritz "'ittels book (1923). lt is particularly the latter who would seem to confirm wide areas of tbe author's position, since \Vittels was a close collaborator of Freud during the early years. Yet it is precisely bere that one is able to observe Roazen's negligence. for he ignores the fact -thereby leaving the unwary reader altogether at bis mercytbat "\ ittels ( 1933) corrected the "errors and ruisrepresen tations" in bis book ( J9_ 3), in a long article that has been publisbed twice in this country. He himself called "the tone of the book throughout a striking example of ambivalence," and recognized that his book would be ·'welcome to all who seek rationalization for their O\\'D ambivalent attitude toward psychoanalysis"aad toward Freud, I daresay. Furtbermore, tbe reader of a book ,vritten by a Harvard professor and published by a first-rate publisher would probably never suspect the extent of Roazen's irresponsible documentation. I therefore have no choice but to take up at least some of the worst literary felonies he has committed. I am fullr aware of the weakness that is inherent in a book of this kind. I can only agiee with one publisber, wbo wrote me after reading part of the manuscript: "I can imagine ome book reviewer suggesting that the Roazen book wa not good enough, to begin with, for such a serious and pas ionate rebuttal ia booklength form. . .. lt might be said tbat you have stackcd your argument for Freud, as it is now, again t a poor ad\'ersary. In contrast, Freud seems overdefended.'' Correct as this comment ma) be, in this instance I believe that it is desirable to write a rebuttal that centcrs on this one book, for even some reviewers "hose names are to be found in the

4

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AND

GENIUS

roster of the International Psychoanalytic Association have taken a stand in favor of Roazen's book. 1 'I11is was assuredly due not only to their ignorance of the facts in the case, but also to the reader's tendency to trust the writer who makes use of "docurnents" in his text. A curious incident of this sort illustrates tbe stultifying effect that tbe sham use of documentary evidence may have on readers. Tue Gicklhoms published ( 1960) an important volume of documents regarding Freud's academic career. As is by now well known, Freud bad to ,-vait for an nnusually long period before receiving the title of professor, even though the num ber and quality of his publications would have entitled him to this academic advancement much earlier. In the Introduction to their collection of documents the authors adduced, among many reasons inte □ ded to justify the tardiness of the U niversity and Governmen t, the "facf' tbat Freud was desirous of obtaining the title -which at that time almost guaranteed an adequate practicefor the purpose of increasing his income, diminished by the fearfully dwindling number of bis patients. The Ministry was not interested, the authors assertcd, in assigning a professorship to someone who wanted it primarily for "the purpose of collecting higher fees from patients'' (Gicklhor □ and Gicklhorn 1960, p. 28. 1y own trans1ation). Sherwood ( 1962), who reviewed Gick)hom's book, was apparently so overwhelmed by the quasi-hypnotic effect of documents that he agreed with the authors on this point and even spoke of Freud's "intent to concentrate 011 private practice admittedly for tbe sake of lucre·· (p. 236). I do not cite this passage in order to demonstrate the sort of vulgarity to which Freud's name is still occasionally exposed, but to expose the inefficiency of the reviewer, for he did not notice tliat Freud's alleged '1ove of lucre·• is "known" only from bis letters to his friend \Vilhelm Fliess. Since censorship of letters was not practiced even in the reactionary Monarchy, it would have been impossible for anyone in the govemment, or the Uniersity hierarchy, to have known of Freud's urgent need of the '-The harsh words I use throughout the book lo criticize many of the psycl10analytic rev1ewsthat came to my attention do not apply to the excellent review by Dr. William 1iederland (l- Hist. Behav. Science, 7:100-105, 1971). which reached me after l had completed the manuscript.

INTRODUCTION

5

title for the sake of economic survival. 111us, Freud's necd of the title for economic reasons cannot ha"e had the slightcst bearing on tbe delay. I could not help thinking of the temporary dirninution of the powers of ratiocination that Sherwood suffered under the impact of documents, when I read a review of Roazen's book by Peter Loma, who iofonned tbe readers of The ew York Time Book Review on October 12, 1969 that Roazen's reconstruction was based on the "derailed scrutinv of innurnerable documents." Tbis is exactly the impression Ro~zen creates-and not onl among psychoanalytically-trained re\'iewers. t this point, I shall only state that the material Roazen published that was previ.ously unavailable to the general reader covercd no more than the following: two letters that Tausk \\Tote to Freud; Tausk's last \\rill;one letter that Freud wrote to ilberer, another of bis pup1ls; a letter from the late Dr. Paul Federn to bis wife, and one sentence from another letter. Excerpt from ten. letters of Tausk ( nine of which antedate Tausk·s acquaintance with Freud) are not really relevant to Roazen's main construction, although one day, when published in cxtenso and in thcir original language. they may facilitate the exact diagnosi of the disorder from which Tausl: suffered during bis stay in Berlin (see below). Thus even an experienced reviewer was led a tray by Roazen's creating an illusion of honest and serious rcsearch, which seerned to draw on a huge number of documents, but which actually concealed tbe facts. The reviewers were unaware that Roazen had ignored ruany published documents that ,,,:ere most pertinent to thc explanation of Tausk's suicide ( to these I shall refer extensively). In addition, Roazen missed the boat inasmuch as he did not succeed in discovering the true rea on that at least triggered, probably even caused, Tausk's suicide, which I shall discuss at its proper place. Yet, when even psychoanalysts who present themselves to the reading public as expert in psychoanalytic theory, practice, and history, let themselves be misled by Roazen's apparently convincing way of presenting his many errors and ,~rong inferences, what is to be expcctcd of the genera1 reader? Will he not be a11the more likely to close Roazen's book with the conviction that what he has read has been proven by well-documented evideace?

6

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AND

GENIUS

It was precisely the fact that an unsuspecting reader would hardly be able to escape feeling certain that Roazen has "proven" his point-any more than the general reader of the book by tbe Gicklhorns could ever guess the extent of their misrepresentations -that made me think that tbose few readers who are less interested in the sensational than in historical trutb ought to have an opportunity to correct errors that have been imposed upon tbem by a cornbination of a negligent author and ignorant reviewers. Right at the beginning, however, I wisb to set forth the essential point I have in mind. Except for one paragrapb, the book ascribes to Freud a kind of psychopatbology most of which might have been expected in a genius like Freud, or perhaps in anyone who lived under bis life circumstances. His genius was sufficiently grea t for one to expect from him severe psychopathology in the area of possible plagiarism. After all, did not Newton spend half his life in just such a fight? Would one not also have the right to expect Freud to tyrannize the early group tbat surrounded him and to expect total surrender of their mental autonomy, as ewton did when he was president of the Royal Society? The puzzling aspect of Freud's life is that he did not show the psychopathology that is to be observed, more frequently tban not, in men of bis creative statme. By ignoring what was truly tbe problem in Freud's life history, Roazen has not only lured bis readers, as well as future biographers of Freud, onto the wrong track, but he has also desecrated Freud's rnemory. Freud was a man who, despite formidable and at times even unruly passions, learned in his earlier years to establisb in himseJf such discipline and mastery that he was able to harness his unique creativity to the service of mankind, and to cause only that minimal damage and pain to others without which human existence is impossible.

I QUESTIONABLE BIOGRAPHICAL TECHNIQUES

lF so:r-.rnoNEat present-as bad happened not too infrequently in the past-were to describe Freud in consisten tly abject terms, be wou]d not arouse mucb interest thereby. Since his death, Freud has gained cnormously in stature and respect, and such a description would be regarded as reactionary and biased in the sophisticated circles from "hieb the majority of the readers of such books derive. If, however, Freud's achievernents are presented as those of a genius, and the starting point of the presentation contains positive statements, then there is an excellent chance that the general reader may not object if negative terms are gradually slipped into the profile, evcn if these should finally destroy all the preceding positive staternents. One cannot deny Roazen's brilliance in gaining the reader' confidcnce and 1eading him by small steps to the abyss. He creates in his book a "new look" of Freud's persona1ity. I shall critically di cuss in the following some of the methods he use to accomplish this. One of the technigues used by him, for exarnple, is tbe innuendo. Lou Andreas-Salome described her meeting Freud in 1912 as the turning point of her life. Twcnty-three years later, Freud made the remark that he wrote Totem and Taboo in 1912,

8

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TA

D GENIUS

when he was ( my own translation) ''already in the midst of the pla teau in my psychoanalytic work" ( ''Bereits mitten auf der Hölle der psyc110analytichcn Arbeit,'' literally "already amidst the height of the psychoanalytic work"). \\'hat can the author (p. 33) make out of this obviously neutral h1tement? lt clearly has nothing to do with the "climax„ of Strachey's incorrect trans1ation (Freud 1935, p. 72). Yet Roazen writes: "Perhaps not entirely b , chance, Freud also later ~TOte tbat 1912 had been 'tbe very climax of my psychoanalytic work.' " Since nothing bappens "entirely by chancc," one cannot object to such Statements. One could perhaps say that an author is not to be beld responsible when he is the victim of a wrang translation. But the context of the pa sage, in whicb Freud (1935, p. 72) describes "a regressive development"-wbich took him as an analyst back to youfüfol interest -makes it clear that he cannot possibly have meant a "climax." Furthermore, in a footnote (p. 210, n. 18) Roazen adds: "1912 was also a critical year in Freud's falling out with Jung." If the author bad not limited bimself to rnaking an innuendo-such as "perhap not by chance"-but had instead taken a position that would have neccssitated documentation, it would quickly have become evident that the three events bad no meaningful connection , hatsoever. By keeping tbe matter on the level of innuendo, however, he succeeds in producing ubliminal associations in the reader's mind, such as: the climax of Freud' productiYity was caused by his heightened feeling for a woman, which a]so forced him to start a quarre} v.,itb a rival-all of which is a splendid preparation for the author's "final kill." I want to present one instance of how, by making a "slight" change in the original, innocuous as it may appear, Roazen brings the reader closer to accepting the false 1mage he has forrned of Freud. He asserts (p. 36) "that Freud saw it as his task to 'disturb the peace of the world' " ( emphasis added). ,vhat sort of person sets it as bis task to carry unrest into the world? I t is usually the psychopath or sociopath (as one calls him nowadays)-someone who feels frustrated in a smoothly-running, well-regulated world. Freud, in his published works, twice brougbt up the matter to which Roazen refers. l11e first time was in a historical paper ( 1914a, p. 21), wberein he spoke of the community's reaction to his discoveries, which he "treated ... as ordinary contributions

BIOGRAPTIICAL

TECHNIQUES

9

to science and hoped they would be recei\'ed in the same spirit.'' Yet from the reactions tb,tt actua11ydid emerge, Freud was forced to recognize that he had become "one of those who have 'disturbed the leep of the world.' " Three years later, toward the end of bis eighteenth "Introductory Lecture," Freud {1916-1917, p. 285) explained "the general revolt against our cience" as a consequence of the "wounding blow'" that "human megalomania" had suffered from the proof that "the ego is not e,en master in its o,vn hause." Bot soon he would have to discuss w:ith bis audience an even greater "offense'' {bis disco,·eries about man's sexual life). and for that he wanted to prepare his listeners; he therefore closed that lecture as follows: "And beyond all this \\·e have yet to disturb the pcace of this wor]d in still another way. as you will shortly hear." 1 lt is evident from this that Freud neYer expressed the idea that it was his task to offend the world-a view that would m1doubtedly justify ser:iou doubts about the objectiüty of bis conclusions. lost painfully. and to his surprise, he had to learn that, even in modern times, scientific inquiries may incur the anger and even the wrath of society, if their results do not fall into traditional patterns but rather h:n·e the effect of upsetting them. Another of Roazen's modi operandi is to add to statements that might otherwise e\'oke in the reader a sympathetic view of Freud a negative qualifymg term which is not documented and may even strike the rcader as requiring no documentation, since it occurs within a factual frame"' ork. \Vhen Roazen reports, for example, that Freud was generous with money, "alway living q uite modestl y him elf" (p. 26), hc then calls the money that Freud gave to at least five pupils "loan ," although I do not recall having read anywhere that such swi1s were ever paid back. At least, as the author himself reports, the money given to Tausk was not repaid, and Freud even refuscd to be reimbursed by Tausk's son , a t a time when be was himself in dire need of financial support. Furthermore, Roazen adds: ''Freud used money impersonally, for the sake of the cause'' (p. 26)-a seemingly umm• Mr. Collins called my atteation to a letter (Bmswanger 1956, p. 35) wh_ere this is ~tated earlier aod witb greatcr forcefulncss. Freud ~note m 1911 to Bms• wanger: "lt has become my late to 'd1sturb the peace of the world'" (emphasis added). (The phra~e was llebbel\.)

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portant little pinprick, but once again preparation for the final picture of Freud that he leaves witb the reader, of a narcissistic persoaality, devoid of charity for and empatby with others. Yet the literature contains examples of Freud's spontaneous gifts, not loans, quite personal and clivorced from any "cause." One instance is noted in Jones' s biography ( 3, p. 88). lt occurred in 1922-that is to say, at an age at which, the author maintains, Freud's humanity bad becn greatly reduced. Tue son of an old servant had shot l1is father. Although Freud clid not know the lt may youth he eagaged a lawyer and paid all the legal e:-..'}Jenses. interest the reader that such disbursements were not tax-deductible. Anotber instance, mentioned in a □ English publication, was reported by the recipient himself almost half a century after the event (Goetz l 9 52). In these reminiscences. Goetz recalls how, as a young, impecunious student, he came to consult Freud because of headaches, and how Freud slipped into bis band, before he left, an eavelope containing 200 Kronen whicb apparently amounted to Freud's full day's earnings. This, however, occurred during the first decade of the century, a time at which the author would perhaps concede that Freud was still in full possession of humane feelings. Be that as it rnay, it belies the author's malicious remark ( p. 105) that, in 1919, when foreigners came to Freud for analysis: "With foreign currency Freud could now afford to be Zeus" (Roazen maintains that Freud bad, before tbe war, already identified with the Creek god, and he therefore giYes one chapter the title of "Zeus''). Tue two instances of Freud's spontaneous charity that I have mentioned were rescued from oblivion only by chance. Apparently Freud was not given to making much ado about bis "good'' deeds, and some of his previous biographers, such as Fromm, did not painstakingly comb the literature for testimony in that regard. It is true, of course, that testimony directed against Freud arouses more attention; yet it is reasonable to ask how often Freud might bave been charitable to people, independently of "the cause." vVas Bruno Goetz the one single instance among all of Freud's patients? V./e know for sure that Freud derived an exquisite pleasure from the giving of gifts. vVhen he wrote to his lifelong friend, Rie:

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"~o many I have been, apart from you. permitted to give somethmg_;from you fa~e has let mc only take'' ( my own translation) ,2 I beheve he descnbed correctlv his life's balance between oiving and receiving. · b Quite generally, Roazen takes it for granted that Freud was hardly able to have a naturally kindly, friendly emotion, or any otber than a uarci istic impulse to help others. \Vhen Freud helped Felix and Helene Deutsch during their grievous years of starvation, b~ getting the late Dr. Fekx Deutsch a job with the Englisb authority in .\ustria, he did it, ay Roazen, "as part of bis effort to woo tbem both" (p. 76); he ''went out of bis way to win ... farnr'' \\itb Dr. Deutsc11 (p. 94f). The same line of deroga tion is pur~ued when he \\Tites ( p. 74) : "Freud was extremely flattered by eYery Outsider who came to him." I bave lost count of just bow often Freud felt "flattered" in the author's account. but he u es the word profusely. 'ot once, bowever, does he find it necessary to documeot such allegations as "wooing" and "fla tteri ng." Another trait the author attributes to Freud is vanity, even though he asserts ( p. 8) tha t Freud was "a ble to transpose bis vanity onto tbe movement hc ]ed." \\'hen he introduces Freud, Roazeo meotions that ·reud wa- of medium height, and gives the exact number of feet and inches. This may at first strike the reader as a superfluous detai], in a story of which the central issue is the tragic fatc of one of Freud's pupils. But later on we are told ( p. 165) tha t Jung and Tausk wcre "extremely tall," "much larger than Freud''. This appears in a context that once again, by innuendo, must give the reader the impre sion that vanity bad its share in Freud's dealing with Jung as weil, sioce tbe next paragraph maintains that ''thc same issue of priorit:y" ( as with Tausk) played its part in Freud's break witl1 Jung. To be sure, from Socratcs to Churchill, geniuses have bcen, • Here Freud presents his good deeds not as an asset of his characte_r, but rather touchmgly as a sign of fate"5 grace. Simon ( 1957, p. 281) s~ m th~ evaluation of chant} as a privilege for the gner a typical elemcnl of few1sh trad1· tion. A similar attJtude was expr~cd by Goethe in a letter to Krafft wbo feit cruplcs about beu1g the rccipient of Goethe's extcns!ve chori~• o,er many years: "lt is ralher a charity of God wbea for once Ile b1ds us rcheve someone truly miserable, since one can so rarely help'' ( rovember 23, 1778).

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statisticaUy, of medium height; and one could even say, perhaps, that tl,e taller the man, the less his prospects of becoming a genius-an observation for which both Jung and Tausk rnight well serve as examples. Yet the way in which the author tries to prove that "Freud was sensitive about his height" is noteworthy. He not on1y cites the group photograph taken at the Psychoanalytic Congress at \,Veimar in 1911, but emphasizes it by reproducing one portion of the photograph with the explanation: "Jung can be seen crouching forward next to Freud. Mounted oo a box, the master stands out as the leader of his group" (p. 165). The insinuations of this sentence do not need to be spelled out: one can imagine Freud scurrying around in Weimar, shouting: "A box! A box! My kingdorn for a box!" At least the author sl,ould have had the courtesy to let us lrnow what stimu1ated Freud's sensitivity p.recisely in 1911, for two years earlier, in \,Vorcestcr, hc had perrnitted a photograph in which-incredibly-hc stood between Jung and Stanley Hall, who was at least a talJ as Jung. Also, five years later he pennitted himself to be photographed with his two sons, both of whom were taller than he, both of them in uniform, with Martin sitting erect on the arm of Freud's chair, and really dwarfing him. 3 ~lould it not be simpler to assume that Jung, the already decJared succcssor of Freud, was told to stand close to him, and that the photographer insisted he crouch, for otherwise poor Dr. Stegman's face, right above bim, would have been blocked off? Of course, it was taken for graoted by a11 present that Freud would stand in the center of the group; and, knowing the fussiness of photographers on such occasions, he was told, not to stand on a box (I cannot imagine anyone in bis right rnind being so tactless), but to take a step up on the staircase on which the group was evidently gathered. 4 • This photograpb is, c-uriously enough, reproduced in Roazen's book. 'Through the courte y of tbe late Errut Freud, I have been able to examine an unpublished photograpb of Freud and the analyst 11. W. Frink (1883-1936). It must dat-e Erom around l 922, when Frink was in Vienna. Frink must have been a very tall man; at least, on the photograph. he appears to be one third taller tlrna Freud. l do not sec any reason why Freud would not have avoided being part of pbotographs of this kind, if there were any merit to Roazen's claim.

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~ut Roaze~•s masterstroke, whicb he achieved by the use of a h1gbly questJonable technique. was undoubtedlv when he succeeded in building a case where there was none. ' Roazen calls lü preparatory steps in the writing of his book „ detective work" ( p. xix) a nd, truc to the role of a sleuth tha t he wi hed to enact, he follows the traditional teclmique of a certain brancl1 of popular litcrature. In the movics, on television, or in print, all of us ha\'e enjoyed watching the professional sleuthor, better still, a non-profes iona1 person-taking an unsuspecting walk on a lo\'ely ummer day and stumbling upon a clue that then Jead him. against all odds and to the disbelief of the hitherto incffecti\'e police, to the uncovering of a crime and the capture of the culprit . Accordmg to Roazen's account, he found the clue while innocently intervie\\-ing, for the purpose of his Freud studies, all the people who had known fireud. lt was at that time, he says, tbat he was told (p. xviii): "' o ooe will teil you about Tausk.' That was all the tip-off I needed." _\lthough, as we shall see, the book is filled with instances of Jack o.f discretion. here the author is discreet enough: he does not publicly thank the person to whom he owes the ''tip-off. ·• Fmthermore, the author does not let the reader know-to do so might have cooled off the tension be had just aroused by reporting the ''tip-off"-whether he ever did meet anyone who was not read) to ·'tell him about" Tausk. Frorn hi boo"k, 1t eems timt three anaJysts did give him pertinent detai1s with which he then proceeded to write a "mystery story": Drs. 1 unberg, Helene Deutsch and Edoardo Vleiss. I shall speak about Dr. \Veiss' contribution; Dr. Nunberg told him how Freud felt about Tausk, and why he refused to take him into anaJysis; and Dr. Deutsch gave him all the details sbe could recall, when Roazcn sought to find out about her experiences ,vith Tausk before she took him into analysis and during his analysis.u • Helene Deutsch de,oted a greal many hours to conveying all she knew and t:hought about Freud to a pcrson whom \he judged to be a competent sociologisthistorian. In so doing, she fulfilled a duty that rests on all who had the s1gnal privilege of havmg met Freud. since nothing tl,at can be. known about a p~rson as unique and eminent as he was should be lost to postenty. Ilowe\·er, as will ?e seen, her sense of responsibility was not rewardcd in kind. Regrettably, the m·

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Dr. unberg, \ hen he granted me an interview for the Archives, told me the same story; I have also heard him tel1 it to others. Dr. Deutsch told mc (I interviewed her only once, in 1954, before the author's book was published) a few of the things she told Roazen -except for onc decisive detail, which he, curiously enough (see later), reports quite differently. I also know of several people to whom Dr. Deutsch spoke freely about the same iterns she reported to the author. Dr. \Veiss, whose information Roazenas will be seen-reported incorrectly, did not teil bim an_ thing he would not have told anyone who bad asked him. Wben I myself met Roazen, I expressed satisfaction and gratitude for bis interest in Tausk 6 and begged him to deposit with the Library of Congress all the material he had collected, incl uding whatevcr he might not be able to publisb now for reasons of discretion. ,VI1y tben does he assert-in the face of his own evidence-that he uncovered "the suppressed account of Victor Tausk's life and death" (p. xviii)? ,vho are the people who have "repressed out of loyalty to the rnaster ... Tausk's struggle with Freud" (p. xx)? Is it all because some unnamed person allegedly said: " o one will teil you about Tausk' -a prediction that, according to tbe author himself, never did come true? 7 Is it because of that one va1uable knowledge that she had imparted to Roazen wa~ oftea reproduced in such mutilated fashion and so misinterpreted that she her elf was not always able to identify it. • In my capacity a~ secretary of thc /\rchi,•es, 1 had. of course, tried to obtain biographical material about Tamk but had failed to find more than what Drs. unbcrg and Helene Deutsch had previously told rne. 1 "Each informant had something to teach" (p. xvü) and "to al1 of them l am indebted for their cooperation" (p. xvi), writes Roazen. This tatement must include also the three analysts who were the only ones who knew anything about Tausk, among the many interviewecs whose names he enumerates-quite needlessly, smce many of füem had never met Freud, and nooe of them w1th the exceptioa of the three rnentioned Jmew Tausk. Of all the rc\'iewer . if I am not mistakeo, it was only Lucillc B. Rit"o (1970) who brought this contradict1on to attentioo, altl1ough it demonstrates that Roazen's primary assumption of a conspiracy of silencc cannot be correct. Enumerating interviewees who had no connection with thc main characters in a book seems to have become something of a fashion. Pfeiffer (1965, p. ll8), in an essay on the book by Peterson (1962). who used a similar devicc, has the followiag to say: "Tue sight of such a phalanx 11_1akes the _rcader in_clined from the very beginning to rcgard the te.xt as parhcularly rehable [gesichert]" ( my own t.ranslation).

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wrong prediction that he now feel cntitled to cast aspersions on Freud and his group? 8 \Ve shall soon ha,·e an opportunity to observe the author's frequent adherence to thc Biblical injunction-the only one, by the way, that he eems to obey in hi book-not to let ll!S right hand ln1ow what his lcft hand is doing. At thc verv start of his book he indulges in a plain contradiction. when he ~vrites (p. 7). only a few pages after bis earlier statement: " 1o one in particular has been actively r ponsiblc for suppre sing a full account of the dif6.culties between Freud and Tau k." Thus, it was suppressed, yet no one was responsible for the suppression. \Vou]d onc be wrang in deducing from this tbat such suppression might very weil not have taken place at all? ccording to another of the author's versions, it was clearly impossible for the suppression to bave taken place, if only because 'Tausk's struggle with Freud was misunderstood at tbe time" (p xx)-that is to say the truth about it could not e,·en have been known by those who allegedly did the suppressing. Roazen and some of his redewers have singled out Anna Freud as the main instigator of what is now callcd "a conspiracy of silence" (cf. R ·croft 1970; Starr 1970), and he does not hesitate to assert that she "has always maintained a secretive hold on everything connected \ ith Freud' life, even censoring bis letters for publication" (p. xvii). On thc other hand, whcn he reports that Anna Freud "had commissioned Emest Jones to write an authorized biography of her fa ther" ( p. X\'ii), it remains one of the • Sabshin ( 1970), a re\icwer of Roazcn's book, apparcntly sbares Roazeo's myth about an "infonnalion bamer" of \Ome sorl. he writes, "Roazcn's c.xcitcment as he bcgan to pcnctr:ite obstacles standing i.11 Lhc way o[ gammg mfonnation about Tausk,'' evidently Laving failed to takc note of thc fact that Roa1cn did not dte one single in~tance of an ohstacle. ln anticipat ion of wme of thc criticisms of Roazen's undertaking that 1 \hall pre.ent at ~ome length later in th1s book, I want to emphasize at thi.'i point that Sabshm dol!l. not refcr to cven a singlc one of the many misquotatiom c,f Freud of wluth Roazcn madc him~elf guilty, neither does be corrcct a ingle ooe of Roazcn's many errors. Thc only objcctious to the book that this revie"· contains are that Roazen "doo not providc a clear picture of Tamk as a hwnan bdng,'' that much in 11,e bocik "sc:c,m" s11pcrficial,and that "Tausk rernams an enigma." 171c fact thal it was even pos\ible for Hl~l . :i review to bc puhlished in :i quarterly that pretend~ to represcnt psychoanaly~ISm thc United States demonstrates that ignorante of fo'reud's worb and of Lhc h1story of psychoanalysis is no Jonger a trait of only a handful of analysts.

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many puzzles that Roazen creates (without solving them) why a claugbter who is holding on to everything that is connected with her father's life should commissionan author to write her father's biography at all. \Vhen Roazen continues (p. xvii): "She [Anna Freud] scrutinized Jones's work line by line, while helping him in every way she could," this, of course, evokes the impression that Jones's biography of Freud was also censored by her. \Vboever knew Jones knows, of course, that he was an independent, self-willed person, who would never have brooked interference from any source whatsoe\'er. Is it possible that Roazen's erroneous inference was caused by tbe fact that he bad read only l\liss Freud' numerous letters to Jones, deposited in the London rchives carrying bis name, but not Jones's letters to Miss Freud? lf he bad taken cognizance of both, he would have become aware that J\fiss Freud had not been given an opportunit:y "to scrutinize," but that she had answered specific questions that Jones bad asked her. 9 Tue trutb is that the Freud family bad been shocked by the products of Freud's self-appointed biographers and had therefore become quite averse to endeavors of that sort. However, when Jones approached the family with the suggestion that he write a biograph , the family thought that, in view of his knowledge and his prominence in tl1e field of psychoanalysis, he should be autlwrized to do so. AJI letters and other docurnents in their possession were, of course. put at his disposal, without imposing any limitations oo their use. In order to adduce at least some semblance of justification for "a conspiracy of silence," Roazen points out that the last four sentences were omitted in the publication of the letter \\Titten by Freud to Lau ndreas-Salome, in which he informed her of Tausk's suicide. Thc corrcspondence between Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome was published in Gerrna □ in 1966 by Ernst Pfeiffer the owner and able administra tor of ndreas-Salome's • The reader will have ,m opportunity to form his own opinion about Roazen's allegation wben that part of the correspondcnce between Emest Jones and ,\una Freud will have been publisbed.

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literary estate. The unabridged text of the 1etter was published in English by Binion ( 1968, pp. 402-403). Part of these four sentences contains Freud's description of bis reaction to Tausk's suicide, his inability to mourn his death: "I do not really miss him; I bad long taken him to be use1ess." I will later go into the discussion of Freud's reaction, whicb bas been wrongly interpreted by Roazen, as well as by most reviewers, who have castigated Freud severelv on that score. 10 lt \vas apparently the deletio~ of these four sentences tbat caused Roazen and se,·eral reviewers to be convinced that Anna Freud was determined to conceal the truth about her father, and whicb induced An thony Starr ( 1970) to make the preposterous statement that he hoped "that the Freud family ... had not actually destro 1ed any original documents." Little did he know that, by the decision of Anna Freud, tJ1e Freud family, at tremendous financia1 sacrifice-a postal card with a few typewritten lines, signed by Freud, is offered for sale for $300.00 in tbis country-has donaled all of Freud's letters in their possession ( they run into the thousands) to the Library of Congress for the future use of Freud's biographers. Let us hope these biographers will not be a pack of wol\'es. In view of the grave inferences that Roazen drew from the omission of these four sentences, I myself became interested in the history of the deletion. lt was not altogether easy to trace. Mr. Ernst Pfeiffer, the editor of the letters, did not remember, and in the galleys tha t he showed me the ominous passage was reproduced in full. As it tumed out, it was present even in tbe page proofs. Had the family, then, overlooked its alleged implications? Finallv a letter was found, written by Anna Freud to the S. Fischer Verlag, which graciousl, perrnitted its quotation. In it, however, Anna Freud urgently pleads that they abstain from the publicahon of her father's critical and negative remarks about Tausk. One of his sons had ju t written her. and "Evidently," she wrote "the memorv of his father. wbom he lost very early, is

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10 Onlv the anonymous reviewer of Roazen's book in the (London) Times Litera[)' Supplement of .\ugust 7, 1970 seerm to have gronted Freu~ the moral right emotionally to respond to a pupil'~ death m whatever way he m1ght, and to confide that response to a close friend.

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of tbe greatest concern to him. . If hc rcad in print such a statement by rny father, this would have very bad conseguences, which rnust· be ~voidcd under a11circumstances." 11 Thu was found the evidence that no member of thc Freud family had eyer objected to the publication of that passage an the grounds timt it might compromise Freud; otherwise it would make no sense for thc passage tobe contained in the pagc proofs. lt was consideration for the Tausk family that was tbe sole reason for that deletion. J recognized that such tact has sincc become obsolete. Roazen did not hcsitate to publish thc letter that the late Paul Federn v.wte to his wife after Tausk's suicidc. lt contains a devastating indictment of Tausk's character, as will be seen. One finds it difficult to understand tbe cruelty of publishing such a document during the lifctime of Tausk's sons. I assurne that the author overrnled any scruples in the matter, if he bad any, because Federn's letter also contained critical remarks about Freud. With the dcepest rcgrcts and with an apology to Tausk's sons, I have decided not to follow the tradition to which the late Ernst Freud and Anna Freud adhcrcd by scrupulously deleting all passages from their father's letters that might hurt the feelings of others. (1 trust that thc bleak moment has not yet arisen when Freud's children have found anything in their father's literary estate that would cause them to feel ashamed for him.) Instead, I have chosen to present the full truth about Tausk's personality as it has gradually been rc,·ealed to me through reading all published biogrnphical sources. a well as in the course of interviews with informants who were not known to Roazen. As will be seen, Roazen was not only mistaken in his intcrpretation of important details, but he also o,·erlooked some of the most important ones. A more reliable reconstruction of Tausk's personality than Roazeu succeeded in giving throws a new light on the formidable situation that Freud was facing in a talented pupil's severe psychopathology. u "Offenbar ist ihm an dem /\uclenken des Vaters, den er sehr früh verloren hat, selJT,viel gelegen .... \Venn er gedmckt eine solche Ausserun meines Vaters lesen n,ürde. o würde d.rs sehr schlechte Folgc11 J1ahen. die man unbedingt vermeiden muss."

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. Roazen, however, goes beyond the fantasy of a family conspuacy; he also denounces Jones as an unreliable biographer. To be sure, even under optimal conditions, the production of a biography is a project replete with hazards. If the biographer was a p~rticipan~ in the events he describcs, if he was personally acquamted w1th the ubject of his inquiry and has maintained streng emotional tie to him, that in itself will have great advantages as well as disad,•antages. On the onc band, he will be able to com·ey details. recollections, and opinions that are important and valid contributions to the whole picture; on the other hand, he wilJ be bound to be partisan and subjective. lt would not be difficu]t to outline the areas in which Jones probably erred: yet his three volumes constitute an outstanding achievement, and it would have beea a great pity if they bad not been \\'ritten, e\'en though many passagcs in thern will have to be corrected by later biographers. But Roazen does not hesitate to cast aspersions on Jones·s character, when he expresses bis certaint)• that Jones ·•would ne,·cr have pursued the unsettling details" (p. xix) that Roazen believes he has found. ,1/hat this amounts to is saying that Jones would not have had the courage to fulfill his obligations as a biographer. The ease and unconcern with which Roazen tries to lower the moral standing of anyone, particularly anyonc who is dead, are impressive; but the absence of anr attempt at documeutatioo when he is denouncing others also leaves him open to cri ticisrn. Since Jones was well versed in the historico-biographical method. be would not ha,·e become the victim of errors and rnisinterpretations, as Roazen did; moreover, thc idea that he would suppress evidence in order to protect Freud sounds so unlike Jones to anyone who knew h1m, that onc is tempted to call such a claim maliciou . If anything, it is significant how critical of Freud Jones is at times, and how unhesitatingly he prescnts what, in his view. were Freud's weaknesse . One reads, off and on, that what Jones wrote was a panegyric of Freud. But such an opinion can be put forward only by son;eone who has read the three volumes perfunctorilyor, what is more probable, has fallen into tbe old pattem of equating without further examination whatever any collaborator knov.rn

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for loyalt), to Freud has to say about Freud with the testimony of a positive transference. Jones possessed enough "ambivalence" toward Freud to keep his biography remote frorn a panegyric. Abrief statemcnt ought tobe added here about psychoanalytic biographies of geniuses. Such biographies, if they are even halfway complete and undertake to discuss what makes the genius different from the rest of mankind, must be different in at least one respect from what one finds in psychoanalytic case histories. A person is called a genius ooly wheo he has realized his potential to an unusual degree. In tha t one respect he is to be considered fortunate, whatever his pains and anguishes migbt have been. Since most of what has happened with him, in terms of psychological processes, must have served creativity-or else he could not belong to the category of genius-what is examined in most instances requires a different evaluation than if the same things had happened in the life of an average mortal who undergoes psychoanalytic treatment. For this reason, one may be critical of the biographical study that the Sterbas ( 1954) wrote about Beethoven's relationship to his nephew. As far as I recal1, nowhere is the question raised in that book as to whether ( or in what way) the frightful psychopathology, so superbly documented by the authors, is connected with, or perhaps is a prerequisite, or even a manifestation of, the creative process. lt might, after all, have been an indispensable step toward the creation of the l\lissa Solemnis. Be that as it may, such a point of view cannot be applied to what Roazen gives out as discoveries of new biographical material about Freud, because closer scrutiny demonstrates the untenability of Roazen's unwarranted deductions, whicb he puts forth as facts. But Jet us return to Roazen's procedure in building up a case. His theory of clandestinity and collusion, which is required in order to give this story the necessary momentum, seems threatened by the fact that in 1934 a paper by Tausk was published in the Almanacl1 der Psychoanalyse. In it there is a footnote in wbich, as Roazen acknowledges, Tausk's morbidity comes out with penetrating clarity (see later). lt obviously goes against Roazen's pet assumptions; how then does he resolve th:is embarrassment? By writing: "I t was all so unknown that the pu blishers had no idea

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what the footnotc referred to'' (p. 197). How the author came into possession of that p1ecc of knowledge, however, remains a mystery. . To have an article printed in the Almanach was quite an honor m those days, comparable to being selected for publication in the now defunct Y earbook of Psycl10analysis (Lorand et al., 19451954). Since the majority of the papers published in thc Almanach were selected from previous publications, particularly from the two leading psychoanalytic journals. and since no editor is mentioned in the Almanach of 1934, it is rather plain that the editors of the Internationale psychoana/ytisclle Zeitschrift and the Imago collaborated in the publication of that volume. Paul Federn was one of the editors. lt is therefore beyond any question that Federn rnust bave read the article before it was publisbed, particularly since he had been close to Tausk. ow, if Roaze□ 's deduction were correct, it would mean that Federn, a rcpresentative member of the old guard and quite farniliar with Tausk, did not onderstand the meaning of this revealing footnote. What then did the old guard J...,1ow?And what did it have to conceal? For my part, I am quite certain tliat Federn knew exactly what the footnote meant, and tl1at the fact that the article was published proves that Freud's collaborators had nothing to conceal. To ju tify his claim that a secrct had tobe guardcd, the author reports that "the oldest analysts were incredulous that so little was known about Tausk's significance, and some younger ones were convinced that a secret surroundcd him" (p. xviii). \Vhy the younger ones thought so, the author apparently forgot to find out from them. At any rate, evcn "some youngcr ones" felt baffied by Tausk, and "from maoy I seosed an air of mystery about Tausk" (p. VIII). 11,e author contradict himself anew when he asserts, three pages later, that Tausk ''has ... beeo complctely forgotten" ( p. 3). However, "the older psychoanalysts, who were already intimate with Freud at the time of Tausk's suicide," cannot understand at all "how he bas been forgotten today" ( p. 5f.). All this makes these analysts out to be as confuscd and contradictory as thc author. First thcy suppress Tausk's story out of loyalty to Freud, and thcn they feel puzzled that Tau k has been

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forgotten. But has Tausk been forgotten? And, if so, whose fault is it? The answers to these questions are intimated by the author himself-quite inadvertently, as will be seen. I t was in 1964 that Roazen started to interview all the people who had known Freud, after "I had already spent several years in the cornpany of Freud's ideas wbile prepari:ng a manuscript on the moral and political implications of bis work" ( p. xiii). Yet he lets us know that, as soon as he bad received his "tip-off," he started to ask regularly "if or what they [informants] knew of Tausk, a 5.gure previously unknown to me" (p. xviii, emphasis added). Well, if Tausk was unknown to the author in 1964, after "several years'' of preparing his manuscript on Freud's sociological ideas, this can only mean that he bad not read Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, where Tausk is quoted three times; neither had he read the Psychopatl10Iogy of Everyday Life, where two parapraxes published by Tausk are quotcd in full, and a lang footnote is devoted to a paper of his that Freud called excellent; nor bad he read Freud's metapsychological papers, in one of which Tausk is quoted extensively at a very decisive turn of Freud's discourse. He bad not yet perused the seventeenth volurne of the Standard Edition, whicb was published in 1955 witb Ir. Strachey's indispensable editorial remarks, or else he would surely have found Freud's obituary on Tausk, which is contained in that same volume. Further, he cannot possibly have read Otto Fenichel s basic text on The PsycJ1oanalytic Theory oi Neurosis, with its ten references to Tausk; nor the Psychoanalytic Quarterly of 1933, where Tausk's most important paper was priuted in English; nor the Psychoanalytic Reader of 1948, which reprints the same paper; nor the International Journal of Psycho-AnaJysis of 1924. nor The Psychoanalytic Study of the Cbi1d of 1951, nor the Quarterly of 1934, in all of which papers by Tausk were published; nor, probably has he gone througb the various volumes of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic As ociation, with their numerous references to Tausk. V/hat on earth did the author read, ''while preparing" his previous manuscript? Here we may have the answer to the question of why Tausk bad been "forgotten"-if be was indeed forgotten. lt is as simple as this: the practice of reading professional literature has greatly

BIOGRAPHICAL

TECHNIQUES

23

declined, and that is why so few people knew about Tausk whe□ the author interrogated them. Had he asked them about Hercule Poirot or ero "'olfe. the} would ha\·e responded positive!), as they probably will in the future about Tausk, as the consequence of the author's own mptcry tory. But the idea of conspiracy and collusion. a put forward by Roazen. is not based on historical facts; it is based olely on the neces ity for constructing a background to his detective story. He would ha\"e obtained negative re ponses. and c,·en more frequently, if he had inquiced about Hermann. Stärcke, adger. Hollos, Hamik-all of whom made outstanding contributions to psychoanalysis. I could extend the ]ist by at ka t a dozen names. H an~ thing, it is surprising how often Tausk i still quoted. The mere fact that, in 1965, a paper with the title '·Tausk' 'Influencing ~lachine' and Kafka's 'In the Pena.l Colony'" (Globus and Pillard 1966) was read at a meeting of the Arnerican Psychoanalytic Association should have demonstrated to Roazen that a psychoanalytic author in this country cou1d take lt for granted that the name of Tausk was known to the psychoana1ytic commumty. fost researchers are not historical1y minded. I would guess that e, en a name like that of Jelliffe, who held such an eminent place in the histof) of psychoanaJysis in this country, will bardly be known to man, analvsts who are now under fiftY.The author must surely be a\~'file o·f the rapidity with which -the names of those who are renowned in tbeir lifetime are forgotten. As a counterpoise to this common occurrencc, he had to elevate Tausk to undesened heights. calling him a ' towering mind" ( which he definitelv was not, despite bis grcat talents}, and intimating at times tl{at he even possessed, potentially, Freud's gceatness.

II THE TAUSK EPISODE

I

present in this chapter the Tausk episode used by Roazen to launch a devastating attack against Freud. I shall first familiarize the reader with Tausk's image, gained from various literary sources; I shall tben try to reconstruct Tausk's case history and will follow it by a discussion of Freud's behavior in the matter. An examination of Tausk's suicide will conclude the chapter. SHALL

HIAGES

OF TA USK

The Image of Tausk in Lou Andreas-SaJome'sJournal SINcE RoAZEN'sattack is bascd in part on notes in Lou Andreas-

Salome's (1958) diary, we have to turn first to that extraordinary woman. Lou Andreas-Salome ( 1861-1937) was probably, in the prime of her life, the most distinguished woman in Central Europe. Even now, her name still appears in the highly abbreviated Knaurs Lexikon, which records her as: "autbor (Schriftste11erin), friend of ietzsche and Rilke." Her literary scientific, and philosophical

THE

TAUSK

EPISODE

25

output was prodigious: she published 17 books aod 119 articles, covering an incredibly wide range of topics. 1 Peters (1962) was the first to publish a full-length biography, and Bioion recently ( 1968) dernted a work of 58- pages to her life, her personality and her ·work, but one may doubt whether either attempt bas clone justice to this formidable per onality. Lau Andreas-Salome po ses cd a most remarkable mind. When she was twenty-one years old, ietz ehe said of her that she was "sagacious as an eagle and courageous as a lion" [scharfsinnig wie ein Adler und mutig wie em Löwe]. For at least five months she succeeded in holding spellbound this most complex of all minds, something no woman either before or after was ever able to achieve. Of a poem of her , ietzsche averred: "lt is among those things that have total power over me: I ha\"e yet to be able to read it ,vithout weepiog; it sounds like a voice for which I have \.Vai ted, waüed since childhood" ( Binion 1968, p. 56) . Ile set her "Life Prayer'' to music, and chose her as the one ' to ioherit and carry on my thmking" ( Ibid., p. 69) . This may suffice to give some idea of what an extraordinary mind this \\'0man must have possessed, even as a youog girl. Endowed with the most ubtle empathy for the finest qualities of the human race. she became acquainted and, in most iostances, made friends with a huge number of the members of the Central European iotelligentsia. Rilke \\'as a close friend of hers for years and, although she deserted him, he was still !anging for her on bis deathbed. Gerhart Hauptmann, Beer-Hofmano, Schnitzler and \Vedekiod wcre closc to her, as were outstanding warnen of that period. who were also taken by her unusual intelligence and her fascinating personality. Of course, a }Oung, unmarried woman who despises hypocrisy, and is able to share lodgings with a man for years, arouses contempt and scorn-evcn though, as is now known, she abstained from intercourse '";th him. Thus, the contemporary literature contains tbe severest castiga tions of her. 2 1 Since l1er death. Ernst Pfeiffer has published four more books, witb excerpts from diaries, autobiographical papers and Jctter,. 171e publication of all ~e pa~ers contaioecl in her Jitcrary estate will onc day be an event of extraordmary IIllportance. . • Nietzsche's sister, jealous of the passion Lou Andreas-Salome had aroused 10

26

TALENT

AND

GENIUS

From 1912 on Freud was her hero-probably the only man whose path she crossed who was never afraid of her and who did not ever fall in love with her. He also seems to have been the only man who never wrote or said a bad word about her. For curiously enough, no one-neither man nor woman-who becomes familiar with her life story seems to have a good word for her; almost everyone reproacbes her, sometimes with a mild rebuke, more frequently \Yith barsh words. Jt seems to me that no one is ready to forgive her for the fact that she succeeded in doing what women so rarely succeed in-namely, achieving a synthesis of a free, profound, indeed abnost uninhibited sexual life ( without submitting to the required concea]ments of tbe Victorian period) and high intc11ectual productivity. Her sexual impulsiveness, her unusua] capacity for experiencing the joys of life to their very depths, never cast any shadow an her eminent rank as a human being capable of creating cultural values of high, if not the highest, order. This seems to be in the minds of most, a man's privilegc, and when a woman's life overleaps what mankind in general is able either to experience or to produce, then envy must needs castigate such brilliant "independence." To be sure, she was not squeamish and shc did not torment herself with repentance when a deserted lover suffered a breakdown. In Freud she found the man strong enough to cope with her, and a conflict-free relationship covered the period from their first meeting in 1912 up to her death in 1937. Before speaking further about Lou Andreas-Salome's personality and her relation hip to Freud, I should first like to go step by step through Roazen's line of thought. \Vith the greatest of skill, he lays tbe groundwork for the final blow that he will direct at Freud-namely, the accusation that Freud was motivated by petty revengefulness to humiliate Tausk and even to annihilate him. Yet we are still, at this point far away from this final step. The first step in this sequcnce is to prove that Freud was in love with Lou Andreas-Salome. In accordance with the famous principle of chcrchez la fernme, Roazen asserts that "Lou succeeded in making Freud fall in ]ove with her, though in a sublimated her brother, almost succeeded in liaving her expelled from Cermany (she was bom in Russia).

TUE

TAUSK

EPISODE

27

way" (p. -+3). f shall have rnore to say later about how rnista"ken the author was in his judgmcnt of Lau Andreas- alome's personali ty. Here I wish to say only that such a woman had no need to make an effort to arouse positive responses in any person she rnet -unless tha t person h:ippcned to be jcalous, invidious and reactionary, like Tictzsche's sister. Any man, as profoundly devoted to human values and as e:iger to study humanity in all its variations as Freud was. must have been quickly fascinated by a mind that was so erious and inquisitive, so honest and so passionate in its quest for knowledge. Only an uttedy dull-witted person could have missed feeling that io Lou Andreas-Salome he had met someone unique, such as he would never in his life meet again. lt is note,,orth) how the author tries to provc that Lou had succeeded "in making Freud fall in love with her." In ignorance of Viennese cu toms prevailing before \.Vorld War I and frequently even aftenvards, he "proves" his assumption by referring to Freud's sending Lou Andrcas-Salome ßowers and accompanying her home at 2:30 a.m. '·These attentions are all the more ooteworthy from a man who jealously husbanded his time," the author adds, gradually prcparing the reader foc worse to come. How he koows that Freud was so jealous of time, he does not tel1 us. Ile is here relying, apparently. on common-sense psycho]ogy. In reality, Freud was known. like most truly great men, for rarely feeling pressed for time; he was alway ready-at least until oppressed by painful and fatal il1ness-to gi\'e his time to whoever asked for it. 3 l do not recall in aoy of Freud's letters so far publisbed a single rcference to his being pressed for time. The most one can refer to can be found in a letter to Lou Andreas-Salome of November 10, 1912, in wbich he replied to her request for her first personal meeting with him (lournaJ, p. 44): "I have no free • The feeling of an abundance of time 1s one of lhe surpnsing earmarks of genius. Study of the Jivl'Sof men likc ~01.art and Goethe (and many others as weil) demonstrates that they never feit pre,sed for hmc. The feeling that _time is mnoing short, that time h Jackmg for accompli~hments, is d1aractenst1c of the talentcd only, but scldom of tl1e geoius, and ncycr or Freud. Someonc has figured how long it wou]d take for a 5cribe simply to copy l\ lozart\ scorcs; the number of years required i-, incred1ble.If one cons1dersall that Goethe w_rotc(a_nd only a part is presen-cd), 1l ,, mcomprehen füle how all Im otlicr pttrrn1ts, wh1ch would ta'ke at least a page to enumeratc. could havc bccn comprcsscd 111toone lifetime,

28

TALE

T AND

GE

'IUS

time earlier than that [ten o'clock at oight]. lf you will do me the honor of a visit at such a late hour, I shall gladly engage to sce you safely home." By ignoring the fact that in 1912 Freud was far from well known out ide Vienna, not to say famous anywhcre, but tbat Lou Andreas-Salome was already a farnous person, the author fails to co □ sider what tremendous importance her appearance in Vienna and her scrious intention of studying psychoanalysis nmst have had for Freucl. There were, as far as l can see, three events during the grievous years of consistent rejection and ridicule that gave Freud some hope with regard to thc future of psychoanalysis. Tue first ( 1906) was the interest of the Swiss group in psychoanalysis; the seco □ d, the invitation to the U nited States in 1909; and the third, the decision of contemporary Germany's best-kno\,11 woman author in favor of ps ·cboanalysis. lt gocs without saying that Freud must have hopcd that such a turn of events, which wou]d necessarily have bad to become known after a while in tbe intellectual circ1es of Centra] Europe, would at last free psychoanalysis from pub]ic rid:icule. Consequently, it is surprising that Lou AndreasSalome's Journal records only few private sess:ions during the approximately six months of her stay in V:ienna. Binion makes it almost certain that on thesc occasions something 1ike the rudiments of an analysis took place. One may suggest that Freud feared lest resistance would, shortly after her departure, undo the strides that the newcomer bad rnade. Yet let us return to Roazen' viev.1 of events. Wl1en Roazen writes (p. 43) of Freud's sublimated Jove for Lou Andreas-Salome, no one can object-in view of their deep friendship-to a term that covers everything from the liking of a pet to thc adoration of God. By introducing the love tbeme, however, Roazen has laid the groundwork for further "deductions." Since it has been generally assurned that Lou Andreas-Salome and Tausk had a sexual affair (Peters 1962, p. 279; Binion 1968, p. 208) .4 Roazen now feels entitled to assert with documentation that "Freud was jealous 'lt was only after having completed the manuscript of this book that l was informed by fr. Emst Pfeiffer, owner and administrator of Lau Andreas-Salome's literary estate, tliat he believes he has found evidence which proves that she did not have a physical relation~hip with Tausk. Roazen, to whom Mr. Pfeiffer-as he later informed me-gave the same information, does not mention it in bis book.

THE

TAU

K

EPJSODE

29

of Tausk's opportunity to bave 'an affair with Lou'" (p. 45); and suddenly tbere i a ·'triangle" situation bctween the three which la ter ( p. - 3) becomes "a spiritual menagc a troi " arrange~ ment, with all the innucndoc ancl implications involvcd in thc usc of such a term. Frcud's "jealousy" will bccome in the end a crucial foundation for bi uppo cd annihilation of his disciple. The trusting reader. howevcr, will have forgottcn by then that, initially, the author had daimed nothing but a sublimated love on Freud's part. Since thcrc is no evidence obt.ainable for the presence of jealousy i □ Freud ( he had \\ ritten Arnold Zweig after Lou AndreasSalomc' · dcath of hi fondness of her, "curiously enough without a trace of sexual attrnction,'' Jone. 3, p. _13), common-sense psycholog) ha to bc applicd again. 17,us, Tau k's physical points of e.xcellencc are compared with Freud' appearance and. in order to eliminate any doubt about föc corrcctness of the assurnption of jealousy, the author adds (p. -+6): ..\\nen Freud stared spellbound at Lou's vacant chair, she ma) weJl have been ,vith Tausk" ( she was not, as will be een presently). The suggesti e remark refers to the following: Freud, in a letter to Lou Andrea -Salome (Journal, p. 44), made mention of hi "bad habit of directing my lecture to a particular person in the audicncc'' (a per onal peculiarity which he rnay have used constrnctivcly to gfre his lcctures thcir absolutely convincing fom1). vidcntly, he bad elected Lau Andrcas-Salome as the "particular person," for he continued: "Yesteday I stared as if spellbound at the vacant chmr reserYed for you."" First l ,,·ant to how how a vicw that has been born out of prejudice just does not "click.'' Frcud's ]etter was written two weeks after Lou Andreas-Salomc's arrival in Vienna and tcn days after she bad met Tausk for thc fin,t time (Journal, p. 37). I have • The Ccnnan 111egebJ1111t,wh1c.h 1\ wcak