I’ll get in the water someday, my trick will fail, and then goodnight.

–  

  

Harry  

Houdini

Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.

–  

Sigmund  

Freud

For a year now he’s been practising the escape from the Chinese Water Torture  

Cell  

and,  

every  

time  

he  

submerges,  

he  

is  

terrified,  

convinced  

he  

 will drown. Yet he continues. He has told his wife, and his assistant, that he cannot rely on anyone but himself any more, else he is doomed, and so he does not permit them to institute what they have always considered proper safety measures. Now a group of suffragettes in England have challenged him  

to  

escape  

from  

a  

confinement  

of  

their  

design  

which  

is  

patently  

absurd,  

 but  

will  

afford  

him,  

finally,  

the  

opportunity  

to  

consult  

Sigmund  

Freud  

in  

 person;;  

he  

will  

be  

in  

England  

at  

the  

same  

time.  

The  

two  

men,  

nearly  

twenty  

 years between them, Freud being the elder, have been exchanging letters for a year and, with each letter, they have become friendlier, warmer. An Anglophile, Dr. Freud’s English is impeccable:

Vienna
5 September 1912

Dear Ehrich,

I am, of course, delighted to hear from you again. Forgive the delay in my reply. I was on vacation with my family in the mountains for two weeks and, at my wife’s insistence, did not take my correspondence with me. It seems as though our wives would get along very well, my friend. Perhaps you will come to Vienna with Bess after your engagements in London and Berlin and be our guests. I will take you to my favorite café, and we can take long walks together. You will be amused by my gait, the gait of an old man, yet I limp along at a steady pace. I will, no doubt, admire your athleticism, which has made you so famous. A man who lives so much in and through his body is of great interest to me.

But I am troubled by your most recent complaints, Ehrich, and urge  

you  

caution  

until  

we  

can  

find  

a  

solution  

for  

you.  

This  

will  

not  

be  

 possible by letter though I can make one or two suggestions until we meet in England in two months’ time. Firstly, of course, I urge you to abandon at once the particular stunt that is triggering your obsessive thoughts. Surely, there are others you can do at less risk. Secondly, reduce your commitments and do not answer any more challenges except for the suffragettes who are, thankfully, bringing you to England. So, you will be lashed to a mattress with bandages, how sublime. And how clever your manager is. Apart from the hilarity of this evening, the show you are planning for your tour in England should be simple, primarily illusion rather than stunt. Do you think this is possible? Is this not the way you began? I understand that the invitation from Scotland Yard may be difficult  

to  

decline.  

Can  

you  

perform  

a  

simple  

release  

from  

the  

handcuffs  

 without jumping into water? I think you must eliminate water from your repertoire right now, Ehrich.

I look very much forward to meeting with you, at length, over a  

period  

of  

a  

week,  

and  

will  

ask  

my  

colleague,  

Ernest  

Jones,  

to  

find
a secure location far from the reporters, the spiritualists, and the maddening crowd. We can follow-up on our analysis when you come to see me in Vienna where I hope you can stay for at least a month. Once again, you and Bess will be welcome as guests in our home. Please let me know if such an arrangement would suit you.

Fondly, Sigmund

New York September 25, 1912

Sigmund, dear friend,

Thank you very much for your letter of September 5th. I have taken what you said to heart but, unfortunately, my manager is insisting that water remain an element in the stunts. He has promised the Alhambra that the Chinese Water Torture Cell will be part of the program. I could ask my brother to take my place, but I worry that the audience  

would  

not  

be  

satisfied.

I am practising every day, obsessively, as you say. It is like Russian Roulette and I cannot stop. When will the mechanism fail? Why do I prefer to immerse myself in the tank without assistants? Why do I feel both  

safe  

and  

terrified  

in  

this  

watery  

womb?  

What  

has  

happened  

to  

me?

Warmly, Ehrich

Freud notes that Ehrich has not answered his question about arrangements. It  

is  

obvious  

that  

the  

obsession  

has  

a  

firm  

hold  

and  

has  

become  

an  

obstacle  

to  

 everyday life rendering Ehrich unable to reply to suggestions or invitations. Freud takes a paternal interest in his patients and he is worried about Ehrich in a way he cannot explain to his colleagues who are, for the most part, sceptical of his work. All except Lou-Andreas Salomé, the only woman among them. She understands best of all, it seems. As for the others, they  

preferred  

his  

experiments  

with  

hypnotism  

and  

cocaine;;  

the  

concrete  

 effects could be measured. Now there is constant conversation about ‘the unconscious’, as a reservoir of memory, impulse and desire. And when thinking about Ehrich, Freud considers his background, the life he has led, his family, and what has been, shall we say, swallowed and then contained by his unconscious. True, there are physical reasons for his choice of occupation  

–  

an  

escapologist:  

he  

is  

acrobatic,  

supple,  

lithe,  

dexterous.  

By  

all  

 accounts,  

his  

fingers  

are  

the  

most  

dexterous  

ever  

seen  

though  

this  

statement  

 is probably the hyperbole of the tabloid press. A small man with a tender face, broad shoulders, wide cheekbones, smooth, beardless skin, attractive to women, Freud decides, because he is not threatening, he does not loom over  

them.  

A  

Victorian  

paterfamilias,  

Freud  

is  

self-conscious  

–  

and  

how  

is  this  

related  

to  

the  

unconscious,  

he  

wonders  

–  

about  

his  

own  

stooped  

stature  

 and capacious belly, his white beard and tobacco stained teeth. He cannot give up his beloved cigars though his personal doctor has admonished him to do so and his wife, Martha, has shunned him in bed when he takes a late night cigar or schnapps. There have been many nights when he has slept in  

his  

office  

or  

in  

Minna’s  

bed  

performing  

his  

own  

tricky  

escape  

from  

the  

 harridan who has borne him six children. Besides his wife and sister-in-law, and his favorite daughter, Anna, he has few admiring women in his life other than Minna, Lou-Andreas, and his patients, all hysterics with somatic symptoms who lie on his thickly draped couch week after week and lament about their philandering husbands, for example. He is bored with them, yet he needs them to write his papers, and as a basis for discussion in the salons and  

 lectures  

 in  

 Vienna,  

 Geneva  

 and  

 beyond.  

 Freud  

 by  

 now  

 is  

 a  

 famous  

 man, a controversial thinker, Herr Doktor, revered, respected, and feared. He has even been to Clark University in America and it was there that his alleged friend, Jung, told a reporter about Minna, albeit obliquely without using  

her  

name  

and  

without  

specificity,  

and  

used  

the  

word  

‘hypocrite’,  

with  

 reference to Freud, which was both searing and slanderous. His analysis by correspondence with Ehrich has been a great relief from the overbearing criticism he endures. First Fliess and now Jung have abandoned him. But to be called hypocrite by a respected colleague, a man he had nurtured and trained, and to expose him to a reporter. Ehrich Weiss, aka Harry Houdini, a celebrity many admire, is just as famous as Freud and has more at stake every time he appears in public: his life. What does Freud have at stake? His reputation. A friendship with the famous Houdini may or may not enhance his reputation, though this is not Freud’s conscious motivation. No, he likes the man and is intrigued by his self-destructive obsession. Thankfully, there is no homoerotic undertow to their discussions as there had been with Freud’s  

first  

collaborator  

–  

Fliess.  

But,  

of  

course,  

Freud  

and  

Houdini  

have  

 never  

met  

so  

there  

is  

no  

physicality  

to  

disturb  

the  

flow  

of  

their  

epistolary  

 conversation. Their correspondence is crisp, polite, warm in a fraternal or paternal manner, but not seductive or competitive in any way. If Freud can help Houdini, he will be pleased. Surely, he will be pleased to meet him, to break the illusion of his tricks, to plumb their depths and expose the armature of the terror that has befallen him and threatens his livelihood.

But how can Houdini help Freud? Neither Houdini nor Freud consider this question during the period of their initial correspondence.

*****

One  

 week  

 before  

 he  

 packs  

 his  

 bags  

 for  

 the  

 trip  

 to  

 England,  

 Freud  

 has  

 a  

 dream which he records in his self-analysis notebook: I am visited by a shadowy  

 figure  

 known  

 as  

 ‘the  

 Prince  

 of  

 the  

 Air’,  

 who  

 informs  

 me  

 of  

 a  

 volcanic eruption in Italy, a catastrophe that has taken many lives. As a doctor I am asked to assist in the hospital where all the survivors have been taken but I have lost my skill and am as helpless as a schoolboy.

Helpless as a schoolboy. Impotent. He puts the notebook down and though it is 3 a.m., he climbs the cold, uncarpeted stairs to Minna’s room. He will prove to himself what he can do and he knows that she will encourage him because  

she  

has  

always  

encouraged  

him;;  

it  

is  

the  

basis  

of  

her  

acceptance  

 in  

the  

household.  

  

Her  

small  

attic  

room  

is  

warm,  

a  

low  

fire  

burning  

in  

the  

 grate. She sleeps calmly, her thick graying hair loose on the down pillow. The  

 embroidered  

 initials  

 on  

 the  

 fine  

 linen  

 cover  

 –  

 a  

 long  

 ago  

 discarded  

 dowry,  

 yellow  

 with  

 age  

 –  

 are,  

 ironically,  

 or  

 perhaps,  

 intentionally,  

 or  

 perhaps, obviously, the same as Martha’s were before her marriage to Freud: MB, Minna Bernays.

Only  

Lou-Andreas  

Salomé  

knows  

all  

the  

details  

of  

Freud’s  

affair  

with  

his  

 wife’s sister. ‘It was as though you married both of them. It was as though you needed both of them for yourself and to raise your children’, Lou says, and the simplicity of the observation is, in itself, a consolation. They are no longer  

teacher  

and  

student;;  

they  

are  

friends.

Their  

lives  

have  

been  

defined  

by  

their  

work,  

Lou  

always  

complains.  

  

And,  

 for  

Freud,  

this  

is  

certainly  

true.  

When  

the  

two  

are  

together  

–  

rarely  

now  

 that Lou-Andreas has completed her training and moved back to Germany –  

they  

open  

their  

notebooks  

and  

discuss  

their  

patients,  

the  

intrigue  

among  

 other practitioners, Lou’s chaste marriage and her lover, Rilke, Freud’s ménage, and now, as Freud is about to set out for England in the fall of 1912, Houdini. What does Lou-Andreas think of Houdini?

‘We will discuss Houdini later. Let us return to your dream, Sigmund’, she says,  

firmly.  

She  

is  

a  

great  

beauty,  

dark-haired,  

large  

boned,  

self-confident,  

 and kind-hearted, a fatal mix for the men who adore her. ‘It was you who had taught me how exceptional the dreamer can be in interpreting his own dreams and how we, as analysts, must attend to the dreamer’s interpretation and take it further’, she continues. She is, Freud observes, most attractive when she gets down to business. He has never known such an intelligent, determined, emancipated woman.

She was waiting for him to speak. For, alas, even in this story so far, we have not heard Herr Doktor’s voice except through the prism of his affectionate and concerned letter to Ehrich. Now in the presence of his good friend and confidante,  

Lou-Andreas,  

at  

the  

Café  

Sacher,  

late  

one  

afternoon  

just  

two  

 days  

before  

his  

departure,  

Freud  

cannot  

remain  

silent;;  

Lou-Andreas  

will  

 not permit such silence. Yet, he is afraid. He lights his cigar, leans back on the lushly upholstered chair, and speaks slowly and deliberately, intent quite consciously upon not revealing too much: ‘The Prince of Thin Air, I recall, is one of the monikers attributed to Houdini by the tabloid press.’

‘And you have been preoccupied with Houdini?’ ‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘And that is all.’

‘And you are melancholy?’

‘Yes.’

‘The  

other  

night,  

in  

the  

attic,  

the  

fire  

in  

the  

grate  

blew  

out  

as  

soon  

as  

we  

 began to wrestle under the covers’, Freud says ‘I took it as an omen.’

‘This fantasy, which you call an omen, is a reckoning, a resistance’, Lou- Andreas suggests, a gentle suggestion which she hopes will spur Freud into an awareness of his deep guilt about the long-standing affair with Minna and Martha’s complicity in the ménage. Indeed, there cannot be a ménage unless there is complicity, Lou-Andreas has said often. Does not her own husband agree to her affairs?

She turns to the waiter to ask for some sugar, a breathing space in the intense conversation. The café is becoming more crowded and noisy with all  

 the  

 five  

 o’clock  

 regulars  

 unloading  

 their  

 leather  

 briefcases  

 onto  

 the  

 empty chairs and placing their orders imperiously. It is a tone of voice the Viennese  

have  

mastered.  

The  

seats  

are  

taken  

within  

minutes,  

no  

waiting  

 line, grumbles, and the latecomers roll onto the street with dejected expressions. Though there are many other cafés, none are as coveted by the  

status-driven  

Viennese  

as  

the  

Sacher.

‘It is unimportant’, Freud says, referring again to the troubling dream, in the hope that his mention of it to Lou will be disregarded.

‘But you must not withhold any association, Sigmund, and this you know very well. I have heard you iterate this principle countless times in your lectures.’

‘Why do you press me, Lou?’

‘Because that is what you wish me to do, Sigmund.’

And so, on a rainy morning in early November of 1912, Freud sets out for London.  

The  

journey,  

by  

train  

to  

Ostende,  

ferry  

to  

Dover,  

and  

then  

another  

 train from Dover to London, takes almost two days. He will break the journey  

in  

Ostende  

and  

rest  

the  

night  

at  

the  

Old  

Inn  

near  

the  

water  

where  

he  

 has stayed many times before. He sleeps heavily that night, without dreams, and in the early morning, before boarding the ferry, he takes a long walk along the water. Two cats follow him to the quay, or he imagines he is being followed and, as he sits down on a bench, one of them, a Persian with a yellow streak down its forehead, jumps onto his lap. He does not want it there  

–  

he  

has  

never  

liked  

domesticated  

animals  

–  

and  

grabs  

it  

by  

its  

scruff.  

 Unrelenting, like a bad dream, the cat returns, its black and amber eyes as piercing as Freud’s own. The two stare at one another a moment, and then the cat jumps away and disappears into the morass of quayside activity. The boats are being loaded with cargo, barrels of fruit, bales of tobacco. Freud takes out his cigar, but has trouble lighting it in the brisk wind. He has an uneasy sensation, almost a premonition, about the journey. What if I decided not to board the ferry? What then? But when has Herr Doktor ever abandoned his plans or allowed a patient to go untended? And though Ehrich waits for him, he is apprehensive. In the remaining minutes of his leisurely morning, he thinks about a life of adventure, a reckless life, utterly unlike his own, yet utterly his own. A life that belongs to him, without wife, mistress, children or professional obligation. If, at least, he had been a soldier, called to command troops in the furthest reaches of the Austro- Hungarian Empire, he might have been happier. He fantasises himself in uniform,  

 a  

 masterful,  

 dashing  

 figure.  

 But  

 there  

 arrived  

 an  

 invitation  

 to  

 medical school and his parents would not let him turn it down. Jews do not become soldiers by choice, they had said to him. Freud had studied the Bible  

and  

knew  

this  

was  

patently  

untrue;;  

the  

Jews  

had  

been  

warriors  

for  

 millennia. Not so in the European diaspora where all remnants of antiquity had been extinguished. And so he went to medical school and developed his theories about the unconscious and the practise of psychoanalysis.

How shall he greet Ehrich? With a handshake or a hug? They will be meeting  

 in  

 Ernest  

 Jones’s  

 office  

 at  

 University  

 College,  

 London,  

 a  

 more  

 formal setting than Freud would have liked. Freud will stay with Jones who is  

married  

to  

one  

of  

his  

daughter’s  

Viennese  

schoolmates  

and  

close  

to  

the  

 Freud family. This is, in fact, how Freud and Jones met. And now Ernest Jones wants to create the British Psychoanalytic Society and Freud has agreed to help him, the ostensible reason for his visit to London. But the main event, of equal importance, will be Ehrich Weiss, aka Houdini. The name Houdini itself conjures intrigue for Freud, intrigue and excitement. As  

 soon  

 as  

 the  

 arrangements  

 were  

 confirmed,  

 the  

 excitement  

 became  

 almost unbearable and Freud let slip the news to Lou-Andreas. It soon got round  

to  

his  

colleagues  

in  

Vienna  

and  

Berlin  

that  

he  

had  

been  

asked  

to  

help  

 Houdini overcome a paralyzing obsession and that if he were able to cure the performer, all scepticism about treatment modalities might cease. Was it Lou-Andreas who gave him away? That dear woman, he certainly did not think so. But now that the name of his new mystery patient has been revealed, a lot is in the balance for Sigmund Freud. Some say he has taken on the case for the purpose of solidifying his reputation, others that he is bored by  

his  

clientele  

in  

Vienna.  

So  

many  

rumors,  

all  

because  

confidentiality  

was  

 breached. And this is the source of the disquiet, the premonition, and the dream about the ‘Prince of the Air’, Freud decides. There is no way he can satisfy every one’s expectations, least of all his own.

*****

He had a dossier about Ehrich Weiss in his satchel which he hoped to read on the boat, but it was a rough voyage, and motion sickness got the better of him. He heaved over the side three times before he settled into a chair mid-ship but even then his stomach did not settle. He was grateful to be travelling  

 alone  

 and  

 unrecognized;;  

 he  

 did  

 not  

 want  

 to  

 be  

 observed  

 by  

 strangers in his vulnerability. Such vanity. How to explain it? Both Freud and Houdini felt a constant hankering for recognition. They had much else in common despite the discrepancy in their ages. Ehrich was Jewish also though his family had emigrated to America from Budapest when he was a boy. He had learned from his parents to remain invisible to the anti-Semites by changing his name and going into show business. Not that being  

Jewish  

mattered  

so  

much  

in  

America.  

Freud’s  

struggle  

in  

Vienna  

was  

 more exhausting. The description of psychoanalysis as a ‘Jewish science’ undermined legitimacy. Freud hoped that with the help of Ernest Jones, who was Welsh, and Carl Jung who was Swiss Protestant, the universality of their shared methods would coalesce.

All this was going through his mind as the boat swelled and dipped across the Channel. What a relief to be back on land and to board the train. The dreary English landscape with its endless postage stamp gardens, lowering sky, and empty streets were so lacking in charm and drama, that it was restful, almost hypnotic, to watch them slip by. He dozed and snored, most probably, as he woke with drool on his chin and a bad taste in his mouth. He had forgotten his mints and was relieved that no one would be picking him up at the station unshaven, unbathed, uncouth. He could not wait to have a proper nap and wash in the hotel before meeting Ernest Jones for dinner at his club. He thought of Martha’s comment about the men’s clubs in  

London,  

their  

rarified  

atmosphere  

and  

exclusion  

of  

women.  

She  

didn’t  

 like them. She didn’t like them at all. How did the old saying go: ‘Men drink while women are at the sink’, she said. He had rarely seen her so angry. He rolled into sleep with Martha’s words in his head and awoke to the bells of a small church across the street at six in the evening. He had only an hour to bathe and dress which, strangely, did not seem long enough.

His  

 first  

 appointment  

 with  

 Ehrich  

 took  

 place  

 on  

 Monday  

 morning  

 at  

 eleven. In an effort to feel insouciant, Freud walked from Baker Street to Tottenham Court Road. The air was brisk, misty with rain. He had forgotten his  

umbrella  

in  

Vienna.  

This  

forgetfulness  

was  

something  

new,  

either  

age  

 related, or because he felt constantly distracted and tense. Why did he feel like an old man? His life, by all accounts, was placid and predictable. True, his ideas were still ridiculed at times but, by and large, he’d made a career and a name for himself. If only Martha had packed his umbrella. But she had been busy and said, ‘You must pack yourself, Sigmund.’ It was the first  

time  

she  

had  

let  

him  

down  

in  

this  

way.  

Like  

his  

forgetfulness,  

it  

was  

 something new to digest and analyze. Why was she defying him? He put his mist-frosted spectacles into their case and continued walking into the tip of Regent’s Park, and then back out onto the Marylebone Road. The leaves lay desiccating and un-swept on the sidewalk. The British were not as tidy as the  

Viennese,  

he  

thought,  

but  

to  

what  

end?  

Neither  

were  

they  

spontaneous  

 or fun loving, only messy. But not in their speech. The precision in the British language had engaged Freud since he was a schoolboy. As an adult, however, he noted an undertow in every conversation, or an edge. Freud couldn’t make it out exactly: hostility or privilege? Yet, oddly, he felt at home here and walked the streets unmolested. It was always good to get away from his practise and his domestic life albeit to an even more staid, repressed and anti-Semitic country than his own. Hadn’t Lou-Andreas always  

said,  

‘We  

must  

take  

our  

pleasures  

where  

we  

find  

them,  

Sigmund.’  

 She was not Jewish so never felt that pressure. As for Ernest Jones, he was entertaining but the club itself was not. Formality in every introduction but not a sentence more. The response to Sigmund Freud bordered on condescension. Ernest offered an explanation: most of the men had never met a Jew. ‘And you disappointed them, dear friend. They had undoubtedly expected a person more exotic wearing veils and bindis with outlandish ideas and manners.’

So he had broken a race barrier. That explained his mood, which was incendiary. He had wanted to pummel all the men who had so politely taken his hand.

Ehrich could not shake the repulsion he felt in Freud’s presence. Freud smoked all the time and his brown tweed suit was saturated with the odor of cigar. The vest reminded him of his grandfather, and it was not a fond memory. Ehrich asked to open the window and then sat as far away from Freud  

as  

he  

could.  

But  

the  

office  

was  

small  

and  

Freud  

insisted  

on  

moving  

 the desk chair in front of the desk onto the carpet. The two men, who in their fantasy had become epistolary friends, were now in proximity with only a small coffee table between them, a no man’s land of confusion. Day after day, Freud pressed on with his questions as Houdini evaded. Was he meticulous in his personal habits, Freud wanted to know? How did he prepare for a journey? How would he describe his relationship with his mother? His sexual relationship with his wife?

Houdini was an escape artist and would not, could not answer. Yet, he knew that if he did not relax, the meetings Dr. Jones had set up would be futile and the obsessive behavior unresolved, threatening his livelihood. Odd,  

he  

never  

thought  

that  

the  

coda  

to  

the  

obsession  

might  

be  

death,  

death  

 as  

he  

was  

flying  

into  

the  

water  

from  

a  

bridge,  

for  

example.  

And  

so,  

finally,  

 he took Freud’s advice and recorded his dreams, when he could remember them, and he gave the dreams titles: The Sphinx, The Homecoming, The  

 Elopement.  

 During  

 the  

 fifth  

 session,  

 they  

 discussed  

 The  

 Sphinx,  

 a dream story about an animal with cloven hooves that is half-dog and half-lamb. Bowls of food and water are put out for the creature who runs down steep stairs and eventually disappears. Freud suggested that the dream story expressed the duality in Ehrich’s nature: his desire to be both manly and kind. But when Ehrich free associated on his own dream, he thought it meant something entirely different and that Freud was talking about himself. But Freud insisted that it expressed a duality in Ehrich’s nature,  

 not  

 his  

 own,  

 and  

 this  

 seemingly  

 definitive  

 explanation  

 delivered  

 with pompous certainty, was a strait jacket from which Houdini required escape. His mind moved as fast as his dexterous limbs and he could not be contained in this way or be bound by rules, walls, borders, traditions or dumb explanations, he told Freud. He cut the session short and told Herr Doktor that he was a fool and had not been able to help him. The obsessions were intensifying, new tricks surfacing in his day dreams everyday and he had hoped for a sudden solution which Freud explained was not possible, thus the invitation to come to his house and continue treatment in  

Vienna.  

Houdini  

refused  

and  

said  

again  

that  

Freud  

was  

a  

fool.  

He  

spoke  

 directly but without rancour and ended with the projection that he would dance away from his death wish as he had always done by free-falling into the water, unlatching all bolts and chains, and swimming away to freedom. But Freud was concerned that all the manly, athletic skill would not save Houdini from a sudden and premature death.

*****

It  

was  

some  

thirteen  

years  

later,  

October  

31,  

1926,  

that  

Freud’s  

prediction  

 was realized. During a lecture in Montreal, Houdini had mentioned his strong stomach muscles. A young student punched him without warning,  

and  

the  

next  

day  

Houdini’s  

appendix  

ruptured.  

He  

was  

only  

fifty  

 years old.

Freud wept when he read the obituary in the newspaper. He was in the Sacher by himself and there was nowhere for the tears to go, no one to whom he could express his shock and remorse. He could not explain his strong attachment to Houdini, or the idea of Houdini, a man who escapes. Despite international recognition, Freud had only to think of Houdini to feel a  

strong  

sense  

of  

failure.  

Solitude  

amplified  

his  

despair  

and  

he  

prepared  

to  

 leave, gathering his disordered papers into his satchel while calling for the check, and dabbing his eyes discreetly with a folded handkerchief that the maid had ironed only that morning. What was Martha doing all day now that they had hired this maid? Freud had already forgotten what Martha had said to him over breakfast. He took a walk into the Staadtpark and sat on a bench for a long time. It was autumn, the season of falling leaves and sharp winds. It was already snowing in the Alps. Freud, now seventy years old, had no energy to take long walks any more. He had grown into his own image of himself as an old man, stooped and limping along the streets of Vienna,  

the  

only  

home  

he  

had  

ever  

known  

and  

loved.

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