Frederick’s blood pressure shot up whenever he saw a hungry kid. He loved his mother and when he was very young he would use what money she gave him to buy her bonbons and other sweets: Cream Slices a la Sacher, Spunge Roulade, Plum Jam Turnovers, and his favorite, Malakov Chocolate Tortes. But gradually as he grew up he understood that there was more to life than indulging in the sweeter side of Vienna. He understood more about the times in which he lived. He understood that to get to go to the university was a privilege reserved for the few who could afford to go, and though he felt thankful, he began to break away from his parents. And the more he emerged himself in academics…and he was highly motivated…the more he rejected them.
He entered the university thinking that he might become a doctor, when actually he didn’t have a clear idea of what he wanted to study. He even began to think that he might drift from one discipline to another and go through college without getting a degree. So he took classes in a number of fields and as far a field as the History of Carolingian economics under Alfons Dopsch and the History of Renaissance art under Josef Strzigowski. He also took courses under Hermann Swobodo, who was very much into the theory of rhythms of Ernst Kries, which indirectly led to an introduction to Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud by then had his weekly circle. Now Frederick would never have received an invitation to attend Freud’s circle had it not been for Swobodo, and Frederick would not have gone to the meetings on his own. His professor took him and the two of them of bought coffee and sweets before they joined the group gathered around a big round table. All of the details of these meetings of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society are well documented in books written by colleagues and friends of Freud. These details didn’t coincide with the details Frederick had in his brain, like the clothes the members wore and the sweets they ate. These meetings became an extension of his education and were awarded him because of his brilliance. Other students in Swobodo’s classes, and many of them were also bright, had no idea that their professor favored Frederick, and probably wouldn’t have been interested in going anyway. They weren’t as interested in the theory of rhythms of Ernst Kries. Most of them took the course because it was required. Frederick took it because it sounded exciting to him.
Frederick went more to circle for the stimulation than for the idea of retaining anything. He left his own opinions at home, though Freud made everyone participate. He always bought the same sweet.
Freud handed out cigars. He always tried to get members of his circle to smoke with him. Consequently most of them were more or less cigar smokers. He thought, “It helps, it helps. It helps stimulate coherent discourse.” Then he remembered his cocaine days. “It was important then.” Then they drew lots. They would continue from there, and Frederick would be last. He ate his sweet. He heard someone declare that “addiction is a symptomatic form of infantile suckling.” Freud interrupted him at that point. He never liked the suggestion that any of his work in psychoanalysis had any connection with his early us of cocaine. Another participant said, “But the primal horde throws itself on the father. If I’m correct, I am my father’s son and not my mother’s. And I can’t help it. All that I am comes from my father. All of this Mom-and-Pop business is nonsense. It all goes back to the father. Maybe many generations from now we’ll have evolved differently. But we won’t know it, will we? And I don’t think we want to jump the gun.”
They never got to Frederick, and he never said a word during the meeting. After that he despised his father more than ever.
One evening after the three friends started going out together, Frederick thought that he’d get a row out of Herr Lippert, get something out of him at least, when he said, “We’re all idiots.” Herr Lippert saw where he was going and didn’t respond. His first feeling was that Frederick was trying to get a reaction from him that would lead to an argument. He had certainly been around Frederick long enough to know him, and after all of the arguments they had he knew to keep his mouth shut. He asked himself, “What possibly could he be referring to?” He decided that it really didn’t matter: he would wait and see. So he left it and went onto another topic.
Frederick continued his thinking in his head. “We’re all idiots if after the loss of the war we don’t want to die.” But that didn’t sound right for there was a break in his logic somewhere. So he dropped it. “We’re all idiots because we don’t go out more often.” Not talking about what he was feeling bothered him, and it would be something that he’d talk about the next time he attended Freud’s circle. With his friends, he therefore left his “we’re all idiots” comment without ever bringing it up with them again.
But Herr Lippert still wondered why his friend used such a strong term as “idiots.” It bothered him that he ignored it. He thought then that there had to have been something treacherous behind the remark and he very quickly realized that he’d avoided a trap. He had passed a test, a test Frederick had contrived.
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