“And, all,” Alfred added immediately, “probably made so much worse by the tragedy of the satanic Versailles Treaty, which made all their suffering pointless.”
Friedrich noted how adroitly Alfred swung the discussion toward his knowledge base of politics but ignored that. “An interesting speculation, Alfred. To address it we’d need to know what is going on in the waiting rooms of Paris and London military hospitals. You may be in a great position to explore that question for your paper, and, frankly, I wish you would write about it. All the publicity we can get will help. Germany needs to take this more seriously. We need more resources.”
“You have my word. I’ll write a story about it as soon as I return.”
As they both slowly enjoyed their linzer torte, Alfred turned to Friedrich. “So you’ve finished your training now?”
“Yes, most of my formal training. But psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish. Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I’m still learning. If you see anything about me that might help me know more about myself, please do not hesitate to point it out.”
“I can’t possibly imagine that. What could I see? What could I tell you?”
“Anything you notice. Perhaps you might catch me looking at you in an odd way, or interrupting you, or using an inapt word. Maybe I’ll misunderstand you or ask clumsy or irritating questions . . . anything. I mean it, Alfred. I want to hear it.”
Alfred was speechless, almost destabilized. It had happened again. He had once more entered Friedrich’s strange world, with radically different rules of discourse—a world he encountered nowhere else.
“So,” Friedrich continued, “you said you were in Amsterdam and had to return to Munich. But Berlin is not exactly on the way.”
Reaching into his overcoat pocket, Alfred pulled out Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise. “A long train ride was the perfect venue for reading this.” He held the book up to Friedrich. “I finished this on the train. You were so right to suggest it to me.”
“I’m impressed, Alfred. You are a dedicated scholar. Not many like you around. Aside from professional philosophers, very few people read Spinoza after their university days. I would have thought that by now, with your new profession and all the shattering events in Europe, you’d have forgotten all about old Benedictus. Tell me what you thought of the book?”
“Lucid, courageous, intelligent. It’s a devastating critique of Judaism and Christianity—or, as my friend Hitler puts it, the ‘whole religious swindle.’ However, I do question Spinoza’s political views. There is no doubt he is naïve in his support for democracy and individual freedom. Only look at where those ideas have led us to in Germany today. He seems almost to be advocating an American system, and we all know where America is heading—to a half-caste mulatto disaster of a country.”
Alfred paused, and both men took their last bites of the linzer torte, a true luxury in such lean times.
“But tell me more about the Ethics,” he continued. “That was the book that offered Goethe so much tranquility and vision, the book that he carried in his pocket for a year. Do you remember offering to be my guide, to help me learn how to read it?”
“I remember, and the offer stands. I just hope I’m up to it, because I’ve been cramming my mind with the small and big thoughts of my profession. I haven’t thought of Spinoza since I was with you. Where to begin?” Friedrich closed his eyes. “I’m transporting myself back to university days and listening to my philosophy professor’s lectures. I remember him saying that Spinoza was a towering figure in intellectual history. That he was one lonely man who was excommunicated by the Jews, whose books were banned by Christians, and who changed the world. He claimed that Spinoza introduced the modern era, that the enlightenment and the rise of natural science all began with him. Some consider Spinoza as the first Westerner to live openly without any religious affiliation. I remember how your father publicly scorned the church. Eugen told me he refused to set foot in church, even at Easter or Christmas. True?”
He looked Alfred in the eyes, and Alfred nodded, “True.”
“So in some real way your father was beholden to Spinoza. Before Spinoza, such an open opposition toward religion would have been unthinkable. And you were perceptive in spotting his role in the rise of democracy in America. The American Declaration of Independence was inspired by the British philosopher John Locke, who was in turn inspired by Spinoza. Let’s see. What else? Ah, I remember my philosophy professor particularly emphasizing Spinoza’s adherence to immanence. You know what I mean by this?”
Alfred looked uncertain as he rotated his hands quizzically.
“It contrasts with ‘transcendence.’ It refers to the idea that this worldly existence is all there is, that the laws of nature govern everything and that God is entirely equivalent to Nature. Spinoza’s denial of any future life was monumentally important for the philosophy that followed, for it meant that all ethics, all codes of life meaning and behavior must start with this world and this existence.” Friedrich paused. “That’s about all that comes to mind . . . Oh yes, one last thing. My professor claimed that Spinoza was the most intelligent man who ever walked the earth.”
“I understand that claim. Whether you agree with him or not, he is clearly brilliant. I’m certain that Goethe and Hegel and all our great thinkers recognized this.”
And yet how could such thoughts have come from a Jew? Alfred started to add, but refrained. Perhaps both men took care to avoid the topic that had led to such acrimony in their last meeting.
“So, Alfred, do you still have your copy of the Ethics?”
The cook stopped by the table and served tea.
“Are we keeping you?” Friedrich asked after looking around and discovering that he and Alfred were the only diners left in the room.
“No, no, Dr. Pfister. A lot to do. I’ll be here for hours yet.”
After the cook left, Alfred said, “I still have my Ethics but haven’t opened it for years.”
Blowing on his tea and taking a sip, Friedrich turned back to Alfred. “I think now is the time to start reading it. It is a difficult read. I took a yearlong course in it, and often in class we spent an entire hour discussing one page. My advice is to go slow. It’s inexpressibly rich and addresses almost every important aspect of philosophy—virtue, freedom, and determinism, the nature of God, good and evil, personal identity, mind-body relationship. Perhaps only Plato’s Republic had such a wide scope.”
Friedrich looked around again at the empty restaurant. “Regardless of Herr Steiner’s polite demurrals, I fear we’re keeping him here late. Let’s go to my room, and I can jog my memory by a quick scan of my Spinoza notes and also get Eugen’s address for you.”
Friedrich’s room in the doctors’ dormitory was Spartan, containing only bookcase, desk, chair, and a tidily made-up bed. Offering Alfred the chair, Friedrich handed him his copy of the Ethics to peruse while he sat on the bed leafing through an old folder of notes. After ten minutes, he began: “So, a few general comments. First—and this is important—do not be discouraged by the geometric style. I don’t believe any reader has ever found this congenial. It resembles Euclid, with precise definitions, axioms, propositions, proofs, and corollaries. It’s devilishly hard to read, and no one is certain why he chose to write in this manner. I remembering your saying that you gave up trying because it seemed impenetrable, but I urge you to stay with it. My professor doubts that Spinoza actually thought in this manner but rather regarded this as a superior pedagogical device. Perhaps it seemed the natural way of presenting his fundamental idea that nothing is contingent, that everything in Nature is orderly, understandable, and necessitated by other causes to be exactly that which it is. Or perhaps he wanted logic to reign, to make himself entirely invisible and let his conclusions be defended by logic, not by recourse to rhetoric or authority, nor prejudged on the basis of his Jewish backg
round. He wanted the work to be judged as a mathematical text is judged—by the sheer logic of his method.”
Friedrich took his book back from Alfred and flipped through the pages. “It’s divided into five parts,” he pointed out. “‘On God,’ ‘On the Nature and Origin of the Mind,’ ‘On the Origin and Nature of the Emotions,’ ‘On Human Bondage,’ ‘Of Human Freedom.’ It’s the fourth section, ‘On Human Bondage,’ that interests me the most because it has the most relevance to my field. Earlier I said that I’ve not thought of him since we last met, but as we talk, I realize now that’s not true. Quite frequently, as I read or listen to psychiatry lectures or talk with patients, I ruminate about Spinoza’s vastly unappreciated influence on my field of psychiatry. And the fifth part, ‘On the Power of the Understanding, or Of Human Freedom,’ also has relevance to my work and should have interest for you. This is the part that I imagine was the most beneficial for Goethe.”
“A couple of thoughts about the first two parts—” Friedrich glanced at his watch. “They are for me the most difficult and most abstruse sections, and I’ve never been able to understand every concept. The major point is that everything in the universe is a single eternal substance, Nature or God. And never forget he uses the two terms interchangeably.”
“Mentions of ‘God’ litter every page?” asked Alfred. “I didn’t think he was a believer.”
“Lot of controversy about that. Many refer to him as a pantheist. My professor preferred to call him a devious atheist, repeatedly using the term ‘God’ to encourage seventeenth-century readers to keep reading. And to prevent both his books and his person from being consigned to flames. For sure he is not using ‘God’ in the conventional sense. He rails against the naïveté of humans’ claim they are made in God’s image. Somewhere, I think in his correspondence, he says that if triangles could think they would create a triangular god. All anthropomorphic versions of God are just superstitious inventions. To Spinoza, Nature and God are synonyms; you might say he naturalizes God.”
“So far I don’t hear anything about ethics.”
“You have to wait until parts four and five. First he establishes that we live in a deterministic world loaded with obstacles to our well-being. Whatever occurs is a result of the unchanging laws of nature, and we are part of nature, subject to these deterministic laws. Furthermore, nature is infinitely complex. As he puts it, nature has an infinite number of modes or attributes, and we humans can only apprehend two of them, thought and material essence.”
Alfred asked a few more questions about the Ethics, but Friedrich noted that he seemed to be straining to keep the conversation going. Choosing his time carefully, Friedrich ventured an observation. “Alfred, it is wonderful for me to remember and discuss Spinoza with you. But I want to be sure I haven’t missed anything. As a therapist I’ve learned to pay attention to hunches that pass through my mind, and I have a hunch about you.”
Alfred’s eyebrows raised. He waited expectantly.
“I have a hunch that you came to speak not only about Spinoza but also for some other reason.”
Tell him the truth, Alfred said to himself. Tell him about your tightness. About your inability to sleep. About being unloved. About always being an outsider apart from, rather than a part of. But instead he said, “No, it’s been great to see you, to catch up, to learn more about Spinoza—after all, how often does one stumble upon a Spinoza tutor? What’s more, I have a good story for the paper. If you can supply me with some medical reading on shell shock, I will write the story on the train ride to Munich and put it in next week’s edition. I’ll send it to you.”
Friedrich walked over to his desk and rifled through several journals. “Here’s a good review in the Journal of Nervous Diseases. Take the issue with you, and mail it back when you’re finished with it. And here also is Eugen’s address.”
As Alfred slowly, somewhat reluctantly, started to rise, Friedrich decided to try one last thing—another device he had learned from his own analyst and that he had often used with patients. It rarely failed.
“Stay a moment, Alfred. I’ve one last question. Let me ask you to imagine something. Close your eyes and imagine leaving me now. Imagine walking away from our talk, and then imagine sitting on the long train ride to Munich. Let me know when your imagination is there.”
Alfred closed his eyes and soon nodded readiness.
“Now, here’s what I’d like you to do. Think back upon our talk tonight, and ask yourself these questions: Do I have any regrets about my talk with Friedrich? Were there important issues I did not raise?”
Alfred kept his eyes closed and, after a long silence, slowly nodded. “Well, there is one thing . . .”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AMSTERDAM—JULY 27, 1656
Bento wheeled when he heard his name called and saw a disheveled, tearful Franco, who immediately sank to his knees and bowed his head until his brow touched the pavement.
“Franco? What are you doing here? And what are you doing on the ground?”
“I have to see you, to warn you, to beg forgiveness. Please forgive me. Please allow me to explain.”
“Franco, stand up. It’s not safe for you to be seen talking to me. I’m heading to my house. Follow at a distance, and then just come right in without knocking. But first be certain you’re not seen by anyone.”
A few minutes later, in Bento’s study, Franco continued in a tremulous voice, “I just came from the synagogue. The rabbis cursed you. Vicious—they were vicious. I could understand everything because they translated into Portuguese—I never imagined they would be so vicious. They ordered no one to speak to you or look at you or—”
“That’s why I told you it was unsafe to be seen with me.”
“You already knew? How could you? I just came from the synagogue. I ran out immediately after the service.”
“I knew it was coming. It was fated.”
“But you’re a good man. You offered to help me. You did help me. And look what they’ve done to you. Everything is my fault.” Franco fell to his knees again and took Bento’s hand and pressed it to his forehead. “It’s a crucifixion, and I’m the Judas. I betrayed you.”
Bento extricated his hand and placed it on Franco’s head for a moment. “Please stand. I have things to tell you. Above all, you must know it is not your fault. They were looking for an excuse.”
“No, there are things you do not know. It is time: I must confess. We betrayed you, Jacob and I. We went to the parnassim, and Jacob told them everything you said to us. And I did nothing to stop him. I just stood there as he talked and nodded my head. And each nod pounded a nail into your crucifixion. But I had to. I had no choice . . . Believe me, I had no choice.”
“There is always choice, Franco.”
“That sounds good, but it is not true. Real life is more complex than that.”
Startled, Bento took a long look at Franco. This was a somewhat different Franco. “Why is it not true?”
“What if you’re faced with only two choices, and both are deadly?”
“Deadly?”
Franco avoided Bento’s eyes. “Does the name Duarte Rodriguez mean anything to you?”
Bento nodded. “The man who tried to rob my family. The man who needed no rabbi’s proclamation to hate me.”
“He is my uncle.”
“Yes, I know that, Franco. Rabbi Mortera told me yesterday.”
“Did he tell you that my uncle offered me two choices? If I agreed to betray you, he would rescue me from Portugal, and then, after I had fulfilled my bargain, he would immediately send a ship to Portugal to rescue my mother, my sister, and my cousin, Jacob’s mother. They are all in hiding and in great danger from the Inquisition. If I refused, he would strand them in Portugal.”
“I understand. You made the correct choice. You saved your family.”
“Even so, that does not erase my shame. I am planning to go back to the parnassim the moment my family is safe and confess that we pro
voked you into saying the things you said.”
“No, do not do that, Franco. The best thing you can give me now is silence.”
“Silence?”
“It is best for me, for all of us.”
“Why is it best? We did trick you into saying what you said.”
“But that is not true. I said what I said freely.”
“No, you’re being merciful to me, to assuage my pain. My guilt remains. It was all an act, all planned. I sinned. I deceived you. I caused you great harm.”
“Franco, you did not deceive me. I knew you would bear witness against me. I deliberately spoke rashly. I wanted you to testify. I’m the one who is guilty of deception.”
“You?”
“Yes, I took advantage of you. Worst of all, I did so even though I had an inkling that you and I might be like-minded.”
“You understood right. But our like-mindedness compounds my guilt. When Jacob described your views to the parnassim, I kept silent, whereas I should have shouted at the top of my lungs, ‘I agree with Baruch Spinoza. His views are my views too.’”
“If you had done that, you would have had the worst of all worlds. Your uncle would retaliate, your family would be imperiled, I would still have been excommunicated, and the parnassim would have excommunicated you along with me.”
“Baruch Spinoza—”
“Please—Bento now. There is no longer a Baruch Spinoza.”
“All right, Bento. Bento Spinoza, you are an enigma. Nothing about today makes sense. Answer one simple question: if you wanted to quit this community, why did you not just leave of your own choice? Why bring such disgrace and catastrophe upon yourself? Why not just move away? Go elsewhere?”
“Where? Do I look Dutch? A Jew cannot just disappear. And think of my brother and sister. Think of how hard it would be to leave them and then keep deciding over and over again to stay away from them. Better this way. And better, too, for my family. Now they no longer have to choose again and again not to talk to their brother. The rabbi’s cherem decides for me and for them once and for all time.”