The Birth of Love Read Online Free
Author: Joanna Kavenna
looked down at his hands.
‘All you are saying in your … pretty words … is that you have no power and they will torture me anyway.’
‘With respect, I am not saying that at all. I am saying that I should like to talk to you, that I seek to understand you, if you will permit me to stay here a little while.’
‘You will understand me!’ he said, scornfully. ‘I do not think you would like that very much. There is something within me – I have a dim recollection of it, and it makes me shudder with fear … I am not sure I want to remember the rest … I long to sleep, but it is so uncomfortable. I long to sleep and be oblivious … But it seems I am always awake, and always there is this sense … of something …’
‘Do you think you have fallen into your present condition as a response to a particular event, to something dreadful that has occurred?’
That seemed to irritate him once more. He snapped back at me, ‘I do not know, how should I know? I am in darkness, and you ask me what I think?’
‘I am sorry if my questions seem inappropriate to you. I do not want to upset you.’
‘You have no power to upset me at all. Your voice is very faint, very distant. There is a roaring in my head, I can barely hear you beneath the roaring. I am adrift on a … poisonous … boiling ocean. I cannot see the shore. I have been cast off, sent to drift until I drown …’
*
Professor Wilson, do you not think this conversation was relatively cogent, if you will permit a qualified use of the word? I have had many a discussion with the inmates of asylums, and it is rare that they speak in this manner. By this I mean that they are usually far less self-aware, farmore deeply ensconced in the private or other world to which they have gained access. They have nearly forgotten the language of their former lives, the cadences of conventional speech. But Herr S was still quite fluent in such everyday modes. He was aware of his condition, to a notable degree. Naturally, he railed and lapsed into symbolical utterance at times, when the moon was working its mischief within him; he was moving constantly between worlds, the lunar and the solar: he was neither of one nor the other. I wrote down some notes, trying to express some of this and also to record my immediate impressions of the man, and all the while Herr S was sitting thoughtfully in his chains. The only consistent sign of distress was the repetitive movement he made with his hands. This was a horrible motion, as if all his suppressed energies were finding an outlet through his hands. Yet in many ways he was surpris- ingly measured. When I asked him a question, he often thought about his answer before he spoke. He was struggling to use his addled brain, though it was clear that organ had indeed suffered a form of injury – whether before or after his arrival in the asylum I could not ascertain – that it was not functioning correctly. I suspect that he knew his so-called reason had deserted him, or been terribly compromised. Most inmates of these institutions have no more notion of reason, and what it is to be in a ‘reasonable’ state, than you or I have of what it means to have fallen into unreason. If one accepts that it is in dreams that we encounter our inner madness, these ordinarily fettered forces of misrule, then the inmates I meet are living in the world of dreams, and cannot return to the daytime realm. Nonetheless Herr S was in a lucid dream, aware that he was dreaming, and sometimes, briefly, he woke altogether.He woke and stared around, recognised familiar objects, then he slipped into his dream state again. This must have been most distressing for him, and I think this was the cause of his sudden rages. Yet I am not sure.
*
I said, ‘Why do you believe that you have done something awful, in the past? On what do you base this assertion?’
‘I dream of blood,’ he said. ‘I dream of torrents of blood. A sea of blood. I am swimming in a sea of
‘All you are saying in your … pretty words … is that you have no power and they will torture me anyway.’
‘With respect, I am not saying that at all. I am saying that I should like to talk to you, that I seek to understand you, if you will permit me to stay here a little while.’
‘You will understand me!’ he said, scornfully. ‘I do not think you would like that very much. There is something within me – I have a dim recollection of it, and it makes me shudder with fear … I am not sure I want to remember the rest … I long to sleep, but it is so uncomfortable. I long to sleep and be oblivious … But it seems I am always awake, and always there is this sense … of something …’
‘Do you think you have fallen into your present condition as a response to a particular event, to something dreadful that has occurred?’
That seemed to irritate him once more. He snapped back at me, ‘I do not know, how should I know? I am in darkness, and you ask me what I think?’
‘I am sorry if my questions seem inappropriate to you. I do not want to upset you.’
‘You have no power to upset me at all. Your voice is very faint, very distant. There is a roaring in my head, I can barely hear you beneath the roaring. I am adrift on a … poisonous … boiling ocean. I cannot see the shore. I have been cast off, sent to drift until I drown …’
*
Professor Wilson, do you not think this conversation was relatively cogent, if you will permit a qualified use of the word? I have had many a discussion with the inmates of asylums, and it is rare that they speak in this manner. By this I mean that they are usually far less self-aware, farmore deeply ensconced in the private or other world to which they have gained access. They have nearly forgotten the language of their former lives, the cadences of conventional speech. But Herr S was still quite fluent in such everyday modes. He was aware of his condition, to a notable degree. Naturally, he railed and lapsed into symbolical utterance at times, when the moon was working its mischief within him; he was moving constantly between worlds, the lunar and the solar: he was neither of one nor the other. I wrote down some notes, trying to express some of this and also to record my immediate impressions of the man, and all the while Herr S was sitting thoughtfully in his chains. The only consistent sign of distress was the repetitive movement he made with his hands. This was a horrible motion, as if all his suppressed energies were finding an outlet through his hands. Yet in many ways he was surpris- ingly measured. When I asked him a question, he often thought about his answer before he spoke. He was struggling to use his addled brain, though it was clear that organ had indeed suffered a form of injury – whether before or after his arrival in the asylum I could not ascertain – that it was not functioning correctly. I suspect that he knew his so-called reason had deserted him, or been terribly compromised. Most inmates of these institutions have no more notion of reason, and what it is to be in a ‘reasonable’ state, than you or I have of what it means to have fallen into unreason. If one accepts that it is in dreams that we encounter our inner madness, these ordinarily fettered forces of misrule, then the inmates I meet are living in the world of dreams, and cannot return to the daytime realm. Nonetheless Herr S was in a lucid dream, aware that he was dreaming, and sometimes, briefly, he woke altogether.He woke and stared around, recognised familiar objects, then he slipped into his dream state again. This must have been most distressing for him, and I think this was the cause of his sudden rages. Yet I am not sure.
*
I said, ‘Why do you believe that you have done something awful, in the past? On what do you base this assertion?’
‘I dream of blood,’ he said. ‘I dream of torrents of blood. A sea of blood. I am swimming in a sea of
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