Freudian Slip, Page 3

down in one of the upholstered chairs. "All right," he saidwith helpless defiance. "What's it all about?"

  "I'm glad we can come to the point at once," said the Person. Hepaused, moving his lips silently. "Ah, excuse me. I'm sorry." A secondhead, with identical features, popped into view next to the first. Hiseyes were closed. "It's necessary, I'm afraid," said head number oneapologetically. "I have so much to remember, you know."

  Herman took a deep breath and said nothing.

  "You may call me Secundus, if you like," resumed the Person, "and thisgentleman Primus, since it is with him that you will have principallyto deal. Now, our problem here is one of amnesia, and I will confessto you frankly that we ourselves are totally inadequate to cope withit. In theory, we are not subject to disorders of the mind, and that'swhat makes us so vulnerable now that it has happened. Do you see?"

  A fantastic suspicion crept into Herman's mind. "Just a moment," hesaid carefully. "If you don't mind telling me, what is it that youhave to remember?"

  "Well, Doctor, my field is human beings; that's why it became my dutyto search you out and consult with you. And there _is_ a great dealfor me to carry in my mind, you know, especially under these abnormalconditions. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it is afull-time job."

  "Are you going to tell me," asked Herman, more carefully still, "thatthis--gentleman--is the one who is supposed to remember the Earthitself? The rocks and minerals and so on?"

  "Yes, exactly. I was about to tell you--"

  "And that the planet has disappeared because he has amnesia?" Hermandemanded on a rising note.

  Secundus beamed. "Concisely expressed. I myself, being, so to speak,saturated with the thoughts and habits of human beings, who are, youmust admit, a garrulous race, could not--"

  "Oh, no!" said Herman.

  "Oh, yes," Secundus corrected. "I can understand that the idea isdifficult for you to accept, since you naturally believe that youyourself have a real existence, or, to be more precise, that youbelong to the world of phenomena as opposed to that of noumena." Hebeamed. "Now I will be silent, a considerable task for me, and let youask questions."

  Herman fought a successful battle with his impulse to stand Up andshout "To hell with it!" He had been through a great deal, but he wasa serious and realistic young man. He set himself to think the problemthrough logically. If, as seemed more than probable, Secundus, Primus,Hairy, Four-eyes, and this whole Alice-in-Wonderland situation existedonly as his hallucinations, then it did not matter much whether hetook them seriously or not. If they were real, then he wasn't, andvice versa. It didn't make any difference which was which.

  He relaxed deliberately and folded his hands against his abdomen. "Letme see if I can get this clear," he said. "I'm a noumenon, not aphenomenon. In cruder terms, I exist only in your mind. Is that true?"

  Secundus beamed. "Correct."

  "If _you_ got amnesia, I and the rest of the human race woulddisappear."

  Secundus looked worried, "That is also correct, and if that shouldhappen, you will readily understand that we _would_ be in difficulty.The situation is extremely--But pardon me. I had promised to be silentexcept when answering questions."

  "This is the part I fail to understand, Mr. Secundus. I gather thatyou brought me here to treat Mr. Primus. Now, if I exist as a thoughtin your mind, you necessarily know everything I know. Why don't youtreat him yourself?"

  Secundus shook his head disapprovingly. "Oh, no, Dr. Raye, that is notthe case at all. It cannot be said that I _know_ everything that youknow; rather we should say that I _remember_ you. In other words, thatI maintain your existence by an act of memory. The two functions,knowledge and memory, are not identical, although, of course, thesecond cannot be considered to exist without the first. But before webecome entangled in our own terms, I should perhaps remind you thatwhen I employ the word 'memory' I am only making use of a convenientapproximation. Perhaps it would be helpful to say that my memory iscomparable to the structure-memory of a living organism, althoughthat, too, has certain semantic disadvantages. Were you about to makea remark, Doctor?"

  "It still seems to me," Herman said stubbornly, "that if you rememberme, structurally or otherwise, that includes everything I remember. Ifyou're going to tell me that you remember human knowledge, includingFreudian theory and practice, but are unable to manipulate it, thatseems to me to be contradicted by internal evidence in what you'vealready said. For example, it's clear that in the field ofepistemology--the knowledge of knowledge, you might say--you have theknowledge _and_ manipulate it."

  "Ah," said Secundus, smiling shyly, "but, you see, that happens to bemy line. Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, being specializations, arenot. As I mentioned previously, persons of our order are theoreticallynot capable of psychic deterioration. That is why we come to you, Dr.Raye. We are unable to help ourselves; we ask your help. We placeourselves unreservedly in your hands."

  The question, "How was I chosen?" occurred to Herman, but he left itunasked. He knew that the answer was much likelier to be, "At random,"than, "Because we wanted the most brilliant and talented psychoanalyston the planet."

  "I gather that I'm not the first person you've tried," he said.

  "Oh, you saw Dr. Buddolphson departing? Yes, it is true that in ourignorance of the subject we did not immediately turn to practitionersof your psychological orientation. In fact, if you will not beoffended, I may say that you are practically our last hope. We havealready had one eminent gentleman whose method was simply to talk overMr. Primus's problems with him and endeavor to help him reach anadjustment; he failed because Mr. Primus, so far as he is aware, hasno problems except that he has lost his memory. Then we had anotherwhose system, as he explained it to me, was simply to repeat, in asympathetic manner, everything that the patient said to him; Mr.Primus was not sufficiently prolix for this method to be of avail.

  "Then there was another who wished to treat Mr. Primus by encouraginghim to relive his past experiences: 'taking him back along thetime-track,' as he called it; but--" Secundus looked mournful--"Mr.Primus has actually _had_ no experiences in the usual sense of theterm, though he very obligingly made up a number of them. Ourontogeny, Dr. Raye, is so simple that it can scarcely be said toexist at all. Each of us normally has only one function, the one Ihave already mentioned, and, until this occurrence, it has always beenfulfilled successfully.

  "We also had a man who proposed to reawaken Mr. Primus's memory byelectric shock, but Mr. Primus is quite impervious to currents ofelectricity and we were unable to hit upon an acceptable substitute.In short, Dr. Raye, if you should prove unable to help us, we willhave no one left to fall back upon except, possibly, the Yogi."

  "They might do you more good, at that," Herman said, looking at Mr.Primus. "Well, I'll do what I can, though the function of analysis isto get the patient to accept reality, and this is the opposite. Whatcan you tell me, to begin with, about Mr. Primus's personality, theonset of the disturbance, and so on--and, in particular, what are youtwo? Who's your boss? What's it all for and how does it work?"

  Secundus said, "I can give you very little assistance, I am afraid. Iwould characterize Primus as a very steady person, extremely accuratein his work, but not very imaginative. His memory loss occurredabruptly, as you yourself witnessed yesterday afternoon. As to yourother questions--forgive me, Dr. Raye, but it is to your own advantageif I fail to answer them. I am, of course, the merest amateur inpsychology, but I sincerely feel that your own psyche might be damagedif you were to learn the fragment of the truth which I could giveyou."

  He paused. A sheaf of papers, which Herman had not noticed before, layon a small table that he had not noticed, either. Secundus picked themup and handed them over.

  "Here are testing materials," he said. "If you need anything else, youhave only to call on me. But I trust you will find these complete."

  He turned to go. "And one more thing, Dr. Raye," he said with anapologetic smile. "_Hurry_, if you possibly can."

  * *
* * *

  Primus, looking rather like a sarcophagus ornament, lay limply supineon the ten-foot couch, arms at his sides, eyes closed. When Herman hadfirst told him to relax, Primus had had to have the word carefullyexplained to him; from then on he had done it--or seemed to doit--perfectly.

  In his preliminary tests, the Binet, the Minnesota MultiphasicPersonality Index and the Berneuter P.I., he had drawn almost acomplete blank. Standard testing methods did not work on Mr. Primus,and the reason was obvious enough. Mr. Primus