Invisible Women

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Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome did not see each other often. It was something similar to the great kings of the past demanding their minions to travel to the far edges of their lands to report the wealth and beauty of their kingdoms. After years of exploration, these men would return and tell the great kings stories filled with mountains and adventure, but despite what these men saw during their travels, their stories would remain the same. Even if they had seen nothing but burnt deserts so desolate that even cacti hid below the surface of sand or prairies with blank fields of fading grass, they would return to their kings and narrate tales of the fabulous technological advances or the fantastic riches — seen in the form of emerald or ruby statues of the king — of the land. The great kings would sit back, and in their old age and inability to discern truth from fiction, they would be sufficiently satisfied. But what Freud and Andreas lacked in physical interaction, they supplemented with tender but simultaneously cutting letters. And so the Great Freud was able to remain consistently close to his sometimes friend and sometimes student.

There was a kindness in their letters, a familiarity where familiarity did not exist. Such was the nature of their relationship, with Lou Andreas asking about Freud’s family and Freud relating the distant friendship between his son and her lover, perhaps hoping that Andreas would relay an offer to bond the two men. But there was something distinctive about their relationship, one that seemed to exceed that of friends or colleagues. There was a knowledge there. There was an understanding.

“The other psychoanalysts warn me of hysterics and obsessions, dreams and desires, or else they inform me of their newly discovered theories of this or that, asking for suggestions or solutions. And you?” the Great Freud asked Lou Andreas, “you have equally difficult patients and ideas and yet you can tell me only the thoughts that come to an old man who sits on his doorstep at evening to enjoy the cool air. What is the use, then, of all your work?”

“It is evening. I imagine that we are both seated on the steps in front of our homes — you in front of yours, me in front of mine — sitting simultaneously together and apart. There is a slight breeze,” Lou Andreas answered. “Whatever the distance my words may evoke around you, you will see it from such a vantage point, even if instead of this one place I envision the war your sons will survive, the trenches and mud, the rain and the desire to drown instead of fight and that slight breeze carries with it the stench of death from this muddy estuary.”

“My gaze is that of a man meditating, lost in thought — I admit it. But yours?”

The Russian knew that when Freud became vexed with her, the doctor wanted to follow more clearly a private train of thought, so Lou’s answers and objections took their place in a discourse already proceeding on its own, in the Great Freud’s head. That is to say, between the two of them it did not matter whether questions and solutions were uttered aloud or whether each of two went on pondering in silence. In fact, they were silent, reclining on their respective couches, eyes half-closed, breathing.

It was times like these that Lou Andreas believed most strongly in narcissism, not Freud’s understanding of the word, which varied from her own definition, but it was times like these that proved Andreas the superior psychoanalyst for her comprehension and understanding of self and others.