See my childhood? Now that I am separated from it by over fifty years,
my presbyopic eyes might perhaps reach to it if the light were not
obscured by so many obstacles. The years like impassable mountains rise
between me and it, my past years and a few brief hours in my life.
The doctor advised me not to insist too much on looking so far back.
Recent events, he says, are equally valuable for him, and above all
my fancies and dreams of the night before. But I like to do things
in their order, so directly I left the doctor (who was going to
be away from Trieste for some time) I bought and read a book on
psycho-analysis, so that I might begin from the very beginning, and
make the doctor’s task easier. It is not difficult to understand,
but very boring. I have stretched myself out after lunch in an easy
chair, pencil and paper in hand. All the lines have disappeared from my
forehead, as I sit here with mind completely relaxed. I seem to be able
to see my thoughts as something quite apart from myself. I can watch
them rising, falling, their only form of activity. I seize my pencil in
order to remind them that it is the duty of thought to manifest itself.
At once the wrinkles collect on my brow, thinking of the letters which
make up every word. The present surges up and dominates me, the past is
blotted out.
Yesterday I tried to let myself go completely. The result was that I
fell into a deep sleep and experienced nothing except a great sense
of refreshment, and the curious sensation of having seen something
important while I was asleep. But what it was I could not remember; it
had gone for ever.
But to-day this pencil will prevent my going to sleep. I dimly see
certain strange images which seem to have no connexion with my past; an
engine puffing up a steep incline dragging endless coaches after it.
Where can it have come from? Where is it going? How did it get there at
all?
In my half-waking state I remember it is stated in my textbook that
this system will enable one to recall one’s earliest childhood,
even when one was in long clothes. I at once see an infant in long
clothes, but why should I suppose that it is me? It does not indeed
bear the faintest resemblance to me, and I think it is probably my
sister-in-law’s baby, which was born a few weeks ago and displayed to
us as such a miracle because of its tiny hands and enormous eyes. Poor
child!
Remember my own infancy, indeed! Why it is not even in my power to
warn you, while you are still an infant, how important it is for
your health and your intelligence that you should forget nothing.
When, I wonder, will you learn that one ought to be able to call to
mind every event of one’s life, even those one would rather forget?
Meanwhile, poor innocent, you continue to explore your tiny body in
search of pleasure; and the exquisite discoveries you make will bring
you in the end disease and suffering, to which those who least wish
it will contribute. What can one do? It is impossible to watch over
your cradle. Mysterious forces are at work within you, child, strange
elements combine. Each passing moment contributes its re-agent.
Not all those moments can be pure, with such manifold chances of
infection. And then--you are of the same blood as some that I know
well. Perhaps the passing moments may be pure; not so the long
centuries that went to your making.
But I have come a long way from the images which herald sleep. I must
try again to-morrow.