The Mind of Mr Soames (14 page)

‘What do you mean by that?’ Breuer demanded.

‘Simply that even Mr Soames feels the need to belong to somebody. You must not overlook the fundamental gregarious nature of the human being—particularly the immature human being.’

‘He can hardly feel that he belongs to a woman he has never seen before,’ Breuer pointed out.

‘Why not? He certainly does not feel that he belongs to you, or to any of your staff psychiatrists or male nurses. In such a way you are providing a very real frustration. If he does not belong, then he has no roots, no standards, no motivation for acquiring a pattern of rational behaviour. He is the independent free-lance, answerable only to himself.’

‘I must confess that I hadn’t quite thought of it in such terms,’ Breuer admitted. ‘After all, we regard him primarily as a psychotherapy patient...’

Takaito smiled humorously, then got out of his chair and helped himself to another drink.

‘If I try to condition a dog in isolation,’ he said, ‘I invariably encounter resistance, and sometimes savage defiance. But if I attempt to condition three or four dogs together, then they submerge their individual reactions in the group, and they become more amenable. This is true of indoctrination techniques in general, as was established during the last war and since then. Your single-minded martyr is always a lone wolf, as you say, setting himself against authority, against the world. It is easier to demoralise a group than an individual. This is well known to military commanders, of course. It was, I regret to say, the psychology behind deliberate atrocities during the war. A dozen demoralised rats will flee in terror, but a single rat will fight back with ruthless determination. Your Mr Soames is very much the single rat.’

‘We are not trying to demoralise Mr Soames,’ Breuer explained patiently. ‘We are simply trying to educate him.’ Takaito sipped his drink. ‘But does
he
realise that? What does education
mean
to him? What incentive does he have to learn anything at all? You must remember, Dr Breuer, that immature humans have certain simian characteristics. They tend to imitate, to compete.’

‘We have given him every facility to imitate, The tutors have been well briefed in that respect.’

‘One does not imitate one’s tutor. It is the people around one that one imitates—the people in the same class—those who are competing for the same goal, the same prize. One tries to be better than the others who are striving towards the same end. You have an expression for it, I think—keeping up with the Joneses.’

‘I fail to see what that has to do with Mr Soames,’ Breuer stated impatiently. ‘He is not required to compete at all. It is simply a question of absorbing information, and acquiring habits of behaviour...’

‘To what purpose?’

‘Well, to become an intelligent, responsible citizen.’

Takaito made a thin, sardonic smile. ‘Does Mr Soames know what precisely an intelligent, responsible citizen is?’

‘Not in so many words, perhaps.’

‘Then why should he wish to become one?’

Breuer sighed audibly. ‘It is not a question for what he wishes or does not wish. It is our duty to turn him into a responsible citizen.’

‘Duty is not justification,’ Takaito pointed out. ‘Many war crimes were committed in the name of duty, but there was no justification. Tell me, Dr Breuer, what
is
a good citizen?’

Breuer huffed in restrained exasperation. ‘You know as well as I do, Dr Takaito. A man who can take his place in society, observe the law, and perhaps make a useful contribution to human progress...’

‘Then how can Mr Soames learn to take his place in society when he is clearly not a member of society? One cannot learn the difficult business of human relationships in a purely academic way. In order to learn to live with people one must actually live with people. I think that is axiomatic.’

‘I can’t see what you are trying to prove,’ Breuer said irascibly.

‘Let me make a positive, constructive suggestion,’ Takaito said. ‘It seems to me that at present you are trying to perform the impossible. You are trying to turn Mr Soames into a responsible social animal by cramming academic knowledge into him under conditions of solitary confinement. It will not work, Dr Breuer. That much should be self-evident.’

‘I really can’t see any alternative,’ Breuer stated coldly. ‘Clearly Mr Soames needs to become a member of a community. He needs to be a dog among dogs, so that he can acquire a group reaction. That is how we learn to conform to social conventions, all of us—by belonging to a group or herd, and learning from experience the things that are approved by the group and the things that are taboo. As a psychologist you should know only too well that learning requires experience. One does not learn to ride a bicycle by reading a book, or to speak a foreign language by writing out irregular verbs and declensions.’

‘It’s all very well to talk like that,’ said Breuer shortly, ‘but Soames is not trying to ride a bicycle or speak a foreign language.’

‘He is trying to walk a tightrope,’ Takaito said. ‘Alone and unaided.’

‘Then how would
you
set about educating him?’

Takaito shrugged non-committally. ‘I would simply establish a class, and Mr Soames would be one of the class—one among perhaps a dozen men of his own men undergoing the same educational process. He would be a member of a community, and from the outset he would learn to adapt himself to the requirements of a community of people. And I would make it a class of mixed sexes, so that he would become accustomed to women and learn by observation and experience how men usually behave towards women in normal society.’

‘But there are not a dozen men and women like Mr Soames,’ Breuer protested. ‘Or are you suggesting that one should hire actors and actresses to play a part for the benefit of the patient?’

‘Why not? Better still, employ medical students or psychiatry students who could also learn much by observing Mr Soames. I’ll tell you this, Dr Breuer...’

He paused while he refilled his glass, then continued:

‘When I am training a dog I find he learns four or five times as quickly when he is among other dogs that have already been trained. Your actors or students would not need to pretend to be so ignorant as Mr Soames. The fact that they knew more than he did would provide some incentive—he would make greater efforts to reach equality with them. Above all, he would tend to imitate their behaviour, because instinctively he would want to belong to the group. No individual deliberately chooses to be an outsider—certainly not an immature individual like Mr Soames.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Breuer sullenly. ‘We’ve done our best, and it hasn’t been easy.’

‘It seems to me that you possibly have done your worst,’ Takaito remarked. ‘Instead of using his intelligence to adapt himself to the needs of society, Mr Soames appears to be distorting his intelligence into the form of cunning directed against all of us. The greater his intelligence, the more subtle the cunning.’

‘I think that might be the natural reaction to imposed discipline. It is quite common in ordinary everyday life.’

‘What is Mr Soames’s IQ?’ Takaito asked abruptly.

Dr Breuer frowned slightly. ‘There has been no real opportunity to determine IQ. To obtain an accurate figure Mr Soames needs to improve his communication and his understanding. In due course we shall produce an IQ figure and other statistics with which to label Mr Soames. For the present we are more concerned with simple questions of behaviour, of habit forming. Meanwhile there is no reason to believe that his IQ is other than normal.’

‘You are probably right, Dr Breuer,’ Takaito said affably, abandoning the point. ‘There are a number of tests I should like to make on the patient, if I may be permitted, of course.’ He smiled and inclined his head deferentially.

‘I think we can offer you every facility,’ Breuer said, ‘though naturally we hope you will take us into your confidence...’

‘Of course. Simple reaction tests, in the course of which the question of IQ will probably be resolved automatically, thus saving you a certain amount of additional work. And if one of your staff psychiatrists could assist...’

‘Certainly. Dr Conway, perhaps.’

‘Ah, yes. Conway I remember quite well. It would be purely a matter of liaison, you understand—a question of understanding our respective approaches to the problem so that we can adopt a consistent policy.’

‘I’ll have a word with Conway,’ Breuer affirmed.

Takaito stood up and put his glass on the table with an air of finality.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to rush you, of course, but at the same time I don’t wish to delay matters. After all, when I last saw Mr Soames he was in a post-operative coma.’

Breuer considered for a gloomy moment, as if he had a weighty problem on his mind.

‘In other words,’ Takaito continued, ‘I should like to see Mr Soames as soon as possible—within, say, an hour or two.’

‘All right,’ Breuer agreed dubiously. ‘I’ll arrange it.’

He lifted the internal telephone on his desk and asked for Conway.

Mr Soames
was painting a picture. A fairly large piece of white card had been pinned to a makeshift wooden easel standing on the small bedside table and the patient, equipped with four brushes of varying sizes and a half a dozen jars of poster paints in bright spectrum colours, was slowly making patterns on the card. His manner was desultory and unfeeling; he was painting in the same idle way as one might trace a design with one’s finger on the surface of a dusty shelf.

The picture in process of creation possessed a certain interest of simple form. It was recognisable to Conway as a sweeping inexpert impression in solid slabs of colour of the grounds of the Institute, with the ragged blue oval of the lake centrally disposed on the card, surrounded by green on which, in mid-distance, streaks of brown and splashes of darker green represented the trees in the copse. Although it contained no intrinsic merit, the painting seemed, oddly enough, to glow with colour and movement, as if, in some strange manner, Mr Soames’s fingers, clumsy though they were, had learned how to communicate the essence of his own primitive outlook through the medium of his juvenile art.

Soames seemed unconcerned that Conway and Dr Takaito were standing behind him in the room, watching his hesitant efforts with the brush. This was typical of the man in his depressive phase, Conway realised; it was as if he had retreated beyond some unseen barrier where the outer world could not touch his mind, and there was no hint of interest or satisfaction in the impassive blankness of his features. At the same time it was also evident that he preferred to paint rather than do nothing at all, and this, perhaps, could be interpreted as a sign that even Mr Soames was becoming bored with boredom.

‘Does he know we are here?’ Takaito said quietly to Conway. ‘He knows, but doesn’t want to know. In this kind of mood he acts as though he is deaf and blind.’

‘It is a defensive retreat—a revision to the time when he was, in effect, deaf and blind, in the cold tank. For thirty years he had no problems. He slept. Now that he is awake he has too many problems and he wishes to sleep again.’

Conway pouted a little. ‘You mean a kind of Freudian urge to return to the womb?’

Takaito did not reply to the question, but went on: ‘He paints the lake, and places it in the centre of his picture. There is also a reason for that.’

‘Yes. He likes to exercise in the grounds—to walk round the lake and sometimes to splash his hands in the water.’

‘It is the same motivation,’ Takaito explained. ‘The water is cold and deep and silent. It symbolises the cold tank for him.’ Conway regarded the Japanese surgeon sceptically. ‘Isn’t that rather overdoing the extrapolation, Dr Takaito? There doesn’t necessarily have to be a Freudian motivation for everything Mr Soames does.’

‘I am
not
a disciple of Freud,’ Takaito pointed out, ‘nor have I mentioned Freud. I referred to the cold tank, but you said womb. It is you, Dr Conway, who is introducing the idea of Freudian motivation. I merely talk about motivation pure and simple.’

‘Very well, but even so I find it hard to accept that Mr Soames would prefer to go back to unconsciousness in the cold tank.’

‘He is not aware of such an urge any more than he can remember the cold tank, but deep in his subconscious mind he knows about it. For him it was a period of peace. It is logical that he might unknowingly seek to return.’

‘I think,’ Conway said firmly, ‘that if we are going to discuss the patient we ought to go into another room.’

Takaito shrugged. ‘It is hardly necessary. We have been using words he does not understand. But we shall go into another room just the same. If Mr Soames chooses to ignore us, we must respect his wishes. If we expect him to show consideration, then we must start by setting a good example.’

They went into the adjacent annexe where Mr Soames could be observed through the mock ventilator grating if necessary. Takaito perched himself on the corner of the table and lit a cigarette.

‘Well,’ Conway asked, ‘what do you think?’

‘What can I think at this stage? I have merely looked at Mr Soames. When I have had time to talk with him and make tests...’

‘You may not find him very co-operative.’

Takaito’s lips moved into an enigmatic curve. ‘I am not so much concerned with his co-operation as I am with yours, Dr Conway.’

Conway regarded the other man questioningly.

‘You must appreciate that I have a vested interest in Mr Soames,’ Takaito went on. ‘In a sense I created him, but now I find Dr Breuer and his colleagues are determined to destroy him.’

‘That is an unfair accusation.’

Takaito’s eyes gleamed behind the heavy lenses of his glasses. ‘You mean well, all of you, but Mr Soames is gradually being driven into a state of cycloid neurosis which may end up in complete introversion—even insanity. Because he is shut off from life and love he will create a world of his own inside his mind—a sulky childish world peopled with obscure images and feelings. He will resent his prison and hate his doctors more and more as each day goes by.’