They'll Never Get Me on That CouchFor an author of Broadway and Hollywood hits to

remain unpsychoanaiyzed is to invite the scorn of

I lie cognoscenti. But what can a poor rehel do?

MORRIE RYSKIND

I guess there's nothing you can doabout your genes. It's not bad enoughthat I was a nonconformist in thedays of my youth; time is supposedto take care of that, a la measles andmumps. But not me. The reflexesgrow weaker with each passing year,and the bifocals stronger, but thesame old rebel blood apparently stillflows in my otherwise arterioscleroticveins. How it has managed to sur-vive the pall of conformity (so ablyexposed by such smog experts asHenry Commager and Elmer Davis)which covers the intellectual horizonof America today is a mystery, butthere you are; I don't pretend to ex-plain it any more than I can explainDunninger.

What makes it worse is that I ambasically gregarious and crave, morethan I care to admit, popularity. Itwould be wonderful to have peoplecheering as I enter a room, instead ofscreaming "Unclean!" and fleeing asthough the plague had struck. If theymust go {and, alas! they must),why can't they go quietly?

Not (when you consider the listof my heresies) that you can blamethem. As long ago as 1937, I wasexcommunicated for questioning—inspite of the testimony of Holy Writas recorded in the Nation and theNew Republic—the immaculate con-ception of FDR. The doubts I hadabout Yalta have not been removedby the recent revelations of themartyred Alger Hiss, who was pres-ent when the miracle was performed,while I was far away in California.I have attended Black Mass meetingsfor Joe McCarthy, and signed peti-tions for the Bricker Amendment.And once, in the presence of threesworn witnesses, I took a book byHoward Fast and threw it on mylog-fire.

Now, obviously, conduct of thisnature is not to be condoned. Eachgroup has its laws and its mores and

it cannot view with equanimity—especially if it's a Liberal group—any constant subversion of said lawsand mores (unless, of course, thesubversion is of Communist origin,in which case it comes under thehead of free speech: cf. Commager,Davis. Joseph Rauh, Dean Grisw^old,Max Lemer and Lewis Carroll).Various learned posses have beenformed to study the subject and,thanks to grants from the more en-lightened tax-free foundations, havebeen able to make recommendations.Unfortunately, because of postal reg-ulations, most of the recommenda-tions cannot be repeated here; thoughthey are available, if you know theright people, for stag parties. Thereis, too, a minority report which doesnot preclude the sterner measuresbut suggests a thorough psycho-analysis before any vigorous actionis taken.

That would seem to be eminentlyfair, and I don't say I haven't beentempted. But even here the geneswin out, and again I balk. I remain,I suspect, the only person of either(or no) sex who has written aBroadway show^ or a Hollywoodscenario and has never been psycho-analyzed. And don't think it hasn'tbeen lonesome. I used to go toDramatist Guild meetings to vote,but I could never join in afterwardwhen the boys were talking shop.Now I just mail my vote in.

It isn't, as some people have un-fairly claimed, the money; some ofthe shows were hits, and my royal-ties would have covered the analyst'sfees. It isn't even that I think Freudhas little to ofler. It's just—well, anumber of things.

For example: at a Hollywood din-ner party some years ago. I w asseated next to a female Freudianwho inquired brightly, "And whatdo you do?" Instead of standing onthe Fifth Amendment, like a dope I

said I did some writing. "What wasyour name again?" she asked. Icame clean. She repeated my namedoubtfully a couple of times, but nobell rang. Then she asked me tospell it for her; but it still meantnothing to her (and, by that time,it meant even less to me), so sheregretfully shook her head, said "Ihandle only the big writers," andturned to the man on her left. Nat-urally, I got out of there as fast asI could and haven't attended anotherHollywood party since. (P. S. Ihaven't been asked.)

Being rejected as openly as thatcould give even stronger men thanmyself an inferiority complex. HadI been better adjusted, I'd have calledthe lady up in the morning and askedher how much she would charge toLuido the complex she had created.But I was too crushed to reason. Ijust retreated to the w-mb and nursedmy trauma.

Three Years in a Trauma

You nux'se a trauma for threeyears, and you're going to wind upwith a pretty fair-sized trauma, be-lieve you me. Eventually there justwasn't room for both of us, so Idecided to go out into the worldagain. I was greeted affectionatelyby my family; the children—afterdemanding and getting their backallowances, and that can mount upin three years—chugged me, my wifereluctantly dropped the Enoch Ardendivorce suit she had instituted, andthe dog leaped all over me in sheerecstasy. I felt loved, honored, needed—I was secure again.

Until, that is, the other night, whenwe were asked over to the Blanks.The Blanks live right around thecorner and are good fi'iends of ours—except during election campaigns.(They voted for Roosevelt the fourtimes his name was on the ballot.

NOVEMBER 19, 1955 21

;in(! they write it in now thut it nolonger appears there.) But, as longas you don't discuss religion andjusl stick to bridge, they are as nicea couple as you'd care to meet.How the hell was I to know theyhad just come into some moneyand gone in for analysis?

True. I did have some apprehen-sions as we entered, but that wasonly because I didn't recognize anyof the other guests, and I am shyabout strangers. Not sensitive, justshy. But the Blanks greeted us ef-fusively, the butler they had hiredfor the occasion pressed a martiniupon us. and everything seemedhunky-dory. No guardian angel(hei-etics have none) came to whisperin my ear that the other guests weresix assorted psychiatrists and analysts—I know there's a technical differ-ence, but don't ask me what—andtheir wives.

Luckily for me, I was on my thirdmartini before I realized v/hat hadhappened. I feel thoroughly securewith two martinis—with three I aminvincible. The talk around meswirled with the potty habits andaggressive tendencies of siblings—which is what Freudians have in-stead of children—but I sat andsipped, completely unafraid. I evenlooked around hopefully for the ladypsychiatrist who had induced myoriginal breakdown, because Iwanted to tell her a few things Ihad been thinking up for three years.Give me three years, if I do say so,and I can come across with somewitty repartee. But she was nowhereto be seen, the coward.

I comforted myself with the real-ization that my stored-up wise-cracks were too good to waste onone psycho when I could have adozen of them to appreciate me. andI waited my chance to insert theminto the general conversation. Butthe talk was still of siblings andtheir unpleasant ways, and on thesesubjects I had nothing prepared. Ibided my time and accepted anothermartini from the butler, a stoutfellow who believed in giving anhonest day's work for an honestday's pay. This time I took an oliveinstead of an onion.

They were mighty good olives, too—our own California brand—and Ihad three or four before I realizedthat the conversation had finally got

around, as it inevitably does here,to the movies. Ont; of the psychi-atrists was holding forth on thepsychoanalytical aspects of Olivier'sHamlet, and I gathered that he ap-proved enthusiastically. I also gath-ered, though he didn't actually comeout and say so, that he wasn't takenin by any of the idiotic notions thatBacon or Ben Jonson or that Earlof Something-or-Other had writtenthe plays attributed to Shakespeare;he knew who had written them:Sigmund Freud.

Serpents in Eden

Now, as a good heretic, I hold thatShakespeare "wrote Shakespeare andI am normally prepared to give bat-tle for my theory. My wife, whosuffers from some strange delusionthat I don't know how to act atparties, rushed over with a martini.I accepted the drink, but she needn'thave worried. Only people with in-feriority complexes have to talk toprove they're important; and, at themoment, the only thing I was suf-fering from w as an exquisite sense ofeuphoria. In my generous mood, Iwas even willing to listen to a theorythat Rocky Graziano had written theodes of Q.H. Flaccus. One more olive,indeed, and I would have promulgatedthe theory myself.

Into Eden came the snake, this timein the guise of a psychoanalyst's wife.She turned to me during a lull andasked whether I had seen the Olivier

UCEKSEDPSYCHIATRIST

Hamlet. My wife was watching meintently, so all I said was "Yes." Mywife beamed. Ah, if that had beenthe end of it!

But you don't know Freudians."And how did you like it?" continuedthe temptress.

"Very much," I said, "though Ididn't think it was as good as hisHenry V. That, I thought, was brU-liant."

She showed her fangs. "You meanto say," she hissed, "you actuallypreferred his Henry to his Hamlet?"She stopped, but the hissing, strange-ly, continued. I looked around andsaw why: other reptiles had taken onwhere she left off.

I don't want to overdramatize, butit was a tense moment: a dozenpsychoanalysts, fangs and rattlespoised, against one man armed onlywith a clear conscience and maybeten martinis. This, definitely, was It.I've always wondered how I wouldact at the Final Curtain—pleadingand sniveling like a coward, or smil-ing and defiant in the tradition ofNathan Hale and Alan Ladd. Let itbe recorded that my boots stayed on.I said. "Yes."

"Hmph," snorted the psychobra onmy left, "that's revealing!"

"Very revealing," the others chor-used, and exchanged knowing looks.

For the first time that evening Iwas disconcerted. I didn't know whatI had revealed but, from the way theywere smiling at each other, I knewit was something good and dirty that

FORDFOUNDAXrON

With the Doctor's Permission

22 NATIONAL REVIEW

had come up from my subconscious.But what? A misplaced libido? Afloating id? My whole life passed be-fore me in the twinkling of an eye,and there were some things I didn'twant anybody to know.

My concern must have shown it-self, for a boa constiictor in thecorner rose from his chair, unwoundhimself to his full length (abouteleven feet, six inches, was my hastycalculation), and pressed his ad-vantage. "And just what didn't youlike about it?"

"I didn't say I didn't like it," Ireplied. "I merely said I thoughtHenry V was better."

There were hoots of "emotional in-stability," "delusions of grandeur,"and "anti-social tendencies." A ladyasp whipped out a notebook andclimbed on the lap of a psychopythonwho immediately began dictating hisclinical observations to her.

Not Filial

They were ready for the kill, butI stood my ground. "I didn't say Ididn't like it," I repeated, "but, sinceyou ask me. I was puzzled by the kissHamlet gave Gertrude. It wasn't afilial kiss—it was definitely sexual."

The others hushed, but the tall onecontinued. "And what's puzzling aboutthat?"

"Well," I said, "you don't kiss yourmother like that, do you? Now, if ithad been Ophelia, I'd understand. Butyour own mother!"

"Now that/' said the psychobrawho had started the whole thing, "iseven more revealing. In fact, outsideof KrafTt-Ebing, a couple of cases re-corded in the Journal of AbnormalPsychology, and the last issue ofConfidential, that's about the mostrevealing thing I ever heard."

There, Vd done it again; I had re-vealed myself. Lady Godiva had onlyone Peeping Tom, but I was sur-rounded by a host of them. I felt likea strip-teaser and—let's face it—I'm not the type.

And then the questions flew at mefrom all sides: "Didn't you ever readHamlet?" "Don't you know he hatedhis uncle because he loved Gertrudehimself?" "What do you think Shake-speare meant by the play, anyhow?""How about another martini?" (Thelast question eame from the butler—bless him!—as he handed me a fresh

one. This one had both an olive andan onion, and is known as a doublemartini.)

"Just a second," I said, as I tooka sip. Refreshed, I returned to com-bat. "Now, then, let's get this right.Yes, I've read Hamlet! And seen it,too—from Walter Hampden on thestage to Olivier in the films. As amatter of fact, after I saw the pictureI went home and reread it just tosee how Olivier got the notion: and Idefy you to show me one word in thetext to indicate Hamlet felt thatawayabout his mother. I did more: I dis-cussed the point with some Shake-spearean actors—Charles Coburn, forone—and they were as puzzled as Iwas. Mr. Coburn achieved his firstfame in Shakespearean roles, and issteeped in Shakespearean lore; heassures me Shakespeare didn't writeHamlet thataway, and Burbage didn'tplay it thataway."

"Burbage - Schmurbage!" snar ledthe cobra. "In Germany they've beenplaying it that way since the turnof the century already."

"If," said the tall one, fixing abeady eye upon me, "if Hamlet wasn'tin love with his mother, why did hehate Claudius enough to want to killhim?"

"Look," I said, "his father comesback from the grave, says he's beenbumped off by his brother, and askshis son to avenge him. Wouldn't anyson—"

"People don't come back from thegrave," he interrupted sternly, "andanybody who pretends to have goneto college should know better. Thatwas a daydream of Hamlet's, in-vented by him to justify his guilt-feelings about his interest in hismother."

"But Shakespeare has him comeback." I cried out.

"Shakespeare never went to col-lege!"

Wired for Sound?

That did it. "Nuts!" I quoted a fam-ous American general, and began tobash everything in sight. I wasscotching snakes hip and thigh—andif that's revealing, make the most ofit—and would have been at it yet ifthose cops hadn't butted in. The lastthing I remember was one of thefemale demons saying, "Boy, wouldI like to analyze him!"

She can like all she wants, but, ifshe thinks she'll ever get me on thatProcrustean Couch, she's crazy. Idon't take that sort of treatment ly-ing down. If certain unmentionablethings are hidden in my Unconscious,that's okay with me. I'm not goingto reveal another blessed thing. And,from what I've been reading, it wouldturn out that the couch was buggedby the Ford Foundation and thatanything I said would be recordedfor the University of Chicago, RobertHutchins and, for all I know. Prof.Kinsey.

They can get themselves anotherboy. Me—I've had enough. I've al-ready served the trauma with evic-tion papers and I am sending him tomilitary school. I'm making anotherthree-year retreat to the w-mb. Solong, folks; see you in 1958.

THE LAW OF THE LAND{Continued from p. 18)

tion," "assistance," "instruction," andnot espionage. The Supreme Courthas even forbidden trial judges to askthe jurors, until they are unanimous,how they stand on. the issues. Itwould hardly seem that a trial judgeacts judicially when he authorizes mi-crophone operators to learn what hehimself is not entitled to know evenin general outline.

The liability of the judge dependson the same principle. It is settledthat judges may not be sued for actsdone "in the exercise of the powersVi-ith which they are clothed," nomatter how outrageous, althoughthey may be impeached. But was thejudge clothed with the power—in alegal sense—to authorize this espio-nage?

Apparently the Department of Jus-tice does not think that the law atpresent is sufficiently clear to wan'antprosecution, and has recommendednew legislation. Query, whether thepublic is not entitled to find out whatliability there is under present law?That could be done only by a prose-cution for contempt of court, the out-come of which would be uncertain.Surely the judge and the professorswho engaged in this remarkable ven-ture, with their passion for scientificdata, would see the point. Or wouldthey be so enthusiastic about an ex-periment in which they themselveswere cast for the role of guinea pigs?

NOVEMBER 19, 1955 23