Second Session

Session Two

The patient appeared less hostile on the second visit—no doubt the therapeutic effects of the Haldol were starting.  I tried to put him at ease.

“And how are we feeling today?”

“We don’t know, do we?  How could we?  I barely know what I am feeling, and cannot, of course, speak for you.  How are you?”

“ Is your preoccupation with Schubert, the…err….Viennese composer continuing?”

“I’m hardly preoccupied,” he said.  “Deeply interested, of course.  Well, who wouldn’t be?  Everybody should be interested in Schubert.”

“I don’t know the composer,” I said.  “Perhaps you could fill me in?”

“Certainly I could fill you in.  Would you like the Wikipedia version or my version?  Or perhaps,” this said with a sneer, “for a doctor who is only schooled, the Wikipedia version might be the only one possible….”

I had forgotten his dislike of the word perhaps. 

“A bit of hostility still remains,” I said, deciding to confront him at last.

“I am not hostile.  I admit to acerbic.  Rebarbative as well.  Prickly, should the previous words be too advanced for a Harvard graduate.  But hardly hostile.”

I let this pass….

“Schubert?” I say.   

“Ah, Schubert,” he says, his face relaxing.  “Viennese, as we know.  His father, a school teacher.  The mother, the daughter of a locksmith.  Dates: 1797 to 1828, he died at age 31—having two years less than Mozart.  Cause of death: typhoid fever, though he was also afflicted with syphilis.   A terrible businessman, who barely got anything published, and that on unfavorable terms—unfavorable for him, not his publisher.  Known perhaps best for his lieder—art songs, in German.  Prolific—600 plus songs, nine symphonies, 15 quartets, a string quintet that is assuredly one of the greatest chamber works in the whole canon of Western music.  Six masses, and 21 piano sonatas.  He dies in virtual obscurity, broke, but surrounded by friends who deeply admired him.  Oh, and just incidentally, he composes the two greatest song cycles in the world.  That enough?”

“It seems a bit manic,” I venture.

“Your word, doctor.  Mine would be possessed, a genius that may never come again….”

“Thank you,” I said.  “So now I know Schubert.”

He jumps to his feet. 

“You know NOTHING about Schubert!” he roars.  “I’ve been giving you the briefest sketch of his life.  People spend their LIVES trying to understand Schubert, and there are mysteries that will, I believe, ever remain locked.  What have you ever heard of Schubert’s music, my good philistine doctor?”

“Not much,” I say.  “Didn’t he write the Unfinished Symphony?”

“Of course,” says X.  “Dismissed by some, beloved by the masses.  I personally like it….” 

Ahh—perhaps the basis for a clinical bond!

“So perhaps we could have your version of Schubert?”

“Mine is of little interest,” he responds.  “My good doctor, have you no curiosity?  Wouldn’t you like, for once in your life, to enter into a masterpiece?  To experience something that is greater, truer than anything you or I will ever do?  I could play you one song—ONE song—that had he written nothing else would have established him as one of the greatest composers of all time.”

“I’d like to hear it,” I say, though really, I don’t much like classical music.

“Nothing easier,” says X, and pulls his iPhone from his pocket.  He fiddles with it, and then shows me the following clip from youtube.  We listen, and blessedly, it’s short.

“So,” says X.  “You now have been initiated.  You have heard one of over a thousand compositions of Schubert.  Your impression, please?”

“Well,” I say,  “speaking clinically, it sounds deeply sad.  Depressive, I would say.”

“You know, doctor, I am far less interested in your clinical impressions than in your reaction as a man, a person.  But I am perhaps being unfair.  No one can grasp the song without knowing the lyrics.  Let’s listen again, this time with the lyrics, German and English.”

He hands me the liner notes.

Heil’ge Nacht, du sinkest nieder; Nieder wallen auch die Träume Wie dein Mondlicht durch die Räume, Durch der Menschen stille Brust. Die belauschen sie mit Lust; Rufen, wenn der Tag erwacht: Kehre wieder, heil’ge Nacht! Holde Träume, kehret wieder!

“And now,” he says, let’s turn to another singer, with the lyrics in English.  Much slower, and a bit more operatic.  Well, it would be—Fleming, of course.  But here, she does a fine job.

We listen again.  And I am still more mystified. 

“The title of the song, by the way, is Nacht und Traume—Night and Dreams.  Tell me, my good psychiatrist, isn’t that rather up your ally?  You do do stuff with dreams, don’t you?”

“I’m feeling a little out of my league,” I say.

“I’m delighted to know that,” says X.  “It’s a poem that is seemingly simple, and yet Schubert brings out the most amazing depths in it….  Consider it just as a poem.”

Holy night, you sink down; Dreams, too, drift down Like your moonlight through space, Through the quiet hearts of men; They listen with delight Calling out when day awakens: Return, holy night! Fair dreams, return!

“Really, not much to it.  But I listen to it often, on those many nights when Holy night does not  drift down.  I suffer insomnia, you see….”

“Ahh,”  I say, “a sedative may be called for.  Something more than the Dalmane.  But tell me, what does this song, this poem, mean to you?”

Again, as he had in the first session, X dissolves in tears.

“Dreams,” he says, weeping.  “Have you never had dreams?   And had them die?  And wish, more than anything else for their return?  This is Schubert, in his moment of darkest sorrow—lost and yearning—imploring God to return him to his path, and restore his dreams.  And filled with despair, he manages to suggest the possibility of hope, of redemption.  A feeling I, frankly, do not share”

Clinical note:  Will add halcyon 2 mg. for sleep