The Pale Criminal Read Online Free PDF Page B

if it had been a variety of curious artefact dug from some Trojan ruin by Heinrich Schliemann.
    ‘No, not really. It was curiosity that made me buy it.’
    ‘Good. An abnormal interest in the occult is often an indication of an unstable personality.’
    ‘You know, I was just thinking the same thing myself.’
    ‘Not everyone would agree with me in that, of course. But the visions of many modern religious figures — St Augustine, Luther — are most probably neurotic in their origins.’
    ‘Is that so?’
    ‘Oh yes.’
    ‘What does Dr Kindermann think?’
    ‘Oh, Kindermann holds some very unusual theories. I’m not sure I understand his work, but he’s a very brilliant man.’ He picked up my wrist. ‘Yes indeed, a very brilliant man.’
    The doctor, who was Swiss, wore a three-piece suit of green tweed, a great moth of a bow-tie, glasses and the long white chin-beard of an Indian holy man. He pushed up my pyjama sleeve and hung a little pendulum above the underside of my wrist. He watched it swing and revolve for a while before pronouncing that the amount of electricity I was giving off indicated that I was feeling abnormally depressed and anxious about something. It was an impressive little performance, but none the less bullet-proof, given that most of the folk who checked into the clinic were probably depressed or anxious about something, even if it was only their bill.
    ‘How are you sleeping?’ he said.
    ‘Badly. Couple of hours a night.’
    ‘Do you ever have nightmares?’
    ‘Yes, and I don’t even like cheese.’
    ‘Any recurring dreams?’
    ‘Nothing specific.’
    ‘And what about your appetite?’
    ‘I don’t have one to speak of.’
    ‘Your sex life?’
    ‘Same as my appetite. Not worth mentioning.’
    ‘Do you think much about women?’
    ‘All the time.’
    He scribbled a few notes, stroked his beard, and said: ‘I’m prescribing extra vitamins and minerals, especially magnesium. I’m also going to put you on a sugar-free diet, lots of raw vegetables and kelp. We’ll help get rid of some of the toxins in you with a course of blood-purification tablets. I also recommend that you exercise. There’s an excellent swimming-pool here, and you may even care to try a rainwater bath, which you’ll find to be most invigorating. Do you smoke?’ I nodded. ‘Try giving up for a while.’ He snapped his notebook shut.
    ‘Well, that should all help with your physical well-being. Along the way we’ll see if we can’t effect some improvement in your mental state with psychotherapeutic treatment.’
    ‘Exactly what is psychotherapy, Doctor? Forgive me, but I thought that the Nazis had branded it as decadent.’
    ‘Oh no, no. Psychotherapy is not psychoanalysis. It places no reliance on the unconscious mind. That sort of thing is all right for Jews, but it has no relevance to Germans. As you yourself will now appreciate, no psychotherapeutic treatment is ever pursued in isolation from the body. Here we aim to relieve the symptoms of mental disorder by adjusting the attitudes that have led to their occurrence. Attitudes are conditioned by personality, and the relation of a personality to its environment. Your dreams are only of interest to me to the extent that you are having them at all. To treat you by attempting to interpret your dreams, and to discover their sexual significance is, quite frankly, nonsensical. Now that is decadent.’ He chuckled warmly. ‘But that’s a problem for Jews, and not you, Herr Strauss. Right now, the most important thing is that you enjoy a good night’s sleep.’ So saying he picked up his medical bag and took out a syringe and a small bottle which he placed on the bedside table.
    ‘What’s that?’ I said uncertainly.
    ‘Hyoscine,’ he said, rubbing my arm with a pad of surgical spirit.
    The injection felt cold as it crept up my arm, like embalming fluid. Seconds after recognizing that I would have to find another night on which to snoop around