The Schopenhauer Cure

A Novel

Irvin D. Yalom

To my community of older buddies who grace me with their friendship, share life`s

inexorable diminishments and losses, and continue to sustain me with their wisdom and

dedication to the life of the mind: Robert Berger, Murray Bilmes, Martel Bryant, Dagfinn

Føllesdahl, Joseph Frank, Van Harvey, Julius Kaplan, Herbert Kotz, Morton Lieberman,

Walter Sokel, Saul Spiro, and Larry Zaroff.

10

The Happiest

Years of

Arthur`s life

_________________________

Justbecause the terrible

activity of the genital system

still slumbers, while that of

the brain already has its full

briskness, childhood is the

time of innocence and

happiness, the paradise of

life, the lost Eden, on which

we look back longingly through

the whole remaining course of

our life.

_________________________

When Arthur turned nine, his father decided the time had come to take over the direction

of his son`s education. His first step was to deposit him for two years in Le Havre at the

home of a business partner, Gregories de Blesimaire. There, Arthur was to learn French,

social graces, and, as Heinrich put it, «become read in the books of the world.»

Expelled from home, separated from his parents at the age of nine? How many

children have regarded such exile as a catastrophic life event? Yet, later in life, Arthur

described these two years as «by far the happiest part of his childhood.»

Something important happened in Le Havre: perhaps for the only time in his life

Arthur felt nurtured and enjoyed life. For many years afterward he cherished the memory

of the convivial Blesimaires, with whom he found something resembling parental love.

His letters to his parents were so full of praise for them that his mother felt compelled to

remind him of his father`s virtues and largesse. «Remember how your father permits you

to buy that ivory flute for one louis–d`or.»

Another important event took place during his sojourn in Le Havre. Arthur found a

friend—one of the very few of his entire life. Anthime, the Blesimaire son, was the same

age as Arthur. The two boys became close in Le Havre and exchanged a few letters after

Arthur returned to Hamburg.

Years later as young men of twenty they met once again and on a few occasions

went out together searching for amorous adventures. Then their paths and their interests

diverged. Anthime became a businessman and disappeared from Arthur`s life until thirty

years later when they had a brief correspondence in which Arthur sought some financial

advice. When Anthime responded with an offer to manage his portfolio for a fee, Arthur

abruptly ended the correspondence. By that time he suspected everyone and trusted no

one. He put Anthime`s letter aside after jotting on the back of the envelope a cynical

aphorism from Gracian (a Spanish philosopher much admired by his father): «Make one`s

entry into another`s affair in order to leave with one`s own.»

Arthur and Anthime had one final meeting ten years later—an awkward encounter

during which they found little to say to one another. Arthur described his old friend as

«an unbearable old man» and wrote in his journal that the «feeling of two friends meeting

after a generation of absence will be one of great disappointment with the whole of life.»

Another incident marked Arthur`s stay in Le Havre: he was introduced to death. A

childhood playmate in Hamburg, Gottfried Janish, died while Arthur was living in Le

Havre. Though Arthur seemed undemonstrative and said that he never again thought of

Gottfried, it is apparent that he never truly forgot his dead playmate, nor the shock of his

first acquaintance with mortality, because thirty years later he described a dream in his

journal: «I found myself in a country unknown to me, a group of men stood on a field,

and among them a slim, tall, adult man who, I do not know how, had been made known

to me as Gottfried Janish, and he welcomed me.»

Arthur had little difficulty interpreting the dream. At that time he was living in

Berlin in the midst of a cholera epidemic. The dream image of a reunion with Gottfried

could only mean one thing: a warning of approaching death. Consequently, Arthur

decided to escape death by immediately leaving Berlin. He chose to move to Frankfurt,

where he was to live the last thirty years of his life, largely because he thought it to be

cholera–proof.