WINNER OF COMMONWEALTH CLUB OF CALIFORNIA GOLD MEDAL FOR FICTION
An intelligent, carefully researched, richly imagined novel.
Boston Globe
Strong and authentic. The element of surprise is a magical, jolting moment.
Washington Post Book World
When Nietzsche Wept is the best dramatization of a great thinkers thought since Sartres The Freud Scenario.
Chicago Tribune
In this admirable novel, Irvin Yalom fulfills his promise as a powerful storyteller and a brilliant diviner of the human psyche .
Rollo May
When Nietzsche Wept is Irvin Yaloms next (psycho)logical step forward from Loves Executioner. Deep thought wrapped up in superb storytelling. What more could one ask?
Theodore Roszak, author of Flicker
A fascinating novel of what might have been the embryonic geniuses of Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche collided. A fascinating story and a real page-turner.
Palo Alto Peninsula Times Tribune
HARPERPERENNIAL
MODERNCLASSICS
The essay On Writing a Teaching Novel: When Nietzsche Wept is from The Yalom Reader and is reprinted by permission of Basic Books.
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1992 by Basic Books.
P.S. is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
WHEN NIETZSCHE WEPT. Copyright 1992, 2003 by Irvin D. Yalom. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write: Special Markets Department, HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
First Harper Perennial edition published 1993.
First Perennial Classics edition published 2005.
First Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition published 2010.
Hand lettering by Honi Werner
Designed by Ellen Levine
The Library of Congress has catalogued the previous edition as follows:
Yalom, Irvin D.
When Nietzsche wept / Irvin D. Yalom.
p. cm.
eISBN 9780465091720
1. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 18441900Fiction. 2. Psychotherapist and patientFiction. 3. Breuer, Josef, 1842-1925Fiction. 4. Depression, MentalFiction. 5. Suicidal behaviorFiction. 6. Male friendshipFiction. I. Title.
PS3575.A39W47 2005
813.54dc22
2004060574
ISBN 978-0-06-200930-2 (pbk.)
12 13 14 RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4
To the circle of friends
who have sustained me over the years:
Mort, Jay, Herb, David,
Helen, John, Mary, Saul, Cathy, Larry,
Carol, Rollo, Harvey, Ruthellen, Stina,
Herant, Bea, Marianne, Bob, Pat.
To my sister, JEAN,
and to my best friend, MARILYN.
Some cannot loosen their own chains and can nonetheless redeem their friends.
You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?
Thus Spake Zarathustra
CHAPTER 1
T HE CHIMES OF SAN SALVATORE broke into Josef Breuers reverie. He tugged his heavy gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. Nine oclock. Once again, he read the small silver-bordered card he had received the day before.
21 October 1882
Doctor Breuer,
I must see you on a matter of great urgency. The future of German philosophy hangs in the balance. Meet me at nine tomorrow morning at the Caf Sorrento.
Lou Salom
An impertinent note! No one had addressed him so brashly in years. He knew of no Lou Salom. No address on the envelope. No way to tell this person that nine oclock was not convenient, that Frau Breuer would not be pleased to breakfast alone, that Dr. Breuer was on vacation, and that matters of urgency had no interest for himindeed, that Dr. Breuer had come to Venice precisely to get away from matters of urgency.
Yet here he was, at the Caf Sorrento, at nine oclock, scanning the faces around him, wondering which one might be the impertinent Lou Salom.
More coffee, sir?
Breuer nodded to the waiter, a lad of thirteen or fourteen with wet black hair brushed sleekly back. How long had he been daydreaming? He looked again at his watch. Another ten minutes of life squandered. And squandered on what? As usual he had been daydreaming about Bertha, beautiful Bertha, his patient for the past two years. He had been recalling her teasing voice: Doctor Breuer, why are you so afraid of me? He had been remembering her words when he told her that he would no longer be her doctor: I will wait. You will always be the only man in my life.
He berated himself: For Gods sake, stop! Stop thinking! Open your eyes! Look! Let the world in!
Breuer lifted his cup, inhaling the aroma of rich coffee along with deep breaths of cold Venetian October air. He turned his head and looked about. The other tables of the Caf Sorrento were filled with breakfasting men and womenmostly tourists and mostly elderly. Several held newspapers in one hand and coffee cups in the other. Beyond the tables, steel-blue clouds of pigeons hovered and swooped. The still waters of the Grand Canal, shimmering with the reflections of the great palaces lining its banks, were disturbed only by the undulating wake of a coasting gondola. Other gondolas still slept, moored to twisted poles which lay askew in the canal, like spears flung down haphazardly by some giant hand.
Yes, thats rightlook about you, you fool! Breuer said to himself. People come from all over the world to see Venicepeople who refuse to die before they are blessed by this beauty.
How much of life have I missed, he wondered, simply by failing to look? Or by looking and not seeing? Yesterday he had taken a solitary walk around the island of Murano and, at an hours end, had seen nothing, registered nothing. No images had transferred from his retina to his cortex. All his attention had been consumed with thoughts of Bertha: her beguiling smile, her adoring eyes, the feel of her warm, trusting body and her rapid breathing as he examined or massaged her. Such scenes had powera life of their own; whenever he was off guard, they invaded his mind and usurped his imagination. Is this to be my lot forever? he wondered. Am I destined to be merely a stage on which memories of Bertha eternally play out their drama?
Someone rose at the adjoining table. The shrill scrape of the metal chair against the brick roused him, and once again he searched for Lou Salom.
There she was! The woman walking down the Riva del Carbon, entering the caf. Only she could have written that notethat handsome woman, tall and slim, wrapped in fur, striding imperiously toward him now through the maze of tight-packed tables. And as she neared, Breuer saw that she was young, perhaps even younger than Bertha, possibly a schoolgirl. But that commanding presenceextraordinary! It would carry her far!
Lou Salom continued toward him with no trace of hesitation. How could she be so sure it was he? His left hand quickly stroked the reddish bristles of his beard lest bits of breakfast roll still clung there. His right hand pulled down the side of his black jacket so that it didnt hunch up around his neck. When she was only a few feet away, she stopped for an instant and gazed boldly into his eyes.
