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Before he met his bride, Martha Bernays, Dr. Freud seems to have had little interest in women. He channeled all his energy into his work—which is what Dr. Jones means when he describes Freud's young manhood as one of "extensive sublimations resulting from considerable repression." But black-eyed Martha loosed the repressions. In the four years of their engagement, Freud wrote her more than 900 impassioned letters, which Jones is "privileged to have been the only person" to examine.
The letters, Jones thinks, are "a not unworthy contribution to the great love literature of the world." Written in a style often "reminiscent of Goethe," they combine "exquisite tenderness . . . range of vocabulary . . . wealth of allusion.'' They are also a fascinating guide to the man behind the neurologist: from them emerges suddenly a tough, jealous, ferocious figure, resembling a young Napoleon.
Freud refused to let Martha meet her previous boy friends. "Woe to him if he becomes my enemy," he growled of one of them. "I am made of harder stuff than he is . . . I can be ruthless." He ordered her to stop the practices of religion (orthodox Judaism), to "change her fondness for being on good terms with everybody," to realize that henceforth she belonged only to Freud and must invariably take his side. He rebuked her for having gone "aside to pull up your stockings" while they were taking a walk, and refused her permission to ice-skate ("It might necessitate being arm-in-arm with another man"). When she met his domineering demands with amiable tact, Freud became enraged. Martha must learn, he insisted, that "sparing each other can only lead to estrangement." Every disagreement must be probed, dissected and fought out to the bitter end.
Cocaine & Catharsis. Martha put up with all this because she knew that Sigi was madly in love with her, and that he was one of those men who cannot express their love until they have first released a spate of anger and mistrust. She also knew that he was an ambitious man fighting desperately against poverty and putting aside every penny to be able to marry her. His high-strung state at this time is shown by a clinical anecdote. Expecting a visit from Martha, Freud found that when he laid his stethoscope on a patient's heart, he could hear "nothing but the rushing of a railway train."
A more serious symptom of Freud's condition was his sudden passion for cocaine. "The essential constituent of coca leaves" had only recently been introduced into Europe, and young Freud went crazy over the "magical drug." Convinced that it was harmless, he gave it to his patients (one of whom died), pressed it on all his friends (including Martha), and himself took "very small doses of it regularly against depression and . . . indigestion." He wrote a paper describing "the most gorgeous excitement" it aroused in animals, and exulted in the "virility" it aroused in him. "Woe to you, my Princess, when I come," he wrote Martha. "I will kiss you quite red . . . And if you are froward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body."