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PARTISAN REVIEW
Wilhelm was reluctant to part with his good mood. The doctor had
little sense of humor. He was looking at him earnestly.
"I'd bet you any amount of money," said Tamkin, "that the facts
about you are sensational."
"Oh-ha, hal You want them? You can sell them to a true con–
fession magazine."
"People forget how sensational the things are that they do. They
don't see it on themselves. It blends into the background of their daily
life."
Wilhelm smiled. "Are you sure this boy tells you the truth?"
"Yes, because I've known the whole family for years."
"And you do psychological work with your own friends? I didn't
know that was allowed."
"Well, I'm a radical in the profession. I have to do good wherever
I can."
Wilhelm's face became ponderous again and pale. His whitened
gold hair lay heavy on his head, and he clasped uneasy fingers on
the table. Sensational, but oddly enough, dull, too. Now how do you
figure that out? It blends with the background. Funny, but unfunny.
True but false. Casual but laborious, Tamkin was. Wilhelm was most
suspicious of him when he took his dryest tone.
"With me," said Dr. Tamkin, "I am at my most efficient when I
don't need the fee . When I only love. Without financial reward. I re–
move myseH from the social influence. Especially money. The spiritual
compensation is what I look for. Bringing people into the here and now.
The real universe. That's the present moment. The past is no good to us.
The future is full of anxiety. Only the present is real-the here-and-now.
Seize the day."
"Well," said Wilhelm, his earnestness returning, "I know you are
a very unusual man. I like what you say about here-and-now. Are all the
people who come to see you personal friends and patients, too? Like
that tall handsome girl, the one who always wears those beautiful
broomstick skirts and belts?"
"She was an epileptic, and a most bad and serious pathology, too.
I'm curing her successfully. She hasn't had a seizure in six months, and
she used to have one every week."
"And that young cameraman, the one who showed us those movies
from the jungles of Brazil, isn't he related to her?"
"Her brother. He's under my care, too. He has some terrible ten–
dencies, which are to be expected when you have an epileptic sibling.
I came into their lives when they needed help desperately, and took hold
of them. A certain man forty years older than she had her in his control
and used to give her fits by suggestion whenever she tried to leave him.
If
you only knew one per cent of what goes on in the city of New York!
You see, I understand what it is when the lonely person begins to feel
like an animal. When the night comes and he feels like howling from
his window like a wolf. I'm taking complete care of that young fellow
