behaviour, what he himself gives or does not give as the reason for his
complicity with Ströhlin may be far from the real reason. I am referring, of
course, to the reading a Freudian psychoanalyst might give of the
situation. At the beginning of this discussion I pointed to a literary parallel
in another French introspective, Montaigne, for what we see in the
Ströhlin anecdote. I did so in order to underline the uncertain status of the
Ma Vie passage as a record of historical fact. Indeed the Freudian
fundamentalist would go further.
The peculiar tonality of the Ströhlin incident and the prominent position it is accorded
as liminaire to the whole of Ma Vie, its valeur fondatrice—laying an important
foundation for what is to come—would suggest it has a fundamental mythical or
symbolic power for Constant. In other words it could be viewed as a fantasy. Freud’s
well-known analysis of his own dream about Irma led him to his classic definition of the
function of dream, and by extension daydream: every dream is a wish which is
represented as fulfilled.^19 Looked at from a psychoanalytical point of view, the reverse
side of the Ströhlin story is rather different from what one might call the ‘common-sense’
view. It is a fantasy of wish fulfilment. And what, then, might those wishes be in an adult
remembering his situation as a child of 5 who had lost his mother at birth and who
thereafter had an absent and neglectful father? The conclusion of the Freudian might be
that the scene dramatizes first of all Constant’s desire to punish himself for his mother’s
death for which he holds himself responsible; the instrument of this self-punishment is a
substitute for the father towards whom he feels guilt. (There could also be a reversal of
Constant’s retaliatory and aggressive feelings towards Juste.) The second element in the
scene is the relieving of the guilt, the expiation of the sin, and the restoration of
Constant’s self-esteem. Freudian theory is reinforced by the text itself where Constant
congratulates himself on his heroic fidelity to Ströhlin: he does not denounce him, he
keeps his word. The cycle of guilt, self-punishment and expiation goes on as long as
Constant wants it to. Paradoxically he is the master of the situation and he wishes it to
continue: he wilfully keeps his father in ignorance (for reasons that are not adequately
explained by the text, of course). When Ströhlin is finally sent packing, it is through the
intervention of Constant’s ‘real’ father: it is therefore not Constant’s fault. That, or
something like it, might be the framework of an orthodox Freudian reading of this
complex passage.
Is the passage, then, a record of historical fact or is it a fantasy about Constant’s guilt
and aggression vis-à-vis his father? ‘A little of both’ must, I believe, be the prudent
answer. The part played by the game of Greek and the secret complicity that surrounds it
is more teasingly problematical. The role played by Ströhlin in Constant’s acceding to
language, to the discovery of a private language which finally turns out to be a valuable
public one, is that of the good and kindly disposed pedagogue. The older Constant has
every reason to be grateful to him for his Rousseauistic éducation négative—allowing
him to learn for himself—for introducing him to a means of later spiritual enrichment.
But Ströhlin, now absolved of his crimes and viewed in a favourable light, Ströhlin the
innocent, is nonetheless punished when he is dismissed by Constant’s father. It is
strangely like the earlier punishment of Constant, and brings out the ambivalent status of
all three characters in the drama: Benjamin, Ströhlin and Juste are all at different
The grief that does not speak 17