The Freud Museum

 
To London last weekend, and a visit to the Freud Museum in Hampstead, where there was an exhibition of artworks by Louise Bourgeois, which fitted in very neatly with the permanent items on display. Freud only lived in London for a year, after fleeing Vienna in 1938; the Nazis didn't care too much for his psycho-analytical theories, which no doubt undermined their reasons for dressing up in uniforms, and I suppose his being Jewish didn't help either. The family managed, by means of bribes and backhanders, to transport most of their possessions to their new home, which means that the couch, desk, books and papers - as well as the collection of ancient Egyptian statuettes and knick-knacks - which were on display in the museum were the very things which were in his study when he formulated his ideas. The Wolfman sat on that self-same couch as he recounted his dreams, while Freud sat on that self-same chair behind it, listening to his patient whilst contemplating the archaeological clutter on the self-same desk. The whole house was a re-creation of one man's memory theatre, removed and re-assembled hundreds of miles away.
Freud was almost dead by the time he arrived in London; he was on old man, the cancer he had in his jaw was taking it's toll, but he still managed to keep working. However, the disruption of the move was something he never really got over, and one suspects that his heart was always in Vienna, even though the city turned it's back on him. Wandering around the museum, we realise that although everything had been saved, all had been lost.

I left via the side window, as I was born by cesarean section.