EXCERPTS FROM A NOVEL IN PROGRESS

Eddie & the Boxcar Painter, Ch 1b

Jung dances to Ragtime while Freud builds his case

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, aboard the George Washington enroute to America. (Collaboration with AI)

NOTE: Since this is a letter, I tried to use the European, and not the American spelling, as Jung would surely have done. I.e., “colour” instead of the correct way (lol), “color”. If I’ve missed any, please let me know. Thanks.

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29 August 1909

My dearest Emma:

We have arrived in American waters, at last. I say “at last” because the final twelve hours of the crossing were fraught with unimaginable gastric distresses: vomiting and diarrhoea, and the cramps that attended them, so we, perforce, became voluntary prisoners to our cabins.

It had to have begun sometime after our evening meal, two nights ago. Prior to that we had suffered no ill effects from the voyage (Herr Freud only slightly discommoded, but that over the emotional shadow cast by a bout of fainting just before our embarkation, on the 21st. More on that later.)

At any rate, my dear wife, at the captain’s table two nights ago, I was feeling gay and spirited. I danced with perhaps a half dozen young ladies under the stormy scowl of my esteemed mentor, who, by the luck of…