THE LATEST CURE
The small
surgery of Dr Martin Stanmore, the supreme exponent of 'Emotional Hypnosis',
where a young and semi-delirious victim of unrequited love, a Mr James
Hamilton, is endeavouring to explain certain aspects of his crisis to both the
doctor and his female assistant, Nurse Pamela Barnes. He is seated in front of Dr Stanmore's
paper-strewn desk, while the good doctor himself - a tall, dark-bearded man -
is slowly pacing the floor backwards and forwards behind him. Nurse Barnes, who is seated immediately to Mr
Hamilton's left, is clasping a large surgical casebook in which she has been
taking particulars and recording general impressions with regard to the
clinical nature of the patient's psychological condition. The scene opens towards the climax of
MR
HAMILTON: (In a state of nervous excitement) I'll buy five minutes of her time,
four minutes, two minutes! Just a glance
then, a touch, a word! I'll follow her
everywhere, anywhere, what matter! I
have only to set eyes on her for a second and my heart beats like a drum, my
Adam's apple rises up to choke me, and my concentration goes positively
haywire! I can't even eat without
thinking about her. I get indigestion
every time anyone mentions her goddamned name, that terribly beautiful name
which haunts me all through the night.
Her gestures, voice, smile, hair, eyes, limbs, buttocks, breasts,
clothes, scents, opinions - everything about her completely enslaves me! For two pins I'd get down on my knees and
start worshipping her. What else can I
do? She has only to appear in my
presence for a few seconds and I'm a nervous wreck.
DR
STANMORE: (Aside to Nurse Barnes) He needs immediate attention. Grade A.
This case is already serious. His
state-of-mind may deteriorate still further unless we apply the emergency
antidote at once. We'll have to put him
under for several hours.
MR
HAMILTON: (Jumps to conclusions) You're not intending to interfere with the
workings of my brain, are you? I'd rather
not experience anything more painful than what I'm already suffering from, if
you don't mind. A sedative is all very
well, but if it's only the start of a process that ...
NURSE
BARNES: (Her hand on the patient's nearest arm) Now don't be afraid, James! You won't feel a thing. We've treated literally hundreds of young
people, both male and female, since this clinic first opened, and the vast
majority of them have profited enormously from our service, as can be verified
by the many letters of thanks and acknowledgement in the cabinet to your
right. We have every confidence that
your welfare will be safeguarded with the utmost care, and that you'll be
successfully returned to the pre-love condition without experiencing any
psychical or physical repercussions whatsoever.
Indeed, we even undertake to offer you a six-month's guarantee which
ensures you free service, should today's application of hypnotic expertise by
one of the world's top emotional hypnotists prove insufficiently therapeutic;
though we've had few complaints or rejections, I can assure you. This emotional insanity from which you're
currently suffering ... is injurious both to yourself, as victim, and to the
community at large, which is to say to those whom you infect throughout the course
of your daily routine - people who inevitably become victimized and, to a
certain extent, influenced by your reduced efficiency, intermittent emotional
aberrations, intellectual instability, and general melancholia.
MR
HAMILTON: (On the defensive) But I didn't mean to fall in love, honest! I couldn't help it. Her continuous presence gradually overwhelmed
me, despite the fact that she was attached to somebody else at the time and
wouldn't have anything to do with me sexually.
By the time I sought to evade her, it was too damn late. I had succumbed to the malady.
DR
STANMORE: (Extends a reassuring hand to the patient's right shoulder) Nobody
can help falling in love, my friend. It's beyond our control, since ordained by
nature. If it happens it happens, and
you must suffer the consequences, whether positively or, as in your case,
negatively. If she refused you, then she
is to blame. You have every right to the
woman of your choice. If she was
otherwise engaged, I rather doubt that she told you all that much about it,
not, at any rate, unless you pressed her to, since the object of this
engagement would then have constituted a reason for her excluding you which,
regardless of human convention, isn't in accordance with nature's will.
MR
HAMILTON: As a matter of fact, she claimed to be engaged with church activities
every night.
DR
STANMORE: (Raises his brows in surprise) Then you're very unfortunate, my young
friend. For the Church is usually in
opposition to nature. You've suffered, it
seems to me, on account of someone's habitual bigotry. But don't worry! The new administration is seeing to the
removal of outmoded institutions and we, for our part, will certainly do what
we can to prevent this misfortune from incapacitating you further. It remains to be said, however, that the
final solution rests with you personally.
So you must be determined!
MR
HAMILTON: (Frowns) But even if you do hypnotize me, or put me under, I'll still
be in love, won't I? I mean, you can't
cold turkey my emotions.
NURSE
BARNES: (Slightly irritated, in spite of her show of good humour) We have
absolutely no intention of "cold turkeying" you, James. We can only hypnotize you into forgetting
her.
DR
STANMORE: (Sits at his desk and then leans forward with fingers intertwined,
his demeanour stern) Some people call it brainwashing. They believe it to be an outrage against
nature, another very conspicuous example of the inhumanity of modern science, a
ruse they're constantly exploiting as a means to furthering their own ends
which, as we've already seen, are more often against nature than for it! Now some individuals even go so far as to
assert that the interruption and subsequent termination of this pestiferous
ailment actually robs its victim of a meaningful and emotionally enriching
experience. As though such a condition
as unrequited love were more of a pleasure than a pain, and therefore shouldn't
be tampered with in the name of science!
They fail to establish the difference between the requited and the unrequited
kinds of love, thereby regarding them as equal when, as anyone saddled with the
latter will know, they're virtually as far apart as heaven and hell! Indeed, I should be most surprised to
discover a person whose love had been requited duly applying for immediate
hypnotic alleviation. As a rule, such a
person is perfectly at one with himself.
MR
HAMILTON: (Still feels sceptical) But will I really forget all about my
emotional attachment to her? I mean,
isn't that a trifle farfetched?
NURSE
BARNES: (Unable to restrain her impatience) Mr Hamilton, you are a
difficult man to convince! Anyone would
think you didn't want to be cured, that you'd rather remain in the painful
clutches of a disease which has virtually deranged your mind! Why-on-earth did you come along to us in the
first place, if you only wanted to persist in playing hard to get? Admittedly, many things appear a trifle
farfetched to begin with, but that's certainly no reason why they should be
thought impossible. Whoever would have
supposed man capable of travelling to the moon, let alone flying to
MR
HAMILTON: Yes, but what if, in leaving here, I encounter her within the next
few days - as I'm almost bound to - and subsequently run the risk of falling in
love with her all over again? Surely I
won't be immune from that?
DR
STANMORE: (Exercises his customary aplomb and paternal encouragement) O yes you
will! For we assure you, during the
course of your treatment, that she'll have absolutely no further emotional hold
over you until such time as, given a change of circumstances, you may
specifically request otherwise. If you
shortly encounter her again, there'll be absolutely no possibility of
unrequited love. You'll be completely
free of her. However, should she
subsequently become accessible to your attentions through either a change in
her romantic or possibly even ideological circumstances, then you'll be
perfectly free to become re-acquainted with her without running any risk of
falling in love. You may even decide to
return to us in order to be re-hypnotized into falling in love with
her again; though such a decision will be entirely up to you, and obviously
subject to the precondition that a mutually satisfactory arrangement can be
reached next time.
NURSE
BARNES: Unrequited love is a thing of the past, a kind of virulent psychic
disease, or insanity of the soul, from which your parents' generation and all
the generations prior to them constantly suffered. They had absolutely no protection against it,
and consequently succumbed in their millions.
Now if venereal disease was the chief physical manifestation of sexual
hardship, then unrequited love was its chief psychical manifestation, against
which it was extremely difficult to prevail.
Clinics for alleviating the directly physical aspects of the problem
were established quite some time before medical experts and politicians got
around to taking its psychical aspects more seriously, and this traditional
disequilibrium of attention - so often resulting in more cases of rape,
juvenile delinquency, neurosis, severe depression, chronic perversion, and
sexual hatred, i.e. the so-called 'war of the sexes' - was partly a consequence
of the Establishment's inability and/or disinclination to link such social
transgressions with sexual repressions, and partly a consequence of the
prevailing misconception with regard to the nature of a healthy soul, the
principal criterion for assessing the health of which should have been its
social wellbeing and emotional integrity, rather than the psychological
shackles with which the anti-natural morality of the state metaphysics chose to
enslave it! However, the recent
enlightenment schemes and re-education programmes which the new authorities
have introduced, including a much wider and more liberal sex-education scheme;
the possibility of regular sex in one of the many aesthetically-advanced 'Sex
Centres', where one can privately, comfortably, and economically enjoy access
to the most advanced films and sex gadgets/dolls; the widespread recognition of
manic depression as the punishment inflicted by nature upon those who, whether
through force of circumstances or in consequence of arbitrary decisions, have
deviated from it to any appreciable extent, and the concomitant acceptance of
the organic necessity of some form of regular sex; the systematic elimination
of certain superstitions and anachronisms, and the establishment of the league
against sexual puritanism, etc., coupled to the remarkable advances in modern
technology - about which, incidentally, I need say no more - have entirely
revolutionized the situation. And not
only by the legalization of various theoretical antidotes to the old way of
life but, more importantly, by the legalization of a variety of practical
antidotes to it which are far superior to any old women's formulae or
imaginable drugs, and certainly much less harmful. We no longer suffer from so many physical
diseases, so why should we suffer from mental or emotional ones instead? What would it gain you to remain perpetually
melancholic?
DR
STANMORE: (Ironically) You're not a writer, by any chance, are you?
MR
HAMILTON: (Without really appreciating the doctor's subtle irony) No, I'm not
actually.
DR
STANMORE: Well then, what have you got to lose, apart from a humiliating obsession
which you're unable to control, a situation which is driving you crazy, a
gratuitous attachment? The days of
emotional slavery are over! There is
absolutely no need for you to follow this young woman, this epitome of physical
vanity, around on an imaginary lead, as though you were a craven dog whose very
survival depended upon it! Renounce this
servility! Have done with her! Embrace your independence!
MR
HAMILTON: (Smiles for the first time) Maybe I'll be luckier next time, assuming
there'll be a next time?
DR
STANMORE: (In a conciliatory and overly reassuring tone-of-voice) Of course
there'll be a next time! A handsome and
smartly-dressed young chap like you?
Don't underestimate yourself! Why
waste precious time worrying yourself sick over some young prude who foolishly
ignores you, when you can walk out of here, later today, and approach the first
attractive girl your eyes light upon?
Now don't take me literally, but that's the possibility. Too many young men waste months and even
years in consequence of unrequited love when, given the right opportunity,
plenty of other pretty females would ordinarily appeal to them.
NURSE
BARNES: And that's precisely why we're here, complete with soft lighting.
MR
HAMILTON: (Blushes slightly) Then please get to work on me, people. I have to walk out of here a new man!