Therefore Choose by Keith Oatley Page A

been a second Renaissance. The refashioning, the modernization, of Greek ideas. That’s where this museum comes in. It’s stirring, don’t you think?”
    â€œThe museum’s pretty impressive.”
    â€œIt’s not just that. The German language is the real inheritor of the Greek language from classical times, and of Greek ideas. In German you can formulate thoughts that you can’t even think, let’s say, in French.”
    â€œI got interested in the role of Asclepius in medicine,” said George. “The only thing I knew about Pergamon before coming here was that there was an Asclepieion, a sort of clinic-cum-temple-cum-theatre at Pergamon. I wrote an essay on Greek medicine last year, so I had to read up on it.”
    â€œThis clinic was interesting?”
    â€œAsclepian medicine had the idea that dreams formed a bridge between a person’s illness and the healer, a kind of forerunner of psychoanalysis, I suppose.”
    â€œMy point again. Ancient Greek learning taken to a new level by German science.”
    â€œIf people were sick in those times, in Pergamon, the idea was that they would go to spend some days at the Asclepieion, sleep on special beds, then wake, and be tended very gently. They would proceed slowly along mysterious underground passages where they would hear thought-provoking suggestions of unknown provenance.”
    â€œWonderful,” said Werner.
    â€œThey would have dreams,” said George. “The thing I like about dreams is that they have two parts. One part is what is given, suggestions that start the dream off. The other is the dreamer — the one who makes the dream — and what the dreamer brings to it.”
    â€œI must read about it.”
    â€œYou won’t find that bit. That’s my idea. In those days they would receive ministrations, attend the theatre. It was a place of transformation.”
    â€œLike a spa but with more to it. It encouraged the meeting of minds. Not just like Marienbad, where people laze about.”
    â€œI haven’t heard of Marienbad.”
    â€œIt’s in the Sudetenland.”
    â€œWhere’s that?”
    â€œIt used to be in the Austrian Empire. Now it’s just over the border, on the way to Prague.”
    â€œYou’ve been there?”
    â€œOnce, with my parents, when my father was taking a cure.”
    â€œAnd it’s beautiful?”
    â€œCharming in its way, but the atmosphere of a sanatorium. I thought I might never escape.”
    â€œToo many sick people?”
    â€œWe shall found a modern Asclepieion. It will have the beauty of Marienbad, but it will be about health rather than disease, more scope for the soul. I know just the place.”
    â€œNear Marienbad.”
    â€œTo the west, in Württemberg. You look after the medical side. I’ll arrange music and philosophy. And it will be about the communication between minds.”
    â€œAnd theatre?”
    â€œWe’ll do the theatre together, a partnership. I hereby make you an honorary German, and we are full partners.”
    â€œA modern Asclepieion.”
    â€œI take it you found somewhere to stay,” said Werner.
    â€œYes,” said George. “And you?”
    â€œI’m at my cousin’s,” said Werner. “In the Mitte District. He and his wife are in Bavaria just now. If your place isn’t any good, you could come and stay too.”
    â€œI’ve got something to tell you,” George said, feeling suddenly too hot.
    â€œWell …”
    â€œAbout Anna … Can we all have dinner this evening? The three of us.”
    â€œYou’re sleeping with her?”
    George felt as if he had come to a dance with one person, and was now with someone else.
    â€œWe’re sharing a flat, near the Tiergarten Station.”
    â€œYou’ve got yourself comfortably installed.”
    â€œThe flat came up, a friend of Anna’s is away for six