The Dwarf and Doctor Freud

Freud bled heavily both during and after the procedure [to remove a lesion from his palate] and was made to lie down on a cot “in a tiny room in a ward of the hospital.” His only companion was another patient, whom Anna Freud described later as a “nice, friendly,” retarded dwarf. … [Freud] had rung the bell for help, but the bell was out of order. Fortunately, the dwarf rushed out to get the nurse.

PETER GAY, Freud: A Life for Our Time

  I don't know why they had to put him 
    in the same room they put me. 
He didn't drop his eyes as usually they do; 
  he looked at me—he couldn't speak—
to say, I'm here because I'm bleeding too. 

    He must have been important 
 since they kept repeating, "Doctor Freud," 
    when making him lie down 
and telling him to rest. I was afraid. 
    I thought that he would drown

 in all the blood that blistered 
from the bandages around his nose. And yet 
    something about the way 
 he searched my face put me at ease, 
as if we'd met before or if he knew one day

 he'd find a cure. But that's a dream. 
No one can cure what I have wrong with me. 
 I have to take me as I am and go 
with how things are. And maybe that is true 
    for everyone, although

 I had to do something right then 
about the doctor's overflowing blood.
    I think that he could tell
 he was in danger just by looking 
at my face. He tried to ring the bell,

    but it was broken, and help 
 didn't come. He stared at it 
as though a glare from him might make it work; 
 he rang it harder, gave up, lay back 
    coughing with a jerk

that shook his eyes, and then I realized 
    I'd have to help, although 
 I'm not a doctor, and I knew 
    I never could explain 
why God makes dwarfs or puts some people through

 such useless suffering and shame 
    for which there is no cure. 
They told me to lie still on my own cot, but he 
 was bleeding. He could not cry out 
or get the bell to ring, and I could see

 a kind of quiet in his eyes 
that comes from looking inside at yourself—
 as I do sometimes late at night— 
    and I decided not 
to stay still as they said, that I was right

 to leave the room and get the nurse, 
    although she yelled at me 
and wouldn't listen; she kept pushing me away. 
    "He'll choke!" I shouted—then 
she followed as I led to where he lay,

 his white hands folded on his chest, 
    his face, too, white like moonlight 
 on the marshes of the Zuider Zee 
where I fished with my father as a boy, 
     not knowing I was free

to love him till he drowned. Doctor Freud's daughter 
    thanked me later as they left 
and asked my name, but then a howling flood 
    of distant faces filled my mind. 
I can't explain it, but I answered, "Blood."