Replacing Freud

"Sigmund, what brings you to Prague on this fine day?"

"I apologize, I think you have mistaken me for someone else."

Dr. Bloch's brow furrowed as he watched the man continue down the cobblestone street, his gait identical to the Viennese doctor's familiar stride.

"What is the matter?" Dr. Wölfer approached, extending one of two steaming coffees.

"That man." Bloch nodded toward the retreating figure.

Wölfer's pipe paused halfway to his lips. "What is that fraud doing here?"

"It isn't Freud, but tell me they couldn't be twins?"

"Fascinating." Smoke curled from Wölfer's pipe as his eyes narrowed. "This could solve our problem."

"How do you mean?"

Without answering, Wölfer strode after the doppelgänger, Bloch hurrying to keep pace.

"Sir?"

The stranger turned, wariness creeping across features so eerily similar to Freud's that Bloch had to resist the urge to stare.

"As I have already told your colleague—"

"Would you like to make a fortune?" Wölfer's voice carried the practiced smoothness of a man accustomed to persuasion. "I have the perfect assignment for you."

The man's protest died on his lips. His threadbare coat and worn boots spoke of desperate circumstances. "What assignment might that be?"

Bloch produced a small leather notebook, scribbling an address with trembling fingers. "Meet us here at seven tonight. We'll discuss the details." He pressed the paper into the stranger's palm. "I assure you, it will be worth your while."

The man studied the address before tucking it into his shirt pocket, watching the peculiar pair disappear into the afternoon crowd.

________________________________________

Later that evening, they gathered in a rococo study where gaslight flickered across carved oak furniture. An ornate box of cigars sat beside a crystal decanter, both clearly exuding lavishness.

"What do you mean, replace him?"

"Exactly that." Wölfer leaned forward, his shadow stretching across the table. "Eliminate him. Take his place long enough to denounce his work publicly, then disappear with your payment, a very wealthy man."

"Eliminate him?" The stranger's voice cracked. "You're asking me to commit murder?"

"Indeed." Wölfer placed a revolver on the polished wood between them.

“I will not be involved in this.” He pushed away from the table.

“Sit down and listen to me! As I said, this is a very perilous man. He is a risk to humanity, and a hazard to the medical community. He pulls crazy ideas out of a hat and shuns traditional practices that we have used in the medical community for ages. His ideas and methods are dangerous and cannot be allowed to fester. You will be taking a stand for science and truth. This is a noble act!”

Bloch's hand shook as he refilled his whiskey glass, amber liquid sloshing against crystal.

“This whole scenario is not even feasible! Surely his friends or family will notice that I am indeed not him? And to risk being tried for murder in a foreign—”

“You only need to be him long enough to proclaim that your work was all a farce. That you apologize for the lies and any harm you may have caused, and that you will no longer be practicing. Then you can be on your merry way. You’ll never have to step foot in Vienna again. It will assure the safe continuance of traditional medicine and muzzle the few who have become keen to his madness.” Wölfer's eyes gleamed. "Our American benefactor has authorized a substantial payment. Twenty thousand dollars."

"Twenty thousand American dollars?" The man's voice barely rose above a whisper. "You take me for a complete fool."

"Dispose of him, convince the public his work was fraudulent, and live in luxury for the remainder of your days."

"How do I know you'll actually pay once the deed is done?"

Wölfer retrieved a leather physician's bag from beside his chair. "Because I'll give it to you now."

"Wait—" Bloch started forward.

Wölfer silenced him with a raised hand. "He understands the consequences of betrayal. Don't you, Mr. Silhavy?"

Silhavy stared at the bag, his chest tight. Twenty thousand dollars. He bit his lip in deep consideration. He couldn’t fathom turning down such a sum of money. He didn’t want to kill a man, but if this Freud was really such a danger, perhaps he would really be doing a good deed. He nodded.

He nodded slowly. "Very well. I accept."

________________________________________

Silhavy pressed himself into the shadows across from an elegant townhouse, watching as a familiar figure emerged from an obsidian carriage. The resemblance remained startling, like observing his reflection in dark water. Freud moved with quiet confidence, his top hat and wool coat marking him as a man of substance. He disappeared through the brass-fitted door of his residence.

For days, Silhavy had studied his target's routine: morning consultations, afternoon lectures, evening walks along the Danube. The pattern rarely varied. Finally, he settled on his approach; he would pose as a patient seeking treatment.

On the appointed morning, he cleaned the revolver with meticulous care, then steadied his nerves with a glass of water laced with cocaine powder. He’d set off across town, resolute on completing his assignment.

________________________________________

“Can you describe to me the conditions that have been ailing you?”

Silhavy's palm grew slick around the concealed weapon. "To be frank, I've heard disturbing rumors about your methods. That you employ dangerous, unproven techniques. That you endanger patients and, by extension, the entire medical community." Sweat beaded on his forehead. "You seemingly invent treatments from nothing, with no basis in established medicine. Many colleagues consider you a charlatan."

Freud studied him with unsettling intensity, whether from irritation or recognition of their shared appearance, Silhavy couldn't discern. "Then why are you here?"

"Are you admitting to these charges?" He hoped for a blatant admission of guilt, in an effort to put to rest his moral qualms. Freud laughed as he removed a cigar from his waistcoat.

"Care for one?"

"No, I don't smoke."

“That is a shame. I believe cigars serve as protection, a sort of weapon in the combat of life.”

Silhavy endeavored to wrap his mind around the remark, but it evaded his grasp. All he knew was that a cigar was not going to save Freud today.

“Why disregard the medical community? Why make up crazy unsubstantiated notions about humans being compelled to carry out certain actions due to unconscious, as you say. Perhaps you think so highly of yourself that—"

“If you came here just to insult me, you are more than welcome to see yourself out.”

“No. I want you to tell me why you are doing this? Why go against what other doctors have agreed upon? Why make a mockery of science?”

“If you cannot question or challenge it, then it is not science.”

“The things you have executed; forgoing established electroshock and medicine, to instead perform unsubstantiated speech therapy! Putting meaning to dreams, cathartic regression. Others have established these things a farce! Do you ever consider the implications on your patients? How you're jeopardizing the community by fueling such absurdities? You are a charlatan! A fool masquerading as a doctor, when you are in truth an anti-science joker!” The revolver was slick in his sweaty palm as he attempted to coax himself into finishing the job.

"There is no such thing as being 'anti-science.'" Freud's voice remained calm despite the attack. "Science demands perpetual questioning, refusing to accept any knowledge as final. Dissent and varied approaches are essential to progress. Consider what physicians once held as absolute truth: trepanation to release evil spirits, bloodletting to balance humors. These practices dominated medicine for centuries, endorsed by the finest minds of their time. We now understand them as barbaric and harmful." He set his cigar in an ornate silver ashtray. "I have complete confidence in my methods and the purest intentions. I seek only to advance medical understanding and guide patients toward genuine healing. When people call me mad or fraudulent, it suggests I may be on the correct path—as history has demonstrated countless times."

“I… never considered looking at it from the perspective. Excuse me please, I require a bit of fresh air.”

He fled the office, running until his lungs burned and his legs trembled. Finally collapsing onto a park bench, he buried his face in his hands. How had things gotten to such a point? That morning he had been positively confident that he was going to kill Fraud and that it was absolutely the right thing to do. Now, after just considering a bit of what the man had to say he was utterly confounded. Sitting on that bench for what seemed a lifetime, he finally got back up, having made up his mind.

He made a quick stop at his inn, admiring the money in the leather satchel before proceeding back to the other side of town. He seemed to perceive the town differently this time, to comprehend life unconventionally, utterly dissimilar to how things had been just an hour before.

He rushed up the stairs and threw open the door upon arriving at Dr. Wölfer’s domicile. As good luck would have it, he was not currently in. Silhavy placed the bag of money on the doctor’s bed, bidding it farewell before closing the door behind him. He said goodbye to Vienna before he left without delay, never again to return.

That week he had relinquished the largest fortune of money he would ever come across in his lifetime, but he had gained something much better. The ability to think for oneself, to always have an open mind, to contemplate other viewpoints and possibilities regardless of how improbable, to know that absolutely nothing is set in stone, and to never attempt to silence a man, as one never knows what the future may reveal of him.