To his psychotherapist, in his tenth session, Henry James lays on the couch and extemporizes on why he finds it so difficult to end a sentence .
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JAMES
You see, Doctor, it is not — at least in my own self-analysis I cannot construe it as — a mere reluctance, in the vulgar sense, to “get to the point,” for such a phrase suggests the crude hammering home of some solitary nail when, in truth, my craft is more nearly the weaving of a tapestry, in which every colored thread, however fine, must be drawn through to its proper place before the pattern — which is to say the sentence — can be said, in any complete or satisfying way, to exist at all; and yet, even as the hand moves to tie off the final knot, there arises, unbidden, a sense of some hue insufficiently represented, some motif insufficiently echoed, some delicate turn of thought that, if not at once incorporated, will be lost to the work forever, and so the knot is delayed, the shuttle flies again, the tapestry enlarges, and the act of ending — which to others may be a crisp and almost mechanical closure — becomes for me a moment of reckoning so final, so absolute, that I cannot, without a sense of bereavement, bring myself to enact it, preferring instead the prolongation, the extension, the gentle and, I hope, artful deferral that allows both writer and reader to dwell, just a little longer, in the company of a thought not yet dismissed, not yet consigned to the stillness of the period.
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THERAPIST
You just did it again.
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In the next session, for some reason, perhaps the long sentences, James slips in and out of German.
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Alright — here’s the full comedic mini-scene, with James drifting in and out of German as if Freud himself were leaning in from the next couch.
INT. THERAPIST’S OFFICE – LATE AFTERNOON
Henry James is stretched on the couch, hands folded over his waistcoat. The therapist sits with a notepad, a practiced stillness on his face.
JAMES
The thing, Doctor, is not that I am unwilling to conclude — far from it — but that, at the very moment when a sentence seems to incline toward closure, I am visited by the distinct impression that a thought — ein sehr wichtiger Gedanke, den man nicht einfach übergehen darf — has raised its hand in the back of the classroom, and to ignore it would be, well, unpardonable.
THERAPIST
Go on.
JAMES
And so the sentence lengthens, a corridor with new doors appearing as one walks — wie in einem Traum, in dem man immer noch ein weiteres Zimmer findet, und noch eins, bis man nicht mehr weiß, in welchem Stockwerk man sich befindet — ah, there I go again.
THERAPIST
You’re not aware you’ve slipped into German?
JAMES
Perhaps it’s the influence of Vienna — Freud’s case histories, his manner of unspooling an idea — es ist fast hypnotisch, diese Art, immer tiefer zu graben, Schicht um Schicht, bis der Patient nicht mehr weiß, ob er noch denselben Satz spricht.
THERAPIST
And yet, Herr James, you could end the sentence at any moment.
JAMES
Yes, yes, quite so… aber warum sollte man aufhören, wenn es noch etwas zu sagen gibt?
THERAPIST
Because your fifty-minute hour is over.
JAMES
Ah. Well, that’s a full stop I can respect.
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