Ninth Stage

My friend Martin sends us a groaner.

The great-great-great-great-grandsons of our heroes were (not surprisingly) also named Keats and Chapman. And like their famous forebears they were almost constantly involved in some scrape in an attempt to make money. The younger Chapman decided at one point to try using psychotherapy to collect some cash. Although completely unqualified to do so, he hung out his shingle as a psychologist and maltreated—literally—a variety of patients in a way too painful to describe. He would also, in defiance of a psychologist’s normal code of conduct, tell Keats details of his patients’ lives and problems. This was not only idle gossip but being out of his depth he needed advice and Keats was usually handy.

One of the stories he told Keats was of a patient who was often confused as to his own identity. At one time the sufferer believed that he was one famous person, and then a few minutes later would claim to be another famous person. Chapman would come back in the evening with stories of the man’s multiple personalities. “Today,” Chapman once said, “my patient could not decide whether he is a poet who can only write in lower case letters, or whether he is the head of the German Air force. I don’t know what to make of such a case. The man is terribly confused.”

“I see what you mean,” said Keats. “He doesn’t know if he’s cummings or Goering.”