‘Not especially.’
‘Just why do you think you have such a morbid aversion to fish?’ asked Major Sanderson triumphantly.
‘They’re too bland,’ Yossarian answered.
‘And too bony.’
Major Sanderson nodded understandingly, with a smile that was agreeable and insincere.
‘That’s a very interesting explanation.
But we’ll soon discover the true reason, I suppose.
Do you like this particular fish? The one you’re holding in your hand?’
‘I have no feelings about it either way.’
‘Do you dislike the fish?
Do you have any hostile or aggressive emotions toward it?’
‘No, not at all.
In fact, I rather like the fish.’
‘Then you do like the fish.’
‘Oh, no.
I have no feelings toward it either way.’
‘But you just said you liked it. And now you say you have no feelings toward it either way.
I’ve just caught you in a contradiction.
Don’t you see?’
‘Yes, sir. I suppose you have caught me in a contradiction.’
Major Sanderson proudly lettered
‘Contradiction’ on his pad with his thick black pencil.
‘Just why do you think,’ he resumed when he had finished, looking up, ‘that you made those two statements expressing contradictory emotional responses to the fish?’
‘I suppose I have an ambivalent attitude toward it.’
Major Sanderson sprang up with joy when he heard the words ‘ambivalent attitude’.
‘You do understand!’ he exclaimed, wringing his hands together ecstatically.
‘Oh, you can’t imagine how lonely it’s been for me, talking day after day to patients who haven’t the slightest knowledge of psychiatry, trying to cure people who have no real interest in me or my work!
It’s given me such a terrible feeling of inadequacy.’
A shadow of anxiety crossed his face.
‘I can’t seem to shake it.’
‘Really?’ asked Yossarian, wondering what else to say.
‘Why do you blame yourself for gaps in the education of others?’
‘It’s silly, I know,’ Major Sanderson replied uneasily with a giddy, involuntary laugh.
‘But I’ve always depended very heavily on the good opinion of others.
I reached puberty a bit later than all the other boys my age, you see, and it’s given me sort of—well, all sorts of problems.
I just know I’m going to enjoy discussing them with you.
I’m so eager to begin that I’m almost reluctant to digress now to your problem, but I’m afraid I must.
Colonel Ferredge would be cross if he knew we were spending all our time on me.
I’d like to show you some ink blots now to find out what certain shapes and colors remind you of.’
‘You can save yourself the trouble, Doctor.
Everything reminds me of sex.’
‘Does it?’ cried Major Sanderson with delight, as though unable to believe his ears.
‘Now we’re really getting somewhere!
Do you ever have any good sex dreams?’
‘My fish dream is a sex dream.’
‘No, I mean real sex dreams—the kind where you grab some naked bitch by the neck and pinch her and punch her in the face until she’s all bloody and then throw yourself down to ravish her and burst into tears because you love her and hate her so much you don’t know what else to do. That’s the kind of sex dreams I like to talk about. Don’t you ever have sex dreams like that?’ Yossarian reflected a moment with a wise look.
‘That’s a fish dream,’ he decided.
Major Sanderson recoiled as though he had been slapped.
‘Yes, of course,’ he conceded frigidly, his manner changing to one of edgy and defensive antagonism. ‘But I’d like you to dream one like that anyway just to see how you react.
That will be all for today.