Its main theme—the influence of unconscious processes in interfering with conscious functioning—was sharply criticized at first by psychologists, but has been more widely accepted and generally known than any other of Freud’s teachings. The phenomena in question have since been given the name of “parapraxes.” (Literally False Practice.) CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW it might have turned out if Katherine Eudemie had forgotten her child in the coat room of The Russian Rendezvous in March instead of a glorious, sunny June? Think of the women’s coats soggy with snow—the men’s trench coats soaked with wet—the little girl, Tulip, under a curse of endless sniffles. Impossible to think of raising a child in such an environment. Also, in June the business slows down, but somebody is always on duty in the coat room for the occasional rainy day, the umbrellas like sentinels in the stand in front of the revolving door. There were two people on duty. Usually one of the Old Guard regulars, round, soft, sixty-five-ish or more—like Sasha, who fled Russia to America via Paris with the Chauve Souris company as a young girl in the twenties.
