indifferent to his daughter’s welfare, as he is to so much of life. At other times he is all beneficence, dispensing valuable gifts to those who endure his torments.

Is he God? Is he merely Godlike? Are humans to God much the same as the Toads are to Dr. Fischer, objects of scorn and abuse, trapped by the hell of our own choices yet rewarded for our endurance? Or, is Dr. Fischer nothing more than a too-powerful man who, having despised the world, has come at last to despise himself? Is he simply a figure in a moral lesson, an illustration of hubris who deserves only pity? These are the kinds of questions which Greene prompts throughout the novella, waiting until the very end to provide some (though not all) of the answers.

Alfred Jones, as his name suggests, is a man who stands for plainness (“Jones”) and tradition (he was nearly named Aelfred). His moral corruption, then, were it to occur, would at once signify the corruption of common man. A person of modest talents, honest but underpaid in his work as a translator, he is anything but a grand figure in the struggle between Good and Evil. Indeed, he makes it clear that he is amazed at Anna-Luise’s love for him, considering not only his economic limitations but also his physical disfigurement—the loss of a hand.

As opposed to Jones, the truly corrupted figures in the book are wealthy, famous, or successful. In each case they are also joined by a common bond of practicing sycophancy born of greed. None of them appears to have any understanding of love.

Jones has found in Anna-Luise the enduring value of his life. Simply, he loves her as he has no one else. That love, it is implied, is the very condition which Dr. Fischer has never experienced or understood, thus he and his Toads thrive off the baser elements of human nature: rapaciousness, venality, contempt, and envy. In the ensuing conflict between the doctor and Jones, one is intended to see a larger conflict between materiality and love, and more generally between the lower and higher elements of human nature. The doctor, for example, has amassed his wealth not through elevated intellectual achievement but by inventing the most mundane of products—Dentophil Bouquet toothpaste—a fact about which he does not like to be reminded. Another cruel fact is that he is not a “real” doctor but a dentist. Furthermore, when he was married to Anna-Luise’s mother, he displayed his failings by having no appreciation of music. He abjured it instead, at the same time sensing his own stupidity at not being able to comprehend the most perfect of arts. Predictably, his wife sought solace and companionship with Steiner, a man of little wealth but great love for Mozart’s music. Dr. Fischer reacted as only one of his nature could—by ruining Steiner.

Jones attends two of the doctor’s infamous parties, astonished by the Toads’ bestiality but utterly unmoved to participate himself. The promise of a new car or exquisite piece of jewelry does not lure him since Anna-Luise is all he needs or wants. Therefore, the Toads quickly recognize the fact that he is not one of them, although they still tolerate his presence. It is at the end of the novel, specifically at the second of these parties, when the conflict between material, lower nature and loving, higher nature ripens.

The doctor contrives his own version of Russian roulette to be played by his six dinner guests. Each is to open one Christmas cracker drawn randomly from a bran barrel. Five of the crackers have a check for two million francs in them. The sixth has an explosive. The critical moment arrives when Jones, having drawn a cracker with a check, watches the Divisionnaire being taunted by Fischer. In a flash, Jones understands what it is he must do: use his two million franc check to purchase from the Divisionnaire the latter’s turn at the bran barrel.

This action brings into somewhat sharper focus several themes that have been obscure to this point. Jones’s act is in some respects a Christian sacrifice, prompted not by the need to carry out divine justice, however, but by the need to correct divine injustice. (“Tell me, what in Christ’s name do you mean?” the doctor has queried.) The setting is reminiscent of Dante’s Dis: a table has been spread outside on a below-zero winter night, circled by four huge bonfires. Amid the fire and ice Fischer has scornfully watched each guest risk his own destruction for lucre even though all are rich (Jones excepted) and none needs the two million francs. Jones is the sole figure who sets aside his lower nature in service of the higher by interceding on the Divisionnaire’s behalf. True, Jones does not care about death inasmuch as Anna-Luise has died and he would not mind following her, but suicide is not really a critical theme here. Rather, it is that Jones’s act is one of love, both love of man in the form of the Divisionnaire and of one’s mate in the form of Anna-Luise, with whom he will again be joined if the cracker is explosive.

Those without love are Dr. Fischer and the Divisionnaire. Thus, it is they who are lonely and without hope. The doctor, in particular, expresses that loneliness and despair when Steiner suddenly appears, anxious to spit in the face of “God,” as he whimsically terms Dr. Fischer.

The ensuing dialogue, which ends with Fischer’s suicide, concludes the novella, the religious elements of the work simultaneously strengthened and emphasized. It is as if Dr. Fischer were God—not beneficent and powerful but disgusted with Himself for not being capable of love. At the same time life itself appears to be an existential void—faced not so much by man, however, as by God.

At a less symbolic level the scene seems to teach Jones that Dr. Fischer was anything but God—or Satan, for that matter. Lying on the snow, his body no more significant than a dead dog’s, the once-imposing tormentor is a testimony to life’s apparent meaninglessness. There is no heaven or hell, God or Satan—merely love of another during life and memories of that love after the other’s death. The novel ends with Jones cured of his inclination toward suicide through conviction that death will bring not a reunion with Anna-Luise but merely the Void.

Dr. Fischer of Geneva is an extraordinarily troubling work, taxing in its symbolism, ambiguous in its themes, and generally more inclined to questions than to answers. As noted earlier, it requires reading on two levels, one literal and the other “allegorical” in the sense that Edwin Honig articulates this latter term in his study Dark Conceit: The Making of Allegory. It is also a work which explores rather than explains. Human love, for example, is seen to be real and valuable, human greed to be equally real but despicable. Yet, each of the Toads survives the doctor’s torments and accumulates wealth whereas one of the genuine lovers, Anna-Luise, dies and the other, Jones, is cast into a kind of existential despair. Therefore, is love in the last analysis worth it? Greene seems to imply that it is, and in fact that maybe it is the only value worth living for, yet the hollowness of Jones’s last days belie that notion. In the same manner, are God (Good) and Satan (Evil) manifest forces in the universe or merely human constructs? Are they even distinguishable? While Dr. Fischer is alive it appears that such forces are plainly facts of our existence. He is the very embodiment of evil—a real, palpable manifestation of evil, not a construct or philosophical question mark. Upon his death, however, it is as though evil has dissipated entirely, leaving Jones in a universe where neither good nor evil has a place. Too, while Dr. Fischer is alive he is a complex of God and Satan, Greene’s point perhaps being that in the end there is little difference between the autocracy or identity of one and the other. Yet, this notion is also shattered both by the plain wrong-doing of Fischer (he is a great deal more Satan than God) and by the innocuousness of his death (he was never deific at all).

The effect of these explorations is to make Doctor Fisher of Geneva enigmatic in the extreme. Laden with religious references, mostly Christian, the work can claim its rightful place in the Greene canon, but there is, nevertheless, something fundamentally wrong with it. Thematic ambiguity often veers off into thematic obscurity. Cryptic dialogue is frequently compounded by equally cryptic action, making this novella a struggle even for the most sophisticated reader. The unfortunate result is that many readers will simply not bother to give the book sufficient care, sensing that the rewards of study are not worth the effort required.