Lou Salome meets Breuer at a Venetian café and asks him to treat a philosopher's despair.

Salome reveals that Nietzsche must never know she arranged the meeting or that curing his despair is the true goal.

Breuer and Freud ride together in the fiacre and discuss the talking cure and Freud's early ideas about the subconscious.

Friedrich Nietzsche arrives at Breuer's Vienna office for their first medical appointment.

Breuer tells Nietzsche that stress is the likely cause of his physical ailments, attempting to open a path to psychological treatment.

Breuer tells Nietzsche he cannot see into his own psyche despite claiming to be a visionary for all of humankind, ending their session abruptly.

Breuer is summoned to a guesthouse and discovers Nietzsche unconscious from an overdose of hydro-chlorate tablets.

While barely conscious, Nietzsche murmurs the words 'help me,' and Breuer is overcome with a wave of compassion.

Breuer proposes a deal — Nietzsche will enter the Lauzon clinic in exchange for serving as Breuer's personal philosopher of despair.

Nietzsche agrees to the deal and checks into the Lauzon clinic under the pseudonym Eckhart Müller.

Breuer confesses to Freud that his own despair is genuine and not a performance, rooted in his fear of aging and death.

Nietzsche introduces Breuer to the concept of eternal recurrence as a philosophical tool for conquering the fear of death.

Under hypnosis guided by Freud, Breuer lives through an imagined alternative life in which he abandons his family to pursue Bertha.

Breuer reveals to Nietzsche that Lou Salome secretly arranged the entire treatment, and Nietzsche reacts with fury.

Nietzsche weeps for the first time and confesses that his deepest fear is dying alone, and both men part with sincere gratitude.

Josef Breuer, a prominent Viennese physician secretly tormented by despair, agrees at Lou Salome's hidden request to treat philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche for both physical ailments and deeper suffering. After a medical crisis in which Nietzsche unconsciously cries out for help, Breuer engineers a deal that brings Nietzsche into a clinic while casting him as Breuer's personal philosopher. The sessions that follow gradually draw both men into genuine emotional territory, with Nietzsche introducing the concept of eternal recurrence as a cure for the fear of death. A pivotal hypnosis session conducted by Freud shatters Breuer's obsession with his former patient Bertha, completing his transformation. When Breuer finally reveals that Salome arranged everything, the two men reach a cathartic resolution — Nietzsche weeps for the first time and confesses his deepest fear before departing by train.

The core story of Breuer and Nietzsche's unlikely therapeutic partnership.

Salome visits Breuer's Vienna office and recounts the history of her friendship with Nietzsche and their mutual friend Paul Ree.

Salome describes the failed Unholy Trinity arrangement in which she, Nietzsche, and Ree had planned to live together.

Salome shows Breuer letters in which Nietzsche reveals suicidal ideation, convincing the doctor of the severity of his suffering.

Breuer and Freud share their experiences of antisemitic discrimination while riding together in Breuer's fiacre.

Breuer recounts to Freud how his talking cure helped relieve Bertha's hysteria symptoms through confessional conversation.

Breuer conducts a full physical examination of Nietzsche and concludes he is suffering from migraines and anemia.

Nietzsche asks Breuer three direct questions about his prognosis — whether he will go blind, remain ill forever, and develop a fatal brain disease.

Nietzsche and Breuer argue sharply over whether a doctor is obligated to tell a dying patient the full truth about their condition.

Breuer and his brother-in-law Max argue over whether Nietzsche deserves one of the free clinic beds at Lauzon.

At the guesthouse after recovering, Nietzsche demands Breuer send a bill and announces his intention to leave for Basel.

Nietzsche interprets one of Breuer's dreams as proof that Bertha is a distraction from Breuer's deeper dread of mortality.

Nietzsche and Breuer agree to address each other by their first names during their sessions at the clinic.

Lou Salome visits Breuer's office to ask about Nietzsche's progress, and Breuer refuses to share anything, citing patient privacy.

Nietzsche and Breuer take a walk together to the cemetery where Breuer's parents are buried.

Breuer wakes from hypnosis and immediately embraces Mathilde with a completely transformed sense of appreciation.

Before Nietzsche ever enters the clinic, a web of crucial secondary relationships establishes the emotional landscape of the novel. Lou Salome's account of her painful history with Nietzsche and the failed Unholy Trinity arrangement explains the depth of his despair, while the letters she shares convince Breuer to take the case seriously. Breuer's friendship with Freud, conducted largely in their shared fiacre, provides an intellectual framework for the emerging talking cure and locates both men within the antisemitic Vienna they navigate daily. Nietzsche's physical examination and candid debate with Breuer over medical ethics reveal his sharp, guarded intelligence before the real therapeutic sessions begin. As the therapy progresses, small but significant gestures — including the two men agreeing to use first names — signal a deepening trust, even as Lou Salome's unexpected visit tests Breuer's professional integrity. The pool closes with Breuer's inner transformation made visible: after waking from hypnosis, he embraces Mathilde with a completely renewed sense of love.

The supporting relationships and conversations that shaped the central therapy.

Salome hands Breuer a letter from composer Richard Wagner personally vouching for Nietzsche's importance to the world.

Breuer wakes from his recurring nightmare — falling 40 feet onto a marble slab covered in mysterious symbols — and lies awake consumed by dread.

Breuer and Freud secretly discuss Nietzsche's psychology together, using the pseudonym Eckhart Müller to protect his identity.

Bertha publicly and falsely claims she is pregnant with Breuer's child, forcing him to abandon her case and deepen the rift with Mathilde.

Walking home from the guesthouse, Breuer experiences a sudden insight about how to finally persuade Nietzsche to accept help.

Nietzsche formally assumes the role of Breuer's counselor and methodically lists four contributing factors behind Breuer's despair.

Breuer confesses to Nietzsche the full history of his obsessive alien thoughts about Bertha, including his attraction and guilt.

Breuer develops a morbid recurring fantasy in which his house catches fire and kills his entire family, leaving him free to pursue Bertha.

Nietzsche declares that Breuer's obsession with Bertha is not love but prayer — a shield constructed against the terror of death.

Nietzsche reveals to Breuer that the marble slab in his recurring nightmare is a tombstone and that the Bertha in the dream represents his dead mother.

Nietzsche shares a childhood dream in which his father rises from the grave and drags a child back down into it with him.

During hypnosis, Breuer observes Bertha at the institution enacting the exact same seductive mannerisms with her new doctor as she once used with him.

During hypnosis, Breuer visits his former nurse Eva only to find she has no memory whatsoever of the encounter he has long carried with him.

Nietzsche traces his deep distrust of all women back to the cold, emotionally distant women who raised him after his father's early death.

Nietzsche boards a train and departs Vienna, insisting the friendship, though transformative, must now come to an end.

Beneath the intellectual surface of the Breuer-Nietzsche sessions lies a deeper story of concealed fears, defensive facades, and hard-won self-knowledge. From the moment Breuer begins obsessing over his recurring nightmare, the novel traces a series of revelations that slowly expose both men's terror of aging, death, and isolation. Turning points come in significant pairs — Nietzsche's formal adoption of the counselor role followed by Breuer's first full confession; the cemetery visit that connects Breuer's nightmare directly to his dead mother; and the hypnotic visions that shatter his illusions about both Bertha and his former nurse. Nietzsche's declaration that Breuer's obsession is prayer rather than love reframes the entire case and opens the door to the novel's emotional climax. By the final sessions, both men are stripped of their defenses: Nietzsche traces his misogyny to a grief-filled childhood before weeping and acknowledging that his self-imposed isolation has always masked his terror of dying alone, and he departs Vienna a changed man.

The hidden fears, private revelations, and emotional breakthroughs that define the novel.